Re-run Sunday: Hilary Swank's nipples

Google “Hilary Swank’s nipples” and this is the fourth top story that pops up. That’s impressive, only slightly less impressive than the nipples themselves. I’m re-running it today because I saw for the first time this summer the nipples on the old man down the street. His nipples are repulsive and should never be seen in public.

Oh, well. What are you gonna do? 

I never really gave much thought to the nipples of my neighbors until I saw Hilary Swank’s. 

We’d just watched the compelling Clint Eastwood’s 2004 “Million Dollar Baby” with our 12-year-old. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and stars Swank as scruffy boxer who beats the odds to earn an ill-fated Vegas title fight.

Josie liked it and found Swank very appealing. She asked me to Google up some pictures of her to see what she looks like when she’s doesn’t have sweat rolling off her nose.

The page of images contained maybe 20 shots of Swank smiling and looking radiant. 

My guy eyes instinctively ignored each of those and zeroed straight in on the one you see above. I full-screened it so I could bask in Swank’s lovely hooters.

Sure, I minimized it when Josie approached in favor of something you’d see in People Magazine. But the instant she turned away I clicked back on the one more suitable for Peep-Hole Magazine.

I gave those puppies a good long look. Very nice.

Amidst my juvenile leering, I realized I was in a moment of self-discovery.

I’d never really considered the nipple before, overlooking its individualistic charms in favor of the whole breast.

You could say when it came to mammary glands, I was missing the forest for the trees.

What surprised me, too, is the realization that I’m being inundated with nipple sightings and until I saw Swanks’ it never dawned on my how repulsive they can be.

Of course, the nipples I see most often are the ones on old men in my neighborhood.

Now, I’m 50. I am by any standard an old man in my neighborhood. But these guys, man, they’re pushing 80 and they can’t seem to keep their shirts on.  It’s seems like it’s an unwelcome trend: old men who stopped caring what they looked like back when Nixon was still president are letting it all hang out.

And there’s a lot to let hang out.

There’s this one old timer whose nipples I see more often than those of my wife’s.

And he’s a disgusting, hairy slob.

I’ll drive by at lunch and there is, riding his John Deere in just his shorts. When he’s done, he’ll sit on the porch and sip a beer. Later on he’s out there reading the paper or listening to a ballgame. He reminds me of Frank Costanza on the “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer tries to convince the old crank his ample bosum would benefit from the innovative male bra he’s calling the “Bro.”

If Hilary Swank has high beams, this guy has blinkers. They are way over on the side of his chassis. When I spy him straight on jiggling on the tractor, it’s like looking at a hitchhiker who’s heading in both directions.

I feel like screaming at him to put some clothes on, that there are children in the neighborhood.

There should be some dignity about being a man, and being a father, certainly. That means the more clothes, the better.

They only place anyone other than my wife is going to see my handsome nipples is at the swimming pool.

In case you’re interested, mine are about the size of nickels coyly hidden under a thatch of chest hair, another example of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Of course, who am I to judge?

Maybe one day I’ll age into a state of mind where I consider clothes a nuisance, too.

Maybe guys my age will take it even a step further and we’ll sit around with nothing but our abundant body hairs to conceal our shriveled modesties.

Of course, that would be an example of not seeing the tree for the forest.

"Trouble with the Curve?" Trouble w/ the critics

823 words

Something happened last week I didn’t think would ever happen in more than 40 years of avid moviegoing.

I walked into a Clint Eastwood movie expecting to be disappointed.

Our nation’s critics warned me about “Trouble with the Curve.” They said it was stupid. Said it was boring. Corny, they said.

The critic round-up site RottenTomatoes.com gave it a lukewarm 54 percent, meaning just over half our nation’s critics said it was worth viewing.

Typical was this slam by Miami Herald critic Connie Ogle: “Nobody would pay much attention to this plodding, but good-hearted movie if not for its star, Clint Eastwood, although he’s just dialing in his Cantankerous Old Man mode on which he has relied for a decade or so.”

