This page is BOUND to get out of date. But recent movie likes and dislikes. There has been an AMAZING lack of good movies in the last few years. But I'll show you what I've got.
GREAT franchises : Spiderman & Pirates of the Caribean. EVERYONE has seen these and loved them. So I really don't need to go on about how well acted, written, directed, and produced these were. Keep em coming!!! I will see EVERY one.
James Bond : Casino Royale. Well, it was okay. But it was NOT James Bond. No gadgets, no car chases, no femme fatale to fall in love with, no villain you really hated. The best part of the movie was the first 20 minutes ... I could watch that part over and over again. But (spoiler warning) James gets hot headed at the end of the chase and creates a huge incident for virtually no reason. He IS supposed to be a professional, and a 00 at that. And, near the end, there is a (spoiler warning) gratuitous Resevoir Dogs rip off torture scene. Worth watching once ... but try not to think of it as Bond. I do have to say that Daniel Craig was a good actor, given the poor script.
Past all time movie favorites
The James Bond movies ... are Fantastic.
Indiana Jones : Thank you Harrison, for one of my all time favorite trilogy of movies. I can watch all three, and start back at the beginning. If Wrath of Kahn and Indiana Jones were playing in two seperate rooms, my head might explode.
Star Wars : The first three movies were GREAT (Episodes4-6) and the next three were good (though phantom menance dragged a bit with the pod race thing and someone REALLY needed to kill Jar Jar Binks).
Aliens : Fantastic (with the exception of 3 which was only fair). I have them all : Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, and AVP. In fact, I just watched the entire series last week again.
Planet of the Apes : Incredible. Roddy McDowell, Charleton Heston, Kim Hunter and Linda Harrison starting off the series offset by brilliant Maurice Evans. The whole series was fantastic and ground breaking. I've read the book. Speaking of which, I think the book is where Tim Burton got the ending for his overall good but messed up ending movie. He TOTALLY missed the point of the conclusion of the book. I KNOW he was trying to make a cliffhanger but he just made the audience mad. Sorry Tim. Other than the last 2 minutes, a very enjoyable film.
The Vincent Price Movies and Remakes : Most Vincent Price movies were fantastic. And the remakes, House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts were INCREDIBLE. I can watch them again and again. Not simple rehashes but modern revamps and incredibly well done. The MUMMY did the same thing ... a great retelling with some of the original elements. The new movie the Omen could have been fantastic if they'd have followed this guideline. Instead it was just a rehash of the old ... same with the newer Shining Movie. To the people who redid the shining ... what were you thinking?! That movie was perfection!
All time horror classic favorites : The Shining (the first), Dusk Til Dawn, Seventh and Golden Voyages of Sinbad, and many more !!!
X-men : the first one was great, but they've downslid since then. Still fun to watch, but the gratuitously killing off characters isn't the way to keep a franchise. Yes, I CAUGHT the end of x-men 3 after the credits and I understand it but still. A little script rewriting was in order. A good series of one on one fights at the end would have been better than the smash the pawns thing. Colosseus vs Juggernaut would have been cool. Overall though, they were ALL good movies.
Cult Classics :
Return of the Living Dead : Lord I love this movie. I love Linnea Quigley and the entire cast was GREAT. (ROTLD 2 was okay and ROTLD 3 was good btw) I have been known to watch this movie and then start it over again. I watch it at least once every 3 months.
Evil Dead : A good series, ED 1, 2 and AOD. Bruce Campbell is hilarious. The proper combination of horror and humor (see my review of Kolchak further down).
Resident Evil : Pure fun and well done. And, a rare thing, the 2nd was nearly as good as the first! Milla and Michelle are brilliant and Beautiful!!
The DEAD series : Night, Day, Dawn and Land (shouldn't that have been Twilight? But I understand Land made a better title.) The remakes were good ... again, with enough twists to make it not a rehash. (Do I say this too much. Yeah, probably),
All time cult classics : Friday the 13th series(the series was pretty good too though unrelated), Nightmare on Elm Street series, the Thing, Escape from New York (and LA), An American Werewolf in London, Logan's Run, The 3 Musketeers (the Michael York/Raquel Welch movies), Lost Boys, & War of the Worlds (the original not the Tom Cruise one). Newer Cult classics are or will be Underworld, Van Helsing, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Mummy, Fantastic Four.
