Amazon's Hot 100 DVD's

I just found a list of Amazon's 100 Essential DVD's. I'm always intrigued by "100 best lists" and I often wonder how they will hold up over time. Many times I see lists where you can tell the age of the people involved in making up the list because all the top listed movies are limited to a particular period of time. I've seen lists where I know the people selecting the '100 Best' had to have been under forty just because most of the movies came out during the last thirty years.

Ordinary People and Schindler's List made the top ten on the Amazon list, which I found curious. Both are wonderful, well acted, and highly crafted movies but TOP 10! I had to look up Ordinary People because I didn't remember it. I'd put Star Wars, Godfather, and the Wizard of OZ well ahead of either of these two.

I sometimes wonder what criteria I would use to determine what makes a 'classic' movie. I think about the Dirty Harry Series. I just recently noticed that I don't have any of them on DVD, and for some reason several of them are out of print, but think about the impact Dirty Harry has had on American Culture. Just say "Make my day" and it immediately conjures up an image of Clint Eastwood with his hand cannon. I can't think of a similar impact that either Ordinary People or Schindler's List had on American Culture.

But there are several curiosities about the Amazon List, they have Hitchcock's Rear Window and Vertigo listed ahead of Psycho while Notorious isn't even on the list. They have Chicago on the list but not Top Hat. (I thought Chicago was unwatchable.) 4 Weddings and a Funeral, Usual Suspects, When Harry Met Sally and Blue Velvet are all good movies but are any these better than High Noon, which didn't make the list? How about Stage Coach, the Searchers, or the Hustler with Paul Newman? But all lists are subjective. I'm sure my list of the top 100 movies would change with the criteria I used. In the future will Back to the Future, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Batman, Spiderman, Indiana Jones, and Dirty Harry be considered Classics? Or will they fade? How about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings? Who knows?

Harvest Loon

I just submitted my October DVD order. Its 81 items, which isn't quite as nuts as my September order but it's pretty big. I had originally intended to be working on my Classic Television and Non-fiction collection by now but I just cannot seem to build an adequate motion picture collection. This order primarily the work of recent movie stars, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan and so forth. I also picked up most of the major films of the 'Brat Pack'. There were some modern 'classics' that I'd either missed before or just recently showed up after being out of print. The Back to the Future has been out of print until just now. I got Die Hard and Die Hard 2 but Die Hard 3 suddenly went AWOL last month, strange.


Any way here's the list.

