10. Avatar
A select few will forever hate on James Cameron's sci fi epic. But the rest of us will always hold it in high esteem. So, God-knows-how-many years in the future, humans scientists and marines will journey to the planet Pandora to extract a precious metal and study the native population, tribes of ten foot cat people called Na'vi. Some of the humans can use some obscure technology to temporarily inhabit cloned Na'vi bodies called Avatars. A paraplegic marine, Jake, becomes an Avatar, and finds a new home in the tribes. After a series of elaborate complications, this leads to a huge epic showdown, marines vs Na'vi. The film is probably know for having an absurdly large budget and some of the best CGI special effects... ever, really. Jake himself is a believable character, and everyone in this movie does a great job, most notably by Stephen Lang and Sigourney Weaver. Add in an entertaining plot and some kick ass action, and you've got Avatar.
9. Super 8
If there are any haters reading this right now, they likely hate me. JJ Abrams, the creator of Alias, Lost, and Fringe, and the director of Star Trek and Cloverfield, brought us this instant classic about an alien and a bunch of kids in 1979 Ohio who catch a shot of it on camera while making a zombie movie. The protagonist is Joe, who recently lost his mother and his father keeps distancing himself. The alien is doing something very interesting indeed in their town, mainly involving missing persons and stolen car engines. At the same time, we have the kids making their movie and Joe dealing with his mothers death, which was more or less the movie's emotional backbone. Well written and directed, great story, great performances all around, some good special effects, and even a few chills all highlight this movie. A few people will always have a bone to pick with this movie, mainly because of the ending, which, I'll grant, was a bit cliched, but it was well done, and for the sane population, it won't degrade the quality of this pile of awesome.
8. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Just a bit more James Cameron for this list, thank you. The sequel to the original hit saw Cameron taking a huge risk: he took govenator Arnold, the bad guy of the first film, and made him a good guy. They did it well though. The reprogrammed Terminator goes back in time to protect thirteen year old John Connor, who is destined to lead the resistance against an army of machines, from Skynet's new robotic assassin. Sarah Connor is in a mental hospital, and John is a punk in foster care. Arnold steps in just as the other terminator is closing in on John, and thus begins a wild, action-packed ride to change the future. The action in this movie alone is amazing, thrown in with one of the better time travel plots and, surprisingly enough, some good deeper meaning and human messages, plus great performances by Linda Hamilton and... pretty much everyone else in the movie, actually.
7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
What, you think I'm gonna put Super 8 in here but not Close Encounters? Of course not. Steven Spielberg's classic masterpiece centers around a man who becomes obsessed with aliens and a shape in the desert after seeing a UFO. At the same time, a woman has similar encounters that eventually cost her someone important. Also at the same time, the US government readies itself for the arrival of a UFO in the desert, which involves the famous rhythm that I can't replicate. The first movie involving aliens that actually didn't want us all dead for whatever reason has good special effects for the time, an engaging, phenomenal story line, excellent performances by the whole cast, and one of my favorite endings ever. Are you ready for your close encounter?
6. The Matrix
Why wouldn't this be here. Brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski brought us this action-packed classic that redid the entire humans vs machines genre. So, x-many years in the future, machines have more or less won a war against their human creators. They plug the humans into to a power plant and put them in suspended animation to provide themselves with electricity. The minds of the humans are inside a computer program called the matrix, in which they live lives as if it's 1999 and think it's reality. Computer hacker Neo has his mind set free by the resistance group to fight the machines, who think he is some sort of chosen one, meant to end the war. Probably one of the most intelligent sci fi thrillers in quite some time, this instant classic was action packed, vivid, had great effects, and bordered on mind blowing at times. Lawrence Fishbourne steals the show as Morpheus, and Keanu Reeves does a good job, but that's somehow degraded by the knowledge that this is the only good movie he's ever been in. And while we could've done without either of the sequels, this pile of awesome rightly deserves to be put in this spot.
5. Alien
The line between sci fi and horror becomes blurred in Ridley Scott's phenomenal piece of film making. After receiving a distress call from a planetoid, the crew of the cargo space ship Nostromo pick up an unwanted passenger: an alien that is born inside a human body, rips it's way out of the host's chest, and grows to a frighteningly large size in about thirty minutes. The alien begins stalking the crew, killing them one at a time in an unsettlingly violent fashion. The film has amazing special effects for the time, plus some genuine scares, awesome death scenes, one helluva plot twist, and a great performance by Sigourney Weaver. It will have a place in the hearts of nerds everywhere for years to come, especially with the prequel, Prometheus coming out in a few months.