I usually reject any movie that rates below 75 percent. My time and money are just too important. But it was Clint Eastwood and it was a baseball movie and me and my darling 12-year-old companion bond over baseball. 

Still, the reviews were scathing enough I felt it fair to warn junior, “Look, this might suck. But I can promise you’ll hear at least a few words you’d get in trouble for saying in school, you can go crazy at the concession stand, and there’s a chance you’ll get a really quick peek at Justin Timberlake’s bare butt.”

She gave my proposal two big thumbs up and away we went.

Allow me to paraphrase her capsule review: “Lots of great swearing! I love Amy Adams! The baseball stuff was fun! Timberlake was wearing underwear when he jumped into the lake, but I had a great time with my Dad!”

Indeed, we did.

Like baseball itself, this movie was a very pleasant pastime, a wonderful way to while away an afternoon.

I came out of it wondering why it got such lukewarm reviews, especially amidst the enormous piles of crap Hollywood foists anew on us each week.

Could it have been Eastwood’s unconventional convention speech, as some have speculated? 

And now I’ve spent the better part of a week wondering why critics think the way they do.

Movie critic is the one job everyone thinks they’re qualified to do and the job most everyone wants.

It just seems so cool. You get paid to watch movies. You help steer pop culture. It’s prestigious. You gorge on cancer-causing popcorn three times a day.

I believe the reality is different because movies today really, really suck.

When people say they dream of being a movie critic, what they really dream of is being a critic of mostly good movies. So they want to see maybe one out of every 20 movies most real critics see.

That means for every “Looper” there are 15 movies produced by or starring someone in the Will Farrell/Adam Sandler/Judd Apatow axis of entertainment evil.

And a critic has to slog through them all.

Imagine what that would do to a person. 

It still doesn’t explain the lousy Eastwood reviews.

It’s amazing this great American icon is now considered divisive.

He did the Super Bowl halftime ad that said America was coming back and Republicans hated him. He did a baffling GOP convention speech with an empty chair and Democrats said he was a buffoon.

And he releases a warm, entertaining baseball movie and he’s struggling to fill seats.

Here’s what I think:

Our politics aside, I’ll always love Clint. And I’ll always do my part to ensure mine is one chair he can address that’ll never be empty.

As everyone’s a critic, here are my capsule reviews on some recent movies we’ve seen:

“Looper” -- We love Joseph Gordon-Levitt and this was a dandy time travel adventure. My wife contends the central message is if you do engage in time travel, be very careful about with whom you sleep. Some plot confusion and would have been better if it was 20 minutes shorter.

“Dark Knight” -- Liked it, but I’m inundated with so much senseless violence in real life that importing it for entertainment purposes fatigues me. But it is my favorite Batman. Some plot confusion and would have been better if it was 20 minutes shorter.

“Finding Nemo” (3D) -- This is an outstanding movie I’ve seen about 300 times. But it’s a family favorite and it was Josie’s wish to see it in 3D for her birthday. The technology adds nothing to it and the glasses always pinch my nose. I hope we get over our latest “Avatar”-inspired 3D infatuation because 3D sucks. Some plot confusion and would have been better if it was 20 minutes shorter.

“Warrior” -- A renter from 2011, this one’s about two brothers who face off in a mixed martial arts championship. Val loved it. I thought the plot was a little confusing and it would have been better if it was about 20 minutes shorter.

Today’s blog -- Some plot confusion and would have been better if it was 200 words shorter.

Related . . .

• Oscars bore, movies suck

• Fall ’11 movies & Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Profound, timely, solutions to spree killers

Note: I finished this at 8:30 a.m. and didn’t hear the news out of NYC until noon. How sadly prophetic.

It’s been, I guess, a week or so since another spree killer made the national news. Or maybe not.

It’s been 20 minutes since I last checked the headlines. A lot can happen in 20 minutes.

