So with that in mind, and as an excuse to talk about some movies, I decided to come up with a list of favorite movies by definition of how rewatchable they are, or how often I can just put them on and watch them without doing other things.
1. Back to the Future
Specifically the first one, although Part 2 is pretty neck and neck for me, and really, I almost count the whole trilogy as one, because it's the best example of a movie trilogy in existence. I've had the trilogy on VHS, DVD, and recently I got the Blu Ray, making them the only movies I've done that with. If it's on TV, I will watch it, and I never seem to get tired of it. The amount of detail put into everything, even little things that get changed in the background (like Twin Pines Mall becoming Lone Pine Mall after Marty runs over a sapling in the past) always gives me something new to notice, and the way the writing, acting, pacing, and music all combine to tell an adventure is just pitch perfect. Everything about the films is iconic, and rightly so, if even one thing was changed, I don't see how the result would have been as good.
2. Avatar
Avatar gets a lot of shit, because it was so successful, people like to take it down a peg, but the truth is, it's successful for a reason. You can say it's a bunch of tropes, but they're tropes because they work. The visuals are INSANE, I could just watch it on mute and look at the pretty pictures, and when combined with the world-building going on, the drama of a stranger in a strange land, the excitement of an old fashioned war picture, and the romantic throughline to give it heart, it's an endlessly engaging movie that tends to suck me back in whenever I start watching it.
3. V For Vendetta
Hugo Weaving's performance alone is enough to make this list, because he's hypnotic using only body language and his voice. But when you combine it with eye-catching visuals, a great supporting cast, and a fantastically written epic of anti-authority and class warfare, you've got a movie that entertains and, without getting too pretentious, gives you a little something to think about. Even though it's been criticized for being oversimplified and preachy, I disagree, the movie holds up to a hell of a lot of viewings for me.
4. Fight Club
When I saw Fight Club on VHS at my friend's Mom's house in my senior year of high school, I'd never seen anything like it. Like the Matrix, I think it really helped usher in truly modern filmmaking, and it blew my hair back. I didn't realize how a movie could weave visuals, narration, and plot together in a way that was so engaging you almost forgot it was a movie and when the plot twist at the end hits you, it's just a gut punch. Fight Club not only made me realize how much movies could do, it made me a lifelong devotee of David Fincher as well as Edward Norton and Brad Pitt.
5. Oblivion
I'm gonna throw a new one in as a kind of wild card. I haven't seen is movie as much as the others on this list, but I can say with a lot of confidence that I will. It's my favorite new movie in quite awhile, and I'm a sucker for good sci-fi. I love how it looks, the design is phenomenal, clean and sterile-looking but still interesting and even beautiful to look at. I like Tom Cruise, and this is a good example why, he's holding the movie together by himself as the sole character throughout a lot of the movie. The story is a little predictable, objectively, but it's engaging enough as a film that I didn't find myself trying to guess, just going along for the ride. And that music! M83 turned in what may be my favorite film score of all time, an epic, driving, beautiful electronic tour de force that sounds completely contemporary and cutting edge without immediately becoming dated. It's going to be a classic, when people talk movie music.
So there we go, what I'm going with as my favorite movies based on watch ability and my own personal engagement while they are on. Honorable mentions: Indiana Jones (original trilogy), Elysium, Serenity, Iron Man, Alien (original trilogy), the Descent, Batman: Under the Red Hood, Captain America 2, Batman Returns, The Thing (1981), Heathers, way too many more....
No comments:
Post a Comment