The second greatest Romero film! A genre play, and, as usual, deeply political, without degenerating into cutesy satirics. This perpetuation of humanity's greed and hypocrisy, in the face of absurdist horror, is the ultimate statement. A drawing of the lines between classes, all that can remain are Romero's trademark cynical survivors, the island wiped clean by the always moral scourge of the dead. Two dead men, clicking empty guns at each other for eternity.

Got the "chi" of this the second time around. Whedon's directing can be uninspired, and I think too much has been made of his action scenes (one portion of a fight between Thor and Loki was the most unintelligible thing I've seen in a long time), but he has a penchant not only for dialogue, but for shooting groups of people talking, almost at eye level and (almost) worthy of invoking Hawks. And yes, when he allows them to simply talk in elegantly composed conversations, it makes their ultimate union feel both touching and exhilarating.

Early T. Scott's form here is gorgeous, capturing borderline impressionist pools of glowing light, and when armed with Berlin, he manages to craft near-rhapsodic levels of Pop Art corniness. Occasionally his mise en scene reinforces the mythopoetics of the pilots and their proximity to death. Ultimately, however, the shimmering surfaces cannot conceal the jingoism of the film's core. Entertaining, exhilarating, but propaganda. Fascinating nonetheless.

Failed fathers and broken families. Primarily though, a failing of the parent, an abandonment and ruination of innocence. Abuse, neglect, misplaced intentions. What begins as a fairytale (the law enforcement as bumbling fools, until suddenly, tragically, they're not), finally transforms into a melancholy meditation on parents failing children, and the wrenching consequences. Clint's Red looks on, grimacing, another failed "father". "I don't know a goddamn thing..."

If it ultimately comes down to a battle of free will vs. determination, then Crown is McT's utopian protagonist, a man who defines his own fate and completely structures the film around him. The final sequence ("Let's play ball!") revels in the control of Crown, finally a protagonist taking the "controller" role, instead of being dominated by it. "Sinnerman" soars, and McT's editing tracks the steps of freedom.

Impossibly seductive cinema. As Lights aptly put it, Coppola revels in the "magic mirror" of cinema, a reflection in mirrors of emotions. What separates this from Back to the Future is a wealth of wisdom, a search for reconciliation between youth and age, not a reinforcement of the family, but a poetic evocation of forgiveness. No film uses nostalgia in such a moving, gorgeous way. An all-time favorite.

One of Eastwood's grand masterpieces, and should never be deemed overrated. Few words of praise are high enough.The majesty of the landscapes contrast with Eastwood's interior chiaroscuros, the most unromantic frontier town imaginable. The haunting, poetic contemplation of violence, in America, in print, in cinema, in Eastwood's icons, make this both one of the great self-critical auteurist films and one of the Great American Films in general.

Adkins is able to channel so much of his physicality through his eyes it's astounding. He doesn't need lines when he can stare through the screen. His movements are brutal and lightening-fast. Yet he hasn't been given a role worthy of his abilities. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning appears to quite probably be the first substantial opportunity for him as a performer; Hyams' brand of moody, despairing action perfectly complements Adkins' skill set.

I'm not sure how to describe it. I think of it as the Easy Rider of the 80s. Essentially an endless series of geek, sexist tableaus of violence. And yet. The surrealism shines through, from the unbelievable World War II bomber segment to the final epic. Ultimately a significant work of animation, both morally vacant and absolutely exhilarating, acid and coke echoing through every frame. Some strange masterwork.

Roeg has generally decreased in stature as my tastes have changed, but this film has remained his most constant. Is it his chronological ellipses, each tragic in their loss of ideals and hope, every new, artificial wrinkle adding levels of loneliness and despair. Is it my increased experience with Bowie? This film is an exceptional formal exercise, probing modern alienation. Regardless of its slightly aging aesthetic, it remains a masterwork.

A brilliant auteurist horror film. The ballsy, pre-Scream Wes Craven invests the film with exceptional surrealist touches, from Krueger's expanding arms ("This is God!") to the stairs turning into quicksand. Craven's innate understanding of horror as essentially the irrational side of the human psyche was at its peak in this film.

Riding on the wave of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the old, masterful, pre-Scream Wes Craven cashed in on the back-country inbred horror genre. A film about the middle class family, and the inherent barbarity within the American lifestyle, both acknowledging the bloody, immoral past and the ineffectual, death-of-spirituality present. Craven augments his class struggle with cold, efficient form.

Seminal masterpiece. The yawning, horrific abyss of the dark side of America. The sheer inhumanity of the slamming steel door, the smoke of Leatherface's chainsaw illuminated through the afternoon light. Horror represented through brutally frank and uncompromising images. Axial cutting, impersonal framings. As fitting an epitaph to the dream of the 1960s as Hunter S. Thompson's writings. Sobering and horrific.