What I can guarantee hasn’t happened is that anyone has proposed a fresh solution to our national insanity. This summer’s relentless violence has produced a collective sort of shrug.

It’s like we as a nation have decided there’s an acceptable body count that goes along with bestowing even mentally disabled or disgruntled white men the absolute right to possess a few semi-automatic AR-15s with 100-round ammo drums capable of killing 140 people in 140 seconds.

In fact, that’s short-changing the weapon. I read that bullets from the AR-15 -- it’s the kind the Aurora killer James Holmes used -- can be counted on to go through not one but two people at a time.

So it’s theoretically possible an AR-15 bullet could hit the Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad -- yea! -- travel through his body and lethally ventilate Nelson Mandela -- boo!

The scenario reminds me of a pivotal scene from Clint Eastwood’s great 1992 Western, “Unforgiven.”

A naive young assassin nervously gloats about gunning down an unarmed man who’s pants down and seated on the outhouse crapper.

“Well, I guess he had it coming,” the kid says.

“We all have it coming, kid,” wise old Clint says.

Sure we do. We all go to the movies, the churches, the taverns, the gyms, schools, work and the shopping malls -- all sites of recent spree killings.

That anyone in these dangerous times should feel safe while seated on the toilet seems to me a charming notion. Or should I say a Charmin notion!

I believe I stand alone in trying to change the dynamics of this peculiar national tragedy. It was I who offered the Barney Fife Amendment, which would allow anyone, anywhere, to carry a loaded gun.

One condition: you get just one bullet. Use or lose your bullet and in addition to any existing laws you have to go before a judge to explain what happened to your bullet before you get another bullet.

This got zero traction, I’m sorry to say, as did my idea of smart bullet innovation. I suggested the government offer incentives to develop smart bullets that would decide in mid-air if the intended targets deserve killing and then select a more deserving victim.

This is all about preserving innocent collateral damage. The beauty of smart bullets is that in many cases the bullets will reverse and strike the person who fired it, saving police departments a fortune.

Then after the Aurora killings I offered the idea that we could reduce gun violence by having the NRA administer a truly well-regulated militia, the belief being there are more regulations involving the needle artists responsible for tattooing our hillbillies than there are for guns.

This, too, landed with a thud. None of my gun-owning friends said they wanted to sweat out their Saturday hangovers doing calisthenics at the local high school rec fields.

That’s where we are in the gun debate. Every sensible argument offered by people who think there are too many guns, has been gunned down by the people with, duh, all the guns.

The only solution to our near weekly sensational spree killings, they say, are more guns in more places. They think if only there’d been armed hombres like them in the theater, they would have cooly risen amidst the hail of bullets and taken down the killer with one shot.

I think they’ve seen too many movies.

But because I believe the blood-drenched status quo is wholly unacceptable, I at last surrender to their logic.

Let’s try installing racks of loaded guns right next to the fire extinguishers. Signs on the glass can read, “IN CASE OF SPREE KILLER BREAK GLASS.”

There, of course, may be unintended consequences. Angry drunks may break the glass to settle parking space disputes, spouses may escalate infidelity arguments with handy firearms, and there are bound to be casualties involving ticket takers, young mothers or 12-year-old kids who picked the wrong day to see the Batman movie.

Oh, well. Let’s just figure they’ll all have it coming.

By doing continuing to do absolutely nothing, I’m convinced we all do.

GOP blows whistle on Clint's halftime

If it’s halftime in America, we’d all better brace ourselves for plenty of flushing and farting.

As a veteran of more than 200 Pittsburgh Steeler home games, that’s what halftime means to me. It doesn’t mean hoped for comebacks. The Steelers are usually favored and protecting a lead.

This may come as a surprise to women, but the men’s rooms in Heinz Field where the Steelers play don’t have individual porcelain urinals, but have instead those stainless steel troughs that stretch for about 50 feet of knee-high wall space. That means those standing at the low end of the slope can expect a communal splashing that ought to have them racing to the nearest laundromat the second the final whistle blows.

