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"Do you realize I haven't kissed you in over an hour?" says Charlton Heston to Janet Leigh at the end of Touch of Evil's famous opening scene, three and a half minutes of directorial perfection. One long tracking shot, it features close-ups leading to long shadows, followed by long shots of choreographed people and vehicles at the US-Mexico border. Legendary director Orson Welles had a touch of genius, that's for sure.

The rest of the movie disappoints in comparison, not that it's not without a touch of intrigue, several even. Serious movie fans won't be disappointed.

Bull Durham set a new standard for sports movies. Jocks on screen had never been this smart, this sexy, this suave. It's also a classic Susan Sarandon liberated-woman picture, here a JuCo English teacher with a thing for baseball players. She's pretty and they're dumb, until she runs into Kevin Costner's Crash Davis.

The upshot is sports movie immortality of the baseball and romcom varieties. As it happens, writer-director and onetime minor league ball player Ron Shelton wasn't just a baseball guy. He went on to make two more great sports movies: "White Men Can't Jump":https://www.vie…

An engaging and influential foreign language film about a young woman named Amelie (Audrey Tautou) who finds a long-hidden toy box. After finding that returning the toy box to it's now owner, now elderly, leaves her feeling fulfilled, prompting her to do other random acts of kindness. Sadly, while possessing an innocent heart, she is childlike in her interaction with other adults, a byproduct of a dysfunctional upbringing. This inability to relate to other adults inhibits her chances of finding love.

The movie was nominated for five Oscars, and has had a considerable influence on subs…

This is a classic 'dumb-but-funny' movie which makes no pretense to be serious. It is an ultimate parody on all things 1970's, so younger viewers may not get some things, but this movie had my teenagers gut-laughing nonetheless. Leslie Neilsen (from the Naked Gun series) can't be beat in this kind of film, and Robert Stack is a great fit as the straght-man. One of my favorite scenes is a "who's on third" esque exchange between pilots with the last names "Roger" and "Over" trying to communicate with each-other on the radio with a great deal of ensuing confusion…. Or, maybe it was the sc…

This highly stylized production by the Brothers Coen has great fun with the cinematic staples of old time gangster movies. Certainly one of the best movies the Brothers C have made, Miller's Crossing features scene stealing performances by Jon Polito and others.