Top 30 has finally resumed. We are up to the top ten....which will be revealed later today!

[baumer]

#16 Chungking Express

Starring:   Brigitte Lin, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Faye Wong 

Directed by:  Kar Wai-Wong

Box office:  unknown

 

 

Number of lists:  6

Top 5:  4

Number one:  1

Quick synopsis:  Two melancholy Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious female underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant he frequents.

Critic Opinion:  

When "Chungking Express" leaves the station, it moves fast and stops for no one. It's the whirlwind, often quite funny story of two cops looking for love in a frenetic Hong Kong of gangster shootouts, sizzling neon and blaring pop music. It's offbeat and out of whack, two reasons it attracted the eye of the ubiquitous Quentin Tarantino, whose Rolling Thunder imprint is releasing the picture.

One cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro) - both are identified only by badge number - finds himself attracted to a beautiful woman (Brigitte Lin) in a bar, not realizing she's a dope dealer who's handy with a gun. The other (Tony Leung) is smitten with a young woman (Faye Wang) who serves him salads at a fast-food stand; she returns the favor by repeatedly sneaking in to redecorate his flat.

Both men have recently lost their girlfriends. One seeks solace by eating canned pineapple, his ex-lover's favorite fruit. But it has to be from cans that expire by May 1, 30 days after the woman left him. "Is there anything on Earth that won't expire?" he muses. (SF Chronicle)

My thoughts:  Didn't see it.

 

[baumer]

#15 Leon the Professional

Starring:  Gary Oldman, Natalie Portman, Jean Reno

Directed by Luc Besson

Box office:  19.5 million

 

Number of lists:  9

Top 5:  1

Number one:  0

 

Quick synopsis:  Mathilda, a 12-year-old girl, is reluctantly taken in by Léon, a professional assassin, after her family is murdered. Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the assassin's trade.

Critic Opinion:  

The career aspirations of Mathilda (Natalie Portman) aren't those of the average 12-year old girl. Instead of wanting to be a doctor, fashion model, teacher, lawyer, or nuclear physicist, Mathilda has decided to follow in the footsteps of her best friend, surrogate father, and protector, Leon (Jean Reno). The only problem is that Leon is a "cleaner" -- a professional hit man ("Cool" is her one-word response when she learns this tidbit of information).

Mathilda comes from a very dysfunctional family. Her father is a drug dealer, his wife (played by Ellen Greene in a wig and performance that strongly recall images of Little Shop of Horrors' Audrey) despises her, and her half-sister enjoys beating her up. Mathilda's chief pleasure is hanging out in her New York City tenement building's stairwell, smoking cigarettes.

One day, a crooked cop (played with typical over-the-top exuberance by Gary Oldman) decides to have Mathilda's whole family exterminated. When she arrives home to find them slaughtered, she goes to Leon, who lives down the hall, for help. Although he's at first reluctant to open his door to her, once he does, she worms her way into both his life and his heart. And she's not some wide-eyed innocent; her desire to learn about killing is fueled by the need to exact bloody revenge for her little brother's murder (she could care less about the other family members).

In La Femme Nikita, writer/director Luc Besson proved his capability of putting as much octane and adrenaline into a thriller as any American director while keeping his formula uniquely non-Hollywood. Much the same is true of The Professional, which has sequences to rival those of Speed for white-knuckle excitement - not to mention a plot that's equally as preposterous.

The real strength of The Professional, however, is the central relationship between Mathilda and Leon. Although not well-founded in reality, these two characters mesh nicely. Despite an occasional low-key hint of sexual attraction, this is basically a father/daughter or mentor/apprentice relationship. There's nothing unique about a young girl melting the heart of a hardened loner except the manner in which Besson approaches the theme.

My thoughts:  What really stands out for me (aside from the really excellent direction of the action sequences) is the too-brilliant for its own good script. Oldman,Reno, and Portman deliver lines that would seem goofy if spoken by lesser performers. Oldman especially chews the scenery in a way that's both amusing and utterly menacing. I wonder if his Beethoven obsession is a nod to the ultra-violent Alex from A Clockwork Orange?

 

[baumer]

#14 The Mask

Starring:  Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Zed

Directed by:  Chuck Russell

Box office:  350 million (no, that is not a misprint)

 

Number of Lists:  11

Top 5:  2

Number one:  0

 

Quick synopsis:  Bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss is transformed into a manic superhero when he wears a mysterious mask.

