What follows is a list of the Top 10 performances of the last quarter century.  It focuses on lead roles, or at least substantial ones – no cameos, thank you.  Interestingly, there are no straight comic performances here, and many of the roles are villains.  And it is also focused on movies people have actually heard of. 

So, this is not an exhaustive list – it overlooks plenty of great performances.  But it is my list and based on my criteria alone – and I’m sure I’ll hear about my myriad defects of insight, taste, breeding and general mental competence in the comments.  For example, Daniel Day Lewis is missing because I decided not to invest three hours into There Will Be Blood (2007) since after seeing the “I drink your milkshake!” clip I just can’t take it seriously. 

Johnny Depp is missing for his Captain Jack Sparrow character from the Pirates of the Caribbean films because he’s mildly amusing for about the first hour or so of this seemingly endless series but eventually makes me long to walk the plank off into the blessedly Depp-free depths of the briny. 

Leonardo Di Caprio is missing because he’s always terrible. I’m sure my passing him over will make him cry all the way to the supermodel bank.

And you film snobs out there are out of luck. This list completely ignores foreign language films – if you’re outraged at my glaring omission of Migbor Ombungliani’s shattering portrayal of Yegiv the Goatherd in the Albanian Dogme 95 epic The Thousand Meaningless Agonies of My Existence, you need to find yourself a different list.  And probably a girlfriend. 

Speaking of girls, there are not many here.  It just worked out that way, and I’m not sure why.  But this is a pure meritocracy.  If you want a quota system, you probably need to hit the Huffington Post.  Of course, on the HP, half the Top Ten would be performances from Brokeback Mountain with the rest of the slots spread out among the various dreary, America-hating, soldier-sliming, anti-war movies that have zipped through the theaters since 9/11 on the way to their final reward in the Blockbuster remainder bins (“At number seven, we have Ryan Phillip as the emotionally shattered, psychotic vet in Stop-Loss , followed by number six, some actor you never heard of as the emotionally shattered, psychotic vet in Redacted ….”).

So here are the top ten performances of the last 25 years, in order:

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10.  Denzel Washington – Training Day (2001):  Denzel Washington is so good because crooked LAPD cop Alonzo Harris is so damn bad – he’s like the Antichrist with a badge.  There’s an incredible smoothness to his performance, as if all the goodness of his previous characters was seamlessly turned 180 degrees.  It’s his comfort in the role that is so mesmerizing – there is nothing “actory” about his performance, though of course (minor spoiler) the character himself is pretending to be something he is not throughout the movie.  The way he talks, the way he moves, his ease in that sordid world – it is all so different from the Denzel Washington we’ve known before.  The movie itself is watchable, but kind of dopey.  But Washington?  You can’t look away.

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9.  R. Lee Ermey – Full Metal Jacket (1987):  Some may say that Ermey simply did in front of Stanley Kubrick’s camera what he had done for years as a real USMC drill instructor.  To some extent, that might be accurate, but remember that being a drill instructor is itself a kind of performance.  While the amazing barracks scene takes the Basic Training experience to the nth degree, there is a lot of truth to it, as I found out when I reported to Basic at Ft. Sill about a month after seeing this movie.  I vividly recall Drill Sergeant Whittlesey fulminating to our formation about our utter inability to meet even the lowest standards of competence when, in what was undoubtedly a flash of insanity, I turned my head slightly from the rigid position of attention and saw the other drill sergeants cracking up.  Ermey’s performance is dead-on and unforgettable, and not just to those of us who have experienced the delights of Basic Training firsthand.

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8.  Kevin Spacey – American Beauty (1999):  The Nineties were the Age of Spacey, with stunning showcases in Swimming with Sharks (1994), Seven (1995), The Usual Suspects (1995) and L.A. Confidential (1997).  However, his turn as suburban loser turned rebel Lester Burnham best captures the kind of calm, semi-smarmy, cynical detachment that Spacey does better than anyone else.  Through Spacey, you can feel Lester’s angst, understand his moral quandaries, and see him come out of the shell he retreated into rather than face the world.  It’s a great performance in a movie that is often frustrating in its treatment of military men as sexually-repressed sociopaths, such a hackneyed Hollywood cliché that the filmmakers should have been embarrassed to wheel it out again.  Spacey’s work actually makes it worth wading through that nonsense.     

