My Top Ten Favorite Movies: Redux

I'm touching on this again because due to the linear nature of time, I'm older than I was.

Deep thoughts, here. Deep thoughts. And also, 42. You're welcome. Don't ask me why.

Look, my original list of my ten favorite movies was reasonably accurate for the time it was written. But for no other reason than the fact that I've changed over the years, it's no longer accurate. And as I look back through my rose-colored goggles, I can see that my attempt to address that drift in my taste with my Revisited post was actually a travesty of biblical proportions. If I ever get access to time travel technology, I'll be going back and putting myself on trial for that one.

Wait, these goggles aren't rose colored. What is this, blood?

Anyway, I'm here to present my top-ten list of movies again, as it stands in the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-please-wear-a-dang-mask-one. I suspect that the films that are persisting from my prior list onto this one will still be around the next time I redo this effort, but as you can see there is still room for fluidity.

10: Silverado

The tenth spot on this list was always kinda in flux, and until now tended to be populated by my favorite "guilty pleasure" movies, stuff like Advent Children or Pacific Rim. Movies with easily definable issues that I still love. But with recent additions to the list Silverado has found itself here, at the bottom. Which, honestly, is a spot I have a hard time ever seeing it drop below. Because this movie is a stone-cold classic and doesn't have any issues that aren't just endemic problems with the genre it was paying homage to. And even in those cases, Silverado improved on just about every single one of them.

9: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Recent additions have shuffled this around a bit as well, but it's my second favorite movie from my absolute favorite franchise, and it's just really hard to argue with the fact that I love it almost more than I love my own disappointingly-not-pink blood. Nostalgia definitely plays a roll in this one, but the movie is very competently made and the simple fact is that these characters, who are excellent, are on display here in their very best form telling the sort of optimistic sci-fi story I absolutely fall to pieces over. It also provides a conclusion for a cast of characters that is both satisfying and believable, which is frankly not the kind of thing you see very often. It's beautiful.

8: Kung Fu Panda 2

If there's a running theme to take away from my top ten movie list it's that I tend to like movies with mass appeal that still have good characters and a solid story that work together to deliver a heartwarming and broadly applicable message. And also dope-ass action sequences. So of course Kung Fu Panda 2 is an obvious addition to the list. And frankly the entire Kung Fu Panda franchise is amazing, this entry just happens to be my personal favorite, and the one which I'll watch at literally the drop of a hat. I will occasionally go watch the finale on YouTube simply because it is one of the best scenes in Hollywood, with a beautiful sample of character arc resolution, conflict peak, emotional payoff, and production promises (from set and character design to the music) all coming together in what I would consider to be a fundamentally perfect climax.

7: Jurassic Park

This is still a classic for all the same reasons as before, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. In terms of the thriller genre, absolutely everything answers to Jurassic Park as far as I'm concerned. The Jurassic World releases since my original list have actually cemented this film's place on this list by shooting for the same mark with the sort of transparency I would actually expect from a parody like Galaxy Quest while managing to miss it in virtually every way that mattered. That just served to set off how seemingly miraculous it was that we got something like Jurassic Park in the first place. Or maybe less "miraculous" than it was "Spielberg", because once again he continues to be over-represented on this list.

6: Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse

This is straight up one of the greatest movies ever made, fight me. In addition to amazing quality in every aspect of the production, it's emotionally charged and delivers on everything it promises. The only reason it doesn't place in my top 5 probably comes down to nostalgia more than anything else. But give me a decade or two, then maybe I'll be as nostalgic over this as I am over Indiana Jones. Into the Spider-verse is perhaps the best made superhero movie ever, and while it's maybe not my personal favorite it is really hard not to love something with this much flawless characterization, plot development, visual identity, and breadth of representation. To say nothing of the sheer volume of heart the film has, in addition to one of the most touching father-son stories ever put to screen.

5: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

For all of the same reasons as before, but now with the added benefit that compelling father-son stories mean even more to me than they did back in the day! While Raiders of the Lost Ark is certainly an entertaining film, Last Crusade takes the time to fully characterize our hero and his companions in a way prior movies didn't, and introduces a conflict far more personal to Indy by virtue of involving his estranged father. This pulls the action/adventure formula together with a soul that most other movies in the genre fail to find, replacing the trite romance with familial reconciliation. And that is the special sauce that makes this entry in the franchise sing in ways the other two don't. Because as has been established, there weren't any Indy movies following this one.

4: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

This jumped up a place mainly because over the past five or six years I've begun to appreciate the optimistic sci-fi of Star Trek even more than I did before. Which is actually kinda remarkable, if you think about how much of a fanatic I was then. Perhaps it's just frustration with the general sense of pessimism that's pervaded my communities and culture as a whole, but Star Trek feels at its most escapist today. Of course Wrath of Khan is still an amazingly well put together sci-fi film, and of course it still has one of the most compelling villains in Hollywood and probably my favorite film score ever. But what really sells it for me these days is that they take death and turn it into life in a very real, selfless way, treating it with gravity while also accepting what follows with hope.

3: Hook

I'm getting older, and it shows. But the simple fact of the matter is that my nostalgia for this movie is a powerful motivator, and I still love it dearly. I think the main reason it dropped a place was that I'm now a dad of kids that are getting close to the age of the kids in the movie, and I relate a little too much with the Peter from the beginning. Which turns this into more of a cautionary tale than an adventurous one, and that diminishes the fun ever so slightly. But in either case the youthful exuberance and energy on display here still speaks to me, and serves as a reminder that getting older doesn't have to mean getting "older". That's the lesson I take from the movie and the lesson I take from Robin Williams' whole deal, and I'd be remiss not to acknowledge that a big part of the reason this will probably always be in my top 3 is because I can't bear to not have regular doses of Robin Williams in my life.

2: The Princess Bride

My age has somewhat dimmed my nostalgia regarding Hook, but the passage of time has done nothing but convince me that The Princess Bride is actually better than I ever gave it credit for. At this rate by the time I'm 40 I'll have this one listed at number 1. The movie, in addition to being an absolute riot, is very competent with everything it tries to do. It hits a tone of timelessness that is basically unparalleled as far as I'm concerned, and retains its charm from viewing to viewing in a way that basically nothing else does. And it's got a little sting of heart in it too, not that silly fairy-tale love story between Buttercup and Wesley, but the gentle care present between a grandfather and his grandson. It's fun and adorable, and like I said if there's any real takeaway from my list this go around, it's that "heartwarming" carries more weight with me than I ever gave it credit for before.

1: The Avengers

Look, it's really just a tight, entertaining action movie with a great script, great cast, great characters, and great villain. There's a few issues here and there but none of them have impacted my ability to watch this just over and over again. The ending is appropriately heroic, and delivers the vision of a unified Avengers in a way that nearly nothing else in the MCU does, which carries a lot of weight for me personally. The one exception to that is Avengers Endgame, and I would personally say that Endgame is objectively a better movie than this one. But I can't repeat watch it the way I can the original simply because I bawl my eyes out at least twice every time I do. Only so many times you can do that before you get dehydrated. The Avengers manages that same sort of heartwarming unity without making me cry, and so it retains its spot here. And it's now old enough I'm getting nostalgic for it. Which helps, no doubt.