25. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Fury Road is the third in the Mad Max franchise. It's the first without '80s Mel Gibson, and the first with Tom Hardy. Not only is it visually stunning, but the story is good, the actors are solid, and the action comes full swing and non-stop. In it, Tom Hardy, famous for his chameleon method acting, said his biggest inspirations for his Max Rockatansky were Indiana Jones and Wile E. Coyote. His performance made for a fun combination of the two.
Mad Max is basically a desert wasteland drifter, always on the lookout for water, sustaining himself on live lizards, and trying his best to flee the checkered past that haunts him. This is when he comes across the tyrant Immortan Joe, who breeds an army of sons to protect him and the water supply he hordes in dystopian Australia. Rogue driver Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) gathers up Joe's brides and attempts to haul them off to safety. This is when Joe and his crew take to Fury Road in hot pursuit. Finding themselves in the crosshairs of a common enemy, Max and Furiosa team up to help the brides escape, with Max attempting to reconcile his past with the selfless act.
24. The Grey (2011)
I really like survival movies, and I really like snow movies. This one happens to encapsulate both, not to mention a couple of sentimental elements to give a little more depth. I happened upon this one when it was streaming on Netflix a million years ago, and liked it so much, I recommended it for family movie night.
Mysterious Irish oil rigger Ottway (Liam Neeson) works primarily as a sharp shooter, keeping the native wolf population at bay while the riggers complete their work. When the time comes to pack up and fly home, the riggers are involved in a plane crash that leaves only a ragtag crew of survivors. They must learn to work together as they're hunted down by a ravenous pack of wolves who take absolutely no prisoners. Durmot Mulroney is Talget, who wears a brown baseball cap with a gold WY on it. I always thought that was interesting, a subtle nod to his character's likely home state of Wyoming, where I spent four years of my life. It also contains one of the best movie moments.
23. From Hell (2001) For a short amount of time, I was an amateur Ripperologist - someone who studies into the crimes and the possible identity of Jack the Ripper. I don't remember exactly, but it was likely spurred on by this movie, Johnny Depp playing one of his best roles to date. This movie is a Gothic horror masterpiece, an under-the-radar effort based on the graphic novel by Watchmen maestro, Alan Moore. The movie was directed by the Hughes brothers, known more for their graphic depictions of urban African-American life (Menace II Society), though they did a fantastic job with the casting, making sure Johnny Depp could perfect a London East End accent.
Frederick Aberline (Johnny Depp), playing the actual Scotland Yard detective charged with discovering and bringing down Jack the Ripper, is an unorthodox investigator, seeing clues to the present and the future through eerie premonitions. Part of that is probably due to his absinthe, laudanum, and heroin addictions. He is a flawed character for sure, but he indulges in such debilitating behavior due to his unexpectedly losing his wife and their unborn child. The true identity of the Ripper is complex, revealing that its not just random prostitutes falling under his knife. Aberline falls for Mary Kelly (Heather Graham), Jack's final victim, which motivates the inspector all the more to bring the killing to an end.
22. Predator (1987) I saw Predator in the theater on opening day, June 12th, 1987 - otherwise known as my 11th birthday. It was considered my birthday present, and while my parents absolutely reviled it, I did quite the opposite. Predator was so different for its time, taking the popularity of '80s action movies Rambo, Missing In Action, and Commando to mesh it with a hostile alien. The characters were good, the story line was better, and Arnold actually did a solid job acting here.
A specialized covert ops team led by commander Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) suit up for a mission in the jungles of Central America to find out what happened to some missing green berets. Of course, they slaughter the guys they think are responsible, but Native-American tracker Billy (Sonny Landham) knows that something is rotten in Denmark, and the rest of the group respects him enough to listen. As it turns out, there's a seven-foot tall alien hunter lurking in the jungle, armed with a shoulder cannon, a wrist blade, and a cloaking device that allows him to turn translucent, blending in with the foliage surrounding him. This is an eleven year-old's dream come true, and it has persisted into my adulthood. 21. The Shining (1980) The Shining is one that grew on me over time. I used to get pretty scared in horror movies. Once I got older and appreciated the sub-genre of psychological horror more, I found it fascinating how solitude could quickly turn on one over the course of a few months. It's now my favorite sub-genre, as I think that we ourselves can be far scarier than any ghost or monster, especially when our mind starts to unravel. Before The Shining was a movie, it was a book by Stephen King. When Stanley Kubrick bought the rights, he did with it as he pleased, which left King a little salty. King eventually saw his own vision come to fruition in a TV movie, but in terms of the creep factor, Kubrick won the day.
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their young son, Danny, travel to the Colorado Rockies to serve as caretakers for the massive, sprawling, and supposedly haunted Overlook Hotel. Jack seems in pretty good spirits at first, but the more time he spends in the hotel, the more the old ghosts, his own warped mind, and perhaps even a case of reincarnation, as eluded to in the closing scene, begin to turn an already edgy character. Wendy's character is very weak in Kubrick's vision, though she was quite the opposite in King's, an aspect the latter certainly resented. Danny has the gift of "the Shining," which allows him to experience some of the strange goings on around the hotel, and inspired the sequel, Doctor Sleep.
20. Scream (1996) Scream is considered a hit and a cult classic all within the same breath. It's also probably the only movie in which you'll see Drew Barrymore die within the first 20 minutes. While a masked slasher with a knife hunting down teens in a small town seems far from original, Scream finds a way to breathe new life to the premise. Like The Cabin in the Woods, it spends much of its time poking holes through overdone genre tropes, while its characters ironically fall into the same traps they're scoffing at.
Scream follows Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), whose mother was raped and murdered the year before the events of the story take place. The killer has just been exonerated and released from prison, forcing Sidney to question all she's ever known. This is about the time she starts receiving cryptic phone calls from a guy obsessed with scary movies. She is soon stalked by said guy, and her friends start dropping like flies in this whodunit-slasher with just as many laughs as dead bodies. Scream has a great sense of humor, penned by Kevin Williamson (the Scream sequels, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Following), and directed by A Nightmare on Elm Street guru, Wes Craven. The sequels didn't have quite the same punch as the original, which is one of the greatest ever made in my humble opinion.
19. Last Man Standing (1996) There are three Bruce Willis gems in my opinion - the iconic Die Hard, the war-time tear-jerker Tears of the Sun, and this underrated crime flick, Last Man Standing. The movie takes the urban noir, drops it on its head, and relocates it in an Old West-style universe, giving us a fascinating glimpse at a tough, grizzled anti-hero.
A mysterious stranger known only as John Smith (Willis) blows into a ramshackle Texas town with the tumbleweeds, unknowingly, though fortunately, right into the middle of an Irish-Italian gang war. Both outfits are trying to intercept booze shipments from Mexico during Prohibition so they can ship them back to their home Chicago. Seeing it as a way to earn easy money, Smith begins to play both sides, manipulating Irish pipsqueak Doyle and Italian suave Strassi into believing he's with them. Hickey (Christopher Walken) is a trigger-man for the Irish and is immediately suspicious of Smith. Things get complicated when the lone gunman falls for Strassi's blonde bombshell city girl, Lucy, and Doyle's main squeeze, the Mexican-Native-American Felina. 18. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Indiana Jones is one of the most iconic characters to come out of the '80s. Besides Jack Burton (Big Trouble In Little China), he's likely my favorite. He's brainy, he's handsome, and he's good with a whip, using it against Egyptian swordsmen in crowded Cairo agoras and to swing to safety across booby-trapped cave ravines. Tom Selek was originally supposed to play the role of Indy, but I'm so grateful that it never came to fruition.
Archaeology professor by day, adventurer by night, Indiana Jones takes on the globe to retrieve lost artifacts from history and popular myth, trying to keep it out of the wrong hands. The Indy movies do a great job of meshing history with the slightly supernatural, making the movies still feel at least a little grounded. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the one that started it all, and made Indiana Jones a household name. Along with old flame Marion Ravenwood, and old friend, Sallah, Indy attempts to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant from the clutches of the Nazi army, led by Indy's arch nemesis and French archaeologist, Rene Belloq.
17. The Warriors (1979) I first came across The Warriors when I was in high school, and though it was highly dated, even at that point, I loved it. The concept was good, the fighting scenes were better, and I could appreciate the attempt to create a whole slew of gritty, although often cheesy, gangs for the Warriors to fight their way through. This is an iconic movie that has since become a cult classic, spawning video games and even a forever in development remake.
Street toughs the Warriors take to the heart of Manhattan along with the rest of the city's gangs to hear the respected Cyrus speak. He's proposing a gangland ceasefire in order to combine forces in battling the police. When Cyrus is shot dead by the Punks' Luther, he blames the Warriors, sending every other gang after them. With leader Swan at the helm, the boys have to survive the night and make it back to Coney Island in one piece. The movie is directed by Walter Hill, the same guy who did Last Man Standing. Hill creates gritty, violent anti-heroes, and uses sense of place as a character all its own.
16. True Romance (1993) At one time, this was my cousin's favorite movie, and so years later, I finally checked it out for myself. True Romance is filled to the brim with colorful characters, memorable baddies, and Brad Pitt as the weeded-up roommate everyone loves but nobody wants. The romance here is true, and the far-fetched characters and ideas are actually grounded enough to come off authentic. Maybe that's because it was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott (Man On Fire, Deja Vu).
