100 Film Favorites – #28: Cast Away (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) A word of preface: From 2010-2012, my fellow members of the William & Mary Wind Symphony elected me “Best Person to be Stranded With on a Desert Island” in three consecutive years of band superlatives. I’m not exactly sure why; perhaps I exude a mysterious…
100 Film Favorites – #29: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) “I recall the time they found those fossilized mosquitoes, And before long, they were cloning DNA…” Today we plunge onward into the “roaring” 20s with probably the greatest “dinosaur movie” to date. In Jurassic Park, a genetic engineering firm led by eccentric billionaire John Hammond…
100 Film Favorites – #30: WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) In today’s entry, Pixar does post-apocalyptic. I think I was in love with this movie from its opening instant. A shout of “Out there…” from Michael Crawford (the original Broadway “Phantom”) accompanies the sudden appearance of a spectacular stellar panorama. The song “Put On Your Sunday…
100 Film Favorites – #31: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Jake Kasdan, 2007) “Life’s a race, and I’m in it to win it. And I’ll walk as damn hard as I please.” In recent years, it has often been said that the art of parody, at least in film, is dead. People frequently cite…
100 Film Favorites – #32: The Mask of Zorro (Martin Campbell, 1998) “When the people need him, Zorro will be there.” Most of these posts have started off with a plot summary, then followed up with some relevant historical factoids. Today, we’re shaking things up and beginning with the history lesson. The character of Zorro…
100 Film Favorites – #33: Doctor Dolittle (Richard Fleischer, 1967) Today’s pick is probably the highest-ranking instance of a film that I love, but pretty much everyone else hates. It’s the 1967 musical adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle series, about an eccentric veterinarian who can actually “Talk to the Animals.” The music was written…
100 Film Favorites – #34: Follow Me, Boys! / Mr. Holland’s Opus (Norman Tokar, 1966 / Stephen Herek, 1995) “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Today we come to the Countdown’s one and only double feature. I know this technically pushes the grand total to 101 Film Favorites, but…
100 Film Favorites – #35: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski, 2003) Originally, I prefaced this entry with some information about how posts were going up daily over here on EarnThis, and that the new site offered “an improved, multimedia Brian Terrill Movie Night experience devoid of typos.” Hopefully…
100 Film Favorites – #36: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983) Props to all of you who saw this coming. Today we wrap up the Star Wars saga with its final chapter to date, Return of the Jedi. “Jedi” takes place roughly a year after the events of “Empire,” and…
100 Film Favorites – #37: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980) Today, we continue the Star Wars saga with the series’ most critically-acclaimed entry, The Empire Strikes Back. The film’s opening crawl explains that three years have passed since the events of “A New Hope,” and the Rebels have established…