Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

The Tom of 2003 thought Pirates of the Caribbean was the coolest film ever made. He rented it from Blockbuster – one of the first DVD rentals our family made – and picked up this really annoying Jack Sparrow-esque flamboyance where everything he said was emphasised by limp hands and a pseudo-sunstroked wobble, like an Italian with Parkinson’s. He put on eyeliner with the help of some friends, and spend afternoons on the trampoline practising the Jack Sparrow swan dive – the one where your hands sort of flail around in the air on the way down.

Aliens

Aliens ranks highly among both the best and worst things for movie sequels. The good is what you’ll already know, whether you’ve seen the movie or not: Aliens is a great sequel because it’s really quite different to its predecessor. The bad is what only occurred to me as I considered what came after it: James Cameron put the idea in the heads of Ridley Scott et al. that this was a world that needed to be exhaustively explored.

Batman Begins

Did you know that Batman was created by Bob Kane? Of course you did. Everybody does. So why does Batman of all superheroes need an origin story? You know the hero – a pop culture icon. But Batman Begins isn’t an origin story for a superhero. It’s an introduction to one of the most iconic mythologies of the twentieth century.

Twelve Monkeys

I love time travel films, but until I saw Twelve Monkeys, I had started to wonder if maybe I’d seen it done every way there is. There’s the childhood adventure of Back to the Future, the sci-fi confusion-fest of Donnie Darko, and the loopy cycle of time in Looper. But in Twelve Monkeys, there’s a bleak doom and gloom that I both love for being brand new to me, and hate for making me feel dirty inside.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Random thoughts for Valentine’s Day 2017. I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind today. Remember that you probably won’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone. Then again, if you let it go, did you really appreciate it in the first place?

Stand By Me

The first time I saw a dead body was, like the characters in Stand By Me, in the company of three friends. From the top of bales of hay stacked twenty feet high, Dan, Jacob, Joe and I saw a swarm of flies pestering the body of a sheep – its guts were hanging out. But for such a relatable story, Stand By Me falls a little short of my own childhood’s sense of adventure.

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

For so cruel and unforgiving a villain as Darth Vader, one doesn’t expect him to fail. And yet, that’s exactly what he does – letting Luke Skywalker (shock twist: his own son) slip through his fingers in the closing moments of The Empire Strikes Back. It’s far from a victory for the good guys, though. It’s proven to be a gruelling two hours, and as the credits roll, I’m still left wondering if A Fool’s Hope would have been a more accurate title for the trilogy’s opening instalment.

Psycho

For two consecutive Halloweens, I’ve watched a classic horror film that has become so ubiquitous in pop culture that its shocks, twists and scares surely shouldn’t surprise me. It came as no surprise when Jack Torrance went crazy and tried to kill his family. I knew from the opening titles that Norman Bates is dressing up as his mother and committing these murders. And yet Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins make me doubt myself with every passing minute.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Late in 2015, having gone on and on about the importance of The Lord of the Rings films to me, I decided to read the books. I’ll be the first to admit I wouldn’t have picked them up, let alone finished them if it wasn’t for the films. But now that I’ve experienced both, it’s clear to see the differences between them.

Cinema Paradiso

“An enchanted village. A wonderful friendship. Star-crossed lovers. And the magic of the movies.” Cinema Paradiso hits every one of these beats. I celebrated, laughed and cried in all the right places. But, as Tornatore’s obituary to classic movie theatres, Cinema Paradiso doesn’t capture what the movies mean to me – it’s a lamentation for a filmgoing generation I was never a part of.