Clarence Worley is a normal enough guy, one who is obsessed with comic books, kung-fu movies, and Elvis. But he's a lonely guy, which is why his boss hires him a call girl named Alabama (Patricia Arquette), a pretty, sweet, southern belle in Detroit who falls head over heels for Clarence, and vice versa. They rush out to get married and to start their life together. But a mix-up in suitcases sets them on a rocky road riddled with the Italian mafia, die-hard Hollywood bodyguards, and an angry pimp named Drexl (Gary Oldman), who leaves a lasting impression despite his minimal screen time. True Romance is a cult movie that's as tender as it is brutal.
15. The Godfather (1972) My parents had this one recorded on VHS when I borrowed it and gave it a watch. This is finest mafia movie ever made to never even mention the word mafia. Before it was even cool, Francis Ford Coppolla pulled off the same idea that saw the word zombie never mentioned in The Walking Dead. That kind of mentality is what made this this such a timeless classic, with fantastic storytelling, realistic characters, and a look at the anti-hero before the concept was even really a concept.
Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), born Vito Andollini in Sicily, has made a path for himself in Little Italy, NYC, and created an organized crime dynasty. The heir apparent is Sonny (James Caan), but he's hothead with a linear vision for "the family." Youngest son Michael (Al Pacino), is a military vet who's returned home to get roped into the family business. Soon, he learns to take that rope, fashion it into a noose, and literally strangle the competition, all to the chagrin of his girlfriend come wife, Kay (Diane Keaton).
14. The Lost Boys (1987) Based on the idea of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan, this one takes the concept and flips it on its head. introducing a group of young, nihilistic teenage vampires. It featured the Coreys (Haim and Feldman), Keefer Sutherland, and Jami Gertz, who was one of my first celebrity crushes. The soundtrack is excellent, the storyline is solid, and the scenes are bloody and sexy and intense, a horror movie meshed with a comical teen drama. It's one of the '80s movies that influenced the adventurous kid angle of Stranger Things.
Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) travel with their mom to Santa Carla, CA, the "murder capital of the world." As the brothers attempt to experience the boardwalk nightlife, Sam gets sucked into a comic shop and its owners, the Frog brothers, and Michael gets sucked in by Star (Gertz), who literally moonlights with David (Sutherland) and his heavy metal friends. As it turns out, David and company are vampires, responsible for the city's unfortunate moniker. Star is only half vamp, and after foolhardily drinking David's blood, Michael becomes one too. Only Sam and the Frog brothers can save the day, or, the night, from the encroaching bloodsuckers.
13. Red Dawn (1984) We stay in the '80s with Red Dawn, one of the most influential films of my childhood. I played war in the woods with friends, and I wanted to be John Rambo, and Robert Morris (C. Thomas Howell) from Red Dawn. This had every little boy's dream in the '80s loading their BB guns and filling their canteens, ready to defend their town against Soviet and Cuban invaders in World War III. Well, not really, but we could pretend, failing to see just how scary the concept really was in the first ever movie to receive a PG-13 designation.
Jed and Matt Eckert (Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen) are brothers in the fictional Colorado town of Calumet, driving to school on a normal day that quickly turns into anything but. Communist forces of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua invade the town and particular portions of the US in what is essentially the start of World War III. Jed, Matt, and other high school students flee to the mountains, and after some of their parents are killed, they start to fight back. The commandeer the guns, the vehicles, and the explosives to mount a guerrilla offensive under the moniker of their school mascot, the Wolverines.
12. State of Grace (1990) Before there was The Departed or The Town, there was State of Grace, a highly-underappreciated movie that was overshadowed by the release of Goodfellas. It features Sean Penn and Gary Oldman at their absolute finest, chronicling the little-known Irish-American mob in Hell's Kitchen New York City. They drink, they fight, and they have a tendency for unpredictable violence, especially the character portrayed by Oldman.
Terry Noonan (Penn) is a Boston cop who's agreed to go undercover inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish mob, led by brothers Frankie and Jackie Flannery (Ed Harris and Gary Oldman). Terry grew up in the Kitchen, and grew up alongside the Flannerys, so he's welcomed into their clandestine group. The Irish are trying to put together a deal with the Italians, which pits the brothers against one another, and the Irish mob itself against Terry. The whole thing culminates in a barroom shootout in the middle of a St. Patrick's Day Parade.
11. The Crow (1994) This was my favorite movie for a few years after high school. It was so different from anything I'd ever seen before, a superhero movie for people who don't like superhero movies. The Crow is romantic, gritty, and dark, an urban Gothic thriller featuring Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, who died tragically toward the end of filming. It was released to honor Lee in what would have been his breakout role, one that he was born to play.
Eric Draven, the singer in a rock band called Hangman's Joke, is the fiancee of Shelly Webster, who is attacked by a group of ruffians on Devil's Night, the night before Halloween. A year later, Eric is resurrected by a crow and reminded of the pain he went through to transform himself into a lethal, invincible killer. He then sets himself on the warpath to put the wrong things right, and find out why his fiancee was murdered in cold blood. Eric is helped along by policeman, Detective Albrecht, and Sarah, his skateboard-riding, pint-sized friend.
10. Bright Star (2009) Bright Star features the final years of famous Romantic poet John Keats' life. I was introduced to Keats and the other Romantic poets in junior college, and found myself drawn to the young man whose poetry would be worth far more after his death than it ever was in life. His is a tragic story, especially once he met the love of his life, or his Bright Star, Fanny Brawne. The Regency-era costumes are spot on, the cinematography reflect the best of the Romantic mentality, and the romance is tender and brooding and ill-fated.
Romantic poet John Keats moves in with his fellow poet friend Charles Brown next door to the fiery young garment-maker, Fanny Brawne. He's given up a medical career to focus on his passion of poetry, though his work is met with anything but critical acclaim. Though he does have one fan. Fanny takes his words to heart and falls in love with them, and him. Keats also falls in love with Fanny, though he can't marry her, as he is nearly destitute and can't support her. In this way, and in the way that he develops tuberculosis, this is a very tragic love story.
9. Kill Bill (2003 & 2004) I see the two Kill Bill films as interconnected, as they came out just months apart. The first has more of an Asian feel, while the second dabbles more into the realm of a spaghetti western. Tarantino is all about style, which certainly comes through in the saga of Beatrix Kiddo and her epic quest for revenge against Bill and the Deadly Viper Squad. Pictured is Vol. 1 and Uma Thurman's obvious homage to Bruce Lee in his final role, Game of Death.
After fleeing her past as a professional assassin for her top dog and lover, Bill, Beatrix Kiddo sets out to make a new life for herself. Bill takes offense to this and has Beatrix, who remains nameless throughout Vol. 1, severely beaten before being shot in the head. All this while she was pregnant. Once she recovers from her coma, she sets on a mission of vengeance against her former co-assassins, each with their own viper code name. Black Mamba takes on Copperhead and Cottonmouth on the way to Vol. 2, and on the way to an ultimate showdown with Bill.
8. Fight Club (1999) This used to be one of my fall asleep movies. It was funny, it was familiar, and its great characters, as well as its great director in David Fincher, were like family to me. The Narrator (Edward Norton) remains unnamed in this movie adapted from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk about deconstructing artificial, society-driven concepts and feelings, but doing so to the point that it becomes completely destructive.
The Narrator eeks his way through life with his comfy desk job and his cushy apartment and his catalog-furnished living room. That is until life hands him a few lemons and he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), the man who changes his life forever by forcing him to be uncomfortable. The two form an unlikely kinship, which forces the Narrator to reexamine everything he's ever known. Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a wacky, unsteady character he meets at the support groups neither of them actually need, provides a colorful character who lives for the moment, and really just wants to be loved.
7. Wicker Park (2004) Wicker Park is an American remake of the French film, L'Appartement (The Apartment). It looks more like a psychological thriller from the trailer, but it's more of a psychological drama with a heavy dose of romance. This one fits into the same genre as films like Vanilla Sky, The Jacket, and Stay. While those branch out beyond the ordinary world, Wicker Park remains grounded, a brand new sort of cat and mouse game and a love triangle meshed as one.
Matthew is a young advertising executive who's literally lost his girlfriend, Lisa. The movie skips around in time quite a bit to show how Matthew fell in love with Lisa, how Alex fell in love with Matthew, and how Alex befriended Lisa in order to lead her stray and out of Matthew's life. Wicker Park is sad, mysterious, and set to the wonderful sounds of bands like Coldplay, Broken Social Scene, and Mazzy Star. It went under the radar upon its release in 2004, but I saw it in the theater then and appreciate it to this day.
6. Amelie (2001) Amelie is not just a cute girl with a cute haircut and a cute smile. It deserves its international acclaim for its lead, Audrey Tautou, but also for its director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The music isn't too shabby either, every string, piano, and accordion composed by maestro Yann Tiersen. This features a lot of subtitles, and they're fast, but they're well worth the read, as Jeunet created colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and a directorial style flushed with lush, glossy color.
Amelie Poulain is an ultra-smiley, ultra-shy waitress at a corner cafe in Paris, one who begins to notice that through the little things in her power, she can begin to change lives for the better. All those but her own. She sacrifices her own true happiness for that of complete strangers, and it takes several instances for her to finally realize as much. Amelie is such an endearing film and an endearing character, putting Audrey Tautou on the map for American audiences.