Critic Opinion:  

It’s the year of Jim Carrey, and critics are still in denial. Back in February, this rubber-cheeked, pinwheel-eyed loony with a mouthful of piano keys starred in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective as a dick who talked through his ass, played football in a tutu and twisted his face with a toilet plunger. The reviews were scalding (“He’s a hyper goon,” said Roger Ebert), but audiences voted thumbs up by making Ace a $70 million box-office bonanza and Carrey a star. The 32-year-old Ontario native — the lone white guy on TV’s In Living Color (memorably nutso as the pyromaniacal Fire Marshal Bill) — is on a roll. He did Ace and The Mask for peanuts ($350,000 and $450,000, respectively); now he’ll collect $5 million for playing the Riddler in Batman Forever and $7 million for doing the obvious in Dumb and Dumber. So call him jerkier than Jerry Lewis, geekier than Jim (Ernest) Varney and more manic than Robin Williams. You can’t beat Carrey.

What you can do is join him. Though Carrey remains on a collision course with good taste, The Mask makes a persuasive case for reconsideration. It’s the summer’s funniest movie — a lowbrow farce done with high-tech expertise by director Chuck Russell (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3) and a flair for mischief that is uniquely Carrey’s. The Mike Werb script is strictly comic-strip formula, but it does the job. Carrey plays nerdy bank teller Stanley Ipkiss, a dud who turns stud when he covers his face with a mask that he finds by chance and brings home to the dump apartment he shares with Milo, a Jack Russell terrier who steals every scene Carrey doesn’t snatch first.  (Peter Travers)

My thoughts:  Another hilarious film strictly because of Carrey.  I'm not sure another actor could make this three films this year, become classics.  It's all him. 

 

[baumer]

#13 The Crow

Starring:  Brandon Lee, Ernie Hudson

Directed by:  Alex Proyas

Box office:  50.6 million

 

Number of lists:  8

Top 5:  3

Number one:  1

 

Quick synopsis:  A man brutally murdered comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée's murder.

Critic opinion:  

You catch your breath at the entrance the late Brandon Lee makes in The Crow. As rock guitarist Eric Draven, dead for a year when we first meet him, Lee busts out of the cold cemetery ground and howls in rage at the thugs who killed him and his fiancee. A crow stands watch as his link to life. This dazzling fever dream of a movie offers a double resurrection: Draven is back, and so, for two haunting hours, is Lee. On March 31, 1993, eight days before The Crow was due to wrap, Lee was accidentally shot and killed while filming Draven’s murder.

If you’re ready to dismiss The Crow as crass exploitation, get one thing straight: It’s not. Based on a 1980s comic-book series by James O’Barr, an ex-Marine who created Draven to deal with his anger and grief over the violent death of his own fiancee in Detroit, the film — set against a stunning backdrop of urban decay — stays faithful to its darkly poetic source.

That doesn’t make the death scene, shown in flashback, any easier to watch. Draven arrives at the loft he shares with his fiancee, Shelly (Sofia Shinas), to find her being raped by the henchmen of crime lord Top Dollar (Michael Wincott). It’s the gangbanger Funboy (Michael Massee) who shoots Draven with a .44 Magnum when he enters carrying a bag of groceries. In a film of elaborate effects, this scene was relatively simple. Lee merely had to set off an explosive device in the bag to make it appear that a bullet had struck home. Tragically, it had. Though the gun was loaded with blanks, the metal tip of a dummy bullet had become lodged in the gun’s barrel when the Magnum was used in a prior close-up. In the rush of filming in North Carolina on a low budget ($14 million), no one checked the barrel before handing the gun to Massee. When he fired, the metal tip was propelled into Lee’s abdomen. Lee died 12 hours later; he was 28. (Peter Travers)

My thoughts:  I love the martial arts genre and this one is a really good one. The film is more remembered for Lee's untimely death than the actual film itself, and that's too bad because this is a really good movie.  

 

[Jake Gittes]

46 minutes ago, baumer said:

#18 Heavenly Creatures

 

Number of lists:  9

Top 5:  1

 

38 minutes ago, baumer said:

#17 Ace Ventura Pet Detective

 

Number of lists:  9

Top 5:  3

 

[baumer]

#12 The Hudsucker Proxy

Starring:  Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman

Directed by the Coens

Box office:  2.8 million

 

 

Number of lists:  10

Top 5:  6

Number 1:  2

Quick synopsis:  A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam.

