The reports and books that were timed with Reagan’s 100th birthday last February tended to mention the Hollywood years as a mere afterthought. Moreover, most Reagan biographers typically focus on the more well-known movies such as “Kings Row and “Knute Rockne.”

But there are several films worth revisiting that have gone largely unheralded. At a time when Reagan has earned high marks from historians and academics for his time in office, the caricature of him as just a B actor persists. But Reagan’s uncommon human touch and affable
personality are on full display in films that are worth revisiting.

Furthermore, his conversion from New Deal liberalism over to Goldwater conservatism is directly tied in with Reagan’s Hollywood years. And, as Gorbachev learned during their summit meetings, Reagan could be a tenacious, shrew negotiator; a skill that can be traced back to his time as head of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) union.

The steel behind the congenial smile was forged during some of the more intense altercations with Hollywood communists intent on taking over the union and organizing the film industry. “Thugs” attached to the “red-dominated” Conference of Studio Unions were significant players here, Kengor informs readers in his book. They went after Reagan personally and even threatened to throw acid on his face. Reagan began to carry a gun for his own personal safety and did not give any quarter.

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After a heated exchanged opened the 1985 Geneva Summit, Ronald Reagan suggested to Mikhail Gorbachev that the two leaders take a break and walk together along a nearby lake. Even in this informal setting, Reagan’s unyielding support for the SDI initiative remained a major sticking point. But the conversation assumed a more congenial tone when Gorbachev began to ask Reagan about the president’s movie career.

While it may be difficult to pinpoint a precise moment when Cold War tensions began to ease, it is evident that Gorbachev’s interest in Hollywood helped foster a human connection that advanced negotiations and solidified relations.

By all accounts, Reagan was proud of his Hollywood career, which began on April 20, 1937 the day he signed a contract with Warner Brothers. While political opponents and hostile media personalities have made a sport out of demeaning Reagan’s acting ability, he was actually quite accomplished in his own right and cultivated a strong following.

A good source here is Marc Eliot who authored “Reagan: The Hollywood Years,” a well-researched, highly readable yarn that highlights some of the former president’s best performances on screen and on television. Reagan co-starred alongside some of most talented stars of his era including Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Ginger Rogers, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn.

While Reagan may not have achieved lasting fame as a leading man, he did carve out a strong niche as a supporting actor in films that attracted critical attention, as Eliot explained in an interview with Reason TV. He was widely viewed as the reliable “best friend” standing behind
the big names of that time, Eliot notes.

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Uber-producer David O’ Selznick would bring director Alfred Hitchcock to America from England, team him up with one of the most popular novels of the day, Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 phenom, “Rebecca,” and win that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture (Selznick’s second in a row after a little programmer called “Gone With the Wind.”) Not a bad start.  Of course, it helps if you make an amazing motion picture in the process, which is exactly what “Rebecca” is.

Our heroine is never named other than with the pronoun “I,” and is portrayed by the then somewhat-unknown Joan Fontaine (sister of Olivia De Havilland), who offers up one of history’s most impressive “arrivals” as a full-blown movie star. Our heroine is an innocent who’s terribly vulnerable and a newlywed very much in love with her husband, Maxim (Laurence Olivier), a deeply troubled man still working through the death of his first wife.

Swept off her feet, this orphan who made un undignified living as a paid companion and doormat to an insufferable woman, is suddenly thrust into a world she never knew existed. Maxim is incredibly wealthy and sole-owner of Manderley, a breathtakingly gothic estate populated with servants and also the intimidating and suffocating shadow of Rebecca, Maxim’s dead wife.

It’s within this shadow that the new mistress of the house, already a fragile flower, wilts even further. Rebecca’s hold on the living is supernatural and the primary keeper of that flame is housekeeper Miss Mrs. Danvers (an unforgettable Judith Anderson), who wields the memory of her former mistress like a psychological club to break down her “replacement.” Miss Danvers is destined to succeed until a shipwreck uncovers truths that will either result in the destruction of all involved or their salvation.

