Released in 1975, Milos Forman's staggering film of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (adapted from Ken Kesey's equally brilliant semi-autobiographical 1962 novel) remains arguably the most relevant, accurate and powerful cinematic analysis of mental illness and corruption of power ever. It became just the second film ever to win the five major Academy Awards and was shown in Swedish cinemas for 12 years, which remains a national record in Sweden. Yet at the time the critical reception of the movie was still rather uneven (though deservedly that's improved over time), and Kesey vehemently refused to watch it as the story wasn't told from the point of view of Chief Bromden like it is in the novel.
But what a film it is. After fighting for more than a decade to get the film made, producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas (largely influenced by his father Kirk, who first acquired the film rights) had developed a strong affection for the story and once they had the financing they hired Czech director Milos Forman, the only director they encountered who shared their affection for Kesey's story. It isn't hard to see why, and as Forman spent the majority of his formative years and the early part of his career living under a totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia after losing his parents in Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a child, Forman proved to be the perfect director to bring to the screen this story of silenced and very often misunderstood people existing in such circumstances who are slowly inspired to take a stand. Forman's direction is a thing of sheer mastery: tender yet honest in the sequences involving McMurphy's (Jack Nicholson) relationship with his fellow patients, raw in the sequences revolving around Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), a usually calm but unknowingly corrupt and dictatorial woman who thinks she's doing what's in her patients' best interests and how she runs the ward and treats her patients, unflinching but sympathetic in its depiction of the ravages mental illnesses inflict on those who suffer from them, and all those qualities in the emotionally draining yet tremendously inspiring climax. Forman simply outdid himself here.
But of course, every director is only as good (or bad) as the cast and crew they have to work with, and Forman's is flawless. Starting with the cast, he garners three of the most perfect displays of acting in cinematic history. McMurphy was the role Nicholson was born to play, and while he's a force of nature in the scenes involving McMurphy squaring off with Nurse Ratched, his more subtle scenes where he depicts the changes that the institution and his fellow patients in whom he provoked a change first are the ones that truly assure him a place among the true all-time legends (and the fact that he and Forman had a fiery relationship just makes his turn even more unbelievable). He's never been better before or since, and as brilliant as Al Pacino is in Dog Day Afternoon I'm firmly in Team McMurphy. Fletcher is every bit as good as the sadistic Nurse Ratched who tries to clip the free-spirited McMurphy's wings – it's an incredibly controlled performance, because while a lesser actress would have played her like an overbearing battleaxe, Fletcher is chilling because of her sincerity. Yet even despite how truly frightening Fletcher is she also manages to make the viewer feel a small amount of sympathy for Nurse Ratched by simultaneously playing her as a woman who's really just trying to do her job even though she's oblivious to the negative impact she's had on those in her care. Also, Brad Dourif pulls off one of the most astounding supporting turns in movie history as Billy Bibbitt, a stuttering (and thus exploited) teenager who proves to be the catalyst for Nurse Ratched's downfall at the hands of McMurphy, and William Redfield (who sadly died shortly after the movie was released) and Sydney Lassick are also superb as the schizophrenic Harding and bipolar Cheswick.
Bo Goldman and Laurence Hauben's screenplay is one of the few that, I think it can be said, against which most others are measured. With great eloquence, insight, power and intelligence (and no cheese or sentimentality) they collectively crafted a screenplay that never waters down the ugly things that are mental illnesses, gives the viewer/reader a greater understanding of the effects (both negative and also positive) they have on those who suffer from them and also what causes corruption, it celebrates the rebels of the world who fight the establishment for the greater good as well as themselves, and perhaps most importantly it shows the mentally ill not as not as complete caricatures (because often such depictions of the mentally ill are, it must be said, accurate ones), but as people who can achieve anything (even if they need a little guidance).
Two other enormous bright spots are Jack Nitzsche's amazing score which is somehow mesmerizing in its musical simplicity (and it surely would've scooped the movie's sixth Oscar had Jaws come out in any other year) and Haskell Wexler's beautifully evocative cinematography.
Countless similar films before and since have explored rebellion against corrupt authority figures and the inner workings of the human mind what makes us all tick, but One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest will forever be the cinematic depiction of life in a "loony bin" (as McMurphy puts it) to end them all. After more than thirty years it remains an absolutely flawless, definitive, knockout masterpiece, and one of the five most deserving Best Picture Oscar winners of all. And is that the greatest climax of a Best Picture winner ever or is that the greatest climax of a Best Picture winner ever?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Review: Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
In 1980, Martin Scorsese and his frequent leading man Robert De Niro re-teamed to craft Raging Bull, a film masterpiece that chronicles the career and decline of boxer Jake La Motta, a '50s Middleweight Champion of the World, who was as violent and angry outside the ring as he was inside it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the uncommercial appeal of its subject matter (how can we sympathize with such an unlikable man?) and that at the box office 1980 was owned by The Empire Strikes Back, Raging Bull flopped but its creators still deservedly received vast critical acclaim. This was what saved it from going under, and fortunately it has now become a must-see classic.