Congratulations on making CinemaScope's top 50 filmmakers under 50 you amazing bastard you! You and John Hyams have a greater understanding for the formal elements of genre than anyone else, well deserved good man!

John Hyams could be a near-messianic figure in action. Two films released, both with subpar DTV scripts, yet exceptional formal accomplishments that, as FilmFan states, display a mastery of mood, complete with emotional resonance. Regeneration displays a philosophical side to both his formalism and subtexts, while Dragon Eyes reveals a wild, experimental side. The fact that he was able to achieve this level of artistry in the world of shitty DTVs speaks for itself. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, his first script, with better financing (though still small budget), will be our first glimpse of Hyams untethered to the usual mediocrity of DTV creations. The beginnings of a major talent in cinema.

A mood piece rather than a coherent narrative, using the Yojimbo template for an abstract riff on the action genre vigilante film. From the opening triple dissolve and Cung Le rolling into town in the coolest opening credits in years, to the isolated strands of Van Damme's aging voice, this is definitely removed from the formalistic narrative drive of Universal Soldier: Regeneration. Hyams shows us another side of his truly impressive talent. It seems that he is capable of doing anything in the action genre. Exceptional DTV cinema, now let's get him some real budgets already!

The best part was watching Abrams discover the cinematic camera, his shots becoming more diverse and striking. Alas, it lacks the core of entertainment, charm and intelligence that marked Star Trek. Now, if we could get him to combine both of these instincts in one package, we will actually have a great film on our hands. Still, this film has its strengths, but Abrams man, don't try to be the 'Berg, you have your own talents.

"So the idea was to kind of make the movie like a kind of nightmare where you tumble from one bad dream to another but can’t quite wake up. So each part of the dream feels very different, but also very unpleasant. We have really tried to…it is almost like the visual look of three or four different films packed into one movie, deliberately so, because each scenario you go from is radically different from the next, both in the way we shot it and also in the way we lit it." YES PLEASE

"Eastwood's camera lingers briefly on the new couple as they emerge into the dawn light, and the shot-- of an exhausted, hollow-eyed Eastwood and a still keyed-up Locke-- is one of the most ambiguous and unsettling images I have ever encountered in the American cinema. The love story has ended happily (with the unification of the couple), the detective story tragically (with the annihilation of the detective and the escape of the guilty). Where can the couple possibly go from here? This isn't the didactic conclusion of a right-wing tract, but a moment of deep subversion. All the certainties have been erased, and the dawn rises on a frightening new world." -Dave Kehr

One of the best "escape" films. The set is filmed, through Anderson's formally precise symmetries, as it's own physical force, with the ever present "camera" eye acting as a vengeful antagonist. The opening minutes in particular display a formal direction of objects and spaces worthy of Carpenter's The Fog.

"Pale blinds drawn all day/ Nothing to do/ Nothing to say/ Blue, blue I will sit right down/ Waiting for the gift of sound and vision/ And I will sing/ Waiting for the gift of sound and vision/ Drifting into my solitude/ Over my head/ Don't you wonder sometimes 'bout sound and vision"

My most anticipated film of the year, by a mile.

"Be like David Caruso in Jade." - Seth Rogen, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

"Earth. Even the word sounded strange to me now... unfamiliar. How long had I been gone? How long had I been back? Did it matter? I tried to find the rhythm of the world where I used to live. I followed the current. I was silent, attentive, I made a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand, and perform the millions of gestures that constitute life on earth. I studied these gestures until they became reflexes again. But I was haunted by the idea that I remembered her wrong, and somehow I was wrong about everything."

“I cry a lot. My emotions are very close to my surface. I don't want to hold anything in so it festers and turns into pus - a pustule of emotion that explodes into a festering cesspool of depression.”

The man was an auteur unto himself. When I think of acting, I think of Grant.

Ozu and Hara pulled me out of the pitch black hole I've been falling into the last few weeks, and for that I'll be eternally grateful. I'm not sure I've ever had a richer emotional response to a film. Not one adjective, but all. Life. Ozu was the greatest.

The only music artist who evolves artistically while maintaining the spotlight in the 21st century worthy of Bowie, Dylan, and Prince. Yes.

Maybe it's just where my mind is right now, but I cant escape (hehe) the feelings of tragedy and melancholy in this film's bones. Underneath the entertaining genre exercise is a cold world where betrayal, death, and oppression are so ubiquitous that surprise isn't even a viable reaction. The most noble, honorable man is a self-described "asshole" who lets a woman be raped, who coldly observes death, who watches on with sad eyes. Plissken is both a brilliant genre riff and a tragic (anti)hero. Forget fucking Batman, Plissken is the hero the world deserves.

I have let this film fall to the side, forgetting about it. My rewatch reminds me that I should never think of this as anything less than a masterpiece. One of the essential, bitter rejections of Hollywood and the borderline-sadism of its artifice. As a genre fan, it behooves me to remember the lessons of this film. Also, it functions as one of the greatest 2000s tragic romances.