A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

The original “Nightmare on Elm Street”, directed by Wes Craven and starred Johnny Depp in his first film role, came out four years before I was born and I never saw it till I was in high school. I enjoyed it and thought it was one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. When I heard they were making a remake of it, I thought they were kidding. But when they released the teaser, I started to have second thoughts. I went to see it and I really liked it. It was also the 1st horror movie I ever saw in theaters and it made me scared, but I loved it. For those who don’t know what this movie is about, it tells the story of a group of high school teenage friends who are being stalked by a serial killer who wields a glove with four razor-sharp blades and kills them in their dreams. Jackie Earle Haley, who we all know him as Rorschach from 2009’s Watchmen, takes over the iconic horror role made famously by Robert Englund. I thought he was brilliant as Freddy Krueger. I watched the exclusive first look online and Brad Fuller, whose one of the producers of the film, said that Haley was the only actor they wanted for Freddy Krueger and he was right. I loved how Director Samuel Bayer made this ‘Nightmare’ much darker than the original. As for the younger actors: Rooney Mara (Youth in Revolt) as Nancy, Katie Cassidy (Taken) as Kris, Thomas Dekker (TV’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as Jesse, Kyle Gallner (Jennifer’s Body) as Quentin, and Kellan Lutz (the Twilight trilogy) as Dean, were all terrific as the doomed teenagers and during the middle of the film, I figured out why Freddy is trying to kill them and I couldn’t believe it. You’ll have to see for yourself. I also thought Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs from TV’s SpongeBob SquarePants) and Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) were both good as some of the teenagers’ parents. The original “Nightmare on Elm Street” is a classic but I really enjoyed the remake and it is one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen.

Goodfellas (1990)

I've seen THE DEPARTED, CAPE FEAR, half of TAXI DRIVER, THE COLOR OF MONEY, SHUTTER ISLAND, and my favorite CASINO. I had just turned two years old when it was released on September 19th, 1990. I’ve heard about it over the years and now I have finally seen Martin Scorsese's GOODFELLAS and I enjoyed it. Based on a true story set between the 1950’s to the 1980’s, Goodfellas tells the story of an Irish-American kid name Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), who quits school and gets taken under the wing of the neighborhood mob capo Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and fellow gangster associates: Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) and the aggressive, hair-triggered Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) as they work their way up through the mob hierarchy for 25 years. I thought this was a very entertaining mob movie that Scorsese directed and I thought both Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci were more the lead stars than De Niro, whom to me thought he more of a supporting actor to the film. It’s weird for me that Samuel L. Jackson, who was an unknown at the time, appeared in the film as Parnell Steven “Stacks” Edwards. Just to point out, some of the actors: Lorraine Bracco (Karen Hill), Frank Vincent (Billy Batts), Michael Imperioli (Spider), Tony Sirico (Tony Stacks), and Vincent Pastore (Man with Coatrack) would all go on to star the acclaimed HBO TV Series THE SOPRANOS (1999-2007). I love the fact that Scorsese uses the famous song “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos for one of the key scenes of the film and used again in the end credits. My favorite line would have to be De Niro saying to Henry “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut”. This movie earned six Academy Award nominations: Scorsese for Best Director, Pesci for Best Supporting Actor, Bracco for Best Supporting Actress, Thelma Schoonmaker for Best Film Editing, and for Best Picture. Sadly it only won Pesci the Best Supporting Actor award. I would have to say that GOODFELLAS is one of the best gangster movies and one of Scorsese’ best films of all time.

The Great Escape (1963)

There are so many great war movies that Hollywood has made for so many years: Saving Private Ryan, Patton, Pearl Harbor, Hamburger Hill, Black Hawk Down, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now. But there’s one war movie I really like, and that movie is John Sturges’ 1963 WWII film THE GREAT ESCAPE. Based on the book by former real life POW officer Paul Brickhill, The Great Escape tells the story of a group of allied escape artist type prisoner of war (POWs) officers (and what a great cast too): Capt. Virgil Hilts “The Cooler King” (Steve McQueen), Flight Lt. Bob Hendley “The Scrounger” (James Garner), Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett “Big X” (Richard Attenborough), Flight Lt. Danny Velsinski “The Tunnel King” (Charles Bronson), Flight Lt. Colin Blythe “The Forger” (Donald Pleasence), and Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick “The Manufacturer” (James Coburn) who put together a daring escape from Stalag Luft III, a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. I’ve been watching this movie since I was twelve years old, It is one the greatest movies I have ever seen, and it’s one of my all time favorites. The music that legendary composer Elmer Bernstein made for this film is fantastic. I love how the movie starts when you see the trucks driving to the camp and how it ends when you see who played who in the film. I would have to imagine the German guard, who locks up Hilts in The Cooler, smiling when he hears the familiar sound of Hilts bouncing his baseball on the wall. I think he likes that. There’s one character from the Gestapo and SS agents who bring Big X to the camp I didn’t like, and that is Preissen (played by German actor Ulrich Beiger). The way he closes his briefcase makes me want to see him killed. Anyway, my favorite scene out of the whole movie is of course is seeing Steve McQueen being pursued by German Soldiers in the famous motorcycle chase. THE GREAT ESCAPE is an unforgettable classic that all movie lovers should see and love.

