My Top Ten Favorite Films (Part 2 of 2)

Hello again, this is a continuation of my last blog where I wrote about my favorite films of all time. Of course all of these films are my favorites but this is the best ranking I could muster.

5. Back to the Future (1985): You ever watch a movie as a kid where you still enjoy it the same amount when you're older? This movie has never changed for me. This time-traveling flick revolves around a 17 year old eighties kid names Marty Mcfly, who I can honestly say is the coolest teen film character ever put to screen. Although his family life is less than cool, he is a skateboarding, guitar playing, girl-swooning charasmatic kinda guy we love to root for. When Marty see's what his old pal, Dr. Emmett Brown's new invention is, he is amazed to see it is in fact a time machine built into a Delorian. When he accidentally travels back in time to 1955, he interrupts his parents original way of meeting and in order to prevent himself from being erased from existence, he must get his parents back together and get back...to the future. Robert Zemeckis is a technological wonder-kins with movies such as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" most recently "A Christmas Carol" in his mix, this film is a showcase of special effects wonder, a great developing screenplay, fun characters we love, and a tense climax that has you on the edge of your seat. You do not want to miss this! Plus, this is the film that inspired me to play guitar. I mean, have you seen Michael J. Fox play his way through "Johnny B. Goode"!?

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet have proven to be cinematic legends. I see this movie to hold their most true and heart-breaking performances. This film is also all about the screenplay that is put to screen so beautifully. It showcases what I feel is the most true and realistic love story set in an almost unreal and sci-fi background. When Winslets character, Clementine, breaks up with Carrey's character, Joel, she has her memory erased to forget their entire relationship at a memory erasing clinic called Lacuna Inc. Joel naturally does the same and we follow Joel's relationship with Clementine backwards through his mind as he forgets about her. We see how their breakup went and then go back to realize why he fell in love with her in the first place. The memory erasing and the breaking down of the set pieces instills fear in you as a viewer because you can imagine yourself running around your own brain in the process, fighting to keep all the memories you want. It's a groundbreaking love story that may take a second viewing to truly appreciate.

3. Forrest Gump (1994): As my dad will say about this movie, "I can turn on the t.v. and see this on on any day of the week and I can just sit down and watch it no matter where the story is at. I've seen it so many times and I can just enjoy every part of it. I love this movie!". I'm paraphrasing this but I have to say I feel the exact same way. Tom Hanks gives his best performance as Forrest Gump, the not-so intelligent but loveable character that throws around some of the most memorable quotes in film, such as "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get". "Forrest Gump" has many little stories that make up his entire life. We watch him grow up and meet the love of his life, Jenny. We see him go to war in Vietnam, and meet some of the American presidents, become a shrimp boat captain, and run across the country. Forrest is as pure as a character can be. We want him to succeed because he does everything for love and for being a good person as his mother and Jenny would want him to be. Zemeckis really shined with directing this film and I think the scene where Forrest talks to the gravestone of his loved one in the end, (I won't spoil who it is), is so moving you would have to be a robot to not feel how powerful Hanks is on screen.

2. The Empire Strikes Back (1980): I would put the entire original Star Wars Trilogy on here but I picked this one film because it is my favorite. Sure the first Star Wars film established the main characters in the setting of "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..", fighting the good fight against the evil Galactic Empire and it's leader Darth Vader. But this is the film where everything became darker. You felt you started to really know the characters of Han and Leia when they began to fall in love and feel the danger around them. You felt Luke Skywalkers journey to become the hero that was needed to bring balance to "the force" and ultimately defeat the Empire. And I must say, if you did not know that Darth Vader was going to be Luke's father before you saw this movie...nooooooobody saw that coming. This is the greatest twist in cinematic history! Turning the most evil and sinister villain into a tragically flawed character needing to be saved by his son is amazing to me to this day! Plus the "Empire theme" by John Williams is epic as anything. I saw this in theaters in 1997 when they were re-released with added footage, but I have also seen the original cuts. Not too much has changed between them so don't think it hindered my experience, I only bring this up because anytime I watch this film, I immediately am brought back to being that kid who discovered what an action packed, epic sci-fi film could do to a person and how riveting the art of film could be.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994): This film has been my favorite since high school for a number of reasons. One of them being because the friendship between Tim Robbins character and Morgan Freeman's character is so moving. When you watch this film, you feel like you are their friend and you want to see them both get what they want. Number two being that the film takes place in probably the most hard and realistic setting: a prison. This Shawshank prison is a powerful setting because most of the entire running time takes place between the walls of the prison and you become so intune with the setting that you forget you could escape it as well. The third and most important reason I would say is that the ending is so moving. Seeing the main characters succeed after all the extremely hard obstacles they face has never been such a high payoff as in this film. This is a movie where the entirety of the piece is so moving that it feels like an experience you went through yourself, seeing the hardships of their prison life. When the characters finally get to where they have always wanted to be, something inside you feels lighter. Films can do this to you, they can inspire you. This film inspires me and makes me believe that anything can really be possible. You may have to crawl through a river of excrement as Andy Dufrane did in the film (hopefully not literally), but you can make it out as clean and happy as he did and feel freedom. The films message is that "hope can set you free", and it delivers it perfectly I must say.


Thank you for reading my list and please post you're favorite films as well!