The Top 10 Cool Movies Of The Past 20 Years.

Over at Hugh Hewitt’s blog, Dean Barnett came up with his list of “Top 10 Cool Movies of the Past 20 Years,”

“On last night’s show, I offered my list of “The Top 10 Cool Movies of the Past 20 Years.” Why only the past 20 years? Because tastes change, and what may have been very cool in another era is no longer cool today. For instance, “Gone with The Wind” was very cool in the 1930’s, but it is not cool today.

So what is the definition of a cool movie? A cool movie has to be fresh and original. It also, by definition, has to be something that some people get and other people don’t. I think Justice Potter Stewart said it best in his opinion on the case of Jacobelis v. Ohio. In regards to pornography, Justice Stewart said: “I know it when I see it. And I like it.” Actually, he didn’t write that last part about liking it. I just made that up.”

Dean’s choices of “cool” movies are a lot trendier than mine, but still, I’m willing to take a crack at it….

Tremors: Granted, this would seem to be an odd choice, but it deserves a mention for one particular reason: it’s one of the few horror films I’ve ever seen where the people confronted by monsters act like normal human beings.

Ninja Scroll: The best anime movie of all-time, narrowly edging out Fist of the North Star.

Signs: What’s cool about this movie? The absolutely prefect pacing. There are no slow spots in this movie — it just keeps delivering and delivering and delivering.

Fist of Legend: The single best martial arts flick evah. The action is the standard by which other chop socky films are judged.

The Terminator: Ah-nold made for one very cool, absolutely merciless, unstoppable bad guy.

Tombstone: This one ranks this high because it’s my favorite western and because it has so many great lines. “I’ll be your huckleberry.” “You tell ’em I’m coming and hell’s coming with me, you hear. Hell’s coming with me!”

Army of Darkness: Bruce Campbell made a whole career — such as it is — out of that movie.

The Crow: Love never dies & sometimes it comes back from beyond the grave for revenge. I’ve seen this Brandon Lee flick 6 or 7 times now.

The Matrix: The action sequences were incredibly influential and blessedly, in the first movie, they hadn’t yet descended into philosophical gobbledygook for dialogue.

300: The movie just dripped testosterone, violence, honor, and yes, coolness.

Update #1: After reading the comments, let me add the following as “honorable mentions” — some of which are honestly better than some of the members of the top 10 that I originally came up with — Sin City, Jurassic Park, Kill Bill, Equilibrium, Gladiator.

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