If I could save ten more movies

OK, so the aliens came and chose me at random to select ten movies to save for their archives before they wipe us out. The aliens have now seen the ten movies, and they liked them a lot, so they have come back, and now they have asked for ten more. I see a glimpse of hope for humanity, if they keep liking the movies (will they ask for some other kind of art?) I feed them we may postpone or even cancel our doomsday by alien's rays of death. So here I go with what would be my next ten movies.

Bakemono no ko (2015, Mamoru Hosoda)

IMDB 7.7, Rotten Tomatoes 90%

First of all, probably you have not seen this one, and that's OK, but you should, because if you have seen it and you don't like it, you are a unequivocally a bad person and you should know and should not have offspring. That's it. This movie is beautiful, from the animation, to the style, the story and the soundtrack. I guess you could replace this one with some Miyazaki movie like Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away (which I love), but the forgiveness message of this movie is so beautiful that this one made it here for me over Miyazaki's works.

Use the sword in your heart.

Aliens (1986, James Cameron)

IMDB 8.4, Rotten Tomatoes 98%

The first Alien movie is also great, and very different from this one (horror vs action, both in the science-fiction frame), but this one has so many epic lines, so much good stuff, and the aesthetics or visual effects have not aged one bit in three decades, that for me, this one is over the first one. This movie is the essence and the spirit of the fight for survival at the core of human beings. Bring on the Xenomorphs!

Private Hudson: Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?
Private Vasquez: No. Have you?

The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)

IMDB 9.0, Rotten Tomatoes 94%

Superheroes are a thing, have been for a long time. And I am a Marvel person, but I need to admit that the best superhero movie ever made is from DC universe, but they got it all wrong when naming the movie: the title should be "The Joker". This movie is about him, and leaving the performance of an actor like Christian Bale in the shadows is no small feat additionally. Only that scene of the joker coming out of the hospital with the nurse dress and the blowing it up... masterful.

Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!

Return of the Jedi (1983, Richard Marquand)

IMDB 8.4, Rotten Tomatoes 80%

And I mean Star Wars in general. Although for me the best one is not The Empire Strikes Back but this one, but can I say, I am a sucker for grand finales. If you have not seen Star Wars, you really don't understand the XX century pop culture. So do yourself a favor and go see it.

Luke: I'll not leave you here. I've got to save you.
Anakin: You already have, Luke.

Avatar (2009, James Cameron)

IMDB 7.8, Rotten Tomatoes 83%

Put together Pocahontas, Dancing with Wolves and Aliens, add the most stunning visual effects in the history of cinema and you have Avatar. James Cameron is creating one of the most engaging universes of the XXI century with this saga, and additionally the background message of what we are doing with our planet is so necessary... that this movie had to be on this list.

I see you.

Zootopia (2016, Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Rich Moore)

IMDB 8.1, Rotten Tomatoes 98%

The characters in this movie are incredibly well defined, depicted and complex. The animation work is beautiful. And the story is the best cry out that we have for the world of racism, sexism and egoism that we live in. It is emotional, funny and clever. It touches a part of us that we all should care about. Plus the sloths. THE SLOTHS.

Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all your insipid dreams magically come true. So let it go.

Avengers (2012, Joss Whedon)

IMDB 8.1, Rotten Tomatoes 92%

The Joker... I mean, The Dark Knight could not be in this list with MCU absent. So here are The Avengers to represent the MCU, the biggest cinematographic universe ever made, with a story so rich and fun and characters so complex and fleshed out than it rivals to the comics from were they draw inspiration. What Marvel is doing with all this has no precedent in the history of cinema.

Steve Rogers: Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?
Tony Stark: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

Cloud Atlas (2012, Tom Tykwer, Lana and Lilly Wachowski)

IMDB 7.5, Rotten Tomatoes 66%

This movie will give you several of the biggest brain fucks you have ever had in your life in just one evening, in the best possible way. I am not one of those Lars Von Trier/Terrence Malick morons that go about saying things like "if you didn't like it, it's because you did not understand it", but in this case, if you didn't like it, it's because you did not understand it. I guess that makes me a Wachowski moron, which I am happy to be.

Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

Terminator 2 (1991, James Cameron)

IMDB 8.5, Rotten Tomatoes 93%

One of the best movies ever, one of the best science-fiction plots wrapped in the best possible action container, the best Schwarzenegger movie, and the best Cameron movie. Also the best depiction so far (and it is from 1991) of the Asimov's concept of 'travel back in time to save the future'. Anything to add? I thought so.

Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator, would never stop. It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die, to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up.

The Crow (1994, Alex Proyas)

IMDB 7.6, Rotten Tomatoes 82%

The devil is in the detail, and there are so many great details in this one. One of the best examples that the best best love stories don't need to be told in a cheesy way, and can even make for an amazing action movie with a great dark atmosphere.

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.