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7.  Helen Mirren – The Queen (2006):  Mirren brought to life a living person, the Queen of England, a relic of an age when people actually considered the idea of “royalty” as something more than the joke it is.  The essential ridiculousness of the concept of a monarch aside, Mirren’s Elizabeth is a woman of values a half-century out of date, values that had allowed Britain to survive the Depression and the Blitz and to defeat the Axis.  But Mirren shows how the Queen had grown detached from her subjects, a people who have become vulgar, sentimental and maudlin in an age of celebrity and who choose to idolize a feel-good empty vessel like Lady Diana over a monarch who symbolizes a mature, strong and faithful nation.  Watching this pampered but smart, tough but cunning woman deal with the changes (mostly for the worse) in her country before the backdrop of the death of “the People’s Princess” is riveting.  The Queen is a great film about a formerly great people and their descent into juvenile mawkishness (their awesome warriors excepted), and its impact largely comes from Mirren’s staggering achievement in the lead role.

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6.  Val Kilmer – Tombstone (1993):  I have no idea what “I’m your huckleberry” is supposed to mean, but I do know that Val Kilmer was incredible as the tubercular sawbones Doc Holiday in this retelling of the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral tale. It’s no one note performance – you can see he’s sometimes scared even behind the smartass, ironic demeanor, but that dose of reality (compounded by the toll he shows his vices and his consumption taking upon him) only makes the character come more alive.  Mention Tombstone to anyone and the first thing you’ll hear is the name “Val Kilmer.”  That says it all.

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5.  Meryl Streep – The Devil Wears Prada (2006):  Yeah, I saw this movie about ladies in the fashion industry and, dammit, I liked it.  They’ll probably take back my Airborne wings and break my cavalry saber for admitting it.  But you gotta give credit where credit is due, and Streep deserves it.  Her Miranda Priestly is best known for overbearing arrogance, but that’s only a part of her character.  Streep actually lets us peer inside and see her humanity, to understand why she demands excellence, and to see the price she pays for holding herself to her own exacting standards.  The movie wimps out a bit by not forcing the heroine to really confront and deal with the choices the Miranda character faced – things just sort of work out for the heroine deus ex machina-style thanks to an unconvincing, off-screen intervention by Miranda herself.  But while the movie finds an easy way out, Streep’s performance takes the character down a hard road and turns a caricature into a character.

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4.  Steve Coogan – 24 Hour Party People (2002):  This is probably the “smallest” of the pictures on the list, but it’s one of the best.  Coogan plays the real-life British music impresario Tony Wilson, who discovered and championed bands like Joy Division in the late-70s and 80s.  Coogan takes the role and runs with it, totally inhabiting the character in an often surreal portrayal that captures all the excitement, excess and exhilaration of the times.  Beyond the fascinating story (especially the first half involving Joy Division) and the incredible music (buy the soundtrack now), Coogan’s performance sticks with you as a real, larger-than-life character made both human and more than human by an incredible actor.

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3.  Sharon Stone – Casino (1995):  Stone got a bad rap for Basic Instinct (1992), where her cervix seemed to overshadow what really was a great femme fatale turn in a really good, really pulpy film noir classic.  In her heyday in the ’90s, Stone was actually Hollywood’s only real movie star, in the way actresses used to be stars.  She was talented and beautiful, but distinctive too – she had that intangible something that put her on a plane above her peers.  In Casino, as De Niro’s harpy of a wife Ginger, she uses that glamour to show why De Niro’s character would fall for – and keep being drawn back to – a woman who redefines the term “bad news.”  It is a relentless, heartfelt, devastating performance that makes you care (a little bit) for her as she meets the fate she has earned even as you let out a sigh of relief knowing she won’t be back to wreak more havoc. 

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2.  Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight (2008):  Even the conventional wisdom gets it right once in a while.  Since just about everyone on Earth has seen it, there’s no real reason to talk about why it’s such an incredible performance.  Ledger got a lot of praise for Brokeback Mountain (2005), but his performance there was just a collection of scowls, tics and mumbles that constitute nothing more than what Hollywood thinks real gay cowboys are like.  As with the movie itself, most of the acclaim was simply wishful thinking – they loved the subject so they had to praise the portrayals.  There’s no wishful thinking here – this was acting far beyond what some comic book movie had any right to incorporate.  And it makes the loss of Ledger to the scourge of drugs that much more of a waste. 

