Films 20-11

Oh man is this list getting so good.....Also a lot of dramas on this list for some reason.

20. Se7en- Brad Pitt Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman together most likely means a top 50 movie. Also because of this movie whenever someone is opening a package I have to yell, "What's in the box!"

19. Memento- Christopher Nolan's first feature length film and it was a great start to his writing/director talents.  A movie so good you can watch it ten times and still not be sure what happened, in a good way that is.

18. The Sixth Sense- Spoiler alert, he's a ghost. I will always remember watching this movie and loving it so much to have my father watch it.  After the first scene he leans over to me and goes, so Bruce Willis is dead now and the kid can see him?  Talk about figuring the twist out before anyone.

17. The Princess Bride- We all had to figure Andre the Giant would show up somewhere on the list.  This is all around a great movie that stands the test of time.  A true romantic tale for everyone and the touch of Peter Falk reading it to his grandson Fred Savage was a nice twist.

16. The Usual Suspects- Another great cast, and another suspense thriller that has you guessing the whole movie.  Who is Keyser Soze?

15. Beauty and The Beast- Disney classic.  I can't tell you why this is the Disney film I like the best but it just is.  I like the music and the overall story it tells.  Sounds cheesy but love people on the inside and not so much what is on the outside.

14.  Titanic- We have all seen it. We all love it.  It is a little long at times.

13. Forrest Gump-  See review for the movie about it Titanic.

12. Dumb and Dumber- Comedy at it's finest.  I do believe this movie may have the most one liners that I repeat out of any film.  I am super excited for the sequel even though I assume it won't hold up.  The end scene is one of my favorite moments in movie history.  The town is that way.

11. The Simpsons Movie- A lot of you know my love for The Simpsons and how for the first 15 seasons have probably seen every episode 100 times over.  Sure now it's not the show it once was and should have stopped once they made the movie.  The movie is very solid though and does a great job telling a Simpsons story over a 90 minute span instead of the usual 22 minutes.

So just the top ten left and for suspense reasons I'm holding off until Monday to release that list. Give you a preview though: in no particular order the top ten has 3 Christopher Nolan films, a drama, a comedy, an animated film, a musical, a Christmas movie, a love story, and a teen comedy.  So how many can you guess?

Films 30-21

Let's continue with countdown....

30. Toy Story- This high on the list due a lot to how revolutionary it was for the time.  A full length computer animated movie that has become the norm twenty years later.  We all love Buzz and Woody and we have all seen Toy Story.

29. Goonies-  After this movie came out every child wanted to go on a treasure hunt and find the pirates gold.  This movie introduced us to the Truffle Shuffle and it was the first ever movie for Josh Brolin and Sean Astin.  And they both ended up doing pretty well for themselves.

28. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation- Our first holiday themed movie on the list and second Lampoons film.  Chevy Chase plays once again the great Clark Griswold and makes us all realize our family may not be as bad as we think. 

27. Weekend at Bernies- An interesting concept, get invited to spend a weekend at your boss's beach house only to have him die.  Then if that wasn't weird enough how about spending the weekend pretending he is still alive.  I mean hilarity is bond to happen. 

26. Major League- Another sports movie on the list.  Who doesn't love the Wild Thing, he made us all Indian fans.  Jusssst a bit outside

25. Saw- A creative movie for the time and became a huge cult classic.  Was so successful it spun off six sequels. 

24. Big- Tom Hanks early in his career but just as good as he is now.  This movie made us realize that as bad as we wanted to grow up a child we all needed to stop and enjoy life as a child.  Don't rush life, you only get one shot.

23. Coyote Ugly-  Hot chicks who loved to get on the bar and dance while serving drinks.  Yeah, like this wasn't going to make my top 50.

22. Ferris Bueller's Day Off*- What would you do if you had a day off from school?  Ferris lives that dream for all of us.

21. Leap of Faith*-  The most underrated film on this list.  Steve Martin in one of his best performances and a young Liam Neeson plays the sheriff we all love to hate because he doesn't believe.  I also believe this movie is home to one of the best songs in a movie, it's even used in the trailer.  Seriously though this movie is on Netflix so watch it today!