CLINT EASTWOOD : Almost ALL brilliant movies. Not a huge fan of the every which way movies, but they were still okay. I loved the westerns and the dirty harry movies. The man is brilliant!! All time favorites ... Outlaw Josie Wales, Dirty Harry, High Plains Drifter, and Pale Rider.
Lesser Known Greats : Deep Rising, Virtuosity, Demons, Cube, Tremors, & Big Trouble in Little China.
Television
GREAT shows - Past and Present(or cheesy ones I loved)
Star Trek - The Original Series : It started the franchise and is still great television today. You really cared about the characters ... which is so rare about series today. The movies rocked ( with the exception of the motion picture with it's tired revamp of the episode the Changeling and Space Odessey mimicry ... and even that wasn't too terrible. ) TNG was good after the first season, with the exception of the Wesley Crusher episodes (I like the actor but the character was HORRID). Voyager and Enterprise were okay, with the excellent character Seven of Nine. DS-9 I had trouble watching ... Benjamin Sisko and his stilted speech and blandness rubbed on a raw nerve. I used to like him as Hawk on Spenser, but he must have taken a BAD acting class and learned about dramatic pauses. Enterprise had flaws in continuity (bringing in Klingons right away) but all in all wasn't bad. The only characters you really got to like though were the captain (and this may be because of a preformed fondness from his Quantum Leap years) & T'pol (admittedly I may be influenced by the fact that she is GORGEOUS). The show promised to be a revision of the swashbuckling days of TOS but though fairly good it wasn't that.
Quantum Leap : A GREAT show. The interplay between Al and Sam was fantastic. BOTH are fantastic actors. I expected more from Enterprise when I learned Scott was going to be the captain, but it wasn't the best character. I was a regular watcher, and have my own tapes of favorite episodes. Note to self : get the series on dvd.
Kolchak : the Night Stalker. I have most the series taped from when it was on tv and was just recently watching the episodes again from my sister's dvd collection. They do NOT make shows like this anymore. The combination of humor and horror were groundbreaking. Most horror genre movies use this format to this day.
Lost : Brilliant acting and writing all around. What more can one say? There is not one bad actor in the bunch and all the characters are great. And, a moment of brilliance, like Star Trek there is a reserve of characters in the characters NOT in the forefront. But at the same time, the same sense of isolation one would have on a star ship in deep space. Magnificent.
Wonder Woman : Okay, I liked Wonder Woman just for the fun escapism and comic hero setting. And the beautiful Lynda Carter. But don't people deserve some TV JUST for fun. I loved watching the Monkees as a kid for the same reason (and their music was GREAT).
Battlestar Galactica : Great show. Well, before they came to earth that is. The 'fighter plane' concept was great. I know it was also done in Star Wars, but Battlestar may have done it even a bit better. And Apollo, Starbuck and Boomer were GREAT friends as well as heroes, much like Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Stargate SG-1 : Another show with a GREAT backdrop, storyline, plot potential and cast of characters. Atlantis was okay, but I never really got into it.
Xena and Hercules : Again, pure escapist fun. And some brilliant actors. Hudson Leick, Alexandra Tydings, and especially Kevin Smith being chief among these. Granted, the scripts got bad at times, but they were always good. The first three seasons of Xena were best and most of the Hercules episodes were good.
I'd occassionally seen series like Smallville, The Lost World, and enjoyed them but I'm no longer a regular TV watcher and don't plan on certain evenings to watch certain shows. But from the little I saw, they looked EXCELLENT. I'm a fan of the old Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Kung Fu and ... forgive me for being sensitive ... Little House on the Prairie. (God, I hope my friends don't see this but yes, I liked Little House)
I know I've forgotten some GREATS, but that happens. Take care and thanks for reading.
