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Showing posts with label indiana jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indiana jones. Show all posts
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The more I watch Elf the more I realize how much I genuinely love this movie. I really think it is one of my favorite Christmas movies ever made. As integral a part as Will Ferrell, James Caan and the rest of the cast is to the magic that makes Elf I truly believe that Jon Favreau is the glue that makes Elf work.
After the disappointment that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I was astounded to realize that Jon Favreau did with Iron Man what I expected Spielberg to do with Indiana Jones - Favreau made a Spielberg-esque film that delighted and enraptured on every level and brought you into the characters so that you identified with them all. Iron Man reminded me of something I never realized before; Jon Favreau is a damn good director. Looking back at Elf I would venture to say that he is one of the best directors of his generation.
You may want to disagree with me saying this about Favreau but you need to stop and look at the evidence. The mark of a good director is very obvious traits that should appear very subtlety because they need to fit the film the director is composing – compare a good film to a bad film and you will see it – you may not be able to identify it but you will be able to tell there is a difference. That difference is the hand and mind of a good director. A good director will have a beautiful film where the visuals fit the world they are trying to create, every shot works to build pieces of the puzzle and more than anything a good director draws you into the story and the characters in such a way that the two are indelibly connected and you empathize with the characters and want to watch them on their plight.
Elf like Iron Man has all of this and the common trait between the two films is the man at the helm – Jon Favreau. If Elf was handled by a different director it would have been an entirely different film. Chris Columbus for example would have been static in his shots, used little to no background action except where absolutely necessary and in the end you would have walked away laughing at Ferrell and not remembering much else about the film; if someone like Tyler Perry had directed Elf the jokes would have been heavy handed, the look of the film far too exuberant and characters would have paused at the end of jokes waiting for reactions.
The point is that while a good director doesn’t want to be noticed, once you start paying attention you should be able to see the marks of a good director all over their film. Jon Favreau is a good director and because of his handling of Elf his film has been added to the Christmas must-see list of countless fans world wide.
Buddy: Did you have to borrow a reindeer to get down here?
Miles Finch: Hey, jackweed, I get more action in a week than you've had in your entire life. I've got houses in L.A., Paris and Vail. In each one, a 70 inch plasma screen. So I suggest you wipe that stupid smile off your face before I come over there and SMACK it off! You feeling strong, my friend? Call me elf one more time.
Buddy:He's an angry elf.
After the disappointment that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I was astounded to realize that Jon Favreau did with Iron Man what I expected Spielberg to do with Indiana Jones - Favreau made a Spielberg-esque film that delighted and enraptured on every level and brought you into the characters so that you identified with them all. Iron Man reminded me of something I never realized before; Jon Favreau is a damn good director. Looking back at Elf I would venture to say that he is one of the best directors of his generation.
You may want to disagree with me saying this about Favreau but you need to stop and look at the evidence. The mark of a good director is very obvious traits that should appear very subtlety because they need to fit the film the director is composing – compare a good film to a bad film and you will see it – you may not be able to identify it but you will be able to tell there is a difference. That difference is the hand and mind of a good director. A good director will have a beautiful film where the visuals fit the world they are trying to create, every shot works to build pieces of the puzzle and more than anything a good director draws you into the story and the characters in such a way that the two are indelibly connected and you empathize with the characters and want to watch them on their plight.
Elf like Iron Man has all of this and the common trait between the two films is the man at the helm – Jon Favreau. If Elf was handled by a different director it would have been an entirely different film. Chris Columbus for example would have been static in his shots, used little to no background action except where absolutely necessary and in the end you would have walked away laughing at Ferrell and not remembering much else about the film; if someone like Tyler Perry had directed Elf the jokes would have been heavy handed, the look of the film far too exuberant and characters would have paused at the end of jokes waiting for reactions.
The point is that while a good director doesn’t want to be noticed, once you start paying attention you should be able to see the marks of a good director all over their film. Jon Favreau is a good director and because of his handling of Elf his film has been added to the Christmas must-see list of countless fans world wide.
Buddy: Did you have to borrow a reindeer to get down here?
Miles Finch: Hey, jackweed, I get more action in a week than you've had in your entire life. I've got houses in L.A., Paris and Vail. In each one, a 70 inch plasma screen. So I suggest you wipe that stupid smile off your face before I come over there and SMACK it off! You feeling strong, my friend? Call me elf one more time.
