Top Five Movies of Eva Mendes

This Friday, Pantelion Films releases the small film ?Girl in Progress? in a limited basis in the U.S. to go head to head with the second week of the record-breaking ?The Avengers? and the first week of the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton team-up ?Dark Shadows.? While one of those seems to be a no-brainer to see (the one that rhymes with ?The Avengers?) and will take up most moviegoers time, ?Girl in Progress? may deserve a second trip to the never-ending serpentine parking lanes that surround your multiplex to see the lovely Eva Mendes.

The luscious Eva Mendes

They?IMDB synopsis doesn?t give us much (?As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she’s reading for school.?) but, the chance to get to see Eva moves it to the top of my list. (Especially after viewing Eva?s? Funny or Die sex tape.) You might wonder, Jason, why does a movie about a girl coming of age interest you? Well, take a look at the quality of Eva?s top five movies, and you?ll see that it seems like a smart bet that it will be good.

5. The Spirit

Not off to a glowing start here with a movie that earned a?30 on Metacritic and?14% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, but I have a justification for this. It?s a comic book movie from a great comic series. The movie may have stunk, but it opened many people?s eyes to ?The Spirit? by Will Eisner, and that?s a great thing. (Would you have preferred if I would have listed ?Ghost Rider?? I didn?t think so.)

4. Out of Time

The second movie in two short years that Eva did with Denzel Washington (the first comes later in the list), in this one Eva plays Denzel?s ex-wife. Denzel plays a cop that is generally good, but makes one poor decision. It?s almost the polar opposite of the characters in entry #2.

3. Stuck on You

I?m a sucker for just about anything the Farrelly Brothers do. (Yes, I will see ?The Three Stooges.?) Add in Eva, Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear and a goofy story about conjoined twins and I?m sold.

2. Training Day

This still may be one of my favorite roles of a bad cop ever. (Eva also did ?Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans? that also sounds like a great bad cop movie.) The depths of the evil of Denzel Washington?s character amazed me and I have absolutely no argument about Denzel?s Academy Award win.

1. The Other Guys

It surprised me how much I liked the movie. From the exit of the characters played by The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, I knew this buddy-cop movie would be a good entry in the many failed attempts at parody. The jokes involving the relationship of Eva and Will Ferrell?s character kept me laughing.

Agree? Disagree? Which movies would make your Eva Mendes top five?