'Kippur'

The most poignant moment in this film is about an hour and a half into the film where the rescue guys are dragging this poor casaulty through this mire of thick mud.

What an excruciating 15 or so minutes. Just realizing that you're up against a time limit and you're muscles are aching as it saps the ever-loving oxygen out of your body.

Then the one guy goes crazy and screams, "What are we doing here?"

If I had to bet on one thing that's screamed the most during a war, that's it. Just watch a majority of modern war films and that's a running theme.

"What are we doing here?"

I'm sure it's been screamed many a-time in the Middle East along with Yugoslavia, Africa, Europe, the Far East and even the United States. Really, it's universal.

"What are we doing here?"

'Philadelphia'

This is OK movie. Let's face it: It was a movie that had to be made.

By the early 1990s, there was no escaping the shadow of HIV and AIDS in our country or the world. With the hysteria was a cavalcade of misinformation and prejudice. Mixed with the truth were a bevy of mistruthes that seemingly overshadow what was real.

"Philadelphia," for all intents and purposes, is an after school special for the United States so we don't act all disgusted with AIDS patients.

The interesting part of AIDS (how insensitive that sounds!) is how the disease is not just about life, death, medicine and healthcare, but about a lifestyle. Understanding AIDS is understanding homosexuality even though you could contract HIV through blood transfusions, sharing needles or heterosexual intercourse.

However, for better or for worse, AIDS and homosexuality are linked. And I think it's for the better. I think that as AIDS has become more understood and "tolerated" (we'd like to think we're accepting of all people ... and their diseases) so has alternative lifestyles.

With all that said, Denzel Washington's mustache should've been nominated for best supporting actor. I'm glad we can finally laugh at AIDS.

'Today!"

My first ever recorded and packaged album I ever owned was the second volume of The Beach Boys' greatest hits.

I wore that tape out. I still love the Beach Boys as much as I did in the late-1980s. On that tape was a song titled "When I Grow Up," which I always kinda liked but I never gave it a ton of attention. It was never quite my favorite and considering the tape itself was volume II of their hits, it didn't include the obvious songs like "God Only Knows," "I Get Around" and "Good Vibrations."

Having listened to "Today!" featuring "When I Grow Up," I realize now how great of a song it really is. The lyrics are great as Brian Wilson thinks about the future and even takes time to how he behaves today. Mike Love's California dude verses are bookended sweetly with Wilson's falsetto through the pre-chorus and chorus.

It's a very beautiful arrangement with typical rock band set-up plus a harpischord. Playing live, Carl Wilson replicated the harpsichord with a 12-string Rickenbacker.

The rest of the album, I can take it or leave it.

'Steamboat Bill Jr.'

Again, Buster Keaton is amazing. His physical prowess coming from such a runt of a guy is extraordinary to watch, especially considering I don't know how many (if at all) stunt men they had back in the early days of film.

Also, you have to consider probably the lack of insurance, healthcare and how much of his own health and career did Keaton take into his own hands. If he broke a leg, was the production company footing the bill or insurance? All of this so people can be entertained for 70 minutes.

'Odelay' & "Ill Communication'

I checked these two albums out from my local library. Right afterwards, I told a friend what I'd done commenting that I was going back to my high school days of listening to music. The irony of me listening to "Sabotage" and "New Pollution" a billion times each during high school is that I had never truly listened the the entire albums those songs came off of.

Beck is especially odd since I really do like him and some of my favorite all-time Beck songs are "New Pollution" and "Devil's Haircut."

Other than being released in the same decade, both albums, I think, could be considered each group's best ever.

I would argue "Midnite Vultures" for Beck, but "Odelay" is really, really good. I think it speaks more to what Beck is trying to do and has done over a decade or so of making music.

"Ill Communication" for the Beastie Boys is more about maturation. Nothing against "License to Ill" or even the great "Paul's Boutique" but there is a clear aging process that the Beasties took on between those albums and this album. This not only shows itself in their lyrics and deliver, but more so in the music and beats, which are entirely more smooth, funky and fresh sounding coming out of the speakers.

'JFK'

I was a kid when this movie came out. I don't remember all the controversy, but watching it now, I realize where folks might get riled up.

Forget all the seemingly forged, exaggerated and implied "facts" that Oliver Stone throws out, he essentially claims that Lyndon Baines Johnson orchestrated a coup and overthrew the president.

That's serious accusations to throw at a dead man. But I digress.

This is a fun movie. I can almost guarantee that there were thousands of Americans pissed off at the government convinced that JFK's murder was a vast series of webs and conspiracy.

While I don't doubt that his murder was bigger than Lee Harvey Oswald, creating propaganda to somehow question the establishment and to create a molehill out of flat ground seems silly.

I also love how Stone insinuates that JFK was damn-near perfect and despite his mistake with the Bay of Pigs, he was going to not make that mistake again and go into Cuba or Vietnam. Ah, it's refreshing to take someone and totally rewrite what they felt about things. There is no way Kennedy was going to stay out of Vietnam or any other country to fight communism. Also, making Oswald the victim wasn't the coolest thing to do. Oswald wasn't minding his own business. He played his part as either the lone or one of five gunmen, all of whom were able to roll into downtown Dallas with rifles and get shots off that only a handful of people noticed.

'The Usual Suspects'

For whatever reason, I never got around to watching this film. I mean, if you made a list of the films that I've had the intentions on watching for the past 10 years, "The Usual Suspects" is probably No. 1.

I did have a good discussion with a big movie fan friend of mine about the element of the big twist. It seems like in the mid-1990s, having the big, nobody-knew-it-was-coming twist in the thriller/drama was a big deal.

Think back to "Silence of the Lambs," "Seven," "Primal Fear" and later with "Sixth Sense." You just couldn't have a good ol' thriller, you had to twist it up on the movie watcher.

But now, aren't we all desensitized with the big twist. Not that "The Usual Suspects" would not have gotten me with Kevin Spacey being the big bad dude, but after 10 years of being twisted, I knew about halfway through that this was indeed the case, that Spacey was the big bad dude.

No real proof. No idea how they would explain it or pull it off. I just knew.

Hollywood is going to have to shake things up. Or just revert to doing a plain ordinary film. Now that would mess with some heads.