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1.  Ralph Fiennes – Schindler’s List (1993):  This is the most terrifying portrait of pure evil ever put on the screen, made all the more horrifying by a performance that shows how a real-life normal man consciously chose to immerse himself in darkness and luxuriated in it, who willingly paid a terrible price in exchange for becoming, for a time, a dark god with the power of life and death.  Fiennes earned a Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the real war criminal Amon Goeth, but this was truly the lead role.  Goeth was the Nazi commander of a forced labor camp that he turned into a private kingdom subject only to his cruel and sick whims.  In scenes like where Goeth uses a high powered rifle to amuse himself by picking off victims from the porch of his mansion, Fiennes shows us a cultured, intelligent man who makes a deliberate decision to embrace evil.  He shows us that the potential for evil lurks inside all of us just as Oskar Schindler’s example teaches that the potential for good exists there too.  What is so powerful is how Fiennes shows that Goeth chose to experience the transitory joy of wickedness knowing it would lead to his death.  It is a performance that will leave you shaken.

And here are some honorable mentions:  Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987), Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (1993), and Tommy Lee Jones as Sam Gerard in The Fugitive (1993) were all memorable.  Robert De Niro was great as the taciturn criminal in Heat (1995) (Al Pacino also deserves a shout-out for his ferocious and highly entertaining scenery chewing, but I would not call it “good” acting).  As great as Anthony Hopkins was as Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs (1991), Brian Cox was even better in a smaller role as the cannibalistic convict in 1986’s Manhunter.  The less said about the sequel Hannibal (2001) the better, though it also featured Ray Liotta.  Liotta gets a nod for Goodfellas, as do Bobby De Niro and Joe Pesci (and for that matter, those last two should also be mentioned regarding the aforementioned Casino). 

And to further rile the members of Team Snooty, let’s not forget Alan Rickman in Die Hard (1988).  Yeah, artistes, I went there.

Sixteen of the top 20 box office earners have either a G or PG rating which should be a clue that R rated films ( “Titanic” being the exception) don’t do as well yet studios continue to add gratuitous irrelevant sex scenes that ruin the film. Why? It certainly can’t be artistic license because the principal reaction to them is usually-‘Ew!!! Why did they do that?” 

Movie-going statistics have dropped significantly among older adults and that’s understandable since most fare today cater to hormonal adolescents without a clue as to the true appeal of sensual art. Yet senior citizens today are former film buffs who would relish worthy theatrical offerings but their treks back to the wide screen lonely leave them disappointed. 

A few years ago I went with an elderly friend to see, “Love Actually,” because we’re both great fans of Alan Rickman. The film has various vignettes of romantic couples and their curious experiences pursuing the love game. One of these couples happens to be two individuals acting in a porn movie and although the intent was to inject irony in the sex scenes showing the relative naïveté of the participants as they try to hook up, it failed miserably. My friend later said that particular graphic display spoiled the otherwise charming film which she no longer would add to her DVD collection when it came out. 

Who decides to add these charm-busters to films? What is it about major appliances like washing machines that attract sexual activity? In the film, “Little Children,” Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson drop their drawers to perform sexual gymnastics in the laundry room and several other inappropriate venues. “ Annette Bening has her head banged against a motel headboard while her adulterous lover humps her energetically in the Oscar winner “American Beauty.” Did we have to see Viggo Mortensen’s bare butt as he had sex with his wife on the stairs ( note: stairs are a very uncomfortable place to indulge in this activity) in “ A History of Violence?” Of course not and every film would have generated better box office without these unnecessary insertions — pardon the double entendre. 

I could blame corrupt producers and directors but none of these quality-busting scenes would be possible without the cooperation of the actors and actresses involved. I’m continually flabbergasted that these so-called artists actually consider it of thespian merit to simulate raw sex before the eye of the camera. In a way, Eight Avenue peep shows are more candid about their industry. 

Madonna was said to be embarrassed about old nude photographs that might impede her adoption of  the Malawi child David. Her daughter Lourdes is rumored to be more conservative than her Mom. Big surprise that! 

I wonder what the children of Julianne Moore will think of her naked lap dance in “Boogie Nights” when they’re old enough to see the film.

Helen Mirren has managed to eclipse her “Caligula” and other nude, lascivious roles with an Oscar win for “The Queen,” in which she appeared fully clothed but she’s British so she’s can carry that off somewhat. 

