PCP Top 10 - My favorite Sci-Fi films

So I haven't done a Top 10 in awhile since they are very time consuming to write, and with it being sci-fi week here, I thought now would be a good time to break one out. So in honor of sci-fi week, these are my Top 10 favorite science fiction films. A few things I'd like to point out about this list: 1) I am omitting fantasy films from this list to focus just on sci-fi, otherwise Lord of the Rings would be on here. 2) I am also omitting superhero films, because those would also dominate the list otherwise, and I plan on doing a future Top 10 superhero films another time. 3) I am lumping some films in the same franchise together, so as not to have them take up too many spots on the list. 4) There are two films on my secret shame list of unseen films, Wrath of Khan and Blade Runner, that I am still hoping to find time to watch, hence that is why they are absent from this list when I suspect they'd be on it. Now, on with the Top 10!  Remember, these are my favorites, the ones I can watch over and over, not necessarily the best of science fiction.

10. Avatar - Avatar still ranks as the most incredible thing I have ever seen on the big screen. I have still to date yet to see a film that does 3D better than this movie. While it might not have the most original plot (Fern Gully and Pocahontas seem to be major inspirations), and the bonding thing the aliens do with the animals of the planet borders on bestiality, you don't think about it at the time because the visuals and scope of the film are completely breathtaking, and the 3D was so immersive that I truly felt like I was on Pandora. I already can't wait for the return trip to that world, whenever James Cameron gets around to filming the sequels.

9. Back to the Future - The first adventure of Doc Brown & Marty McFly is the best of the series, and it is a ton of fun. While many of the jokes went over my head when I first saw this as a kid, it remains a beloved classic tale of time travel and the dangers of meeting your parents in the past. Also, to a little boy, the DeLorean is probably one of the coolest cars I had ever seen at that point in my life (although now I realize why Marty was just so shocked that was Doc's choice for the time machine). This will probably be the among the first science fiction films that I expose Jackson to once he is old enough, so I can't wait!

8. Akira - My first exposure to anime was my best, I have yet to come across an anime film that impressed me as much as this one did. While I have never really gotten into manga, it is tempting because apparently this film didn't incorporate the whole book series that it is based on, a whopping 2100+ pages of graphic novel. The story of secret governmental programs tampering with humans is common to a lot of genres, but Akira does it very well. If you could only watch 1 anime movie, make it this one. Hollywood keeps talking about making a live action version of the movie, but it seems to have been stuck in development purgatory for a decade or so. I doubt it will top this anyways, even if they did ever get it off the ground.

7. District 9 - I think one of the most incredible things about this South African film was the fact that the budget was a mere $30,000,000. In blockbuster terms, that is a drop in the bucket. Its visuals, especially the alien creatures' design, comes across like a film with a much higher budget. It is an allegory for the apartheid struggle in South Africa, but it also is a great thrill ride of a story of a really crappy day in the life of a human exposed to the aliens' technology. The second most incredible thing about the film is that it is the writing & directorial debut of Neil Blomkamp. It is one of the best debut films since Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. His 2nd film, Elysium, comes out in August, and I can't wait to see it. In the meantime, if you never saw this District 9 you made a huge mistake, it is outstanding. Go see it now!

Find out the top 6 after the jump!

PCP Top 10 - My favorite Tony Scott movies

As I mentioned earlier this week on the blog, director and producer Tony Scott took his own life on Sunday.  The man was behind some of my all time favorite action movies, and his style of direction had tremendous influence on the way action films are done today, especially his frequent collaborations with producers Jerry Bruckheimer & Don Simpson.  He also regularly partnered with one of my favorite actors, Denzel Washington, making five films together.  In his career he never had the success with the critics or the awards like his older brother Ridley Scott, but he still turned out some great films that I still very much enjoy watching to this day, films that in some cases will be classics forever.  So in honor of Tony Scott, here are my top 10 favorite films that he directed.

10.  The Taking of Pelham 123 - This remake of a 70s flick starred Denzel as the hero & John Travolta as the villain pulling off a train hijacking.  Travolta's turn was especially great as he plays an excellent villain (see also Face/Off, Pulp Fiction, or Broken Arrow). 

  

9.  Deja Vu - The closest thing to sci-fi that I recall Scott directing, this time teaming up with Denzel on a film involving using time travel to stop a crime.  It is an interesting premise that is similar to the later film Source Code.  Worth watching but you may go cross-eyed from the time travel paradoxes.

8.  Unstoppable - Yet again teaming up with Denzel, this time on a runaway freight train, and costarring Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), this train ride involves a freighter that will wreak massive havoc if it derails, killing thousands due to its contents.  It's the last film Scott completed before his death, and a great ride from start to finish.

Read the rest after the jump break--->

PCP - Top 10 Movies to Avoid on Valentine's Day

Hey everyone and welcome back to CRAPOLA.  Today’s post in Pop Culture Panorama (PCP) is in honor of the Valentine’s Day holiday, and is to help warn you what not to pick out to watch if you plan on cuddling up on the couch with a movie for the holiday.  It’s my list of 10 movies not to watch on Valentine’s Day (or any other romantic occasion) with your sweetheart.  I’m ignoring the obvious films that should never be watched on this sort of occasion, like Schindler’s List, because if you think that’d be a good Valentine’s Day movie you are seriously sick and twisted.  Instead, I’m listing 10 movies that I’ve seen that were portrayed as either romantic comedies or romantic dramas, but they are not uplifting or cheerful.  Instead, they will make your significant other break down and get all weepy, or otherwise just kill the romantic mood you are trying to set for the occasion.  That’s not to say these are bad films, some of them are actually quite good, but they are not to be watched if you are shooting for a romantic evening.  Don’t be like me and make a mistake by picking one of these movies off of the list, like I did with PS I Love You for our anniversary a couple years ago.  Horrible mistake, as I’ll explain why shortly.  This list is in no particular order, its just 10 films to avoid when you are trying to set a romantic mood.  Warning – SPOILERS AHEAD – I will be discussing just why these movies are to be avoided, and in doing so it is necessary for me to reveal some of the details of the plot, so for all 10 of these films there are spoilers.  Consider yourself warned.  Now on with the list:

1)  PS I Love You.  Starring Hilary Swank & Gerard Butler.  My rating:  7 out of 10. 

