Here are numbers 35-26 of the "100 Things That Make The Wicker Man Totally Awesome!"

35. The way Edward Woodward says lines like, "Then why in God's name do you do it, girl!?" or "Jesus Christ!" He also rolls his R's which is great because the girl he's looking for is named Rowan, so every time he says her name it starts with a drum roll.

34. Christopher Lee's speech about snails. It's creepy and disturbing and only in the director's cut, so be sure to stick with that version.

33. The English countryside. It's just gorgeous. But most movies that take place there have terrible things happen to their characters. Despite the possibility of being burned alive (The Wicker Man), or being eaten by a werewolf (American Werewolf in London), or being raped by my best friend's uncle (Withnail & I), I'd still love to move there.

Ok, so Darkplace is a 1980's horror television show... no wait. It's about this horror author... no, that's not right either. You see, I have to pretend I don't know how to properly describe Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, not only as a silly writer-ly way to start a review but also because I genuinely have a hard time doing it.

Garth Marenghi is a creation of actor Matthew Holness. He is not a real person. Much like Stephen King, Marenghi is a horror novelist who specializes in turning the mundane into the horrific. But then back in the 1980's Marenghi grew tired of books and decided to turn his attention to television and Darkplace was born! Being the way-ahead-of-his-time writer that he his, Darkplace was pulled from television for being either too frightening or possibly too moronic (depending on who you talk to) and never shown again... until now.

True Romance is the story of a young down-on-their-luck couple who comes across a suitcase full of cocaine and makes their way across America to sell it in Hollywood. As they do so a colorful group of cops and criminals hunt them down.

Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill) wrote the film with un-credited voiceover by his Pulp Fiction co-author, Roger Avery (Killing Zoe). As with all of Tarantino’s scripts, the story is filled with unique characters, explosive action, and very memorable dialogue.

Tony Scott (Spy Game) directs this cross-country-crime-romance with such flavor and style that there are beautiful moments throughout. The film has a kinetic energy that is infectius and undeniably entertaining. From the first moments of young love blossoming on streets of Detroit, all the way to the blaze of glory Mexican standoff at a Beverly Hills hotel, Scott directs with a confident vision that never lets up on its momentum.

A writer (Duchovny) and his girlfriend-photographer (Forbes) make a cross-country trip documenting famous murder sites along the way. Their ride-share companions are two hillbillies (Pitt and Lewis) who add their own crime scenes along the way.

Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds), of music video fame, made his directorial feature debut with his hard-boiled tail of American crime and the obsession of the masses for bloodshed and carnage. He is successful in making a road film that feels unlike any other as we follow the foursome westward across the plains, leaving misery in their wake.

Director of Photography, Bojan Bazelli, does great work through the lens capturing a nice mixture of polished compositions using expressive lighting, without losing the grittiness of this harrowing world,  this blood soaked nation.

John Hodge’s brilliant screenplay, based on the cult novel by the same name written by Irvine Welsh, is the story of a group of young friends, drug addicts, and overall petty criminals from Edinburgh who play hard and fast. The plot is a maturation story about one of these needle lovers, "Renton” (McGregor), who begins to realize that his life could be so much more in normalcy.

The screenplay does a wonderful job of capturing the lifestyle, while not passing judgment on it. Through Renton’s colorful self-actualizing voiceover, we’re given the chance to look into the bare souls of the wild, wayward and lost.

Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) directs one of his finest films with Trainspotting. He is able to capture true human emotions and dynamics within a frenzied sense of desperation and sorrow, washed over by the warm glow of heroin. He is careful not to whitewash or oversimplify a complex subject—that of overwhelming addiction.

