Amusement park in the city. Roller coast among skyscrapers!

Buenos Aires – Inception Park from Black Sheep Films on Vimeo.

Here are my favorite movies. I did not pick ones that are either too famous or too infamous. In many cases, instead of the usual trailers I attached my favorite scenes. You can do a psychoanalysis of my mental state, maybe. (It got so long so I will also put this post up in my blog. I could keep going on forever.)

 The Great Escape

I don’t watch movies from the 60s anymore, but this is an exception. Three hours long but you’ll never feel bored. (And there are only hunky men.)

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

Yes, Japanese anime. The production company, Gainax, was launched for this film by a bunch of Japanese artists in their 20s (some were university students). For me, the hallmark of 80s Japanese anime is not Miyazaki or Akira, but this one.

Citizen Ruth

The Descendants’ Alexander Payne started from this movie. I believe Laura Dern in this film was one of the biggest Oscar snubs in history.

Raising Arizona

Long live the Coen brothers. Watch the opening sequence—one of the best (on par with Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Punch-Drunk Love

All of Paul Thomas Anderson movies are endlessly watchable, but this small-scale work is my favorite.

Shawn of the Dead

The greatest parody movie of all time. It not only pays proper homage to the original zombie movie but adds surprisingly good human drama. (The remake version of Dawn of the Dead is also my favorite)

The Constant Gardener

Watched this film in Israel with my friend. Beautiful, beautiful (but brutal) film shot in Africa. Makes us think of this eternal question: Where is our home?

Children of Men

Masterpiece in cinematography, and this is one of the best films about the coming apocalypse of the human race – yay.

The Royal Tenenbaums

You either love Wes Anderson films or throw them away saying he is hopelessly snobbish. This film is probably the most acceptable and also contains emotional moments.

High Fidelity

Everybody’s favorite John Cusack movie is Say Anything, but for me this tale of a 30-something slacker who cannot grow up is right on target. Jack Black is awesome (in his later films not so much).

Chasing Amy

Kevin Smith’s most success film to date – you get young Ben Affleck as a bonus. Sometimes too cheesy, but nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable love film.

I Want You

The ever-prolific Michael Winterbottom’s earlier work. It is a weird love/hate story (Elvis Costello’s signature song must had been born to be used in this film) but overall, beautiful.

What the tsunami looked like, from the God’s point of view

Bob Marley meets Okinawa.

Charlie Chaplin — one of the greatest comedians of all time — had a signature style. Watching his movies, I realized that his style was closely associated with the technical limitations of the silent movie era.

• Black & white costume: movies are shot in black and white, and he wears a matching pair of B&W costume (plus the mustache).
• Rapid movement: movies were shot in 12 to 16 frames per second, and Chaplin’s comical effect owes to the rapid.
• Pantomime: without the sound, all he uses are his gestures (plus the storyboard at times).

Nintendo’s Super Mario has a similar back-story. What limits us shapes who we are, maybe.

Dawn of the dead sushi

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s why.

A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

The academy calls itself “the world’s preeminent movie-related organization” of “the most accomplished men and women working in cinema,” and its membership includes some of the brightest lights in the film business — Tom Hanks, Sidney Poitier, Meryl Streep and Steven Spielberg, among others. The roster also features actors far better known for their television acting, such as Erik Estrada from “CHiPs,” Jaclyn Smith of “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Love Boat’s” Gavin MacLeod.

The academy is primarily a group of working professionals, and nearly 50% of the academy’s actors have appeared on screen in the last two years. But membership is generally for life, and hundreds of academy voters haven’t worked on a movie in decades.

Some are people who have left the movie business entirely but continue to vote on the Oscars — including a nun, a bookstore owner and a retired Peace Corps recruiter. Under academy rules, their votes count the same as ballots cast by the likes of Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio.

LATimes

I vote Tracy Ullman as the woman with the most predictable face feature—you know exactly how she looks like at age 10, 30, or 60. Truly ageless—even the most skillful Photoshop artists cannot reach the level of her natural makeup.

The greatest news mashup ever: How much is too much alcohol? Let Scotland decide.

Learn how precious and costly clean water is in 3 minutes.