We all know a good soundtrack and a perfect score go a long way. Sure there is an Academy Award dedicated specifically to film scores. That’s not what we are looking at this week, though. This week, we want to celebrate the songs that make a scene great. Whether it’s introducing us to a character, pushing the narrative forward, or creating a comical juxtaposition, songs can take a scene to the next level, and in honor of that, we give you our top ten.

       
We love watching movies just as much as the next person, but we’ve discovered that we have a love/hate relationship with plot twists. We love discovering something new and the emotions that come with learning that what you thought you knew was all wrong. However, we hate the fact that we just got duped by a screenwriter who is clearly smarter than us. For this reason, we bring you: Our top ten favorite movie plot twists!

10. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

The plot twists of plot twists. We thought we had all of Lucas’ beloved characters figured out, and then completely out of the blue… Lando Calrissian betrays his old friend Han Solo?!!l That’s just too much for us.

9. Donnie Darko

Ok, watching this movie really had us scared and at the edge of our seats. We couldn’t wait to get some answers to our questions. And then finally, it is all revealed… The scary rabbit was just a guy named Frank in a halloween costume the whole time

8. Planet of the Apes

This one requires very little explanation. We find out that the Apes had some how stolen the head of the Statue of Liberty and brought it to their planet. It made us wonder what other monuments of Earth they had defaced!

7. Lucky Number Slevin

This one is just an all around fun movie. And honestly, we have to hand it to Josh Hartnett for creating such an easily lovable character. That’s why we were very disappointed in the end of the film when we find out that his character never really had ataraxia…

6. The Sixth Sense

This horror/thriller asked audiences to keep up as it spiraled further and further into mystery. We tried to keep up, but were absolutely stunned when the  big twist was finally revealed: Bruce Willis was not actually married!

5. Moon

This one’s a doozy folks.  The whole feel of this movie has that eerie, hypnotic feel of 2001, and upon the stunning climax of the film, when the twist is revealed, the viewer is left in shock.  Sam Rockwell’s character is not alone, but instead, has been living with his identical siblings in space all along!

4. The Usual Suspects

This crime thriller had us captivated with all its intricacies, constantly questioning what was indeed going on - when the stunner finally hit, we were shocked to discover that Verbal Kint’s limp was fake! And that name? Quite deceiving. It turns out that Verbal didn’t actually talk that much.

3. Fight Club

Fight Club’s whole plot relied on mayhem, even the film’s characters championed this theme with Project Mayhem! When we finally learned the movies big twist, that Edward Norton wasn’t really a soap salesman, our minds were shattered!

2. Shutter Island

The entire time we are led to believe that Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters are U.S. Marshals who intend to solve the disappearance mystery together. However, by the end of the film we had to come to the realization that Mark Ruffalo actually played a doctor before being Dr. Bruce Banner in The Avengers.

1. Memento

This one killed us! You may or may not know this already, but… Guy Pearce plays a man named Leanard Shelby. Well, It turns out that Leonard Shelby’s life actually moves forward in time! Not backwards! That was just done to evoke confusion in the audience.
    

There you have it! The plot twists that made us stop to think. Which ones did we miss? 

Have you ever been watching a movie and thought “wow, I wish that existed!”? So have we. This week we’ve compiled a list of our Top Ten Favorite Movie Items We Wish Existed! 

We were going to make Space Jam’s power-drink “Michael’s Secret Stuff” our number one choice

…but then we remembered that it turned out to be pure water. Here’s what made our list:

10. Big Kahuna Burger
Sure there seems to be a infinite amount of places to grab a burger these days, but there’s something about Tarantino’s fictionalized burger joint that makes us extra hungry.

9. “Click” Remote 
We’ve seen the movie, and we’re aware of the consequences, but how cool would it be to press pause on life every now and then? Not to mention the possibility of skipping right over those Mondays!
                                       

8. Flubber

I mean… Do we really have to say why? What DOESN’T it do?! To all non-believers, be dazzled by this epic dance sequence:

7. Hover Board
Who didn’t want a Back to the Future hover board after seeing it in action? Just imagine the possibilities! No more being chased by bullies for this guy! Unless there is a puddle of water, of course…

6. Lightsabers
This weapon is the epitome of cool - Not only is it the weapon of choice for the Jedi, but it comes in multiple colors, sizes, and designs. Plus, you can carve the turkey AND cook it at the same time!

