100 Posts Later: The 10 Best Filmquisition Articles

Well I finally did it.  Thanks to all of your continued support, Filmquisition (formerly Just a Matter of CineMantics) has hit 100 posts.  There were some rocky times, like my extended leave of absence at the beginning of 2014, and some posts that didn't turn out quite as planned, but we finally made it.  So to commemorate this achievement, I thought that I would take a look back at the best of the best: those top tier posts that best encapsulate the raging filmquisition.

10) Random Movie #12: I Spit on Your Grave - During my hiatus from this blog, I would look back on this article in particular and wonder why I ever stopped.  The posts that came before it were admittedly rough around the edges, stiffly voiced and generally a touch to gratingly formal to feel natural.  This post, however, came off as far more organic, even conversational, and was immensely fun to write.

It is what helped rename the Random Movie series as Date Night and helped signal to me the direction that the blog wanted to go (whether I wanted to take it there or not).  It's really more of a bridge between the old way of doing things and the new, rather than a demarcation of style in of itself.  But suffice it to say that if I had stopped writing one post sooner, I might not have had the motivation to come back at all.

9) Unreality Companion: Oh Captain, My Captain - I was working through a lot of things in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier's release, ranging from the post-9/11 metaphor of Phase 2 to the metafictional necessity of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  The most personal question that I faced was my complicated feelings towards Cap' when Hulk had historically been my favorite MCU hero.

The result was this surprisingly tightly written piece that placed him as the moral center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: the "best" hero, if not my favorite one.  Hulk might be more exciting and Stark more fun, but nobody - but nobody - beats out the Captain.

8) Why I'm Okay with No Iron Man 4 - Sometimes I start pieces out with only the vaguest idea of where it will end up at the end.  I don't go in trying to say something so much as I am trying to figure it out myself.  And then gradually, over any number of stream-of-conscious paragraphs, I get at what I'm trying to say myself.  Those are my favorite kinds of posts to make, and it's no wonder why this one made my list.

By trying to work out why exactly I was fine without a fourth entry into the Iron Man series, I realized the beauty behind the "Marvel experiment."  The meta-franchise wasn't beholden to any one character.  One could be retired - could rotate out of the standard lineup - or be straight-up killed off, and the series was both strong and flexible enough to endure.  It made me realize that Marvel hasn't even begun to tap its franchise's potential and that solo projects involving Nick Fury, Black Widow, War Machine and others weren't just possible, but in many cases increasingly likely.

7) From the Vault: In the Mood for Love - In the Mood for Love is a hard film to pin down.  While I continue to stand behind every single word of the review that I did write, the opinion that I hold of it now is vastly different from the one that I wrote down in that post (which, in turn, is vastly different from what I held when the credits began rolling).  It's the kind of spellbinding movie that improves the more that you think about it, and were I to make a list of favorite movies now, despite its then 7.5 rating, it would surely rank favorably within it.

Like the previous entry in this list, my review wasn't so much about conveying a set opinion, but rather exploring a nebulous one.  I was figuring out for myself what I thought about the movie as I wrote it down, and a revised review would invariably come from that same place of introspection and exploration.

6) Unreality Companion: Interstellar - I'll admit that my reviews tend to be on the wordier side of things.  I'm the kind of person that feels compelled to share every thought of any perceived merit on any subject that I write on.  And trust me, I had a lot on my mind when it came to Christopher Nolan's latest film, which was a singularly mind-blowing experience to walk away from.

That's why it was so perplexing to me that this review was so concise.  Rather than going on and on about everything the film did right, I was able to surmise my opinion very efficiently, proving that sometimes scaling back my intentions and letting the articles write themselves is in everybody's best interest.  I can credit this review for the reason why I typically constrain myself to top 5 lists rather than top 10s most of the time: I would rather get my main point across than have it get lost in the rest of what I have to say.

5) Unreality Companion: Why Blumhouse Productions is the Only Real Name in Horror Right Now - If most of my posts are exploratory, this was deliberately predestined.  I had been ruminating over the points I listed off in this article for months beforehand, expressing them in half a dozen different ways.  So when it came time to set them to print, I knew precisely what to say and precisely how to say it.

And despite a few hiccups of less-than-amazing and co-produced with Platinum Dunes films, I stand by my assessment that they're the only real, consistently good, always worth a look production company working in the horror genre today.  And yes, you really do need to watch out for what other production companies they choose to work with, but on the whole, if they can make good movies spun off from demonic dolls, they really can't go wrong.

4) Extra, Extra!: Marvel's Phase 3 Lineup - This was a monster of an article to undertake immediately following the announcement proper.  I had no time to prep, research or even think through what I wanted to say.  Everything was an immediate reaction: (relatively) uninformed, unrefined and unfiltered.  Remember what I said about using this blog to explore my own thoughts on different subjects?  This is probably the best example of that.

Looking at this timeline still pumps me up for the next four years of Marvel movies (something that DC's similar announcements still can't manage to do).  Marvel has proven unerringly right in every decision that they've made since Iron Man - other than maybe rushing Iron Man 2's production - and I can't wait to see what out of left field films they produce that, but the laws of all common sense, should be terrible.

3) Unreality Companion: Ten Movies to Look Forward to in 2015 - This was another article that was just a lot of fun to write.  I got to take a look through the end of the year and see what awesome, stand-out films I had to look forward to.  And even though I admittedly forgot some (Mockingjay Part 2) or wasn't aware of some others (Resurrection of F), 2015 continues to promise to be one of the most insane years in film this century.

There were so many films that I had to look forward to, I had to write a sequel to cover even some of them.  And even now I'm debating making this duology a trilogy.  No matter what else happens, 2015 is the definitive year to go to the movies this decade (at least).

2) Unreality Companion: 10 Movies You Need to See Before Oscar Night - This article was as much a check list to myself as it was to anybody who read it.  Here were ten movies that I (and others) absolutely have to see before February 22nd.

Admittedly, most of them were Best Picture nominees, but that's largely the point.  At the ceremony, Best Picture rules the day, and most other categories fall in line from there.  How many acting nominations, screenplay nominations or technical nominations go to other movies?  And even then, how many of those outliers get multiple nominations.  At any rate, the gauntlet has been thrown, and there's less than a month to meet the challenge.

1) Unreality Companion: Modern Horror Classics - It should come as no shock to anybody who knows me (or has long read this blog) that my favorite film genre is horror, so much so that I had inadvertently become the resident expert on the subject.  Every year, friends and family members would elicit me for Halloween screamers to take in the holiday with.  And every year, I more than happily obliged them.

The fact that it took me so long to come up with a definitive list of twentieth century favorites is the only real mystery here.  I got to look back through my favorites from the past decade and a half and pick out the celebrated masterpieces, the reviled gems and the forgotten terrors that made up this century of terror.  I even got to look back and revise my opinion of films I had previously passed over as interesting, but average, which is always something I love to do.

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