Popcorn For Your Head

Popcorn for your head -- For your perusal, a list of films divided and catagorized by philosophical theme. Film buffs may find the list lacking as it seems to only include recent Hollywood efforts (although in defense of the list's creator, it appears to be a list made primarily for beginning students), and most of those are science fiction or fantastic in nature. SF, as a literary genre, has always been one to put ideas and hypotheticals to the forefront, and it would seem to follow that SF films should do likewise. However, instead of constructing taut trampolines intended for philosophical leaps, films such as The Matrix, Minority Report, and Vanilla Sky tend to use these ideas (usually the problems of identity, perception, and deception) as a plot twist to take us to the next shock and awe action sequence. It seems like so much window dressing. Even a great movie like 2001 (probably my all-time favorite) has this problem. While one can wrap their mind around the meanings of the monolith and the star-child (which after 36 years of media promulgation seems almost kitschy), it only gets in the way of enjoying some of the most beautiful cinema and sly satire ever accomplished. For a more satisfying philosophical climax in a science fiction film, look no further than the defiantly existential ending of Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man. Maybe it's dime store metaphysics, but it's quite unique, especially for a Hollywood film from the '50s. "To God, there is no zero. I still exist!"