Critic Opinion:  

Tim Robbins has a knack for finding his way into superior satires. After taking the lead role in Robert Altman's The Player and starring in his own big-feature directorial debut, Bob Roberts, Robbins has now landed top billing for the latest film from the Coen Brothers, a wickedly funny and incisive lampoon of big business called The Hudsucker Proxy.

When he wanders into Hudsucker Industries for a job in the mail room, Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is an imbecile from Muncie with a single idea for a children's toy. Coincidentally, as Barnes is going in, the president of the company, Waring Hudsucker, is on his way out -- through the window of the board room on the forty-fourth floor (not counting the Mezzanine). Hudsucker's death sets off a panic; company rules state that since he died without having a will or living relatives, his majority share must be sold on the open market. Determined to devalue the stock so that the current board members can afford to buy it, Chief exec Sidney J. Mussberger (Paul Newman) devises a scheme to destroy the Hudsucker reputation by choosing a complete incompetent for the top seat. At that moment, he meets Norville Barnes...

From the opening sequence, soaring through the snow over the benighted building tops of New York, it's apparent that The Hudsucker Proxy is going to be a awe-inspiring visual experience. Given that the producer/director pairing is brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, who headed such projects as Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, and Barton Fink, the emphasis on set design, artwork, and innovative cinematography (by Roger Deakins), shouldn't come as a surprise.

The Hudsucker Proxy skewers big business on the same shaft that Robert Altman ran Hollywood through with The Player. From the Brazil-like scenes in the cavernous mail room to the convoluted machinations in the board room, this film is pure satire of the nastiest and most enjoyable sort. In this surreal world of 1958 can be found many of the issues confronting large corporations in the 1990s, all twisted to match the filmmakers' vision. (James Berdanelli)

My thoughts:  The Coens rarely miss and most times they hit it out of the park.  Count this one as one of their homeruns.  

 

[baumer]

I will get number 11 done and then have to take a break for a few hours.  Going to see Joker at noon.

 

Will have the top 10 done tonight 100%....Hockey Night in Canada makes its season debut and the Leafs and Habs are playing so I'll be home in front of my TV tonight.  

[baumer]

#11 Interview With The Vampire

Starring:  Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Christian Slater, Kyrsten Dunst

Directed by:  Neil Jordan

 

Number of lists:  11

Top 5:  2

Number one:  0

 

Quick synopsis:  A vampire tells his epic life story: love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger.

Critic Opinion:  

Although one of the characters in "Interview with the Vampire" begs to be transformed into a vampire, and eagerly awaits the doom of immortality, the movie never makes vampirism look like anything but an endless sadness. That is its greatest strength. Vampires throughout movie history have often chortled as if they'd gotten away with something. But the first great vampire movie, "Nosferatu" (1922), knew better, and so does this one.

The movie is true to the detailed vision that has informed all of Anne Rice's novels, and which owes much to the greater taste for realism which has crept into modern horror fiction. It is a film about what it might really be like to be a vampire. The title sets the tone, and in the opening scenes, set in San Francisco, the 200-year-old vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) submits to an interview by a modern journalist (Christian Slater), just as any serial killer or terrorist bomber might sit down to talk to "60 Minutes." His story begins in the late 1700s, in New Orleans, that peculiar city where even today all things seem possible, and where, after losing his wife and daughter, he threw himself into a life of grief and debauchery. His path crossed that of the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise), who transformed him into a vampire, and ever since he has wandered the world's great cities, feeding on the blood of his victims.

My thoughts:  Sleek, sexy, well acted and one of the coolest casts of the decade....Interview With the Vampire is a terrific story and a terrific movie.

 

[baumer]

Top ten will be done later today.

 

Some interesting facts about the list so far:

 

The most lists any film has appeared on so far is 11 (Stargate, Interview with the Vampire and The Mask)

Film with the most number one votes so far:  2...The Hudsucker Proxy

 

Upcoming:  Most lists:  Two films share the top with 20

Upcoming most number one placements:  The film t number one had the most number one votes with 4

[Cap]

28 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

Little Woman is 22 and Interview is 11. So. 🙃🙃🙃

[Tower]

1 hour ago, baumer said:

#12 The Hudsucker Proxy

 

 

I didn't have time to see many films for this list, but I couldn't miss out on a Coen film. I expected to like it since I always like the coen's films, but I didn't expect it to vault up all the way to first. What an incredible film.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Tower

[Plain Old Tele]

THE CROW managed to get #13? Nice

[The Panda]

Glad my vote forced Hoop Dreams on the list

[narniadis]

Thanks B! As always we appreciate it. 