As a teen and a young woman, I’d buy all the movie mags with their color pictures of beautiful people who could honestly be called STARS. Now I find it difficult to name one female star today who doesn’t dress or act like a skank. Sorry. I realize it’s a sign of the times but that doesn’t mean I can’t prefer a time when class was what determined stardom. 

When I look at today’s crop of movie denizens, every single one pales in comparison to our former screen legends. There is no one as gorgeous or as talented as the late Paul Newman. Ava Gardner may have had a checkered love life but her on-screen image is still a paean to her beauty and acting ability not her sexual proclivities. 

Supermarket tabloids used to be my guilty pleasure but for the past few years, I can’t drum up interest in any of the figures that the paparazzi chase down. The word “star” is applied to reality TV people who fail to excite my curiosity. I don’t care who’s sleeping with whom nor do I give a whit about what any of them have to say. 

Erotica is now dead in cinema and has been replaced by pornography. I’m trying hard to imagine which of today’s Hollywood elite could produce the same sexual heat that a long gone Maureen O’Sullivan and Johnny Weismuller managed to generate in our own minds. I’ve drawn a blank. Any suggestions?

My beloved United States Army is a blunt instrument, a magnificent club that has pummels our nation’s enemies into submission.  But the Marines are America’s rapier, a razor sharp weapon of war that has never been bested and never will be.  For over two centuries, the United States Marine Corps has been fighting our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.  They don’t give up.  They don’t quit.  There’s no word for retreat in a Marine’s vocabulary.  And they are making history even today in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

November 10th is the Corps’ 234th birthday.  With the indulgence of my Devil Dog brethren, here is this Army veteran’s countdown of the Top Ten Marine Corp movies:

10.  55 Days at Peking:  The Boxer Rebellion in China provides the backdrop for this epic true-life tale of Marines (with help from a few others) protecting civilians from rampaging Chinese peasants.  Charlton Heston is the head Marine; Ava Gardner and David Niven show up as well. 

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9.  Jarhead:  This film of Anthony Swofford’s book about Marines in Operation Desert Storm is a mixed bag.  Perhaps director Sam Mendes was trying to make up for his slander of military men in American Beauty by making an attempt to understand how men function in wartime.  He effectively captures the unreality of that war, but his depiction of the desert environment itself is somehow off (though not as inaccurate as the awful Three Kings).  The clouds of oily smoke after the Iraqis set off the wells did bring back some memories.   Look for Jamie Foxx as a tough Marine sergeant.

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8.  Gung Ho:  This World War Two story recounts the real-life story of the Marine’s raid on the Japanese position on Makin Island early in the war.  Watch for Robert Mitchum as a Devil Dog named “Pig Iron.” 

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7.  A Few Good Men:  This is problematic film for several reasons.  First, it promotes the idea that lawyers as attractive, interesting people, which is demonstrably untrue.  Second, it is positively schizophrenic in its attitude toward the Corps.  Noted Hollywood liberal Aaron Sorkin penned the script, which features Jack Nicholson’s legendary “You can’t handle the truth!”speech.  Many look on that speech as an inspiration, not an indictment.  Regardless, the issue of a society that demands protection yet questions the manner those who protect it do so resonates even more powerfully today than when Sorkin wrote it.

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6.  Aliens:  Okay, so James Cameron’s classic sci-fi flick is not technically about the United States Marine Corps, but ditch the space ships and hi-tech weapons and this band of Colonial Marines would be at home in today’s USMC.  The interplay between the Marines is priceless.  Their gunnery sergeant, played by Al Mathews, is calm, capable and scary.  And as Private Hudson, Bill Paxton plays the most amusing military screw-up in film history.  “Game over, man!  Game over!”

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5.  Generation Kill:  This a miniseries is a tough call because there is a lot good and a lot bad about it, but it honors the Marines who have been fighting for us since 9/11 and so deserves a spot here.  The bad first – there’s too much talking and pondering of the bigger issues going on.  Those portions feel forced into the script to fit the filmmakers’ pre-existing anti-war narrative.  What is accurate is the look and feel of the film.  This light recon battalion is quite similar to an Army cavalry recon squadron, and the way the men lived in and around their vehicle feels true.  One particularly good scene involves a young Marine asking to medevac a wounded civilian.  You expect a typical movie conflict between the sensitive young officer and his uncaring superior, but instead the filmmakers have the battalion commander explain his perspective and the consequences he has to consider when deciding whether to divert evac resources away from his own wounded.  It’s a powerful scene that demonstrates how high ranking officers, often portrayed on film as self-absorbed, obtuse and insensitive, bear enormous responsibilities for making difficult decisions that their subordinates sometimes do not fully appreciate.