5. Harry Potter Cloak of Invisibility
Everyone has wanted to be somewhere they shouldn’t be. Or what about running into someone you really don’t like? Not a problem anymore!

Plus, with this cloak you aren’t chased by evil mythical creatures and spied on by a giant flaming eye. Sorry, “The One Ring”.

4. The Batmobile

Of course, we are talking about Tim Burton’s amazing “James Bond-esque” Batmobile,



  …not Christopher Nolan’s  ”G.I. Joe” Batmobile. In our book, Special Gadgets beat a tank every time!

                                                                                         


3. “The Matrix” Program 
We don’t necessarily want a big plug on the back of our head, but if it means being able to plug in and learn a language in minutes, knowing how to operate impossibly complex equipment, or becoming a master in various forms of martial arts, I think we’d be game. Watch out, colleges!

2. Green Lantern’s Power Ring 
The Green Lantern’s power ring (complete with lantern) would be amazing! We would definitely use this ring to create the rest of the items on this list should we be forced to pick just one item.  See…we just used this ring to create a loophole! 

1. The Neuralizer
Our number one on the list… Men In Black’s Neuralizer! Not only can you erase memories with this baby, but you can replace them as well! So what exactly can you do with this? Be the richest man in the world? Check. Become President? Check. End wars forever? Check. Just don’t forget to wear your sunglasses.

You can call it a tribute, an homage, a cinematic tip of the hat - this is what links films across genres and decades, and preserves cinema. Classic horror films like Kubrick’s “The Shining” can find love in a Pixar film like “Toy Story” and director’s like Scorsese can create entire features dedicated to their love of movies. Films don’t have to call upon their predecessors, but almost all films have some point of inspiration, and when this inspiration is acknowledged directly, the film becomes a much larger experience. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of our ten favorite homage’s/tributes that make us appreciate not just the film, but also the connection it creates to movies through the ages.

10. Back to the Future 2 (Midnight Cowboy)
We figured this was the perfect one to top off our list. It’s simple and it’s quick. In Zemeckis’ “Back to the Future: II” there is a scene where Marty McFly Jr. almost gets hit by a car as he attempts to cross the street. In reaction to this, Marty screams out the famous “Midnight Cowboy” quote “I’m walking here, I’m walking here!”

This homage (or parody) is one that stuck with us over the years, seeing as how we are big “Midnight Cowboy” fans. Of course, Dustin Hoffman’s delivery of the line can’t be beat, but it’s fun to watch it over and over again in many different incarnations.

Check out this link with both clips

9. R2D2 (Star Trek/ Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Ok, this is not so much an ‘homage’ as it is little Easter eggs. Either way, we thought it deserved to be in our list. Back in 2009, fans got to hear about how director J.J. Abrams snuck in R2D2 into his 2009 “Star Trek” film. Since then, many fanboys went crazy trying to find the image, only to find out later that he is in it for half of a split second, zipping away with debris through space. What many people didn’t know, however, is that R2D2 also makes an appearance in Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. The scene takes place towards the end of the film. If you look carefully while Richard Dreyfus is peering over the edge of the mountain, you can see R2D2 hanging upside-down from the aliens’ space ship. How awesome is that?!

8. Toy Story 2 (Jurassic Park/ 2001: A Space Odyssey/ Vertigo)
One of the best sequels out there, this film is packed with little “homage jokes”, as we like to call them. The first one we’d like to mention, is of course, the “2001: A Space Odyssey” references in the film. The entire opening sequence is an enormous galactic battle scene ending with Buzz Lightyear inside of Zorg’s secret space layer. Buzz ends up hopping across a floating bridge made of hovering disks. His footsteps, as well as background machinery, all serve to make up the famous “2001: A Space Odyssey” music (Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra”). Watch the clip here.

“Toy Story 2” also gives a classic throwback to “Jurassic Park” in the scene where Rex is chasing after the car in the toy store.

Another classic reference in this is when Woody has his Vertigo-esque nightmare. Andy drops him to the floor while the camera does a dolly zoom. He also crashes through into a realm of isolation and echoes. It all ends with Woody waking up and screaming, much like in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”. You can watch Woody’s nightmare here.

