2. Dirty Harry (1971)

Dirty Harry is filmed in 1971 and it’s American crime film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan.

Dirty Harry was a box office success and set the style for a whole genre of police films. The film was followed by four sequels: Magnum Force in 1973, The Enforcer in 1976, Sudden Impact in 1983 (directed by Eastwood himself), and The Dead Pool in 1988.

3. Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)

An alien named Gallaxhar detects the quantonium radiation emanating from Earth and deploys a gigantic robotic probe to find it and extract it from its source, Susan. After a botched attempt by the Presidentto make peaceful first contact with the robot, it begins destroying everything in sight, resisting all conventional military force used against it.  Arriving in San Francisco, Susan is chased by the robot across the city to the Golden Gate Bridge, where the monsters are able to defeat the robot, and to save bridge.

4. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

In a desperate quest to possess the cure for the X-Men’s mutant power forces, the Golden Gate Bridge is re-routed to Alcatraz, now being used as the site of a major pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. The troops guarding Alcatraz are armed with cure weapons while Magneto moves the Golden Gate Bridge to allow his army to reach the island.Neither monument is safe for long.

5. A View to a Kill (1985)

007 goes to San Francisco and investigates an oil rig owned by Zorin.The Golden Gate Bridge is once again a focal point for action. Zorin tries to kill Bond by flying him into the Golden Gate Bridge, but Bond manages to moor the airship to the bridge framework, stopping it from moving.

Improbable but true, Grace Jones saves Silicon Valley…

6. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

The film opens out in deep space, where a race of gelatinous creatures abandon their dying world. Pushed through the universe by the solar winds, they make their way to Earth and land in San Francisco. One of the worst things that could happen to the streets of San Francisco. Noise pollution.

7. San Francisco (1936)

Movies was based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film, which was the top grossing movie of that year, stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The then very popular singing of MacDonald helped make this film a hit, coming on the heels of her other 1936 blockbuster.

8. The Core (2003)

After a series of strange events over the world connected by variances in the Earth’s electromagnetic field, experts learn that the rotation of Earth’s molten core is slowing down, leading eventually to the collapse of the electromagnetic fieldThe three develop a top-secret plan with the United States government to bore into the Earth’s core and plant a series of nuclear charges at precise points to restart the core’s motion and restore the field.
Meanwhile, on the surface, a patch of unfiltered sunlight  over San Francisco melts the Golden Gate Bridge.

9. Bullitt (1968)

Bullitt is probably best-remembered for its car chase scene through the streets of San Francisco, regarded as one of the most influential car chase sequences in movie history. The scene had Bullitt in a dark “Highland Green” 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 CID Fastback, chasing two hit-men in a “Tuxedo Black” 1968 Dodge Charger R/T 440 Magnum.

10. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

It’s released by Paramount Studios. It is the fourth feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series. It completes the story begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their crimes, the former crew of the USS Enterprise travels to Earth’s past in order to save their present from a probe attempting to communicate with long-dead humpback whales. It’s started with many real locations used as stand-ins for locations around San Francisco.

]]> http://www.whatsupmovies.com/top-10-movies-destroy-san-francisco/feed/ 0 http://www.whatsupmovies.com/top-5-crazy-tattoos-movies/ http://www.whatsupmovies.com/top-5-crazy-tattoos-movies/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:58:04 +0000 admin http://www.whatsupmovies.com/?p=271 Are you crazy about tattoos? Well, tattoos have always remained in the limelight because they express the feelings of a person who is wearing it. Tattoos are just not some vague designs made on the body, but they serve many other deeper purposes apart from show-off. To many of us tattoos are more than just symbols; they are the symbols of independence and freedom. You might have come across many Hollywood movies where you see a tattoo on the muscular arm of the actor. Of course, it does act like a show-off but it signifies a deeper meaning that the character in the movie is independent and carefree and that tattoo symbolizes his I-don’t-care attitude. There are many movies where actors have worn tattoos for various reasons but here are some really crazy tattoos seen in the movies.

Find Him and Kill Him

I am sure most of you must have definitely watched Memento by Christopher Nolan where a man loses his ability to make any new memories and prefers tattoos on his body instead of using a notepad to remember important things that should be follow up. Find Him and Kill Him is  one of the craziest tattoos I have ever seen in movies where the hero of the movie keeps reminding himself that he still has not killed the murderer of his wife. Crazy one, isn’t it?

Chaos

When we are talking of tattoos we cannot afford to forget XXX where Vin Diesel as Xander Cage turned into a new generation James Bond who would save the planet from destruction. Vin Diesel is seen sporting a kind of American and tribal tattoo that really makes no sense at all. Though, you can see good detailing work but those designs have no resemblance with the movie. Also you would see Chaos design with flames on Vin Diesel’s stomach. So what does chaos and flames on the stomach mean? Hunger?

