by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

Got some sad news today. After 7 years of medical training, my good friend has been struck off after 1 minor indiscretion. He slept with 1 of his patients & now can no longer work in the job he loves. What a waste of time, training&money. A genuinely nice guy, and a brilliant vet

— Seth (@sethdarby) December 22, 2019

Starting Two

Black To The Future

“We’re having a moment,” Eddie Murphy, hosting SNL for the first time since he left the cast in 1984, said to his three friends on stage. Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Tracy Morgan and eventually, Kenan Thompson, joined him.

Since the original cast and Bill Murray departed, there have only been a few true giants at SNL: Will Ferrell, Chris Farley and Kate McKinnon top our lists, with nods to Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Adam Sandler. But no one, not even Ferrell, ever owned SNL the way Murphy did for a brief period in the early 1980s. And as his Gumby character said on “Weekend Update,” “I saved this show from the trash heap.” He’s Gumby, dammit, and he’s correct.

The other thing to recall about the Eddie Murphy comet: He basically started at 30 Rock as a teen and left before he was 25. Some people, a very few people, just have it. As he joked on Saturday night, “Money don’t crack.”

Funny thing about this foursome: Tracy Morgan had the best line during the monologue. As the other three joked that they were half of Netflix’s budget, Morgan countered that “I made all my money on the road.”

“Touring?” Murphy asked.

“No,” Morgan replied. “I got hit by a truck.”

Ten For the ’10s

Last week Rolling Stone released its list of the “50 Best Movies of the 2010s” and it’s even worse than Jann Wenner’s inexplicable omission of Boston for the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. You can peruse it here; you decide.

We’re going to list our 10 favorite films of the decade, which is not to say that they’re the 10 best; just that they’re the 10 best to us. Also, before we do, we’ll add that this was the decade in which television produced far higher quality stuff than our cineplex. Just consider what Netflix, HBO, AMC and a few others wrought: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game Of Thrones, The Crown, Mindhunter, True Detective and Chernobyl, to name a few. All better than any single movie we saw.

Here’s our list of our 10 favorite films (from 10 to 1), only one or two of which made Rolling Stone‘s Top 50:

Dunkirk

Christopher Nolan’s war film takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate, as he tells the same story from three different time intervals: one week, one day, one hour. It’s like looking at a map at the beginning of a book you’re reading and then noticing there’s a second map with a superimposed section of the first map and then yet another map superimposing that second section.

Seen a second time, you are more prepared for these jumps in how time travels and are better able to appreciate when the stories, and time increments, merge.

Coco

About 10 to 15 minutes in this animated Pixar film takes a left turn we never saw coming and then it becomes a modern children’s classic the rest of the way through. And at the end, when the reveal that was always in plain sight is finally made obvious to us, well, you may find it getting awfully dusty in the theater.

Also, how can you watch the border crossing scene and not sense the irony?

La La Land

Did any film this decade receive more brushback after it was originally hailed than this one? And that extended right up to the moment the Oscars announced Best Picture and Warren Beatty got the name wrong (giving it to this film and then the producer having to read the envelope and on live television saying, Oh, no, Moonlight won it. And even being gracious about it.)

We’ll admit it founders a bit after the first 45 minutes before finding itself again at the end, but man, those first three songs— “Another Day Of Sun,” “Someone In The Crowd” and “A Lovely Night” are such a throwback to classic Hollywood musicals. We’ll stan for the Land all day and night, and Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are delicious.

Argo

It’s tense throughout, but Ben Affleck was smart enough to add a subplot of the two Hollywood vets, played by Alan Arkin and John Goodman, who added much-needed levity to the film. It won Best Picture and if you think that’s a miscarriage of justice, Argo f*** yourself.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

It feels like a film that could have been made in the 1970s as opposed to one that was set in the era. We’ve had to watch it a few times to fully comprehend what’s going on in this John Le Carre spy thriller, but each viewing makes it all the more worth it: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch and Toby Jones are all great, while Mark Strong sets an even higher bar. Smart and merciless, this one.

Mad Max: Fury Road

We’re not big into action flicks, but this effort by George Miller feels as if it was filmed on another planet (actually, Namibia) and is a white-knuckler all the way through. Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy are fantastic and I still can’t understand how the Oscars failed to find a way to get the bungee-cord guitarist into the broadcast.

