Highly Recommended: American History X

Flicking through the channels last night, I saw American History X was on the History Network. There was no way that I was missing this movie.

I know I recommend a lot of movies here - some good, some bad, some dance oriented. For anyone who has not seen American History X, do yourself a favour and go get this movie. Don't get it on a day when you're not wanting to pay attention and think or when you're looking for a laugh though. It's not that kind of movie.

It is, however, an outstanding movie and probably one that gets unfairly passed over when discussing the best movies of the 90's and one that I have mistakenly left out of my All-Time Top Ten... until now.

While movies are certainly meant to entertain, this one not only does that in spades, but it also discusses some very important and powerful topics and should not be missed.

It also marks the end of Edward Furlong's actual career.

Remember Eddie Furlong? John Connor from Terminator 2?

Dude was all set to become one of the best young stars of the moment after following T2 with this outstanding film and his quality performance as Edward Norton's kid brother. Instead, he made Detroit Rock City, drove head first into drugs and alcohol and now lives in the Direct to DVD bin at your local Blockbuster.

Regardless of the failings of Eddie Furlong, he was terrific in this movie and Norton very much deserved the Oscar nomination he garnered for his performance. Perhaps the best performance of all, in hindsight, was that of Ethan Suplee who plays dim-witted oaf Randy on My Name is Earl. The Neo-Nazi ball of hate and anger you see here is nothing like "The Big Dummy."

All I end with is this: if you haven't seen it, go get it and if you have, watch it again.

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Highly Recommended will appear periodically whenever something awesome stumbles into my life that I feel the need and desire to share with all of you. Books, movies, music, that kind of stuff...