Darth Maul

Well, this one does have an originality but if you can find some meaning about this black and red tattoo than definitely do write something about it. To some extent this red and black tattoo looks like a muscular diagram of human body. The red and black combination does look attractive but certainly this is one of the craziest tattoos that have been appreciated by many people.

Battling Demons

Now this tattoo looks like a fire alarm symbol when you see it from far but the tattoo is known as battling demons. The tattoo is sported by none other than Keanu Reeves in his supernatural thriller Constantine where he plays the title character who has the ability to see and drive demons and ghosts. The tattoo is a circle with a triangle inside which has a symbol of fire and three arrows at the bottom of the triangle. Even the film makers of Constantine decided not to give out any information about the tattoo because there is no meaning.

Nordic Rune

Although, we all know what Nordic runes are but the director of Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Azkaban were quite confused how to use these symbols and therefore they used them as silly tattoos that were sported by Gary Oldman who played the role of Sirius Black in the movie. Even the book did not mentioned anything about the tattoo but something hit the directors and they decided to add the tattoo to their movie to make the character more interesting, but instead the film makers had to satisfy themselves with mixed reactions from the public about the unnecessary use of tattoos on the body of Sirius Black.

Copyright: WhatsUpMovies.com 

The House of the Dead

A motion picture that will live in infamy! The movie that effectively introduced the movie-watching world to a mad German named Uwe Boll and we have never been the same since. Trash talking before the release about how his film was going to kick Resident Evil’s ass – way to set the bar high there, Uwe; trash talking Internet fan boys after the release for decrying his magnum opus as an incompetent and incoherent debacle that has only the faintest ties to the plot less video game on which it is based.

Why was it funny?

At least it is lively, something that cannot be said of a few other Boll-infused snoozers. This deliriously insane mess verges so sharply into Edward D. Wood, Jr., territory on so many occasions House of the Dead may very well be Plan 9 from Outer Space for the 21st Century. Boll tried putting out a “funny version” of this film that wasn’t even 1/100th as intentionally funny as his crowning achievement was unintentionally so.

I know who killed me

Four words: non-religious identical twin stigmata. A high concept movie in the sense that everyone involved with the making of it had to have been high. In Lindsay Lohan’s case, that’s a given. What is everyone else’s excuse? This level of jaw-dropping WTF-ness requires serious effort. You simply cannot make a movie that achieves the levels of badness that this surreal schlock does without having started out with loftier goals and without question, I Know Who Killed Me was clearly a Herculean effort on the part of its makers.

Why was it funny?

A perfect storm of cinema gone wrong: a tabloid fodder actress trying to change her on-screen image even though it’s her off-screen image that needs changing and an off-the-charts preposterous screenplay, which not even a director created by Dr. Frankenstein from the parts of Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Tod Browning, and Brian De Palma could make into a workable film. Simply has to be seen to be believed!

The Happening

Mark Wahlberg has given the best performance in the history of cinema by being an actor behaving like a man suffering from a concussion not actually playing a character suffering from a concussion. Zooey Deschanel is doing the most uncanny impression of a perpetually startled lemur you will ever see; philosophical arguments in defense of the hot dog; people trying to outrun and even outsmart the wind.

Why was it funny?

A loopy ecological thriller about pissed-off plants that cause people to commit suicide in the most preposterous manner possible; to think when the decade began M. Night Shyamalan was being compared to the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg.

Ultraviolet

So why isn’t Ultraviolet one of the top ten instead of a runner-up? Ultimately, that characters are these mutant vampires called “hemophages” was more an excuse to explain why everyone fights with superhuman abilities than it adds a horrorific vibe to this Skittles-colored world of tomorrow. Therefore, a dishonorable mention is in the cards. Rest assured, though, Ultraviolet is one of the worst films of the past decade of any genre.

Why was it funny?

Vampires. Cyberpunk. Anime aesthetics. Kung fu. Gun fu. Flaming sword fights. Milla Jovovich in spandex. What’s not to love? Everything! What was meant to be a visual tour-de-force ended up being an unwatchable mess made all the more intolerable by its insufferably smug look-how-cool-I-am attitude. Of all the movies listed here that I saw in a theater, Kurt Wimmer’s masturbatory case study in putting style over all the stuff that makes a movie watchable was the only one that led to the most walkouts – over two thirds of the audience were long gone before the closing credits rolled.