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4.  Pride of the Marines:  This is the story of Marine Al Schmid, blinded fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, and his return home.  It is a moving testament to the human cost of war and it demonstrates the price paid by many Marines over the years – and a price many continue to pay today.  It is also the story about how once you become a Marine, you remain a Marine, and how that pride will stay with you throughout your life.

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3. Heartbreak Ridge:  The great Clint Eastwood does a tour of duty here as Tom Highway, a Marine gunnery sergeant his obnoxious new commander labels a “dinosaur.”  When all hell breaks loose on a tropical paradise called Grenada, Clint and his platoon smack around Castro’s minions.  It’s very cool.  One theme of the film is how a great sergeant grows his lieutenants into real leaders, and anyone who has been a platoon leader will smile as the nerdy LT learns to take charge and finally seizes the initiative to win the fight.  Look for Mario Van Peebles as the world’s least likely Marine.

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2.  Full Metal Jacket:  Don’t see this a week before you ship to basic training.  Take it from personal experience that this is a poor idea.  R. Lee Ermey’s hilarious and horrifying turn as a Marine drill instructor is a legend, and properly so.  His four minute verbal assault on his recruits is appalling, and yet one cannot turn away.  The second half of the film, which covers the retaking of the Vietnamese city of Hue during the Tet offensive, is a solid depiction of the terrors of urban combat.  Watch Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin and the rest of the cast as they demonstrate the awesome firepower of a Marine infantry squad:

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1.  Sands of Iwo Jima:  A classic Hollywood story told against the backdrop of the greatest battle in Corps history, it features the Duke in his legendary role as Sergeant Stryker.  As much as we all love R. Lee Ermey, John Wayne remains the gold standard for hardass Marine sergeants.  This is the story of a tough NCO welding a gaggle of recruits into a lethal team of Marines, and this story is being repeated today with a new generation of tough NCOs and recruits.  Only the battlefields, uniforms and weapons are different.  The fighting spirit is the same. 

I bleed Army green, but even I have to admit that the Marines are something special.   But they don’t need validation from me or from anyone else.  They are Marines.  That says it all.

Semper Fi.

An excellent article, which really says it all, is by Kate Harding over at Salon.com – if you haven’t read it yet, you should. She reminds us that Roman Polanski – wait for it – raped a child. I don’t care if the victim, now 45, wants it all dropped because she’s tired of being the focal point of publicity. I don’t care it it’ll be a drain on California’s over-extended budget (how about not footing the bill for the education and medical care for illegal aliens? That’d fix things in a big hurry). I don’t care if she “looked” older than 13, or if her mother was the proverbial stage mother from hell, or if the sky was green instead of blue that day. And I certainly don’t care that Polanski is such a talented director – what WOULD we do without Hollywood to entertain us? – with a troubled past of his own. Many of us have troubled pasts. We don’t all use it as an excuse to do whatever the hell we want just because it “feels good” at the time.

It’s time for him to man up and face the music for committing a disgusting crime against a child – one that took away her innocence forever.

But not according to some big names in Hollywood, no sirree Bob. Whoopi Goldberg says it wasn’t a “rape-rape.” What the hell? When someone says “no,” it’s rape. Even if the girl had said “yes” it would still be rape because since when to we expect children of that age to know when they’re being taken advantage of by an adult? If they knew better, they would reach their majority status at 13, not 18. Kids have a lot of growing up to do during those years in between.

Patrick Goldstein talks about the boy as a fugitive who became a fugitive as an old man. No one would deny that as a survivor of the Holocaust he and his family, along with millions of other Jews and “undesirables,” were viciously prosecuted by the Nazis. And I’m sure it was painful to be an early suspect in his wife Sharon Tate’s murder (she was a victim in the grisly Manson Family crime spree). But he became a fugitive later in life due to his own actions. Had he not done what he did to that girl and then run off before serving his sentence, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. He probably would have been an even bigger hero to the Hollywood left had he gone to prison. After all, Hollywood always forgives unless you’re a conservative. And don’t tell me his “exile” has been hell on earth. He continued to earn a lavish living while making films overseas, including “The Pianist,” which earned him a 2003 Academy Award for Best Director. Boo hoo, he couldn’t come here to claim it. Cry me a river.