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To celebrate its centennial, over the course of 2012, Universal Studios will release 13 of their masterpieces on Blu-ray after a full restoration. Titles include, “The Birds” “Bride of Frankenstein,” “All Quiet On the Western Front,” “Buck Privates, “Jaws,” “The Sting,” and “Schindler’s List.”  Appropriately enough, this campaign starts off with that most American of films, director Robert Mulligan’s stunning 1962 adaptation of novelist Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Set in the Depression-era South in 1936, our narrator (Kim Stanley) is Scout Finch (a remarkable Mary Badham), who tells the story as an adult looking back on three defining summers of her childhood as an impoverished tomboy who lives in a small town with her older brother Jem (Phillip Alford) and their father Atticus (Gregory Peck), a lawyer and widower in his middle age.

The story’s themes are as rich as they come. We see everything through the eyes of the children and though they don’t realize it at the time, this is when they lose their innocence — thanks to events that involve the very worst kind of bigotry, the kind that leads to death and murder. But they will also learn to overcome their own childish prejudices when, as children will, a man they turned into a boogeyman turns out to be just the opposite.

For his portrayal of the quietly heroic Finch, Peck would win one of the biggest no-brainer Oscars in Hollywood history. In the special features, Peck’s co-stars and others involved in the film’s production (he would remain friends with many of them, and Harper Lee, until his death in 2003) compliment the actor by saying he won an Oscar playing himself. That might well be the case, but possessing certain qualities and having the talent required to portray them on screen are two entirely different things. 

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You wouldn’t know it to read me, but when it comes to my language regarding movies, I am careful. It’s not that I’m overly enthusiastic, it’s just that I really do believe that many films qualify as a classic, a masterpiece, or an epic. I’m more than willing to concede that my threshold might be lower than some others, and in that respect I may be a little too enthusiastic, but that doesn’t mean I throw those words around carelessly.

Something you almost never hear from me, though,  is “my top 5″  or “my top 10″ or “my top 25.” That description is used for all-time favorites, and represents a pool of about 50 steady titles that, over the years, have fallen in and out of one of those categories. So when I tell you that Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 romantic-thriller “Notorious”  has been a perennial top 5 of mine for over two decades now, you understand what this film means to me.

There is no other movie that makes me feel as much as this one does. Thanks to the extraordinary performances of two of the most beautiful people ever to stand before a camera, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergmann, “Notorious” throws me on an emotional roller coaster of suspense, exhilaration and, most of all, heartache, for the full 101 minutes. And the reasons are many.

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Five Best Picture winners in one Blu-ray collection with no shortage of special features is a pretty good deal… if you like the movies. Because I’m a fan of four out five of the titles, this was a real find.

The English Patient (1996)

Director Anthony Minghella’s sweeping WWII romance ranked as #24 in my countdown of the greatest left-wing films of all time:

Filled with poetic dialogue, lush cinematography, some truly extraordinary scenes — such as the sandstorm sequence where Katharine and Laszlo fall in love — and  a charming subplot involving the short-lived but sincere romance between Binoche’s Canadian nurse and Kip (“Lost’s” Naveen Andrews), a brave Indian who defuses bombs, you almost will yourself  not to notice the film’s depraved and shockingly selfish philosophy. The film is seductive, though, and you want to give into it, but in the end the only moral outcome would be to have the cast of “Inglorious Basterds” storm in and beat Laszlo to death with a baseball bat.

If you don’t mind being manipulated by an ingeniously crafted and immoral piece of propaganda (and I don’t), another bonus is the look of the film (the cinematography won an Oscar), which is a jaw-dropper on Blu-ray.

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Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Many will never forgive the fact that director John Madden’s fictionalized account of a passionate but ill-fated love affair between a young, struggling William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes)  and the beautiful young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires some of his greatest work, beat out Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” for that year’s top Oscar prize.

This might be heresy, but I think the best film won.

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The Los Angeles Times (we read it so you don’t have to) is reporting that “The Grey” director, Joe Carnahan, is attached to write and direct a remake of Charles Bronson’s vigilante classic.