5. Good Will Hunting (1998) Good Will Hunting is such a unique movie, showcasing the working-class neighborhood of South Boston under the lens of an academic opus. Director Gus Van Zant chose Robin Williams to fill the role of Sean McGuire, a psychiatrist who breaks through and finally motivates rudderless genius, Will Hunting (Matt Damon). The scenes with he and his knock-around neighborhood friends are fun and memorable, his relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver) is endearing but elusive, and his budding relationship with Sean is filled with dirty jokes, laughter, and tears.
Will Hunting is a working-class nobody from Southie who just so happens to be a genius, mopping floors and solving quantum physics equations on the wall for fun. This brings him to the attention of Skylar, but he also can't seem to tear himself away from the Southie lifestyle, drinking too much and beating people up. This is a true man versus self scenario in which Will must find the motivation to overcome his troubled childhood and cope with his self-destructive patterns of behavior in order to carve out a better life.
4. 25th Hour (2002) I never thought I would like 25th Hour as much as I did, and as much as I still do. It was directed by Spike Lee, and though I don't care for Lee, he made a great movie here, based on the novel by Game of Thrones screenwriter David Benioff. It portrays of the easy, criminal lifestyle and how it eventually catches up with us, no matter how much we love our friends, our father, and our girlfriend.
Montgomery "Monty" Brogan is not a bad guy. He just started selling drugs for Russian mafia boss Nikolai and got too used to the easy life, that's all. Now, he's busted by the police and has twenty-four hours left before he has to start his seven-year prison sentence. With little time left, he spends a final night with he best friends, whom he asks a massive favor of, his father, whose bar he began selling drugs to save, and his girlfriend, Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), who may or may not be responsible for his being arrested in the first place. Sometimes, we've done too much to go back and make it right, and this movie perfectly portrays that concept.
3. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2000) Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte Des Loups) is like no other movie I've ever seen. It combines the French-speaking period piece with action, adventure, and even bouts of horror. I followed a group of friends blindly to this one, and likely left the most impressed with the stunning cinematography and the overall uniqueness the film had to offer. It chronicles the real life exploits of the Beast of Gevaudan, who ravaged the countryside in 1764, killing over a hundred women and children.
French knight and naturalist Gregoire de Fronsac and his Iroquois companion, Mani, are sent by Louis XV to investigate the killings in Gevaudan. They are introduced to the local aristocracy, and Fronsac is soon intrigued by the purity of Marianne de Morangias (Emelie Dequenne) and the classy debauchery of Sylvia (Monica Bellucci), a local prostitute with a secret. They must overcome the secrets of the aristocracy, the maniacal dealings of the local gypsy population, and the sniveling dangers of Marianne's older brother, Jean-Francois (Vincent Cassel), who has been mauled by the lion on one of his journeys to Africa.
2. Charlie Countryman (2013) This movie helped me decide that Shia LaBeouf was one of my favorite actors. It doesn't have the strongest title on the planet, but man, is it the story good. It's one most people have never heard of, but I took a chance on when it was streaming on Netflix. It really should have made more of a splash for its solid characters, its comedic flashes, and its heartfelt overtures on the streets of Bucarest, Romania. What's most endearing about this one is the absolute beating Charlie is willing to take for Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood), the love of his life.
Charlie Countyman is a young every man whose mother has just passed of a debilitating illness. Her spirit comes out to speak to him, telling him he has nothing going on in his life, that he should shift off to Bucarest and see the world. When he does, fate leads him to a grieving Gabi Ibanescu, a young, tortured cellist with a lot of baggage. Charlie doesn't seem to care at all, completely enamored with Gabi, and her father Victor, whom he met on the plane over. Charlie, far more of a lover than a fighter, does everything in his power to deliver her from the clutches of her former husband, dangerous criminal Nigel (Mads Mikkelsen). It also has a great soundtrack and score.
1. Drive (2011) Speaking of great soundtracks and scores. It's because of this movie that I discovered not only a new genre of music that I fell head over heels for, but acts like Desire, Silver Swans, Com Truise, and Neon Indian. The music is really just an extra benefit of a movie like Drive. It's another superhero flick for people who don't like superhero flicks, the lead character acting selflessly to save the innocent, sporting a flashy scorpion jacket like a superhero's logo.
Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a Hollywood stunt driver by day and a criminal getaway driver by night, navigating the LA streets like the back of his hand. Or at least until he meets next door neighbors Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son Benicio. Driver instantly falls in love with both of them, and he's disheartened when he finds out that Irene's husband, Standard, is about to be released from prison. Driver is goaded into driving for Standard on one last job, but it's one that endangers the lives of Irene and Benicio. This is when he flies into superhero, or antihero mode, in order to save the day and protect the mother and son at all costs.
As this was at one time my favorite movie genre, I've come to find out that I like my mob movies a little unconventional. This is why those like Goodfellas and Casino don't make the list. I know most people consider the former the greatest mob movie ever made, but I appreciate the more subtle efforts, in which the first two Godfathers really paved the way for and set the bar high for every mob/mafia movie that followed.
10. The Outsider (2018) I'm not a Jared Leto fan, but he chose a really good one here - one that will unfortunately fly low under the radar. He stars as Nick Lowell, an American POW imprisoned in Japan. When he saves the life of stranger Kiyoshi, Kiyoshi then owes Nick his life in a culture driven by honor. Kiyoshi is an underboss in the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, and vouches for Nick to come in and work for the organization. He takes the culture to heart, tattooing his upper body in the Yakuza style, chopping off a finger and giving it to his boss when he fails, and falling for Kiyoshi's sister, Miyu. It's a shame that more people don't know about this Netflix original.
9. 10th & Wolf (2006) I didn't know Giovanni Ribisi was such a good actor until I saw 10th & Wolf. It's about the Italian-American mob in Philadelphia, and the Italian-Americans' civil war with the Italians mafia from Italy, attempting to move in on their territory. Ribisi stars as Joey, a boss who's unpredictable and foul-tempered, especially toward the cliche expectations of the Italian mafia experience. Tommy (James Marsden) is really the star, though Ribisi steals the show. Brad Renfro and Piper Perabo chip is some solid performances, and Val Kilmer even has a cameo as a disgruntled veteran. The only complaint here is the Brooklyn accents for what is supposed to be Philly natives. The filmmakers and actors should have tried a little harder to obtain the local brogue.
8. Monument Ave (1998) This a high drama with enough comedic flare to make you scratch your head. But, the drama is very thick, with Bobby (Denis Leary) losing one friend and cousin after another to Boston Irish-American crime boss Jackie O (Colm Meaney). Bobby steals cars for Jackie O, but he's also cozied up to his girl, Katy (Famke Janssen). Nobody talks to the cops, or so Jackie O maintains, and anyone even suspected of doing such meets with the proverbial gallows. Afghan Whigs' Greg Dulli plays Jackie O's mob enforcer Shang, who soon gets his from an unlikely source. Monument Ave is funny and tragic and real, the violence gritty and unpredictable. The movie is so indie that it doesn't have a trailer.
7. The Untouchables (1987) Roberto DeNiro was so good at playing Al Capone in The Untouchables, it really makes me want to see the new biopic starring Tom Hardy to compare the two. This movie is not the most historically accurate, but it's entertaining nonetheless, with the stoic Eliot Ness (Kevin Coster), the street tough beat cop-turned G-Man Jim Malone (Sean Connery), and Jewish-American sharpshooter George Stone (Andy Garcia) taking on the forces of old Scarface himself. I love the noirish score for this one too.
6. Road To Perdition (2002) Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, an enforcer in the Depression-Era Chicago Irish-American mob. When his son, also Michael, witnesses a mob killing, Connor Rooney (Daniel Craig), orders the murders of Michael's wife and youngest son without the consent of his father, boss John Rooney (Paul Newman). This sets Sullivan on a road to vengeance, with death photographer and hitman Maguire (Jude Law) hot on his trail.
5. The Departed (2006) The Departed is an American remake of the Chinese film Internal Affairs, an ultra-complicated take on Boston's Irish mob, the FBI suits attempting to take them down, and the few who fall in-between. Billy Costigan is fresh out of the academy when he volunteers to go undercover into the organization of Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), who later tells Billy that Frank Costello isn't his real name. Costello, and the movie in general, is based on Whitey Bulger and the FBI informant work proposed by John Connolly, a childhood friend of Bulger's. This is a grim story with a grim ending, but it does show that every rat eventually finds the trap.
4. Last Man Standing (1996) If you don't know Irish surnames, you'd never know John Smith (Bruce Willis) was taking on the Irish mob in this one. Smith is a lowly drifter during the Great Depression, passing through the Texas dust town of Jericho when opportunity presents itself. He stumbles right into the middle of an Italian-Irish gang war for control of booze shipments from Mexico. Smith and the mob members are all from the big city, but in this noirish Depression-Era Western, they duke it out on the dusty streets of a tumbleweed nightmare. This is best movie, besides maybe Die Hard, that I've seen from Bruce Willis.
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974) We fell in love with antihero Vito Corleone in the first Godfather, so in the sequel, we get to see his rise to power, from orphaned little boy in Corleone, Sicily, to becoming the king of Little Italy, NYC. All of this while we get see his son, Michael, attempt to expand the organization to Tahoe and Miami in a unique way, ahead of its time in a prequel and sequel in one. If it had been up to me, Part II would have been the prequel, and Part III would have been the sequel, leaving the family's affairs with the Catholic Church out of the equation completely.