These are just a few of the references that “Toy Story 2” packed into their film. There are many more, from Zorg telling Buzz Lightyear that he is his father, ala “Star Wars”, to the Barbies dancing to the same choreography as Ann-Margret in “Viva Las Vegas”.

7. Iron Man 2 (The Incredible Hulk)
Yes, yes. We understand that in this case, this was all planned by Marvel for about 5 years to lead directly into the “Avengers” movie. None of this makes it any less exciting for us. Which is why we chose this one to be in our list. In a scene in “Iron Man 2”, Tony Stark and Nick Fury chat while a news report goes on in the background with images of the torn up Campus from “The Incredible Hulk”’.

Seeing the images of the debris caused by the green behemoth in his own movie made our inner geeks go crazy. It helps nail down our realization that this is all taking place in one universe. And that, my friends, is worth being in our top 10 list.

6. Shutter Island (Hitchcock Potpourri)

Ok, we all know that Scorsese is an absolute genius. We are not debating that. But did you know that he took tons of inspiration from Hitchcock for his film “Shutter Island”? It’s already known that Scorsese is a big fan of Hitchcock seeing as how he shot a promo film for a Spanish cava-maker “the way Alfred Hitchcock would have made it then, only making it now”. Hitchcock is spewed all over “Shutter Island”. From a shower scene mimicking Psycho, to climbing up unbearably tall buildings ala “Vertigo”, to hanging off a rock face like in “North By North West”, the film has more homages to Hitchcock than Toy Story 2 did to other films.

5. Toy Story (The Shining)
Pixar’s done it again! How do you make the creepiest kid ever even creepier? By making the very place he lives just as creepy. The geniuses behind Pixar had the great idea of making Sid’s carpet the same design as the carpet from the hotel in “The Shining”.

We still can’t watch The Shining without covering our eyes (specifically at the shot with the bloodied twins). So seeing that carpet in Sid’s house is definitely cringe worthy. Touché, Pixar.

4. The Untouchables (Battleship Potemkin)
Here’s a big one! The classic gun shootout scene at the train station from Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables” also has an iconic image of a baby carriage falling down the stairs. Watch that scene here.

This was De Palma’s homage to Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 “The Battleship Potemkin”. Here is the original iconic scene of the odessa steps.

3. Hugo (Georges Méliès)
The homage of homages (some would say). Scorsese does a beautiful job at showing us the inner workings of filmmaker Georges Méliès. This film made the film geek inside all of us go crazy. To be able to actually see how a set was on a Méliès film was an incredible experience. Yes, we understand that it was not real and was all shot by Scorsese. But that’s the closest we’ve ever been.

Anyone who hasn’t seen “A Trip to the Moon” can check it out right here.

2. Rango (Chinatown/ Fear and Loathing/ Spaghetti Westerns)
Rango! This film definitely deserves our number 2 spot on this list. For starters, the entire story is an homage to Polanski’s film “Chinatown”. Both of these films take place in a world where water has become a luxury because of its scarcity. Both films have a character of high political power in charge of the water supply, and of course, both take place in a dessert world full of brown hues and dry landscapes. Oh, and did we mention the big one? It turns out that both towns do indeed have water, but the water is being dumped at night to maintain control.

On top of being an homage to “Chinatown”, “Rango” also ends up giving us a pretty comical scene as our main character accidentally lands on the windshield of a traveling car. Who is driving this vehicle? The same character that Johnny Depp played in his 1998 hit “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

How meta of you, Rango. One last thing that would be worth pointing out, is the hilarious portrayal of “The Spirit of the West” by Timothy Olyphant. Best Clint Eastwood Impersonation ever?

1. Be Kind Rewind (Tons of “Sweded” films)
Our number 1 pick for this list…. “Be Kind Rewind”! How could it not be? This movie makes references and homages to a variety of different films. The film is about two friends who work at a VHS rental store and accidentally erase all of the tapes. They began to reshoot all of the movies themselves, and call it “sweding” a film. Their re-imagination of the original films is very fun to watch, and after all, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. Films they “swede” include: Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2, Driving Miss Daisy, Boyz n the Hood, Robocop, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rocky, The Lion King, and King Kong

For those who have never seen it, here is the trailer.

Who the heck are Andy and Brian?