[baumer]

#10 Four Weddings and a Funeral

Starring:  Andie McDowell, Hugh Grant, Kristen Scott Thomas

Directed by Richard Curtis

Box office:  245.7 mill (4.5 mill budget)

 

Number of lists:  12

Top 5:  1

Number one:  0

 

Quick synopsis:  Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.

Critic opinion:  

Women—at least those I talk to—love Hugh Grant. They just looove that little Englishman. I think he brings out the mother in them because of his fussily British, endearingly confused manner, as if he's a Merchant-Ivory version of Clark Kent.

It's hard to say this and retain my guy card, but I sort of like him too. I really don't want to. He's too delicately chiseled and twinkly-eyed. He looks too accustomed to easy favors based on his looks. In "Four Weddings and a Funeral," a romantic comedy of manners and nuptial invitations, my nicer attitude wins out. There's a disarming undertone to everything Grant does. Dressed almost constantly in morning coat and white shirt (ladies, please swoon here), he works effectively—and comically—against his appearance.

A single 32-year-old, Grant, along with his friends, seems to live from one wedding invitation to the next. But the more of these monkey-suit functions he attends, the further he feels from tying the knot himself. A mass of hesitant shortcomings, from shyness to fear of commitment, Grant hasn't hurt for girlfriends in the past but has managed to destroy every relationship. He's rather concerned about the prospect of terminal bachelorhood, until (in the movie's first wedding), he sets eyes on footloose, beautiful American Andie MacDowell.

Thanks to MacDowell's ingenuity—and no thanks to Grant's trysting incompetence—the couple manages to enjoy a romantic skirmish the night of the wedding. But MacDowell is bound for the United States the following morning. Grant, a passive but passionately smitten participant in this affair, waits desperately for MacDowell to reappear. She does—only to announce her engagement to another.

For the movie's remaining three weddings and one funeral (actually, there are more weddings, if you count a concluding sequence), Grant pines for his American, hoping desperately against hope. For a movie loaded down with repetitive ceremony, best-man speeches and champagne sipping, screenwriter Richad Curtis (writer of the English "Blackadder" series) and director Mike Newell (who made "Enchanted April") keep things lively and entertaining; each wedding is garnished with its own distinctive mood and dramatic significance.

The players, who include Simon Callow, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rowan Atkinson and Sophie Thompson, exude comedic brightness as they go about their gossipy, farcical, self-deprecating, sorry-about-that-old-chap, just-being-English business.

Atkinson—a ham, but funny nonetheless—is particularly amusing as a nervous priest presiding over his first wedding and exhorting the groom to take the bride as his "awfully wedded wife."

As for the central affair—the only one, ironically, that isn't turning into marriage—it's made doubly charming by Grant and MacDowell (whose extraordinary face and presence more than justify his romantic obsession). They so obviously belong to each other that, in a church-wedding finale that threatens their loving future, you're kept at the edge of your pew until the very last moment.

My thoughts:  Funny, engaging, charming and witty.  If not my favourite Curtis film, it's close.  I kind of love this one.

 

 

 

  

[baumer]

#9 Quiz Show

Starring:  Ralph Fiennes, Jon Turturro, Rob Morrow

Directed by Robert Redford

Box office:  24.8 million 

 

Number of lists:  11

Top 5:  3

Number one:  0

 

Quick Synopsis:  A young lawyer, Richard Goodwin, investigates a potentially fixed game show. Charles Van Doren, a big time show winner, is under Goodwin's investigation.

Critic opinion:  

"Quiz Show," Robert Redford's exploration of the TV game show scandals of the late '50s, is an example of mainstream American filmmaking at its very best. If this sounds like a backhanded compliment, it's not. "Quiz Show" is engrossing, smart and morally complex. Nothing else out of Hollywood this year can hold a candle to it.

The movie is a study in ambition, ethical compromise and the great American obsession with making it big. But that's not all. It's also a trenchant examination of ethnic undercurrents and class conflicts, corporate duplicity and the tender intricacies of father-son relations. There are no chases here, no jiggle and no gunplay, and so it's hard to know whether audiences will take to it. But whatever the reception, " Quiz Show" is an exciting achievement, not only the most accomplished film of Redford's directorial career, but one of the best to carry his name.