2. The Godfather (1972) What I love about The Godfather movies, besides their being well ahead of their time, is that the word mafia or mob is never mentioned. It's only referred to as "the family business", which really works in this flick that probably should be at the tiptop of this list. This movie is critically-acclaimed for a reason, a sweeping family saga in the midst of an organized crime opus, one in which we see the head of the business switch to an unlikely source. The christening scene toward the end is one of the best in cinematic history.
1. State of Grace (1990) State of Grace is my favorite mob movie, and it's mainly because of Gary Oldman's performance as Jackie Flannery. Sean Penn is also great as undercover Boston cop Terry Noonan, who agrees to return to his native Hell's Kitchen, New York City to infiltrate the Irish mob run by his childhood friends, brothers Jackie and Frankie (Ed Harris). He wants to do the right thing, but he's getting himself in too deep, betraying the best friend he's ever had in Jackie, and Jackie's sister Kathleen (Robin Wright), his old flame. The shootout at the end is the best I've ever seen in any movie, mixed into a montage with NYC's St. Patrick's Day Parade.
After being chased through jungles and over waterfalls, Jaguar Paw is finally back in his home hunting grounds, where he feels comfortable, and where he dares his attackers to pursue him. They ransacked his village, they killed his friends, and they killed his father. They are his mortal enemies as a rival tribe. They oblige his challenge, but for a minute or so, Jaguar Paw feels ten feet tall, which makes this scene stand out over all the others.
9. Red Dawn (1984) - "Wolverines!"
When I was a kid, Robert was my favorite character from Red Dawn. The way he bowed out was tragic, but when he died, he died on his feet, which, coupled with the score playing during the scene, was enough to ignite goosebumps. Soviets and Cuban invade the US, and Colorado, where a ragtag group of high students fight back for their executed parents, and for their country.
8. Over the Top (1987) - "I'm Through Talking."
Lincoln Hawk has kept his cool throughout most of the movie, but when he's shoved for no reason at all in a moment that he's ready to win an arm wrestling tournament and reclaim his son, he finally lashes out. This moment is totally and completely badass. Linc has finally had enough. His son has been kept from him by a wealthy grandfather who has never approved of him, and all Linc wants is a chance to reconnect and raise his son, Michael, the right way.
7. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - "All of Us."
I love this scene. The only thing standing between the used and abused children of a remote Indian village and freedom is Indiana Jones. His selfless act literally frees them from their shackles, and I love seeing the silhouette of Indy standing in defiance of the Thuggi cult holding them captive. This is the best Indiana Jones moment.
6. The Grey (2011) - "Live and Die on This Day."
Throughout this movie about Alaskan oil riggers stranded among a brood of feral wolves, Ottway (Liam Neeson) makes forlorn references to his wife, and to a poem his father had written when he was a child. Both come full circle as Ottway takes on the alpha wolf, mono e mono. This is a great scene with a great score chiming in behind it.
5. The 13th Warrior (1999) - "Lo, There."
Ibn Fadlan (Antonio Banderas) never wanted to be a warrior, but through the guidance of his Viking brethren, he found it somewhere inside. When the group is led one more time into the fray, they recite a Viking prayer, and as the Islamic Arab Ibn has learned their ways and come to appreciate them, he joins right in.
4. Gladiator (2000) - "Go To Them."
Maximus' wife and child were murdered pretty early on, and now that he's finally taken revenge on Commodus for having had them killed, all he wants to do is go "home" and reunite with the family he's lost. Coupled with the music, this scene still gets me every time.
3. Red Dawn (1984) - "I'll Hold You As Long As I Can."
Talk about scenes that get me every time. Matt and Jed Eckert (Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze) are brothers, forced to defend their hometown when it's overrun by the Communist forces of the Soviet Union and Cuba. Their chemistry on the screen really makes you feel like they're brothers, which makes this scene so heartbreaking. It's a great one though.
2. Wicker Park (2004)
After Matthew (Josh Hartnett) has spent the entire movie trying to track down his lost love Lisa in a cat and mouse game from hell, he finally finds her in the end. The climax of the chase is serenaded by Coldplay, which makes it even better. This is one that gets me every single time, and likely always will.
1. Say Anything (1989) - "'In Your Eyes.'"
I consider this scene the most INFP moment in movie history. How do you remind an old flame that they should be with you and that they need to come back to you asap? Blast the song you shared with them from a boombox and hold it up outside their window at full blast. This is what Lloyd Dobler does for Diane Court, and eventually, the gesture works in one of the most iconic scenes in movie history, my personal favorite.
10. Lemonade and Brownies - Sugar Ray (1995) Best Songs: "Iron Mic," "Mean Machine," "10 Seconds Down"
What Makes the Record Pop: Sugar Ray's debut was creative and unique, showcasing a jokester band with songs about muscle cars and boxing. They brandished searing guitar riffs, wildly-flung vocal work, and boxing sound clips, record scratches, and silly little skits between the tracks. They successfully merged hard rock with goofy punk with hip hop, produced by DJ Lethal of House of Pain fame.
9. House of Pain - House of Pain (1992) Best Songs: "Jump Around," "Top O' the Morning To Ya," "Shamrocks and Shenanigans"
What Makes the Record Pop: House of Pain were completely original as a hip hop trio, the first to bring the hardcore Irish-American hooligan to the forefront. In the same vein of Cypress Hill and the Beastie Boys, who had been poking around the genre beforehand, House of Pain blew people around with their sick beats, their freestyle-like vocals, and their gritty video for "Jump Around." Having Cypress Hill guru DJ Muggs behind the production board is what really makes this record pop though.
8. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy - Sarah McLachlan (1993) Best Songs: "Possession," "Hold On," "Fear"
What Makes the Record Pop: The thing that really sticks out here is just how well the songs are composed, a rustic, sweet, and pensive sort of precursor to one of my favorite albums of all time, Azure Ray's Hold On Love. Nearly every song here is high quality.
7. To Bring You My Love - PJ Harvey (1995) Best Songs: "To Bring You My Love," "Long Snake Moan," "Down By the Water"
What Makes the Record Pop: Before there was Chelsea Wolfe, there was Polly Jean Harvey. The tracks on this record are ominous and eerie, heartfelt and well composed, and even a little theatrical at times. PJ was the first of her kind that I had ever heard in 1995, and the sounds on "Down By the Water" really stood out to me in the burgeoning alternative rock genre. This is a brooding album with a lot of attitude, and I consider it landmark in many ways.
6. Live Through This - Hole (1994) Best Songs: "Violet," "Miss World," "Doll Parts"
What Makes the Record Pop: This record reminds me of the novel Frankenstein. There are some who believe that it was ghostwritten by Percy Shelley, not Mary Shelley. The same was said of this album with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, and I can totally see it by listening to some of the chord progressions and the lyrical tendencies. But, that doesn't make it any less of a solid album all the way through. Mary Shelley totally wrote Frankenstein.
5. Dummy - Portishead (1994) Best Songs: "Sour Times," "It's a Fire," "Biscuit," "Glory Box" What Makes the Record Pop: Speaking of landmark albums, this is the first one I'd ever heard to mix the best elements of hip hop and alternative rock together as one. It's PJ Harvey meets Cypress Hill, a slash of brilliance that forced me to re-examine how I had previously viewed music.
4. Around the Fur - Deftones (1997) Best Songs: "My Own Summer (Shove It)," "Mascara," "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)," "MX"
What Makes the Record Pop: Deftones were really the first band to mix heavy, brutal guitar chords with feedback-laden melodies. Chino Moreno's voice and lyrics are heartfelt but cynical, his scream feral and seething. This fashion-themed record is special, a mature step up from their debut.
3. Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins (1993) Best Songs: "Rocket," "Soma," "Mayonaise," "Spaceboy" What Makes the Record Pop: This one is good all the way through, the last Pumpkins record before Billy Corgan and company dove into the experimental swimming pool. Siamese Dream features thick, searing, feedback-heavy guitars that challenges rock and roll music, challenges the establishment of melodic dissonance, and challenges tendencies of the age-old lullaby.
2. Grace - Jeff Buckley (1994) Best Songs: "Grace," "Last Goodbye," "So Real," "Lover, You Should've Come Over" What Makes the Record Pop: This album is like a painting, or a series of paintings by the artist you've never heard of but now that you hsve, you can no longer go on without. It exudes bohemian brilliance, dreamscape-inspired lyrics, and a diverse array of original ballads, classic rock overtures, and covers that find a way to reinvent themselves completely (i.e. "Lilac Wine," "Corpus Christi Carol").
1. Without You I'm Nothing - Placebo (1998) Best Songs: "You Don't Care About Us," "Ask For Answers," "Without You I'm Nothing," "My Sweet Prince" What Makes the Record Pop: This record is post-punk brilliance, an androgynous effort that shatters images by way of creating them. The songs are well composed, the lyrics wax poetic, and every song flows on a record that works from beginning to end.
I compiled this list years ago, counting down my top 20 albums of all time. Years later, I've decided to expand to the quarter century mark, to rewrite all the reasons why I fell for the album, and to even shuffle some around in order to achieve a more accurate list. There are some newer records here. There are some older ones. There are some that have managed to touch me in some way, on some deeper level of my soul. Some people listen to music. Some people like music. I am one of those, certainly not the only, that not only loves music, but feels it on a deeper level than the average person.
25.Captain - Fog Lake (2018) Fog Lake is Aaron Powell, a one-man, lo-fi wonder from the hinterlands of Newfoundland. He consistently releases one excellent record after another, with nostalgic, pensive tracks brimming with melody and moodiness. Fog Lake has a very rustic, DIY sort of feel to it, while the band does actually serve as a band more often than not, drums and keys layered underneath Powell's guitar and keen, serine vocals.
