2010sThe Dark Tower (2017) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Eight novels written across thirty-four years were compressed into ninety-five minutes, which is the shortest running time any studio fantasy has attempted this century. Idris Elba and…
2000sThe Day After Tomorrow (2004) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Roland Emmerich froze the northern hemisphere in about a week, which is roughly ten thousand times faster than any climate model permits, and produced the most…
1950sIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A hundred and eighty-five million dollars, seven hundred and ninety million back, and it is still the film that damaged the…
2000sI Am Legend (2007) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The first hour is one of the best depictions of solitude ever filmed. Then the ending inverts the meaning of the book it is named after, and…
1990s12 Monkeys (1995) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A time travel film in which the loop cannot be broken and everybody involved eventually works that out. Gilliam made it for twenty-nine million dollars in Philadelphia and…
2010sGravity (2013) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Cuaron opens on a thirteen minute unbroken shot and then destroys everything in it. The technical achievement is genuine and permanent. The dialogue keeps explaining a film that was…
1980sFlash Gordon (1980) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Dino De Laurentiis spent twenty-seven million dollars on a deliberately camp space opera, hired Queen to score it, and produced something no serious film could get near. The…
2000sDistrict 9 (2009) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A first-time director shot an alien occupation film in a real Soweto township for thirty million dollars, cast his friend who had never acted, and got a Best…
2000sThe Time Machine (2002) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. H. G. Wells's great-grandson directed it, collapsed from exhaustion, and Gore Verbinski shot the last eighteen days. The first act is genuinely good and the film throws…
1960sThe Time Machine (1960) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. George Pal made it for under a million dollars, won an Academy Award for a time-lapse effect built out of stop motion and melting wax, and kept…
1970sA Clockwork Orange (1971) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kubrick makes you enjoy a monster's company, then cures him, then asks whether the cure was worse. Withdrawn from Britain by its own director for nearly thirty…
1980sDonnie Darko (2001) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A time loop film that works better as a portrait of adolescence than as a mechanism. Failed on release for reasons of timing, found its people on DVD,…
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