The lack of privacy is unsettling to some dainty men. I try and help by telling them the custom at Heinz Field is to put your arms around the strangers to your right and left and offer friendly encouragement.

Anyone who dabbles in public musings knows it’s unwise to say anything nice about President Obama or hint just maybe he made a gutsy call on things like killing bin Laden.

You can count on the conservative backlash to be fierce.

That’s what one of our greatest Americans is finding out.

I’m talking about Clint Eastwood.

Even though he’s never fought for our country, solved a national crisis or found a cure for something itchy, I do consider him one of our greatest Americans.

He’s for more than 50 years made great movies that entertain and help define America. He’s perfectly cool.

Unlike me, he’s never voted for a Democrat presidential candidate and looks at every issue from a conservative point of view.

I have many friends like that. We’d never let politics get in the way of our friendship.

They think about politics, but they aren’t political. There’s a big difference. They are tolerant of my liberal opinions and are open-minded in a political discussion.

And we all love Clint.

They saw the same now-controversial ad featuring Eastwood -- and if his voice gets any more gravelly it ought to be quarried -- saying of Detroit, “They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together. Now Motor City is fighting again.”

None of them reported thinking, “Son of a bitch! The outlaw Josie Wales is shilling for that Muslim tourist in the White House. That’s it. My next pickup is gonna be built in Japan!”

No, they thought, “Cool! Clint’s talking about American auto workers, guys who are as red neck and blue collar as me. Man, I’m glad we’re still making cars in Detroit. USA! USA!”

They saw no political intent. They discerned no pro-Obama messages.

They are not Karl Rove.

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” he told Fox News. Yes, to a conservative an American icon saying something obvious and positive about an American success that happened because of Obama is offensive.

Picking a fight with Clint Eastwood is the clearest sign the national GOP is completely unhinged. They are mired in a dismal primary season being contested by candidates who each have something disqualifying about their record or personality. And that’s disqualifying just to fellow conservatives. With the economy strengthening and adding jobs and foreign policy off the table, they fear they are facing an historic electoral debacle.

Those fears are justified.

Attacking Clint Eastwood might work on Fox News, but it won’t work in an America where anyone with any sense is happy they’re making money and better vehicles in Motor City.

Most Americans are smart enough to recognize when a good thing is a good thing.

Eastwood, who is on record as being opposed to bailouts, has already come out and said the ad is not meant to boost Obama and is intended “to be a message about job growth and the spirit of America,” something he thinks all politicians should embrace.

It’s halftime in America. What are you going to do?

For me, I’ll continue to try and avoid the partisan squabbles that so agitate the petty minds of people like Karl Rove.

Instead, I’ll put my arms around those to the left and the right of me and I will encourage them.

Super Bowl recap

I woke up this morning feeling like I let Gisele down. I should have prayed harder for Tommi.

• My last sentence for my Saturday post was, “My prediction: Giants 27, Patriots 17. Wake me when it’s over.” What was I thinking? I guess I was fearful the game would be an overblown bore. Wrong. It was a classic.

• My score prediction, however, was closer than many of the best experts and only six points from perfection. Lot of good it did me. I haven’t made a wager in years. Not because I lack the nerve. Freelance writing for a living is a higher stakes gamble than any game of chance.

• The ads for movies next year promise another year of blockbusters stinkers. Special effects haven’t been special since “Jurassic Park.” The new Sacha Baron Cohen movie “The Dictator” looked funny.

• I would have loved a few more plays of watching the Giants try not to score. Why didn’t they just play stall ball? Manning could have taken the snap and just stood there for at least 10 seconds until the Pats had to act. Or he could have just run in reverse. It happens during hockey penalty kills all the time. I used to excel at the maneuver myself when I was an outstanding amateur hockey player. And it’s indicative of my humility that I don’t write about those days more often.