If there’s one thing the French government doesn’t want people to know about, it’s that for two months Paris was a Socialist state ruled independently from the rest of France. Napoleon III’s catastrophic decision in 1870 to declare war on Prussia for amorphous reasons of power and prestige precipitated France’s ruinous capitulation to the Prussian army, ultimately concluding in a Prussian assault on the capitol. During the siege, working class Parisians suffered the most, falling into destitution as prices of essential goods rose, and becoming increasingly resentful of the seemingly immune bourgeoisie. The government moved to Versailles during the war and, after Napoleon III died in battle, set up a new conservative Republic there. At the end of the siege, the army tried to re-appropriate cannons originally left behind to protect the city from the invading Prussians, which Versailles now worried would fall into the control of anarchist elements of the restless populace. However, Parisians protested the removal of the cannons because they had been paid for with public funds, and the listless soldiers, identifying more with the howling mob than with their well-bred officers, fraternized with the crowd and refused to take the cannon. Revolutionary spirit inflamed the city and La Commune was born. Without outside assistance, regular Parisians set up elections, formed a government with executive and legislative branches, and outfitted a defensive army. The citizens of the Commune created worker owned co-operatives, passed a law separating church and state, and abolished religious schools in favor of secular state education. In two months it was gone.

Back in the mid-1990s during the heyday of the American independent film scene there were several films released during the decade that became lightning rods for controversy stemming from their, at the time, risqué subject matter. I use the phrase "at the time" because it's not clear whether movies are really capable of shocking us nowadays. In the age of the "torture porn" genre (Hostel, et al.), where even Law & Order plotlines can get pretty damn sick for prime time television, a lot of what stirred social conservatives to boycott studios over what they deemed objectionable material in movies just doesn’t work them up the way it used to. It may come down to whether or not movies are really the pop cultural force they used to be.

The idea that an indie ensemble drama that features mostly a lot of awkward communicating between the unbelievably dysfunctional could cause so much trouble now seems almost quaint. Happiness, with its empathetic treatment of a pedophile character and it's numerous, uh, money shots, might still seem provocative by today's standards if for nothing else than for its refusal to deny the film’s screwed up characters their essential humanity, but at the time of its release it caused an outright media firestorm prompting its original distributor to deem it too toxic for release. It eventually found a new distributor and did open to equal parts fawning praise for people who think that provocative equals good and righteous denouncement from a lot of people who probably didn’t even bother to see the film.

Manhattan could be America's most moving film about the genuine love between a forty-something-year-old intellectual and a 17-year-old high school student. Well, it's about a bit more than that, but the central storyline is moving in ways few people can quite articulate, but are quick to call "brilliant." Both completely modern yet seemingly timeless, Woody Allen's 1979 film provides a picturesque tribute to one of the world's great cities, as well as a bold statement on finding romantic happiness in not so widely agreeable places.

Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a single father and writer living in Manhattan, who most would consider depressed. Involved in what he considers a meaningless relationship with the underaged Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), friends Yale (Michael Murphy) and Emily (Anne Byrne Hoffman) are concerned Isaac is wasting his life away with the girl while writing junk television shows. Isaac starts to re-evaluate his situation, however, after meeting Yale's mistress Mary (Diane Keaton). At first repelled by her "pseudo-intellectualism," he quickly develops an interest while her affair with Yale becomes more intense.

Maybe it sounds odd to call a movie "great" if by the end it makes you feel like your soul was taken away, but Before The Devil Knows You're Dead is such a work. With an amazing ensemble cast and a non-linear script that reveals new facts about the characters all the way until the final shot--this is a film that reminds you how powerful dramatic fiction is supposed to work.

Through the different character's perspectives, the film is about the build-up and aftermath of a botched jewelry store robbery in the suburbs. Opening with the violent event, we soon find out afterwards that brothers Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) planned the robbery together as a victimless crime in response to some urgent needs for money. But these aren't your typical, slick movie heist-men whatsoever. Andy is a somewhat well-off business accountant seeking escape for a more fulfilling life, while Hank is a single father who's desperately behind on child support. Part of what makes the film work so well is how the script gradually unfolds and clues the audience into new details as it plays, so the only other plot point worth mentioning here is that the store they rip off happens to be owned by the men's parents, Charles (Albert Finney) and Martha (Amy Ryan).

