107 - Interstate 60

Connection To SMALL APARTMENTS - James Marsden.

Sneaking onto DVD - bypassing the cinema completely - with very little fanfare despite a decent cast - and never growing any sort of following, Interstate 60 is an hidden gem of a movie.

Written and directed by Back To The Future co-writer Bob Gale, the movies problem could be that it was hard to explain without it sounding a little bit odd or even pretentious, the film is basically a metaphysical road movie.

James Marsden meets Gary Oldman who grants exactly one wish to each person, and he ends up wishing for answers, which sees him travel to the non existing Danver alongside the also non existing Interstate 60, which includes hoping to meet the girl of his dreams he finds himself on many little adventures.

A lot of these little adventures are very enjoyable from the museum of fake art, to a town obsessed with suing because everyone is just about a lawyer to a town that every inhabiting as on a particular drug to Chris Cooper who is a hitchhiker but would rather employ somebody per mile as in enter a boss/worker relationship.

Marsden carried the film really well I thought, you feel like he is a guy who deserves good things to come his way, at the time it was also unusual to see Oldman in a American film and not be the film's villains, BTTF alumni Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are in this too, but Fox is more of a fun cameo - other people who pop up include the Pink Power Ranger, Kurt Russell, Ann Margret and Amy Smart as the girl of his dreams.

Overall, such a cool little movie, this is about my third time seeing it and still enjoy it as much, I recommend it because I do think you would be in for a treat if you watch it.

18 - Goin' South

Connection To CAMP NOWHERE - Christopher Lloyd

Last year I went on a Clint Eastwood binge, this mean't watching a lot of his westerns - seeing many of them for the first time - this is related to Goin' South because it re-sparked my love for the western, it reminded me what I enjoyed so much about these oaters. It's not that I'd gone off the western, it's just being a few years since I got on a roll with them, hell even one of my favourite films is a western (Once Upon A Time In The West).

Anyway this brings me to the 1978 western Goin' South, starring and directed by Jack Nicholson and with a pretty darn cool supporting cast and I think was not successful on original release because it seems somewhat forgotten as far as I know.

Henry Moon (Nicholson) is a robber who is sentenced and to be hanged in Longhorn, but due to bill from the Civil War, that allows a condemned man to be saved from the gallows if an unmarried woman would like to marry him and be responsible for him. Julie Tate (Mary Steenburgen) weds Moon, for him to work in a goldmine on her property, Moon's old gang show up and discover that they are mining gold but Julie and Moon's relationship is changing.

Like a lot of the best westerns you notice how it's shot with a lot of great use of locations, I think this was only 1 of 3 Nicholson actually directed, and none of the films really where too successful at best, his co-star Steenburgen (in her movie debut) plays naive well and has good chemistry with Nicholson and there is enjoyable supporting cast including John Belushi (also making his movie debut technically, this was shot before Animal House but released after), Danny DeVito (whose worked with Nicholson 5 times total I think), Christopher Lloyd (really enjoyed him here), Ed Begley Jr. and Tracey Walter. It's also fun seeing Lloyd lusting after Steenburgen an whole 12 years before the romance of Back To The Future 3.

Overall it deserves to be better known that actually is, Like I said Nicholson and Steenburgen have decent fun chemistry in the leads and have a great cast around them, I'd recommend this for fans of the western genre.

17 - Camp Nowhere

Connection To THE EYE - Jessica Alba

I don't recall ever seeing this before, I mean it could have been on in the school holidays and watched it, but I doubt it because I tend to have a pretty good memory of what I have actually watched, and honestly I think if I would have seen it I would have liked and possibly held even if minor some sort of affection for it.

Yeah, I liked this, the Rotten Tomatoes fresh rating of only 10% just honestly seems a tad unfair, I talked about bad child actors a little bit in the write up for Leave It To Beaver, even mentioning the 1994 Little Rascals (which just this week as had a new Direct To DVD film called Save The Day), but there is none of that problem here, all the kids are likable and none deliver bad performances.

The films plot sees the kids lead by Mud (Jonathan Jackson) realizing they are all facing the same thing - a boring summer camp this year (all of them different) and trick their parents into sending them to the same summer camp (with no counsellers or rules or etc.) with the help of Christopher Lloyd, who they've paid a $1000 too, they end up blackmailing him to run he camp when they soon get bored with the lack of rules.

While it's lightweight stuff - it is a kid's movie after all - it was very enjoyable to watch, Jessica Alba appears as originally an extra but gets bumped up to have a few lines and Smallville's Allison Mack is also among the cast. It dawned on me while watching as well that the red headed girl right at the front on the picture was my the show Hang Time.

I can see while the film as built a loving following. Back To The Future fans should take in that Lloyd shares screen time with Biff Tannen himself, speaking of Lloyd he's great as the "adult" lead role.

Overall fun, funny with an enjoyable cast of child actors. The only problems I really saw is the feeling at the end how the really situation would go down to how it was in this movie.

13 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Connection To Frozen - both from the House Of Mouse, get that connection out the way before I use it much later since connections are only used once.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer right at the start of any of these I do about films I really loved as a youngling, because my love for these films never goes away and it feel like I probably won't right about them too objectively - it's likely I gush about them pretty much, because the 80's films some of them have gone through 4 decades with me ---

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (which doesn't have a ? right at the end) is to me an absolute classic and watching it even now in 2014 holds up still amazingly well - the animated and real life all seem like they are inhabiting the same world and Jessica Rabbit is still a sexy as hell character.

It is surprising how much of it is "grown up" with murders and an adorable animated shoe getting the dip, I think that it works in it's favour because it's a crime movie that just so happens the main suspect is a talking animated rabbit.

Going back to when I saw this as a kid I just loved the idea of all these characters being in the same world be it Dumbo or Donald and Daffy duelling it out on the pianos or Bugs and Mickey teaming up it's glorious to a kid who had seen these characters before come alive together.

For the human characters I really liked Bob Hoskins portrayal of Eddie Valiant, while it's obvious he struggles with the accent it's not really an issue as he the perfect foil to Roger. Christopher Lloyd plays Judge Doom is genuinely menacing even before his meltdown at the end.

For the animated characters Roger treads the line that I think was planned of being annoying, he's supposed to grate on Eddie and we see that but he's not supposed to grate on us and Jessica, is not surprisingly considered one of the sexiest cartoon characters of all time makes a wonderful femme fatale.

The twist of who framed RR is fairly obvious but that doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the movie one bit which is more a sign of the quality of the movie.

Overall the movie is fantastic, there is so much to enjoy - kids can love the characters while adults can enjoy that and it's story. It's not a surprise this film is so fondly remembered.