Fight Club (1999)

This is one of those movies that I grew up hearing about. I was about eleven years old and in the sixth grade when this film came out in October 1999, and would later see this movie for the 1st time when I was a senior in high school and I remember one of my teachers reading Chuck Palahniuk's novel during class. I thought the performances of Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden), Edward Norton (The Narrator), Helena Bonham Carter (Marla Singer), Meatloaf (Robert 'Bob' Paulson), and Jared Leto (Angel Face) were all interesting to watch about two guys: an insomniac office employee (Norton) and a slippery soap salesman (Pitt) create a vent male aggression organization that soon becomes global. The only scene of the whole movie, which I thought was most intense, was the part when Norton’s character beats the living hell out of Leto’s character. From the director of Seven, Panic Room and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Fincher’s 1999 flick FIGHT CLUB is raw, funny, wild, intense, but entertaining to watch and it’s a Hollywood classic for all movie lovers to see.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Now the original came out in 1981. I was born seven years later and I never saw it till I was eight years old. The only thing I still remember to this day was seeing Maggie Smith as the sea goddess Thetis. In April 2010 at age 21, I saw Director Louis Leterrier’s version of CLASH OF THE TITANS and I loved it. Unlike the 1981 film, this one is about the mortal son of god Zeus, Perseus, who embarks on a perilous journey to stop Hades from spreading his evil to the earth and as the heavens. Leterrier chose a damn good cast of actors: Sam Worthington (Avatar), Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), Mads Mikkelsen (007 - Casino Royale), Jason Flemyng (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Alexa Davalos (Defiance), Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World: Jurassic Park), Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy), Liam Cunningham (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), Ashraf Barhom (The Kingdom), and both Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s List); Who I thought were all fantastic in their roles. This was the first movie I ever saw Worthington in on the big screen, and I think of him to be a young Russell Crowe. I was surprised to see Danny Huston (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Edge of Darkness) make a small appearance as the sea god Poseidon. I also thought both Neeson and Fiennes’ performances as brother gods Zeus and Hades were totally badass. The locations in this movie, from Spain to the U.K., were fantastic to see where the film was taken place. The Kraken was a lot better than what I saw in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. I love how it gets destroyed and if you’re reading this and never saw the film, see it for yourself. CLASH OF THE TITANS is one of the best movies of 2010 I have ever seen. It is an ultimate classic for people of all ages to see.

True Lies (1994)

All I could say about TRUE LIES is that this was the 1st R rated movie that my father took me and my brother to see when I was five years old when it came out in the summer of 1994, the 1st Schwarzenegger movie I saw on the big screen and would later go to see some his other movies in theaters: Eraser, Jingle All the Way, Batman & Robin, and Terminator 3. And the 1st I’ve heard of actors Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov, and Charlton Heston. Next to THE TERMINATOR and TERMINATOR 2, this is my favorite film that was directed by James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar). My favorite scenes are the mall bathroom fight scene and the scenes of Schwarzenegger in the AV-8B Harrier jet plane. I thought Art Malik's performance as the badass terrorist Salim Abu Aziz was good and how he got killed: F**king Awesome. The scene of Jamie Lee Curtis doing the famous hotel room strip dance, I mean hey, I was five years old and I didn't know what that meant. Odd, isn't it? I'm very proud of my dad taking to see this movie because he introduced me to action movies and I have been obsessed with them ever since. For anybody who loves action movies, I highly recommend TRUE LIES for everybody to see.

The Mask (1994)

The year was 1994. Jim Carrey, fresh off his work from the hit 90’s comedy sketch show “In Living Color”, scored with the box-office hit movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective of that January. Five months later, He returned to the big screen in yet another comedy hit in that of THE MASK. In this film, Carrey plays Stanley Ipkiss, a luckless nice guy who works at a bank and his best friend is a Jack Russell Terrier name Milo, who finds a mysterious wooden mask which transforms him into a wacky, green faced cartoonish superhero. Based on the comic books by Dark Horse Comics, it was very dark and frightening and it was originally supposed to be a horror movie with some sense of humor, but the film’s director Chuck Russell (Eraser, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Warriors) decided it’ll would be a lot better as an explosive comedy. Thank God he was right. By surprise to me was that Russell wanted Carrey for the main protagonist cause he was a big fan of him on In Living Color, and I think this is one of the best performances of his I’ve ever seen. After this movie came out, it went on to a Saturday morning cartoon spinoff, which I happened to watch and come out with action figures, which also I owned some of them. Carrey became an international movie star with this film and later on with Dumb & Dumber and it would later make him go on to do Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Batman Forever, and so on and so forth. I recognized a lot of the supporting actors in this movie: Peter Riegert (Animal House), Peter Greene (Under Siege 2: Dark Territory), Amy Yasbeck (Robin Hood: Men in Tights), Reginald E. Cathey (S.W.A.T.), the late Denis Forest (Cliffhanger), the late comic Richard Jeni, and of course, Ben Stein (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). For Riegert’s performance as the slightly cynical Lt. Mitch Kellaway, I thought he was a complete jerk. But Greene’s performance as the main antagonist Dorian Tyrell, I thought he was very good. And last but not least, Cameron Diaz in her feature film debut as the beautiful Tina Carlyle was great. There were a lot of great scenes like Carrey’s first transformation, which at first thought it was kind of scary when I first saw it at age six but later got over it, the balloon animal-carnival scene, and the Cuban Pete musical sequence. With the comedy of Jim Carrey and the visual effects from ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) thrown together, it makes THE MASK into one of the greatest comedies of 90’s and all time. SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSMOKIN'!