Gus Van Sant is nominated for Best Director at this year's Academy Awards for his moving bio-pic Milk, but that wasn't the only film Van Sant directed this year. Last March his indie film Paranoid Park opened around the country in a limited release. The film flew under the radar when it was in theaters and it was later overshadowed by the big budget Milk, but Paranoid Park is a beautiful film that deserves its time in the spotlight. The film is another one of Van Sant's dreamy, meditative character studies similar to his two previous films Last Days and Elephant. Visually the film has a slow entrancing rhythm that is accentuated by an eclectic, beautiful score. The cast is mainly non-professional actors that Van Sant found on the internet, and their performances bring a delicate honesty to the story.

In Hollywood films about revenge a grieving family or friend or lover typically realizes that the only way to bring closure to the loss of a loved one is to turn vigilante and mete out the justice they were denied and we are usually meant to cheer them on as populist heroes. But in the 2001 film In the Bedroom, the "grieving family avenging a loved one" plot may be a familiar one but its execution is decidedly not because the cheap and manipulative tactics that get us as an audience fired up for spilled blood are nowhere to be found. This story of a middle aged couple dealing with the tragic death of their son and falling apart as their anger consumes them is the rare film where the idea of grief is not just a pretext for something “bigger.” The visceral, teeth-gnashing sense of loss that death brings—especially the grief that follows unexpected violent death—is allowed to unfold and hang in the air like the slow heavy unstoppable force of nature that it is and it’s unforgettable. This is the rare film about grief and death and vengeance that has no room for histrionics. It has no false notes. The director, Todd Field, is shockingly assured for what was his first feature length film and the incredible cast including Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, Nick Stahl, and Marisa Tomei hit rare notes of emotional honesty in their work.

Many consider Hannah And Her Sisters to be the third and best installment in Woody Allen's realistic New York "dramadies" (the other two being Annie Hall and Manhattan). While not as stylish as the previous two, and perhaps even slightly marred by some distinctly 1980's hair and wardrobe choices, the film is one of the director's most mature and dense with ideas while still balancing his knack for comedic writing.

As indicated by the title, the multiple-storied movie focuses on the love lives revolving around Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her sisters Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest). Hannah's husband Elliot (Michael Caine) is torn by his romantic feelings for Lee, eventually leading to an uneven affair that also has Lee re-evaluating her life with ex-professor and current lover Frederick (Max Von Sydow). Meanwhile, Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Woody Allen) is a worsening hypochondriac who starts questioning the meaning of life after receiving news he might have a potential brain tumor. He also develops an interest in Holly, who is feeling secure and confidant in anything except her career or love life.

Billy Elliot stands out as a musical, a family drama and fiercely insightful look into the sacrificial toll on striking coal miners in Northern England in 1984. Stephen Daldry's direction alternately charms and punches with equal power until you are pulling at your own hair as Billy dances out his frustration through the run down back alleys, over cobble streets and finally into a brick wall furiously, fruitlessly and against all odds.

Billy is the youngest son of a widowed coal miner with an older brother not long in the mines himself, and an invalid grandmother. Coming from the tough and tumble Elliots, eleven year old Billy is naturally enrolled in boxing at school but somehow finds himself drawn to the girls' ballet lessons. Their teacher, the no nonsense Mrs. Wilkinson, sees potential in Billy and encourages his newfound passion and determination not knowing that Billy has kept it a secret from his family. All the while the coal miners' strike puts constant pressure on the Elliots, backing them into financial and emotional corners. When Mrs. Wilkinson procures Billy an audition at the Royal School of Ballet Billy must battle his family for the chance to be something different. Not only from what they know but what they themselves are fighting for.