Buddy:He's an angry elf.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a science fiction classic. I have been trying to see it for years and only successfully saw it when I got it from my Netflix queue a few days ago.
On principle I shouldn’t like The Day the Earth Stood Still because it is a message movie, but I do; the message in this movie is give up your nuclear arms and wars or you’ll pay the consequences. This is the entire message Klaatu braved hundreds of thousands of miles in space to deliver. This all makes sense for the film when you realize that it is a cold war film and people across the globe were afraid of the bomb.
Despite being a message movie at its core The Day the Earth Stood Still is quite entertaining; the characters are fully developed, all the relationships make sense and the plot moves at a nice speed that unfolds information for the audience as they need it not before.
I think that Klaatu is a great member of the annals of film aliens. While he represents a different view of the otherworldly outsider than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did this year, it is a view of the alien type that probably influenced Spielberg when creating his earlier science fiction works like E.T.. There is both a fear of the outsider and a curiosity about what they can bring to us.
However, I do have to say that my single favorite thing in The Day the Earth Stood Still was Gort. A giant (mind you eight foot tall was big for special effects at the time) robot that was capable of destroying everything in its sight and who only Klaatu could control – that’s my kind of cold war paranoia. Gort is not only a protector of Klaatu but you find out that the robot is some sort of intergalactic peace officer created by Klaatu’s people.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a highly enjoyable film even if it has slightly suffered from being so era specific; however, seeing the original has me highly excited to see the remake when it comes out next month. Just imagine Gort with modern cgi.
Director: Robert Wise
Writer: Edmund H. Noth
Klaatu: Michael Rennie
Helen Benson: Patricia Neal
Tom Stevens: Hugh Marlowe
Professor Barnhardt: Sam Jaffe
Bobby Benson: Billy Gray
Gort: Lock Martin
On principle I shouldn’t like The Day the Earth Stood Still because it is a message movie, but I do; the message in this movie is give up your nuclear arms and wars or you’ll pay the consequences. This is the entire message Klaatu braved hundreds of thousands of miles in space to deliver. This all makes sense for the film when you realize that it is a cold war film and people across the globe were afraid of the bomb.
Despite being a message movie at its core The Day the Earth Stood Still is quite entertaining; the characters are fully developed, all the relationships make sense and the plot moves at a nice speed that unfolds information for the audience as they need it not before.
I think that Klaatu is a great member of the annals of film aliens. While he represents a different view of the otherworldly outsider than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did this year, it is a view of the alien type that probably influenced Spielberg when creating his earlier science fiction works like E.T.. There is both a fear of the outsider and a curiosity about what they can bring to us.
However, I do have to say that my single favorite thing in The Day the Earth Stood Still was Gort. A giant (mind you eight foot tall was big for special effects at the time) robot that was capable of destroying everything in its sight and who only Klaatu could control – that’s my kind of cold war paranoia. Gort is not only a protector of Klaatu but you find out that the robot is some sort of intergalactic peace officer created by Klaatu’s people.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a highly enjoyable film even if it has slightly suffered from being so era specific; however, seeing the original has me highly excited to see the remake when it comes out next month. Just imagine Gort with modern cgi.
Director: Robert Wise
Writer: Edmund H. Noth
Klaatu: Michael Rennie
Helen Benson: Patricia Neal
Tom Stevens: Hugh Marlowe
Professor Barnhardt: Sam Jaffe
Bobby Benson: Billy Gray
Gort: Lock Martin
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Yes, I saw it again.
Yes, I enjoyed it just as much.
Yes, I need to buy the special edition of the DVD the day it comes out.
I swear I saw it for acedemic reasons this time. Really. I wanted to see a Spielberg movie to see how they did somthing but was not going to sit through Indy 4 again so I saw a Spielberg-esque movie.
Just wait till Dark Knight.
Yes, I enjoyed it just as much.
Yes, I need to buy the special edition of the DVD the day it comes out.
I swear I saw it for acedemic reasons this time. Really. I wanted to see a Spielberg movie to see how they did somthing but was not going to sit through Indy 4 again so I saw a Spielberg-esque movie.
