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12 Monkeys

Here is arguably the most depressing movie on the list, a film that is all about the closed-loop theory of time travel. In this film, a man sees something happen, attempts to stop that thing from happening, and ends up making it happen...by trying to stop it from happening. The mechanics of time travel are a bit too heady here, but what makes this 1995 film from Terry Gilliam work so well (and end up being his last great movie, as I've got no love for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) is that the characters are believable, even in a world of science-fiction wonderments. In one of his better and more understated performances, Bruce Willis portrays James Cole, a criminal who volunteers for a scientific experiment: research a deadly virus that has wiped out most of mankind, by traveling in the past to 1995. Cole ends up falling in love with the psychiatrist who encounters him and first assumes that his rantings are the product of insanity.

Oh, to be sane, thought to be insane, and in love with the woman who thinks you're nuts. What a world. Eventually, of course, the shrink realizes that Cole is telling the truth, and must stop the virus from being unleashed. The plot machinations are very overcooked, but the characters are well-drawn and performed. In one of his earlier and standout performances, Brad Pitt plays a fellow inmate who may hold a key to the virus. Gilliam throws in plenty of stylistic flourishes, and the effects of the time travel are fascinating. Still, there's no doubt that the end of the film is tragic, at least on a small level. The issue of the virus is...well, without ruining anything, it could be left up in the air, depending on your point of view. Either way, as a great time travel movie or just as a great movie, 12 Monkeys is absolutely worth your time.

Frequency

Here is a movie that manages to be good despite being completely ridiculous, and a movie that manages to hit close enough to home for some that they can't even see it. Okay, the "they" in this story is my father. It's rare that he refuses to see something, but Frequency is too much for him. Why? Well, the movie is about a New York man who, through the magic of the Northern Lights and CB radio, is able to communicate with his father. The problem is that his father is in 1969 and he is in 1999. Oh, and his father's been dead for 30 years, ever since their beloved New York Mets won the World Series. Yes, Frequency is about how the two men are able to revive their relationship, even as the father (Dennis Quaid) is unaware that his life may be over sooner than he thinks.

So why does my father refuse to see this film? Well, he's a Mets fan, has been all his life, and his father died when he was young. Even if the basic story seems farfetched, it's just a bit too familiar to revisit. And what's truly exemplary about Frequency, which is a movie you should check out, is that the story can be as ridiculous as it wants to be, but Quaid and Jim Caviezel, as the son in 1999, do such a great job with the father-son relationship that you buy it. The movie may be silly, the situations contrived, but even through all the time travel gobbledygook, this is a story about two men getting to know each other, and doing so in the most heartfelt yet desperate way possible. Frequency is a more underrated film, and even if you're not a Mets fan like these two men, my father, and me, you ought to see it.

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