Alone in the Dark

A screenplay so indecipherable Dan Brown could pen a new novel about the world’s greatest screenwriter setting off on a mystery quest to piece together the clues trying to make sense of it all. A film so confounding Uwe Boll had to add an opening text crawl longer than the closing credits of some movies explaining what the hell was going and this text still marked the first, last, and only time Alone in the Dark bordered on coherent. So illogical a film even Dragon Wars could make fun of how nonsensical it was – that’s saying something.

Why was it funny?

You would expect even a truly bad movie boasting monsters from another dimension, zombies, centipede-like parasites, sand worms, paranormal commando units, Christian Slater doing Matrix-style kung fu, and Stephen Dorf getting blown to kingdom come would still find a way to be entertaining to some degree. However, Dr. Boll manages to bore even, as he piles convolution on top of convolution on top of convolution and not even Tara Reid comically miscast as an allegedly brilliant anthropologist, who cannot even correctly pronounce “New Foundland” could salvage it.

Copyright: WhatsUpMovies.com

The Psychological One: Triangle

The story: A group of friends run into trouble when their yacht hits a storm. Abandoning ship, they seek refuge on a passing ocean liner. Only there’s nobody on board, and Jess – our hot female lead – swears she’s been on this boat before. Which wouldn’t be particularly terrifying, unless people started getting killed. Which they do.

The scary thing: It’s one of those ‘psychological’ horrors, so the real beast is within the characters’ minds. Though there’s also a scarecrow-esque character running around who doesn’t look too friendly.

The hot girl: Aussie actress Melissa George is the primary crumpet. She started out in Home and Away back in the ‘90s, and has more recently been seen playing a doctor in Grey’s Anatomy. She’s the film’s leading lady, and thus ought to be running around sweatily and screaming in a pseudo-erotic fashion.

Release: October 16

The Funny One: Zombieland

The story: It’s a zombie comedy starring Woody Harrelson, set in a post-apocalyptic future. And in that respect, it’s fair to say it’s one of a kind. It definitely owes something to Shaun of the Dead. Possibly money. Via a court hearing.

The scary thing: Zombies! Shitloads of bloody zombies hungry for soft, moist brains! In keeping with modern times, they’re the fast-moving variety, rather than the slow, shambling undead of classic ‘70s horrors like Dawn of the Dead.

The hot girl: Though Emma Stone has a bigger part, we’re more into Amber Heard, even though she plays (in her own words) a “hideous, disgusting, cool monster”.

Release: October 7

The ‘Seriously, Another One?’ One: Saw VI

The story: With the feds closing in on him, Mark Hoffman – prodigy of the sadistic Jigsaw serial-killer – sets up another series of organ-splatting death games. Amazingly, the film only began shooting at the end of March this year. Which gives you a clue as to the kind of depth and complexity we’re dealing with.

The scary thing: As ever, it’s the devious, twisted traps that’ll have gorehounds tripping over their own entrails to get to a screening. The centrepiece involves a spinning carousel into which six people are strapped, with another participant forced to off all but two of them with a shotgun. Splendid!

The hot girl: We’re sticking our necks out a bit here, but it’s got to be 46-year-old Betsy Russell. She’s back as Jill Tuck, Jigsaw’s ex-wife. AND she’s been in the A-Team. The ultimate older woman?

Release: October 23

The Unapologetic, Corpse-Raping One: Halloween II

The story: Same as the 1978 original, which Rob Zombie is apparently happy to take a massive dump on.

The scary thing: Mega-murderer Michael Myers, played in rather unsubtle fashion by ex-pro wrestler Tyler Mane.

The hot girl: Sheri Moon Zombie – director Rob Zombie’s wife. Pretty safe to say that those two must get up to some really weird shit.

Release: October 9

Some movies’ unanswered questions are integral to their plots, as with Citizen Kane’s famous issue that nobody was around to hear Charles Foster Kane say “Rosebud” as he died. Most of the time the questions are less important than that, but still can affect your enjoyment of the film, for better or worse — yes, some movies are improved, because without unanswered questions to argue about, there would be little to really discuss about the movie. The Transformers movies are prime examples.

So, then, here is GeekDad’s list of the ten best unanswered questions from geeky movies. What do we mean by “best?” Well, these are ones that are fun to talk about, but that aren’t so significant as to seriously detract from the movie’s quality.

10. Independence Day: The computer virus - This movie has so many unanswered questions that one is forced to conclude that most, if not all, really are just plot holes after all. But then there’s the computer virus that Jeff Goldblum uploads into the alien mothership, that is ultimately what allows the humans to defeat the invaders. Ask any software developer, and they will tell you that it is ridiculously hard to write a virus on a PC that works on a Mac, or vice-versa, and those are two computer systems that were designed and built by human beings. The likelihood of being able to successfully write a virus on a human-built computer of any sort that would affect a computer built by telepathic aliens is infinitesimal. Of course, this is an alien species that has managed to travel in huge ships across vast distances but has never invented a clock (hence the countdown timer they use before initiating their attack), so who knows what sort of vulnerabilities their computers might have?

9. Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indy on the U-boat- The Nazis stop the cargo ship and take the Ark and Marion to their submarine. The crewman tells the captain he can’t find Indy, but then notices that Indy has, of course, swum over to the sub and is climbing onto it. There’s stirring music, Indy waves at the crewmen, he climbs up onto the conning tower, he looks around for a second, and then… the movie cuts to the interior of the sub, where it gets underway, and then we see the red line moving across the map. So how, exactly, does Indy survive this journey? He has no special equipment, can’t get into the sub (the hatches have already been closed, since they’re about to get underway), and it’s about to, y’know, go under the water, in that way subs do. Now, I remember reading once that they scripted (and possibly even filmed) a scene where Indy ties himself to the periscope with his whip. This is, of course, patently ridiculous, since it requires that the sub go no lower than periscope depth on the whole trip and, even if that happened, he’d still probably die. But Indy does tons of things that should get him killed, so we’d have believed that if they’d shown it. But they didn’t.

8. Back to the Future: Marty’s parents’ bad memory – Even though Marty is only in 1955 for a week, he plays a pretty pivotal role in his future parents’ lives. It stands to reason, then, that they would remember him pretty well, don’t you think? Now, I’m not George McFly, but most men would probably have a few questions if one of their children grew up to look exactly like a friend from high school that their wife dated briefly.

7. Star Trek (the 2009 movie): Old Spock biding his time – Kirk gets marooned on the ice planet by Young Spock, and Old Spock saves his life. Then Old Spock tells Kirk that there’s a Starfleet outpost nearby, and they trudge through the snow to get there. Now, Old Spock was marooned there a while before by Nero, and he knew that Nero was going to try to destroy Vulcan. So why didn’t he seek out this Starfleet outpost he knew about until after Kirk arrived? Don’t you think that maybe it would’ve been a smart idea to warn Starfleet that someone was about to try to destroy Vulcan, and, oh, by the way, he’s from the future?

6. Spider-Man 2: Doctor Octavius’s arms – OK, so Octavius had to invent these heat- and magnet-proof metal arms, controlled by sophisticated AI, that attach directly to a human body and interface directly with the brain. So why, exactly, does he need Harry Osborn to finance his big fusion experiment? Is there any doubt that the technology behind these arms would be worth millions, if not billions, of dollars? He could buy and sell Harry.

5. Star Trek IV: The ease of time warp – So, all you have to do to go back in time is slingshot around the sun on a carefully-calculated route, right? It’s the same thing they did in the TOS episode Tomorrow Is Yesterday. If it’s really that easy, then any warp-enabled ship can do it any time, so surely someone in the Klingon or Romulan empires must have figured this out. The Klingons might be too honorable, but why haven’t the Romulans taken advantage of this, and used it for all sorts of nefarious purposes?

4. Star Wars: The Death Star’s slow attack – So the Death Star follows the tracking device on the Millennium Falcon to the rebel base. They jump out of light speed, and, for no clear reason, emerge on the far side of the planet Yavin from the moon where the base is. This light-speed jump takes a split-second, but now they have to wait minutes so they can clear the planet. Not only that, but the Death Star is capable of blowing up entire planets, not just moons, so why don’t they just blow up the entire planet of Yavin? Surely that would effectively destroy anything on its moons as well.

3. Gremlins: Feeding after midnight – Don’t get them wet; OK, fine. Don’t expose them to sunlight; sure, why not? Don’t feed them after midnight; um, how’s that again? If you can’t feed them “after midnight,” at what point during the day does it cease to be “after midnight” so you can feed them again? For that matter, how does the mogwai know what time zone it’s in? Suppose I get my mogwai in New York and then take a vacation to San Francisco — should I not feed my mogwai after midnight Eastern Time or Pacific Time? And what about Daylight Saving Time? Considering the consequences, these details seem pretty important.

