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Cloverfield is the only one that I thought was reasonable.
The Blair Witch Project was my first foray into FF. It worked, though I never thought of the film as the brilliant masterpiece many made it out to be. In fact, I mostly respect TBWP because of how it practically discovered the costless marketing potential the Internet offered.
Cloverfield is a film I like though I hardly watch it as often as I might. V/H/S is very good IMO and Rec. may very well be the only FF film so far that I have watched repeatedly. (Not Quarentine though. That film only exists because some people are not bright enough to read subtitles.)
I don't take Paranormal Activity seriously at all. My contempt for these films is well documented. The FF angle is hardly fresh at this point and PA does nothing to make it interesting again.
FF has become so easily accessible because of all the user generated junk that we can find on YouTube. People have forgotten to consider the framing of a shot, camera angles, editing, ... Voyeurism has become morally acceptable because every fool in town posts self-made movie clips of his vacation, house, garage, garden, dog, hamster, ... Nobody seems to worry about the consequences of such voluntary exposure anymore. And because such artless filth is constantly dropped on the Internet like bird dung, our quality standards for film have been reduced dramatically over the past few years. FF doesn't obey any rules; in a sense it's every uneducated wannabe filmmaker's wet dream. Just shoot some images and paste them together and you get away with it. Haunted houses and Exorcisms especially seem to be very popular in the FF microverse. Why? I suppose because those who don't worry too much about quality of film do not worry about quality of brain labour either. Rather than studying physics and psychology, 'weird' things can be lazily attributed to the presence of ghosts and demonic possessions. And if you use FF, it looks like a documentary, like something *real* and so then it must be real, right?
A minor few FF films are worth our time but most of them target audiences who bring very limited quality demands to the game.
Or so I think. ;-)
This "found footage" genre is getting kinda old. The shaky cam etc is just starting to grate on one's nerves. I liked "Cloverfield" but I think they have started to beat this dead horse to death.
What's your favourite James Cameron movie?</font></center>
T2, followed by Aliens and then by TT, followed by The Abyss and then True Lies, is what my top 5 Cameron films would look like.
Titanic, I'm sorry to say, isn't my bag. I watched it many years ago, I think it's certainly not bad, but it drowns - no pun intended - in spectacle and leaves me fairly uninterested in the characters and their story. Avatar is also not a bad film, but I struggled with seeing the brilliance apart from the obvious technical achievements. Then still, I predicted that said achievements would be matched and even surpassed by other films in a very near future, and IMO the very same thing has indeed happened. Fortunately there's still a story left in Avatar but unfortunately not one to boast of. Unoriginal, almost dull even.
So I know why I keep going back to Cameron's first couple of films, I bitterly leave the last two decades (and last two films) of his career alone for most of the time. I'm simply not interested in returning to Titanic and Avatar.
But seriously, quite a brilliant filmmaker and craftsman. While not exactly my cup of tea, I'm not surprised by the gargantuan success of Titanic and Avatar. It would be interesting to see him working with a lower budget again some day, as I do think The Terminator in hindsight benefits from its lack of spectacular action sequences and breathtaking special effects. But though I may find his latter output slightly less compelling, he does sport a remarkable filmography. Just yesterday I was hoping to watch The Abyss again for the first time in some 20 years, but was voted down by my wife. Better luck tonight, maybe.
I guess my short list would be:
Titanic
Terminator 2
Terminator
Aliens/TrueLies (tie)
I actually have not seen Avatar yet. In general, Cameron is not a favorite of mine.
After near five years sans Bond, this was welcome action viewing in 1994.
After that, T2 and The Abyss would be my pics.
Titanic is well made, but the length and characters bring it down. Avatar is just painfull. Massively over rated.
Titanic & Avatar are both despised by quite a few but reign the BO together easily, JC seems to know how to make a spectacle movie with great appeal to both sexes. And his movies always push the technological borders ahead. The man knows how to make and deliver a movie better than most so called experts do.
I am still most in awe of Terminator & The Abyss. As spectacle T2, Aliens, Avatar & Titanic are quite impressive. True Lies is a hoot and a half.
(hint)
As others have stated, The Terminator is just raw, powerful, streamlined filmmaking. A very simple premise perfectly executed by Cameron's gritty shooting and editing and elevated by Fiedel's atmospheric '80s synth music and the committed performances of Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, and Biehn.
The Abyss, in addition to being beautifully filmed and scored, is anchored by its central story of rediscovered love between estranged husband and wife, Bud (Harris) and Lindsey (Mastrantonio). An excellent sci-fi undersea adventure with thrilling action sequences and a warm, uplifting resolution.
Terminator 2 and Aliens are both highly entertaining sequels that upped the scope and the action from their predecessors, while yet missing something of the tone/atmosphere/energy that made the originals (Cameron's The Terminator and Ridley Scott's Alien) so great. I like them both; they just stand in long shadows.
Beyond those four, my interest in James Cameron's filmography really drops off. The common link between all these films? Michael Biehn. Hmmm. Maybe Cameron should consider casting Biehn again... ;)