100 Film Favorites – #48: 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (George Pal, 1964) “The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it.” 7 Faces of Dr. Lao was the final film directed by George Pal. Pal was a Hungarian-American animator who pioneered a style of stop-motion animation in the “Puppetoon”…
100 Film Favorites – #49: Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, & Conrad Vernon, 2004) Already into the 40s! Yeah, that’s right. Today’s pick is a non-Pixar animated sequel. I live dangerously. Three less-than-universally acclaimed selections in a row. I promise that after this cluster of entries we’ll be getting back into films that are…
100 Film Favorites – #50: National Treasure (Jon Turteltaub, 2004) And so we begin the second half of our Countdown. We are now among the Top 50 “Film Favorites.” GET PUMPED. This entry might lose me any claim to critical credibility, but I imagine after the inclusion of Beanstalk, any amount of that I may…
100 Film Favorites – #51: “Napoleon Dynamite” (Jared and Jerusha Hess, 2004) It’s possible many of you just groaned audibly upon reading the title of today’s selection. Of all the films on this Countdown, this is the one I’ve heard the largest amount of vocal detestation for. A surprising number of people seem to vehemently…
100 Film Favorites – #52: “Hot Fuzz” (Edgar Wright, 2007) As with selection #69, X-Men: First Class, this is another instance in which my opinion of a film is greatly influenced by the conditions under which I first saw that film. Hot Fuzz was the first R-rated movie I saw in theaters without adult accompaniment.…
100 Film Favorites – #53: The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985) We’re nearly halfway through the Countdown! Hopefully those of you who’ve been reading along are enjoying it so far. Today’s entry is another one which continues to have a pretty big fanbase. Though Richard Donner is credited as director, executive producer Steven Spielberg came up…
100 Film Favorites – #54: The Sandlot (David Mickey Evans, 1993) “You’re killin’ me, Smalls!” And so we come to the first (and probably only) “sports movie” on the Countdown. This is a film that a lot of people seem to have fond memories of, and probably because it’s about just that: fond memories. The…
100 Film Favorites – #55: Darby O’Gill and the Little People (Robert Stevenson, 1959) Thus far in the Countdown, we’ve seen several holiday specials: One Halloween, one Thanksgiving, and two Christmases. Now we come to a film that, while not explicitly holiday-specific, is my go-to St. Patrick’s Day movie. Darby O’Gill and the Little People…
100 Film Favorites – #56: Charlotte’s Web (Charles A. Nichols & Iwao Takamoto, 1973) Note: When I first wrote this entry, the previous post about Titanic had just become the most-viewed post to date on my Brian Terrill Movie Night page, topping 300 views. I was coming down off a powerful view-high, so if the…
100 Film Favorites – #57: Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) Yeah. Titanic made it on this list. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it? The sad tale of the Titanic’s maiden voyage proved forever that when radio is in its infancy, and you’re in ice-cold water 12,000 feet deep, rushing headlong into an uncharted field of icebergs…