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| SHAMPOO IS BETTER BECAUSE IT CLEANS THE HAIR |
25. Billy Madison - Adam Sandler kicks the list off in the stupidest dumbshit comedy of all-time. As you'll see later on in the list, I really give zero fucks about my admission for stupid comedies, because they're funny. Does that say a lot about me? Maybe, but again, I don't care. This one has so many outrageous moments and quotable lines, which are always best said out of context.
24. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - I love the Lord of the Rings series, and I'm pretty stoked for The Hobbit trilogy. That being said, they all could have stood to have a little more editing, which is why my favorite among the three is only at 24. That being said, 24 out of a whole bunch of movies isn't too shabby, and like I said, I love the hell out of this movie. I think the heavy dose of Gollum and the epic battle at Helms' Deep to end the film put this over the top for me.
23. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - This is not Kevin Smith's most acclaimed movie, but it's my favorite because it almost killed me with how much it made me laugh. Maybe I am a moron who loves lowest common denominator comedy. So what? I think what puts it over for me is how over the top Jay Mewes is as Jay. He owns that role, probably because he IS Jay, but that never stopped anyone from loving, say, Jack Nicholson in any role he played. Seriously, his Joker was just Jack in makeup. That's not a bad thing at all, but sometimes, acting doesn't really mean anything more than being yourself amped up to 11.
22. 300 - Blood, gore, tits and muscles. This movie has a story, but the real reason why I enjoyed it was the visual buffet placed before me. Everything was so bright and exaggerated, to look away would be to do the film a disservice. It's also worth noting that outside of maybe Law Abiding Citizen, Gerard Butler was never as big a badass as he was here again. That wouldn't be too big a deal if he wasn't so mind-numbingly amazing as King Leonidas. It would be like watching Jeff Hardy in the TLC matches and wanting him to do nothing but "I quit" submission classics in the follow-up.
21. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - I've never liked Michael Cera as much before or after this role. This movie won with a great ensemble cast (including Brandon Routh and Chris Evans in cameo roles as Ramona's evil exes that stole the show), quirky humor, gratuitous video game references and bright colors. I liked this movie when it came out, but it's been slowly growing on me to the point where it's one of my favorites.
20. Watchmen - I totally loved the graphic novel, so I had high expectations for the movie. That being said, it fell slightly short of the book, but the book was so lofty. I thought it was a great, faithful representation of the source material with appropriate changes so that it didn't need to be dragged out over 8 hours. Jackie Earl Haley was awesome as Rorschach, which was the most important part of the movie since Rorschach was the most important character to me. It also gets points for the AMAZING opening credit sequence, which set the bar high for everything that followed.
19. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb - I never would've sought this movie out if I didn't see it in school, but I'm glad that it was shown in class. It's such a great satire of the Cold War and all the absurdity of geopolitics and all the nuclear posturing. Even though I saw it far after the threat of state-sponsored nuclear annihilation had passed, I got the feeling that if I had seen it in the '60s, I might have felt a lot better about the arms race and worried less about being blown to bits. Humor does that.
18. District 9 - I got swept up in the hype of this movie when it came out and went to see it. That being said, I didn't have high expectations for it, but it blew me away. It was a trenchant commentary on race relations filled with a lot of thrilling action, suspense and even a few gross-out moments. Seriously, I had to turn away when Wikus' fingernails popped out, but that was the only thing that would have made me divert my attention.
17. RoboCop - It's ridiculously violent (especially the scene where Officer Murphy gets blown to bits by Clarence Boddicker and his gang) and full of '80s excess, and the "futuristic" technology looks extremely dated, but this movie is still watchable to this day. All the excess says something about how we treat crime, criminals, the police and our every day lives. Paul Verhoeven loves to play his satires close to the line to the point where you're not sure if he really believes the things he's putting on celluloid or if he's making fun of it. He tread that line in Starship Troopers, and it came off as an endorsement of fascism (even though he totally didn't mean it to). Here, he played his cards right and was able to lampoon rampant commercialism and corporate greed. I'd buy that for a dollar.
