Le Septième Art

tugginc:

You can call it a tribute, an homage, a cinematic tip of the hat - this is what links films across genres and decades, and preserves cinema. Classic horror films like Kubrick’s “The Shining” can find love in a Pixar film like “Toy Story” and director’s like Scorsese can create entire features dedicated to their love of movies. Films don’t have to call upon their predecessors, but almost all films have some point of inspiration, and when this inspiration is acknowledged directly, the film becomes a much larger experience. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of our ten favorite homage’s/tributes that make us appreciate not just the film, but also the connection it creates to movies through the ages.

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2. Rango (Chinatown/ Fear and Loathing/ Spaghetti Westerns)
Rango! This film definitely deserves our number 2 spot on this list. For starters, the entire story is an homage to Polanski’s film “Chinatown”. Both of these films take place in a world where water has become a luxury because of its scarcity. Both films have a character of high political power in charge of the water supply, and of course, both take place in a dessert world full of brown hues and dry landscapes. Oh, and did we mention the big one? It turns out that both towns do indeed have water, but the water is being dumped at night to maintain control.

On top of being an homage to “Chinatown”, “Rango” also ends up giving us a pretty comical scene as our main character accidentally lands on the windshield of a traveling car. Who is driving this vehicle? The same character that Johnny Depp played in his 1998 hit “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”

How meta of you, Rango. One last thing that would be worth pointing out, is the hilarious portrayal of “The Spirit of the West” by Timothy Olyphant. Best Clint Eastwood Impersonation ever?