• Seeing Madonna performing with a microphone had me wondering about nipples. Not hers. Mine. Mine are about as unnecessary as her microphone. Why the charade? I was disappointed we didn’t see any nipples, but M.I.A. showed us her finger. I’m all for anything that’ll infuriate the family values crowd, but this was just lame. Of course, before I had no idea of her existence and now I'll never forget her and I guess that was the point.

• I was at a pre-concert press conference with Garth Brooks about 10 years ago. It was just after Madonna had released her dirty book, "Sex," with all those naked pictures of herself and various animals and, I think, Vanilla Ice. I asked with a straight-face if, given the ardent reaction of his female fans, if Brooks had ever considered doing a book like hers. I caught him mid-drink and so off guard he almost shot Pepsi through his nostrils. Had he, it would have been a high-light of my career.

• In four months, Boston fans have suffered two of the most crushing defeats I can recall. The Red Sox blew a 9 game lead with just three weeks left in the season and were knocked out in the last inning of the last game. Coupled with yesterday’s loss, the pall over New England must be impenetrable. I wish I could be there to rub it in. No region raced from lovable losers to obnoxious winners more quickly than New England. Plus, their baseball championships are tainted with performance enhancers, their football with Bill Belichick’s Spygate. Read Ed Bouchette’s great article in Sunday’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The scandal was worse than you thought.

• I thought most of the ads were great. I liked the Rocky-theme one, but wish for jingoistic reasons it had featured an American car company, rather than Hyundai. I liked the Elton John Pepsi one (I sense he enjoys playing dress-up), the Bud Light one about the dog named Weego, and the cat-killing dog. The Seinfeld commercial for Acura was decent, but will get worse and more boring with each viewing.

• Madonna didn’t do anything to disgrace herself -- well, no more than she’s done for the past 25 years. But I kept wondering why the NFL thinks its fans want to watch this kind of circus. In fact, I’d prefer the circus, i.e. Ringling Bros. The only part I enjoyed was the acrobat on the slack line. I’d like next year to see them bring the cat trainer I saw during Mallory Point sunset festivities at Key West.

• I loved the Clint Eastwood commercial celebrating Detroit’s resurgence -- thanks President Obama! I guess it was supposed to remind us of Eastwood’s iconic role in “Gran Torino.” Worked with me. I’d love a half-time show that featured just 30 minutes of clips of Eastwood in “The Outlaw Josie Wales,” “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” “In The Line of Fire,” etc.

• Four months ago Giant fans were calling for the firing of coach Tom Coughlin and questioning the leadership abilities of Eli Manning. Eight months from today, bet on it, Giant fans will be calling for the firing of coach Tom Coughlin and questioning the leadership abilities Eli Manning. It’s because 20 percent of the American public are absolute idiots and 80 percent of them are rabid NFL fans.

• Another prediction of mine coming to pass: I said Gisele Bundchen was bound to become the Yoko Ono of the Patriots. It’s all over the news that she’s blaming Tommi’s teammates for the loss.

• Just 15 days until pitchers and catchers report!

True Grit and no-grit De Niro: A Hollywood two-fer

I just saw one of the most talked about and critically praised movies of the year this week, and am mystified that one of the year’s most critically panned movies did smashing box office business.

Each is worthy of thoughtful commentary.

If that’s what you’re after, please look elsewhere.

This is a holiday week, a time when people with paychecks relax.

But that has nothing to do with blogging, which is sort of like a hobby in that it earns no money and distracts from actual wage-earning endeavors. Combine those factors with someone like me, a blogger who cherishes laziness, and you’re not  going to get something thoughtful or structured.

I’m not going to labor to form tedious transitions, mine wit or seek deeper meaning from popcorn matinees.

Instead, I’m going to take the lazy way out and write about them in two distinct sections.

I don’t think anyone’s going to mind. I apologize if you feel cheated and promise to come back next week with more cerebral stuff and maybe with a new blog motto for 2011:

“Now nearly three years without a price increase!”

