A brilliant satire about the world of television that's penned by the great Paddy Chayefsky, Network is the one that Howard Beale famously yells: "I am as mad as hell, and I am not going to take this anymore!" The quality of the acting is at its zenith with William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, and Ned Beatty giving powerful performances.

Dith Pran, the subject of the film, was the first to coin the term "killing fields" to describe the Cambodian genocide. Sydney Schanberg received the Pulitzer Prize for his wartime reporting there. A first-time nonprofessional actor, Dr. Haing S. Ngor lived through the experience. Therefore, The Killing Fields is a powerful film of what it's like to be in a war zone.

Tom Grunick, to advance his career, puts on a façade around Jane, and the interview when he shed crocodile tears is the most telling moment of who he is. In other words, he's a good salesman, and she bought it hook, line, and sinker. Jane is ultimately crushed because she believes in real news, not infotainment. Eventually, the latter would take over in the long run.

Salvador is another great, albeit unknown, Oliver Stone picture with a fantastic James Woods performance. No person in his right mind would go to a war-torn country if he had another choice, but that's what Richard Boyle did during the early 80's by traveling to El Salvador on the cusp of a civil war, resulting in a mass murder of the populace. Today, El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

When Citizen Kane was released, Orson Welles reached the top of the mountain and became an immortal god of cinema. Afterwards, he had nowhere to go but down...down he went hard. It puts everything about cinema into perspective. An important film for numerous reasons, it's one of the best-shot works of art in terms of storytelling through the power of cinematography. The controversy behind the scenes is the reason for its mammoth reputation which makes the whole thing fascinating.

How can an U.S. President running for second term avoid a scandal that's being played out in the media two weeks prior to the election? All he has to do is produce a war. The more unknown country is for an enemy, the better. It doesn't matter if the war is fake. Straight out of the politics playbook, this is the premise for Wag the Dog, hence the three lines: "Why does the dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog."

Out of the two versions of The Front Page and His Girl Friday, Billy Wilder's is the best. The pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau for the respective roles of Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns is genius. Their comedic timing is unbelievable. It's a funny movie which has the pace just right. Billy Wilder was smart enough to end the film with Walter Matthau saying, "The son of a bitch stole my watch."

Talk about notorious. Fast-paced, frenzied, and brutal, Natural Born Killers is one of the most controversial, talked-about films that's very much in-your-face. Hence, it's the epitome of America and the mass media's insatiable fascination and lust for violence and pornography.

Groundhog Day is a memorable picture for going through the same day over, over, over, and over. The concept seems to be clever at the outset yet can be tedious after a while. Thankfully, it's consistently funny and, at the same time, never runs out of gas. Harold Ramis does a good job of finding new ways to keep the momentum going.

Sweet Smell of Success is a well-made film with superior acting and great writing. Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster can be counted on to deliver excellent performances. The story is based on Walter Winchell and his various nefarious ways of getting people through his columns by dishing the dirt.