Top 20 Movies In Cardboard: Movies 6-4

 Hey everybody,

Welcome to the penultimate post in ATBATT 's Top 20 Film Countdown.  In checking my page stats I noticed a wide discrepancy in views for the first two installments in this series.  Less than half the amount of people who read the previous post about films #14- #7  read the first post about films #20 - #14.  I'm presuming most of those readers didn't read Part 1 because they just didn't know it existed.  In a blog marketing blunder, I didn't title that post Part 1.

So, in case you missed them, film numbers 20-15 are here and film numbers14- 7 are here.


Presenting my next favorite movies of all time, paired with cards inspired by those films...*


6. ROCKY
Everybody knows the story of Rocky Balboa.  He was the supposed lamb to the slaughter who went toe to toe against a fearsome opponent, and everyone expected him to lose.

"Yo Paulie! Your sister's with me!" 

Holding his fist high above his head like a victorious boxer, Gibby, like Rocky, reminds us, "You gotta believe."

5. THIEF
Another fantastic Michael Mann film featuring hard-ass James Caan as a master thief who wants a normal life, despite the fact there's nothing "normal" in his life.  Don't miss a cool cameo by Willie Nelson who plays a lifer from the big house.  I also love the soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.

"You got an 8 year-old black, chink kid that nobody wants?  We'll take him."

Presenting above the L.A. Dodgers' greatest base thief.  Sure, the Dodger who inspired my screen name was a daring thief extraordinaire who mastered the art of stealing home, but Wills re-wrote the book on how to play the game by resurrecting base-stealing as a bona fide offensive weapon.  It's Dogers vs. Giants legend that the groundskeepers at Candlestick Park used to over-water the area around first base in an attempt to slow down the Dodger rabbit.  
 

Here's the Dodger master thief that I grew up watching.  We all used to think we were Davey Lopes when we stole base in our neighborhood games.

4. EIGHT MEN OUT
 Of all the great baseball movies out there, this one is my favorite.  It's a great script and I love the attention to detail that captures the era.  An example is the scene where the gamblers are following the progress of the game in a whiskey and cigar room, while staff get updates on the game via ticker tape and then move cardboard players along a wall-sized cardboard diamond.

" You just know that ball's gonna go a long way. Damn if you don't feel like you're gonna live forever."

Here's the easy choice for including a card connection to the biggest gambling scandal to ever hit baseball, which also resulted in ensuring at least one baseball great would never get anywhere close to the Hall of Fame.  Will Charlie Hustle ever get into the Hall?  I dunno, but I suspect with that new, hot model wife of his, he's feeling like he's gonna live forever in a totally different way than Buck Weaver meant.  

On one level, the Black Sox and Pete Rose scandals are about players who really should have known better, but gambled with their baseball careers and lost.  Which brings me to the inclusion of our Dodger above.  The Straw didn't gamble with money, but he gambled with drugs and the fast life.  Darryl took a once promising career and lost everything when coke parties took precedence over celebrations at home plate.  If only....


Next Post: The final top three films!

* Special THANKS go out to N.O. for inspiring the idea for this series. 

Top 20 Movies In Cardboard - Part 2

 Hey everybody,

 The movie/baseball card countdown continues...

 14. A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
It's not easy choosing just one of Clint's cowboy classics.  I chose this one because director Sergio Leone seamlessly recreated a Japanese Samurai film as a Western, which Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken later re-recreated as a 1930's gangster piece. 

"My mistake, 4 coffins."

The Dodgers have had no shortage of high priced mercenaries such as this guy...

...i think we all know this dollar chaser.

That said, aside from what they were paid, both of our mercenaries here did well enough wearing Dodger Blue.  They were certainly not high priced busts like Andrew Jones.   I would show a card of Jones, but criteria #2 for this post demands the card shown must come from my collection.  Andrew Jones cards have no place in my collection. 


 13. ENTER THE DRAGON
 This film took Bruce Lee - and martial arts movies - out of the obscure 3 movies for $2 movie theaters (that's where I first discovered him) and brought them into mainstream American culture like gangbusters.  Although Bruce Lee had a short film career, and died tragically at the height of his popularity and talent decades ago, he endures as an iconic figure to this day. 

"My style?  You can call it the art of fighting without fighting."

Much like Bruce Lee, Clemente had a short, brilliant career that was cut short by a sudden, unexpected death. And like Lee, he is spoken of in almost god-like terms.

12. SCARFACE (Paul Muni and Al Pacino versions)
Who don't know Scarface?

"You want a war? Hokay - I take you to war!" 

You cant see it from this card, but good ol' uncle Robbie here sported a Tina Fey-sized cheek scar.

 11.ROBOCOP
I love sci-fi movies, and I really love director Paul Verhoven's science-fiction visions.  For the longest time, I couldn't watch "That 70's Show" because I knew the dad on the show as the bad guy in Robocop.  I just couldn't see him as anything other than a brutal, bad man.

"Dead or alive, you're coming with me." 

Of all the Dodger catchers I saw play, nobody - and I mean NOBODY - wore the Blue armor and protected the plate as well as rock solid Scioscia.

10. PATHS OF GLORY 

Stanly Kubrik's totally awesome WWI anti-war film starring Kirk Douglas kicking ass in glorious black and white.  If you've never seen this one, by all means, treat yourself and watch these great actors paired with a legendary director and a brilliant script. 

"We will take the Anthill."

It's an unspoken secret here in LA that in order for the Dodgers to occupy Chavez Ravine, well, the current occupants would have to be removed.  An entire community had Eminent Domain dropped on them and had to go live somewhere else because MLB was comin' to town!

I'm torn by this part of my city's history.  On one hand, I hate that the residents of Chavez Ravine got a raw deal, and on the other hand...I can't wait to get my hands on Opening Day 2013 tickets!


9. THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

Laugh out loud comedy that doubles as a love story.

" Is that hair gel? Can I have some?" 

There was definitely something about Mari - lyn Monroe.  Back in the day, every Red-Blooded American over the age of 13 wanted to give Marilyn a right-rogering.  And how!  Joe D married the sexiest girl in America, and oh yeah, he had some kinda hitting streak as well. 


 8. HEAT 
Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro play cat and mouse as the leaders of adversarial detective and thief teams, featuring the expansive backdrop of LA as an equal player.  Director Michael Mann is at his best.

The film climaxes in an awesome shootout through the streets of downtown LA. that foresaw (inspired?)  the real-life shootout that many of us watched live on TV as bank robbers in body armor and using automatic weapons fought the ENTIRE LAPD.

"I'm not selling anything, baby.  This sh*t sells itself."

The Ryan Express.  'nuff said.

 7. CABIN BOY
An obscure, funny as hell, Chris Elliot  comedy that nobody saw.  It's Elliot's twisted take on Rudyard Kipling's classic, Captains Courageous, which was also made into a Spencer Tracy film. In Elliot's vision, Cabin Boy is a rich, spoiled idiot, bumbling obliviously through life. 

"These pipes are CLEEEAAANNN !!!"

Sure the Dodgers gave us the first African -American in the major leagues.  Then Al Campanis decided we should give that progressive thinking a wake-up call by declaring on national TV, there are so few African-American managers in MLB because, you know, they can't float."  SAY WHAT????!!!!

THANKS for reading, everybody!

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