Just wait till Dark Knight.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
It’s been nineteen years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released to theatres. Nineteen years for fans to hope that maybe, someday they’d get to see the everyman hero named Indy crack his whip in a new adventure again. Last night at 12:01 a.m. the wait ended and fans are going to be divided directly down the line.
I cannot say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a bad movie. It is well shot by Janusz Kaminski (although it looks vastly different than any of the previous films), there are numerous iconic images that strike of what makes Spielberg the king of Hollywood, the action sequences are fun, and Indy does get out of tight situations by the combination of brains and brawn that we have come to expect from the character.
This being said, my problem with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is that the movie takes us to a place where I don’t think Indy belongs. I have no problem with the Cold War instead of the Nazi’s trying to take over the world, but aliens are stretching it. Indy himself doesn’t even seem to do much in the “detective” work that we’re so used to seeing him do; he follows an old friends instructions and this old friend turns out to be bat crazy then they just kind of jaunt together wherever old crazy tells them to go.
All of the Indiana Jones films harken back to the over-the-top action adventure movies of the golden era of cinema, but Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade still managed to create realistic characters, realistic (yet fanciful) adventures and amazing action – yet Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seems to have finally walked just over the line where an homage to old action movies becomes a literal translation of old action movies. And this time we get old sci-fi movies as well, and I tell you I don’t think Doctor Jones can pull off sci-fi.
I won’t post any spoilers here as I know that this movie is going to be seen by almost everyone I know this weekend, but I will stress that you need to go into the movie knowing that this is not the Indiana Jones you remember, this is an Indiana Jones movie made for a new generation of kids who don’t want to think about what they are watching.
This is my final opinion: I waited nineteen years for a sequel to a movie that really didn’t need a sequel, I know that they had fun making it, but I would have waited another year or two for a movie that felt more like an Indiana Jones movie, not a movie that feels like another movie that happens to have the Indiana Jones characters in it.
I think far too many movies are being made nowadays because they are “fun” movies to watch. What happened to the days where my “fun” movies to watch were also smart?
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp
Indiana Jones: Harrison Ford
Marion Ravenwood: Karen Allen
Mutt: Shia LaBeouf
Mac: Ray winstone
Irina Spalko: Cate Blanchett
Indiana Jones: Put your hands down will you, you're embarrassing us.
I cannot say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a bad movie. It is well shot by Janusz Kaminski (although it looks vastly different than any of the previous films), there are numerous iconic images that strike of what makes Spielberg the king of Hollywood, the action sequences are fun, and Indy does get out of tight situations by the combination of brains and brawn that we have come to expect from the character.
This being said, my problem with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is that the movie takes us to a place where I don’t think Indy belongs. I have no problem with the Cold War instead of the Nazi’s trying to take over the world, but aliens are stretching it. Indy himself doesn’t even seem to do much in the “detective” work that we’re so used to seeing him do; he follows an old friends instructions and this old friend turns out to be bat crazy then they just kind of jaunt together wherever old crazy tells them to go.
All of the Indiana Jones films harken back to the over-the-top action adventure movies of the golden era of cinema, but Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade still managed to create realistic characters, realistic (yet fanciful) adventures and amazing action – yet Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seems to have finally walked just over the line where an homage to old action movies becomes a literal translation of old action movies. And this time we get old sci-fi movies as well, and I tell you I don’t think Doctor Jones can pull off sci-fi.
I won’t post any spoilers here as I know that this movie is going to be seen by almost everyone I know this weekend, but I will stress that you need to go into the movie knowing that this is not the Indiana Jones you remember, this is an Indiana Jones movie made for a new generation of kids who don’t want to think about what they are watching.
This is my final opinion: I waited nineteen years for a sequel to a movie that really didn’t need a sequel, I know that they had fun making it, but I would have waited another year or two for a movie that felt more like an Indiana Jones movie, not a movie that feels like another movie that happens to have the Indiana Jones characters in it.
I think far too many movies are being made nowadays because they are “fun” movies to watch. What happened to the days where my “fun” movies to watch were also smart?
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp
Indiana Jones: Harrison Ford
Marion Ravenwood: Karen Allen
Mutt: Shia LaBeouf
Mac: Ray winstone
Irina Spalko: Cate Blanchett
Indiana Jones: Put your hands down will you, you're embarrassing us.
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