A Good Year for the Outlaw

This time, some DVD’s I’d take with me if I was going to the proverbial deserted island, and in no particular order. The only stipulation is they have to be in my collection already.

 Top 15 action/drama:

1. Tombstone – Best. Western. Ever.
2. Crimson Tide – Hackman vs. Denzel, pretty good stuff.
3. Roadhouse – Jeff Healey’s music greatly enhances this fun fight flick. Ben Gazzara is an awesome villian.
4. Extreme Prejudice – Nick Nolte, as a Texas Ranger, matches wits with childhood friend and expatroit drug lord Powers Boothe, who battles Michael Ironside and his covert government “A-Team” in this three-headed monster of a film, also featuring Maria Conchita Alonso and Rip Torn.
5. Sahara – Matthew McConaughey and Steve Zahn in a modern-day, high tech Indiana Jones-like joyride. Also with William Macy and Penelope Cruz, based on a Clive Cussler “Dirk Pitt” novel, the best books ever.
6. Sleepers – Yes, it has Brad Pitt and Jason Patric. But they’re not there to look pretty.
7. The Siege – Denzel Washington and Annette Bening trying to crack terrorist cells. Bruce Willis as the overzealous Army General, and Tony Shalhoub as the wronged FBI agent, just because he’s of Arabic descent. Too eerie to today.
8. The Interpreter – Sean Penn is incredible, Nicole Kidman is surprisingly good as the United Nations interpreter who hears the wrong thing.
9. By Dawn’s Early Light – Powers Boothe and Rebecca DeMornay are bomber pilots, James Earl Jones is the best Air Force General ever, Martin Landau the President who gets injured badly, Darren McGavin the nutty Secretary of the Interior who briefly thinks he’s in charge, and Rip Torn as the General who wants to go ahead and start the Big One. Top movie ever to make you NOT want nuclear weapons on the planet.
10. The Saint – Val Kilmer is awesome as Simon Templar, also with Elisabeth Shue. Simon wants to get 50 mil in the bank so he can quit thieving. Shue is a brilliant but socially challenged scientist. Russian bad guys are involved. Good stuff.
11. The Jackal – Bruce Willis as a bad guy. Can’t believe this movie is 10 years old already, but it is. Richard Gere as an imprisoned Irish terrorist who is let out to try and stop Willis from his latest assassination plot. Sidney Poitier is the FBI guy. Jack Black’s cameo as the wacky Canadian gun builder is awesome. 
12. The Die Hard trilogy – I’m only counting this as one. Not a bad movie in the bunch. One overlooks the improbable stunts because Willis is just too cool.
13. The Godfather trilogy – Again, counting just one. Number 3 isn’t that special, but at least it “ends” the story. One and two are simply perfection.
14. The Hunt For Red October
15. Untouchables – Seriously, can you go without taking a couple of Sean Connery movies? I think not.

Obviously, if someone said, “you can only take 5″, I’m not going. Heck, that’s just the drama list. Haven’t even got to the sports or comedy movies yet.