The Untouchables (1987)

Brian De Palma, the man who directed such hits as SCARFACE, CARLITO’S WAY, and CARRIE, brings us another hit movie of his in that of THE UNTOUCHABLES. Released in 1987 and set during the Prohibition days, The Untouchables is about four very different law men: Eliot Ness (KEVIN COSTNER), A federal agent/family man; Jim Malone (SEAN CONNERY), An old, Irish-American beat cop; Oscar Wallace (CHARLES MARTIN SMITH), a treasury agent accountant; and George Stone (ANDY GARCIA), an Italian, sharp-shooting police rookie, who all join forces to battle Chicago's notorious crime boss Al Capone (ROBERT DE NIRO) and his empire. I remember my Dad bought this movie on VHS when I was in middle school. I watched it with him for the first time and thought it was okay. Many years later, I started watching this movie again and began to like it and it became one of my favorite movies. There were some scenes that I thought were too extreme like a guy getting beaten to death with a baseball bat and another guy getting thrown off a roof and landing on a car. The music composed by Ennio Morricone, who also worked on one of my favorite horror films THE THING, was fantastic. I loved how the film started with the song “The Strength of the Righteous” and the scenes when The Untouchables stop a raid at the post office and on the U.S.-Canadian border with the song “The Untouchables Theme” playing in the background. The actors’ performances were fantastic, especially Connery, which won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1987. THE UNTOUCHABLES is one the best movies of the 1980's and one the greatest Gangster movies of all time. A+

Midnight Run (1988)

This Film came out two months before I was born and after reading about it in a Robert De Niro biography, I saw it for the first time when I was fifteen years old and it became one of my favorite movies. In MIDNIGHT RUN, De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a tough ex-Chicago Cop turned Los Angeles Bounty Hunter who tracks down Jonathan ‘The Duke’ Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a sensitive accountant who embezzled a Las Vegas mobster name Jimmy Serrano (Dennis Farina) $15 Million Dollars and gave it to charity. Walsh finds The Duke in New York City and transports him back to L.A. to get a $100,000, but it doesn't go so well when FBI Agent Alonzo Mosley (Yaphet Kotto) are after them, Serrano wants them dead, and a resourceful fellow rival bounty hunter name Marvin Dorfler (John Ashton) wants his bounty for the money. The performances of De Niro, Grodin, Kotto, Ashton, Farina, and Joe Pantoliano were brilliant in their roles. There are some great action scenes and both some hilarious and dramatic moments, from shoot-outs to chases, in this classic late 80's action-adventure comedy from Martin Brest, the director of Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman. MIDNIGHT RUN is to me one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen and I highly recommend this movie to anybody that's a De Niro fan or Action movie fan.

Die Hard (1988)

Bruce Willis is one of my favorite actors. Hudson Hawk was the 1st movie of his I ever saw and it’s one of my favorite movies. I grew up watching some of his other films: Armageddon, The Jackal, The Whole Nine Yards, Mercury Rising, Striking Distance, and 12 Monkeys. But I did not see the one movie that made him an international movie star when I was nineteen years old, and that movie is DIE HARD. This movie came out two months before I was born and as before, I never saw it till I was nineteen. Just watching him as this tough New York City police officer name John McClane, who flies to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedila) and soon finds himself in a tough situation when a group of European terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), seize over an LA high rise, takes everybody from the 30th floor hostage including his wife, and steal $640 million in bearer bonds that are stored in the building’s vaults. Luckily, McClane escapes. Launches a one man war against the terrorists and has to figure out how save the hostages, and his wife, before it’s too late… Was Incredible to watch. I loved the humor of the film, the action, and the quotes: “Welcome to the party, Pal”; “Jesus Christ Powell, he could be an f**king bartender for all we know”, and the performances of Willis, Bedila, Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Reginald VelJohnson, and Paul Gleeson. There were two things I hate about this movie: William Atherton as the scumbag reporter Richard Thornburg and the scene where Godunov’s character shoots glass to trap McClane and ends up getting his feet cut very badly. Die Hard is without a doubt one of my favorite action movies and it’s a true classic for all movie lovers to see.