Mike Goes To Movies

2. Jurassic Park (1993) This may be the one film that I will never grow tired of. No matter how many hundreds of times I've seen it, Jurassic Park is the film that I can't turn away from whenever it comes on. To me, everything about it is perfect. Within the timeline of cinematic innovations, the film was a total breakthrough. Originally, Steven Spielberg had intended to make the film using life-size puppets for the dinosaurs (i.e. classic King Kong). However, upon encountering a few computer graphic-wizards and witnessing the recent strides that had come in VFX, Spielberg was immediately sold on using computer imagery for the film. To creature the dinosaurs he composited the VFX into a perfect blend with massive practical effects to create the creatures on-screen. For a film that is already over twenty-five years old, it amazes me every time to see how well Jurassic Park's effects still hold up. The realness of the famous T-Rex scene, when she escapes her pen ...

 3. Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Guillermo Del Toro is easily one of my all-time favourite directors and so it was very easy to be happy for him when he won both Best Director and Best Picture for The Shape of Water at last year's Oscars. However, these awards, in my opinion, are classic examples of the Academy's 'make-up' win. Yes, Shape of Water was a nice film to look at, a bit nostalgic to Hollywood and cinema, etc., but, it is definitely not Del Toro's best film. That accolade must go to Pan's Labyrinth . In classic Del Toro fashion, Pan's Labyrinth is a dark, fantastical story. It stands out among his filmography in that it equally is also quite grounded; it is a historical piece set in 1944 Spain shortly after the country's tumultuous civil war. The film follows a young girl who's mother is the (somewhat-imprisoned) wife of a violent military captain who takes his forces, along with the girl, Ofelia, and her pregnant mother, to a larg...

5. The Shining (1980) My first introduction to the The Shining wasn't through the film or the original novel, but in fact through the standout segment of  The Simpson's  season six Treehouse of Horror, The Shinning - a true testament to the hand that the Simpsons had in raising my generation. From then it would still be another number of years before I finally saw Stanley Kubrick's coveted film that the show based their segment upon (and it was only recently that I finally got around to reading King's original novel). It is now quite notoriously known that Stephen King did not particularly like Kubrick's film, as it changed a number of significant aspects and plot-points of the novel - the novel is more supernatural, as well, Jack's descent/motivations differ greatly between film and novel. Many fans took issue with King's position, arguing that the film was only an adaptation and not a literal translation; it was its own standalone entity, and a phen...