As chance would have it, less than 12 hours ago,  I watched a documentary looking back on the “Dirty Harry” films where Carnahan said, and I am paraphrasing, “I’m liberal on a lot of things but very much a law and order right-winger.”

That’s all well and good, but I doubt present-day Hollywood has the maturity to tell this story with the same courage of conviction we saw in director Michael Winner’s 1974 genre-masterpiece. For starters, Paul Kersey’s (The Mighty Charles Bronson) vigilantism is shown to work and is portrayed as a solution to a serious crime problem the ineffectual police and liberal courts can’t solve. For emphasis, there’s a wonderful scene where we see how Kersey’s actions inspire everyday people to finally fight back.

Secondly, the Kersey character (a conscientious objector during the Korean War) is made to see up close and personal the cost of his limousine liberalism and haughty pacifism. Intolerant Hollywood giving a character that kind of arc today is inconceivable. In films like the superb 2007 remake of “The Hills Have Eyes,” we’ve seen it. But if you listen to the director’s DVD commentary, you learn it was by accident.

Finally, this first entry in what would become a fantastic five film franchise isn’t like its sequels. Here, Kersey isn’t exacting revenge on the same punks who blew a hole in his family. He’s simply working through his grief and refusing to be a victim through the awesome act of cleaning up the streets and, in the end, he is not at all repentant for his actions.

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If love really meant never having to say you’re sorry, I’d have enough time on my hands to get a PHD.

Yes, the tagline for director Arthur Hiller’s “Love Story” is unforgivably stupid, no question. Almost as bad is Ali McGraw’s performance as the gorgeous but doomed Jennifer. My wife hates this film and MacGraw’s performance so much that she only agreed to screen the Blu-ray with me so that she could delight in Jennifer’s cancerous demise. My wife’s tagline for the film is, “Marrying the studio head means never having to take an acting class.”

So what was it about this fairly mediocre 1970 tear-jerker that made it, not only the highest-grossing film of the year, but also the 6th highest grossing film of all time — the “Titanic” of its day?

Believe it or not, I saw this “chick flick” classic for the first time ever when the Blu-ray screener arrived last week, and thankfully I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit that the story got to me. You can’t disagree with the film’s critics and their many criticisms, but in the end I’m not completely ashamed to admit that Jennifer’s death choked me up and that I found the third act a little gut-wrenching as that reality became increasingly inevitable.

For everything the story does wrong, it does two key things so right that those moments help to overcome the rest. When, in the middle of a perfect day, Jennifer tells her husband, Oliver (Ryan O’Neal), that she has to go to the hospital, it’s a real kick to the gut. Laugh all you want, but just thinking about it gets to me. And then there’s how we learn that she’s died. (No spoiler warning necessary. We’re told Jennifer will die in the opening scene.)

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In Billy Wilder’s Academy Award-magnet, “The Apartment,” winner of Best Picture, Director, Editor, Screenplay and Art Direction, there’s an unforgettable moment about halfway through that perfectly pays off everything that came before and beautifully sets up the unexpected to come.

The Mighty Jack Lemmon is C.C. Baxter, a worker-drone in the Kafkaesque office located on the 17th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper that’s home base for the insurance company Baxter works for and is desperate to get ahead in. With thousands of employees competing for a very few executive positions, Baxter decides to stand out by joining the good-ole-boys club. The awful men who can help to promote Baxter are a gaggle of adulterers in need of a place for their trysts. Believing the inconvenience is worth the eventual payoff, Baxter lends out the key to his bachelor pad a few nights a week.

As smitten as he is with the idea of becoming an executive, Baxter also has his head turned by one of the building’s many elevator operators, Fran Kubelik (a delightful Shirley MacLaine), who on the outside stands out as a confident, composed, and charming young woman who has it all together. The opposite, unfortunately, is true, but by the time Baxter figures this out he’s already in love with her.