The story is complicated, but the skillful, incisive screenplay by Paul Attanasio (a former Washington Post film critic) negotiates it nicely. The film weaves in and out of the lives of three men. Two of them—Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) and Herbie Stempel (John Turturro)—are contestants on the game show "Twenty-One"; the third, Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow), is a congressional investigator.

In the '50s, quiz shows like "The $ 64,000 Question" and "Twenty-One" were all the rage. The contestants on these shows seemed to hold an unbelievable quantity of arcane material—such as whether Paul Revere's horse was a stallion or a mare—in their bulging brains. But there was a reason why their feats seemed impossible. The games, as it turns out, were rigged.

Stempel was one of these alleged mental giants. And as the brilliantly abrasive Turturro plays him, this geeky schlemiel is the epitome of the self-hating Jewish outsider. A combination of arrogance and desperation, he is so certain that life is stacked against him that his success on the show makes him uneasy. At the beginning of "Quiz Show," he stands inside his soundproof booth like a man awaiting execution.

Initially, the producers of the show liked Stempel's obvious credentials as an everyman. But with his pinwheel eyes and rotting tooth, he is anything but telegenic. Though he has become a national celebrity, Geritol, the show's sponsor, concludes that he is presenting the wrong image.  (Washington Post)

My thoughts:  Quiz Show is a thoroughly fascinating picture. Based on the true story of the rigging of the American hit game show "Twenty-One", and when America was captivated by the sharp and handsome intellectual faker Charles Van Doren over the schlubby savant Herb Stempel. Robert Redford meticulously brings back to life the art of the 1950's television game show. The glitz, the glamour, the product placements. Michael Ballhaus's cinematography takes your breath away, especially in the scene in which Stempel is forced to take the fall for Van Doren. Quite simply, one of the great scenes I've ever seen in film. Not to mention, John Turturro gives a performance for the ages.

 

[baumer]

#8 True Lies

Starring:  Arnold, Arnold, Bill and Jamie

Directed by James

Box office:  378 million

 

Number of lists:  13

Top 5: 4

Number one:  1

 

Quick synopsis:  A fearless, globe-trotting, terrorist-battling secret agent has his life turned upside down when he discovers his wife might be having an affair with a used car salesman while terrorists smuggle nuclear war heads into the United States.

Critic opinion:  

Consider, for example, a chase sequence near the beginning of the movie, in which a bad guy on a motorcycle is chased by Arnold, on a horse, through a hotel lobby. Most movies would be content with that. Not "True Lies," which continues the chase on high-rise elevators and ends up on the hotel roof, with Arnold urging the horse to attempt a free fall into a swimming pool.

The plot is, of course, little more than a clothesline upon which to hang such set pieces. It involves Schwarzenegger as Harry, an ace U.S. spy, who has been married for 15 years to a sweet-tempered wife named Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), who thinks he is a computer salesman. (He works for something called the Omega Force, which describes itself in its seal as "The Last Line of Defense.") How he has successfully managed this deception is one of the many questions the film does not pause to answer. (Ebert)

My thoughts:  This has everything.  The one liners, amazing humour and a really good rapport between Tom and Arnold.  But for those who know me, it won't surprise you to know that my favourite character in the movie is played by Bill Paxton.  He's so good in this as Simon, the used car salesman.  I miss Bill.  Cameron directs audaciously and he does things perhaps only he can.  The horse chase scene is just ridiculous but in a good way.  True Lies is just pure fun.  

 

[baumer]

As we head into the next two, I'll just say that positions 6 7 and 8 were separated by 4 points.  Very close.

 

But then number 5 really jumps as there is a gap of about 80 points from 6 to 5.

[baumer]

#7 Ed wood

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Bill Murray

Directed by Tim Burton

Box office:  5.8 million

 

Number of lists:  12

Top 5:  6

Number one:  0

 

 

Quick synopsis:  Ambitious but troubled movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. tries his best to fulfill his dreams, despite his lack of talent.

Critic Opinion:  

A title like "the Worst Director of All Time" virtually assures that people will remember Ed Wood, although perhaps not in exactly the way the filmmaker would have preferred. Tim Burton, with a biopic that is as much a parody as a tribute, has brought Wood to black-and-white life in the person of actor Johnny Depp, and surrounded him with a cast whose members often bear an uncanny resemblance to their real-life counterparts.

