Classic movie reviews

You always hear everyone talk about how great and powerful of a film The Godfather and Casablanca were. There all of these anniversary editions, critics commentaries, and parodies on these films and for good reason...they're two of the greatest films ever made. So how is it that the film that's often considered around the world as the greatest film ever made is rarely mentioned or paid homage to?

Not only that, it's the only film in the American Film Institute's top five NOT to win the Oscar for Best Picture! That might have something to do with it not being honored as much as the other four.

From 1941 to the present, I could swear there has been at least three other films to be greater than Citizen Kane, but when I really think about it, not really.

You see, Citizen Kane stands alone as an amazing film, but it's position atop the All-time Greatests lists is much the same reason why Thriller usually trumps other music videos, it's the most influential and creative production EVER.

Many of the camera and on-the-set techniques used in this masterpiece were never used in other popular films and other techniques and tricks would become commonplace, but all contributed to it's greatness. What keeps Citizen Kane at or near the top of any list is simply that it was a story as powerful as any story told on the big screen and the ground-breaking directorial techniques only enhanced it, thus setting it apart from other films for decades to come.

James Cameron did The Terminator for 3 dollars, 5 packs of used chewing gum and duct tape and it changed film forever.

That's not true, actually, but he sure did weave a heck of a tale with The Terminator, the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name.

When it starts off, it's pretty grainy and sloppy-looking, like a B-movie because it was made on about that budget by Hollywood standards, but the story still resonates. What's really masterful is how it manages to be as much a shoot-em-up action flick as any(high body count in '80's action movies), but brilliantly the love story is the centerpiece of the film. Brilliant because if you take out a good five minutes of the movie, you have no love story--and no heart. The Terminator would have still been a good action movie, it just wouldn't have been a phenomenon.

This wasn't the first time we saw a cyborg on the big or small screen, it was the coolest. The endoskeleton was already a site to behold, so Cameron saved that for the end(he actually admitted he wrote the script backwards starting with the metal skeleton being consumed by fire and went from there. Does that image sound familiar?). Cameron took an old idea and made it seem as if it was his own as he kept giving us just enough as the movie went along and not too much. He made the ONE Cyborg count, especially with the stirring description by Sarah Connor's protector(he'll never stop, NEVER, until you are DEAD!).

This film is 25 years old now and it is a true classic. Here's hoping they come out with an anniversary edition. If not, there's always the big 3-0 five years down the line.