Lord Myk

You may remember several months back when I pledged to review all the movies I owned. I started strong but the project quickly became more of a burden than anything else as I wondered why I was forcing myself to review this collection of movies instead of something more constructive and the more I pondered this the more I was sure that you, the hypothetical reader, was having just as much fun reading them as I was writing them. What I needed was some sort of goal, some sort of gimmick, something to keep myself and you fine folk reading. So why not make the movies fight?

These could be done in any number of ways: I could stand the discs (as these are all disc-based, and most of the things I had on VHS have been upgraded and it's been proven that digital media is only ours so long as the capitalists say it is) up next to each other and see which fell first, throw them at things to see which broke, rigged up some sort of Pinewood Derby-type racetrack for them to slide down. Yet I had already done four reviews and had segmented things out so that they could, perhaps, form something of a bracket and I've been asked what my favorite movie was more than once with no real answer. So why not try to figure out which of my movies is my favorite?

So, in each bout, I'll talk about the two movies a bit and then decide which one I like more which is definitely not an indicator of quality. I've already done four movies, and here they are, paired against each other!

Annihilation (2018) has to take on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) which is an easy bout because I liked Annihilation a bit more, though I will say that Tomb Raider is a bit more fun if you're looking for a movie to watch one night that you don't really need to focus on. Unfortunately for Arrival (2016), it has to take on The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), which is not only an immensely entertaining film but also has the twin power-horses of nostalgia and the white whale factor working for it. This means that, at the time I bought it, it was far harder to find than it may be now. And since whole thing is just based on favoritism, we can just move on to the bout between The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Annihilation, in which I'm sorry to say that the former lives up to its name.

Now, since I wanted to ensure the brackets boiled down to just two movies, the former list needed some movies added to it:

• 9 (2009)
• 10,000 BC (2008)
• The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
• Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
• Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe (1991)
• Laser Mission (1989)
• Addams Family (1991)
• Addams Family Values (1993)
• Annihilation (2018)
• Arrival (2016)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
• Alien Nation (1988)
• Enemy Mine (1985)
• Alien (1979)
• Aliens (1986)

Now, there are a few rule changes. The 50 Sci-Fi Film DVD set, Godzilla movies, and Marvel movies will all be in their own brackets, each sending forth one representative. However, I'm still doing the "if part of a franchise gets chosen I'm just doing them from the start", which is why our next bout will be Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) against Laser Mission (1989).