I'm slightly envious of Stacy Peralta for not only conquering the professional skateboarding world but also for his career as a filmmaker. These two industries, in the general sense, do not correlate, but he manages to find the bridge. The result? A fantastic documentary about the legendary Z-Boys skate team in 1970s Venice named Dogtown Z-Boys, a 2004 documentary chronicling the evolution of big wave surfing called Riding Giants, and a biographical feature film about the Z-Boys journey titled Lords of Dogtown. Peralta penned the screenplay himself, with Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen and Twilight) directing.

The film, while written with obvious yet needed nostalgia, is action-packed full of skateboarding glamour, parties, competitions, strained friendships, and the intensity of male adolescent energy. The plot is loose and without any specific thread other than to chronicle the history of what happens to the Zephyr Skate Team from the beginning of their surfing days to the point where they meet again after the start of their separate careers. The lack of any overbearing plot creates an enjoyable, fast-paced energy that captures a certain spirit of the pioneering skate culture from the 70s.

Danny Boyle knows how to engage you. He knows, more than most other directors, how to scoot your butt to the edge of the seat, whiten your knuckles as they grip the armrest and give you a stress headache from furrowed brows. The man just keeps pushing it higher, faster, and closer to the edge. What edge? Any edge - that's the kicker - you don't know where the edge is or where it's coming from. It could be around the corner or RIGHT THERE. Seriously, you could fall at any moment.

Sunshine is a perfect heart pounding pulse kicking, monster mouth drying example. The stakes? Only the planet and all mankind. The risk? Dying alone in space in a myriad of painfully awful ways including murder and knowing in your last moments that history died with you.

Space is cold and silent and scary and for the crew of the Icarus II it has been home for 8 months as they travel with the “payload,” a bomb dense enough to reignite our dying sun. Gently we are introduced to a crew who behave like a smart but somewhat loveless family each focusing more on their own tasks, trying to keep business as usual as is probably pertinent on a mission to save the planet. But some are slipping, and the effects of isolation are burning through. When they discover the failed Icarus I still floating in space the decision to detour or move ahead transforms the cool and contemplative movie-in-space to a jolting, thrilling, horrifying, suspense, action extravaganza! If it sounds like I'm exaggerating with so many adjectives then you haven't seen many Danny Boyle movies. Sunshine might try a little too hard to blow your mind in bits but the visuals are like sugar for the eyes. Gorgeous, thrilling and a little cosmic, Sunshine is a fine bit of science fiction that could ruin furniture if you haven't trimmed your fingernails.

A New York private eye (Rourke) is hired by a mysterious man (De Niro) to locate a missing crooner named “Johnny Favourite.” But as every new piece of the puzzle falls into place and voodoo works its magic -- things get more dangerous and unnerving.

Alan Parker (Pink Floyd’s The Wall) directs a film on a tight-wire, fusing Raymond Chandler with the world of the Faustian supernatural. With simple, but confident strokes, he brings such gravity to a tale that becomes otherworldly. Taking many liberties from the source material novel Falling Angels by William Hjortberg, Parker’s screen adaptation expands the scope of the reality, while doing justice to the way people really speak in the Big Apple and the Big Easy.

Michael Seresin’s cinematography is well composed in every shot and the hard-edged lighting is true to the look of post-World War II detective Noir cinema. The look of the film itself seems a bit dingy—perfect for a story like this one.

LOVE FOUND & MEMORY LOST?!

BOY MEETS GIRL
Mild-mannered, sheepish, shy Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) meets his polar opposite in wild, weirdo, eccentric Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and romance ensues, again...

NOTE: Winslet reminds me a lot of a younger Madonna for one reason or another is this film. Perhaps it's her demeanor, eyebrows or hair, I'm not certain. However, it's something I feel in my guts.

WHAT IF...
Imagine suffering the ill effects of love lost:  a frustrated mind, a tear streamed face and a broken heart. Would you erase the events of the past relationship that left you in this current state if you could? Perhaps this would help you to get on with your life and not be distracted by those thoughts and feelings?

