Ross v Ross

To mark the release later this week of thriller Man On A Ledge with Sam Worthington, Ross McG from http://www.rossvross.com weaves his way through the greatest ‘Man’ films.

5. Man On Wire (2008)

The original premise of this list was to make it The Top Five ‘Man On…’ Films. In that list we would have had, you know, such great ‘Man On…’ films as Man On Wire. Or maybe even Man On The Moon. And, uh, Man On Fire. We were even going to throw in Manon des Sources – the only film in the history of French cinema not to have Gerard Depardieu (and only because his character died in the first movie) – to prove how bloody pretentious and clever we are. Truth be told, however, that rundown would have been even worse than the one you’re reading. I mean, who has a top five that features the worst Tony Scott/Denzel Washington collaboration? The one without a train. Anyway, Man On Wire is a ‘Man On…’ movie. The only good one. So it makes its way on to our list.

4. I Love You, Man (2009)

Somewhere there is an alternative universe in which I Love You, Man is rightly feted as the best comedy of its decade. It has Paul Rudd being very funny. Does cinema really need anything more than that? He slaps his bass. He does a dodgy Jamaican accent that makes him sound Irish. He makes us laugh. And to think we didn’t laugh once at him in any of his episodes of Friends. Must be the Phoebe factor. They really should release a box set: The Ones Where We’ve Cut Phoebe Out. I’d buy that.

3. Rain Man (1988)

Depending on your disposition, Princess Diana’s favourite film is either a steaming big goo pile of syrupy slop or tearjerking heaven. Hoffman. Cruise. The girl with the curly hair from Hot Shots. No, not Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. She was Maid Marian. Valeria Golino, that’s right. Who was also in French cop flick, ‘36’. With Gerard Depardieu. See, it always comes back to Gerard Depardieu. Rain Man shouldn’t really be called Rain Man at all. According to the film itself it should be called ‘Raymond’. But seriously, that’s a shit title for a film. And wouldn’t fill a hole in our list.

2. Demolition Man (1993)

Stallone’s best movie is Cliffhanger – seriously, forget Rocky and Rambo – but it doesn’t have the word ‘man’ in it. Snipes’ best film is undoubtedly Passenger 57, which potentially could have the word ‘man’ in it, although ‘Passenger Man 57’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And alienates your female audience. Luckily, these two action heroes found time to work together on a film the likes of which the world has never seen. A film in which Stallone and Sandra Bullock have sex together with their minds. But most importantly, it was a film with a ‘man’ in its title.

Ah, what the heck, why not?

1. The Man With Two Brains (1983)

People slag off Steve Martin for not being as funny as he used to be. Which is a bit like criticising Bobby Charlton for not making the England squad any more. Genius doesn’t last forever, and comedy genius is no different. And let’s be frank, The Man With Two Brains is undoubted comedy genius. Absolute poetry…

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE ‘MAN’ MOVIES?

This entry was posted on February 2, 2012 at 2:29 pm and is filed under TOP FIVES with tags Dustin Hoffman, Movies, rain man, Steve Martin, Tom Cruise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.