Debra Winger, jury member for the Zurich Film Festival, seems more worried about the impact this will have on the festival than serving justice, as the festival was getting ready to bestow a lifetime achievement upon Polanski. She said in a statement, “This fledgling festival has been unfairly exploited and whenever this happens the whole art world suffers. We hope today this latest (arrest) order will be dropped. It is based on a three-decades-old case that is dead but for minor technicalities. We stand by him and await his release and his next masterpiece.” The whole art world is suffering because Roman Polanski violated a 13-year-old girl and then ran out on his sentence? Damn those technicalities. What’s next? Should we be bemoaning the fact that Phil Spector is in jail for murdering a woman in his home because the music world is somehow suffering too?

I could go on, but you get the point. As a parent, the stench of moral equivalency is making me ill.

But I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that so many Hollywoodites have decided that Polanski has “suffered enough” and, in fact, may not even be guilty because  not only did he have a tough childhood, the girl with a pushy mom may have been a real-life Lolita. Think about it: The entertainment industry believes it is responsible for the moral compass of America and, by extension, the world – and look at much of what comes out of Tinseltown. Many of the movies, television shows and videos to which we are treated glorify sex and violence, and some of it is aimed at young people. (Ever see that show “Degrassi” on the cable network aimed at teens, The N?)

Then there are movies like “Lolita” (two versions), based on the book of the same name, where a young girl “seduces” an older man. And who could forget “American Beauty?” Kevin Spacey’s character Lester Burhham is a family man who rebels against the horrible life he lives in the suburbs and, among other things, begins lusting after his teenage daughter’s friend. It actually gets to the point where his sordid dreams about her are about to come true – but when he rips open her blouse, he realizes she is still a child and comes to his senses. Too bad Polanski didn’t.

Oh, the man who wrote “American Beauty” also wrote “Nothing is Private” (a/k/a “Towelhead”), about a 13-year-old Arab-American girl who is struggling with her sexual awakening. What is it with 13-year-old girls in Hollywood?

Smut and other “unconventional” behavior, heavily laden with moral equivalence, is Hollywood’s stock in trade. Why would they criticize someone who does in real life what they sell to their patrons every day? (Yes, you could argue that if people wouldn’t buy it, they wouldn’t sell it. Sex sells, yada yada yada. But let’s keep the kiddies out of it, shall we?) Drug abusers and alcoholics are always given second, third and fourth chances. Why not men who sexually abuse children? As long as they can keep making money for the industry and giving them reasons to hand out awards that only they care about? Awesome.

I love the English lifestyle, it’s not as capitalistic as America. People don’t talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner…I like living here because I don’t fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans.

When she says she doesn’t fit into the “bad side of American psychology,” she means she’s become one of the cultured elite overseas whose life mission seems to be badmouthing those mouthbreathing colonials from across the pond – although she’s happy to accept their money.

But that was back when George W. Bush was in the White House, and it was sooo embarrassing to own up to being American. (Just ask Will Smith.) You’d think that with Mr. HopeyChangey in the White House and the fat paycheck from the very successful “Iron Man” in her bank account (with “Iron Man 2″ on the way for next summer), Gwyneth might think about getting de-fanged.

Sorry. Do not pass “Go,” do not collect $200. Gwynnie’s at it again; this time, talking about her latest home away from home, Spain:

It is so different from the United States. It seemed to have a history, and the buildings are years and years and years old. Here in the United States an old building is about 17 (years old), and over there it’s from 500 B.C., it’s incredible…

Also, the way people live over there. They seem to enjoy life a little bit more…They aren’t running around as much as in New York. They enjoy time with the family. They don’t always have their BlackBerry on.

If New York is Gwyneth’s only basis for comparison, she might want to consider going to a more rural area to see how Americans are capable of “enjoying life a little more.” But that would mean going out of her comfort zone. Finding out how real Americans live? It’s best to see that sort of thing as interpreted by movies like “The Ice Storm” and “American Beauty” where suburbia is depicted as a hell Dante couldn’t have imagined. And rural America? “Deliverance” has that covered.