It's difficult to know what Wood was better known for: his bad movies, the unbelievable pace at which he shot them, or the women's clothing he enjoyed wearing. ("I love women. Wearing their clothing makes me feel closer to them.") His feature, Plan Nine From Outer Space (the production of which is chronicled in the final quarter of the movie), is often referred to as "the worst movie of all-time." While the picture is admittedly very bad, it probably doesn't deserve that distinction. Nevertheless, the appellation has stuck.

Ed Wood opens with the aspiring filmmaker's play "The Casual Company" getting panned in the newspapers. Undaunted, Wood moves on -- this time to movies. After a chance meeting with Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) gives him a bankable name, he obtains financing to make Glen or Glenda, the story of a transvestite struggling with his identity. Casting himself in the lead role and his girlfriend Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker) opposite him, Wood creates a movie so dreadful that some of the influential powers in Hollywood think it's a practical joke.

Nevertheless, the director presses on with his next feature, Bride of the Atom (later renamed Bride of the Monster), and, following that, the infamous Plan Nine from Outer Space, the film that he "will be remembered for."

The most interesting personality in Ed Wood is not the title character, but Bela Lugosi. So covered up with makeup that he's barely recognizable, Martin Landau gives a deeply-felt performance -- a eerie and stunning recreation of a man haunted by lost fame. When Lugosi dies three-quarters of the way through the movie, Ed Wood loses a lot of its vitality.

My thoughts:  The era and efforts of the worst Director ever, Ed Wood, have been very well recreated in this movie, and the acting of Johnny Depp as the title character and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi are quite remarkable and the latter clearly deserved his Best Supporting Actor Award. Depp seems to be able to take on the most outlandish of roles, and make them not only, believable, but truly memorable, and that us very much the case in "ED WOOD"

 

 

 

 

 

[baumer]

#6 Dumb and Dumber

Starring:  Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Lauren Holly

Directed by:  The Farrelly Brothers

Box office:  247 million

 

Number of lists: 15

Top 5:  3

Number one:  0

 

Quick Synopsis:  After a woman leaves a briefcase at the airport terminal, a dumb limo driver and his dumber friend set out on a hilarious cross-country road trip to Aspen, to return the briefcase to its owner.

Critic Opinion:  

This wacky buddy road film starring Carrey ("The Mask," "Ace Ventura," "Batman Forever") and Jeff Daniels ("Speed," "Gettysburg") has a brilliant glow of intelligence behind the stupidness. It's easily the funniest movie of the year.

Why? Because it relies on the circumstances of the everyday with a firm finger on the pulse of what ordinary guys (it's a guyish movie) think about doing, but never come close to pulling off. And it cleverly, often riotously, mirrors some of the really stupid things plain folks will do in a world stacked against them.

"Dumb and Dumber" is not so much about dumb guys as it is about earnest guys. And people can be pathetically funny when they are just being earnest lunks.

Whether engaged in pranks, or putting the make on women, or stumbling through attempts to finesse, "Dumb and Dumber's" two lovable losers blow the lid off pretensions and go on a kind of idiot ride with such amazing dexterity and often bold caprice that the film becomes a surprising satire of American culture.

With "Dumb and Dumber" the amazingly elastic Carrey assures his place as film's reigning king of comic spontaneity (Robin Williams dethroned?). Playing a character named Lloyd Christmas, he could almost carry "Dumb and Dumber" by himself.

His chipped front tooth, crazy mouth formations, electric- charged eyes, dimpled grins and nutty bowl-style haircut make him an insistent comic presence even before he utters a single word or takes the first pratfall.

But somebody (writer-director Peter Farrelly and his fellow scribes, brother Bobby Farrelly and Bennett Yellin) had a buddy movie in mind. Daniels, fresh from a bout of serious screen roles, was an inspired choice to play the seemingly "dumber" guy, Harry Dunne.

My thoughts:  The final film in Carrey's trifecta.  This came out in December and it put an exclamation point on one of the greatest years in box office history.  Dumber and Dumber is ridiculously hilarious from start to finish.  Carrey and Daniels have terrific chemistry and some of the comedy is so over the top and some of it I've never seen before.  One of the funniest films I've seen.