The key to Baxter’s executive dreams is held by the company’s powerful personnel director, Jeff Sheldrake (a superb Fred MacMurray), and Baxter’s cynical plans all appear to come together when Sheldrake agrees to his promotion… in exchange for the key to Baxter’s apartment. It seems the very-married Sheldrake is just another good ole boy, but that’s no skin off Baxter’s nose, until the perfect moment I mentioned above arrives.

You see, it’s Fran Kubelik Mr. Sheldrake is trysting with, and it’s at the company’s wild Christmas party (a clothed Roman orgy) where Fran finally learns she’s being used — that she’s not the first subordinate Sheldrake’s conned into bed with the promise of a future together. This is also where Baxter learns the truth about Fran.

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With six feature credits already under his belt, some of them classics, co-writer/director Woody Allen finally became Woody Allen with the brilliant “Annie Hall,” and in doing so would be rightfully rewarded with four major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Original Screenplay (co-written by Marshall Brickman), Director and Actress (Diane Keaton). 35 years later, the simple story of Manhattan neurotic Alvy Singer (Allen) and his years-long romance with the delightfully ditzy Annie Hall (Keaton) still delights in ways that few romantic comedies ever come close to.

Told with a scattershot timeline (that somehow works) and through an endless number of short scenes that could stand on their own as insightful, amusing, and romantic skits, “Annie Hall” is a story told to us in the first-person by Alvy, a famous New York comedian. His story isn’t so much about his romance with Annie; it’s more about what he’s learned from the experience — not only about himself but human nature in general. And if you judge the film by its touching closing scene (as I do), you can count this among Allen’s rare optimistic offerings.

Keaton’s performance is a wonder to behold. When you compare the “la-dee-da” Annie Alvy first meets to the more worldly and composed Annie she eventually becomes (much of it due to Alvy pushing her in that direction), Keaton’s Oscar win is a no-brainer.  Right along with Alvy, we fall in love with Annie at first sight and, in the end, long for the innocence she loses. And this, of course, is also why the film is so bittersweet. With the best of intentions (mostly), Alvy helps Annie grow up, and she ends up outgrowing him.

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The producer is the legendary David O. Selznick, the director is Alfred Hitchcock, the writer is Ben Hecht, the score is by Miklos Rozsa, Salvador Dali designed the film’s key sequence, and the stars are Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. To say this was the A-Team of 1945 is an understatement, so what went so terribly wrong?

At the time, screenwriter Hecht was engaged in heavy psycho-analysis and understandably fascinated with the subject, and Hitchcock wanted to adapt  the novel “The House of Dr. Edwardes.” Uber-producer Selznick had almost all of them all under contract, and the alchemy came together to create Hitchcock’s silliest film.

Though the film improves dramatically in the second half, nothing about “Spellbound,” the story of spinster psychiatrist (Bergman) and a possible murderer suffering amnesia (Peck) in love and on the run from the law, is in the least bit believable. And nothing is sillier than her trying to cure him using the latest Freudian techniques along the way.

Bergman plays Constance Petersen, a doctor at a Vermont mental hospital who fills her lonely life with work. When the story opens, the new director is due to arrive and does in the form of the impossibly young and handsome Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Peck). The attraction between Constance and Edward is immediate, and by the end of the day, they are hopelessly in love. There’s just one problem. Edwardes is an imposter who may have murdered the real Edwardes.

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The Oscar nominations are out, almost by surprise.  There was a time when Oscar nominations were news, when people cared.  Did you care?

Maybe, but it’s hard to see why.

There was a time when the Academy Awards were an institution, where the nation devoured the nominations and joined together around their TV sets to watch the show itself.  It was fun – the whole family watched.  But that time is rapidly receding in the rear-view mirror of American culture.

It’s more than the fact that there are, literally, other things to watch while in the past the other two networks bowed to the inevitable and counter-programmed with “Mannix” reruns.  But the ratings are now in freefall.  We don’t care about Oscar because Oscar stopped caring about us.

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Directed by the great William Wellman, “Wings” is the not only the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (it was technically declared “Best Production“), it’s also the only silent movie to ever hold that honor (though “The Artist” could very well bookend that honor this year).