YOU'RE IN LUCK
Clementine has her memory of Joel erased by the dysfunctional and clumsily staffed Lacuna Corporation headed by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). Lacuna also employs Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, David Cross and Kirsten Dunst. The Lacuna team as it turns out knows its product first hand or heart for that matter [tee hee].

Written by American poet of the gutter, Charles Bukowski (based on his own experiences), Barfly is an urban fairy tale of two wanderers who are always in search of the next bottle. “Henry” (Rourke) is a writer who spends all his time drinking and fighting, occasionally fitting in some poems here and there. “Wanda” (Dunaway) is a boozer who lives off the generosity of various old men. Once these two meet, it is one of cinema’s most wonderfully strange love stories.

Bukowski’s script is very slice of life, but not the lives of most. With colorful characters and exceptionally quotable dialogue, the screenplay is on par with any of his works of poetry, novels or short stories.

The rumor is that director Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune) threatened to cut off his own fingers, one at a time, if the head of the studio didn’t agree to green light the film on the spot. Even if that is a fabrication, is it a scenario that shows the kind of unique tale that Barfly is.

Based on the 1962 John Frankenheimer Cold-War classic, The Manchurian Candidate is the story of a group of soldiers who, upon returning home from war, suffer painful flashbacks of torture and brainwashing. “Major Ben Marco” (Washington) grips to reality trying to get at the truth before a possible corporate-designed “sleeper” (Schreiber) is elected to the White House.

Oscar winner Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), helms one of the better remakes of classic cinema. The director is really able to illustrate the paranoia, warped sense of memory and the spiraling down into madness -- using the main character (Washington) as a mental road map.

The screenplay by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgari, (based on the novel by Richard Condon and the original screenplay by George Axelrod) manages to contemporize the communist tale, moving the action into the Middle East of the first Gulf War. They retain the core elements of the story, while giving it a modern feel more accessible to today’s audiences.

After the current vogue for having famous people play eminent people has lost its cachet among Oscar voters, what roles will we remember the nominees for? From 1929 to1942, six of the thirteen Academy Awards for Best Actor were awarded to actors playing real historical personages, from Henry VIII to “Yankee Doodle Dandy” songwriter George M. Cohan. Occasionally flaring up once every decade, the trend of remunerating actors for successful impersonations had almost gone into remission until recently. In 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006 the statue was awarded for the most uncanny imitation of a deceased celebrity. In the Best Actress category the statistics are even more consistent; during the 2000s only two of the past awards have gone to actresses playing fictional characters. This year celebrated stage actor Frank Langella is nominated for portraying Richard Nixon in Ron Howard’s screen adaptation of the play Frost/Nixon. Considering Howard is the first filmmaker to perfect a “direct-by-numbers” technique, the likelihood of the red-headed former star of Happy Days walking away with a little gold man looks likely.

When 24 Hour Party People came out, I overheard a lot of dour Raincoat types leaving the theater expressing their wish that whole film had been about Ian Curtis and not those awful acid house Blue Tuesdays or whatever was going on after Ian Curtis' death, at which point their lot zoned out 'til the credits. I thought of how awful that would be - a film about Joy Division. Biopics are always so suspect. Myth-making, made-for-cable garbage with chest-beating and hammy impressions instead of acting... you know, the kind of thing the Oscars are made of. Thankfully, Control is not like that.

Control is directed by Anton Corbijn, which I didn't know till the end. Whatever you think of the guys videos, he has an eye for arresting (if sometimes comically dour) imagery. He's also Dutch and therefore a natural fit for Joy Division’s world which is black and white and eternally wintery, even in the summer – like World War II movies.

