1. Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan: I have seen this movie over three hundred times. That is not hyperbole, either. When it was on HBO back in the early eighties I taped it, and on days when I was home sick from school I'd sometimes watch it twice. The best of the Trek movies by a long, long parsec, this film embodied everything that was great about the original series. The Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic is entrancing. Montalban as Khan might be the most memorable acting job ever. And after all these viewings -- even knowing that he comes back in the next movie -- I still get teary when Spock dies...

2. The Matrix: As I was walking out of the theater with a buddy of mine after seeing this for the first time, he turned to me and said "Did we just see what I think we just saw?" This movie absolutely blew me away. At the time neither I nor anyone else on this Earth had seen anything like it. Tight story, perfect casting, and some of the best film-making in history. The fight scenes are so good, sometimes I just pop the DVD in and go straight to them for a quick fix. Often - nauseatingly often - imitated. Never, ever duplicated.

3. Tombstone: This movie came out right around the same time that can't-act/stiff-as-a-board Kevin Costner was trying to tell the same story in Wyatt Earp. Because of that, I think, it didn't get nearly the play it deserved. Val Kilmer absolutely steals the show as Doc Holliday ("I'm your Huckleberry"), overshadowing Kurt Russell's excellent turn as the Kansas law dog of legend. There are more great scenes - more great lines - in this movie than I could even begin to recount. A thoroughly engrossing, bigger-than-life Western with all the trimmings. If you're even remotely partial to the genre and missed this one, go out and rent it immediately.

4. Highlander: There can be only one! Indeed, there should have been only one -- Highlander movie, that is -- because the sequels were absolute dreck. A story about (mostly) immortal sword fighters chopping each other's heads off en route to winning a vaguely-defined prize, this cult classic is a true original that should have been left to stand alone. Clancy Brown as Kurgan is my favorite bad guy ever. Christopher Lambert quietly underplays the lead role, and in so doing turns in the best performance of his B-actor career. Sean Connery dazzles and amuses as Ramirez. Throw in a soundtrack by Queen that is better than most of their albums and you've got one winner of a film. Warning: All that said, the currently available DVDs are horrible quality, grainy and pitifully produced. Here's hoping the studio issues a re-mastered disc real soon.

5. The Crow: This is a mood movie if ever there was one. The ultimate revenge flick, The Crow is relentlessly dark and brooding. The cinematography, the sets, and the soundtrack combine with Brandon Lee's masterful performance to make this the Dark Hero movie the Batman flicks tried so hard to be. It is a shame - an absolute friggin' shame - that Lee died while making this, because, man, did he ever have an action hero career ahead of him. This movie is all about Bad People Getting What's Coming To 'Em. If you've got a jones for that sort of thing (and, uh, I clearly do) then this is a must-see DVD.

HONORABLE MENTION: Repo Man, Clerks, The Fast And The Furious, Trainspotting, Animal House, The Right Stuff, Top Gun.

1. AC/DC - Back In Black: Picking my top ten albums out of the thousand or so that I have owned during my lifetime wasn't easy. Picking Number One - the King of Albums, the Greatest Album of All Time - that was easy. Loud, hard, crisp, unsentimental and uncompromising, Back in Black is the perfect distillation of everything AC/DC has brought to the table for over three decades. Credit Angus and the boys for putting out their best effort just months after the death of former lead singer Bon Scott. Credit Mutt Lange for producing an album that sounds as intense and immediate today as it did twenty five years ago. Bottom line: You can take these ten songs, line 'em up against any other band's Best Of album, and the result would be total devastation.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Shoot To Thrill

2. Kid Rock - Devil Without A Cause: Growing up in white suburbia, I knew plenty of guys who, like me, enjoyed AC/DC, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. I only knew a handful, however, who could equally appreciate Run-D.M.C., Grandmaster Flash, and LL Cool J. With few exceptions, rock and rap had little to say to each other back then, and yet I knew that these two testosterone-heavy genres were fated to make beautiful music together. Apparently, Kid Rock felt the same way. Lucky for me, he did something about it. Where most rap metal is standard-issue angry white boy music with some scratching and rapping grafted over it, Kid Rock is that rare rocker who feels hip hop. From the scream of "My name is..." that opens Bawitdaba, through the hyper-cocky Cowboy, the goofy/happy Wasting Time, and the pumping beats of Where You At, Rock?, this album brings hip hop and hard rock together in a way no one - including Kid himself - has done before or since.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Rovin' Gangster

3. Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance: "From an unknown land and through distant skies came a winged warrior..." Cue the sonic assault that announces the arrival of The Hellion (that's the large, angry-looking mechanical bird pictured at left). Damn if I don't get an adrenaline rush just thinking about this album. If I were to write an entry in the dictionary of rock n' roll under the topic "Heavy Metal", this is the disc you would see pictured in the margin next to it. Certainly, Screaming For Vengeance has all the musical essentials of the genre: Driving power chords, rapid-fire guitar solos, and full-throated screeching vocals. But does it end there? No. No it does not. How about your apocalyptic lyrical imagery? Check. Kick-ass album art? Check. Guys wearing more leather and studs than you could fit in an entire S&M store? Uh huh. It's all there, making this the definitive metal album.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Riding On The Wind

4. Ozzy Osbourne - Diary Of A Madman: Quick, who's the greatest rock guitarist of all time? Hendrix? Page? Eddie Van Halen? They've got nothing on Randy Rhoads. Who knows what Rhoads and the Ozz Man might have achieved if the former hadn't died shortly after the release of the blistering, spooky, spell-binding masterpiece that is Diary Of A Madman? This album featured Ozzy at his bat-biting best. Still young enough to keep his music rebellious and edgy, bizarre enough to maintain a healthy focus on dwarves, voodoo, and demons, and drugged out enough to always seem to be teetering on the edge of control. This is not the Ozzus Domesticus that you young'ens are used to seeing on The Osbournes. This is Ozzy the Rock Star at the apex of his career.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: S.A.T.O.

5. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP: Before hearing a note of Eminem's music, I had heard a thousand opinions about him. He's so angry! He's a musical genius! Who cares? He's a misogynist! But his rhyming style is brilliant. The guy's a vicious homophobe. But it's just a caricature, can't you see? Finally, although wary of the hype, I caved. I had to hear this guy. So before leaving for a long weekend trip, I picked up The Marshall Mathers LP and slipped it in the CD player. I then proceeded to drive the next 70 minutes or so with my jaw in my lap. On your first listen, the I-can't-believe-he-said-thats come so fast it's overwhelming. You're just blown away by the outrageousness of the content. But then you listen again, and you hear the structure: Rhymes within rhymes within rhymes. And underneath those rhymes are songs with melody and hooks, a rarity in rap. So is it true that he's an angry, violent, homophobic misogynist? Beats me. In the end, he is whatever you say he is.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Bitches, Please

6. Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet: Everyone's heard of those lab experiments where they put an electrode into a rat's brain that directly stimulates the pleasure center, right? And that, left to their own devices, the rats will keep pushing the lever that activates the electrode over and over? Well, that was me after I found myself in possession of a copy of I Get Wet. I just kept putting it back in the CD player, thus activating direct stimulation of my brain's fun center. I will not even try to defend this album on critical grounds. If you've got a hangup about needing your music to be complex and challenging, this album isn't for you. Andrew W.K.'s music isn't about garnering critical accolades. It's about cutting loose and having a stupidly good time, and that's all. (For more of my take on Andrew and a live concert review, go here.)
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Girls Own Love

7. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral: Pain, alienation, self-hatred, and seething anger have long been staples of rock n' roll. Hell, the entire "alternative" rock genre would never have existed if it didn't have the darker emotions to dwell on. But Trent Reznor stands alone as the one guy who can build a steaming tower of shit from all this negativity and make you think you're looking instead at the Emerald Palace. Gunshots fire, and then Mr. Self Destruct goes to work. From there on it's one ear-drum pulverizing, soul-squelching, ego-crushing kick to the head after another. Dense electronica weaves around fuzzed out, over-amplified guitars as Trent alternately snarls and whines his loathsome poetry, each track suggesting ever more strongly that, hey, this guy doesn't much like himself. And he doesn't sound too fond of the rest of us either. Hurt, the album's closer, thus provides a surprising affirmation when Trent assures us that, given the choice, he would keep himself (he would find a way). That's cool, Trent. We'd keep you too.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Heresy

8. Soundgarden - Superunknown: Matt Cameron's drums and Ben Shepard's bass provide the thick, hard mantle. Kim Thayil's guitar fills the atmosphere with electricity. And then Chris Cornell's vocals erupt like a volcano. Such was the magic that was Soundgarden. With all due respect to Nirvana, a friendly nod to the briefly-transcendent Pearl Jam, and a disdainful smirk in the direction of the Stone Temple Posers, these guys were the best band to emerge from the early nineties Seattle scene. Perhaps that's because, while their music reflected the darkly introspective vibe going on around them at the time, they alone had the fundamental grounding in heavy metal basics that was needed to give such music "gravitas". Neither flippant and self-referential nor whiny and vulnerable, in Superunknown Soundgarden crafted a take on the grunge zeitgeist that was all their own. Scary and dark, often brooding, and yet, at times, fiercely liberating. One for the ages.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Fourth of July

9. N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton: It's 1988. Rap music is still a niche genre. The Beasties are breaking some new artistic ground, and Public Enemy's political rumblings are making a few stand up and take notice, but for the most part, rap is still all playful boasting and stories about dancing with the ladies. Then one day I'm sitting in a friend's room at the frat, and he's like "Toast, have you heard these guys yet?" He hands me the jewel case for Straight Outta Compton and loads the CD. "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge." With a BOOM, the age of Gangsta Rap begins. Cars crawl by, and over the kicking bass you hear "fuck, fuck, FUCK tha Po-lice!" Bitches and ho's are gettin' slapped. Many unfortunate individuals get caps popped in their asses. Consumption of forty-ouncers goes up several hundred percent. Yes, suddenly, the gangsta life could be had at your local Sam Goody. No one's really improved much on N.W.A.'s original formula over the years, which is why this record still ranks among the hardest of the hard.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: If It Ain't Ruff

10. Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime: The phrases "Heavy Metal" and "Concept Album" don't exactly roll off the tongue together naturally. Concept albums were for art-rock bands like Yes, or intellectually-oriented progressive rockers like Rush, not for the spandex-and-leather set, right? Not so, said the ambitious members of Queensrÿche who, with Operation: Mindcrime, managed to put together quite possibly the best concept album of all time. Ok, ok, let's just say it's tied with The Wall for that honor. O:M tells the story of a young man disillusioned with our modern capitalist system who, after falling under the influence of the charismatic Doctor X (and some primo heroin) decides to take action. Love, loss, murder, and betrayal follow. Tight songwriting and brilliant performances -- most notably Geoff Tate's soaring vocals and Scott Rockenfield's incredible drums -- sweep the listener inexorably forward to the story's tragic end. Start to finish, an amazing disc, and one that really should be listened to in it's entirety to get the full impact.
Underrated/Overlooked Track: Spreading The Disease

HONORABLE MENTION: Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon, Beck - Mellow Gold, David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust, Metallica - Ride The Lightning, Cheap Trick - Standing On The Edge