Back in 1927, “Wings” delivered spectacular aerial photography that must have blown the customers out of their seats. But in 2012, thanks to over a decade of Hollywood’s over-produced CGI, you’re still going to be blown out of your seat. To experience, in high-definition, no less, the spectacular in-camera flight and battle scenes, is a wonder to behold. The aerial shots are nothing short of spectacular, as are the expertly choreographed sequences involving armies and explosions. If “Wings” were produced today in the exact same fashion, people would marvel at the achievement.

“It Girl” Clara Bow, a star so popular in the mid-to-late twenties there’s no actor working today who compares (think Marilyn Monroe in 1959), is listed as the film’s star, but she’s really a supporting player — a crucially important one, though. For she symbolizes all that is pure and decent and why our young, brave men fought and died in World War I.

All Jack Powell (Charles Rogers)  has ever wanted was to fly, and all Mary Preston (Bow) has ever wanted was Jack. In their small, very American town, Jack and Mary live next door to one another, but Jack only sees Mary as a friend, a pal. You see, Jack’s in love with the more sophisticated Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), but unfortunately for him, she’s in love with David (Richard Arlen). It’s a complicated love rectangle, further complicated by class distinctions. Jack is working class, Davis is wealthy, and it will take the outbreak of a long and heartbreaking war to sort it all out.

Though rivals for the same girl, Jack and David both want to be combat pilots and end up in the same squad together. Soon they become friends, the very best of friends in the knowledge (brought to them by a shockingly young and undeniably charismatic Gary Cooper) that the very real prospect of death is a constant companion.

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Yes, the Woody Allen screen persona is well-known and established, but the actor does play different characters within that persona. Sometimes it’s just a few degrees off and hardly perceptible to the naked eye, but his Isaac Davis in “Manhattan” is noticeably unique. Isaac is something of an innocent, an unassuming man whose unwavering integrity comes naturally.

In a city like Manhattan, this, of course, might lead to his downfall, and the genius of Allen’s absolutely brilliant screenplay (Marshall Brickman co-wrote) is how this story is all about driving towards the film’s final line, a beauty of a closer that perfectly hits every cinematic sweet spot right before the fade:

“You have to have a little faith in people.”

Another of Isaac’s weak spots (and much of the film’s humor) comes from his inability to suffer pretentious, elite, liberal intellectuals. This is what likely cost him his first two wives, both of whom were pretentious, elite, liberal intellectuals. Overall, though, when we first meet him, Isaac is doing just fine. He’s making good money as a television comedy writer, is a loving father to his son, and his close friends — the married Yale and Mary (Michael Murphy and Anne Byrne Hoffman) — have taken him under their wing like a kid brother.

Isaac isn’t perfect; he is involved in a love affair with Tracy, a 17 year-old high school student. In his defense, she is more mature than he is and he refuses to lie to her. He’s very open about the fact that eventually she will have to move on with her life, that she has to experience life without him, and that what they have together isn’t permanent.

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John Wayne is not only the only actor to place posthumously on this annual Harris Poll that asks Americans who their favorite actor is, the Duke is also the only actor — living or dead — to find a slot on this poll every year since the survey began in 1994:

In 2011 he was the voice of Rango, he was Captain Jack Sparrow (again) and he was also a journalist. And, again this year, Johnny Depp has the distinction of being America’s Favorite Actor. Next on the list are two actors who haven’t actually acted in a movie this past year. Tied for number two are Denzel Washington, who was in the second spot last year, and Clint Eastwood who was number 9 on the list last year.These are some of the results of The Harris Poll® of 2,237 adults surveyed online between December 5 and 12, 2011 by Harris Interactive®.

Rounding out the top five favorite actors is Larry Crowne or rather Tom Hanks in the number 4 spot, up from a tie for number 6 last year, and at number 5 the only actor to have been on this list since it began in 1994, the Duke himself, John Wayne down from the number 3 spot last year.