 

Films 40-31

Part two of the five part series, no need to make you wait any longer. Sadly none of these movies are currently available on Netflix.

40. Amadeus- Academy winner for best film in 1984 as well as F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce winning Oscars for their performances. I've always been fascinated with Mozart and the life he lived.

39. Little Mermaid- I love this Disney film although many people tend to have the Lion King over it.  Why I like the Little Mermaid more is the music.  I'm not saying Lion King doesn't have good music but it's hard to beat Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl.  Also let's not lie, all guys had a crush on Ariel.

38. Pitch Perfect- Anna Kendrick is awesome as always and this movie also probably has my favorite scene ever when Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow.

37. The Hangover- Gotta love movies that are based in Vegas.  This movie introduced most of use to Zach G.  I didn't want to look up how to spell his last name.

36. American Pie- A teen comedy that came out when I was teen. It ended up standing the test of time as the term MILF is still used today and who hasn't tried to make love with an apple pie?

35. Little Big League- A sports movie based on the Minnesota Twins so of course it made the list.  Would have been higher if it wasn't for that stupid Ken Griffey Jr.

34. Follow that Bird- A movie I grew up with from when I was a child that I would probably watch every day if my mom would let me.  I will always remember how sad I was when when Big Bird was trying to get back to Sesame Street and was bird-napped and turned from yellow to blue.

33. Waiting- This movie has a special place in my heart as it hits so close to home. Whenever I watch this movie I notice another thing that I had missed before about something I can relate to. Even though I have watched this movies many times over I still don't know which character is closest to me.

32. National Lampoons Vacation- The first of two National Lampoons movie to make the list.  Bet you can probably guess the second one.  And who hasn't wanted to go to Wally World after watching this film.

31. Almost Heroes- An underrated movie most of you probably never even heard of it.  It was made at the beginning of Matthew Perry's Friends career and towards the end of Chris Farley's life.  It's a cheesy movie about a group of trailblazers that tried to get to the Pacific Ocean before the famous Lewis and Clark expedition.

FIlms 50-41

So if you missed yesterday's post I talked about how I decided to make a list of the 50 greatest films of my lifetime (30 Years).  This was a huge task as I literally went through thousands of films that I have watched, and after that narrowed it down to 100s I really enjoyed.  Many of you will read this list and will say oh he must have missed this film or that film but trust me I didn't, I went through them all. I also feel that I have seen most of the prestige films over this time.  I have a wide range of movie taste so there is a huge variety of movies on my list.  Before we start I wanted to give the honorable mention, these are all films that at one point seemed to be a lock on my top 50 but would later get bumped off because of the high volume of great films.

Honorable Mentions in alphabetical order:  Air Force One, Aladdin, American Beauty, Apollo 13, Big Fish, Batman Returns, Con Air, Fargo, Field of Dreams, Fight Club, Ghost, Green Mile, Groundhog's Day, Home Alone, JFK, Juno, Jurassic Park, Lion King, Milk, Monster, Office Space, Rudy, Scream, Shutter Island, Space Cowboys, Social Network, The Town, Truman Show,  Uncle Buck, The Untouchables.

I mean seriously look at how solid that list is, and those are the movies that didn't even make the top 50!  Below I have listed 50-41 along with a little summary of why it made the list.  I also have marked movies that are currently available on Netflix with an asterisk (*). I have also embedded all the movie previews for you to watch in case you haven't seen the movie before.  Hope you enjoy my list and let the debates begin.

50. Oceans 11- This all star cast plays off each other perfect and this movie is a little special for me as it is set in my second home Las Vegas.  I also love the creativeness it has of how they come up with the actual plan to rob the casinos.

49. Saving Mr. Banks- Of all the movies that make the list this is the most current by far.  At first I wanted films to be able to stand the test of time but the more I looked at this film the more I loved it.  I think Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson are amazing as always, and Paul Giamatti is great as the lovable driver.

48. The Great Outdoors*- John Candy and Dan Aykroyd are an amazing duo in this family film that reminds us of all how great summer is for everyone.