This film is the one that gave me the idea for this blog post.  My wife and I had our anniversary coming up, and I wanted to watch something nice and romantic for it with her.  The title sounded good, and there was a quote on the DVD case that called the film the “best romantic comedy in a very long time.”  I wish I could remember the name of the reviewer that said that, so I could find him and smack him upside the head.  This film is not so much a romantic comedy as a morbid getting over grief drama.  The plot has Hilary Swank’s husband, Gerard Butler, dying of a brain tumor 5 minutes in to the movie.  I look over at my wife and she is completely bawling her eyes out.  The crying continues throughout the movie as Swank has flashbacks to her time with Butler, and gets love notes delivered to her on special occasions, that he’d arranged for delivery before his death, to help her get over her loss.  The film is good and touching, but definitely not a romantic comedy, not by a long shot.

2)  Atonement.  Starring Keira Knightley & James McAvoy.  My rating:  8 out of 10.

My sister in law insisted that this was the most romantic film she’d ever seen, even more romantic and a better love story than Titanic, The Notebook, Pride & Prejudice, or any number of other films that my wife’s other sisters thought were great romantic movies.  I’m sorry, but any romantic drama set against the backdrop of WWII and featuring death and destruction on a large scale, as well as false accusations of rape, isn’t my idea of a love story.  The twist ending doesn’t help the film’s cause either, where it’s revealed (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) that the two lovers Knightley & McAvoy actually both died during the war, and everything we’d seen since the WWII sequence was the plot of a book written by Knightley’s sister where she came clean on the false rape accusation and wrote a book imagining what life Knightely and McAvoy would have had had they survived the war (they wouldn’t have been in harms way were it not for the false rape accusations).  Learning the whole movie was the equivalent of a dream kind of kills the romance of the story.  It is a good movie though, and it earned its 7 Oscar nominations.

3)  Silk.  Starring Keira Knightley & Michael Pitt.  My rating:  7 out of 10.

The story of a silkworm trader, who travels long distances (from France to Japan) and falls in love with a Japanese girl despite having Keira Knightley back home waiting for him.  The film is beautifully shot, but ultimately it’s a tale of death, loss, and adultery.  Not exactly an uplifting film.

Read # 4-10 after the jump!

PCP - Top 10 Worst Movies Ever Made

NOTE - originally posted by me on my friend's blog back on 9/27/10

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’m gonna give you a taste of the worst movies ever made.

In my time watching movies, I have watched a number of awful movies.  Some I watched because there was absolutely nothing else on TV, some I watched because all new movies in a theater need to be screened before tickets can be sold for them, in order to make sure they were assembled properly.  One of these I even watched on a dare, but thankfully other than my time wasted and brain cells killed, I never paid to see any of these.  These 10 movies are so bad, they make Gigli look like an Oscar winner.  In order from bad to worst, these are the 10 most awful pieces of garbage I have ever wasted time watching.

10.  Bloodrayne. Never have so many good actors made such an awful piece of garbage.  Clearly they were all here for the paychecks and nothing else.  Directed by the extraordinarily awful Uwe Boll (he’s got 3 movies on this list), the videogame adaptation starred Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3) as the title character.  The supporting cast was deep, including appearances by Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs), Meat Loaf (Fight Club), Billy Zane (Titanic), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar), and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) hamming it up as the villian.  Not even Kristanna Loken topless could save this movie.

9.  Teenage Caveman.  This straight to video disaster is completely and utterly awful.  It’s so bad it’s good, in a train wreck sort of way.  My then girlfriend (now wife) and I caught this on cable in college and we laughed our asses off at how awful this movie was.  You know you’re watching a bad movie when there is a scene that has one character stating that she knows she’ll die if she has sex with another character, due to his superhuman strength, but then she goes for it anyways because she wants him so bad.

Read more after the jump!

PCP - Top 10 Guy Movies

Originally posted by me on my friend's blog le-noir.com on 9/20/10

Some movies are just not for all audiences.  The movies on this top ten list are all movies that are for men.  Check your pants.  Are your genitals outside your body?  If so, then this list is for you.  If you haven’t seen the majority of these movies, check your pants again, because your man-card will be revoked shortly if you don’t add these to your Netflix queue immediately.  This list is filled with the best movies that I have seen for guys.

10.  Taken.  Why is Taken on this list?  It may not be the greatest revenge movie ever, but it is definitely one of my all time favorites.  Why?  Because Liam Neeson is just flat out badass in this movie.  I’m so used to seeing him in dramas and serious roles, so to see him taking names and kicking ass is an awesome change of pace.  His Bryan Mills is so awesome in this movie, I think he’d take out Jack Bauer if the two of them ever met up.

9.  Army of Darkness.  Although not as violent as most of the movies on this list, this film is definitely a guys movie.  My wife always hates it when this movie comes on TV, because she knows she’s just lost me for the next 90 minutes.  This is one of those films that women just don’t get.  Between the cheesy special effects and memorable corny one liners spouted by the awesome Bruce Campbell, this movie is simply a ton of fun.  “Hail to the king, baby.”