After being part of a three-way tie for number 6 last year, George Clooney now holds that position by himself. Up from number 10 to number 7 is Sandra Bullock who is the only woman in the top ten and dropping from number 4 to number 8 is Harrison Ford. There are two new additions to the list this year. At number 9, returning to the top ten after a two year absence is Will Smith and debuting at number 10 is funny man Adam Sandler.

Here’s this year’s breakdown:

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As a kid — I’m talking 11, 12 years old — I used to grab my weekly allowance and lie to my parents about going to the museum downtown. Instead, I would go to the movies, because this was back in the good old days when kids could still sneak into R-rated movies. There was more than one downtown theatre in those days, and I always went in search of double or triple features, and sometimes the first flick was an older film. And you have to remember that back in the mid-seventies, things were different. Downtowns weren’t as cosmopolitan then. They were urban, and that was the audience the theatres targeted.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of crap. In fact, most of the films were completely forgettable horror and action programmers that had no redeeming value, even to someone like myself who adores B-movies. More than once I walked out and ended up killing the day buried in comics at a used bookstore. But every once in a while, the first feature would be an older film, something that had been popular just a few years earlier. And this is where I fell in love with Bruce Lee, George Romero, Leatherface, Shaft, Superfly, and Coffy.

I had never even heard of Pam Grier before, but within five minutes she was added to my short list of those who reflect all that is ideal in womanhood — strong, smart, independent, sexy, womanly, a lady, a sense of humor — a list that to this days includes Raquel Welch and Angie Dickinson. Ten years later I would add a fourth and final name to that list, and a few years after that she actually married me.

Yes, Pam Grier is stunning to look at, but beautiful women are really a dime a dozen in Hollywood. What Grier really is is pure, 100%, undiluted movie star — and that is about as rare of a human species as you will ever find (especially today). Whether it was a small role in Andrew Davis’ “The Package” or her unforgettable turn as a junkie prostitute in “Fort Apache The Bronx,” you can’t take your eyes off her. And God bless Quentin Tarantino for seeing that, as well.

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Writer/co-director Gavin O’Connor’s “Warrior” opens with an emotionally bruising scene that not only sets the tone of this intensely moving story but beautifully uses silence and what remains unspoken to communicate a gulf so wide between an estranged father and son that it seems impossible to bridge. Dad is Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), a bear of a man who traded in the drink for the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Today, alone in his beat up, working class house, his only companion is the terrible cost abusive alcoholics pay for their sobriety, the memories of the physical and mental abuse inflicted on a family eventually lost.

The son is Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy), a former Marine just home from Iraq, who didn’t drop by after fourteen years to see how dear dad was doing,. He’s here to hurt the old man in every way possible without laying a hand on him. Tommy expected to find a drunk, and Paddy’s sobriety only angers him more. Dad doesn’t deserve forgiveness, Christ’s or anyone else’s. Tommy is a seething young man made dysfunctional by the baggage he carries around like the bulk of his muscle — an unreachable force of anger and bitter resentment that extends to his older brother Brendan, as well.

Brendan didn’t run away from his father like Tommy and his mother. He was older, had a girlfriend, and had already planted the seeds of a life. Eventually, he married that girl, went to college, became a teacher, had kids, and bought a house. Though they’re very different in so many ways, Tommy and Brendan do at least have one thing in common. No matter how many days sober, they will never forgive their father.

Paddy is a former martial-arts trainer, and this experience is the only thing these three still have in common. For reasons I won’t spoil, Tommy needs to make some quick cash, and that means getting back into the octagon and the competitive world of mixed-martial arts. The same goes for Brendan (a former UFC contender) who refuses to accept charity or file a bankruptcy to save his family from financial ruin. “I don’t do things that way,” he tells a banker, and though he’s a little long in the tooth, into the octagon he goes looking for whatever prize money he can scrape up.

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This week on the HomeVideodrome podcast, Hunter reviews “The Iron Lady“, we talk The Golden Globes, and of course, we run down this week’s releases.  Head on over to The Film Thugs to check it out!

