by Rahman Majere

Created on: January 31, 2010

The technique of making the modern movie has been known to us for quite some time. For this reason, there have been an incredible variety of movies available for us to choose from. Even if we were to only consider English movies, the sheer volume of movies is quite staggering. Each good movie is unique and has its own merits. For example, movies like 'The Usual Suspects' and 'The Village' have amazing and rather drastic plot twists that  makes many viewers grin at the end. Movies like 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Titanic' are tributes to the power of romance and love. Then, we have movies like Sleepy Hollow, that are there for plain entertainment. 'Pursuit of Happyness' is a wonderful work that portrays everyday heroism. 'The Ring (Original Japanese Version)' has succeeded in scaring the living daylights out of countless viewers... The list goes on. Not only are there countless movies, there are also many genres and subgenres... Who is to say that one genre is better than another?

But if I had to pick one movie above all the rest, it would have to be Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' Trilogy (which I'll treat as a single entity) and the rest of this article will explain this personal choice.

1) Technical excellence (Cinematography / Acting / Sountracks / Graphics.... etc)

'Avatar' may have cutting edge graphics and 'Pursuit of Happyness' may have great acting, but 'Lord of the Rings' has the complete package. Let's talk about the cinematography first. There's a lot of technical talk about what is great cinematography and so on... but to me, it's very simple. A great cinematography will complement the atmosphere that the storyteller or filmmaker wants to convey. Just look at the Shire and your imagination will tell you that it's a place of almost eternal sunshine... then during the chase scene with the Ringwraiths, the lighting changed completely, thus giving a completely different atmosphere. Every single scene in the movie has good to amazing cinematography.

Then we have the acting. The actors and actresses actually take up classes in ancient medieval proficiencies like horse-riding, sword handling and so on...  Sure, this is a common practice in modern day movie making. The days where people are amazed at Bruce Lee's martial arts proficiency in shows like 'The Green Hornet' is gone. But that's not what sets Peter Jackson's masterpiece apart. The cast not only mastered the physical proficiency, they also understood the nuances of the whole Middle Earth

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