The Great Beauty

It won an Oscar for Best Foreign film and it has stayed with us for years. We can’t adequately say why it struck us so hard other than to say that as you get older, you realize that life really is but a dream. And that moments are just snapshots of life. They’re here, these moments, and those who are wise revel in and appreciate them. Then the moment is gone forever. And that’s your life, anyone’s life, in a snapshot. This one’s worth it.

Whiplash

From the opening scene Damien Chazelle’s rookie effort had all the intensity and tension you needed to carry it all the way home. The particulars were original (music student, drummer, trying to go from being a nobody to a star) even if the basic premise was not (talented but proud student versus sadistic mentor: this was an updated version, with a few tweaks, of An Officer And A Gentleman). The dinner scene was so bold and fractious that, after that, this film won us over.

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon

Our favorite documentary since Grizzly Man. The story of a late Sixties burnout/weed dealer who, through the luck of fate, happens into a gig as Alice Cooper’s manager. And the rest, as they say, is history. Go into this one blind and trust us, you’ll love it.

The Big Short

How do you make a film about the worst disaster of the century after 9/11 and make it this funny? How do you make a film about the sub-prime mortgage crisis without putting movie goers to sleep? Adam McKay figured out a way. So many memorable scenes, and most of those include Steve Carrell or Ryan Gosling (and the best one includes both). The fourth-wall-breaking scenes also put a hitch in our giddyup.

Pitch Perfect

The title says it all. Besides having the funniest script and most crackling dialogue of the decade, it’s also a musical. And a sports film. And, kinda, Top Gun. If you’re asking me what film this decade provided the most entertainment per minute, and continues to do so upon repeat viewings, this is it.

And there’s all this great young female talent—Anna Kendrick, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow and Rebel Wilson—along with three dudes, Sklyer Astin, Adam Devine and Ben Platt, the last of whom would go on to win a Tony for his starring role in Dear Evan Hansen.

The characters are well-defined and stay true to themselves, while also evolving. The viewer is rewarded for paying attention. And the songs are fantastic. It’s everything a great movie needs to be (it has a sophomoric moment or two we would’ve scrapped: the mass-vomiting scene tops the list). I still get chills watching the Bellas’ championship performance.

***

Not on the list, but darn close: Get Out, The Social Network, Margin Call, 127 Hours, The Fighter, Moneyball, Gravity, The Imitation Game, Spotlight, Lion, Hell Or High Water, Call Me By Your Name, The Revenant, The Witch, The Martian, The Babadook.

We’ve probably overlooked a few and you’ll notice there’s nothing from the Marvel universe here. And we haven’t seen Moonlight or 12 Years A Slave (so not woke of us). So feel free to add your own list or tell us how pedestrian ours is.

by John Walters

Pressed for time this morning, but at least we can get out Susie B’s daily list…

Greek Mythic

It was the first time this late into an NBA season that a pair of teams with fewer than five losses met. The Bucks (now 25-4) defeated the Lakers (now 24-5) 111-104 behind Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s 34 points and five threes.

LeBron was the third-best player on the court last night. Just sayin’, and there’s no shame in that, Susie B. More miraculously the Bucks, who have the NBA’s best record, got points from THREE American-born white dudes: DiVancenzo, Korver and Connaughton. How often does that happen any more, if ever?

Cross Words

The magazine Christianity Today—we love their annual Saints in Swimsuits issue—in a blistering editorial yesterday, called for president Trump to be removed from office.

“The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents,” Mark Galli, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, wrote in the editorial. “That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.”

A little late to the party, Mark, but at least—and this is something meaningful to Christians—you’ve finally seen the light. Of course, if you’re asking the type of people who subscribe to Christianity Today to choose between the publication’s stated ideals and Donald Trump, well, I hate to tell you but…

White Wing Movement

Last summer I was serving beers to an American Airlines pilot (he wasn’t flying that day) and we were discussing his industry. “You know why American is the 12th-rated domestic airline?” he asked me. No, I answered. Why? “Because there aren’t 13 domestic airlines.”

Consumers apparently agree. In a recent poll by consumer watchdog site Which? Travel, American Airlines was rated worst among domestic carriers for long-haul flights.

Then again, unless you’re flying Emirates, all other airlines are the same.