But I suppose we really shouldn’t blame Gwynnie. She’s lived all her life in a bubble of money and privilege. She didn’t even have to wait tables like so many other actors and actresses before her first break – having an actress for a mother and a director for a father had to have helped some. And perhaps we should cut her some slack considering that when she’s not reciting the lines someone wrote for her, her best attempt at describing Spanish architecture is to say it’s ”years and years old.”

GP says she was “misquoted” the last time. Will she use the same excuse this time? You know, I wish I wasn’t so psyched about seeing “Iron Man 2.” I hate to think of her tarnishing her principles by being seen onscreen by millions of embarrassing, uncouth Americans.

Creepy, right? I have not seen Haunting and will probably wait for DVD or pay cable, but that is a weird, startling, attention-grabbing image. As a movie junkie, I love good movie art. The best movie posters are evocative. They capture what a movie is all about without giving away the mystery. There are certain movie posters that instantly put me back in that theatre experiencing the film for the very first time. The best movie posters are not just promotional tools. They stand as a work of art on their own. These are my favorites, buit it is by no means a definitive list. Feel free to add your favorites (and subtract any of mine).

#1 – JAWS
I saw this all-time classic as a 9-year-old on opening day, and saw it a second time at the Saturday matinee. To this day, I am afraid to swim in the ocean. That shark is always there in my imagination. The poster is literal, but haunting.

#2 – CHINATOWN
This is truly a work of art. The smoke shrouding the ultimate mystery of Evelyn Mulwray, and the stylized version of Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson), the hard-boiled detective who unravels it all.

#3 – THE DARK KNIGHT
Impossible to separate Heath Ledger’s death from his remarkable interpretation of The Joker. This is an amazing image. In 30 years, I will look at this poster and immediately feel the impact of Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece.

#4 – BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
You can almost hear Audrey Hepburn warbling “Moon River” at the sight of this iconic poster. Every woman wanted to be her and every man wanted to be with her.

#5 – SECRETARY
The 2002 cult classic about a sadomasochistic relationship between a demanding lawyer (James Spader) and a submissive secretary (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The movie is an under-appreciated gem. The poster may be even better.

#6 – UNFORGIVEN
This is my favorite poster made for Clint Eastwood’s masterful revisionist Western. Simple. Classic. Tells you everything you need to know about Clint’s Bill Munny character.

#7 – AMERICAN BEAUTY
A beautiful image that suggests the perversity that lies just beneath the surface of the suburban neighborhood created by screenwriter Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes.

#8 – SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
“You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?” You can almost hear Dr. Hannibal Lecter say it. The Death’s-head moth “lodged” in Clarice Starling’s throat. Brilliant image.

#9 – VERTIGO
An ode to acrophobia as Detective Scottie Ferguson (as played by Jimmy Stewart) battles his fear of heights while becoming obsessed with Madeleine Elster (the stunning Kim Novak). This kaleidoscopic design immediately brings the strains of Bernard Hermann’s amazing score into my head.

#10 – PULP FICTION
Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in all her swagger. Yes, she does wind up with a sharpie circle on her chest and a shot of adrenaline, but the whole gritty movie is captured with this image.

HONORABLE MENTION
- in no particular order -
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
SWEENEY TODD
MEAN STREETS
AMADEUS
GONE WITH THE WIND
METROPOLIS
KING KONG (1939 Fay Wray version)
CLOVERFIELD
THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

I’m a huge fan of British cinema. From early Hitchcock to David Lean to Michael Powell. One of my favorite films is Hugh Hudson’s “Chariots of Fire.” I’ve loved practically everything I’ve ever seen imported from the UK and shown on American Public Television, usually with a grant from Mobile or some other large corporation.  Mystery, Masterpiece Theater, the Quatermasses, the Doctor Whos, I’ve loved them all. But recently a new wave of British directors has been very successful in distancing themselves from anything British, instead finding wealth and material in America.

One such director is Sam Mendes. You know him. He’s the husband of actress Kate Winslet who seems determined not to be a Rose by any other name.

But, I wonder, is Sam obsessed? Is he obsessed with the theme of dysfunctional American culture and of bringing his discoveries to perhaps, what he perceives as the naive and ignorant eyes of American audiences?

Question: Can British film director Mendes make a movie about dysfunctional British culture? Will anyone want to see it? Judging by his filmography, the answer would seem to be a resounding ‘who knows?’.

