My Top 100 Movies -- 95-91

Continuing through my top 100 movies...

95. GoldenEye. This is the best of the James Bond movies. Remington Steele deprived us of getting Pierce Brosnan as Bond years earlier (and also inflicted Timothy Dalton on us), but this was worth the wait. Sean Bean is a wonderful foil. Famke Janssen devours the scenery as a killer henchman in the model of classic thugs like Oddjob and Jaws. Even Alan Cumming and Joe Don Baker are fun (and watch for a before-she-was-famous Minnie Driver). The action moments are among the best of the series, the plot is just sensible enough to work, but just non-sensical enough to be fun. It's a tragedy that Brosnan's subsequent three Bond films were all among the most terrible in the series, because his tenure in the role started out so great. And Tina Turner's performance of the fantastic title song, over one of the better Bond credit sequences, is icing on the cake.

94. The History of the World, Part 1. Many of you will disagree with me... but many of you won't: this is Mel Brooks' best movie. Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs are good too, but I think Mel Brooks has the sensibilities of a sketch comedy writer, and this movie showcases that. Set up a funny premise, let it play as long as it's funny, then move on. So it is we get a hilarious opening parody of 2001, one of the funniest musical numbers ever put on film ("The Inquisition"), yet another "laugh-til-you-can't-breathe" performance from Madeline Kahn (in the Roman segment), and more. And it's all capped with even more sketch-style jokes in the form of what a mythical sequel movie would look like. Many great comedians (and too many no longer with us) show up to put in a few minutes in this fantastic treat.

93. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Michael Caine can perform both comedy and drama with what seems like no effort at all. And here, he almost gets to do both, playing an oh-so-serious character in an oh-so-ridiculous competition against the always funny Steve Martin. This con man comedy is made more than it could have ever been on the page by the wonderful interplay between these two actors. Countless quotable lines, wonderful twists in the plot, and the perfect balance between lightheartedness and mean spirits. And Ruprecht the Monkey Boy.

92. Clerks II. I never thought this movie would end up rated as high on my list as it is. But this is the one Kevin Smith film that I think has actual meat on the bone. Sure, the patter of his dialogue is usually fun, and I laugh as hard as anyone at geek humor like the "Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings" debate, or the crassness of the donkey show. But what sets this film above Smith's others -- and gets it into my top 100 -- is that it has an actual message about doing what you love in life, that what others might see as "settling" or even "failure" might be the very thing that makes you truly happy. And the big scene in which this message is driven home is surprisingly heartfelt, given the rest of the movie. Which, as a bonus, is hilarious.

91. U-571. I'll get grief for picking this movie above so many more well-known and/or well-respected naval films. Even I have to acknowledge, I simply should not like this more than, say, Das Boot or The Hunt for Red October. But there's a magic cocktail in the performances here. Bill Paxton is a truly talented actor, and Harvey Keitel can build a memorable secondary character like few others. And while it feels ridiculous to praise Matthew McConaughey too highly, throwing him into this sort of heroic role is making perfect use of him. The story is more tense than Red October, more fast paced than Das Boot. It would probably be ranked even higher if it weren't for the blatant Americanization of a real-life story (as I noted in an earlier review of the film.