Thursday, October 20, 2005

When getting back into the blogging thing, it's better to wade in and test the waters than to cannonball from the high dive. That's my motto anyway.

Okay, that's never been my motto. But I'm making it my motto from now on. Or at least through the end of the month.

Getting to it: John Scalzi's got a new book out, The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies. It looks like a lot of fun, and I've put it on my Christmas list.

In the book, Scalzi presents his picks for the sci-fi film canon. Following standard blogging conventions, this was quickly turned into a meme: copy the list and bold the ones you've seen.

Here's my whack at it, with commentary.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
- A long time favorite that I've watched at least two dozen times
Akira
Alien
Aliens
- I agree with the purported originator of this meme that the whole Alien series is overrated, but one can't ignore their importance
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
- I still need to check out the director's cut
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
- I couldn't pinpoint when I saw this, but I watched a lot of old Flash Gordon serials on TV as a kid
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
- A progenitor of Star Trek, and a great flick in its own right
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- I disagree with the widely-held contention that this is the best Trek film, but I agree that it's the most important
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
- In my personal overall top five, for obvious reasons
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)
- I caught WGN's showings of WotW and When Worlds Collide every year during my childhood

30 out of 50 is sparser than I would have guessed, but not egregiously so. Brazil, A Clockwork Orange, and Solaris are on my "to see" list, and I'm thinking Bride of Frankenstein would make for fun viewing sometime in the next week and a half.

Posted @ 6:25 AM

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