Yeah I am totally guilty of seeing actors and actresses still as a long time character they have played. Especially if I liked the particular character, as you get attached to them, and then seeing the actor or actresses face reminds you of them. Ashton wasn't the stand out character in that show, for me, but he nailed that role to wall, so I do see him in that light.

There are just certain actors who repeatedly get hired for playing themselves: Richard Gere, Tom Cruise, Meg Ryan, Barbara Streisand, and (yes) Ashton Kutcher. They're just always...them.

And then there are actors that, no matter how well they act, something about them is just too distinct for the illusion to work. Whenever Tom Hanks plays a role, no matter how well, he's always Tom Hanks to me. His features, and especially his voice, are just too distinct.


But we digress. Back to you, Coke!

IIRC, it came out before Day the Earth Stood Still & War of the Worlds, so perhaps it can be considered the prototypical alien invasion movie, at least chronologically. (Day, of course, introduced the misunderstood-alien-comes-in-peace motif, not to mention the urban setting for such, & I guess the presentation of a global perspective as well.)

It also, I would say (depending on how one feels about Frankenstein & The Invisible Man, of course), is the prototypical sf/horror film, a hybrid very dear to the hearts of many, me very much included.

(And of course it was utterly reviled by sf fans when it came out. That was a revelation to me when I encountered those sentiments in Judith Merrill's 2nd annual sf best-of, way back when.)

I'd have to check, but offhand I think James Whitmore was who you're thinking of in Them!, with Arness as the other guy who ventures into the sewers with him to rescue the boys. Haven't seen The Relic.

He's best-known, I'm sure, as Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke.

79. Stargate (Emmerich, 1994)



"What kind of a job?"

Theories abound about who really beat the pyramids. Often these involve aliens. Whether these beliefs are rooted in a bias against older civilizations or just a lack of faith in humanity itself, I am uncertain.

Stargate builds a world where these theories are true. The pyramids are a docking bay for alien spaceships. A portal connects two distant points in the universe and allows an advanced but dying alien culture to visit, kidnap, and enslave the ancient Egyptians in their quest for immortality. In 1928, this ancient Stargate was uncovered. And in the present day its secrets are unlocked.

An expedition, consisting of a scientist whose theories have left him spurned by his peers, and a soldier with nothing left to lose, travels through a gate to a far-off planet. James Spader is a linguist, the only hope of decoding the symbols that can bring them home, and of communicating with the people they find there. He does not recognize their Egyptian dialect because he has only seen it written. On this world, they find a culture ready to revolt against its tyrannical gods, an advanced alien species with armor that inspired the legends of Egyptian deities.

Cool technologies, false gods, decoding ancient clues. A smart and well-made film about a portal between worlds and the struggle to communicate. Or perhaps I just saw it at the right age. I was 13 when it came out. Hard to tell sometimes when you overvalue the movies of your youth.

While a fine film, it had the unfortunate side effect of launching the career of Roland Emmerich.

I watched it before posting (as I have been doing; why this goes so slowly). And loved it still. It bounced around a lot through earlier drafts of the list and held in the top 50 for a long time, but I decided this was the highest I could justify.

I agree the technology all looked quite cool in that retrofuturistic way.