47. 61*- This movie isn't available on Netflix just so happens to have an asterisk in it's title. A rare sports movie on this list but a truly great one.  One of my favorite sports stories is the chase at 61 and I think this movie does a great job telling that story.  Billy Crystal shows his passion for this story as the storyteller and Barry Pepper as Roger Maris is one of the most underrated actors.

46. Frequency- The concept of this story sounds like the dumbest thing ever.  I son who is able to talk to his dead father 30 years in the past through an old ham radio?  But it's the story that is told of the bond between a father and son that makes this movie so remarkable.

45. Grizzly Man- The only documentary on this list tells the story of bear expert Timothy Treadwell and the hundreds of hours of footage he took until he was killed by the thing he loved so much.

44. Sleepers- Another all star cast tells the story of teen boys abused and wanted to get revenge as adults.  This movie does a great job of telling two stories as one and overlapping the then and now.

43. Spaceballs*-  I love slapstick movies that are able to smartly make fun of movies around that time period. I was never a big Star Wars fan and even if I was the first three were made before 1983. I did however love the biggest movie to make fun of Star Wars and you can't go wrong with a movie that has John Candy and Bill Paxton, or is it Bill Pullman?

42. Team America- Another movie that makes fun of the movies around the same time but in a slightly unique way.  The creators of South Park came off as geniuses I feel in this tale of Americans in the fight for freedom.  This is also the only movie made only with puppets to make the list.

41. Schindler's List- Critically acclaimed film that is pretty depressing for most but tells a fascinating story none the less.  Usually I'm not a fan of black and white films but was a must for this picture.  I scene with the girl in the red jacket was an image we will all remember.

The 50 best films of the last 30 years

So about a week ago my friend Jared suggested since I'm such a movie rube that I rank my favorite movies of all time.  I thought well that could be a fun little task even if no one cares my personal preference.  Little did I know I would become so OCD over my list and it would take hours to fill it out just right.  What I did to get my list, was use lists from IMDB.com, Rottentomatoes.com, the AFI top 100, and my own DVD collection.  When I went through all the lists the first time around I wrote down movies that I thought would make my top 50 and ended up with 124 films.  So coming up with a top 50 was a huge task but I finally narrowed it down.  I wanted to break down each film so I decided to make this a daily list all this week and today before I reveal my list I wanted point out some fun facts that I noticed with the 50 greatest films of the last 30 years.

• No Harry Potter films made the list. I feel that as a series I liked these movies but none really stood out as their own great one.
• My favorite director of all time Christopher Nolan has three films on the list.
• Speaking of Nolan only one of his three Batman movies of the trilogy made the list.
• My favorite actor Leonardo Dicaprio is in two movies on the list.
• My favorite actress Anna Kendrick has been in one movie on the list.
• A total of five animated films made the list. However Aladdin and Lion King did not.
• One documentary made the top 50.
• Just three sports movies made the list even though I'm a huge sports rube.  Goes to show I don't really like sports movies based on true events.
• The late great John Candy even though he died in 1994 managed to be in 7 movies, easily my all time favorite actor.
• Five films that won an Oscar for best picture made the list.
• Not to give anything away but it is a wide range of films as my number one and number two films on the list were made 20 years apart.

So make sure to check back daily and tomorrow we reveal the start of the list 50-41.

Weight loss update

A good friend of mine named Jared Hines writes a blog that some of you might read as well, and his blog is pretty popular.  He started blogging after mine but his posts get three to four times more readers than my post do.  I'm not saying blogging is a competition but between me and Jared I feel it is.  So why does he get so many more readers than myself you may be asking yourself. I think that all the time and there are two main reasons I came up with.  One, he has more friends than I do, which makes sense because he is pretty popular.  This then leads to a wider audience of people to read his blog and therefore get more hits.  Or two, people really like his weight loss updates he gives in his blog because of how successful he has been. He has been losing a lot of weight over the last couple months and has been getting a lot of positive feedback.  Compared to my blogs which are mostly what kind of woman I want to sleep with.  Now I can't make more friends over night so I am going to say his blogs are more popular because of the weight loss updates.  One thing I have learned in life is imitation is the biggest form of flattery so I hope Jared doesn't mind me using his blog ideas to grow my readership.  Below I have listed five simple things I do in my every day life to help with my own weight loss, and in turn hope to maybe help with yours.

