By Mark Pukalo
Since I was a little kid, I have always enjoyed evaluating and analyzing things, putting them in order and then adjusting over time.
I've had a lot of time on my hands, I guess. Or, I just wanted my opinion heard.
First it was the local top 30 or Casey Kasem's top 40 songs on the radio. I would do my own each week. I found some of my top 100s for years in the 1970s in a folder recently. ("All by Myself "from Eric Carmen was No. 1 in 1976). I would have a different opinion now..
As time went on I was fascinated by the NBA and NFL drafts. Who is making the best picks? Who is going to be a star? Who is over-rated? It was a natural transition into sports writing.
The first time I saw my name in print was when I mailed my preseason baseball picks to columnist Tom Winters of the Norwich Bulletin and he included it in his Sunday column. I seriously never considered doing anything else. Of course, unless I made the NBA.
There was a chance to do a lot of evaluating in my job, covering high schools and colleges much of my career. I picked All-State teams, top players lists and wrote many draft stories as my main interest became hockey in the 90s. I watched several high schoolers who ended up having solid NHL careers.
While I still love to watch the drafts, in the last 20 years or so I have slowly become a serious amateur movie critic. Or at least I like to call myself one. It's become an obsession. A good one.
The first movie I probably saw outside of our small TV was a cartoon at the old Jewett City theater as a little tyke, but the first one I can remember was in 1972 at the Norwich Drive-In. The family went to see "Conquest of the Planet of Apes."
I also remember going to the movies in Hyannis, Mass and seeing a film with Art Carney called "The Late Show," in the mid 70s. Then, there was my 8th grade trip to New York City in 1977. After a stop at the Statue of Liberty, and before the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall,, we viewed "Smokey and the Bandit." Not sure it was appropriate for 14-year-olds, but we loved it.
I think I became a big movie fan when I moved to the Hartford area. There were so many theaters to chose from and I started going more frequently. There were cheap second-run theaters to see good films. Later, my brother worked at a theater in Norwich and I got some free tickets.
While my favorite all-time film came out in 2000, I did not do my first "best of the year" list until 2007. I probably just posted them on facebook until 2011. It was then that I discovered blogger.com.
Since then, it has been a yearly project that I enjoy. Streaming services have allowed me to see more films. A special thanks to brother AJ for helping me view even more important, odd and fun films each year.
I have blogged a few times on my favorite movies of all time. The last blog was during the pandemic. This updated list will be different.
Instead of putting them in order, which is an impossible task, I will group them in three lists of 50 great films that made me laugh, cry and think. We will leave out 2024 for now, but I can update them every year like the English soccer leagues - relegating and moving up movies.
My dream is to put together a website at some point and/or do a podcast like a few favorite critics of mine. Check out the Intercut Podcast. You can find it on Youtube, facebook and twitter. Amanda the Jedi is also a fun watch with her own videos or when she joins Zach and Arturo on Intercut.
Some day.
Until then, here's a list of films that almost made the first 50, which is basically 101-150 of all time for me in alphabetical order. The last few are always tough, but they can always change my mind with another viewing and move up - even two levels like Wrexham in the English Soccer League.
These are all great films with iconic actors, characters and scenes (Surrender Dorothy!!). All were worthy of the first 50, but it's a numbers game. Here we go..
The First 50 will run next week:
HONORABLE MENTION
After Hours, All the President's Men, American History X, American Pie, An Officer and a Gentleman, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Belfast, Bend it Like Beckham, Brian's Song, David Byrne's American Utopia, Deadpool, Divergent, Dodgeball, Everybody Wants Some!, Fried Green Tomatoes, Frost/Nixon, Go, Groundhog Day, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Iron Man, The Infiltrator, I Tonya, Life is Beautiful, Live and Let Die, Logan Lucky, The Martian, Midnight Run, Mumford, Mystery Alaska, National Lampoon's Vacation, One Good Cop, Ruby Sparks, Saturday Night Fever, Say Anything, She Said, Smokey and the Bandit, Sound of Metal, Spaceballs, Splash, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, United 93, Vanilla Sky, The Way, Way Back, We Are Marshall, The Wedding Singer, The Whale, When Harry Met Sally, Zero Dark Thirty,
Have never seen all the way through for some reason: Annie Hall, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dirty Dancing, Harry Potter Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Princess Bride, Road House, Rosemary's Baby, Sin City, Taxi Driver.
Recently Seen Many Years After Everyone Else - Fight Club, My Cousin Vinny, The Big Lebowski, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. (All of them good, but not great).
No comments:
Post a Comment