Five Films: 1979

1. Apocalypse Now: Charlie doesn’t surf. Francis Ford Coppola’s mash-up of Vietnam and Heart of Darkness was a truly original film, a wild ride. Martin Sheen would be the first member of his family to star in an Oscar-nominated Best Picture Vietnam film, and this one should’ve won. 2. Breaking Away: Pretty much a perfect film. Is it a sports film? No, it’s a coming of age movie starring Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern—who’d go on to be the narrator in a great coming-of-age TV show a decade later—and Kelly Leak from Bad News Bears. 3. The In-Laws: “Serpentine! Serpentine!” Alan Arkin and Peter Falk are terrific in a thrown-together buddy film. 4. The Great Santini: Hello, sports fans. Was Robert Duvall channeling his Colonel Kilgore from No. 1 on this list to play Col. Bull Meechum, or was it the other way around? Essentially the same character, but a terrific movie. With Blythe Danner, they quintessential southern wife in numerous films. 5. Warriors: “Warriors, come out and play-ay!” This is sort of Adventure Race/Eco-Challenge New York City, back in the grimy and crime-ridden Seventies. Now, I never bought for a second that the leader of the Warriors was from Brooklyn, but let it go.

I’ve totally ignored some of the year’s biggest films: Alien (never saw), Kramer vs. Kramer and Norma Rae.

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

I do not remember doing this little “bit.” But it includes references to Rin Tin Tin, Asta, and the star of Hard to Kill. So it’s pretty good. https://t.co/94hfS76GKs

— Ben Mankiewicz (@BenMank77) December 18, 2019

Starting Five

Trumpeachment

The House of Representatives vote to impeach president Donald Trump by the tally of 230-197, which I believe was also the score of the most recent Rockets-Mavericks game.

Let’s be honest here: Yesterday’s day-long debate would’ve been improved with Tony Reali serving as moderator, awarding points for arguments well-made and muting Jim Jordan. And if a representative from Colorado spoke while behind him a witty aphorism (“On the other hand, I have five fingers”) was scrawled on a chalkboard behind him, what’s wrong with that?

About Face

These snippets speak for themselves…

This video of Trump praising Pelosi and saying W Bush should've been impeached for lying is so great I can't stand it.
pic.twitter.com/50tjXyJAzP

— The Darkest Timeline Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) December 18, 2019

…and…

Verge Of Greatness

The espn.com headline of a college hoops game you did not stay up for (St. Mary’s 96, Arizona State 56) reads “Ford scores 34 in Saint Mary’s 96-56 win over Arizona State,” which would not really entice me to read about the blowout.

What the headline fails to mention and the story does not get to until the 7th paragraph is that Sun Devil junior Alonzo Verge, Jr., came off the bench to score 43 of ASU’s 56 points. Forty-three points, off the bench, in a 40-point loss. Can’t remember seeing anything like that.

We’d say Verge set a new (Dr. Evil pinky to edge of lip)…bench mark?

Tesla Is A Car, But Its Stock Is A Rocket

Yesterday morning before the bell CNBC had a debate between a Tesla bull and a Tesla bear analyst. Shares of the stock have already more than doubled since June ($176 on June 3, $383 before yesterday’s bell).

So it was the bull, not the bear but the bull, who had a price target of Tesla of $385. And where is Tesla this morning, less than 26 hours since that man appeared on CNBC? It’s at $400.

Where does it stop? I dunno. Just informing y’all.

Five Films: 1978

1. Animal House: Perhaps we are all a product of our youths (we are, of course), but to me the funniest films are those from the Seventies: Blazing Saddles, Airport! (technically, 1980) and this one. From the twisted and tragic mind of Douglas Kenney, who in 33 short years on the planet co-founded The National Lampoon and wrote both this film and Caddyshack. If there’s a male between the ages of 50 and 60 who is unable to quote at least two lines from this film, I wouldn’t trust him. 2. The Deer Hunter: Breaking my own rule here. I’ve never actually seen more than a clip or two of this movie, but it’s got a nearly-dead John Cazale, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken (and yes, I know how it ends) and it won Best Picture. High on the must-see list. 3. Grease: Nearly a zeitgeist film and it also had tunes all over radio in the summer and fall of ’78. I think I hit puberty about 14 minutes into the film, or whenever ONJ made her first appearance. True confession: I like the “before” Sandy better than the after. 4. Heaven Can Wait: This was actually sweet and funny and poignant. What a turn for Warren Beatty after doing Shampoo. Kids, he was as big a male movie star as there was in the Seventies. Maybe only Robert Redford was bigger. 5. Midnight Express: “Tommy, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?” This is the film that inspired that line.

