What do celebrities really know about movies? Samuel L. Jackson, for one, demonstrates a good knowledge of recent Asian cinema with his selection of "favorite 10 New Classic Asian Films" from the past 25 years for Entertainment Weekly. The best part? He picks the type of popcorn action flicks that got me interested in Asian films in the first place.

A couple of his selections are easy to understand: John Woo's Hard Boiled and Ringo Lam's City on Fire are definite guns 'n' gangsters classics of late 80s / early 90s Hong Kong cinema. (Quentin Tarantino blatantly stole borrowed from the latter for Reservoir Dogs.) Jackson also includes the great Infernal Affairs trilogy, directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, a high water mark from 2002 / 2003 and later remade into the Academy Award-winning The Departed.

His Korean picks are Park Chan-Wook's diabolical, masterful Oldboy and the visually splendid, yet somewhat shallow Duelist, from 2005. Cut from the same cloth, he also endorsed Japanese swordplay dazzler Azumi by director Ryuhei Kitamura (The Midnight Meat Train), and demonstrated his fondness for strong directors by selecting two films by Takashi Miike, the well-known, chilling horror flick Audition and the much less known Yakuza pic Family, which I confess I haven't seen.

By: Patrick Walsh (original publish date: October 13, 2007)

(With the Cine-staff off on a late-July mini-vacation, we thought it'd be fun to bring you some of our favorite pieces from years past. Enjoy!)

As I pointed out in my Poltergeist review, I didn't watch much horror as a boy. That's probably a good thing, as even the non-horror flicks I enjoyed often scared the bejesus out of me. You kids today don't know how lucky you have it with your wussy Shreks and your lamewad Pikachus! Children of the 1980s are still in therapy over what Hollywood deemed "family films" back then. The following non-horror mind-screws should prove my point.

Return to Oz (1985)

In high school, I brought Return to Oz to a Halloween movie marathon. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. Everyone scoffed. "A Wizard of Oz sequel? That's supposed to scare us?" I didn't hear a lot of mockery after the movie started. In fact, nobody said a word until about halfway through, when a friend of mine whispered "Can we please turn this off?" I'm not sure who thought this movie was appropriate for children. It gave me nightmares for nearly a decade.

Dorothy finds a key with an Oz symbol on it, shows it to Auntie Em and Uncle Henry as proof that Oz exists, and is sent to an insane asylum! An evil insane asylum where they give our young heroine electro-shock therapy! That's how this "childrens' film" starts! Once Dorothy gets to Oz, it's a speeding night train of horrors. How about that Nome King? Good LORD! Winged monkeys aren't scary enough anymore, let's give the kids The Wheelers -- sadistic shrieking psychopaths with roller skates instead of hands and feet! Kids today won't be satisfied with just a standard wicked witch, let's really ramp that up too, and ruin their lives! The sequence with the witch's cabinets full of human heads easily rivals anything in the Nightmare on Elm Street series for sheer terror. "Dorothy Gaaaaaale!!!!"

Even the heroes are horrifying! Jack Pumpkinhead? A hybrid stick n' pumpkin creature who calls Dorothy "Mother"? That's your good guy? Not cool, Return to Oz. Not cool.

By: Scott Weinberg

(With the Cine-staff off on a late-July mini-vacation, we thought it'd be fun to bring you some of our favorite pieces from years past. Enjoy!)

OK, but when I say "all-time BEST," what I really mean is "REALLY good ones, according to one nerd," so feel free to challenge, argue and contribute your own choices as well. (I like to use hyper-superlatives in the title, just to get attention.) This topic was inspired by my weekly trip to a DVD store that shall remain anonymous (it rhymes with "guest fly"). I was driving home with one of the all-time perfect double features (which I got for a super price!) and that got me to thinking "Hey nerd, what else would make for a perfect double feature?" And then I remembered that I write for a blog where topics like this are quite popular ... which brings us to the freakin' list of movies already. Thanks for your patience.

Alien (1979) & Aliens (1986) -- OK, this was the double feature that inspired the whole silly article, but I'm going to try and stay clear of double features that consist of Part 1 and Part 2. Still, there's no freakin' way I could leave this duo off the list. First off, the original Alien is my #1 all-time favoritest movie ever made (yes, seriously) and Aliens is just ... damn. It's as close to flawless as a genre movie can get. My take on these films has always been pretty simple: Alien is the finest sci-fi-horror movie ever made -- and Aliens is the finest sci-fi-action movie ever made. With some awesome horror on the side. (Plus I got the two-disc Special Editions for $10 apiece! Awesome!)

Die Hard (1988) & Lethal Weapon (1987) -- Long before each series degenerated into amusing-yet-slight self-parody, we had two fantastic action movies in a half-decade that was packed to the sweaty rafters with hardcore action movies. You know what I love about the first Die Hard? That John McClane bleeds, whines and never does anything superhuman. And you know what I love about the first Lethal Weapon? It was about a cop who didn't CARE if he lived or died -- a darkly fascinating theme that was all but jettisoned once the series became Joe Pesci Meets The Three Stooges.

If you paid good money to see Jaws 3-D, Friday the 13th Part 3 (in 3-D) and The Man Who Wasn't There (the Steve Guttenberg 1983 version in 3-D) during their original theatrical runs, as I did, then you might understand why I've been so reluctant to board the new 3-D bandwagon.Those were awful movies and terrible 3-D experiences: ghost images everywhere, red/blue mix-ups, and constantly shifting focus. The stupid little 3-D paper "viewers" never fit correctly over my own prescription eyeglasses. Instead of inducing a sense of wonder, those movies made my stomach queasy.

