by Armond Blackwater

Created on: January 06, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

My choices for the top five will shock many and humour others. Each of my chosen movies has affected my life profoundly. Check them out, they may affect yours as well.

#1 The Day The Earth Stood Still. Alien visitor, Klaatu, comes to Earth to deliver a message but before he says a word his spacecraft is surrounded by the military, he is shot, hospitalized, and imprisoned. Coming from a vastly superior race Klaatu easily escapes to live among humans to learn the reasons beyond their violent nature. Taking a room in a boarding house he finds himself amongst an odd collection of people and attitudes including a pre-Andy Griffith Show Aunt Bea. Patricia Neal plays the heroine with a precocious son played by Billy Gray (Bud on Father Knows Best). Michael Rennie's portrayal of Klaatu is superb with the first view of the alien that emphasized his gaunt, oddly shaped skull leaving no doubt that he is from another world. I rank this film number one because of Klaatu's message to Earthlings, an ultimatum that either we join the other planets (who are alarmed at our recent discovery of nuclear power and our potential to extend our violence into space) in peace and harmony or "this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned out cinder. Yes! Our planet needs a serious wakeup call more today than at the films release in 1951. I was so moved by this film that I wrote a spoken word song titled Klaatu using samples of Rennie, Neal, and Hugh Marlowe (an insurance salesman with no scruples). However, my favourite quote from the film is delivered by Sam Jaffe (playing an Einstein-like character) when he finally realizes that it is the alien that stands before him, "There are several thousand questions I would like to ask you." I pray regularly that one day soon the Earth will stand still at the hand of aliens.

#2 The Fountainhead. Ok, the movie isn't as good as the book. Turning Ayn Rand's tome in detail into a movie would result in a month-long miniseries. Rand debates altruism versus the rights of the creator. Architect Howard Rourk refuses to compromise his creations. "A building, like a man, must have integrity." Forces bent on homogenizing society view Rourk as a threat and set about to destroy him. The message culminates in the destruction of a housing project that Rourk designed by proxy for Peter Keating, a worm of a man lacking an ounce of creativity. Rourk designs Cortlandt Homes for Keating with the understanding that the project must be built exactly as designed without

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