When it was announced that Exorcist director William Friedkin and Serpico star Al Pacino were teaming up to make a gritty, New York police thriller in 1980, nothing grabbed the attention of cinema-goers more than the idea of Cruising--especially America's gay community at the time. Immediately considered grotesque and too dark for middle America, and exploitative, and wholly offensive to everyone else with its seeming portrayal of gay men as nothing more than leather chap-wearing, bushy mustache-sporting, sadomasochistic party animals, Cruising was quickly buried in the studio vault shortly after its quick life-span in theaters. But today the film can finally be viewed and appreciated for what it is: an over-the-top, campy, cult classic with a surprisingly engaging story, and an ambiguous twist ending that will linger with you for hours afterwards.

A childless-couple, with no hope of their own, decides to kidnap one of furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona’s eight babies. But once they do, life takes a serious turn, giving them much more than they bargained for.

In this early effort by the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men), the duo makes a timeless classic of the absurd. The script is hugely original and chock-full of many memorable lines. There is no scene-wasting as these people’s lives spin out of control with pitch-perfect tone throughout.

Strengthening the effect is Barry Sonnefeld’s comedic cinematography of extreme angles and fast zooms and Carter Burwell’s strange and quirky score.

As “H.I. ‘Call Me Hi' McDunnough,” Nicolas Cage (Adaptation) gives not only one of his finest performances in a long and diverse career, but one of comedic cinema’s greatest and most endearing characters. With his slow drawl and extremely exaggerated facial expressions, Hi is a man who provides endless laughter.

An aging assassin (Bronson) contemplates retirement and takes a young apprentice (Vincent) under his wing, getting much more than he bargained for.

Lewis John Carlino’s screenplay is sparse, but strong. Unlike newer action films, the script takes its time to give you a sense of the isolation and loneliness that comes with being a professional killer. The story provides two strong characters of vastly different backgrounds that share a similar sensibility. The result is an exciting and dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.

Director Michael Winner (The Nightcombers) lays the groundwork with Bronson in The Mechanic that would lead to the Death Wish franchise. His direction is steady and well observed. There is a certain rawness to the film—highlighted by a scene where the two hitmen watch a woman slowly bleed to death to get attention from her uncaring lover. In addition, the film is brave, taking chances, such as having no dialogue in the first fifteen minute sequence as we watch a sniper killing.

A series of unfortunate events unfold in a small desert community when a drug deal near the Rio Grande goes sours, bringing a dark whirlwind into their lives.

Adapted from the novel by famed American author, Cormac McCarthy, the Coen brother’s screenplay is tight, authentic and really able to utilize a story with three leads.

While more often than not, voiceover seems forced, the narration that opens this film does a wonderful job of setting everything that follows in motion.

The direction is flawless—a perfectly realized tapestry of Americana. The Coen brothers guide the story in a way that maintains a constant tone of dreadful uneasiness. Through this timepiece crime caper, they provide a sense of change in our culture towards violence and greed.

Roger Deakin’s cinematography captures the America landscape unlike any other. His expansive shots of vistas are breathtaking, while his compositions are intimate, capturing the early eighties southwestern production design with great precision.

The only thing more frightening about Midnight Meat Train the film, is the way the film itself was treated by the powers that be. Apparently, the ‘train’ came to a screeching halt when Joe Drake (President of Lions Gate) forced a poor turnout to this film by way of limiting the release to roughly 100 budget theatres in order to draw attention to schlock garbage like The Strangers, which could be seen in multiplexes across the country. In my humble opinion, if properly marketed, Midnight Meat Train could’ve sparked the next huge horror franchise. But then again, I like my horror films dirty, dark and dreadful. Not the kind of things that shiny studio films are made of.

Midnight Meat Train opens with a disturbing encounter on an anonymous subway in an anonymous city, which we’re made to believe is New York. This is where we meet our big bad villain superbly played by ex-footballer, Vinnie Jones. And thus begins our train ride into the dark annals of the human mind… led by your conductor, Mr. Clive Barker.