Twister (1996)

I was obsessed with this movie when I first saw it at the age of eight. However when I first heard about it, I thought it was kind of scary cause it looked almost like a horror movie, but I was dead wrong. I wish to god my Dad took me to see to see this movie, so instead he took me to see the Tom Cruise movie MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE during its second week it was in theaters. This movie became one of my favorites and I know this movie by heart. Co-Created by Michael Crichton, Co-Executive Produced by Steven Spielberg, Directed by Speed director Jan de Bont and released in May 1996. The film is about a soon-to-be divorced couple (Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton), who lead a team of brash storm chasers who compete against a fellow rival team, led by an ambitious guy who’s in it for the money (Cary Elwes), to chase a series of tornados in Oklahoma by releasing a perfected data-gathering instrument into the funnel of the tornado. The performances by Hunt, Paxton, Elwes, Jami Gertz (The Lost Boys), and Lois Smith (East of Eden) were fantastic. This film featured a well known cast of actors, such as Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off); Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan); and Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) to play members of Hunt and Paxton’s team. I loved the sound and visual effects in this movie that were all done by ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), led by Stefen Fangmeier, who would later go on to do such hits: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, SMALL SOLDIERS, and THE PERFECT STORM. My favorite scene is when Hunt and Paxton are driving through a ditch while trying to get up close to the first tornado they chase and it destroys a farmhouse along the way, which was cool. The film’s soundtrack features a well known list of some of music’s great musicians: Shania Twain (No One Needs to Know), The Red Hot Chili Peppers (Melancholy Mechanics), k.d. Lang (Love Affair), and Van Halen (Humans Being). My favorite out of all of them is Respect the Wind, performed by Edward and Alex Van Halen and it appears at the end of the film. TWISTER is one of the greatest disaster movies ever made and it is one of my all-time favorites.

Rapid Fire (1992)

This is a great martial arts movie and my only favorite martial arts movie. Brandon Lee was incredible in this movie as College Student/Martial Artist Jake Lo, who witnesses a murder by a Mafia kingpin (Nick Mancuso, Under Siege I & II) and later becomes caught in a war between the feuding Mafia and Asian drug lords. After being betrayed and set up by the FBI Agents who were protecting him, he decides to take the law into his own hands and body. The fight sequences, including the Chicago Restaurant shoot-out scene, were really incredible to watch. Both Lee and his good friend, stunt coordinator Jeff Imada, who would later go on to do the fight chorography in the 2nd and 3rd Bourne Identity films and Lee’s final movie The Crow, both choreographed the fight sequences together. My favorite line that Brandon says to Nick Mancuso’s character at the end of the shootout is “The only time a man doesn’t want money is if he wants something else. You’re sweatin’ like a Pig; all he wants is to get out in one piece.” This was the first movie I ever saw Brandon in. He became one of my favorite actors and I would later love his final performance in The Crow. Rapid Fire is one of my favorite movies and I hope when you see it, it will become one of your favorites too.

The Crow (1994)

I started watching this movie since I was 10 yrs old, and I know this entire movie by heart. Brandon Lee plays Eric Draven, a young rock guitarist who, along with his fiancée, is brutally killed by a ruthless gang of criminals: the knife throwing Tin-Tin (Laurence Mason), the drug addicted Funboy (Michael Massee), the unsophisticated Skank (Angel David), and Car buff T-Bird (David Patrick Kelly). One Year later, Eric is brought back to life by a hypnotic crow to avenge their deaths, battle the evil crime lord Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) and his thugs, who must answer for their crimes. What a horrible tragedy about the film’s lead star Brandon Lee, who was accidently killed while filming his flashback scene of his character's murder, when it involved getting shot in the chest with a dummy bullet from a .44 revolver handgun, which was lodged in one of the prop guns used in the film and into his abdomen on March 31st, 1993. He was just 28 Years old. I can partially remember seeing the TV news reports of the incident when I was four years old. His untimely final performance as Eric Draven was fantastic. The action sequences are incredible, especially when it comes to the shootout scene between Lee and the bad guys. There’s one of the songs that Graeme Revell composed for the film, which I loved, and that is ‘Pain and Retribution”. If Brandon was still alive, he would’ve been goddamn proud of this incredible movie, which is one of my all-time favorites.

God Bless You, Brandon Bruce Lee (02/01/1965 - 03/31/1993).

The Rocketeer (1991)

This was the very 1st movie I ever saw when I was a toddler and it's, and forever will be, one of my all time favorites. Set in 1938 Los Angeles, THE ROCKETEER is about a young pilot name Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) who stumbles upon a top secret rocket pack, designed by the legendary Howard Hughes (Terry O' Quinn) and stolen from a secretive Nazi spy who's known to the world as Hollywood movie star Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), and becomes somewhat of an incredible, flying superhero. Based from the graphic comic book novel from Dave Stevens, The Rocketeer has just about everything: 1930's Hollywood, Gangsters, Nazi Spies, planes, and machine guns. It's like Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Top Gun. Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Wolfman) directed an amazing cast of actors such as Academy Award winner Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) as Cliff's mechanic friend Peevy, Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas) as gangster Eddie Valentine, and Academy Award winning actress Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), as Cliff's girlfriend Jenny Blake. The music that James Horner did for the film, who made it both sound so heroic and beautiful, was absolutely brilliant. It wasn't a huge success when it came out in theaters, which I'm very upset about, but it's a movie that I think everybody should see. The Rocketeer is an absolute classic in my book.