What's your favorite movies & (or) books? My 2 cents...
FILMS
SEVEN
A dark noir tale of a serial killer that is killing his victims according to the seven deadly sins. The ending of this movie is one of the greatest ever, in which the tale turns in on itself. It rivals the PLANET OF THE APES ending. It's one of the few movies in recent memory that wasn't predicatable-after an hour I still had no idea how it was going to end.
NETWORK
Predicted FOXNEWS and the tabloid direction of broadcast journalism over 20 years ago. Everything the film predicts will happen has happened--Large corporations taking control of news organizations & news departments being run by and for entertainment.
GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES
This is SHOCK & AWE. REALLY. This animated film follows two children struggling to survive in WWII Japan. Based on a true story, it is one of, if not, the saddest films you can ever see. The sadness comes from knowing that the children represent all children who are caught in war, whether the conflict was justified or not.
THEY LIVE
"I've come to kick ass, and chew bubble-gum & I'm all out of bubble-gum"
This is a political site. Why not a political/sci-fi flick? The movie asks the question, is the world we inhabit truely reality? Made more than a decade before THE MATRIX, the film is about alien(err.. republican) control of the world. What if the television in your living room wasn't just showing you the ball game but telling you to OBEY. What if the magazine you're holding isn't informing you, but conditioning you to work and reproduce like cattle? The aliens are here and they're republicans. They live, we sleep.
BOOKS
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
Is being smart all it's cracked up to be? This book is sort of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, in it gives the cautionary tale of "be careful what you wish for..." The story is about a retarded man named Charlie. He lives a menial life, working in a bakery, dreaming of being like everyone else. Charlie is given the opportunity to take an experimental treatment to correct his retardation. He is given intelligence, but with consequenses. One being he is self-aware of what his life was. Now he understands all the cracks at his expense by his coworkers at the bakery. The book looks at a conflict that goes all the way back to the APPLE & EDEN. Does knowledge destroy innocence & is ignorance bliss?
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST
It's debatable whether the movie or the book is better. The story is an allegory about individuality and authority in society. Nurse Ratched is the true personification of evil and "THE MAN" in this world. Control that thinks its helping you. McMurphy, no saint, represents all those who won't be controlled, and tries it a different way & is punished for it.
FOUNDATION
Isacc Asimov's epic trilogy of an empire's fall & the attempt to get through it. The story centers around "psycho-history", the ability to predict future events, and the plans of Harri Seldon's FOUNDATION to save humanity with it. The best story of the lot is found in FOUNDATION & EMPIRE-THE MULE. Seldon's FOUNDATION is confronted by a being that is a mutation outside of psycho-history abilities.