Category Archives: List Junkies

Our Top Ten Favorite Movie Toys

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Toys can mean a lot of things to popular culture and fiction. They can be props, they can be used to sell things, they can entertain, they can impress, they can exploit, and they can become symbols for greater things. The sled in “Citizen Kane” was a toy but a huge symbol for something key to the development of its main character, in “Winnie the Pooh” they were characters facing the blossoming adolescence of their keeper Christopher Robbins, in “Inherit the Wind” Henry Drummond likened religion to a toy rocking horse with a gold coating and a rotten center, in “Poltergeist” a clown doll became an instrument for evil, in “Wall-E” our robotic hero collected toys and mementos that reflected on a world he was never a part of but wishes he would have been, and even in cult classics like “Monster Squad” protagonist Phoebe’s teddy bear became a last gift to her friend Frankenstein as he was doomed to a life in Limbo and torment.

Toys can do so much for the world, and they’ve become a link for our nostalgia and our childhood reminding us a childhood we wish we had and a childhood that we had that we enjoyed until we had to grow up and move on to bigger more mature things and responsibilities. In honor of “Toy Story 3,” we count down the “Our Favorite Movie Toys” from all of cinema and describe why we love these fragments of film that made us laugh out loud, cry our eyes out, and shiver in fright.

What are some of your favorite Movie Toys? Let us know in the comments!

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Our Top Six Favorite Disney Heroes

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In typical Disney form, the upcoming Oscars signal another potential award winning season as their film “Up” is nominated for Best Picture and best animated Feature, while “The Princess and the Frog” is up for Best Animated Feature as well. In spite of the obvious monopoly Disney holds on the Oscars, they’re knack for creating rousing heroes and heroines is legendary and their variety of characters are diverse and plentiful. So in honor of their potential Oscar victory, we picked our favorite Disney heroes.

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How Do You Keep Getting Work?! The Ten Most Astounding Careers in Hollywood

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I imagine this will be the most volatile bit of writing on the site in a while and I can see why. These are ten “actors” who have achieved incredible success in Hollywood, immense critical acclaim to some degree and yet we’d be much happier if they disappeared from filmmaking altogether and never starred in a movie ever again. From the grating, the obnoxious and the outright absurd, here are ten people with enormous amount of fame they really shouldn’t have at all. We were going to include Jessica Alba and Megan Fox to the fold, but that’d be as easy as pushing an amputee down the stairs. We expect no end of scrutiny and we welcome it.

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The Ten Best VHS Covers of All Time

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I grew up in the Bronx where it was almost impossible to walk down the street without bumping in to a video store. There was one on every single block. They were the Starbucks of the bygone age. And nine times out of ten they were mom and pop stores. Low budget places just looking for a quick buck to make off of the big VHS craze of the eighties and nineties. This was before Blockbuster and Hollywood video began taking over these places and running them out of business. As a kid my parents were always off attending to financial affairs and on many occasions they’d leave me and my brother to spend the day with my cousin at the local video store “JR Video” (No relation). My aunt worked there for almost five years and we’d spend the entire day there running around the big store, watching low budget horror movies on the television mounted on the ceiling and playing in the back closet where they stored all of the VHS tapes and I could still remember looking out the back door in the end of the closet and seeing the poster for “Basket Case” glimmer in the sunlight. This is the place where I was basically exposed to movies of all kind.

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The Top Ten "Kick Ass" Moments

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Well, it’s coming, yet another superhero comic adaptation but thankfully this one is different. If you’ve never read it before, “Kick-Ass” is not so much about superheroes as it is about regular narcissistic everyday people putting on costumes and trying to fight crime and somehow finding themselves becoming real costumed superheroes when they just happen to crash in to a real life villain who wants them dead at all costs. There’s a violent karate fighting nine year old, a lot of really disgusting violence, and a storyline that is more realistic than most comic books tend to be. “Kick-Ass” does not stylize being a superhero. It’s rough to read.