• “True Grit” is more dud than Dude. The Coen Brothers have done so much marvelous work that herd critics are reluctant to say when they miss the mark, which is becoming more common.

I was disappointed. Worse, I was bored.

As I mentioned, I saw this with five buddies earlier this week. We sat in three different rows, two to a row, spread out with buffer seats between each of us. We were so intent on ensuring no one in the theater mistook us for the chipper gang from the Bravo show “Queer Eye for that Straight Guy” that Ronnie kept saying very loudly, “Gee, when do you think the girls will get here?”

I was really looking forward to this and, as with the last three or four Coen brother movies, I felt let down. It was a decent western and that’s something I always appreciate, but I expected more.

It must be nice making a movie about an obscure book and remaining faithful to its intent. That lets viewers and critics say of flaws, well, it’s just like that in the flawed book. 

C’mon. “True Grit” isn’t heirloom Americana. This isn’t grandpa’s old fire house chili recipe. If the book needs spice, throw in some cumin, dice up a pepper, add some Tabasco. Breath some fire into the old beast.

That’s what they did with the John Wayne version and it was great campy fun.

I just kept waiting for “True Grit” to kick into a higher gear that was never engaged. Jeff Bridges is becoming one of our best actors, and he was as  entertaining as expected. But the role wasn’t broad enough.

Much is being made of the sassy and opinionated 14-year-old star, Hailee Steinfeld, and her mouthy composure.

From what I understand, mouthy sass is something every 14 year-old girl who’s ever tuned into Disney shows like “iCarly” can instinctually summon.

The movie could have used a little literary license from the Coens who made things like “Fargo,” a movie that begins with an on-screen deception proclaiming what viewers are about to see really happened.

Why the lie? Here’s what Joel said.

"We weren't interested in that kind of storytelling fidelity,” he said. “If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept.”

Well, nothing in “True Grit” ever really happened.

And that’s how I felt about the afternoon walking out of the theater.

• What on earth can we as a concerned nation do about Robert De Niro? With the release of “Little Fockers,” I think we’ve reached a crisis situation.

He’s become on of those rarest of actors whose career trajectory has reversed. His best work was 30 years ago and he’s becoming increasingly unwatchable.

How the man who played Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull,” Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” Michael Vronksy in “The Deer Hunter” and Vito Corleone in two monumental Godfather epics could allow his prestige to be diminished in not one but two Focker sequels is appalling.

It’s as if Paul Newman starred as Butch Cassidy and Cool Hand Luke in his 20s and concluded his career flirting on the Lido Deck with cruise director Julie McCoy on the “Love Boat.”

De Niro, 67, hasn’t made an important movie since “Casino” in 1995. He turned down great roles opposite Clint Eastwood in “In the Line of Fire” (the John Malkovich role) and again in “The Departed” (the role that went to splendid Martin Sheen).

Critics panned the fock out of this version and some even took unkind shots at the original “Meet The Parents,” a movie I find hilarious.

But everyone involved in these sequels has disgraced themselves, none worse than the once-great De Niro.

He’s capable of great comedy, as he’s shown in the uproarious 1988 film “Midnight Run.”

Tom Hanks understands his popularity is based more on his likeability than his acting ability. He’s very wise and selective in the roles he plays and he stays below the radar.

De Niro is ubiquitous for all the wrong reasons. He’s in too many bad movies and seems intent on ridiculing all that made him great (“Analyze This/That,” “Shark Tale” and the “GodFocker” bits in the current nonsense).

Isn’t anybody offering Robert De Niro good roles?

Unless he does something good -- and it better be good and bloody -- he might as well go off and toil in unpaid obscurity doing something he enjoys doing for free.

I’d urge him to consider blogging.

• Happy New Year! Resolve in 2011 to overcome your fear of being lazy.

1993, Hollywood's best year

I hate to sound so cantankerous on a Monday but, consarnit, movies have been going down hill ever since 1993.