16. Blazing Saddles - A lot of people say this is Mel Brooks' best movie. I disagree, but I still love it. Then again, I love Mel Brooks. He's the best comedic filmmaker ever, period. It's liberal use of offensive language may make it seem tasteless, but Brooks' style is never to handle things subtly. This is a film that attacks the idea of racism full on in a balls-out fashion with a healthy amount of fart and dick jokes that won't make you forget the spirit of Brooks' filmmaking.
15. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy - When I saw this movie for the first time, I HATED it. With each viewing though, I liked it and liked it some more until I started quoting it non-stop. It's the height of the mid-Aughts style of comedy with bold characters, in-your-face jokes and heavy doses of seeming non-sequiturs. It's also the funniest Steve Carrell has ever been and my guess is will ever be.
14. The Avengers (2012) - It can be hard to get a cast full of giant stars who anchored their own movies to meld together into one cohesive crossover. Then again, who were Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans before their turns in their own vehicles? Mark Ruffalo wasn't the original Hulk, either. Still, the potential for egos to rend this movie asunder was a greater danger to the fabric of the actual movie than the Chitari were to New York in the movie. The interplay between all the heroes telling the story of heroes with egos getting together to fight a supernatural danger was the perfect mix of quipping and tension. Oh, and it didn't hurt that Tom Hiddleston's Loki was the perfect villain for the proceedings.
13. The Dark Knight - It was Heath Ledger's world, and we were all just living in it. While I didn't think it reached the levels that the preceding movie in the series did (spoiler alert), it was still an epic movie, a superhero tome that didn't feel like it was one. This was the least "comic book" of the three movies, and the Joker had a lot to do with it. It's a shame he had to go and die after filming, but at least we got this.
12. The Empire Strikes Back - The Star Wars franchise is like that security blanked of pop culture for me. Even if it's ragged and frayed (read, Attack of the Clones), it still provides familiarity and warmth. How strange is it that the best one of the bunch to me is the one with the bleakest outlook? Luke Skywalker struggles to learn how to be a Jedi. His friends get broken or frozen in carbonite. His father is the right hand man of the despotic Emperor who has no qualms about cutting off his hand. Still, it's the movie where we learn the most about the characters, where we get the best feeling for all of them, from Skywalker to Leia to Han Solo to Darth Vader to even Yoda.
11. Forrest Gump - As a wrestling fan, I'm used to revisionist history. WWE has never done it as well or as humorously or warmly as this movie did. It's a great character study of a simpleton through the lens of what happened in the United States, with credit going to the amazing performances of the cast. Tom Hanks won an Oscar for it, but the show-stealer was definitely Gary Sinise's Lieutenant Dan, whose own redemption story may have stolen the show from the life and times of Ms. Gump's baby boy.
10. Robin Hood: Men in Tights - This was the last really great film Brooks made, and it probably resonated with me because of all the hanging punchlines with the comedic pauses after them. They were used really well here. Of course, that's not the only reason. It was a great spoof on the Robin Hood legend with a lot of really sly plays on the movie it was most closely parodying, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
9. The Wrestler - Of course I was going to have this film on the list. Everyone was shocked at the performance Mickey Rourke put out, but he was the perfect guy to play a decrepit former wrestler hanging on to the only thing he was ever good at. This hit so close to home as a wrestling fan that it was uncomfortable at points, but maybe that was the point, to drive home not only how wrestlers can throw it all away, but how anyone so steeped in one thing they're good at while being fuck-ups everywhere else can turn out to be a tragedy. That's what this is, a tragedy, a guy who had finally touched a life enough to get out of the destructive business he was in, and he threw it away for one last hit. Wrestling is almost analogous to a drug here, but it's a pretty safe bet that those truly in love with it can vouch for the authenticity of that comparison.
