BEST “GENRE” FILMS OF ALL TIME (PT 3)
4. LORD OF THE RINGS - THE TWO TOWERS: Unlike my lovely wife, I’ve never actually met the man, but I can’t help but firmly believe that Ray Harryhausen wept at his first sight of Gollum. This is one of two films on this list, not because of the ripples it caused but rather because of the promise it so completely fulfilled. A fairly sizable number of fantasy films preceded its appearance, and quite frankly the vast majority of them were downright execrable (Ator: Fighting Eagle anyone?), a great number were dumb-fun, (who doesn’t love Hercules Unchained?) and a rare few were gems in their own right (Conan the Barbarian pretty clearly tops that short list) But this was the first one that was just plain great. I don’t know if its existence will spare us fanboys the lackluster likes of future DragonHearts but we’ve definitely seen the last of the BeastMaster. Thank God.
TIE:
4. THE MATRIX – REVOLUTIONS: Like it or not, at the end of the day, this is just that kind of list where considerations of ambition and range of influence carry a tad more weight than those of pitch-perfection. So maybe you weren’t as impressed as I was, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t be treated to pale imitators of this baby for at least the next decade or so. And it doesn’t mean that it didn’t send the next generation of genre-filmmakers into film schools (the same way the “unfinished” Blade Runner sent me). And, it definitely doesn’t mean that wasn’t an extraordinarily rich chunk of raw imagination – a postmodern myth set forever into digitized celluloid. Absolutely the one live action film, and perhaps the only film, this side of 2001, that compares favorably to . . .
TIE:
4. THE MATRIX – REVOLUTIONS: Like it or not, at the end of the day, this is just that kind of list where considerations of ambition and range of influence carry a tad more weight than those of pitch-perfection. So maybe you weren’t as impressed as I was, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t be treated to pale imitators of this baby for at least the next decade or so. And it doesn’t mean that it didn’t send the next generation of genre-filmmakers into film schools (the same way the “unfinished” Blade Runner sent me). And, it definitely doesn’t mean that wasn’t an extraordinarily rich chunk of raw imagination – a postmodern myth set forever into digitized celluloid. Absolutely the one live action film, and perhaps the only film, this side of 2001, that compares favorably to . . .
Keeanu Reeves did well for a slack-jawed yokel. His stupidity paid off in A Scanner Darkly
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:10 PM
Hey, don't you talk that way about Johny Utah.
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:18 AM
"What would happen if you melted? You know, you never really hear this talked about much, but spontaneous combustion? It exists!...[people] burn from within...sometimes they'll be in a wooden chair and the chair won't burn, but there'll be nothing left of the person. Except sometimes his teeth. Or the heart. No one speaks about this, but its for real."
DUDE!
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:04 PM