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A few of the other guys here and at Horror Squad have championed the enigmatic thriller Triangle](Triangle - Movie | Moviefone). It’s even been a movie club pick recently (if you love the film or hate it, please discuss here). I finally watched it the other night and was taken with filmmaker Christopher Smith’s homage-happy style. Many horror geeks might relish in the way *Triangle *visually quotes from films like *The Shining *and Friday the 13th Part II](Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) - Movie | Moviefone), among others. On the other hand, I was more interested in finding out what influences I didn’t pick up on, and that’s how I was introduced to the 1945 Ealing Studios film Dead of Night](Dead of Night (1946) - Movie | Moviefone) (co-starring Sir Michael Redgrave, father of Lynn), which Smith acknowledges as a major inspiration for his film’s plot. (And yes, of course, I was also now more eager to check out Timecrimes](http://www.moviefone.com/movie/timecrimes-los-cronocrimenes/33333/main?icid=movsmartsearch), despite it’s indirect, coincidental connection to Triangle).
Either you go into a movie like *Triangle *or *Inglourious Basterds *or *Hot Fuzz *with full (or fairly good) familiarity with their respective genre’s history and delight in the ability to recognize all the references and homage (just try to claim you’re so well-versed in all of cinema; go on, just try it), or you come out of them with an interest in going backwards through film history and widening your knowledge and tastes. Maybe because I’ll always feel a relative ignorance to the entirety of cinema or maybe because my memory sucks, I’m not much good at the forward game of movie homage appreciation. But I love to play the backwards game of discovering the classics by way of the currents.
Continue reading Are You a Forward or Backward Movie Homage Appreciator?