Personally, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I knew it was going to be quite the experience before I went for the first time‡ but it was so much fun I had to keep going back bringing friends each time.
It’s still a fun tradition to do though we haven’t done it since last year, we’re probably going to try and go again in a few weeks.
‡ I had seen it many times before going to see it in theaters for the first time.
The Fellowship of the Ring. Probably the other two movies as well but this one stands out in my mind.
The first Pirates of the Caribbean as well. Back before they turned it into a franchise. Such a fun adventure movie.
I have a huge soft spot for the second and third pirates films. I think looking at the first and thinking it could make a great trilogy is totally valid and although they’re definitely much more long winded than the first with less lovable characters, they’re good films and if I ever revisit the first, I generally revisit the second and third too.
I watched the Dungeons and Dragons movie when it came out and really enjoyed it, but it definitely felt like I was watching a marvel movie, albeit a well written one, Pirates may be the last YA action adventure franchise that isn’t just the re-skinned marvel formula, which makes it far more watchable than 80% of the genre since.
Also Pirates 3 is basically the creator of the horrible pressure CGI artists have suffered under for the past 15 years, so take that as you may.
While I enjoy the Pirates trilogy, I feel like they could just as easily have kept it a single movie. It was fine, the story was conclusive enough to satisfy and open ended enough to tickle the imagination.
Not everything has to be turned into a franchise or a ‘verse.
Avengers: Endgame
The buildup to this movie was basically the perfect storm. And boy did it deliver. I doubt Marvel will ever be this good again. And actually, the fact that their trying to make every movie now an “Avengers” movie is exactly the reason it’s going downhill, in my opinion. Feels like almost every recent Marvel movie (Black Panther 2, Ant-Man Quantumania, Black Widow), they all have to be huge wars with multiple superheroes coming in to save the day. They cant just make a smaller scale superhero movie anymore. There have been a few exceptions, like Shang-Chi, and that one was way better. Avengers Endgame was so amazing in theaters because it was made on a decade of buildup.
matrix I, skipped classes and watch it more than ten times in cinema.
Follow the white rabbit.
Man I remember the marketing campaign for that movie was incredible too.
The marketing was incredible because it leaned heavily into “What is the Matrix?” and didn’t spoil the plot. It made the movie itself amazing, because you had no idea what to expect.
I cringe just thinking about how that movie would be marketed today. The trailer would probably start off with all the action scenes voiced over by Morpheus explaining exactly what the Matrix was, followed by Agent Smith monologuing about how humans are a virus that needs to be wiped out.
Yes yes 1000 times yes. It was so incredible and there were so many great lines in the film talking about what the Matrix was without actually revealing the mystery. “The matrix is all around you” etc.
Absolute master class in building hype for a movie and as you say, puts modern marketing campaigns absolutely to shame. Although to be fair they did have solid gold to work with.
Bladerunner 2049. I saw it five or so times in IMAX.
Inception. I saw it 4 times in theaters. Every time, I noticed new details. It was such a unique and original story, and it was executed incredibly well. I had never seen a movie where the score was so essential to the storytelling. It’s such a dense movie that despite being 2.5 hours, I don’t think I could cut 2 minutes out of it without really hurting the pacing or missing necessary moments. Inception is the reason I can understand and appreciate both filmmaking and the composition and arrangement of instrumental music.
Same here. But even after rewatching it so many times, I never realized that the iconic Inception BWAAAH is actually a super-slowed down version of the dream world cue song (Edith Piaf’s Non, je ne regrette rien). There’s a really neat analysis done by Rutgers’ Christopher Doll, which explains how Zimmer uses the slowed down motif to signal which dreamscape we are in as the viewer while watching the movie. Link here.
That’s exactly what I meant when I said that the score is essential. And it’s super fucking cool that the orchestra includes an electric guitar and an electric cello. As much as I love the score for Interstellar, I don’t know if Inception’s score even can be topped! Star Wars is the only thing that comes close imho.