This occurred to me during a recent visit to the magnificent Kinzua Dam in northwestern Pennsylvania. 

A monumental dam like the Kinzua is one of man’s most impressive structures.

As a boy I used to build dams in creeks everywhere. For juvenile engineering purposes, certainly, but also because it let me shout a forbidden-sounding word whenever Ma asked how I’d spent my summer afternoon.

Dam!

That has me wondering if profanity-averse parents insist on referring to one of the seven wonders of the world as the Hoover Darn.

But as my wife and I gazed upon the waters of the Allegheny River gushing through in a raging spray from the Kinzua spillway, we each thought the same thing:

Dr. Richard Kimball: “I did not shoot my wife!”

Lt. Philip Gerard: “I don’t care!”

Yes, we each thought of the riveting scene from “The Fugitive” where the wrongly accused Dr. Kimball, played by the dashing Harrison Ford, leaps off the face of a massive dam to either annihilation or uncertain redemption. At the time we had just discovered re-runs of the original David Janssen series that ran from 1963-67. The shows are still among TV’s most compelling ever.

So, fired with the recollection, we raced home, rented the film and popped it in to show the scene to Josie.

She was mesmerized. True adult entertainment done well is riveting to all ages.

Plus, at the end of it, foul-mouthed Joe Pantoliano steps up behind Gerard to utter an incredulous barnyard profanity that, of course, delighted the surprised 10 year old.

Thus, we take another step in our long march away from endless viewings of “Finding Nemo,” “Madagascar” and the three saccharine versions of “High School Musical” to entertainment emancipation of adult films awash in profanity and violence.

I can’t wait.

When we deem her ready for such viewing, I’m taking her straight back to 1993.

I don’t know what kind of recreational drugs that were consuming in Hollywood some 17 years ago, but I wish they’d become fashionable again.

Here are the top 10 grossing movies from 1993:

1. Jurrassic Park
2. Mrs. Doubtfire
3. The Fugitive
4. Schindler’s List
5. The Firm
6. Indecent Proposal
7. Cliffhanger
8. Sleepless in Seattle
9. Philadelphia
10. The Pelican Brief

I’m not going to play critic on the merits of each of these movies when the market already has. It’s given 1993 a huge thumb’s up. Each of these movies has demonstrated remarkable staying power. 

And that’s not all. Here are some other 1993 classics.

There was highbrow: Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence,” and the highly acclaimed Holly Hunter movie, “The Piano.”

There were two comedies that I consider classics of heartwarming mirth: No one would dispute “Groundhog Day” as a classic, but have you seen “Dave,” the Kevin Kline/Sigourney Weaver movie about a presidential look-alike who is pressed into actual duty? It’s outstanding.

Again, I’m not going to comment on the merits of “Free Willy,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “The Joy Luck Club,” “Wayne’s World II,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” or the Schwarzenegger film “The Last Action Hero,” but each of these movies attracted rave reviews and massive audiences.

Two of our favorites from 1994 both starred Clint Eastwood, one you remember, one you probably do not.

“In the Line of Fire” is Eastwood as a decrepit Secret Service agent in pursuit of a homicidal John Malcovich. It’s one of Eastwood’s best.

Lesser known is “A Perfect World,” a wonderfully offbeat film that co-stars Kevin Costner as a down-on-his luck hoodlum who runs away with a young boy. Great film.

The year year also saw the release of the greatest chess movie ever made, “Searching for Bobby Fisher.” There was even a great cowboy movie, “Tombstone.”

Had 1993 been extended by two months one of the greatest movies of all-time would top this list: “The Shawshank Redemption.”

It was the year Bill Clinton took office, the year “The X-Files” and “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” debuted, the year Lorena Bobbitt severed her husband; a gallon of gas cost just $1.05.

But I’ll remember it as maybe the best year Hollywood’s ever had. And I can’t wait to sit my daughters down and show them all these great adult movies.

Am I the kind of father who’d risk a little salty language in the ears of impressionables just for the sake of a really good flick?