If I could save only ten movies

The other day a committee of aliens came to me (crazy, I know), and they explained to me that they have stellar nurseries in which they hatch their own, but for it to work they need tons of biomass. They explained how places like earth are just some wild farm from where to gather this biomass, and that we are about to be harvested. Even then, they feel bad about all the countless species to have extincted so far, so they have a tradition (just to make them feel better about the xenocides). When they are about to harvest a planet they ask their inhabitants for some token of their culture to be stored in their quantum crystal digital stores, so they will be preserved forever and seen in a billion worlds for a billion years. In our case they want movies, ten of them. As they understand society, any chain is as week as the weakest link, so all individuals have to be equally prepared for everything at all times in their species; hence, for anything they just choose someone at random, and that's what they apply to others also (rings a bell?). They have explained to me that I have been chosen at random from seven billion, and that I have to choose these ten movies as the only thing that will remain from us once we are harvested. This is just a farm, none will survive, it's the end of all days. We humans don't work like that, we specialize, but that's how it has to go down, so even I am no one to say, in my most humble opinion these would be my top ten, in no particular order, and the reasons why.

Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)

IMDB 8.2, Rotten Tomatoes 89%

Where Science-Fiction, Philosophy and Noir meet at their best (AKA cyberpunk), if I could only pick one movie for the alien's repository of gems from every planet they've wiped out, chances are it would be Blade Runner. Only the question asked here... what happens when we have the tech to build synthetic humans, that feel and think as you or me do, that come with "best before" date for cheap and disposable work force? Based on the equally genius novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die.

Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)

IMDB 8.9, Rotten Tomatoes 94%

The best portrayal in movies of how random, cruel, vicious, stupid and greedy humans can be. Not sure a good idea that the aliens see this one, but only the conversation about feet massage with Vincent and Jules backs on camera makes it worth it. A master piece of apparently absurd dialogue that hides profound knowledge and wisdom about human nature.

Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.

Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)

IMDB 8.7, Rotten Tomatoes 86%

Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors of all time, and sure the best from his generation, and this is probably his best movie. A dream within a dream. A spinning top spinning on a table as the final scene presents you with at least seven possible endings. And the cast of the movie delivers some of the best acting ever seen in a movie.

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)

IMDB 8.8, Rotten Tomatoes 79%

Every generation has their own big adversity, you name it: the black plague, the crusades, the inquisition, world wars, cold wars, great economic depressions; but not us, we are the sons of apathy with nothing to fight for but our hedonistic desires, and no greater enemy than ourselves. And this movie is the perfect reflection of that reality, plus the brilliant script and the stellar performance by Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Based on the book of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. 

Ghost in the Shell (1995, Mamoru Oshii)

IMDB 8.0,  Rotten Tomatoes 96%

Humans have replaced so many parts of them for machines that they are hardly human, and machines are so evolved that they have feelings more humane than humans. The story of a hybrid between human and machine discovering what she is and of an AI born in the vast information sea of what we know today as the internet. Based on the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow published in 1989, when the internet as we know it today was but a dream.

If a technological feat is possible, man will do it. Almost as if it's wired into the core of our being.

The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)

IMDB 9.0, Rotten Tomatoes 97%

[This one is interchangeable with the first one, for me, part II is better since I am more a Robert de Niro person than a Marlon Brando person, but both are sublime].

The Godfather. shit. If this one (or the first one) is not on your top ten list you need to have an MRI done on your head to look for brain damage. I am not even going to argue why this movie is here.

My father taught me many things here - he taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

The Matrix (1999,  Lana and Lilly Wachowski)
IMDB 8.7, Rotten Tomatoes 87%

The Wachowskis took East and West philosophy, computer programming, martial arts, Ghost in the Shell, Rene Descartes and Isaac Asimov to ensemble one of the most influential, imitated, mind blowing and aesthetically perfect movies ever made. And I love the sequels too, contrary to popular opinion. I know this is usually a trope, but in my case, I actually only say this of two movies (this one, and its sequels, and Inception): If you don't like them, it's because you don't understand them really. And the worst thing is believing you understand them when you don't, for you cannot learn a thing you think you know.
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Contact (1997, Robert Zemeckis)

IMDB 7.4, Rotten Tomatoes 62%

The best of the very few movies that takes a serious and believable approach to the first contact with an alien civilization (hello Arrival). A beautiful story of hope for mankind amidst an age of technological and scientific advance and ideological and political stupidity. Based on the book of the same name by Carl Sagan, one of the best human beings ever born. We miss you Dr. Sagan.

You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.

The Martian (2015, Ridley Scott)

IMDB 8.0, Rotten Tomatoes 92%

Ridley Scott has in this list Blade Runner, which is one the most dystopic, dark and depressing movies you can imagine, while he also directed The Martian, a movie about optimism, about never surrendering, about using our most powerful weapon to overcome any obstacle: our intellect and knowledge. Plus the power of science. And I never liked Matt Damon, that is, until I saw this movie, in which he proved to me what he can do. Based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir.

