Monday, June 18, 2012

Fast Five: Sci-fi Edition

Let me do a very brief movie review: I saw Prometheus recently, and I loved it. The look, the sound, the ideas. All top-notch and definitely worth your time.

If you're like me, after seeing Prometheus you might just spend a bunch of time reading stuff online to see what other people think it's all about. That's almost been as much fun as actually watching the movie. In fact, my man, Micheal Offutt, wrote a great piece about Prometheus that helped me sound pretty smart at breakfast yesterday. Thanks Michael. Check him out for some seriously in-depth film analysis.

I wouldn't say I'm a huge sci-fi fan, but Prometheus got me thinking about some of my favorite sci-fi movies. I usually do my lists on Fridays, but I am officially breaking free of that structure. Fast Fives will now appear whenever the motivation strikes. 

So today, in honor of a truly great sci-fi film, I present my top five science fiction movies of all-time.

5) Close Encounters of the Third Kind: This is probably one of the first sci-fi movies I ever watched, and so many of the images have remained with me. The movie perfectly captures a sense of adventure that every sci-fi movie after it has tried to emulate.

4) Back to the Future: I recently watched this again with my daughter. I just kept thinking how damn clever it is. 

3) The Matrix: This movie literally had me on the edge of my seat at times. The sequels, not so much.

2) Inception: The movies love to play with dreams, but nobody did it as well as Chris Nolan.

1) Alien/Aliens: These two are a packaged deal for me. Aliens may be the best sequel of all-time, and Ellen Ripley is one of the great female characters in film history.  

Prometheus may join this list after some more marinating, but for now these are my choices. I'd love to hear what your favorite sci-fi movies are.   

9 comments:

  1. I like the Back to the Future film because it is as you said so clever. I have no other favorites, but I will check this one out because I like to follow the Hollywood career of Swedish actors and Noomi Rapace is one of my favorites after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies.

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    1. Gotta support those fellow Swedes. Rapace is quite good in the movie, and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of her in the States.

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  2. I too man a huge Prometheus fan. It just had me thinking for so long after the film. Any film that does that has the right combination of mystery and topics to make it discussion worthy.

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    1. Not your standard summer blockbuster fare, that's for sure.

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  3. excellent list! love them all.
    dont think prometheus will be on it...

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  4. Haven't seen Back to the Future in years... perhaps time for a rewatch. I do see many of the Alien/Predator movies regularly and think they are/were genius.

    Great list!

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  5. Love no. 4.

    And I can see 'Prometheus' joining your list. My uncle, an engineer whom I admire, said it was the best movie he'd seen in about fifteen years.

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  6. Love all those movies, well, except Matrix. It went over my head. I'd swap it out for Star Wars.

    Haven't seen Prometheus yet, but I hope to get out soon to see it. It looks so good.

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  7. The Matrix for sure. Also, the original Terminator, Aliens, The Thing. I'm not thinking straight, there are so many more. Great topic. We are hoping to see Prometheus on Monday.

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