Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Favorite Stars Who Stopped Making Good Films in the Last Millenium

The next on the list is HARRISON FORD.

Not just one of my favorite stars, but several of his films are among the most popular ever made (and a couple of these among the most critically acclaimed.) And it says something that there are several films I like I have to leave off ("Working Girl", the Jack Ryan films and "Air Force One" among them.)

And the films of the last decade have, for the most part, been painful.

10) "Presumed Innocent" (1990) A courtroom drama, that makes the list because of the great twist at the end. (Scary haircut for Ford though. And he plays 'Rusty' Sabich. Rusty?)

9) "The Mosquito Coast" (1986) A rare time when Ford plays a crazy guy, perhaps a bad guy. He did very good work with Peter Weir.

8) "American Graffiti" (1973) A wonderful historic relic that shows that at one time George Lucus could be funny and write human dialogue.

7) "The Fugitive" - (1993) Perhaps the best TV to movie adaptation ever (that competition may not be too rough, but it is a great film.)

6) "Witness" (1985) His other great film with director Weir. Ford was Oscar nominated and deservedly so.

5) "Apocalypse Now" (1979) & "The Conversation" (1974) Okay, the reason I put these films together is because Ford's parts are so small in these two Francis FORD Coppola Best Picture nominees. (And in my opinion, "Apocalypse Now" should certainly have beat "Kramer Vs. Kramer" and more controversially, I think "The Conversation" deserved to beat Coppola's "Godfather II".) It's awesome that Ford was Col. Lucas in "Apocalypse."

4) "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977) A film I saw many, many times and it made me very, very happy. (Sorry there wasn't room for you, "Return of the Jedi", one of my happiest theater experiences.)

3) "Blade Runner" (1992) Ford may be one of the weakest things in great film, and he is very good. Arguably the best science fiction film ever made.

2) "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Most of this summer was devoted to the question, "Is Darth Vader really Luke's father?" Because we no longer questioned who was cooler Luke or Han...It was Han by a mile.

1) "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) The best adventure film ever made. I've seen it more than any other film (partly because I worked in a theater that showed it for a year.) I like "Doom" and "Crusade" but the awfulness of "Crystal Skull" almost makes me wish no sequel had been made. But that's not really true. But I do love "Raiders" and hate "Skull".

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