4. Donnie Darko
Ah, here we are. First, let me establish that I am talking about the director's cut, no the theatrical version. The most controversial movie on this list is freaking amazing. So we have Donnie Darko, a suburban teenager in 1988. He deals with issues in his family, friends, teachers, and new girlfriend. He's in therapy. And a giant, demonic rabbit named Frank gives him warning of an apocalypse that will come in about a month. If that sounds stupid or ridiculous, I get where your coming from, but the way the director executed this was brilliant and more than a bit frightening. A large portion of the plot centers on time travel, which Frank, and apparently Donnie, are capable of. You go through most of the movie debating with yourself whether Frank is real or Donnie is just a high functioning schizophrenic, which is answered by the last 35 minutes of the film, mostly the ambiguous, kinda confusing twist ending. In all honesty, it's difficult to type up everything that happens here, let alone explain how much I love this movie. There is no weak performance in this movie, with everyone doing a great job, particularly Jake Gylenhaal (probably spelled that wrong) as Donnie. The plot is rich, engaging, and just great, with, like I said, an ending that takes several viewings and maybe a reading of the wikipedia synopsis to understand. A true cult classic.
3. Inception
I know what your thinking: "wait, you have this AND the matrix on here?!!? I hate you!!!!" Well, maybe you do, you trolls. Christopher Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight, Momento, and Prestige, brought us this thrilling masterpiece. Dom Cobb is a dream-raider. That is, people hire him and his crew to use technology to invade people's dreams and steal ideas. His job has cost him pretty much his entire personal life, until one last job presents him with the chance to finally go home. The catch? He's not stealing an idea, he's planting one in a sleeping mind, a process called inception. The plot is mind-bending, thrilling, and damn confusing right from the start, especially with all the dreams within dreams and when Cobb's past comes back to haunt him. Add in action and special effects that will blow you away and some great performances by Leo Dicaprio (granted, he has kinda played this role a million times before) and Ellen Page (don't tell Ray William Johnson about this) and you've got one of the best summer blockbusters and sci fi thrillers of the decade.
2. Blade Runner
No list is complete without it. Coming off his success with Alien, Ridley Scott took us to a dystopian Los Angeles in the future of... about 7 years from now, but this was made in the '80s, so, yeah, in this sci fi/ film noire masterpiece. In the not-so-distant future, cloned robots called Replicants will be made into slaves for Earth and it's off-world colonies. Replicants will sometimes gain emotions and escape, which is when special cops called Blade Runners are called into action to to hunt down and kill the replicants. Retired Blade Runner Rick Deckhardt reluctantly agrees to one last assignment in tracking down five escaped replicants in LA, a few of which are very violent and looking for a way to prolong their limited life span. Harrison Ford does a great job as Deckhardt, along with every other actor here. The movie could occasionally be very strange, but that made it all the more awesome, especially when coupled with some great action scenes. Throw in the ambiguous ending, and there you have it.
1. Serenity
Yes, I'm completely serious. I am that big of a Joss Whedon freak. Serenity was the big screen continuation of Whedon's short lived but absolutely amazing TV show Firefly, the innovative space opera/ western that followed Captain Malcolm Reynolds, veteran of a civil war in the star system between a totalitarian government called the Alliance and the outer planets, as he and his crew of space cowboys do jobs, legal or not, and dealt with their two fugitive passengers. The show only ran 14 episodes because FOX is run by trolls, and a lot of the questions the show posed went unanswered. And so, with quite a bit of fan protest, the movie was made, essentially meant to give the story some closure. So, Simon and River Tam (brother and sister) are on the run from the alliance, who have sent a new bounty hunter called the Operative after them. Maybe I'm biased because of how much I love the show, but this movie is amazing. It's an action-packed thrill ride, filled with both shoot outs, space battles, and sword/fist fight. That alone could make this awesome, but mixed with the unpredictably excellent plot, great special effects, and greater performances by Nathan Fillion as Captain Reynolds and Summer Glau as River. The movie also managed to kill a couple of characters and still has my all-time favorite movie ending. Once again, I'm probably biased, but this is awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Say what you like, just no profanity or personal attacks