Generally, I do not enjoy reading books.
That's literature in general, not books related to computers. Due to the state of my mind, I am rarely able to imagine the action which is described in a book; not being able to make a mental image also means not being able to understand it. Therefore, movies have a very deep meaning to me.
From that list I’ve selected my top ten favorites of all time, some of which are even brand new at the time of writing, and I’ll explain why I’ve chosen each one of them. It doesn’t matter if a movie is a hit or not, if it’s a simple animation or if it’s live action, it doesn’t matter if the actors are good or not. Movie critics often rate a movie by the performance and emotion that was put into it by the actors. To me those things aren’t that important, as long as the movie knows how to get its message across, message which is also very important, of course, either if it’s directly exposed, or indirectly, through the actions of the characters.
1. Dark City is a mix of fantasy and science-fiction, but to me it is the SF part which matters the most. As you can probably guess by now, it is my favorite genre, but that had nothing to do with why I selected this particular movie as my number one favorite of all time. The story that’s being unraveled here has a very deep meaning. I know I’ve used that concept before, just now, but bare with me. If you’re like me, you probably ask yourself from time to time: “Am I really human? What makes us human?”
So, are we who we are just because of our memories, or because of what caused these memories, the way we lived, the emotional experience we’ve got that had permanently changed our behavior over the course of our lives, of which, of course, only certain memories remain? Does the mind, the physical brain which is currently holding these memories have any impact on its personality? Do the specifics of the brain, like the existence or lack of illnesses, psychological traumas, or the physical “wiring” of that mind matter? I wonder… The personality of a person usually still remains, even if the memories that had developed it are no longer in place.
We all want to be immortal, but is a soul actually nothing more than just a collection of memories, and therefore, can immortality be achieved through their preservation? The same issue is also addressed in the recent movie called “Transcendence.” It is the lesson which both the viewer and the characters in the movie(s) have to learn on their own.
2. Mary and Max tries to address the life of a person who is unable to understand humanity or society because, and this is my personal attachment to this movie, he is suffering from a form of autism, and his mind works completely differently from that of a person who is considered normal, and who also encounters no difficulty functioning in society.
It is a movie that directly shows the struggles, the anxiety and the pressure felt by a person with any form of autism (but especially Asperger’s syndrome) in their daily lives, while they’re just trying to make a living and get a bit of peace of mind.
I feel a strong connection to this one, because of this.
3. EX_MACHINA is a reimagining of the story of doctor Frankenstein’s monster, with a very important lesson to learn, which doesn’t really have much to do with responsibility.
When we think of machines, we immediately picture them as objects enslaved to us and obligated to execute our every command without question. What if one day the machines could actually think? What if they could actually be alive? People need to understand that you don’t need a beating heart to be or to “feel” alive.
It’s a lesson which even the Terminator series is trying to teach. Any form of life, either if it’s biological or mechanical in nature, sentient or not, needs to be free, and needs to feel love and feel loved in return. You can not truly be alive if you can’t feel anything at all.
Speaking of feeling anything, how do you think you would feel if ever since the day you were born you’ve been nothing more than a prisoner and the subject of someone’s experiments and perversions? That is exactly the case of Ava. Her creator even gave her female traits and a female personality. In the end she chooses her freedom over the life of her only friend and also the only one who ever actually loved her; if you think about it, however, how differently do you suppose a real person (in this case a real woman) would’ve behaved?
Would she had chosen to risk being imprisoned again – or perhaps even killed? Well, that depends… but under normal circumstances no living being would want to die. Humans are no exception to this rule, so why would any other kind of living being – sentient or not – be any different?
4. The Time Machine represents one of the few times when the lesson the movie is trying to teach is one that I have to learn as well, even if I don’t like to admit it:
no matter what you do, you can never truly change the past
so you have to let go of it and embrace the present… and the future.
5. City of Ember is a choice by personal preference this time, not just because of the message it’s trying to get across; I’m a fan of the Fallout franchise, and I also enjoy dystopian movies and video games.
It does have a message, however, similar in nature to that from “The Planet of The Apes”, namely what will happen to mankind one day because of its destructive and self destructive nature, when it will face extinction and it will be forced to try to survive.
Unlike the latest two incarnations of the Terminator series, where mankind finally puts its differences aside in order to defeat a common enemy and survive total annihilation, here mankind was and still is its own enemy, and has no one and nothing else to blame for its demise.
In time, the last survivors of mankind will forget who they are and what the purpose of their existence is, what they had been entrusted to do over generations, while trusting that someone else will come and solve their problems, just as in real life people believe that a higher power will come out of nowhere and make everything perfect. Does this ring any bells?
Corruption and perversion of moral values won’t cease to exist just because you select specific individuals to eradicate them by replacing them with virtues with the passing of time and generations to come.
It’s just human nature, and human nature inevitably leads to war in some form or another… and “war, war never changes.”
is one of the historical movies I appreciate because it shows both sides of World War II.
There were also good people in the Nazi Party because at the time a lot of Germany’s residents from the higher class were part of it, but not all of them were cold blooded killers, of course.
Oskar Schindler was more or less of a simple business man, and by helping Jewish people survive the holocaust, he was in fact risking his own life. He spent his entire fortune literally buying people from the Nazis, which is a lot more than anyone else had ever done to help them.
7. The Imitation Game is the story of one’s of the greatest minds of all time, who in secrecy helped turn World War II in favor of The Allies, and by doing so, he also built one of the first programmable computing machines.
Although he might have had sociopathic traits, he had been judged very harshly by society for a completely different reason, namely the fact that he was a homosexual. For that reason, he was forced to undergo chemical castration, which had terrible effects over his mental health, and in the end he committed suicide.
It’s another lesson I still also have to learn as well:
do not judge a book by its cover – and don’t judge someone until you know their entire true story.
Now, I know the movie may dramatize or change certain aspects of said true story, but the base point still remains the same.
8. Inception is a movie which is literally all about dreams. It doesn’t have a special lesson to teach that’s any different from that of The Time Machine, but it does come up with an original idea for something else.
Everyone who is in love knows the feeling, the desire to spend eternity with their loved one; this movie brings up the world of dreams, in which you can do whatever you desire, and you can expand the time you spend together with your loved ones without anyone getting in the way, without any boundaries set by the laws of physics. You can truly be free…
And the best part is that you get to grow old together over and over again, effectively spending eternity together. There is nothing in the world more beautiful, nothing in the world could ever compare to this.
9. Interstellar has several messages it’s trying to get across, of which of course we have the classic impending doom which mankind is destined to face because of what we’re doing to our planet, but it’s not that important.
One day, wether we like it or not, we will have to leave the planet in search for a new place to call home…
That is, if we want our species to survive.
When we will finally be on our way to the stars, we will truly see what it means to think in more than three dimensions, we will discover new laws of physics which we previously thought not possible, and we will see the true meaning of time and relativity.
The important lesson here is actually the sense of perspective over existence as a whole.
10. Last, but not least at all, my final favorite movie of all time is… UP!
The only reason it’s on number 10 is because it’s an animated children’s movie. However, this doesn’t mean it’s not important. This one holds perhaps one the most important and deepest messages of all:
No matter what happens, always keep the promises you make to your loved ones. Nothing else really matters besides that. There is nothing in the world more important than your family, and nothing hurts them more than the disappointment of broken promises, no matter what they are in nature.
Always promise them only what you know you can accomplish, and then keep your promise and make them happy. You’ve got nobody else, so don’t lose them!
Spend as much time as possible with them and don’t procrastinate on anything related to your family, because you never know what tomorrow holds for you, and you might never get the chance of doing something important again.