Pearl’s Top 25 Movies

The following is a list of my all time, top 25 favorite movies and a list of Honorable Mentions as well.  I am quite sure that this list will evolve a bit over the coming years and hopefully will include some new additions which may not have even been produced yet.  I may also well realize that I have omitted some worthy films from this list.

To see a more detailed description of each of these films, as well as many other movies I have enjoyed, please see the blog “All Time Movie Favorites”.

Top 25 Movie List

1. Field of Dreams (1989) – My #1 all-time favorite movie.
2. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
3. To Catch a Thief (1955)
4. The Sixth Sense (1999)
5. Fail Safe (1964)
6. The Time Machine (1960)
7. Somewhere in Time (1980)
8. The Great Escape (1963)
9. The Best Man (1964)
10. The Birds (1963)
11. The Buccaneer (1958)
12. The American President (1995)
13. Dave (1993)
14. Rear Window (1954)
15. Dirty Harry (1971)
16. Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964)
17. The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
18. Seven Days In May (1964)
19. Laura (1944)
20. The Lord of Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
21. What’s Up Doc (1972)
22. Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home (1986)
23. The Last Sunset (1961)
24. The Magnificent Seven (1960)
25. Soldier in the Rain  (1963)

Honorable Mention

• Avatar (2009)
• All the President’s Men (1977)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
• Children of a Lesser God (1986)
• The China Syndrome (1979)
• Crimson Tide (1995)
• The Fastest Gun Alive (1956)
• Funny Girl (1968)
• Gladiator (2000)
• Gone with the Wind (1939)
• The Hunt for Red October (1990)
• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
• Lonely are the Brave (1962)
• North by Northwest (1959)
• Romeo & Juliet (1968)
• Stalag 17 (1953)
• Titanic (1997)
• Vertigo (1958)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Featured Video of the Week: “If my grandmother had wheels …”

PUT THE IMMIGRANT RELOCATION DILEMMA RIGHT BACK IN THE LAPS OF DESANTIS AND ABBOTT (An Editorial)

This is from a morning talk show, ITV’s This Morning, on British television.  The male and female hosts, Holly Willoughby and Phil Schofield are doing a segment with their celebrity chef Gino, who is very Italian, as this clip will attest.  Holly has a suggestion for Gino’s macaroni and cheese dish.  If you check out You Tube, you will also find quite a few more funny segments with Holly and Phil.

Here’s another clip of Holly, Phil and Gino …

Featured Video of the Week: “Hugh Janus”

The weather guy’s name is Henry DiCarlo.  He is part of the KTLA early morning TV team out in Los Angeles and I believe he is still broadcasting.  Check out some of his other You Tube videos.  They are generally hilarious.

Quick Quips: YOU GOTTA ADMIT. TRUMP DOES OCCASIONALLY SPUR CREATIVITY.

Pithy Quotes

From  Cold Cold Bones … A Kathy Reichs’ novel featuring Temperance Brennan (aka Bones)

Tempe is speaking with a medical examiner who is working on the body of a guy who had recently fallen from a zip line.

Tempe asks her what might be the possible cause of death?

           She says, “Acute Numerical Assumption.”

           Tempe looks at her quizzically

           She responds, “His number was up.”

 

 

From  Jack Reacher … A Lee Child novel made into a TV series on Amazon Prime

Reacher is surrounded by toughs in an alley.  When they ask him what he thinks he’s gonna’ do, Reacher tells them that he is going to break the wrists of three guys.

One of them says, “But there are four of us?”

Reacher responds, “One of you has to be able to drive to the hospital.”

 

From  The New Girl … A Gabriel Allon novel by Daniel Silva

An Israeli agent asks a doctor about the condition of a Russian oligarch who was just exposed to radiation used in an assassination attempt.  

“How bad is he?” 

“A little south of Hiroshima … but not much”

 

 

From  Vanished … A  novel by Joseph Finder

Nick Heller after speaking with the corrupt CEO of a private security company …

“Wash DC is to lying what Hershey PA is to chocolate.“

 

From  Killing Season… A  Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman

(An old joke)  “The difference between involvement and commitment is like the difference between bacon and eggs.

The chicken is involved.

