This week's homework -- And the winner is...

For this week's homework, Scalzi asks:  (Aw heck, I asked it...)

"Make up a movie award category and tell us who or what ought to win."

What an excellent suggestion. Since NZforMe left the parameters of this fairly wide open, let's keep it that way: Create any sort of category you want, and you can select your nominees (and winner) from the entire history of film. You don't have to go all out and list nominees (you can just go straight on to the winner), but it's fun to have fun with it.

Extra Credit: What was the first film you ever saw in a movie theater?

Okey doke.  While I do like the idea of going through the entire history of film, I'm much too indecisive to come up with a winner in this particular category from all of the possible nominees, so I'm just going to limit it to this year.

Category:  Best film (in 2005) in a series.

There really are a lot, you know.  Or have you forgotten Herbie: Fully Loaded, Dominion (the Exorcist prequel), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, XXX: State of the Union, and Son of the Mask?  I'm sure a lot of people wish they could. 

(I remember, like 15 years ago, Siskel & Ebert did the year-end wrap up of movies and Ebert tried to dub the year, "The Year of the Bad Sequel."  Dude, that's every year.)

But the quality ones this year are:

- Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Batman Begins

While I thought this Harry Potter was the best in the series, and Star Wars III was the best in its trilogy, I have to give the edge to Batman Begins.  The Batman movies have always been interesting to me in that, every time they get a new actor to play Batman, they recreate the character's history -- what made him become Batman, who the love of his life is, all that sort of thing.  (And, of course, redesigning the batsuit.)  But Batman Begins was a really excellent new beginning to the franchise -- makes me hope that they'll actually use it as a starting point and make a few sequels that actually follow in its footsteps. 

Extra Credit:  Hard to say the first film I saw in a theater, as I know my parents took me when I was very young and I would sleep right through the movie.  The first movie I have any sort of recollection of seeing was The Towering Inferno.  I was about five.  It was loud and bright (all that fire) and I'm fairly certain I cried my way through the whole thing.  I don't think I went to the movies again until, say, Freaky Friday or something like that.