Best Musicals

West Side Story - 1961
Chicago - 2002
Guys and Dolls - 1955
Hair - 1979
Bye Bye Birdie - 1963
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - 2007
The Phantom of the Opera - 2004

Character Spotlight: Inspector Clouseau

Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau is the bumbling and accident-prone police inspector of the French Sûreté, who believes he is a genius when it comes to solving cases but in actuality makes trouble and destruction on almost anyone who crosses his path. Played by legendary actor Peter Sellers, he perfected Clouseau's odd French accent to be nasal-sounding, so that some words, like "room" sound like "reum" and "bomb" like "beumb". Sellers has cemented his legendary status with this iconic character more than any other character he has played. Clouseau has since been played by other actors, most recently by Steve Martin in a rebooted version of The Pink Panther.

Candy (2006)

Dan is a poet, who falls in love with a beautiful art student named Candy, addicted to one another as much as they are to drugs. They get married and after Candy finds out she's pregnant, they promise to quit and be healthy. But the withdrawal and their need for getting high slowly begins to destroy their love and their lives. They ask their friend Casper, a university professor for cash, as well as pawning possessions, scamming unsuspecting people for their bank accounts and prostituting for money. At times romantic and beautiful but on the complete opposite side it's intense, frightening and heartbreaking. Ledger and Cornish are both fantastic in the roles of two young people in love and addicted to heroin; think of them as kind of like the Sid and Nancy of the modern age. Starring Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush 7/10

Best Sports Movies

Rocky - 1976
Raging Bull - 1980
Hoosiers - 1986
Chariots of Fire - 1981
Million Dollar Baby - 2004
Cinderella Man - 2005
The Hustler - 1961
Breaking Away - 1979
Jerry Maguire - 1996
The Color of Money - 1986
Caddyshack - 1980

Character Spotlight: Tony Montana

Antonio Montana, a Cuban immigrant whose nickname "Scarface" refers to the long scar that he got from a fight, came to America to live the dream. But being a foreigner with a criminal record doesn't make it easy to go straight, so Tony is drawn in by the lavish and seductive world of drugs and excess. He climbs up the ladder of power in no time, becoming a very rich drug lord. But because of his fierce and hot-tempered nature, the one thing he doesn't do is take his boss Frank Lopez's advice; to not "Get high on your own supply" which is ultimately his downfall. The Tony Montana character was first portrayed by Paul Muni in the 1932 film, and later in the 80's by Al Pacino.

Best Remakes

3:10 to Yuma - 2007
Dawn of the Dead - 2004
The Thing - 1982
Night of the Living Dead - 1990
Scarface - 1983

Dorian Gray (2009)

Young and handsome Dorian Gray arrives in London, and meets a man by the name of Lord Henry Wotton. Dorian is soon intoxicated by his world of pleasure and excess. Henry's friend, an artist named Basil Hallward paints Dorian's portrait and is astounded by how life-like it is, confessing that he would give anything, even his very soul for eternal youth. He is captivated by a theater actress Sibyl Vane, which he falls in love with and gets engaged to. But after Sibyl finds out about Dorian and his infidelity, she is so heartbroken she drowns herself. Soon after, Dorian sees the portrait starting to make a shocking transformation. Seductive, decadent and haunting; an intriguing remake of the 1945 film The Picture of Dorian Gray. Starring Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, Rebecca Hall, Ben Chaplin, Fiona Shaw 8/10

Character Spotlight: Sirius Black

Spending twelve long years in Azkaban prison for a crime he didn't commit, Sirius "Padfoot" Black is the last heir to the House of Black. Having been first featured in The Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Sirius once attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy with Harry's father. James and Sirius were the best of friends and when Harry was born, his parents named Sirius Harry's godfather. Although at first seeming dangerous and scary, Sirius is a loyal and trustworthy person. He is also an Animagus, a magical talent for turning himself into the form of an animal, in his case a big black dog. Later portrayed by Gary Oldman in four of the Harry Potter films, Sirius Black is a character favorite, particularly because of his close relationship with Harry.