I used to have a solo project in my band days, and the closest I've heard to it is Fog Lake. There are several standout songs featured on the band's many albums, but Captain is the best full record I've heard from Fog Lake, leading things off with the melodically wistful "Dinosaur." "Acrylic" has a little more jangle to it, but still contains all the elements that make Fog Lake so good. Piano, acoustic guitar, and Powell's high-pitched croons paint the landscape of the lo-fi effort, from the upbeat defeat of "Serotonin" and "Doghouse," to the resigned, broken-hearted "Talk." This album changes mood with the wind, as any good record does, and I couldn't recommend it any more.
24. Trouble Will Find Me - The National (2013) The National has become one of my favorite bands, if not my favorite. There's something special about their careful melodies and the droning but emotive croons of front man Matt Berninger. He looks more like your favorite college professor than the impressive singer for an indie rock band, his stage presence standing out as a calm before the swirling tides of sound. Like Fog Lake, The National have a lot of great songs, but Trouble Will Find Me has the largest amount found on one album. The band resurrect a sort of refined, matured sound, performing in suits like the early days of Interpol.
The National's songs, especially the ones on this album, are highly singable for me, as mine and Berninger's vocal tones match up nicely. "I Should Live in Salt" features excellent chord progressions, as does "Demons," "Don't Swallow the Cap," a reference to the death of Tennessee Williams, and my personal favorite, "Graceless." Other highlights are "Sea of Love," "Heavenfaced," and "I Need My Girl." The album, and the band itself, are reminiscent of Interpol in their upbeat composition, and Coldplay in their more heartfelt ballads, with Berninger covering the highs and lows of his vocal tonage to precision. His voice, and the dutiful creations of the band around him, are two puzzle pieces that perfectly fit together.
23. Distorted Lullabies - Ours (2001) When I first heard Ours, fronted by do everything man Johnny Gnecco, I thought they were decent. Always on the lookout for new music in 2001, I went out to buy Distorted Lullabies based on the single, "Sometimes." They reminded me of Radiohead in sound, and Gnecco sounded a bit like Bono and Jeff Buckley mixed together. When I popped the CD in my car, I was absolutely floored by opening track, "Fallen Souls," especially when the ending hit. Ours actually came to town in '06 or '07, touring with Filter, but I turned myself away at the door when I found out ticket prices.
"Fallen Souls" is a unique-sounding song until the end when it sounds like the second coming of Jeff Buckley. Most Jeff fans might have dismissed it for this very reason, but being I hadn't heard such a voice since his tragic passing, I was charmed by what I heard. I hit rewind again, and again, and again until I finally caught up to the rest of the songs on the record. The part did, and still does, send a chill up my spine, an epic vocal display soaring over a nicely-composed guitar harmony. "Here Is the Light" features heavily on drums and acoustic guitar and a nice electric guitar lead in the bridge, and "Medication" is a sweet lament on overindulgence, while "Dancing Alone," "Bleed," "Dizzy," and "Meet Me in the Tower" are simply just well-written songs.
22.Visions - Grimes (2012) Grimes' debut Visions comes in at number twenty-two. She finds herself in lonely company here, a sort of method actor of a creative musician (the sort of modus operandi she took pre-Elon Musk). With a title like Visions, that's exactly what Grimes tried to do on the making of this record. She reportedly locked herself away in a room for days, abstaining from both food and water in order to reach new levels of consciousness. It seemed to work, as it is really an electronic work of art. To see her perform live is a thing of beauty.
Visions begins with the short preface "Infinite Love Without Fulfillment," then breaks into underground indie single "Genesis," the first Grimes track I heard. The video is quirky and effectively random. Grimes is, or was, the Zooey Deschanel of indie artists, her music videos colorful scenes from the place far beyond left field. "Oblivion" sounds right at home on the Stranger Things soundtrack, "Be a Body" makes a desperate plea for romance, while "Symphonia IX (My Wait is U)," "Nightmusic," and "Skin" showcase the more melodic tendencies of the the artist. The whole record beams like a swirly, hazy dreamscape, filled with synths and beats and siren-like wails. Grimes has to be incredibly proud of this one.
21.Hozier - Hozier (2014)
There's something about this record that reminds me of Jeff Buckley. It's most likely the lone singer-songwriter aspect, and the style of the bluesy, gospely songs, an angle Jeff broached a few times on some of his non-album releases. Besides that flattering comparison, this is just a really good album. It reminds me of New Orleans, a place in which I absolutely adore, and I find it interesting how Hozier, like Mumford & Sons, is a European bloke who has based his entire sound on facets of Americana.
Track one, Hozier's most poignant, most popular one, is "Take Me to Church," capturing the efforts by the Church to assassinate the character of anyone living differently from what is taught on Sundays. Hozier waxes metaphorical in it, a protest song for the human rights of all the "sinners" in the world. The song gained a lot of radio attention, but it's one I can listen to over and over again without getting sick of. Other highlights are "To Be Alone," "From Eden," featuring a video with a sacrificial Bonnie and Clyde, "Sedated," "Work Song," and "Foreigner's God." Some may view Hozier's take on music as a bit blasphemous, taking his gospel swerve and flipping it completely on its head. In my opinion, he's taken an old, beloved style and given it a modern juxtaposition, which I can appreciate.
20. OK Computer - Radiohead (1997) When Radiohead released their second album, The Bends, I thought there was no way they could top it. Enter OK Computer. The band had grown in sound into a leaner, more matured Radiohead, incorporating piano, programming, drum machines, and a slew of percussion instruments throughout the twelve tracks advertised. I brought the cassette on a break from work, and returned to play first track "Airbag" in a game of music chairs for kids at a youth center. It took a second opinion to rule the music too weird for the desired effect. Shrug.
"Airbag" features strange lyrics and a walloping effort from a drum machine. "Paranoid Android," clocking in at nearly six and half minutes, covers the gamut throughout the song, from strange to slow to rocking. "Exit Music (For a Film)" was actually made for a film, as it features in the end credits for 1996's Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. It's a tragic ballad, much like the tragic play, about two star-crossed lovers planning for forever. "Let Down" is my personal favorite, though "Karma Police" was everyone else's seemingly. "Climbing Up the Walls" is as sneaky an album gem as it comes, and "No Surprises" brings a charming little melody to an otherwise odd video that keeps with the theme of the album.
19. Cold - Cold (1998) As Grundig, the band met Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit fame. As Cold, a nice change is band names, they signed to label Durst's Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope. Don't get me wrong, Cold sounds nothing like Limp Bizkit, more in the vein of Staind (though they are more talented). Cold's self-titled debut is how you make a heavy record, with crunchy, droning guitar, and soaring, ambient effects behind the foghorn voice of singer/guitarist Scoot Ward. The band eventually gave up what made their debut so special by trying to fit in with their contemporaries, which is really a shame.
"Go Away" features the voice of Fred Durst in the very beginning and the very ending, which really doesn't take away from the song. The guitars are so heavy and crunchy, setting a sludgy, gritty tone for a sludgy, gritty record. "Give" stays in the same vein, heavy with deep, grimy vocals, following a slowly burgeoning, ill-fated romance. Like Deftones, Cold found the melody in brutality, and even ventured into a whole new realm of sound on tracks like "Ugly," "Strip Her Down," and "Superstar." Instead of the heavy guitar, Ward tunes his acoustic down to A (super low, grungy sound) to belt out a few heartwrenchers, the lead guitar dabbling in ambient, atmospheric effects in the background. It makes for some of the most unique sounds in music I've ever heard, making me wish the band had done it more throughout the album, and had completed a whole record with the same sound.
18. Knife Play - Xiu Xiu (2002) Xiu Xiu, pronounced Shoo-Shoo, was introduced to me on a mix tape. The song below, "I Broke Up," conjures images of a madman wasting away in an asylum. I was reading The Bell Jar at the time, which feeds into the idea a bit, but "I Broke Up" was such a strangely engaging song that I had to own the entire record it came from, Knife Play. The album brims with more of the same, which makes it one of my favorites of all time. Jamie Stewart serves as the key, core member of the band, and when I saw them live just last year, he was still doing his thing after all this time.
From Knife Play, the band only played "Suha," a glaring, depressing anthem of a resigned housewife. Depression is a running theme on Knife Play, Stewart's voice fragile and always on the verge of outcry. Keys, guitars, various forms of percussion, and interesting new ways of musical creation, sometimes melodic, sometimes dissonant, are what Xiu Xiu strives for. "Hives Hives" explores the vantage point of someone dying from HIV, and "Homonculus" employs sound clips and sound effects in the immediate wake of a highly-emotive chorus. In my humble opinion, Knife Party was Jamie Stewart at the height of his creative powers.
17. Dummy - Portishead (1994) When Portishead, a trip hop three-piece from Bristol, England, dropped their debut album, I was completely floored. I hadn't previously been keen on the trip hop genre, so what I heard from radio single "Sour Times" was like nothing else I'd ever heard before. The band successfully meshed moody guitars, record samples and scratches, drum machine beats, and eerie sound effects with the haunting vocals of front woman Beth Gibbons. From the point of view of a hip hop and alternative rock fan, Portishead was a godsend.