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

.@jordanklepper talks impeachment with Trump supporters: https://t.co/N9I4xScb8u pic.twitter.com/4DFLUaW8li

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) December 18, 2019

I mean…

Starting Five

Tantrump

President Trump sent a classic “I Can’t Believe She Ghosted Me!” letter yesterday to Nancy Pelosi that you can read here. Only five paragraphs end with an exclamation point (!) so it’s nice to see that he’s maturing.

The letter is strewn with lies, misleading statements and one very presidential “motherf****r” reference. On the other hand, it’s refreshing to see Trump end a relationship with a woman that does not include a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

By the way, this from Frank Bruni in The New York Times, “Twas The Eve of Impeachment,” is the best thing we’ll read today.

You Had One Job!

Building airplanes. That is what Boeing does. That’s it only job. And building airplanes has made the winged-flight manufacturer a Fortune 500 company and a pillar of the Dow Jones’ 30 companies. It’s not as if every country has an airplane builder. They’re a little more time-intensive to construct than, say, automobiles.

You know what’s a terrific feature in an airplane? The ability to stay aloft, and that is a feature that has seemingly eluded Boeing’s latest model, the 737 Max. The design flaw (“It’s not a bug, it’s a feature”) has resulted in two crashes and hundreds of needless deaths (note: how pissed off would you be if you were one of those who perished? Quotes we never get but, man, if there were a post-mortem beat reporter who could obtain them…).

So now Boeing has announced that it is suspending production of the 737. That would be kinda like Fruit Loops saying they’re no longer making Fruit Loops because they’ve misplaced the formula that makes them fruity. Or loopy.

Anyway, shares of Boeing are down more than 25%, from $446 to $328, since March 1st. Meanwhile, company executive huddle in their worldwide headquarters in Chicago (not Seattle) listening to Tom Petty’s “Learning To Fly.”

The Old Man and The See How He Runs*

*The judges, back from an extended Cancun getaway, will also accept “The Iceman Runneth”

That’s 84 year-old Roy Svenningsen, who last week completed the Antarctic Ice Marathon in 11 hours and change. Svenningsen, from Edmonton, has run in some 50 marathons over the past 55 years with his best time being an extremely fast 2:38 in Helsinki (likely back in the Sixties).

He is the oldest person to finish this race, although the news reports here are sketchy at best. This used to be known, when I ran it in 1997, as the Antarctica Marathon. News reports say that the man who won the race set a new record of 3:34, which is slower than the time several runners (self included) did back in ’97. Anyway, good for old Roy.

Adventure Quest

The good folks at Outside magazine have a feature titled “7 Adventures To Start The New Decade With A Bang.” None of them involve shooting guns, oddly. Anyway, here’s their list: Watch a Total Solar Eclipse (next one in the States is in 2024), Ride Across A State (I assume bike ride? May I suggest Rhode Island), Attend a Far-Flung Festival, Make A Pilgrimage (those two are nearly the same, no?), See A Waterfall That Looks Like It’s On Fire (an excuse to visit Yosemite, which I highly recommend), See The Northern Lights (this one tops our own bucket list), Sleep In Space (if you’re sleeping, what’s the point?).

Five Films: 1977

For a third consecutive year, a Hollywood film dominated the zeitgeist. The exception here, however, is that in 1977 not one but two films did. In my 6th grade class, every girl knew all the words to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and every boy was scribbling X-wing fighters or the Millennium Falcon on the back of his spiral notebook (bad artist that I am, I was two years behind, still attempting to master a dorsal fin). What a time to be alive.

