If only the rail carriage escape and rope bridge standoff of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was an indication of the quality of the rest of the film. Unfortunately, the 20 minute sequence that culminates in Indy trying to avoid an untimely death above crocodile infested water that could quite possibly be the best bit of spectacle in any of the Indiana Jones movies, is far too good for the movie it’s in. Temple of Doom was the unwanted child of the Indiana Jones trilogy until the awful fourth movie arrived.

Aliens is one of my favourite films. It arrived at a time – during the middle 1980s – when science-fiction was a huge box office attraction. Lucas had kicked it all off with “Star Wars”, with Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” continuing the trend. “Aliens” was the perfect follow-up to “Alien” – bigger, more expansive, and equally as scary, it also benefitted from a fast-moving action-movie aesthetic that wryly mocked the war credentials of America’s military in Vietnam. Here was a crowd-pleaser and blockbusting spectacle that had depth, character, and intelligence.

“Stand By Me” is one of the finest Stephen King book-to-screen adaptations ever made. Director Rob Reiner had a knack with King’s material as he also brilliantly brought “Misery” to the screen. In “Stand By Me”, a tale steeped in 1950s nostalgia, four childhood friends set off on a journey to find the missing body of one of their classmates. The friends, portrayed by young actors River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Wil Wheaton, and Jerry O’Connell, discover more than just a body on their travels, each finding a bond within one another that would last for the rest of their lives.

Joe Wright’s “Atonement”
“Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame.”
“Atonement” is widely regarded as one of the finest films of the past ten years. Andrew …

Director Steven Spielberg takes an intricate and realistic view of the American experience of infamous Omaha beach. It was here that the allied army lost so many men due to badly executed and organised pre-battle planning.

Classics Scenes #1: David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”
Top10Films kicks off another new series with its first ‘Classic Scene’. This reoccurring feature will look at some of Hollywood’s most iconic, memorable, heartbreaking, horrific, frightening, awe-inspiring, death-defying, funny and, lets face it, bloody great scenes that live long in every audience that has witnessed them.
What better way to kick the series off with a tribute to late actor Dennis Hopper who passed away May 29, 2010. Of his many fantastic roles, few were as strange as his turn in David Lynch’s equally …