             The pig is committed.”

From Monday Mourning … A Temperance Brennan novel by Kathy Reichs.

          A woman calls a man up at 5 in the morning.

“Did I wake you up?”, she asks.   “Nahh. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.“

 

 

From Terminal Freeze… A novel by Lincoln Child.

          In the Arctic, the ratio of men to women is said to be 10 to 1.

It is also said that “If a woman is interested, the odds are good … but the goods are odd.“

 

 

From Lethal Agent … A Mitch Rapp CIA thriller by Kyle Mills.

Rapp’s mentor, Stan Hurley:  “It’s not how you play the game, its whether or not your opponent ends up dismembered in some woods..

From The Lost Boys … A Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman.

              Fool me once, shame on you.

              Fool me twice, shame on me.

              Fool me a third time, and someone is

                    a moronic dumbass.   (Chris Donatti)

A woman in need of a liver transplant is told by her Russian boyfriend (who happens to be an assassin!) that he offered to donate part of his own liver to her, but was refused.

She told him, “Doesn’t matter.  They say you should never accept a liver from a Russian.”      (From the Mitch Rapp spy novel, Red War, by Kyle Mills.)

He was so dumb … “He couldn’t plan a fart after eating beans.”  (from The Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman)

Police Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets a call from a murder suspect who says he wants to talk and he asks Milo if they can meet.

Milo looks at his friend, Alex Delaware, and says, “If I respond ‘Hell, yeah’, do you think that would sound too eager?”

“His hometown is so fuckin’ small, the Laundromat uses a clothesline.” (Author John Sandford, paraphrased slightly from his novel Golden Prey)

“Spank me, I’ve been a bad boy.”  (The Donald, 2006, to Stormy Daniels)

After getting roughed up in a fight, Hawk asks Spenser what happened.  “I cut myself shaving.”  To which Hawk replies, “What, you shaving with a weed wacker now?”

Hawk to Spenser talking about two thugs they are tailing:  “If those boys were any dumber, you’d have to water ’em.”

Capt. Marty Quirk to Spenser:  “Shit happens.  You should probably Just put that on your business cards.”

“Your mother was a vending machine and your father was a roto-rooter.”  An annoyed Louise Baltimore speaking to her robot Sherman in the 1983 novel Millennium.

“I solve all my cases.  They’re just not all solved yet.”  Spenser, 1994

“Better here than Philadelphia” on WC Fields’ tombstone

“I’ll have what she’s having” from When Harry Met Sally, 1989

 

From the movie Absence of Malice starring Paul Newman and Sally Field, and with one of the recently passed Wilford Brimley’s best character performances.

 

A dirty, local district attorney tells Brimley, who is an Asst. Attorney General, that recent bad publicity for the justice department was due to a leak.

 

Brimley answers, “A leak? You call that a leak? The last time there was a leak like that, Noah built hisself a boat!”

 

 

 

“Ending Theme” from “Field of Dreams”

As befitting of my all-time favorite movie – 1989’s Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner, there are already two other links here in the My Favorite Music section of this blog to the original soundtrack.

James Horner composed the music for this movie.  Along with John Williams, he is my favorite composer.  Horner went on to compose music for many of our best known films, such as An American Tail, Avatar  and Titanic, to name just a few.  Horner tragically died in June of 2015 at the age of just 61 in a private plane crash.

Near the end of this music section is a link to Horner’s original “A Catch With My Father“. The link I am providing now is to a wonderful, spot-on performance of that same, ending theme of Field of Dreams, which was performed at Fumicité – the Tenerife International Film Music Festival in 2012.

If you are a music nerd like me, please consider listening to “A Catch With My Father” first, and then listen to this link. I have never heard a more perfect rendition, even by the original composer.

This was conducted by Spanish composer Diego Navarro, and is performed by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra.

Please feel free to add a Comment below if perhaps you too have enjoyed this movie as much as I have over the years, and what you think of this performance. You may also wish to scroll through and listen to some of my other Favorite Music clips. I would like to hear which of them you might also like, and perhaps you can suggest some others to me as well.

Thank you for reading and listening.