1. Annie Hall: Forget the zeitgeist for a moment and consider Woody Allen’s masterpiece, and Best Picture winner, about being young and single and neurotic in Manhattan. Not only was this an inspired love letter to NYC, but also to humor itself. The scene in which Alvy Singer steps out of the theater line and speaks to us, the audience? Genius. The final scene of the film takes place on the corner of 63rd and Amsterdam, a spot I often stop at (just across the street from P.J. Clarke’s) and ruminate on life’s deeper meanings. La di da, la di da, la la. 2. Star Wars: I’m nowhere near the fan boy that most of you are, but I enjoyed it. If you can ever unearth the Siskel & Ebert clip in which they deconstruct the movie and posit that it’s really just a classic Western taking place in a galaxy far, far away, it’s worth your time. And no, I’ll never refer to it as Episode IV: A New Hope. 3. Saturday Night Fever: A better soundtrack than film, but only because it’s the best-selling soundtrack ever and stayed at No. 1 on the album charts for 24 weeks, nearly six consecutive months. There’s a good reason for this: the Bee Gees’ songs were great. 4. Slap Shot: Is this the first great cynical sports film? Paul Newman is wonderful as the aging player-coach of the Charlestown Chiefs minor-league hockey team and the cult-hero, Hansen brothers, I’ve always thought, had to be inspired by The Ramones. 5. High Anxiety: There are a couple of Richard Dreyfuss films vying for this fifth spot, but for sheer guffaws give us Mel Brooks’ riffing on Alfred Hitchcock with the help of Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman (as Nurse Diesel). Not his best, but still very funny.

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

My wife left me home alone with the kids to go out drinking with her friends. A lesser man might whine and complain, but instead I'm just playing Chumbawamba's 1997 hit "Tubthumping" over and over and over. On the jukebox at their bar. Using the TouchTunes app. pic.twitter.com/jqhbOLdddQ

— Henpecked Hal (@HenpeckedHal) December 17, 2019

Starting Five

Easy Brees-y

Saints quarterback Drew Brees tosses four touchdown passes in an effortless 34-7 win against the Colts on MNF and claims two records in the process. His 29-30 passing night was, percentage-wise, the best single-game performance in NFL history (96.7%). And in tossing his 537th, 538th, 539th and 540th career TD pass, he moved past both Tom Brady (still active, 538) and Peyton Manning (539, retired) on the all-time list.

All against the team the Saints beat in the Super Bowl 10 years earlier.

A reminder that Brees, 6’0″, was a second-round pick out of Purdue in 2001. Which is still four rounds sooner than Tom Brady was selected in 2000.

When Comics Get Ripped

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6I7b2bnuJz/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

On a personal level, it must feel great for comic Kumail Nanjiani to have gotten this buff for an upcoming role in a Marvel Comics film we’ll never see. On a professional level, however, beware: Remember how funny and popular Joe Piscopo and Carrot Top were before they discovered 24-Hour Fitness? We’re just sayin’….

The Coup

After a blah opening episode, Season 3 of The Crown (we miss Claire Foy, too…we’re all just going to have to adjust…it’s not like the first time in the past few years we’ve had longing for a leader who’s no longer there) kicks into high gear with some wonderful history lessons that, frankly, we were not aware of: “Margaretology,” or how Princess Margaret charmed LBJ into a financial bailout of Great Britain (by reciting dirty limericks and mocking JFK); “Aberfan,” about a Welsh mining disaster; and “The Coup,” in which deposed military leader and royal family member Lord Louis Mountbatten (played by Tywin Lannister himself, Charles Dance) conspires with the Bank of England and other plutocrats to overthrow socialist prime minister Harold Wilson.

Mountbatten, Prince Phillip’s uncle, at last has a showdown with his nephew’s wife, Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman). It’s the climactic scene in the episode and certainly the writer(s) who penned it did so with an eye on current events, both in the USA and the UK.

Mountbatten defends his thoughts on staging a coup by telling the queen that he hates to see what the socialist party is doing to his beloved country and that people like him need to reclaim it by any means necessary (they don’t actually have him say, “Make England Great Again,” but you get the picture). He asks her, “How can you support a person like that?”

And the queen responds, “I’m supporting the prime minister. I’m supporting the Constitution. I’m supporting democracy, the foundation on which this country was built (1,000 years earlier, I might add). And I’ll continue to support him until it is the will of the people to replace him.”

So you get the picture. Mountbatten is the Joe Kernen (or Mitch Mcconnell, or most of the GOP) of this episode, telling you it’s okay to abandon law and democratic ideals because it’s about the economy, stupid. Or about whatever other of our ideals we happen to love. And the queen is saying, “No. You can’t only be in favor of democracy when it’s working for you and then abandon it as soon as it isn’t.”

By the way, notice how democracy and capitalism have analagous roles. Remember how the Wall Street barons were all capitalist jingoists until late September 2008 when suddenly they all became welfare queens, at least for a few months? Yup. Hypocrites over and over.

