Film 29 "Das Boot" IMDB No. 64

Mildew is good for you. It's the next best thing to fresh lettuce. Be thankful for what grows down here.

1981 Wolfgang Petersen
This is a war film, a long war film and pretty much all of this film is set in a submarine under or on the Atlantic during the Second World War. The version I watched was the Directors Cut and dubbed into english.
The acting and direction is great, you really feel the tension and sense of iminent death, I think I was holding my breath for a lot of this film. I don't want to give anything away about the story, if you haven't seen it, try and spare 3 1/2 hours to watch it sometime, it's a proper film.
It's a long way to Tipperary
8/10

Film 28 "The Prestige" IMDB No. 74

Don't forget your hat, Mr. Angier.

2006 Christopher Nolan
Why is this in the top 100? and above Raging Bull.
Maybe it's because of the cast, names like Andy Serkis and David Bowie and Christian Bale and Hugh Jackson and Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine. Anyway. It's a story of turn of the century magicians trying to outdo each other on the stage and being the best magician. One of them pays Mr Tesla to make a massive electrical machine that makes things transport, not sure if that was the initial intention but that's what it did. Tesla is played by David Bowie trying very hard to be Tom Waits.
Obviously there is the usual love interest and a bit of a twist at the end. Everybody wears a hat.
Kill a few more budgies.
Complete load of tosh.
5/10

Film 27 "The Apartment" IMDB No. 92

That's the way it crumbles... cookie-wise.

1960 Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was married to Elizabeth Taylor, the night after I watched this she dies. My friend Andy in Vashon looks very much like a young Jack Lemon.
Starring Jack Lemon and Shirley MacLaine.
Bud Baxter works in a large insurance company in New York, he rents a cosy appartment downtown close to Central Park, he lends out his appartment to the executives in the company for their extramarital liasons on the promise they will get him promoted by putting a good word in with the big boss. The big boss wants to use his appartment too.
Bud fancies the lift operator, Fran Kubelik, played by Shirley MacLaine. Fran is the boss's bit on the side.
Bud has choose between his heart and his job, a good story line even if it is a love story.
Perfectly enjoyable lazy afternoon film, and should be a lot higher on the list than a lot of the others.
7.5/10

Film 26 "Fight Club" IMDB No. 15

First person comes out of this door gets a lead salad.

1999 David Fincher
The film focuses on a middle class white collar worker insomniac who dreams of owning the entire Ikea catalogue. He meets soap salesman Tyler Durden and after a nights drinking they start a fight outside the bar and the seed of 'fight club' is born. It develops into an underground club in every major city. Tyler (Brad Pitt) recruits members into his own cult. The love interest is played by Helena Bonham Carter. Great story, great twist at the end.
You need to see this more than once, there is so much to it. Brilliantly shot and acted.
Deserves its place in the top 20
8/10

Film 25 "Seven Samurai" IMDB No. 13

If I was a bandit, you would be looking for your head.

1954 Akira Kurosawa
A story of a villiage of farmers who are regularly attacked by bandits for their crops. They decide enough is enough and seek the help of samurai to help them defend the villiage.A group of seven take the task and teach the villiagers to defend themselves before harvesting the crop and the return of the bandits.
It's 3 hours long but the story is paced well and the charcters develop throughout.
It's said that The Magnificent Seven was based on this film and you can certainly see why, I can see lots of other films have taken elements of this film and story.
My favourite is Kikuchiyo the samurai with no name.
Definately one I am glad to have watched. 7.5/10

Film 24 "Once Upon a Time in America" IMDB No. 84

I like the stink of the streets. It makes me feel good. And I like the smell of it, it opens up my lungs. And it gives me a hard-on.

1984 Sergio Leone
A departure from Sergio's mainstay of westerns this is set mainly in Brooklyn around the turn of the century telling the story of a group of young Jewish boys and how they grew into men and became gangsters.
Told in the most part from the viewpoint of 'Noodles' played by Robert de Niro, in the form of flashbacks as he returns to New York after 30 years away. It is an epic tale nearly 4 hours long and full of Leone's trademark slow moving screen shots and full face close ups, only he could get away with pan pipes in a gangster movie.
The locations and scenes are great and represent the period well. The Actors who played the men as children are great too.
Long but brilliant. 8.5/10

Film 23 "Chinatown" IMDB No, 68

How do you like them apples?

1974 Roman Polanski
A very young looking Jack Nicholson plays a private detective JJ 'Jake' Giddes specialising in catching unscroupulous other halfs. He is hired by Evelyn Mulwray when she suspects her husband Hollis, builder of the city's water supply system, of having an affair.
All is not what it seems and when Hollis is found dead Jake becomes involved in something far more complex than a matromonial affiar.
It's shot in a style of earlier films, not like the usual fair that was around in the early 70s. I thought it would get more involved with the corruption of the water men, but it takes a twist away from that near the end and that side of the story gets lost.
Anyway, its watchable 7/10

Film 22 "The Departed" IMDB No. 59

Frank? What the fuck is wrong with you?

2006 Martin Scorcese
I didn't think I had seen this, but I have. It's a long one, another Jack Nicholson one.
Set in Boston Jack plays Frank Costello a mob gangster being investigated by the state police. Two young recruits from the academy become undercover agents for each side, and both sides know there is a rat in their midst but neither seem to be able to work out who it is.
While watching it I kept thinking this is just like 'Infernal Affairs'
I don't think I'll watch this again, now I know I have seen it twice.
7/10

Film 21 "The Shining" IMDB N0. 48

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

1980 Stanley Kubrick

Maybe I was too young when I first watched this but the film is not as I remember, I thought there were more scenes in the city they lived in before the hotel and it was a lot more scarey. Maybe that was the book, one of the few I actually read as a teenager.
Jack Torrance, a frustrated writer, lands a job as a winter caretaker at The Overlook Hotel, that spends five months cut off by snow. He sees this as an opportunity to get on with his writing and takes his young family wife Wendy and son Tommy to the hotel. Tommy has a 'gift' and can see the past and future, Jack doesn't understand this gift Wendy humours it. At the hotel they meet Dick Hallorann who also has the gift and calls it 'The Shining', he knows that somefhing is going to happen and tells Tommy not to worry.
All is ok for a month or so, then cabin fever sets in for Jack and it all kicks off.
This is in the day of horror films before gratuitous violence gave the shocks, it's full of suspense and drama and filmed in a great location.
A horror classic 8/10