Best of the Best Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I discovered Eric Roberts through Nobody's Fool. He played Riley, a stage technician who falls for the wacky but lovable Cassie (Rosanna Arquette). It's one of those flawed movies that's perfectly enjoyable when watched with the comfortable eyes of nostalgia -- it's not the greatest feat of filmmaking by far, but it's a movie of memories and awkward '80s charm. Watching that, Mr. Roberts became my movie hero.

Yesterday, the world belonged to sister Julia, and today it belongs to daughter Emma, but for some of us, it's always been Eric's world. Over the many years of acting, he's amassed controversy, critical feats, and brow-raising stinkers, bringing us a long selection of roles that should always stay on the radar. Tonight, I want to give you a taste of his accomplishments, as well as a little bit of heroics, because these days, he's like the wonderful Christopher Walken -- mostly pigeon-holed into the tough, meanie, or jerky roles. Without further ado, I give you: The Pope of Greenwich Village and The Best of the Best.

I must have had too many cups of coffee when I agreed to take on a Cinematical Seven covering the hunks of sports films. (Erik had the easy job, picking the Hottest Sports Girls.) Trying to pick the studs is like having hundreds of 4-star, wonderful movies thrown on your desk and being asked to pick the 7 best. Yeah, right! No problem! To make the task easier, I decided to pick a range of sports, and never double up on one particular type. That cut out a whole slew of possibilities, and what I came up with is what you see below.

What have I learned from picking the Seven Sexy Sporting Studs from cinema? The best of the best (pun intended) were in the '80s and '90s. I also learned that you should never share the list with a friend beforehand -- they'll remind you who you're forgetting, and that's why you'll find one tie down below. Enjoy!

The Eight Men Out Team

The only thing I knew when I took on this assignment was that Eight Men Out was going to be featured. Bull Durham is great and all, but this is the baseball movie. It's John Sayles, and it has the best baseball team to ever make it on the screen. They might have let their morals loosen a little, but they still kept their looks. Foolishly, I tried to pick between John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney, and David Strathairn. Forget that! I'm taking the easy way out. Cusack's Buck Weaver was super cute as a "future jailbird," Charlie was always tasty in those days, and it's beyond me why women weren't falling all over David Strathairn the minute he jumped into film with Return of the Secaucus Seven, or any of the bigger movies that were soon to come. And Sweeney was cute, too, in that dorky way.

I wish I could say that Moviefone was picking the Eric Roberts action film Best of the Best for something -- maybe best film to wrap up the '80s? Isn't that movie great?! Roberts, Phillip Rhee, James Earl Jones, Chris Penn... Tae Kwon Do world finals. Okay, sorry. I had to reminisce for a second. Anyway, Moviefone has scoured through the Academy of Motion Pictures' picks for Best Picture over the years and have come up with a list of The Best of the Best, the Creme de la Creme. It's one thing to pick the good from the bad, but imagine trying to pick the best from the great -- not so easy!

I have to say, they did a pretty decent job -- this list of 25 makes me want to stop everything and have an epic movie marathon. There's old and new, scary and romantic -- you name it, it's there. The list starts with Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, chosen for being the first decent Western in a while (at the time). From there, you can check out Tom Cruise, a little George Cukor, a man who loves Chianti, one of cinema's classic leading Woody Allen ladies, an epic bridge in a military thriller, one infamous slap, a killer game of Russian Roulette, and even more! I might have said too much already, so just head over there and feast in some great cinema, and then weigh in on how your Best of the Best list would look.