Pithy Quotes

From  Cold Cold Bones … A Kathy Reichs’ novel featuring Temperance Brennan (aka Bones)

Tempe is speaking with a medical examiner who is working on the body of a guy who had recently fallen from a zip line.

Tempe asks her what might be the possible cause of death?

           She says, “Acute Numerical Assumption.”

           Tempe looks at her quizzically

           She responds, “His number was up.”

 

 

From  Jack Reacher … A Lee Child novel made into a TV series on Amazon Prime

Reacher is surrounded by toughs in an alley.  When they ask him what he thinks he’s gonna’ do, Reacher tells them that he is going to break the wrists of three guys.

One of them says, “But there are four of us?”

Reacher responds, “One of you has to be able to drive to the hospital.”

 

From  The New Girl … A Gabriel Allon novel by Daniel Silva

An Israeli agent asks a doctor about the condition of a Russian oligarch who was just exposed to radiation used in an assassination attempt.  

“How bad is he?” 

“A little south of Hiroshima … but not much”

 

 

From  Vanished … A  novel by Joseph Finder

Nick Heller after speaking with the corrupt CEO of a private security company …

“Wash DC is to lying what Hershey PA is to chocolate.“

 

From  Killing Season… A  Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman

(An old joke)  “The difference between involvement and commitment is like the difference between bacon and eggs.

The chicken is involved.

             The pig is committed.”

From Monday Mourning … A Temperance Brennan novel by Kathy Reichs.

          A woman calls a man up at 5 in the morning.

“Did I wake you up?”, she asks.   “Nahh. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.“

 

 

From Terminal Freeze… A novel by Lincoln Child.

          In the Arctic, the ratio of men to women is said to be 10 to 1.

It is also said that “If a woman is interested, the odds are good … but the goods are odd.“

 

 

From Lethal Agent … A Mitch Rapp CIA thriller by Kyle Mills.

Rapp’s mentor, Stan Hurley:  “It’s not how you play the game, its whether or not your opponent ends up dismembered in some woods..

From The Lost Boys … A Peter Decker/Rina Lazurus novel by Faye Kellerman.

              Fool me once, shame on you.

              Fool me twice, shame on me.

              Fool me a third time, and someone is

                    a moronic dumbass.   (Chris Donatti)

A woman in need of a liver transplant is told by her Russian boyfriend (who happens to be an assassin!) that he offered to donate part of his own liver to her, but was refused.

She told him, “Doesn’t matter.  They say you should never accept a liver from a Russian.”      (From the Mitch Rapp spy novel, Red War, by Kyle Mills.)

He was so dumb … “He couldn’t plan a fart after eating beans.”  (from The Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman)

Police Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets a call from a murder suspect who says he wants to talk and he asks Milo if they can meet.

Milo looks at his friend, Alex Delaware, and says, “If I respond ‘Hell, yeah’, do you think that would sound too eager?”

“His hometown is so fuckin’ small, the Laundromat uses a clothesline.” (Author John Sandford, paraphrased slightly from his novel Golden Prey)

“Spank me, I’ve been a bad boy.”  (The Donald, 2006, to Stormy Daniels)

After getting roughed up in a fight, Hawk asks Spenser what happened.  “I cut myself shaving.”  To which Hawk replies, “What, you shaving with a weed wacker now?”

Hawk to Spenser talking about two thugs they are tailing:  “If those boys were any dumber, you’d have to water ’em.”

Capt. Marty Quirk to Spenser:  “Shit happens.  You should probably Just put that on your business cards.”

“Your mother was a vending machine and your father was a roto-rooter.”  An annoyed Louise Baltimore speaking to her robot Sherman in the 1983 novel Millennium.

“I solve all my cases.  They’re just not all solved yet.”  Spenser, 1994

“Better here than Philadelphia” on WC Fields’ tombstone

“I’ll have what she’s having” from When Harry Met Sally, 1989

 

From the movie Absence of Malice starring Paul Newman and Sally Field, and with one of the recently passed Wilford Brimley’s best character performances.

 

A dirty, local district attorney tells Brimley, who is an Asst. Attorney General, that recent bad publicity for the justice department was due to a leak.

 

Brimley answers, “A leak? You call that a leak? The last time there was a leak like that, Noah built hisself a boat!”