2. The Empire Strikes Back: Time dilation – Luke and R2D2 leave Hoth to go to Dagobah at the same time Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C3PO leave to go… well, they never really say what their initial destination is. Anyway, on Dagobah, Luke embarks on an intensive Jedi training course with Yoda — it’s never stated, but it’s heavily implied that this takes a long time; and besides, you would think a full course of Jedi training would take at least months, right? (We know it’s a full course, because when Luke comes back in Jedi, Yoda tells him he doesn’t need more training.) So, at the same time that Luke finishes this months-long training and runs off to Cloud City, his friends have clearly just gotten there a short time before. Yet all they did on the way was flee from a Star Destroyer and fly down the gullet of a giant space worm. That must have taken hours, not months. So was the Millennium Falcon flying at close to the speed of light (but not at light speed) for a while and thus experiencing time dilation? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Was all that really necessary? – It would really have been useful if Henry Jones Sr. had found out, or, if he knew, mentioned the bit about the Great Seal. You know, the Great Seal that the Grail Knight tells them the Grail can’t pass, and which sets off a highly localized earthquake when Elsa tries to pass with the Grail. Because, as it turns out, the whole race against the Nazis to get to the temple and giving a fake grail to Donovan so he could die gruesomely wasn’t necessary at all. The Nazis could never have removed the Grail from the temple anyway! I mean, leave aside the point that Donovan clearly had no idea how to get past the booby traps, and Elsa wasn’t much help to him, so without Indy and his dad there they probably wouldn’t have gotten to the Grail anyway. Once Henry Sr. had been rescued, they could’ve just gone home.

Know of any other good ones? Tell us about it in the comments.

This Decades Best Villains

Alonzo Harris (Training Day) – Denzel Washington won an Oscar for his portrayal of this badass baddie. When was the last time a cop was so cool? Seriously? Serpico? Can you imagine how bad this movie would have been if, say, Cuba Gooding Jr. played Harris? King Kong ain’t got sh** on Denzel indeed!

Al Swearengen (Deadwood) – Al was a pimp who operated a brothel. Al was a murderer who killed when necessary. But Al also had a strict code of values that he would not break for anybody. He was also the original smooth talker. Or is that smack talker? Let’s just say dude had the gift of gab.

Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men) – Hard to love a guy with a creepy “Suck Cut” hairdo who walks around killing people with a captive bolt pistol, aka a freakin’ cattle gun. But Javier Bardiem was so phenomenal as Chigruh that his Oscar-winning turn has been called the modern day equivalent of Death from Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. A legendary sicko.

Bill The Butcher (Gangs of New York) - It’s been at least a year or two since I’ve seen this film, yet I can see Daniel Day-Lewis playing the Butcher in my head, clear as day. It’s like that glass eye is staring right at me. My favorite story about DDL’s performance is that he got pneumonia and refused antibiotics because the Butcher wouldn’t have had access to that kind of medicine. Talk about method acting.

Commodus (Gladiator) – It’s not often that an actor can make you despise his villain to such a degree you want to jump into the movie The Purple Rose of Cairo-style and jack him in the face. Back before he looked like ZZ Top on crack, Joaquin Phoenix was just that good. No way Russell Crowe wins an Oscar for Gladiator without Phoenix starring opposite as Commodus.

Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood) - Yep, we’re six scumbags in and Daniel Day-Lewis has already appeared twice on this list. There Will Be Blood is a two-part clinic; P.T. Anderson’s directing clinic, and DDL’s acting clinic. Who else could make “I drink your milkshake” the line of the decade? Nobody.

Doc Ock (Spider-Man 2) – Is Alfred Molina dorky? Absolutely. Is Doctor Octopus dorky? As Sarah Palin would put it, in an annoying fashion that only Fran Drescher could match, you betcha! Yet, at the same time, never has dorky been so cool. Why was Spider-Man 2 easily the best movie of the series? Because it had Spidey’s best nemesis.

Gaius Baltar (Battlestar Galactica) - If there was an International Self-Preservation Conference, one  Gaius Baltar would be the keynote speaker. He also frakked more women than Wilt  Chamberlain, had a Stephon Marburyesque cult follwing and his administration made the Bush Administration look decent. But, oh, was he fun to watch.

Gogo Yubari (Kill Bill: Vol I) – There have been plenty of hot 17 year olds who have gotten grown ass men in trouble, but not like this. Unless you want a meteor hammer ripping out your intestines, do not take her up on her offer to hook up. No matter how good she might look in that school-girl outfit. Any chick who giggles over gore is jacked up.

Hennessey (Death Race) – Typically, we see Joan Allen typecast as a housewife (Face/Off, Pleasantville) or strong business woman (the Bourne series), but in this movie she was a straight up sadistic bitch. I agree with Steven King — this movie is a helluva ride. That’s mostly true because it’s a joy to watch Allen kick ass as this bloodthirsty warden.

Idi Amin (The Last King of Scotland) - Not since Sir Anthony Hopkins talked about about eating a man’s liver with fava beans has someone owned a movie despite so little screen time. Forest Whitaker’s depiction of the Ugandan general was so real you can’t label it an acting role — it was a transformation. His ridiculous charm almost had us liking Amin, despite his ruthless nature.

