Last weekend during open dorms, my friends and I got a bunch of people together in Wright Hall to watch a movie. We try to do this once every weekend because, well, movies are awesome. I had just bought I,Robot and we decided to watch that a few days before hand. Many of us had already seen it but there were many that had not. Either way, we were stoked. So, we watched it and just like I remember it was a very good movie. The story is interesting and well wrote and it had great designs for the city, vechiles, and of course, robots. But what I really loved above all else was the film's two integrated styles/genres: science fiction and crime thriller. Which is what got me thinking about doing a blog post about it.
I really like genre mash ups when they are done right. When done right, both styles compliment each other, a fantastic film experience is created, and the film leaves you with something memorable like other great movies. Some films I would say get the genre mashup right would be:
Blade Runner (sci-fi/film noir)
Alien (sci-fi/horror)
Shaun of the Dead (comedy/horror)
The Ghostbusters (comedy/sci-fi)
Nightmare Before Christmas (Christmas/Halloween special)
I,Robot (sci-fi/crime thriller)
Underworld (action/horror)
Back to the Future Part III (sci-fi/western)
My two favorites from this list are Alien and Ghostbusters. Ridley Scott's Alien is amazing, the visuals and different designs represent some of the best in sci-fi to this day. On top of that, it still holds up as horror. Rotten Tomatoes describes the Alien as a haunted house film moved into outer space, a good way to put it in my opinion. Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters is the perfect comedy, its actually funny and it has a good story. The actors play very well off each other to create such an awesome atmosphere in the movie. Heres the trailer if you've never seen this great movie.
The newest hybrid film to date is Cowboys and Aliens, as far as I know (someone correct me if theres a newer one). I haven't seen this sci-fi/western yet but I've heard mixed reviews about it. I'm probably going to end up watching it because I love genre mashups.
I saw Cowboys and Aliens over the summer. I was actually pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised how into it I was getting. I'd recommend it.
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