But everyone says the new technology is markedly better, and I'm even more optimistic after reading Christopher Campbell's recent column on the wonders of Journey to the Center of the Earth in digital 3-D. I plan to see for myself this weekend, and in anticipation, I started dreaming about other movies that might really benefit from 3-D done right. To keep the list from becoming endless, the seven below could all be considered future cousins of Journey, adventures involving travel through time, place and/or space. All are proposed sequels or remakes or adaptations of published works, and, alas, all must be considered dream projects, at least as far as 3-D is concerned.

Put on your 3-D glasses before jumping onward to my choices, and please share your dreams in the comments.

One of the best things about life here on Cinematical is that I receive a crash course in comic books that I'm unfamiliar with. The world of graphic novels and comic books is a pretty daunting one, especially when every other title is being optioned by a big studio.
There are so many of these characters that I've known in passing or via their movie adaptations that I don't even know where to begin reading.

And that's coming from someone who's (somewhat) in the know! I can't imagine how it looks from the outside. I try to imagine these poor souls going into a comic book shop and saying "So, um, which comic was the movie based on?" and getting laughed at. And with Hellboy, that's a lot of people, including yours truly.

That's why I love the guys at ComicMix -- they know their superhero stories, and they're eager to share them. You can go there, quietly print their lists up, and take them to Amazon.com without needing to talk to a single judgmental soul. Now, to coincide with the release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, they've put together a best of Hellboy list for those unfamiliar with his comic incarnation. And I know after you've seen the movie, you're going to want to pick up Seed of Destruction and The Corpse. They sound like the perfect beach reading to me!

[Thanks to Rick Marshall, who always keeps us in the loop]

Yesterday, Scott posted a terrific month-by-month report card looking back the 2008 movie scene from the halfway point. With the interval between theatrical and DVD release dates shrinking steadily, a lot of the movies from January through June are either already available on DVD, or soon will be. For your consideration, here are what I consider to be seven underseen, underexposed, and/or unfairly overlooked gems from the year to date. Something to consider next time you log on to Netflix.

In no particular order:

1. Charlie Bartlett - I'll clamber out on a limb and call Charlie Bartlett the most valuable movie for young teenagers this decade (despite its R rating). Most films for kids and teens unthinkingly implore them not to worry about being popular -- do your own thing! Don't worry about what your peers think of you! Good advice in the abstract, maybe, but completely detached from reality for most school-age kids, who have to, you know, go to school, and eat in the cafeteria. Charlie Bartlett is smart enough to realize this. Rather than imploring kids to "be themselves," it wants to say something about what the ones who are actually popular should do with their popularity. For once, it's a movie with a message aimed not at the misfits but at the leaders: the kids who are smart, charismatic and capable; the schoolyard trendsetters and tastemakers. It powerfully suggests the importance of using that influence for good instead of evil. Oh, and it's bright, sincere, and very funny, with a downright miraculous performance by Anton Yelchin.

July 1 means that the year is officially half-over (figured that out all by myself), so I figure it might be fun to pick back over the past six months and offer a list of my very favorite flicks of the year. I've long since given up trying to differentiate between "the best films of the year" and "my favorite films of the year," but seeing as they'd both originate in the same brain, I figure they're pretty much the same thing. Some of my choices will be obvious, but (hopefully) some won't. And get this: Some of 'em are horror movies. (A film must have received a North American theatrical release prior to 7/1 in order to qualify.)

January -- Not many choices, really, but I'm an enthusiastic supporter of both Cloverfield and Teeth. I also enjoyed Cassandra's Dream a bit more than most folks seem to, but it's hardly among Woody Allen's best movies. Beyond that, January was as lame as ever. (Thanks for nothing: One Missed Call, First Sunday, Mad Money, Rambo, Untraceable, and the execrable Meet the Spartans.)

February -- Things certainly started getting a little better around groundhog time. I found In Bruges to be a stunningly unexpected treat; The Spiderwick Chronicles a very fun cross between Potter and Gremlins; Diary of the Dead a very welcome departure from zombie lord George Romero; The Signal a mico-budget mini-masterpiece, and Semi-Pro to be very funny and entirely forgettable. Special mention to the (surprise hit, but critically underrated) Vantage Point, which really deserves a second look. (Stinkers: The Eye, Strange Wilderness, and Jumper.)

With Kit Kittredge: An American Girl finally opening in limited release on Wednesday, it seemed like a good time to take a look at other films girls in the same age demographic might also enjoy. As a mother of three daughters, I like to seek out films that have strong female characters. So many of the roles for females in Hollywood either fall into blatant stereotypes or position young girls and women as existing on this planet primarily for the pleasures of the male half of the species, and I don't want my girls growing up believing the images of women they're exposed to through the media. Of course, everything in life doesn't have to have a political agenda -- what fun would that be? So some of these are just films my own daughters very much enjoy, that the girl in your life might like also.

Here are seven great films for fans of American Girl books and movies ... let me know what others I've missed that you like; with only seven slots to work with, I had to leave out a lot of films I otherwise would have included ...

I haven't seen Four Weddings and a Funeral since it came out, but I remember it being a fun, quality movie -- more so than your usual rom-com flavor. The Hugh Grant-starring film not only brought in a good chunk of coin and fans, but it also received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. However, is it the best British movie of all time? That I'm not so sure about. Yes folks, the Hugh Grant comedy was recently listed the best British Film, according to a poll conducted by Virgin Media (via AOL UK).

Having polled 1,000 adults on June 25 and 26, Virgin notes that Four Weddings took in 22% of the vote, to get the top spot. The rom-com squeaked right by the wonderful Monty Python's Life of Brian, which suffered defeat by just 1% and grabbed the #2 spot. (It's also the only film that boasts a little age.) After that comedy classic, things get rougher and tougher. Next came Trainspotting with 15% of the vote, then Casino Royale with 10%, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels came in #5 with 8%.