The Joker (The Dark Knight) – The best ever portrayal of the best ever comic book villain. Heath Ledger took what had typically been a campy, deranged clown criminal, and turned him into a psychotic terrorist with a flair for the dramatic. This performance put Jack Nicholson’s to shame. Can’t get much more badass than that.

Knockout Ned (City of God) – Don’t like subtitles? Stop being such a whiny little bitch and pick up City of God. Seu Jorge pwns as Knockout Ned, a ladies man with a deadly trigger finger. Yes, the same Jorge who sings Bowie tunes in Portuguese in The Life Aquatic. This guy is the epitome of cool. The Brazilian Walt Frazier.

Marv (Sin City) – I enjoy the entire Sin City flick, but more often than not I just fire up the Blu-Ray and watch only The Hard Goodbye segment, aka Mickey Rourke Puts on a F***ing Show. I wasn’t surprised by The Wrestler at all. Why? Because after making anti-hero/villain, depending on perspective, Marv a bigger badass than he even was in the graphic novel, I knew Rourke had a lot of great acting left in him.

Mr. Glass (Unbreakable) – Unbreakable is M. Night Shyamalan’s best film. Yes, it has two twists to The Sixth Sense’s one, but that’s not why. There’s an old theory that applies here: a film is only as good as its villain. Samuel L. Jackson lends incredible depth to Elijah Price, the comic-obsessed osteogenesis imperfecta sufferer who resorts to terrorism to find the yin to his yang.

Omar Little (The Wire) – This hood Robin Hood has got to be the most unique character in the history of crime sagas. Michael K. Williams is one of my favorite actors, and deservedly so. Who else could have turned a homosexual stick-up artist who won’t curse into the coolest TV character of the decade? Williams? Indeed. In my opinion, The Wire is the best show ever. Without Mr. Little, it wouldn’t even be in the convo.

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) – “I’ve gotta return some videotapes.” Never has a murdering sociopath, or someone who thinks they’re one, been good for so many laughs. Who else but Patrick Bateman can go from dancing to Huey Lewis to burying an axe in somebody’s skull faster than a Ferrari can go from one to 60? Just don’t show him your bone-colored business cards. I’m warning you.

Saruman (The Lord of the Rings trilogy)- It doesn’t get any better than Christopher Lee playing Saruman the White. The word Saruman means “one of cunning devices,” and Lee’s rendition brings that definition to life. His icy stare and booming voice were exactly what I imagined as a kid. Never has there been better casting, which was the case with the entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Sylar (Heroes) – If you dissected Heroes like Gabrial Gray would a timepiece (or a victim’s head) to see why the show works, or worked, your answer would be Sylar (that and writer Bryan Fuller). When Zachary Quinto absolutely ripped it this summer as Spock in the Star Trek re-imagining, it definitely put a Sylar-like smirk on my face. It’s hard work making an audience sympathize and even root for a serial killer, but Quinto does just that.

Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) - A vicious Victorian barber who slaughters human beings with his straight razor, then serves them up in England like they were fish and chips. Now, how do you turn that into a character who an audience not only won’t hate, but actively take interest in? Cast Johnny Depp, of course. Never has so much blood and unintentional cannibalism given us such a reason to sing.

Who would you add to the list? Who would you take off of the list? Sound off…

A strict Warner Bros. embargo prevents me today from telling you exactly how fantastic Half-Blood is (expect more on Movieline next week). But I don’t think it’s stepping too far out of line to note the romantic tinder box that Hogwarts has become, a home to puppy love, uncontrollable obsession and make-out spots, where teenage masters of potions, spells and other magic can’t conjure the elusive cure for raging hormones. It’s not necessarily a secret to readers of J.K. Rowling’s sixth novel, of course, but to see it brought to life — with these actors in the context of this PG-rated summer blockbuster — is more than just observing a faithful adaptation. It’s almost shockingly subversive fare for adults.

Movieline asked the principals about that disconnect in their characters’ inner lives, where a shy, awkward Harry — who’s done nothing for years but fight evil and telegraph his attraction to Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright) — would sooner square off against a cluster of Death Eaters than engage the cute, flirty Muggle he ditches at the beginning of the movie.

“I think it’s kind of a wonderful thing in the film,” Radcliffe said. “I find it very endearing with Harry. He’s this very acclaimed wizard, and he’s crap with women. […] I think this film demonstrates basically two types of teenage relationships: One, which is mine and Bonnie’s [Wright, who plays Ginny Weasley], which is that kind of teenage thing where you’re just in love. And it’s pure and innocent, and it’s all that matters in your life when you’re 14 or 15 and you fall in love with somebody. That’s all there is. And the other kind, which is much more carnal and energetic. Which is the one Rupert was lucky enough to have. Those are my thoughts on the relationships in this Harry Potter film. But I think it’s quite true of most teenagers — that complete inability to control hormones or desire.”

