Shallow Dive - My 'Select Five' of the First 50 Reviews
Welcome to the first iteration of 'Shallow Dives'. I just hit my 50th review and wanted to mark the occasion with a quick reflection on some of films that stood out in significant ways. Notice that this is not a 'Top 5' type of list or any sort of 'ranking'. I don't want this to just be a reiteration of the 'best' movies. You can do that yourself by using the tags to sort to the 10/10s and 9/10s. Instead, I want to highlight the films that stuck out in unique ways to me as the viewer. So without further adieu, let's look at my select five.
Kicking things off is one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. eXistenZ is my first foray into the films of David Cronenberg and it's not even the most Cronenberg-ian film out there. I thought Cronenberg crafted a really interesting film with a pretty cool concept that was ahead of its time. In fact, I remember remarking about how it relevancy has only increased overtime with the emergence and advancements made within AI and VR technologies.
As for the 'body horror' elements, I didn't find them nearly as off putting as I would have imagined given Cronenberg reputation. In fact, I found the grotesqueness to be a fairly fitting inclusion in the film and gave interesting insights into Cronenberg's point of view. I hope to encounter more of these unexpected movies in the next phase of reviews.
I'm including The Matrix here for two main reasons. First, it is 1 of only 3 movies that earned a 10/10 in this batch of reviews. Some others came close to getting a masterpiece rating, but there really wasn't even a question when it came to this one.
Second, The Matrix was one of the first entries into the Deep Dives sections of the site. I like doing the reviews, but I really enjoy doing the Deep Dives and getting to dig into the facets of films that get overlooked. I learned a ton about The Matrix writing it and gained an even greater appreciation for how many things have to go 'just right' for these masterpieces to get made.
Melancholia makes the list, not because it is a particularly fun movie to watch, but because it represents another instance of escaping a comfort zone. I have known about Lars von Trier for a long time, but have almost religiously avoided watching any of his films due to their reputation as very arthouse-y. Having been forced by the randomizer to break that trend, I was pleasantly surprised to find a very compelling, nihilistic, yet somehow romantic, sci-fi film.
I didn't always use the randomizer to select my movies for me. In the instance of Rogue One, I had just finished watching the fantastic show Andor. The series did a wonderful job of acting as a detailed prequel story and enriches the experience of Rogue One in many ways.
It also represents a very interesting melding of TV and film. Since the advent of streaming services, we have seen an increase in the fusion of both TV shows and films within certain IPs. Marvel, for instance, created vast amount of TV specific content to help build out the already established MCU. However, outside of introducing new characters, or setting up minor plot points or allusions to other media, most content was self-contained. In this particular instance, Andor directly transitions into Rogue One as if it was the plan all along.
I've watched a lot of movies over the course of my life and the majority of films on my watchlist are films that I have seen before. This was the first instance in which re-visiting a film caused me to have a significant change in my opinion of it. That's not to say that I thought Ocean's Twelve was complete trash before, but I really enjoyed the most recent re-watch and I hope that happens more often. I credit the rubric for at least some of it too. With a more critical lens, I was able to discover layers or aspects of the film that I didn't before.
Alright, that's it. A quick entry but I think a good way to highlight some interesting films as well as the process of writing all these reviews. Time to get started on the next 50.
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