Based on La Motta's autobiography Raging Bull: My Story (which De Niro famously brought to Scorsese's attention while the latter was recovering in hospital due to a cocaine addiction), Raging Bull opens in 1964, by which time La Motta was in retirement and trying to make a successful career change as a stand-up comic. Through his younger brother Joey (Joe Pesci), Jake meets Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a stunning 15-year-old girl who he falls madly in love with and marries. But Jake's extreme volatility comes to the fore many times, eventually destroying his relationships with Vickie and Joey. Also, his uncontrollable appetite is the spark that sets off his decline in strength and thus his decline in successful bouts. By the end he is a broken figure who doesn't know what to do with himself or how to get back what he lost. La Motta may be deeply unlikable, but the film doesn't try to glamourize him or make him a typical Hollywood hero: rather, Marty and Bobby have produced a film showing how a well-known man's soul can be destroyed by his celebrity status and the personal demons he has which he can't overcome.
In De Niro, Pesci and Moriarty we have one of the very finest screen trios ever assembled. It's very hard to know where to begin when describing De Niro's powerhouse performance here. The much-documented enormous weight gain he put himself through to play Jake certainly helped him to the extent that he hoped it would – he's flawless in every scene. Going seamlessly from anger to ferocity in the ring to lust and sexual frustration – often in the space of just one scene – De Niro nails each of Jake's deep complexities, and the end result is a performance that's scary, authoritative and towards the end even very moving (the wall-beating scene is arguably Bobby's finest hour). Not to be outdone, Pesci brings a great deal of heart to the younger, smarter and more self-controlled Joey, and Moriarty gives one of the best female supporting performances of all time as Jake's blonde bombshell trophy wife Vickie. Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader's gritty screenplay gets to the core of these characters brilliantly.
As Marty went into making Raging Bull whilst recovering from a cocaine overdose he was inspired to put his blood, sweat and tears into it in case it was his last movie. And boy, did he. Apart from coaxing those towering performances out of his three main stars, Scorsese summons all the creative talents at his command to create a film of lasting visual wonders as well as emotional power. This is especially evident in the grand boxing sequences, where Michael Chapman's cinematography is so effective you can nearly smell the fighters' sweat and feel the heat and tension inside the ring. Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is so fast but fluid that you can feel every punch that's thrown. With these sequences in particular Scorsese showcases the full artistic force of cinema at its most grand.
Raging Bull was a labor of love for both De Niro and Scorsese, and it shows. They could just as easily have done the opposite and made a boxing movie along the lines of the Rocky series, showing a underdog fighter becoming champion of the world and inspiring the masses. But like true rebels, they did the opposite for a boxing movie – they told the story of a violent man with a desire to be the best who rises to the top but then crashes and burns without really learning anything along the way. Thematically Raging Bull is an eternally tragic and resonant story of how our personal demons can destroy us and also of how society throws celebrities away sometimes within the blink of an eye, and technically it is the stuff that consistently takes your breath away. All in all, a definitive masterpiece. Unforgettable
Based on La Motta's autobiography Raging Bull: My Story (which De Niro famously brought to Scorsese's attention while the latter was recovering in hospital due to a cocaine addiction), Raging Bull opens in 1964, by which time La Motta was in retirement and trying to make a successful career change as a stand-up comic. Through his younger brother Joey (Joe Pesci), Jake meets Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a stunning 15-year-old girl who he falls madly in love with and marries. But Jake's extreme volatility comes to the fore many times, eventually destroying his relationships with Vickie and Joey. Also, his uncontrollable appetite is the spark that sets off his decline in strength and thus his decline in successful bouts. By the end he is a broken figure who doesn't know what to do with himself or how to get back what he lost. La Motta may be deeply unlikable, but the film doesn't try to glamourize him or make him a typical Hollywood hero: rather, Marty and Bobby have produced a film showing how a well-known man's soul can be destroyed by his celebrity status and the personal demons he has which he can't overcome.
In De Niro, Pesci and Moriarty we have one of the very finest screen trios ever assembled. It's very hard to know where to begin when describing De Niro's powerhouse performance here. The much-documented enormous weight gain he put himself through to play Jake certainly helped him to the extent that he hoped it would – he's flawless in every scene. Going seamlessly from anger to ferocity in the ring to lust and sexual frustration – often in the space of just one scene – De Niro nails each of Jake's deep complexities, and the end result is a performance that's scary, authoritative and towards the end even very moving (the wall-beating scene is arguably Bobby's finest hour). Not to be outdone, Pesci brings a great deal of heart to the younger, smarter and more self-controlled Joey, and Moriarty gives one of the best female supporting performances of all time as Jake's blonde bombshell trophy wife Vickie. Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader's gritty screenplay gets to the core of these characters brilliantly.