In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option, I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this.

Dracula (1992, Francis Ford Coppola)

IMDB 7.5, Rotten Tomatoes 78%

Many books have been adapted to movies, and almost always the book is better than the movie (especially in the case of the Lord of the Rings). Not this once, this Coppola adaptation of one of the most (in)famous books in human history beats the novel by Bram Stoker, and that's a lot to say from me, since the book is also one of my favorite ones. Contrary to the appearances, a story about what happens when we find ourselves out of our place and out of our time. We would all be monsters if suddenly we are placed in a different country 500 years from now. And it also happens to be one of the most beautiful love stories ever made.

I have crossed oceans of time to find you.

On a side note(s)

there are several things that appear more than once in this ten movies: both Ridley Scott and Francis Ford Coppola directed two of them. Coincidentally, Keanu Reeves is in two of them (The Matrix and Dracula) although he only has a lead role in one of them. Two of them were made the same year, 1999 (The Matrix and Fight Club). Six of the ten are Science-Fiction. Eight of them are based on books (where most good stories come from). And all but one (Ghost in the Shell) are from the States, which makes me think, we can say tons of shit about the people from the stars and stripes country, but they do know their shit when making movies (to be fair the have probably also done 9 of the 10 worst movies ever done, but who cares?).

I feel sad there is no more space in the alien's quantum crystal digital stores for some James Cameron and Martin Scorsese movies, which are obviously the honorable mentions for this list.

And finally, no, Citizen Kane could not be here. That is one of the shitiest movies I have ever suffered. I would prefer to take out my nails using my teeth rather than to have to watch it again. Fuck Citizen Kane.

Warcraft: The Beginning

I have played a lot of World of Warcraft in the past. From vanilla up until Wrath you could say I was almost hardcore. Not anymore anyway: I played most of Pandaria things, but didn't complete any raids and I haven't touched Warlords (even tough I bought it). I love the stories that Chris Metzen and company are telling through the popular MMORPG.

Fast forward to 2016 and we finally get a movie about all these stories. I love the other two movies Duncan Jones directed (Moon and Source Code), and I love Travis Fimmel as Ragnar in Vikings, so I got pretty excited about this one. All the fuzz and news surrounding the premier got me excited. All the trailers got me excited. I effectively was on the hype train. And then the critics came along. 30 and something in meta-critic, less than 30% in rotten tomatoes and countless reviews of hatred and disdain towards Warcraft.

And then came the fans: when the movie finally premiered on the 27th of may in several countries (not including USA, China or UK) first in line fans voted for it on the likes of IMDB for an astounding average of 9. Agreed those were mostly fanboys, but on the other hand, in rotten tomatoes it is only David Lynch and the likes fanboys. As of the writing of this, Warcraft: The Beginning has a 8 of public score and a 3.6 of meta-critic which is the biggest gap to my knowledge on a movie with a score of 8 and up (around 1,000 of those on IMDB). I do not know what happened or what explains this. Maybe this gap will reduce or disappear over time. Or maybe it will increase (who knows).

On my side of things, I saw the movie yesterday with four friends, one of them a WoW player, while the other three have never played any Warcraft games. The thing is we all liked it, scoring it between 7 and 9 over 10 I would say. It could have been better, mostly due to the short duration and some really silly lines in the script. Oh, the script. That scene in which Anduin is in a lot of pain, and he's with Garona. Both Fimmel and Patton are acting it well here. and then Anduin says something like "Right now I am feeling more pain than ever in my life". What the fuck? What the fuck was that? from the events happening and the acting you could already tell that, so why that sentence. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? dialogue is only for when it is needed, not for exposition of obvious things in this ridiculous manner. For some reason the Orc lines where much less silly across the movie, and Durotan and Gul'dan where awesome.

But it is a highly enjoyable movie, it's fun, it's intense, some of the characters are highly likable and/or memorable, and it has at least two of those moments for which we go to see this kind of epic movies, the kind of 'freeeeeedooooooom' moment from Braveheart that makes your guts twist and turn in a mixed bag of feelings, between anger and exaltation, visceral epicness in its purest form.

I can only hope that it performs well in the box office (specially in USA), so we get more of these. Duncan Jones and Blizzard have already expressed their intention to do at least three of them. And there are three Warcraft games (old RTS, not WoW). And that could mean that the end of the third movie is Mount Hyjal. The freaking battle for mount Hyjal. Fuck me hard, and then let me see that before I die. HYJAL. Oh, and I propose Caity Lozt for Tyrande Whisperwind.

And by the way, for me it was a 9/10. Not the prince that was promised, but definitely the best video game movie so far, and a good epic fantasy movie overall (way better than The Two Towers for sure).