GENERAL RELEASE

Brian's Song: A superior Made-for-TV starring James Caan and Billy D Williams. Based on the Lives of Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers.
Conspiracy Theory: A light comedy/suspense with Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts.
Ransom: Ron Howard directed Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise in this remake.
Maverick: Critics didn't like it but it's hard not to like Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and James Garner alone with a huge cast of cameo stars.
Man Without a Face: Mel Gibson starred and directed in this solid drama.
Catch Me If You Can: Steven Speilberg directing Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicaprio.
You've Got Mail: Are Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan the Tracy-Hepburn of our time?
Whole Nine Yards: Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Rosanna Arquette, and Natasha Henstridge in a black Comedy.
Tears of the Sun: Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci. Bruce Willis as a Special Forces Op in Africa and don't you wish every doctor looked like Monica Bellucci?
Sixth Sense:Bruce Willis & Joel Osment in an exceptional ghostly thriller.
Armageddon: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler and just about everybody else. A shallow maximum thriller, put on your seat belt before watching.
Look who's talking: John Travolta & Kirsitie Alley in a light romantic comedy.
Die Hard: Bruce Willis & Alan Rickman in a dynamic action movie where Rickman's villain doesn't steal the show.
Die Harder (Die Hard 2) Bruce Willis Bonnie Bedelia stupendously unbelievable action movie.
Regarding Henry: Harrison Ford Annette Bening in an underrated Drama of a second chance in life.
Fugitive: Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in a solid update of the popular TV show.
Devils' Own: Harrison Ford & Brad Pitt. An Irish Terrorist in America boards with an unsuspecting Irish cop in New York.
Six Days and Seven Nights: Harrison Ford gets marooned on a pacific Island with Anne Heche as his girl friday.
Air Force One: Supercharged Thriller with Harrison Ford as a kidnapped American President on board Air Force One.
Sleeping with the enemy: Thrilling early star vehicle for Julia Roberts.
America's Sweethearts: Julia Roberts, John Cuzack, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Crystal in a light romantic comedy.
Grand Canyon: Danny Glover, Steve Martin, and Kevin Kline in a critical look at life in LA.
Speed: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Daniels, and Dennis in a non-stop action thriller.
Demolition Man: Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock, and Wesley Snipes in a surprisingly funny sci-fi action-thriller.
Net: Sandra Bullock and Dennis Miller in a predictible thriller about a shy computer programmer and bad guys chasing a disc.
28 Days: Sandra Bullock learns to cope in a drug re-hab.
Time to Kill: Matthew McConaughey and Samuel Jackson from the Grisham novel.
Legally Blonde: Reese Whitherspoon in an engagingly silly Comedy.
Legally Blonde2 : Reese Whitherspoon, only for those who couldn't get enough of Legally Blonde. Freeway: Reese Whitherspoon, Keifer Sutherlan, and Brooke Sheilds. Natural Born Killers meets Little red riding hood.
School Ties: Brendan Frazier, Matt Damon, Chris Odonnel in a prep school sports story.
Airheads: Brendan Frazier, Steve Buscimi, and Adam Sandler are headbangers that take over a radio station.
Let it ride: Richard Dryfuss, Teri Garr, Jennifer Tilly. If you've ever been to the track you'll laugh your head off.
Zodiac: Riviting drama based on the Zodiac Murders. Riviting on every level.
Urban Cowboy: John Travolta, Debra Winger, Scott Glenn in the movie that made Urban Cowboy chic.
Perfect: John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtiss are shallow but beautiful, which sort of describes the movie.
Phenomenon: John Travolta Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Duval, and Forest Whitaker in a "what if?" I liked this movie better than Maltin.
Michael: John Travolta, Andie MacDowell, and William Hurt, but Michael's not your average Angel.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in an airy Romantic Comedy.
Truman Show: Jim Carrey Ed Harris in a critique of our media driven voyeur society.
Bruce Almighty: Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Aniston in a fantasy comedy just made for Jim Carrey.
Pink Cadillac: Clint Eastwood and Bernadette Peters take on survivalists to recover a kidnapped baby.
Newton Boys. Mathew McConaughey and friends as 1920's bank robbers.
EdTV: Matthew McConaughey and Jenna Elfman on a funny look at reality TV.
Reign of Fire: Matthew McConaughey & Christian Bale in a Tanks versus Dragons future.
Fandango: Judd Nelson & Kevin Costner in a last fling before college movie with a great elopement and the funniest jump school ever.
Dragonslayer: Ralph Richardson, Peter MacNicol in a superior fantasy adventure.
Bad Influence: Rob Lowe and James Spader in a modern twist of Strangers on a train.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape: James Spader, Andie MacDowell. Title says it all except it won at Cannes.
Wargames: Matthew Broderick Ally Sheedy: FailSafe for kids.
Short Circuit: Ally Sheedy & Steve Guttenberg. Never do movies with kids, dogs, or cute robots.
St. Elmo's Fire: The break out movie for the Brat Pack.
No Small Affair: Demi Moore & John Cryer a geeky teen photographer falls for an older woman.
About last night: Rob Lowe and Demi Moore loosely based on the David Mamet play.
One Crazy Summer: John Cuzack Demi More in a mindless teen comedy from the 80's.
Butchers Wife: Demi Moore Jeff Daniels in a modern fable-fairytale-comedy-love story-or whatever.
Pacific Heights: Matthew Modine, Melanie Griffith, Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton is the tenant from Hell.
Some Kind of Wonderful: Mary Stuart Masterson, Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson, best of the John Hughs written and produced Teen movies.
Breakfast Club: Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, and Emelio Estevez in the most famous of John Hughs Teen movies.
Birdy: Matthew Modine & Nicolas Cage both give terrific performances. Maltin gives it three and a half stars.
Vision Quest: Matthew Modine & Linda Fiorentino in a coming of age sports movie from the 80's not made by John Hughs.
Back to the Future - Complete Trilogy. Michael J. Fox Christopher LLoyd wonderful wacked out time travel comedy.
Innerspace: Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan in a comedy version of Fantastic Voyage.
Presidio: Sean Connery, Meg Ryan, Mark Harmon a formula suspense that slickly done.
Joe Versus the Volcano: Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan, in a very surrreal and very funny human sacrifice movie, Tom goes up against a volcano and wins...
Proof of Life: Meg Ryan and Russel Crowe Action adventure that could have used a little more action.
Flesh and Bone: Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, James Caan, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Slow paced Texas Mystery with Gwyneth and Meg as you've never seen them.
American Flyers: Kevin Costner as a bicycle racer.
Untouchables: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, and Robert Di Niro in a modern update of the TV show.

Television

Saturday Night Live - The complete First Season
Sopranos: The Complete First Season
Monk: The Premiere Episode
24 - Season 1
Beauty and the Beast - The Complete first Season
Night Court - The Complete First Season
South Park the Complete Second Season
Simpsons: the Complete Third Season
Friends: the Complete Ninth Season
Frazier: the Complete Fourth Season
Gilmore Girls: the Complete Fourth Season
WKRP in Cincinati - Season 1