Monday, February 8, 2010

#35 The Dark Knight: The Joker

Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Action/Crime/Superhero
Key Players: Heath Ledger

It's pretty acknowledged by critic's and public alike, that Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker were an astounding one, worthy of the many accolades and awards he won post death. But for the right person, The Joker as a character is gold: extravagant and psychopathic. However, if not handled right, it could also crumble and collapse. Like it did way back when Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson tried to breathe life into the masked vigilante (I never did like those movies). Christopher Nolan were just incredibly lucky to bag an actor worthy of the task, someone who saw him through the same lens as Nolan. And out of that vision, a blazing psychopath was born. From Nicholson's clownish buffoon to Heath's ice cold killer. The transformation were immense. For me, no image speak of The Jokers insanity and raving mad personality than the one below. He's just broken out of prison, leaning out of the window of a police car, like a mad dog let free into the world to bring chaos and havoc. It's beautifully shot and put together, with the Jokers distressing theme music (a single note, growing in strength) in the background. Wonderful.

#34 King Kong: Four beasts enter, one will leave...

Director: Peter Jackson
Genre: Adventure
Key Players: Naomi Watts, Kong, three T-Rex

In 2005, when Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong was released, it was an unprecedented feat of animation and special effects: the surroundings were huge, from Skull Island to New York; the creatures, how crazy they even might have looked, you believed; and Kong himself acted and looked totally real. So to pit the mighty Kong against three Tyrannosauras Rex in a fight over Naomi Watts, well, that's a look into the mind of Peter Jackson. Even though it's a bit OTT, it works. Like always. It's one of those mind boggling extraordinary scenes that you can watch over and over, even now, five years later, and still be amazed about.

#33 Apocalypse Now: Attack of Wagner

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Genre: War
Key Players: Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall

Coppola's frantic masterpiece Apocalypse Now, dealing with the extreme absurdities of war, offers up more than handful of great moments to chose from, all as visually strong as thought-provoking. But who can forget the massive chopper attack, accompanied to Wagner's bombastic Ride of the Valkyries. It's grand and awe inspiring as well as demented and disgusting. The horror, the horror.

#32 Rules of Attraction: Victor Ward Montage

Director: Roger Avary
Genre: Drama (sort of)
Key Players: Kip Pardue

Although it differs a little from the book, Avary's adaptation of cult novelist Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules Of Attraction, the feel and style of the movie is pretty much the same as the book. And all the little quirks and tricks that Mr Ellis employs in his writing comes forth the strongest in the "Victor Ward Goes To Europe" montage. Narrated and edited in an insane pace with images of him doing drugs, sleeping around, more drugs, meeting random people doing random things, this is how you imagine that particular chapter to look like. It's evocative and embodies Ellis' writing to a much greater extent than let's say the other famous Bret Easton Ellis adaptation.