Despite the fact that “The Ides of March” is un filme de George Clooney, which ensures that most of those right-of-center will ignore it, it’s ultimately a movie that anyone who actively keeps up with politics should enjoy, especially during the heat of the Republican primaries.  Indeed, “The Ides of March” doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know, thematically.  Politics?  Dirty?  You don’t say, George.  Please, send more of your pearls of wisdom for the masses to consume.  What the film does provide, though, is a efficiently plotted, well-acted, engaging thriller, despite its cliched old-hat themes.

Clooney co-stars as a Democratic Presidential candidate in the throes of the primaries, playing as a mix of Bill Clinton’s governor running-on-his-record and Barack Obama’s cult of personality claptrap.  This gives Clooney’s character opportunities to espouse what are clearly his own political views from the podium, which contain various liberal talking points and, much like our current president, promises no one could keep, including the elimination of the internal combustion engine in four years and free puppies for everyone.  But Clooney wisely keeps his politics in the background for the most part, not using it merely as a vehicle for his views.

George Clooney’s active role in politics has often sparked speculation as to whether or not the actor would run for political office; after all, a handful of actors like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger have proven that the leap from acting to political office isn’t necessarily a big one.  After all, both vocations involve making audiences believe your bullshit.  However, Clooney has consistently squashed such speculation by stating that his playboy bachelor reputation would make him unelectable, and “The Ides of March” seems to be an extension of these sentiments.  Too bad it’s not necessarily the fact that Clooney goes through women like Kleenex, so much as his la-la-land Hollywood politics (his cruel mocking of Alzheimer’s patients doesn’t help him in my eyes either, however his humanitarian work is certainly deserving of praise).

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Good Morning, Vietnam (25th Anniversary Edition) (1987)

25 years ago, Robin Williams was already a household name and television star, but at the time, while I was sitting in the theatre watching this box office hit unspool, I knew Williams had arrived as a full-blown movie star. 25 year later, watching the Blu-ray over the weekend, nothing has changed. The highly fictionalized story of story of Adrian Cronauer, an Air Force disc jockey in Vietnam between 1965-1966, is still just as entertaining, hilarious and clever.

Because director Barry Levinson handles the story’s political undertones with such a deft touch, none of the humor or plot points feel in any way heavy-handed or anti-military. In fact, like Robert Altman’s brilliant “M*A*S*H,” the war and the military feel more like devices used to explore a much larger and more universal theme about individuality and thumbing your nose at authority. And that, my friends, is good stuff.

“Good Morning, Vietnam” is also an opportunity to spend some time with two exceptional character actors no longer with us: Bruno Kirby and as  Cronauer’s primary foil, The Mighty J.T. Walsh. Williams deservedly earned an Oscar nomination for his work, and I think he’d be one of the first to admit that the greatness surrounding him helped to make him great.

This is still one of the best films Williams has ever done, and never let yourself or anyone forget that the real Cronauer is a lifelong Republican who openly supported George W. Bush in 2004.

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Everything about director Peter Weir’s handling of an Oscar-winning script written by Tom Schulman about his own personal experiences at a fancy preparatory school for boys is letter perfect. The production design feels like 1959, the young cast is believable in their roles as repressed, wealthy Caucasians who are really artists and poets looking for the opportunity to shine, and as the teacher who inspires them with poetry to “seize the day,” Robin Williams is all warmth and humor.

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When Dustin Hoffman’s David Sumner announces at the end of the 1971 version of “Straw Dogs” that he “got ‘em all,” he says it with a sense of triumph.

We know he has changed from a man who fled America because he was too spineless to take a stand on the Vietnam War into someone who takes a stand against some British thugs who have antagonized him and his wife. When they begin to attack his home, Sumner takes a stand to defend it. He begins to understand machismo and responsibility.

In the new version of “Straw Dogs,” lead actor James Marsden utters the same line, but with a very different feeling. We don’t get a slightly sick sense of accomplishment in his voice. Instead we get a voice that is beat after what could only be described as a Pyrrhic victory for the hero. We get the sense that he he has beaten the monsters at their own game and is now spent and ready to move on, not completely changed.

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