"Mysterons" opens the record with a trilling, haunting keyboard effect over the drum machine. Track two, "Sour Times," and track seven, "Numb," are very much in the same vein, as is most of the record - dark, ominous, and brooding. Portishead offers lighter shades of their sound of "Strangers," "It Could Be Sweet," "It's a Fire," and radio hit "Glory Box," showing their versatility, something other groups of the genre (Tricky, Massive Attack) didn't possess as much. Portishead didn't create trip hop, but they were the best at pulling it off, and for a debut album, Dummy deserves to be on every all-time list of any fan of rap and rock.
16.Turn On the Bright Lights - Interpol (2002) This album grew on me over time. The more I've listened to it, the more I can conclude that the band just encapsulates a sound that is all New York City, their hometown. The guitars are choppy and bustling, the reverb and delay effects dripping with the night's city lights, and the beats are likened to Manhattanite footsteps pounding the busy pavement. This is the best record that the band has to offer, a debut gem that put the indie rock world on notice. Interpol's refined style and sound offered something different to the genre in 2002.
Opening track "Untitled" sounds like a melodic reunion in the Big Apple, city lights blinking and the air cold and ripe for chance romance. The reverb and delay effects work their magic as front man Paul Banks offers up his instantly recognizable voice. "Obstacle 1" and "PDA" capture the band's overall sound, though songs like "NYC," "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down," "The New," and "Leif Erikson" capture the band's softer, more reflective side. I haven't been able to see Interpol live yet, but they're definitely a bucket list band. They are still making good music to this day, and while 2004's Antics was a nice contribution to their overall canon, they could never seem to outdo 2002's Turn On the Bright Lights.
15. Parachutes - Coldplay (2000) In early 2000, me and a friend of mine drove the North Charleston streets at night, listening to Parachutes and Cold's sophomore album, 13 Ways To Bleed On Stage. The fact that we were listening to Cold, and Coldplay, was purely coincidental, all cheekiness aside. Anyway, the release of the album coincided with my first real taste of heartbreak, so when I listened to the songs, I felt that famous INFP Chris Martin had my back. Coldplay is another bucket list show for me to see. The band has a boatload of standout tracks, but it was Parachutes that really stood out for me.
Track one, "Don't Panic," was my friend's favorite, while mine was "Yellow," the song that compelled me to buy the album. "Shiver" is Chris Martin's actual homage to Jeff Buckley's "Grace," a drum-heavy, upbeat take on longsuffering love. Coldplay changed their sound a bit over the years with their progression as a band, but Parachutes is the best look at them in the raw, only acoustic and electric guitars, piano, bass, and drums featured on the album. "Spies," "Sparks," "Trouble," and "We Never Change" are perfect examples of this, and "Yellow" is innocently poetic in its all or nothing approach to romance.
14.Hold On Love - Azure Ray (2003) For most of this album, Azure Ray, consisting of Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink, sound a lot like this picture looks - light, serine, and wistful. Though most listeners might consider Azure Ray girly, I maintain that there's no such thing, that good music is good music, and that well-composed songs are indeed well-composed songs. I don't remember which one it was that made me pick this album up, though I'm sure glad I did.
The two singles from the album don't really give the best representation of the dynamic duo, though other listeners, may feel differently. The album opens with decent tracks "Devil's Feet" and "New Resolution," but in song three, "We Are Mice," we're introduced to colder reassurances with subtle signs of melody lurking in the choruses and breakdown. The girls roll out acoustic and electric guitars, piano, and minimal keys through the record. Tracks like "Look To Me" and "Nothing Like a Song," are upbeat and jangly, tracks like "Across the Ocean" and "Sea of Doubts" are more reflective, and tracks like "The Drinks We Drank Last Night," "These White Lights Will Bend To Make Blue," and "Hold On Love" are sweet and innocently romantic.
13. You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene (2003) I was first introduced to Broken Social Scene on the soundtracks of Wicker Park and Half Nelson with the songs "Lover's Spit" and "Stars and Sons." My wife recommended the full length album, and once I accepted the offering, I latched on for dear life. There are so many great songs on this record, one flowing straight into the next. It's one of those start it up and let it play albums, the many members of the band contributing their own snippets into the 13 tracks.
The record's four instrumentals, "Capture the Flag," "Pacific Theme," "Late Night Bedroom Rock For Missionaries," and "Shampoo Suicide," are spread out nice and even, each conveying a different mood and arrangement. "KC Accidental" features minimal vocals but a fast pace and loudly amplified drums, "Stars and Sons" features a unique guitar riff and a boatload of feedback, "Almost Crimes" is both fast-paced and melodic with a his and her matching vocal contest, and "Looks Just Like the Sun" sounds like sitting on the peer at the end of the day with an acoustic and a cold beverage. "Lover's Spit" is slow and sad and magnificent, it's lyrics confusing but its guitar licks resounding.
12.Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons (2009) I'd never heard anything quite like Mumford & Sons when this album dropped. I heard "Little Lion Man" on a California radio station and absolutely loved it. When I got back home, I downloaded a few more tracks from the record, but even that wasn't enough. I went out and brought the CD and blared it day and night like it was going out of style. Sigh No More defined my four years at the University of Wyoming, so it was only fitting that I see them there live just before moving again.
The rustic appeal of the Americana band from England unleashed all its endearing charms upon my first listen. I was hardly able to get through the first track, "Sigh No More," without putting the song repeat over and over again. The banjo-laden melodies continue on "The Cave," "Winter Winds," and "Roll Away Your Stone," every one of them optimistic enough for a head-nodding good time. "White Blank Page" slows things down a bit, "I Gave You All" is a bitter ballad of sour love, and "Awake My Soul" sounds like an Irish wake. This record is excellent, every song palatable, and it makes for a glorious debut for the four-man troupe.
11. The Angel Pool - The Autumns (1997)
The Autumns were an ultra indie dreampop band from LA. I would have never heard them, or even heard of them, if not for a couple of friends. They opened my world to the dreampop sub-genre, and after listening to Cocteau Twins and Slowdive, I understood where The Autumns had gotten their sound. The band was mostly the work of singer/guitarist Matthew Kelly, with a revolving door of band members over the passing years. The Autumns first brought their dreamy sounds to the forefront on 1996's Suicide At Strell Park EP, following the effort up shortly after with The Angel Pool, the band's debut LP. It stuck to the same formula that made the EP so great.
"The Garden Ends" was really the first Autumns song I'd heard, but it wasn't until I heard "Pale Trembles a Gale" from the EP, and LP standout "Eskimo Swin" that I truly became a fan. "Embracing Winter" is a slow, pretty number that explodes into the something ethereal and immaculate by the end of the song. The next two tracks, "Sunblush" and "Juniper Hill," are really more in the vein of The Cure, both more upbeat tracks to balance out the slow, soft, melancholy ones. The Autumns borrowed a lot of its mood rock from The Cure, and from the Cocteau Twins, both of which can be heard in the band's sound. The band released three more LPs after this one, though none could match the nine-song triumph of The Angel Pool.
10.Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence - Glassjaw (2000) Buried away on a record label with Korn, Coal Chamber, and Static-X, there was Glassjaw, a far cry from the nu metal acts they were being associated with. They had more in common with bands like My Chemical Romance, The Used, Blood Brothers, and Finch, whose punky, screamo styles had frequented the growing genre. I first saw Glassjaw on tour with Deftones before anyone in SC really knew who they were, though the subtle melodies and frequent screams were really the only two things the two bands had in common.
Glassjaw's debut came to me at the right time, or the wrong time, of my life. I was heartbroken, so Daryl Palumbo's heartbroken lyrics helped me sort through what I was feeling, and made me feel not so alone. With the soaring singing voice of Jeff Buckley and the searing screams of a feral cat, Palumbo carved himself out as a front man to remember, his lyrics tender but brutal, metaphorical but blatantly in your face. I don't know if would call the band screamo, as I feel they never fit the floppy-haired type-casting of the emo boys. Glassjaw did feature their melodies and their heartfelt lyrics and their raw emotion, elements that have scarcely been replicated, especially on a debut album.
9. Around the Fur - Deftones (1997) You won't find Around the Fur on a lot of all-time best Deftones album lists, though I don't mind playing the role of the outlier. Around the Fur is themed masterpiece, a perfect blend of heavy and melodic that gave birth to the permanent sound that the band came to adopt. While their 1995 debut Adrenaline was a sick, searing fever dream, Around the Fur showed much more versatility from the band, more of what I found on "Fist," the final, lyrically minimal track from their first album. Singer/screamer Chino Moreno has gone on-record saying that Around the Fur is his personal favorite Deftones album.
"My Own Summer (Shove It)" creeps along the fret board with an intricate riff before building to a heavy chorus, sounding more like something from the first album, but composed better, with a better recording. "Lhabia," "Dai the Flu" and "MX" share some of the same unconventionally heavy DNA, while "Around the Fur," "Rickets," "Lotion," and "Headup" are driving, pulse-pounding killers. Chino's high-pitched scream sounds like an angry, feral cat, especially on the breakdown of "Be Quite and Drive." After Adrenaline, Deftones were cast into the same nu metal boat as Korn and Limp Bizkit, but with Around the Fur, their take on the darker side of glamour and fashion, the band explored further aspects of their sound, coming up with something completely original.
8.Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins (1993) Back in the day, before there was the indie rock classification, there was the "alternative" music one. Alternative to what exactly, I'm not sure. Regardless, Smashing Pumpkins were at the helm of that movement, and were the first alternative band I fell head over heels for. When I first became interested in the band, I borrowed their b-sides record Pisces Iscariot from my cousin. I then saw the videos for "Today" and "Rocket" from Siamese Dream on MTV, and the rest is history.
