Yesterday's TOD:
I hadn't answered yet because it actually required some thought on my part. In the past I would have said I like "fantasy" as much as anything, but upon thinking it over last night and this morning, and running my eye over my movie collection and some books, I realized that this category is NOT automatically up there alongside, say, horror and science fiction, as it is with so many people.
The movies I like are the Harryhausen films; KING KONG and certain others of that ilk; THE LOST WORLD; several of the older films based, however loosely, on Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. But I go for those that are a product of the Hollywood I grew up with, not the ones people are growing up with now.
In another vein, THIEF OF BAGDAD and whatever else there is of that type of film.
There have to be some I'm just not thinking of. It's difficult, weeding out all the things that are really sci-fi and horror.
I guess I've enjoyed a few modern-day fantasy ideas in films. A few. But what are they? They're just not in the forefront of my mind.
As for Tolkein-derived films? Okay, up to a point. The books of THE HOBBIT and the RING trilogy were all the rage in my high school years, and I truly enjoyed reading THE HOBBIT a couple of times. But I only made it through the first half of FELLOWSHIP before the effort became tiresome, and to this day I've only ever flipped through those books to find a certain passage for one reason or another. The films are fine, and I'm equally fine having seen them only once or twice. I'll go to see THE HOBBIT, but I'm not excited about it being merged with other material and padded out to three whole films.
As far as fantasy reading goes, you can give me Jack Finney any old day, for TIME AND AGAIN and much more, including his short stories.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff.
