Trilogies or Greater: The Best Movie Series' of All Time
A few weeks ago a thought crossed my mind: what is the greatest movie series of all-time? Since I was working on a movie section for this sight, I figured I might as well include a section for series of trilogy or greater size. In rating these I include the individual film ratings as well as the rating for the series as a whole. Sometimes the series as a whole is better than the some of it's parts because it fits so well when you've seen all the movies in it. As you may notice there is one series here that is conspicuous in its absence: Star Wars. I'm not really that huge of a Star Wars fan and haven't seen any of the movies in quite a few years. Yep, that means I haven't seen Phantom Menace. Unlike Titanic where I went on an intentional boycott of sucktitude, I am open to seeing it; I'm just not that crazy about it. Now that it's out on DVD with all the special features I might do it just because I'm a completist and know that Star Wars won't be going away anytime soon. If I do that I'll probably rewatch the other movies and rate them accordingly. Don't be shocked, though, if they don't measure among the greatest of all time in my view.
The Jersey Chronicles (aka Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse Movies)
Clerks= A+
Mallrats= A+
Chasing Amy= B+
Dogma= A
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back= A+ (#4 movie on my top ten)
What can I say: I am a hopeless Kevin Smith fan. I hadn't seen any of his movies until this past summer (save Dogma), and am now annoyed that I hadn't seen them before. All these movies are fine movies on their own (although it took quite a few viewings of Chasing Amy before I warmed up to it), but put together in context they add so much more. There's a lot of in-jokes between the movies and little subtle things (you'll hear a reference about what happened to a character from a past movie or something of that nature) that'll add to your enjoyment if you've seen the other movies. However, you don't need to see them, to enjoy each individually. Other than the first 10-15 minutes of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (which sees them meeting up with lots of old characters), you won't feel like you're out of the loop. That said, see all 5 of these movies, in order, and you will thank me for it.
Scream
Scream= A
Scream 2= A-
Scream 3= B+
I think that 10-15 years from now the Scream trilogy will be looked back upon as a classic. Sound a bit far fetched? Considering the novel and revered treatment Halloween H20 got a couple years back, I don't think so. Halloween may have been the movie that gave a rebirth to horror films (2 years before Friday the 13th and 6 years before A Nightmare on Elm Street), but Scream, especially the first movie in the trilogy, carved out a whole new thought in movies. While a lot of people classify Scream as a horror flick or lump it in with the teen horror genre it started (think "I know what you did last summer", "Urban Legend", etc.), I think that's almost as ludicrous as video stores that put "Idle Hands" in the horror section rather than comedy. While I don't disagree that Scream had a horror/thriller element, it brought many other things to the table from its humor to it's self-referential style. Outside of a couple comedies, I dare you to find a pre-Scream movie or television show that seemed to acknowledge that it was a movie (albeit indirectly) and poke fun at itself for it. Sure none of the characters, save 3 of the five delusional villains, actually thought they were in a movie but by talking about things in those terms, like referring to "what would be the right move to make if this was a horror flick" or listing the rules of a horror movie were a clear little nod and wink to the audience. This element slipped a little more out of the movies each time and it seemed like they were trying to make more and more of a straight horor thriller each time, thus the decline in the series.
Despite that, I think part of the reason Scream's not taken quite as seriously as a great movie and trilogy is more due to the ripoffs than the actual Scream movies. Especially when they tried to lump "I Know..." with the Screams to boost business, even though "I know" wasn't much like scream other than the horror and teens. It had none of the self-referential, none of the humor (or very very little), and (in my opinion) very little drama. And when the ripoffs started sequalizing, it was all downhill. Scary Movie couldn't help but happening from somebody and I'm glad the Wayans did it so it was funny. While I think the sequels to the ripoffs ruined Scream's reputation, I also feel that Scream took a bit of unwarranted criticism for extending itself into three parts, despite the fact that each got slightly worse. First of all, I remember around the time that the first one came out Williamson and Craven were basically stating that it was planned as a 3-parter. Unlike horror movies that seemingly go on forever (with 13 and 14 sequels), Scream had a set path and I think you could feel that in the films.
One last area I feel the need to praise Scream in is in how it made tons of money out of a largely unknown ensemble cast, and then proceeded to make several of them stars. Don't forget when Scream came out "Friends" and "Party of Five" wer just in there second seasons. Courteney Cox's only role in a successful film was in the original "Ace Ventura" the previous year (which didn't exactly do for her what it did for Mr. Carrey) and Friends was just in it's infancy as a hit and none of the cast had really become stars yet. Neve was coming off a non-starring role in The Craft and Party of Five, while it had gained critical acclaim, had not yet formed much of a fanbase. And those were the biggest stars headed in. Also note that Rose McGowan, who until her infamous garage door death had a major part in the film, had only had 3 previous movies...and two of them were Bio-Dome and Encino Man. Oh, I'm sorry, there was a big star in it. One that they hinged a good deal of the marketing campaign on. And they killed in the first 10 minutes of the movie. Which was another thing that kind of made Scream stick out at the time: it did things it wasn't supposed to. From the marketing campaign and trailers, it looked like Barrymore was the star. Then it shocks everyone by killing her 10 minutes into the movie. I remember hearing about it before I actually saw the movie and I was kinda dumbfounded. I imagine that had I'd seen it, I'd have truly been shocked. This one, and the whole trilogy, broke "the rules".