Best Disaster Movies

The Poseidon Adventure - 1972
Titanic - 1997
The Towering Inferno - 1974
Twister - 1996
Independence Day - 1996
World Trade Center - 2006
Airplane - 1980
The Perfect Storm - 2000
Deep Impact - 1998

Lisa (1990)

Lisa is fourteen years old, and lives with her single mother Katherine who runs a flower shop. Katherine is overbearing when it comes to her teenage daughter, not letting her date until she's sixteen. So Lisa and her friend Wendy decide to have some fun by finding men's phone numbers from their car licenses and giving them mysterious phone calls. The most recent being with a handsome man named Richard, whom Lisa begins a sexy phone relationship with. But Lisa has no idea that Richard is a serial killer whose been murdering female victims by leaving them a message on their answering machines that he's in their house and going to kill them. Staci Keanan is great as the boy-crazy teen, and D.W. Moffett is convincing as the clean-cut Patrick Bateman-esque businessman whose more than meets the eye. Starring Cheryl Ladd, Jeffrey Tambor, Staci Keanan, D.W. Moffett, Tanya Fenmore 6/10

Best Gangster Movies

The Godfather - 1972
The Godfather Part 2 - 1974
State of Grace - 1990
Goodfellas - 1990
Casino - 1995
Donnie Brasco - 1997
Scarface - 1983
White Heat - 1949
The Public Enemy - 1931
The Untouchables - 1987
Once Upon a Time in America - 1984
Key Largo - 1948
Little Caesar - 1931
Public Enemies - 2009

The Tourist (2010)

Elise, a beautiful and mysterious boards a train that is traveling to Venice, Italy. She sits next to a man named Frank, a not-so-suave math teacher from Wisconsin whose on vacation. While on the train they make chit-chat and when they arrive in Venice, she lets him stay in the high-class luxury hotel she's staying at. However Frank doesn't realize that there are people who are following her to get to her lover, a man named Alexander Pierce, because he stole a lot of money from the Russian mob. A sexy and stylish international thriller; Jolie and Depp make for a terrific pair. Starring Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Timothy Dalton, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany 7/10

Character Spotlight: Patrick Bateman

Clean-cut and extremely diligent when it comes to hygiene, Patrick Bateman had been first introduced in Bret Easton Ellis' novel titled American Psycho, about a man leading a Jekyll and Hyde double life; by day a Wall Street investment banker and by night a psychotic killer with an obsession for blood. The character has been portrayed on the screen by Christian Bale in the film version of American Psycho. Bateman is a character that is shallow and has no feelings of remorse or pity inside him, his only feelings he does have is of greed and disgust, and in the film we see that he has difficulty controlling his urges, confessing in voice-over that his "mask of sanity is about to slip". Despite the morbid subject matter of the film, it has some moments of black comedy that'll have you laughing out loud.

The Last Seduction (1994)

Bridget Gregory is a tough as nails businesswoman living in New York City. She makes her husband Clay steal drug money and then decides to steal it from Clay. She leaves town, but runs out of gas. So she stops at a small town called Beston on her way to Chicago, and meets Mike, whom she immediately hooks up with. She gets a job at an insurance company and changes her name to Wendy Kroy as a new alias so Clay won't find her. However Clay, who knows of her talent of writing backwards, figures out her new name is New York spelled backwards. Bridget convinces Mike into getting rid of a foreclosure lawyer whose cheating old ladies out of their homes, despite thinking she's crazy. But it turns out it's really her husband that Bridget is planning to get rid of. Fiorentino is perfect as the psychotic, manipulative femme-fetale, who doesn't mind taking advantage of men to get what she wants. Starring Linda Fiorentino, Bill Pullman, Peter Berg, J.T. Walsh, Bill Nunn 8/10