Anyway, here’s the wrinkle. The queen stood up to Mountbatten, and stood up for democracy. And the wrinkle is that, at least from an electoral college standpoint, democracy was not abandoned in 2016. Donald Trump did not win the popular vote, but he did win where it counted: in the electoral college.

And so that’s where the analogy with this scene breaks down. The people of the U.S. (at least Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania) gave the people currently in charge the keys to the country. The people opened the doors to the coup. Voters have only themselves to blame.

Two more notes: 1) the instigator of the plot was Cecil King, the CEO of the Daily Mirror newspapers. More echoes of current events. 2) We love the final scene in this episode, in which Mountbatten visits his elderly sister (Prince Phillip’s mum, Princes Alice, played by Jane Lapotaire), who is a wonderful character. He explains the mess he’s gotten into, and the mess Great Britain is in, and how VITALLY IMPORTANT all of this is, as if he’s some MSNBC or Fox News prime-time host, and she looks at him with pity and says, “Aw, who cares?”

Which is about the way many of us feel right about now.

Ice Capades

Reading. So cool. It constantly teaches you how much you don’t know (that’s why non-readers are so sure of themselves; ignorance is bliss). For example, The Man From The Train (which we read over the summer) informed us of a serial killer who roamed this country from about 1899-1912 who was so deft at what he did that no one even suspected a single person of these crimes until Bill James, the author, shed light on it more than 100 years later.

Then there’s Labryinth of Ice, which we’re reading now. It’s about, to put it succinctly, the North Pole’s version of the Shackleton expedition. In 1881 first lieutenant Adolphus Greely was given command of a polar expedition to explore to the farthest north any human beings had ever traveled (83 degrees north), sailing up along the west coast of Greenland.

Then things got icy. And next, dicey. Above is the ship Proteus, which during the second summer that Greely and his 2 dozen or so men found themselves stranded at Fort Conger (the first resupply ship had been unable to break through the pack ice) went up to perform a rescue mission. The only problem is that Proteus was trapped by the pack ice which then literally squeezed the ship to death. That crew had to abandon ship and anyway that’s where we are now in the odyssey.

If you’re looking for a fascinating book to read over the Christmas break, we recommend this one.

Five Films: 1976

1. Rocky: As much as I love this film—it has as legit a claim to “greatest sports film” as any and were it not for the five sequels it might stand alone as such…no one ever requested Hoosiers 3—I don’t think people who were born after, say, 1975, can appreciate what a monumental cultural touchstone Sylvester Stallone’s personal project was. The USA was in the doldrums as the bicentennial crept up, what with Nixon’s resignation and our humiliating evacuation from Vietnam, a war we lost. And here comes this film about a southpaw heavyweight from Philly who’s average at best but suddenly gets, due to his heritage and look and availability, his one shot in life. And he changes himself in order to achieve his goal. And kudos to Stallone for not giving his audience the easy happy ending. What a fantastic, and for this country at that time, necessary, film. Finally, it has to be noted: How much less of a film would this have been without Bill Conti’s unforgettable score? You can’t think of this film without that music. 2. All The President’s Men: This is less a great movie than a 2-hour procedural on how good reporting gets done. Robert Redford made this film about the heroes of the Watergate story and it was incredibly important to him to get the details correct, to illustrate how much pain-staking work (and a little luck) goes into breaking the biggest story of the past 50 years. Incredible, and still resonant this very day. 3. Network: Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sydney Lumet, this film was years ahead of its time in illuminating not only how the television biz works but also how much of an impact it has on us. Howard Beale was the original Stephen A. Smith (or is it Rush Limbaugh?).. 4. The Bad News Bears: This Little League drama/comedy may have been targeted toward kids, but that was back when filmmakers respected their audience, no matter the age, to have a brain. At times it’s hilarious but it’s also got a ton of pathos. And like the first movie on this list, the good guys come oh so close to pulling off the miraculous upset but not quite all the way. 5. Marathon Man: “Is it safe?” Dustin Hoffman and Sir Lawrence Olivier and Nazis. Very entertaining and not entirely dissimilar from Three Days of the Condor. Both the All The President’s Men leads got their own “The Only Living Boy In New York” film.

We didn’t include Taxi Driver, which we’ve only seen once (on a plane) and didn’t even bother to finish. You can appreciate DeNiro’s performance without being all gushy about how much you loved the film. We’ll give it another try some day.