What inspires Sam Mendes is not hope. What he seems to hope for is not inspiration, but desperation. To Sam’s credit, it must be a lonely road he’s on, to walk up and receive award after award, attend gala event after gala event, for his hard work in exposing and educating Americans on what he sees are the hypocritical stereotypes of the average American family. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to win an award for it.

We were inundated with peer praise concerning his American debut film, “American Beauty.” ‘A masterpiece,’ was shouted from all quarters. In fact, I hadn’t heard the word masterpiece used to describe a film, since, well, the previous year, and the year before that. Yes, it’s true, every year there are films which Hollywood humbly describes are its own masterpieces, and then there are the Hollywood geniuses who made them. One can’t have a masterpiece without a genius. This year will be no different, we’ll have masterpieces and geniuses and you can take that to the bank, whichever one looks like it will stay in business long enough for you to complete the transaction.

To those lucky few who were abducted or were otherwise occupied and missed the beastly amount of adulation that the film received, “American Beauty” is about a married man who is dead, who recounts to us how his midlife crisis got him killed for, among other things, lusting after his daughter’s friend, buying a Trans Am – much to the chagrin of his cheating wife whose only interest is in real estate – and being misunderstood by the Vietnam vet neighbor who is a violent, cruel and brutal man hiding his homosexuality.

“American Beauty” won Best Masterpiece Picture for 1999. Sam received an Oscar for Best Genius Director, as well. Not bad. Not bad at all. But was it really that good of a film? Of course we heard all over the place how brilliant it was, and I must admit, there were some interesting plot twists, or reversals and complications as screenwriters like to call them. But nothing that could not have been garnered from any screenwriting course by Syd Field or anyone else who has taught screen writing.  In fact, even actor Brian Cox , who merely played an existing screenwriting teacher in the film ‘Adaptation’ would have no trouble in charting and navigating his way through all of the movie’s shock moments with nothing more than a good map and stop watch.

Joe Bob Briggs, in his old movie host show “Monster Vision” used to display, at the beginning of each film he screened, a tally of items viewers were about to be subjected to. The lists usually included severed heads, bloodsucking monsters, flying brains, that sort of thing. Well, maybe we need a Sam Mendes list. We can call it Uncle Sam’s Tally.

It might go something like this…

“American Beauty”:

1 jack-off scene by anti-hero (this opens the movie – remember, this won Best Picture),
1 failed marriage,
1 divorced neighbor,
1 drug dealer (hero figure),
1 hot teen lusted after by anti-hero,
1 precocious teen daughter who runs away with drug dealer,
1 cheating wife/entrepreneur,
1 Trans Am,
1 child beating and murderous homosexual Vietnam vet,
1 plastic bag flying.

Add-ons:

1 Best Picture Oscar.
1 Best Director Oscar.

Now, with that kind of stuff, Sam received so many other awards, so many accolades, so much praise that it was a cinch he’d raise money for his next major release, “The Road to Perdition,” the only film that had reviewers reaching for dictionaries that year. For this one, Sam went back into American history and uncovered an underworld of Chicago when Irish eyes weren’t smiling so much. Perhaps, with this lush mob story, he had dreams of becoming the next Francis Ford Coppola. Who knows? Nice try, good cast, but essentially a failure. Even Luca Brasi couldn’t persuade me to accept an offer to see that downer again.

Needless to say the words ‘masterpiece’, ‘genius’ and now ‘brilliant’ were written and uttered in front of all the right people. Regardless of the box office disappointment, Sam was doing fine. It would take a lot more than that to keep a down man good. Let’s face it, his heart was in the right place, as far as liberal Hollywood was concerned. He was determined to expose more negative undercurrents of American culture if it killed us. And who could blame him? We deserved it, didn’t we? Besides, in English culture, there was nothing to expose. Nothing in the long history of Great Britain that could be anything but great. No, America is where his dreams lay. Which also happens to be the focus or target of his latest picture: the American Dream.

“Revolutionary Road” is Sam’s answer to the positive feelings Americans have about the American Dream. But was it the American Dream? What do most Americans think of as the American Dream, or our Golden Age, our Golden Era? Why, the 50s, of course! Ike, fridges, TVs, dishwashers, peace and comfort, a nice home with a picket fence and a car in the garage. A pretty picture, indeed.

Well, not on Sam’s watch anyway.

No, I haven’t seen “Revolutionary Road.” But I can guess what road it’s taking.  I think I’ll be revolutionary and take the other one.