Siamese Dream was the Pumpkins' last true alternative rock album. They shared similarities with contemporaries Hum and Self, who were actually more like borrowers of the sound than contemporaries. Maybe that's why the Pumpkins took at heavy left turn with 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Anyway, I digress. "Cherub Rock," a Siamese Dream fan favorite, was one of the Pumpkins more rock-heavy tracks, along with "Quiet" and "Geek U.S.A." Highlights like "Today," "Hummer," and "Rocket" were feel-good favorites, while "Disarm," "Soma," "Mayonaise," and "Spaceboy" showed the more pensive, melancholy side to singer/songwriter/guitarist Billy Corgan. I was so obsessed with this record at one time that I bought the guitar tab book for Siamese Dream so I could learn to play all my favorites.
7. Catch Without Arms - Dredg (2005) Dredg singer Gavin Hayes is nearly the spitting image of legendary Rage Against the Machine rapper, Zach de la Rocha. He also fronts a band who would make an excellent touring partner for Deftones, having found that little-achieved grey area between heavy and melodic. But where Chino Moreno screams, Gavin Hayes belts out operatic notes, no matter how hard the delay and reverb-driven guitar crunches for emphasis. Dredg was a unique band, one I was even able to see live at the Roxy Theatre on the LA Strip, a surprise gift from my wife.
I loved Dredg's debut album, El Cielo, but Catch Without Arms is a near-perfect album. By that, I mean that there's really only one skippable song, the very last on the album, the jangly, soft rock jam "Matroshka." This album is themed as well, focusing on the soul's enlightenment through dabbling in mantras of the Indian religions (Hindu, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism). Barn-burning track "Bug Eyes" explores the depths of reincarnation, "Catch Without Arms" is perfectly-composed with a head-noddable breakdown, and the drum machine heavy "Sang Real" peers into the metaphysical aspects of the soul. This is a truly great album on so many levels.
6.Denali - Denali (2002) Denali was first introduced to me on a mix tape, their debut album recorded for me in entirety. I absorbed the sound, and it reminded me on some songs of a latter day Portishead, especially on the haunting, drum machine-heavy "Relief." I loved the mix so much that I had to go out and buy the CD for myself. I was able to see the band live twice, once in Columbia, and once in Charleston, and was able to approach front woman Maura Davis to tell her how much I absolutely adored the album. I also spoke to guitar man Cam DiNunzio to ask how he pulled off some of the effects in "Relief" and "Where I Landed," though he politely declined to tell me, which was understandable. I started a band called Pollux that was heavily-inspired by Denali, with two of the songs about dreams I'd had about Maura Davis. Yeah, kind of obsessed, I guess.
This album is interesting. "Everybody Knows," "You File," "French Mistake," and "Lose Me" are solid, but the second half of the record blows me away. I still listen to the CD in my car from time to time. "Prozac" is slow and dismal, "Relief" is a lurking beast, "Time Away" is an anthem for disquieted isolation, "Gunner" provides a solid bounce back from the land of despair, "Function" is a sad little piano ballad layered in keyboard white noise, and "Where I Landed" starts small and ends in a crescendo of brilliance. Denali's second album, The Instinct, was decent, but it couldn't touch what they''d found in their stunning debut.
5. Depression Cherry - Beach House (2015) This is an album you can just let play. It's a greatest hits record unto its own, really pushing for a higher spot on this list. Singer/keyboardist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally are a duo to be reckoned with, employing a drummer only for tours. The band features several great albums, but this one goes far beyond that superlative and into a realm all its own. Though they released two full length albums in one year, Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, they saved the best tracks for the former. It's an atmospheric delight, dripping in reverb and delay and a hint of lush innocence.
I've seen the band live twice, and both times, they began the set with my personal favorite song, "Levitation." The track makes one wonder about the relationship between Legrand and Scally, or whoever it was that inspired the singer to create something so absolutely gorgeous. Goosebumps. Every single time. "Levitation," "Space Song," and "Beyond Love" definitely share some DNA, and the same can be said for "10:37," "Wildflower," and "Days of Candy" in their heavy Cocteau Twins vibe. Yeah, the songs are more melancholy than brimming with joy, but that's what Beach House brings to the table - a sound they have never really attempted to deviate from.
4.Passage - Exitmusic (2012) This album did, and still does, blow me away every time I listen to it. Exitmusic is the slightly younger sister of Beach House, both underground Titans in the genre of slow, moody dreampop. Another duo, the band consists of Aleksa Palladino and Devon Church, who had just ended their marriage at the time of the release. The love songs are meaningful and poignant, metaphorical glimpses into the romance that made up the sound of Exitmusic. Like Beach House, ambiance, reverb, and delay ruled the day for this little-known gem.
The record starts with "Passage," a haunting, highly-emotive effort in which Palladino howls and moans her way through the track. "The Night" is downtrodden and optimistic in one, with lines like "My aim is slightly high in the silent night," after a sorrowful sway of "If the stars can align all of man with night sky, then why can't my heart mend the break?" The same sort of swarthy, swirling layers of infinite sadness persist into "Storms," "Stars," "The Wanting," and "The Cold." Better times for the couple turned into a blitzkrieg of loneliness and sorrow throughout the album, which hardly leaves one a second to catch their breath. Brooding anthems like "The City" and "The Modern Age" separate the throes of complete desolation, but its the sort that somehow manages to find the beauty in sadness.
3. Agaetis Byrjun - Sigur Ros (1999) The same person who introduced me to Xiu Xiu and Denali introduced me to Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun. When I wore out the tape, I bought the CD, as there's nothing quite like listening to and digesting this album on a cold, grey day. The Icelandic foursome really brings the arctic with them one their musical outpourings, achieving as much through stringed arrangements, keyboards, sonar beeps, pianos drenched in reverb, and violin strings dragged across the delay-heavy fret board of an electric guitar. When I took Music Appreciation in college, I had to research music from another country, and I chose Iceland, highlighting the foggy, tundra-laden mood of Sigur Ros (pronounced Sigger-Rose).
"Svefn-g-englar" is first full track on the album, as Agaetis Byrjun (A Good Beginning) opens with a short, time-lapsing choir boy-like intro. "Svefn-g-englar" clocks in at about ten minutes, but it's magnificently elegant. It's a little repetitive, but the sound is so slow and melodic and meaningful that it doesn't feel as long as it is. "Staralfur" is next, more stern in the verses, though highly optimistic in the chorus. "Flugufrelserinn" is almost happy, while "Ny Batteri" is a reflective stare from a ice-caked window. On "Olsen Olsen," the band takes us on a ride through the clouds, and on "Agaetis Byrjun," the band turns to a cleaner, more acoustic sound. Sigur Ros reaches the peaks and valleys of their high and lows, their sadness and glee, on their memorable debut.
2. Grace - Jeff Buckley (1994) Where to even begin with this one. Jeff Buckley was a hopeful wanderer, a jaded bohemian who was part John Keats and part Tyler Durden. Grace was his baby, a defining moment in the life of a great, tragic artist. Having heard "Last Goodbye" on the radio, it had become my favorite song of all-time, but it wasn't until Jeff's death that I bought the full album. It was the first CD I ever owned, but I didn't even own a CD player. I was basically left to the mercy of my younger sister until I soon came across one myself. Just recently, having given away my copy of Grace as a gesture, I bought it again, a priceless album for the cost of four measly dollars.
Jeff paints pictures with his masterful lyrics and his carefully-crafted soundscapes, especially on his song about a dream, "Mojo Pin," his eerie death premonition "Grace," the optimistically forlorn "Last Goodbye," the Led Zeppelin-like "So Real," and the epic ballad about the one who got away, "Lover, You Should Have Come Over." Jeff even breathes new life into the old, Middle Ages hymn "Corpus Christi Carol," and waxes gypsy on the last song, "Dream Brother," a tongue-in-cheek diss track about his absentee father, Tim Buckley. Jeff had such vocal range, such songwriting talent, and such beautifully-scripted lyrics that it makes Grace one for the history books.
1. Without You I'm Nothing - Placebo (1998) My local rock station back in Charleston used to play a random album in its entirety on Tuesday nights at midnight. I always had a cassette tape handy, hitting play and record to take a chance on some new snippet of music. This particular night, I snagged a few of Placebo's songs from Without You I'm Nothing. On the way to work the next day, and on the way home, I jammed to the tracks, having heard nothing like it before. Androgynous singer/guitarist Brian Molko had a unique voice, the upbeat songs were almost post-punk, and the slower ones were dreamy and either extremely melancholy, or extremely reflective on a life spent as a no good libertine.
Every song on this album is excellent. Even track one, "Pure Morning," grew on me over time, a feel-good track with not too many other feel-good tracks to speak of. Song two, "Brickhouse Shithouse," is a sort of play on a love triangle, "You Don't Care About Us" channels The Cure, "Ask For Answers" is one of my all-time favorite songs, and "Without You I'm Nothing" is an ultra-poetic lament about two lovers from very different worlds. Molko was far more poignant and poetic with the album's lyrics than he ever has been on any others - an aspect that makes this one really stand out. He was clearly inspired by something at the time. The lyrics are perfect, as is the music, which makes for a perfect storm, and unlikely number one pick of all-time.
