Movie Mini-Review: THX-1138

Last week while I was at the library, I was browsing the DVD section trying to see if there was something exciting to watch. I came across THX-1138, and knew I had to watch it. I knew it was George Lucas’s first directing work, so my expectations weren’t very high. However, watching it was important to me so I could see how Lucas has grown over the years, and to finally get some of the references to THX and 1138 that have been made in Lucasfilm / Lucasarts products over the last 30 years.

I’m not really sure what to say about the movie; it’s a futuristic story of a dystopia full of drug-controlled people living in a enclosed city. It’s not really my favorite genre of movie, and there were times that it was just too artsy for me. [The austere sets, though, allowed me to visualize parts of Brave New World for the first time.] Also, I’m not sure that George Lucas has really grown at all in his love scene writing skills over the past 40 years, even after he recut the film (I watched the Director’s Cut, which is the only form available on DVD at the moment.) That being said, it’s still interesting to watch as a way to see how George Lucas started off. Believe me, you could pick plenty of worse films to watch.

Movie Mini-review: 12 Angry Men

Great character movie. Must watch by all.

…ok, I guess this didn’t really need a separate post, but there’s not much else I can say. Not to mention my brain is a bit non-functional on a Friday night.

Top 1000 Lists

The Guardian, a daily paper over in the UK, has been running a series of articles over the last few days developing their list of the top 1000 novels. They had done a earlier set of these before focusing on movies (and apparently music albums). I had seen it earlier and didn’t think a whole lot of it, but the series came up a lot today in my RSS feed perusals, both on SF Signal and Metafilter.

While these sort of lists are good benchmarks for readers in a particular area, I’m not sure how well the series works as a whole. During a good year while I’m out in the working world, I think I’m going to be lucky to finish 50 books. At that rate, I’d finish the whole list 20 years down the line, presuming I focused solely on that task. Admittedly, I’ve finished several of the books in the past (say 50 of them; the list isn’t complete yet and I haven’t read through most of the lists). My point still stands, though. It’s a list of books that you’d be lucky to finish unless it’s your job to read books. [I'd love to have that job, for what it's worth.]

This same concept also applies to other general 1000 ‘best-of’ lists. I don’t think someone’s really going to be able to see all 1001 things you must see before you die… unless you’re dedicated and have the time and money to do so. The list of albums and movies are a bit more achievable simply from the lesser amount of time required to listen and watch the works, but you still have to be willing to put in the time and effort to do so, and I’m not sure that many people have that ability.

All this being said, will I use this list as a reference? Sure, but I won’t use it as a guide for my reading selections for the moment. Down the line when I’m done with my award lists, if I’m looking for (say) a science fiction novel, I might use that list of best SF novels as a way of guiding my selections. The list as a whole, though, isn’t for me.

–Ryan