Filmstruck 4 Challenge

So, this seems to be getting a lot of attention at the moment — essentially, it just asks you to name four films that ‘define you’. Here are my choices, in no real order:

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Surely the best fantasy film ever made? Some Tolkien fans aren’t particularly happy with any of the adaptations (I’m not much of a fan when it comes to Jackson’s Hobbit films) but this one, and the following two, were special. The writing was smart and sharp — cutting Bombadil was a good move, in my opinion. The music was superb, thanks to Howard Shore. The performances were excellent, especially Sean Bean as Boromir and Ian McKellan as Gandalf. There isn’t a single dull part in the film. It’s charming, scary, dramatic and generally engaging on all levels.

The first time I watched it, I actually think I was a little too young to grasp it properly. Now that I’m older, I really appreciate just how good it was. It probably got me much more interested in Tolkien’s books too.

Mulan (1998). My favourite of the animated Disney films. Humour, action, drama, tension. I’m not the biggest fan of the ‘Reflections’ song, but most of the others are superb. Be a Man is a highlight, of course. Mulan herself is a great character, and Mushu makes for a good sidekick. (“The truth is we’re both frauds…”) As a big fan of martial arts, I always get a kick out of the training montage too.

They are apparently making two live action versions of this story, one by Disney and the other by Sony. Honestly, I feel a bit nervous about this, but I’ll wait and see how it turns out.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983). Before I got into Trek, I was really into Star Wars. (I still like it, to be clear.) My favourite film of the franchise is The Empire Strikes Back, but for some reason I feel like this third film might be a better choice for this sort of thing. I’m mainly talking about the stuff that occurs after the whole Jabba material. I really like the whole confrontation between Luke, Vader and Palpatine and the scenes between Luke, Yoda and Ghost-Kenobi. The shot of Luke standing in front of Vader’s funeral pyre is great, and the ending party is wonderful.

Spider-Man 2 (2004). When I was younger, Spider-Man was probably my favourite superhero, mainly thanks to the animated cartoon. This film is an odd choice, because I don’t even know how much I really like it — I’d like to rewatch it at some point, as it has been quite a long time. There is one scene in particular that makes me cringe, where Peter decides to start quoting a bit of poetry to Mary Jane in the middle of an argument. However, at the same time, there are some truly great moments — the whole ‘Raindrops’ scene, the bit where Peter gets ready to go and see Mary Jane in a play, the horrifying scene between Peter and his aunt, where he talks about the death of Uncle Ben, etc. I also remember being struck by one of Octavius’ lines, where he talks about using intelligence for the good of mankind.

I haven’t seen the latest Spider-Man film, but I find it doubtful that it can match this one. (The fact that the Peter in this one is actually an adult rather than a high school student is another plus point to me.) I would say that this is better than any of the modern Marvel movies that I’ve seen, other than Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Roger Ebert gives a good review of this film here.