As Marty went into making Raging Bull whilst recovering from a cocaine overdose he was inspired to put his blood, sweat and tears into it in case it was his last movie. And boy, did he. Apart from coaxing those towering performances out of his three main stars, Scorsese summons all the creative talents at his command to create a film of lasting visual wonders as well as emotional power. This is especially evident in the grand boxing sequences, where Michael Chapman's cinematography is so effective you can nearly smell the fighters' sweat and feel the heat and tension inside the ring. Thelma Schoonmaker's editing is so fast but fluid that you can feel every punch that's thrown. With these sequences in particular Scorsese showcases the full artistic force of cinema at its most grand.
Raging Bull was a labor of love for both De Niro and Scorsese, and it shows. They could just as easily have done the opposite and made a boxing movie along the lines of the Rocky series, showing a underdog fighter becoming champion of the world and inspiring the masses. But like true rebels, they did the opposite for a boxing movie – they told the story of a violent man with a desire to be the best who rises to the top but then crashes and burns without really learning anything along the way. Thematically Raging Bull is an eternally tragic and resonant story of how our personal demons can destroy us and also of how society throws celebrities away sometimes within the blink of an eye, and technically it is the stuff that consistently takes your breath away. All in all, a definitive masterpiece. Unforgettable
Review: The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Like most of the very best movies, Stanley Kubrick's film of The Shining has only become more and more renowned and influential with time. Released in 1980 to a limited box office success, mixed reviews and even (one would say, understandable) hostility from feminist groups, it certainly didn't catch on overnight. What's more, Stephen King was famously angered by how his story had been translated to the silver screen and Kubrick's crazed perfectionism boiled over to the point where it became what he was known most for, personality-wise (he notoriously did over 300 takes of the "What should be done with Danny" scene). But jumpforward 30 years, and The Shining has finally risen to a level of greatesteem with critics and audiences alike, and rightfully so.
Struggling author and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their young son Danny (Danny Lloyd, who, thanks to some clever direction had no idea he was working on a horror movie) have just arrived at the magnificent, sprawling Overlook Hotel in Colorado, where Jack has landed the job of caretaker during the winter off-season. Jack hopes to get some serious writing done during their stay, but unbeknownst to him, Wendy and Danny, the Overlook has a very violent past in which one of the former caretakers murdered himself and his entire family out of isolation. Their spirits remain, haunting and cursing the hotel. On top of that, young Danny possesses a very powerful gift called "shining," which enables him to clairvoyantly detect and communicate with evil spirits, a gift he ironically shares with the hotel's kindly head chef Dick Hallorann (the wonderful Scatman Crothers). Over the winter, emotional problems and isolation send Jack spirally down into the depths of insanity, leading to only two things: bloodshed and death.
Now I'll be honest: Kubrick is one director who either amazes me (Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket and of course this) or bores me stupid (Barry Lyndon and the first half of 2001: A Space Odyssey), but with this knockout masterpiece he makes not one decision that's less than a genius one. His direction here is nothing short of breathtaking, as his rhythmic pace in the second and third acts and tedious attention to detail in all three acts of the film enables him to notch the tension up to almost unbearable levels, all building up to one of the most unforgettable climaxes ever seen in cinema. Much credit for this goes to cinematographer John Alcott, whose stunning aerial shots and creepy Steadicam interior photography enhances the film's eerie atmosphere enormously. The music by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind also does what it is meant to do brilliantly.
Maybe most thankfully, given this is a horror movie after all, the acting is exceptional. The one and only Jack Nicholson, despite not wanting to be in the same room as his director during filming, enjoys what for me is his best role after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's R.P. Murphy, and boy does he give it his all. Nicholson makes it look all too easy as he effortlessly portrays Jack in every stage of his downfall – from slightly crazy and career-driven but loving husband and father to unstable hotel-bound man to finally a complete and utter animal. Nobody else could have played this part, and it's surely one of the scariest performances in the history of film. Although her character will probably annoy many people (and indeed that's really the point, you could argue), Shelley Duvall does a radiant job as an initially seemingly catatonic housewife who must race against time to save herself and her son from the one man who should love them more than anything else in the world. Finally, Scatman Crothers brings a whole lot of old-world charm to the wise and affable cook who shares Danny's gift/curse.
