Top 100, K-O

Kelly’s Heroes - The father of Three Kings but takes itself less seriously... which makes it better.  Even though its satire or spoof, its still one of my favorite war movies. Kelly’s Heroes packages heroism with crime (sort of) as Private Kelly (Eastwood), and an odd array of helpers, race toward a stockpile of German gold bars held in an occupied French town.  A great deal of fun is had along the way by the superb cast of a who’s who of war movie stars.  To describe Heroes as simply as off-beat does not do it justice. Director: Brain Hutton, Cast: Clint Eastwood, Tellly Savalas. 1970

The Killing fields - Powerful, unsettling, factual - pretty good combination.  Fields is an epic portrayal of a war-torn country and mass genocide. The film is excellent throughout but is at its best in the portrayal of human moments of trust, desperation, loss, and fear.  Director: Roland Joffe, Cast: Sam Waterston, Haing Ngor, 1984

Life of Pi - Life of Pi is, throughout, a visually impressive and, in the end, a mentally challenging trip. Ang Lee's adaptation of the best-selling 2001 novel by Yann Martel places a young Indian boy named Pi in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with a hungry Bengal Tiger. The story is a combination of thrilling adventure tale and mystic allegory, and is excels in both modes. You'll have to choose which story you like best... "and so it goes with God". Director: Ang Lee, Cast: Suray Sharma, Irrfan Khan (2012)

Little Man Tate - Story of a child genius and his working-class mom as she struggles to protect him and nurture his gift.  The boy is ostracized by his classmates in public schools and is taken in and mentored by a child psychologist.  Jodie Foster’s directorial debut shows a nice touch in dramatizing this story of the balance of love and intellect. The academic can challenge his mind but cannot replace the loving, emotionally supportive environment he found at home. Captivatingly cute with depth.  Cast: Jodie Foster, Dianne Wiest, Adam Hann-Byrd. Director: Jodie Foster. 1991

M.A.S.H - True, I said that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was my favorite buddy movie, but the Donald Sutherland - Elliot Gould pairing as Hawkeye and Trapper in MASH is right there if not tied for the lead.  Same premise as the ultra popular TV series but soooo much edgier.  Its straight up satirization of the glorification, bureaucracy, and hypocrisy of war.  Sutherland and Gould are the perfect team for this Altman classic. They are genuinely funny with a cool, underplayed style.  The Football game is even better than Longest Yard’s.  Director: Robert Altman, Cast: Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould. 1970

Matilda - I have a couple of Roald Dahl adaptions in this list and this is one I can watch over and over.  Danny DeVito directs this gem and preserves Dahl’s odd comic tone which works for both kids and adults. Mara Wilson is the perfect Matilda, the super-bright, telekinetic youngster cursed with parents (played by Devito and wife Rhea Perlman) who are the bizarro opposite of her.  Even worse is the harassment she and her fellow students take from the evil school principal “The Trunchbull”.  I’m smiling just writing about it. Director: Danny DeVito,  Cast: Mara Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman 1996

Midnight Express - Saw this in younger days and the film burned into my brain.  Express is based on the true story of Billy Hayes, a young American tourist arrested and sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of the country. Brutal and unrelentingly intense.  Probably a film you will only watch once but that you will never forget. Director: Alan Parker Cast:  Brad Davis, Randy Quaid, 1978

Million Dollar Baby - Million Dollar Baby is an Eastwood masterpiece and possibly his best effort from both behind and in front of the camera. A story of an aging boxing trainer who reluctantly takes on a backwoods girl who sees boxing as a way out of a nowhere life.  The boxing is superbly staged, but it’s not really a boxing movie. It is emotionally powerful and painfully tragic.  It delves deeply and through love and loss, life and death - with clarity sans sentimentality.  Magnificent! Director: Clint Eastwood: Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman. 2004

Miracle on 34th Street - A sentimental favorite. One of the Christmas classics that brings the spirit of the season. Charming and lovable. I like the cast, which includes a very young Natalie Wood. I must say here that the 1994 John Hughes produced remake with Richard Attenborough and Mara Wilson is also good (although panned to some degree by traditionalist critics) and is also well worth viewing.  Director: George Seaton. Cast: Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn. 1947