Er, dam straight!

A Brad Pitt-y Party

Brad Pitt is immersed in a fresh round of interviews complaining about how difficult it is being Brad Pitt.

This strikes me like carpenters complaining about nails or florists becoming disgruntled over the sight of yet another bloomin’ rose.

I just don’t get it. He makes movies and that may involve hidden tedium unseen by me, but essentially movie producers pay him millions to be Brad Pitt. They want him to look dashing, be charming and strike poses that make women swoon. If he’s not up to it then perhaps Pitt should quit being Pitt. Really, I can’t imagine the acting side of it’s all that tough.

In every grinding interview he goes to great pains to assert how important it is to spend time with his enormous family and I don’t doubt him. Tribe time’s important to me, too. But I have so few occupational burdens our oldest daughter often gets exasperated enough to beg me to go out with my buddies so I didn’t intrude on her girlie games with Mommy.

I pretend I’m wounded and grimly shuffle out the door like a repentant killer being dragged down Death Row for a court-ordered doom date with Ol’ Sparky (see, Pitt’s not the only one who can act).

He just released a well-received movie that clocks in at nearly three hours. I’m not familiar with movie production, but I can imagine filming took more than a few months away from Angelina, those eight or so kids and the hypo-allergenic squads of hand sanitizer-wielding nannies and other associated house help.

Maybe he should stop making movies. We could all do without him. There are hundreds of pretty young boys waiting tables in Hollywood who could, guaranteed, do what he does just as well without all the whining.

His biggest problem, it seems, are the paparazzi. He doesn’t want people taking his picture. Or pictures of his family. Or his now-oppressive wife who just a few years ago was so outrageously exhibitionist she made Madonna seem demure. (Billy Bob Thornton probably cracks open a beer and giggles with relief every time Angelina and Brad adopt another orphan).

But he knew when he was striving to be famous and when he chose to date and marry equally famous and whiny women that the ticket-buying public would want to see pictures of him smiling, digging around in his nose and tripping on his way out of limousines. The rules haven’t changed.

Him complaining about paparazzi is like me complaining about commas. I don’t like commas. I wish we could get rid of them. I ruthlessly delete them every chance I get.

Sometimes I secretly play childish cat-and-mouse games with commas by using ridiculously long and structurally untenable run-on sentences that go on and on but in the end the winking little punctuation points usually assert themselves and bring order to grammatical chaos by doing their nimble if annoying little jobs, by golly.

I bring this all up because over the weekend Valerie and I dropped the kids off with grandma and enjoyed some sweetheart time. We considered Pitt’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” but at three hours it was too much time away from the kids so we chose Clint Eastwood and “Gran Torino.” It was outstanding. Go see it.

“That man can do no wrong,” Val said. “We’re so lucky he’s still around, still looking great and still making these wonderful movies.”

She’s right. Eastwood’s a bigger and more enduring star than Pitt could ever hope to be, but he’s never complained about the burdens of being famous. He, like Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, and the late and much-missed Paul Newman all gave us fantastic and relevant work that’ll be enjoyed forever. And none of them has ever made the job description “movie star” seem equivalent to ones like “bus driver” or “trash hauler.”

On the contrary, they seem to enjoy it for the pleasure the rest of us suspect it must be. Eastwood’s never been reclusive, hosts a PGA golf tournament and once served as Carmel’s mayor. Redford does important environmental work and unselfishly nurtures generations of aspiring filmmakers, and Newman’s warmth and philanthropy are as monumental as his movies.

Nicholson? Well, his dissolute personal life is as audaciously entertaining as anything he’s ever filmed so no one cares that he’s never devoted even a second to adopting underprivileged orphans or making charity salad dressings.

I remember a few years ago when Nicholson got into some petty open-container trouble for inviting paparazzi into a NYC liquor store where he was hooch shopping and offering them a swig with a make-peace toast to the good life.

Maybe I should try that with commas.