1. Eat the right foods- They say you shouldn't eat fast food and the more organic foods the better.  Fruits and vegetables are also good for you to eat as well as a good variety from all the food pyramids in general.  I don't really like the taste of foods that are good for you so for example if I eat vegetables I will dip them in ranch, sure the ranch isn't good for you but the vegetables off set that. When eating fruit you can pour sugar on your items to make them more sweet.  Again the sugar isn't very good for your body but it's offset by the healthiness of the fruit.  So I think when it comes to eating its not the bad foods you eat but how you can sneak healthy foods in your diet to even the field.

2. Have the right workout-  In the nice weather season months I enjoy to run around the lake by my place but that is a little harder to do in the winter.  The apartment complex I have does have a nice workout gym opened 24/7 but with that you need to worry about using all the equipment right.  For the best workout plan I like use is to watch sports.  Watching sports and being passionate about sports allows you to raise your heart rate and work up a sweat, all things you want to have occur while working out.  So even though it's not working out, I feel watching sports is almost as good.

3. Weigh in at the right time-  When you weigh yourself to see how much weight you have lost its key at when you do it.  In the morning you tend to weigh the least because you haven't had anything to eat for at least eight hours and no recent meals in your body.  I also like to weight myself after a nice poop in the morning to trim off a little more of your weight.

4. Take medication- There are a ton of diet supplements that claim they work and you will just shed the pounds but I don't believe in those.  Instead the medication I believe in his laughter.  You hear a lot of people always say laughter is the best medicine so when thinking about losing weight I always try to keep an open mind and make fun of myself. When I'm eating a big bowl of ice cream I will say, "Hey fatty do you really need to eat all that." This reminds myself I don't want to be over weight, however be careful if you are talking to yourself and calling yourself fatty if out in public.  One time I told myself this and lady next to me glared at me and got up, however in my defense she probably didn't need to finish the whole pizza even though I wasn't talking to her.

5.  Diet in groups- Studies show when companies have competitions with weight loss that a lot of people involved will lose a lot of weight.  This seems all fine and dandy but I think a better way is not to have a competition but just always bring in doughnuts and candy to share at your workplace for others to eat.  If you can be disciplined enough and not eat it yourself but your coworkers do start to eat it then you will begin to look skinny by comparison.

Running, just plain running.

Who runs? I mean there are actually people out there that just run for the heck of it. For the longest time I thought the only times people ran was away from people that were trying to attack them.  The more I looked into I found out running on a regular basis could actually be good for you.  A regular at Broadway the other day said she started using an app called couch to 5k. Its an app you use that each day that gets you to run more and more every day by increasing the intervals.

The biggest problem I have and I'm sure a lot of people do is staying committed to working out or having a diet.  It's easy to start working out but the hard part is keeping it up.  That's when I decided if I blogged about my status it would be a lot harder to quit.  This is why I waited a little bit before I first posted this blog just to make sure I liked the app and didn't quit after a day or two.  I have also noticed the times I do work out on a more consistent basis I tend to also start eating better. I don't think it's a coincidence that these two events go hand in hand.  So I figured if I could begin running on a more regular time frame I would begin to eat better.

So about the workout and the app that I think is one of the best free apps I have ever used. On day one it was a 30 minute workout which started with a five minute warm-up.  I then began to run for 60 seconds and then walk for 90 seconds.  They had me doing this eight times and then I had a five minute cool down. After week one I was running for 90 seconds and walking for two minutes six times. I am now about to begin week three which has me running for three minute intervals and then walking for a minute.  It probably still doesn't seem like much but after a couple weeks I have already noticed a huge change in my stamina. The only problem I worry about is the weather and how its only going to get colder but as long it doesn't snow too much before Thanksgiving I should be able to go ahead with my 5k, which I should be able to according to this run on Thanksgiving.  Worst case scenario with the weather is I do have an indoor workout facility with treadmills so if the weather gets worse I can use that but I do really like to run around the lake I live across the street.  Below I have posted a link to the app if anyone is interested in joining me in the process, who knows maybe this time next year we will be running marathons?

http://www.active.com/mobile/c25k?force_a2=y