“Particularly with Hermione,” Watson added. “She’s such a control freak. She wants to be able to control everything about her life: her destiny, her work, everything. And then suddenly she falls apart in this one. She’s just a wreck. She can’t control the way that she feels. I think in her head, if she could have chosen who to fall in love with, it certainly wouldn’t have been Ron.” Watson turned to Grint and winced. “In the nicest possible way! She would have chosen someone much more serious and much smarter and better suited to her. But you can’t help who you fall in love with. It’s out of your hands.”

Watson also tipped attendees off to the long-awaited smooch Hermione and Ron share in the upcoming, two-part finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. “Rupert and I felt the pressure of this kiss,” she said. “There was so much media interest. This is like 10 years’ worth of tension and hormones and chemistry and everything in one moment, and we had to ace it. So we were like, ‘Oh, God.’ But it looked really good. I’m sure you’ll critique it in a couple of years. Please be nice!”

Fair enough. Another odd exchange arose from a question about how fame complicates love — particularly for Radcliffe, who intimated how he may have inherited Harry Potter’s romantic challenges. “I don’t really feel like I’m in the world of dating,” he said. “I don’t feel like a young 20-something in that sort of… I don’t have that sort of life. I’m working. I’m happy working. It’s not the case where I don’t have time to have a girlfriend. I do. I’m like everyone else, I suppose. It’s weird, because people always ask, ‘You’re Harry Potter — does that help you get girls?’ I was 8 when I started this. I don’t know what it’s like to get girls without having been Harry Potter.”

But could he ever date a fan?

“Fortunately I don’t think that’s the case for any of us,” Radcliffe said. “I don’t think any of us are—”

“What?” Watson deadpanned. “I’m dating my stalker!”

“Well, that is usually the best way to deal with them,” Radcliffe said. “Just be up front with them.

“He’s always there when I need him. I can be very demanding. He’s so into me! It’s the way to go. I recommend it.”

Radcliffe’s eyes widened. “I’m not.”

The thrills are certainly there in the sensationally choreographed prison break that opens the movie under a bright blue Midwestern sky that stretches across the wide screen like a cathedral ceiling. Dappled by fluffy white clouds, it is the kind of sky that tends to show up as a backdrop in paintings of the Madonna and Child, but here offers a sharp contrast to the long-distance image of Dillinger and his friend Red (Jason Clarke), quickly striding toward an enormous, looming prison. Mr. Mann goes in closer once the men enter the prison, where they help disarm the guards, and he pulls back again for the long view as Dillinger fires on the prison with a machine gun while the escapees make a run for the getaway car.

By force of Hollywood habit, you might expect that this vision of the suddenly lone gunman would serve as a prelude to another exciting joy ride about living fast and dying young. Instead it’s followed by a striking short scene of a wounded escapee being dragged alongside the speeding car while Dillinger and another man struggle to pull him up. In the most startling shot, Mr. Mann places the camera right next to the fallen man, pointing it up at Dillinger’s dark, ominous figure as he almost blots out that blue sky. Dillinger holds on until the man’s grip wilts, the dead body slipping away in one direction as the car races off in the other. Laying the blame elsewhere, he next tosses another man out of the moving car.

This, then, is Mr. Mann’s Dillinger: brave enough to stand his ground, loyal, ruthless. There’s a hint of the demonic in this portrait, particularly when the outlaw is gliding through a bank, his long, dark coat fanning around him and a tommy gun in one hand. This is the stuff of legends, of shoot-’em-ups and matinee gangsters with jaunty smiles. Mr. Mann loves this apparition of calculated bravura and initially he frames the first few heists as seamlessly choreographed set pieces. During the first robbery he shows Dillinger and two accomplices from high overhead, the camera peering straight down as the men fan across a black-and-white bank floor like MGM dancers. When Dillinger leaps across a railing, he soars.

It’s a seductive moment — the bad man seems to be defying gravity, not just the law — and much like the other action scenes, it gives the movie a jolt. It also, perhaps in homage, mirrors a similar shot of the escaping serial killer in David Fincher’s “Seven.” Like Mr. Fincher, Mr. Mann makes big-budget art movies that because of their complex pleasures and ambiguities, don’t always hit the box office sweet spot (“Seven” and “Collateral,” Mr. Mann’s movie with Tom Cruise, being exceptions). Despite Mr. Mann’s mainstream bona fides, notably with the 1980s hit TV show “Miami Vice,” and preference for muscular cinematic genres, there’s something resolutely noncommercial about his movies. Among other things, they’re deeply serious (at times to the edge of parody), which is why they rarely pop.

