Couple of random quickies spotted in between this afternoon’s proofing jobs:<\/p>\n
Via SF Signal<\/a>, Premiere<\/i> magazine’s Top 20 Big-Time Plot Twist<\/a> movies:<\/p>\n It’s a pretty good list, I think, although some of these — Apes<\/i>, Empire<\/i>, Soylent Green<\/i>, Kane<\/i> — have been so parodied, imitated, or otherwise talked about that they long ago lost their power to surprise anyone but the most sheltered media consumer. Still, I can attest from personal experience that Empire<\/i>‘s big revelation was damn powerful when it was fresh, and I imagine Rosebud and the Statue of Liberty must’ve packed similar punches in the days before the Internet and home video made everyone into obsessive pop-cultural encyclopedias.<\/p>\n For the record, I’ve seen all but six of these movies. The ones I’ve missed (assuming anyone cares) are The Usual Suspects<\/em>, Oldboy<\/em> (which I’ve never heard of prior to seeing this list), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari<\/em>, The Wicker Man<\/em>, Angel Heart<\/em>, and The Game<\/em>.<\/p>\n And moving right along, Michael Hinman at SyFy Portal<\/a> says<\/a> the “reimagined” Flash Gordon<\/i> isn’t long for this or any other world. Not a big surprise, based on the reactions I’ve been reading (which range from tepid to loathing). I’m still morbidly curious about it, though; maybe it’ll get a DVD release so I can at least rent it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Couple of random quickies spotted in between this afternoon’s proofing jobs: Via SF Signal, Premiere magazine’s Top 20 Big-Time Plot Twist movies: The Planet of the Apes (1968) The Empire Strikes Back (1980) [Ranty little editorial note: I modified this title, which Premiere has listed as Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-studies","category-the-glass-teat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n[Ranty little editorial note:<\/strong> I modified this title, which Premiere<\/i> has listed as Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back<\/i>. Perhaps I’m just showing my age, but I’ll never get down with this episode numbering schtick. The first movie was Star Wars<\/i>, and its sequels were Empire<\/i> and Return of the Jedi<\/i>. Call the prequels whatever you like, but I remember How Things Used to Be…]<\/li>\n