Mississippi Burning - Ok, maybe when most think of Gene Hackman’s best they think of the French Connection.  But Hackman and Dafoe take the good-cop/bad-cop bit to a whole new level in Burning.  Some have problems with film because of the poetic license taken with the topic and converting from civil rights movie to cop movie thriller – Hogwash, see the movie.  Director: Alan Parker  Cast: Gene Hackman, William Dafoe. 1988

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Come on! No way that this can be left of this list. Landmark ridiculous comedy in the unique Python style.  This movie’s language and lunatic vignettes permeated my teen years.  Midnight showings at the old Utah Theater on Main Street were the thing and we could all recite each skit from the Black Night to “She’s a Witch” word for word.  It really doesn’t get much funnier.  I’ll be watching this one till I die - and “I’m not dead yet.”  Director: Terry Gilliam, Cast: Monty Python cast. 1975

Mud - Mud is an odd love story -  or a story about loves - wrapped in a Huck and Tom type adventure. To boys discover a man hold up on a small island on the Mississippi. He's killed a person in defense (he says) of the love of his life and is now hold up and attempting to rendezvous with her and make an escape. But, as one of the tale's characters warns, "you can't trust love."  Multiple strains of emotion are skillfully mixed for us in Mud and the the result is a sort of fable. Buts Mud is more familiar than dark fairy tale. It feels authentic and honest… earthy real and is simultaneously sobering and gratifying. Director: Jeff Nichols, Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon. 2013

My Cousin Vinny - “Did you say “Utes”?”  This is right up there with Ground-Hog Day on my favorite comedy list. Joe Pesci is perfect as a barely lawyer from New York City who finds himself in over his head (or maybe not) in a deep-south courtroom trying to free his cousin (the Karate Kid) and friend who have been mistakenly accused of murder.  Unfortunately, Vinny passed the bar (after 6 failed attempts!) only a few weeks before. A true classic, and who can forget Marisa Tomei’s demonstration of how her biological clock was ticking... stomp, stomp, stomp! Director: Jonathan Lynn, Cast: Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio. 1992

My Left Foot -Story of paraplegic writer-artist Christy Brown frankly told with realism, and humor. Watching this movie was an uplifting experience.  Oscar winning performance by Danial Day-Lewis. A wonderful story of hope.   Director: Jim Sheridan, Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Ray McAnally. 1989

Nacho Libre - Ok, I have a soft spot in the laugh part of my brain for Jack Black and I understand that my taste is not shared by all.  When I saw the movie in the theater, half of the crowd was laughing hysterically and the other half was not laughing at all.  Nacho is that type of film - you are either going to love it or you are going to hate it.  Black plays a lowly friar in a Mexican monastery who dreams of being a professional wrestler. The use of real local wrestlers and other nativos, the quirky script and dialog, an appropriately odd sound track, and of course Jack Black, all make Nacho something more than just funny. Director: Jared Hess, Cast: Jack Black, Ana DeLa Reguera. 2006

Never Cry Wolf - Tale of one man’s amazing, mystical journey into the wolves’ world of the frozen Yukon. Awesome scenery shots and a great performance from Charles Martin Smith (Toad from American Graffiti).  Unforgettable film. Director:  Carroll Ballard. Cast: Charles Martin Smith. 1983

One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest  - I could only watch this movie once. I can’t watch it again... nurse Rached is too evil.  Cookoo’s Nest is an amazing mix of the comic and the tragic, providing a satirical portrait of mental institutions, the human spirit, and the crushing of the latter by the former.  Jack Nicholson, in his best performance I think, is an authority-adverse con who winds up in an asylum after faking insanity to get out of a work detail.  Bad move - as it becomes his will against Nurse Rached’s. Director: Milos Forman, Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher. 1975

The Outlaw Josse Wales  - It doesn’t get much better than a good western revenge movie.  Another great Eastwood directed and acted piece. Clint plays Josse Wales, a Missouri farmer during the Civil War who loses his family and farm to a marauding gang of Union “Red Legs”.  The rest is a grand journey from anger to redemption. Chief Dan George chips in as an unforgettable member of the rag-tag crew Wales accumulates along the way.  Director: Clint Eastwood, Cast: Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sandra Locke. 1976