Fury Road is the third in the Mad Max franchise. It's the first without '80s Mel Gibson, and the first with Tom Hardy. Not only is it visually stunning, but the story is good, the actors are solid, and the action comes full swing and non-stop. In it, Tom Hardy, famous for his chameleon method acting, said his biggest inspirations for his Max Rockatansky were Indiana Jones and Wile E. Coyote. His performance made for a fun combination of the two.
For a short amount of time, I was an amateur Ripperologist - someone who studies into the crimes and the possible identity of Jack the Ripper. I don't remember exactly, but it was likely spurred on by this movie, Johnny Depp playing one of his best roles to date. This movie is a Gothic horror masterpiece, an under-the-radar effort based on the graphic novel by Watchmen maestro, Alan Moore. The movie was directed by the Hughes brothers, known more for their graphic depictions of urban African-American life (Menace II Society), though they did a fantastic job with the casting, making sure Johnny Depp could perfect a London East End accent.
I saw Predator in the theater on opening day, June 12th, 1987 - otherwise known as my 11th birthday. It was considered my birthday present, and while my parents absolutely reviled it, I did quite the opposite. Predator was so different for its time, taking the popularity of '80s action movies Rambo, Missing In Action, and Commando to mesh it with a hostile alien. The characters were good, the story line was better, and Arnold actually did a solid job acting here.
The Shining is one that grew on me over time. I used to get pretty scared in horror movies. Once I got older and appreciated the sub-genre of psychological horror more, I found it fascinating how solitude could quickly turn on one over the course of a few months. It's now my favorite sub-genre, as I think that we ourselves can be far scarier than any ghost or monster, especially when our mind starts to unravel. Before The Shining was a movie, it was a book by Stephen King. When Stanley Kubrick bought the rights, he did with it as he pleased, which left King a little salty. King eventually saw his own vision come to fruition in a TV movie, but in terms of the creep factor, Kubrick won the day.
Scream is considered a hit and a cult classic all within the same breath. It's also probably the only movie in which you'll see Drew Barrymore die within the first 20 minutes. While a masked slasher with a knife hunting down teens in a small town seems far from original, Scream finds a way to breathe new life to the premise. Like The Cabin in the Woods, it spends much of its time poking holes through overdone genre tropes, while its characters ironically fall into the same traps they're scoffing at.
There are three Bruce Willis gems in my opinion - the iconic Die Hard, the war-time tear-jerker Tears of the Sun, and this underrated crime flick, Last Man Standing. The movie takes the urban noir, drops it on its head, and relocates it in an Old West-style universe, giving us a fascinating glimpse at a tough, grizzled anti-hero.
Indiana Jones is one of the most iconic characters to come out of the '80s. Besides Jack Burton (Big Trouble In Little China), he's likely my favorite. He's brainy, he's handsome, and he's good with a whip, using it against Egyptian swordsmen in crowded Cairo agoras and to swing to safety across booby-trapped cave ravines. Tom Selek was originally supposed to play the role of Indy, but I'm so grateful that it never came to fruition.
I first came across The Warriors when I was in high school, and though it was highly dated, even at that point, I loved it. The concept was good, the fighting scenes were better, and I could appreciate the attempt to create a whole slew of gritty, although often cheesy, gangs for the Warriors to fight their way through. This is an iconic movie that has since become a cult classic, spawning video games and even a forever in development remake.
At one time, this was my cousin's favorite movie, and so years later, I finally checked it out for myself. True Romance is filled to the brim with colorful characters, memorable baddies, and Brad Pitt as the weeded-up roommate everyone loves but nobody wants. The romance here is true, and the far-fetched characters and ideas are actually grounded enough to come off authentic. Maybe that's because it was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott (Man On Fire, Deja Vu).
My parents had this one recorded on VHS when I borrowed it and gave it a watch. This is finest mafia movie ever made to never even mention the word mafia. Before it was even cool, Francis Ford Coppolla pulled off the same idea that saw the word zombie never mentioned in The Walking Dead. That kind of mentality is what made this this such a timeless classic, with fantastic storytelling, realistic characters, and a look at the anti-hero before the concept was even really a concept.
Based on the idea of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan, this one takes the concept and flips it on its head. introducing a group of young, nihilistic teenage vampires. It featured the Coreys (Haim and Feldman), Keefer Sutherland, and Jami Gertz, who was one of my first celebrity crushes. The soundtrack is excellent, the storyline is solid, and the scenes are bloody and sexy and intense, a horror movie meshed with a comical teen drama. It's one of the '80s movies that influenced the adventurous kid angle of Stranger Things.
We stay in the '80s with Red Dawn, one of the most influential films of my childhood. I played war in the woods with friends, and I wanted to be John Rambo, and Robert Morris (C. Thomas Howell) from Red Dawn. This had every little boy's dream in the '80s loading their BB guns and filling their canteens, ready to defend their town against Soviet and Cuban invaders in World War III. Well, not really, but we could pretend, failing to see just how scary the concept really was in the first ever movie to receive a PG-13 designation.
Before there was The Departed or The Town, there was State of Grace, a highly-underappreciated movie that was overshadowed by the release of Goodfellas. It features Sean Penn and Gary Oldman at their absolute finest, chronicling the little-known Irish-American mob in Hell's Kitchen New York City. They drink, they fight, and they have a tendency for unpredictable violence, especially the character portrayed by Oldman.
This was my favorite movie for a few years after high school. It was so different from anything I'd ever seen before, a superhero movie for people who don't like superhero movies. The Crow is romantic, gritty, and dark, an urban Gothic thriller featuring Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, who died tragically toward the end of filming. It was released to honor Lee in what would have been his breakout role, one that he was born to play.
Bright Star features the final years of famous Romantic poet John Keats' life. I was introduced to Keats and the other Romantic poets in junior college, and found myself drawn to the young man whose poetry would be worth far more after his death than it ever was in life. His is a tragic story, especially once he met the love of his life, or his Bright Star, Fanny Brawne. The Regency-era costumes are spot on, the cinematography reflect the best of the Romantic mentality, and the romance is tender and brooding and ill-fated.
I see the two Kill Bill films as interconnected, as they came out just months apart. The first has more of an Asian feel, while the second dabbles more into the realm of a spaghetti western. Tarantino is all about style, which certainly comes through in the saga of Beatrix Kiddo and her epic quest for revenge against Bill and the Deadly Viper Squad. Pictured is Vol. 1 and Uma Thurman's obvious homage to Bruce Lee in his final role, Game of Death.
This used to be one of my fall asleep movies. It was funny, it was familiar, and its great characters, as well as its great director in David Fincher, were like family to me. The Narrator (Edward Norton) remains unnamed in this movie adapted from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk about deconstructing artificial, society-driven concepts and feelings, but doing so to the point that it becomes completely destructive.
Wicker Park is an American remake of the French film, L'Appartement (The Apartment). It looks more like a psychological thriller from the trailer, but it's more of a psychological drama with a heavy dose of romance. This one fits into the same genre as films like Vanilla Sky, The Jacket, and Stay. While those branch out beyond the ordinary world, Wicker Park remains grounded, a brand new sort of cat and mouse game and a love triangle meshed as one.
Amelie is not just a cute girl with a cute haircut and a cute smile. It deserves its international acclaim for its lead, Audrey Tautou, but also for its director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The music isn't too shabby either, every string, piano, and accordion composed by maestro Yann Tiersen. This features a lot of subtitles, and they're fast, but they're well worth the read, as Jeunet created colorful characters, snappy dialogue, and a directorial style flushed with lush, glossy color.
Good Will Hunting is such a unique movie, showcasing the working-class neighborhood of South Boston under the lens of an academic opus. Director Gus Van Zant chose Robin Williams to fill the role of Sean McGuire, a psychiatrist who breaks through and finally motivates rudderless genius, Will Hunting (Matt Damon). The scenes with he and his knock-around neighborhood friends are fun and memorable, his relationship with Skylar (Minnie Driver) is endearing but elusive, and his budding relationship with Sean is filled with dirty jokes, laughter, and tears.
I never thought I would like 25th Hour as much as I did, and as much as I still do. It was directed by Spike Lee, and though I don't care for Lee, he made a great movie here, based on the novel by Game of Thrones screenwriter David Benioff. It portrays of the easy, criminal lifestyle and how it eventually catches up with us, no matter how much we love our friends, our father, and our girlfriend.
Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte Des Loups) is like no other movie I've ever seen. It combines the French-speaking period piece with action, adventure, and even bouts of horror. I followed a group of friends blindly to this one, and likely left the most impressed with the stunning cinematography and the overall uniqueness the film had to offer. It chronicles the real life exploits of the Beast of Gevaudan, who ravaged the countryside in 1764, killing over a hundred women and children.
This movie helped me decide that Shia LaBeouf was one of my favorite actors. It doesn't have the strongest title on the planet, but man, is it the story good. It's one most people have never heard of, but I took a chance on when it was streaming on Netflix. It really should have made more of a splash for its solid characters, its comedic flashes, and its heartfelt overtures on the streets of Bucarest, Romania. What's most endearing about this one is the absolute beating Charlie is willing to take for Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood), the love of his life.
Speaking of great soundtracks and scores. It's because of this movie that I discovered not only a new genre of music that I fell head over heels for, but acts like Desire, Silver Swans, Com Truise, and Neon Indian. The music is really just an extra benefit of a movie like Drive. It's another superhero flick for people who don't like superhero flicks, the lead character acting selflessly to save the innocent, sporting a flashy scorpion jacket like a superhero's logo.
