I was thinking about this question, or something similar, the day I saw this link on NPR's site. Apparently it's a regular feature? They interview different folks, generally movie-industry people, and ask them which movie they could watch “a million times.” Here's how the recent interviewees answered:

• Writer-director Peter Hedges: “Harold and Maude”
• Director Simon West: “Withnail and I”
• Actress Regina King: “The Sandlot”
• Actress Kristen Bell: “Wet Hot American Summer”
• Actor-writer-director Jon Favreau: “Mean Streets”
• Actor Michael Pena: “Broadway Danny Rose”
• Callie Khouri: “A Face in the Crowd”
• Actress Susan Sarandon: “The Grapes of Wrath”
• Producer Glen Mazaara: “Alien”
• Director RZA: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”

Everyone's answer changes with time, of course. Here's how mine did. Let's start in adolesence: “Star Wars,” “Superman: The Movie,” “Duck Soup,” “Annie Hall,” “The Godfather,” “Casablanca,” “Seven Samurai,” “All the President's Men,” “The Thin Red Line.”

Now? It's probably Michael Mann's “The Insider.”

It's a perfectly balanced film about two men, one of whom encourages the other to betray corporate confidentialities for a greater good, and who then has to betray his own corporation, CBS, for the greater good of airing the first story. It's the individual vs. the coporation, which is the story of all of us. It's about sacrifice, and how it takes sacrifice to make heroes, and how heroes aren't men and women with great powers. They're ordinary people under extraordinary pressure still doing the right thing.

Anyone know when it comes out on Blu-Ray?

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