And “Public Enemies” is nothing if not serious, a vividly realistic if fictionalized portrait of a country deep in depression and jumping with bad men. The story centers on two dramatic antagonists, Dillinger and Melvin Purvis (a remote Christian Bale), the F.B.I. agent who doggedly, if often ineptly, led the hunt for America’s most wanted. At first the bureau’s young chief, J. Edgar Hoover (a terrific Billy Crudup, his neck thickened and delivery clipped), ignored Dillinger, deeming him a state problem. Hoover would have been spared embarrassment if the outlaw had remained out of federal jurisdiction because, when the chase was on, it was with agents who didn’t know how to conduct a stakeout or properly fire their guns.

Like Dillinger, Hoover cultivated a public profile that looked good on paper and later up on the screen. They had a lot of competition. Bonnie and Clyde were running wild, as were Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and other hoods with marquee-ready stories, some of whom make appearances here. Banks made for easy targets, logistically and otherwise, and, as the writer Bryan Burrough points out in a book about America’s inaugural war on crime, these outlaws took advantage of the public’s hatred of those recently failed institutions. Dillinger raided bank vaults and staged prison breaks to increasing approval. He shot one man to death, though didn’t always own up to the killing. It was bad for his image.

He became another kind of America’s most wanted: a star. “Get me the money, Honey,” he instructed one female teller with his crooked smile. The press raised his profile with screaming headlines, and the comic Will Rogers joked about the ineptitude of the authorities. (They were going to shoot Dillinger, Rogers joked, but “another bunch of folks came out ahead; so they shot them instead.”) Mr. Mann, working with incidents drawn from Mr. Burrough’s “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the F.B.I., 1933-34,” underscores the celebrity angle. But that’s only part of the big picture sketched out in his ambitious screenplay, written with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, which also makes room for a love story amid the blazing guns and tabloid glory.

The relationship between Dillinger and a hatcheck girl named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard, holding her own in this man’s world) eats up considerable time, sometimes winningly, though both actors are better when they’re apart. When not in pirate drag, Mr. Depp can be a recessive, even inscrutable screen presence, which is crucial to his strengths and performative limits. He’s a cool cat, to be sure: veiled and often most memorable when he’s staring into space while the camera soaks in his subdued but potent physical charms. He might have made a great silent star, as earlier roles suggest. Part of his initial appeal was that he seemed almost Garboesque in a movie world that increasingly makes no room for sacred idols.

Mr. Depp looks good as Dillinger — few contemporary actors can wear a fedora as persuasively — but the performance sneaks up on you, inching into your system scene by scene. The same holds true of “Public Enemies,” which looks and plays like no other American gangster film I can think of and very much like a Michael Mann movie, with its emphasis on men at work, its darkly moody passages, eruptions of violence and pictorial beauty. Mr. Mann’s digital manipulations, in particular, which encompass almost pure abstraction and interludes of hyper-realism, is worthy of longer exegesis, one that explores how this still-unfamiliar format is changing the movies: it allows, among other things, filmmakers to capture the eerie brightness of nighttime as never before.

“Public Enemies” doesn’t look like the usual gangster picture, not only because it’s been shot in digital, but also because Mr. Mann is searching for a new kind of gangster story to fit the times, one that makes room for greater ambivalence, and lawmen and outlaws who are closer to one another in temperament and deed. If he doesn’t fully succeed, it’s because he knows that the gangster’s rakish smile is at once a fiction of cinema and one of its great, irresistible lies. During the big finish, Dillinger grins wryly at a black-and-white Hollywood picture with Clark Gable as the kind of gangster who could only have been invented by the movies, a gangster who is as false as the bullets that finally stopped Dillinger were real.

“Public Enemies” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Bloody gun violence.

Public Enemies

Opens on Wednesday nationwide.

Directed by Michael Mann; written by Mr. Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, based on the book by Bryan Burrough; director of photography, Dante Spinotti; edited by Paul Rubell and Jeffrey Ford; music by Elliot Goldenthal; production designer, Nathan Crowley; produced by Mr. Mann and Kevin Misher; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 13 minutes.

WITH: Johnny Depp (John Dillinger), Christian Bale (Melvin Purvis), Marion Cotillard (Billie Frechette), Billy Crudup (J. Edgar Hoover), Stephen Dorff (Homer Van Meter), Jason Clarke (Red Hamilton) and Stephen Lang (Charles Winstead).