Saving Private Ryan

1998.

Not yet released / #71

Winner of 5 Academy Awards.

After the D-Day landing, Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) leads a squad of Army rangers into the French countryside to rescue Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), a downed paratrooper. Once they find him, they agree to help him defend a bridge from the Germans.

Eddie: SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is the best war movie ever made. Where do I begin? Hanks and Damon are great, and their scene together reminds the audience of their humanity. Incredibly, Damon improvised most of his monologue (and Hanks skipped most of his). The real heroes of the movie are the supporting cast. Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, and Adam Goldberg are funny, wry, and vulnerable. Vin Diesel and Giovanni Ribisi rip your heart apart like sticky bombs. That's right. Vin Diesel actually acts! Paul Giamatti, Ted Danson, and Dennis Farina turn in a solid day's work to round out the supporting cast. Damn you, Steven Spielberg, for putting together such a solid cast and shooting the movie like a WWII documentary. By desaturating the colors and strobing the first reel of the movie, Spielberg throws us into it headlong.

Sarah: This movie manages to be completely moving and sentimental without glorifying the war. And though there is violence, none of it seems gratuitous. I'm amazed by that. This film has it all - amazing performers, solid story, and a master director. I think if one of these things was out of balance, it would be easy for this to turn into just another war story. Eddie commented on the supporting cast, and I agree they make this film strong. We get to know each one as a complex, flawed individual. It's these nuances that help make the film real.

If you've never seen it, see it! But keep your tissues near.

Why You Should See It: For Eddie, it's the scene in the church when Medic Irwin Wade (Ribisi) tells the other soldiers about his mother - about waiting up to see her when she got home from work, but then pretending he was asleep when she got home. "I don't know why I did that," he tells them. For Sarah, it's the scene between Captain Miller and Private Ryan, talking about their lives back home - the moment when Ryan realizes that he will never see his brothers again. Either way, heart-wrenching stuff.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

1977.
#64 / Unlisted
Winner of 1 Academy Award.

Electrician Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) becomes obsessed with UFO's after an extra-terrestrial encounter during a power outage. He pursues them to Devil's Tower, Wyoming, after receiving a telepathic vision.

Sarah: I find aliens both fascinating and terrifying. (With the exception of E.T... I find him adorable.) CLOSE ENCOUNTERS gives me the feeling you might get when looking at a big fish that has been pulled from the bottom of the ocean. It captures both awe and fear. This is perfectly demonstrated when the little boy has an encounter. We can't see what he is looking at. We just get his reaction. First he looks terrified, and then he giggles and smiles. Brilliant!

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS also has an amazing use of sound - from the way Roy communicates with the aliens through melody to the loud all-encompassing noise that we hear when he first encounters them. It even won a special achievement award from the Academy in sound editing. So if you get this chance to see this movie in a place with the proper speakers, do it! I saw it at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and it was amazing to watch it under the stars and hear the film the way Spielberg wanted you to hear it. I think if I had seen it on a small screen first I would have missed the sense of wonder.

Eddie: I love this movie, because it's not really about aliens, in the same way that JAWS isn't really about a shark. Maybe it's Dreyfuss's performance. Maybe it's Spielberg's direction. But CLOSE ENCOUNTERS surpasses your ordinary sci-fi flick, becoming, instead, a movie about finding your place in the world. As a youngish dude, I can identify with that. The aliens don't have all the answers, but neither does Roy's boring life. Sure, it sucks that he completely abandons them (and part of me wishes there was a spin-off movie about what they did after their dad goes crazy and disappears), but Roy's got to find his own happiness. And he does, eventually, by teaming up with some space-traveling aliens.

Why You Should See It: The scene in his truck where Roy first encounters the aliens and gravity goes haywire. Dreyfuss plays that scene perfectly.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

1981.

#60 / #66

Winner of 5 Academy Awards.

Indiana Jones traipses around the globe in search of the Ark of the Covenant, hoping to find it before the Nazis do.

Eddie: RAIDERS is a great adventure movie. The movies fluidity makes the whole thing fly by. From a storytelling point of view, RAIDERS is damn near perfect. The characters are larger-than-life yet still identifiable, and the plot is easy to follow in spite of all the religious and archaeological hocus pocus. My appreciation for the movie grew exponentially when I discovered a 125-page transcript of the story meeting between Spielberg (the director), Lucas (the producer) and Kasdan (the screenwriter). Following along as they essentially build the movie from scratch is eye-opening. These three blockbuster machines (their films have grossed over $7 billion) conceive an iconic film series the way that a normal person would conceive of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Sarah: This film is really fun. That's all it's trying to be and it succeeds. What I like best is Professor Indy. Mmmmm sexy. This is definitely the height of adventure movies. And that is as deep as I can go for this one.

Why You Should See It: The opening sequence is the tops, all the way up to (and including) Indy's first scene as a college professor.

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

1982.
#25 / #24

Winner of 4 Academy Awards.

Elliott (Henry Thomas) finds E.T., an alien who has been accidentally left on Earth. Elliott helps E.T. find his way home.

Sarah: This movie has been making me cry for twenty years. It started when I was three and this was my favorite movie. I used to make my parent's fast-forward the sad parts. Now, as an adult, I still sob through the majority of this movie. I love it. Henry Thomas is one of the most impressive child actors ever. (Don't believe me? Watch his screen test for the role. I just cried watching that!) This could have just been a cute kid's adventure film, but Thomas makes it more complex than that. Elliott's connection to E.T. amid his turbulent family life gives the movie so much heart. And Dee Wallace is subtly tragic as the mom ("He hates Mexico!").

But enough about my crying. This movie is damn fun. The bike chases and flights to John Williams perfect score will make you feel like a kid again. If you haven't seen this, you need to, now.

Eddie: I really want to emphasize how heartbreaking the whole family's story is. The scene that Sarah parenthetically mentioned - "He hates Mexico" - is touching and heart-wrenchingly tragic, yet minimal and subtle. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that everyone in this movie is incomplete - not just Elliott. The movie's satisfaction is that E.T. fulfills them all: Gertie (Drew Barrymore) gets a playmate, Michael (Robert MacNaughton) gets to be a heroic older brother, Mary gets to mother her children, the government scientist "Keys" (Peter Coyote) gets to finally see an alien spacecraft, and Elliott gets a best friend.

Why You Should See it: The quick cuts between Elliott releasing the frogs at school and E.T. watching THE QUIET MAN at Elliott's home. It shows their connection and it is amazing.

Schindler's List

1993.

#9 / #8

Winner of 7 Academy Awards.

SCHINDLER'S LIST tells the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a Nazi businessman who, over the course of the Holocaust, saves over a thousand Jews from certain death.

Eddie: There isn't much to say about SCHINDLER'S LIST except that it's a masterfully-crafted film. From start to finish, this movie breaks your heart. It never becomes melodramatic or preachy. Using a 1940s documentary style, Steven Spielberg and director of photography Janusz Kaminski reveal a tragic world only fifty years removed from the release of this film. Additionally, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes turn in excellent performances as the near-embodiment of good and evil, respectively. The movie is an emotional roller coaster and, at times, difficult to stomach.

Sarah: One can only watch so many Holocaust films, because they are just too draining. But this film can't be missed. This film does a good job of showing multiple experiences and horrors. It never loses you in the numbers. We really see each character in the film as a person, instead of a mass of casualties. Spielberg makes sure of that.

The scene where Schindler looks over all his belongings and laments the lives he could have saved with the money he wasted is overwhelming. SCHINDLER'S LIST is a movie you won't see over and over, but you don't need to. It has so much impact.

Why You Should See It: The girl in the red coat.