Coming up on April 16th is the big screen version with an interesting cast who are threatening to take the box-office by storm and if you’ve ever seen the appealing trailers, you’ll know that we’re in for something quite spectacular. After reading the comic series a while ago, I thought it’d be good to pinpoint the top ten moments in “Kick-Ass” that particularly disturbed or excited us. Believe it or not, “Kick-Ass” is quite a good comic with a creator who managed to make history in comics by creating “Wanted,” another very violent comic turned in to a hit movie starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. “Kick-Ass” is a bit more conventional, but damn it looks quite good in spite of Millar’s apparent homophobia and penchant for racial stereotyping. So without further ado…

Warning, since the comic is somewhat similar to the movie, there will be potential spoilers.

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The Quentin Tarantino Report Card

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I don’t know if you can call Tarantino the best director of all time. He’s not even the most original director of all time. The man rips scenes and plot elements from many films and calls them tributes and homages. Let’s be realistic, most of the general movie audience won’t be able to pick up 95 percent of the references and nods he includes in his films. Until reading it, I thought Hattori Hanzo was an original character created by Tarantino, and I originally thought the final stand off involving the shadows in The House of Blue Leaves was amazing until I read it was a basic shot for shot copy of a scene in “Episode One.” Fans of Asian cinema have even claimed Tarantino remade “City of Fire” and simply renamed it “Reservoir Dogs.” Many film critics and knowledgeable film buffs have conceded that Tarantino does indeed fancy himself an auteur and blatantly pilfers obscure cult films and directors.

But the questions linger: Is there a certain line where an homage becomes outright plagiarism? And does plagiarism automatically devalue the artist behind it? Hell, even Tarantino has admitted to taking from other films to form his own stories and confesses to it proudly. And yet in spite of his self indulgence, egomania, and rather self-aggrandizing temperament the man is still a very popular filmmaker in Hollywood. What about the man appeals to even the most cynical cineaste? Is it his unabashed enthusiasm? His roots as a school drop out turned film fanatic? Or the fact that he knows how to competently structure stories?

Even in spite of the derivations and blatant plagiarism Tarantino is still very well loved and has even inspired College courses and dissertations and has prompted many to debate about what his true impact on film will be and whether or not he is still just a fad. His words and influence certainly are powerful in spite of his retractors, and his films continue to inspire many aspiring filmmakers. Being a casual fan myself, I thought with his recent success of “Inglourious Basterds” and his recent bid of respect for his roots by purchasing the ailing New Beverly Cinema, that it’d be interesting to look at the films he’s directed. The man certainly will leave a legacy behind him because in spite of lacking originality, he really knows how to make movies.
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Our Top 10 Animated Films of All Time

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10. Wall-E (2008)
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Written by: Jim Reardon
Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Studios
This was a last minute choice, but watching “Wall-E” in theaters this year was an incredible experience and has made me somewhat of a fan of Pixar Animation. Pixar and co. seem to put Disney on the fryer for the messages they influence here with themes of consumerism, materialism, and the dangers of dependence on big corporate conglomerates who keep us fat and happy. In their infinite ignorance, I doubt Disney saw the jabs through their dollar colored goggles. One of my favorite movies of 2008 and now one of my favorite animated movies of all time, “Wall-E” is that rare picture that features one of the most sympathetic heroes of all time, a droid with a simple purpose: Clean. He is then met by Eve, a new entity in his life that he falls in love with at first sight. This inspires a look in to a new world and a better purpose beyond working and he learns that he has a choice in how he lives his life. Just seeking to reclaim his love, he doesn’t know he’s introduced an apathetic, fat and lazy society to a world beyond comfort and sloth and to a crooked organization whose given up on humanity. It’s one of the most visually stimulating animated films with some of the best characterization I’ve ever seen in a movie that didn’t rely on dialogue.

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