8. Iron Man - For my money, this was the best "comic book"-style superhero movie. The script followed the same formula, but where it excelled were in the two main characters, Tony Stark, played almost too excellently by Robert Downey, Jr., and Obadiah Stane, played by the always-awesome Jeff Bridges. This was the role RDJ was born to play, and he doesn't disappoint at all.
7. Sin City - Honestly, I don't know if I really understood everything that went on in this movie, but this is the ultimate movie that I enjoyed for things other than story. There was a story here, well several stories that were intertwined with each other. The main one revolved around an old man dying so a young girl might live, and that may have had the weakest performances of the entire movie. The real scene stealers here are Rourke, Elijah Wood and Carla Gugino's boobs. That being said, the performances weren't even the stars here. The scenes, backdrops and sets were so beautifully depressing and grimy, almost the opposite of how bright and ostentatious that 300 was. Sin City was the star of the titular movie here.
6. Major League - Hey, remember when Charlie Sheen was an actor and not a walking sideshow? I do, and he was an integral part of my favorite sports movie ever, a perfectly cast movie full of misfits and has-beens fighting evil ownership and their own comedic and exaggerated foibles to win the division. Sheen's sociopathic Ricky Vaughn was only one piece of the puzzle. You had the slick incompetence of Willie Mays Hays, the pathos of Jake Taylor, the narcissism of Roger Dorn, the borderline offensive savagery of Pedro Cerrano and the gruff Lou Brown to pull them all together. I would root for that team, even if I was laughing at them the whole time.
5. A Few Good Men - I remember watching this a million times when I was a kid, mainly because it was summer vacation, I couldn't get out of the house until around lunch time and we had illegal cable. The courtroom scene with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson taking turns overacting was super compelling, even as a kid. As I've grown up, I appreciate it more for the moral implications and the dilemmas it raises. Yes, good nominally won, but at the same time, would you rather have people "on that wall" like Pvt. Santiago or like Col. Jessup? The answer isn't as easy as you might think it is, even if the moral answer is open and shut like the resolution of the movie.
4. Tommy Boy - Fuck you, it's my list. It's not Oscar bait, but I'll tell you this; I'd rather watch this one a million times than something like The King's Speech for a second time. It's the pinnacle of dumb comedy. It has no pretense about what it is. It's fart jokes, physical comedy (done by one of the best ever in that milieu... God, I just used the word "milieu" in reference to Chris Farley, someone kill me) and people getting hit in the groin. Again, it's also terribly quotable, which I think is a huge key for any enjoyable movie.
3. Batman Begins - You can call this the best comic book movie ever, but it's a testament to the vision Christopher Nolan had that it doesn't feel like a comic book movie. It might have had more of the comic book trappings than The Dark Knight, but truth be told, what did TDK have over this movie other than Heath Ledger's virtuoso performance as Joker? Bale's Batman was the star here, and Liam Neeson as R'as al-Ghul was criminally underrated.
2. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America Make Benefit for Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan - For being a harassing, one-note stereotypical portrayal of what a Jewish guy from England thinks someone from Central Asia would be, this is a surprisingly layered movie with depth of story. Seriously, there's a story in there, and it's not just "making fun of bigots and high society." Of course, part of the reason why I love this movie is the shock humor; the naked fight through the hotel was probably the hardest I ever laughed at a movie. Whatever legal troubles Sacha Baron Cohen went through to make this movie were worth it. This is one of the greatest pieces of cinematic comedic art ever produced.
1. Spaceballs: The Movie - What can I say? I'm a Mel Brooks guy. This has been my favorite movie since I was a child, and it's only grown in stature to me, mainly because over the years I started to get more of the subtle/adult humor in it. It's very quotable, very silly and Rick Moranis' Dark Helmet is probably the best comedic villain ever.
Honorable Mentions: - Shaun of the Dead, This Is Spinal Tap, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Inception, Coneheads, I Love You, Man, Patton, Spider-man 2 and Ghostbusters