I was first introduced to Kubrick's film of The Shining when I was a 13-year-old lad, eager for something new, and I was mesmerized – scared shitless, but mesmerized. Its technical mastery aside, The Shining becomes a true definitive masterpiece in how it deconstructs the human condition, looking at what makes us sane and what can spark irreversible insanity in us all. With each genre he tackled, Kubrick aimed to make the last word in film-making in whatever genre that might've been. This was his attempt to do that for the horror genre, and if I may say so, he sure as hell succeeded. The Shining is one of the most insanely (no pun intended) brilliant pieces of cinema ever crafted.
Struggling author and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their young son Danny (Danny Lloyd, who, thanks to some clever direction had no idea he was working on a horror movie) have just arrived at the magnificent, sprawling Overlook Hotel in Colorado, where Jack has landed the job of caretaker during the winter off-season. Jack hopes to get some serious writing done during their stay, but unbeknownst to him, Wendy and Danny, the Overlook has a very violent past in which one of the former caretakers murdered himself and his entire family out of isolation. Their spirits remain, haunting and cursing the hotel. On top of that, young Danny possesses a very powerful gift called "shining," which enables him to clairvoyantly detect and communicate with evil spirits, a gift he ironically shares with the hotel's kindly head chef Dick Hallorann (the wonderful Scatman Crothers). Over the winter, emotional problems and isolation send Jack spirally down into the depths of insanity, leading to only two things: bloodshed and death.
Now I'll be honest: Kubrick is one director who either amazes me (Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket and of course this) or bores me stupid (Barry Lyndon and the first half of 2001: A Space Odyssey), but with this knockout masterpiece he makes not one decision that's less than a genius one. His direction here is nothing short of breathtaking, as his rhythmic pace in the second and third acts and tedious attention to detail in all three acts of the film enables him to notch the tension up to almost unbearable levels, all building up to one of the most unforgettable climaxes ever seen in cinema. Much credit for this goes to cinematographer John Alcott, whose stunning aerial shots and creepy Steadicam interior photography enhances the film's eerie atmosphere enormously. The music by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind also does what it is meant to do brilliantly.
Maybe most thankfully, given this is a horror movie after all, the acting is exceptional. The one and only Jack Nicholson, despite not wanting to be in the same room as his director during filming, enjoys what for me is his best role after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's R.P. Murphy, and boy does he give it his all. Nicholson makes it look all too easy as he effortlessly portrays Jack in every stage of his downfall – from slightly crazy and career-driven but loving husband and father to unstable hotel-bound man to finally a complete and utter animal. Nobody else could have played this part, and it's surely one of the scariest performances in the history of film. Although her character will probably annoy many people (and indeed that's really the point, you could argue), Shelley Duvall does a radiant job as an initially seemingly catatonic housewife who must race against time to save herself and her son from the one man who should love them more than anything else in the world. Finally, Scatman Crothers brings a whole lot of old-world charm to the wise and affable cook who shares Danny's gift/curse.
I was first introduced to Kubrick's film of The Shining when I was a 13-year-old lad, eager for something new, and I was mesmerized – scared shitless, but mesmerized. Its technical mastery aside, The Shining becomes a true definitive masterpiece in how it deconstructs the human condition, looking at what makes us sane and what can spark irreversible insanity in us all. With each genre he tackled, Kubrick aimed to make the last word in film-making in whatever genre that might've been. This was his attempt to do that for the horror genre, and if I may say so, he sure as hell succeeded. The Shining is one of the most insanely (no pun intended) brilliant pieces of cinema ever crafted.
Review: Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
The beginning of the 1970s saw the rise of New Hollywood, an American film-making movement that changed movie-making forever with its searing honesty and hard-hitting realism. Classics like Chinatown, Network and The Godfather toppled cinematic taboos by presenting the movie-going public with radically gritty and audacious stories of the darker side of society and human nature. In my opinion the most powerful and effective film to come from this influential movement is 1976's Taxi Driver, a timeless masterwork from the great Martin Scorsese, who takes no prisoners in telling the story of a disenfranchised soul on the tattered fringe of society, and he drags you shocked but mesmerized to the very end.
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro in perhaps his most famous role) is a lonely and mentally disturbed Vietnam veteran who doesn't feel welcome anywhere in his community, New York City. Suffering from insomnia (probably due to his experiences in Vietnam) he spends most nights taking drugs and hiding out in porno theatres waiting for the day to come when someone will give him the time of day. After awhile he decides to take a job as a taxi driver around NYC, and through this line of work he witnesses the full extent of urban malaise in New York. Sickened by this, Travis decides to set out to try and clean up the city for good using no-holds-barred violence. In the meantime, he tries to forge a relationship with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a stunning campaign aid for presidential candidate Charles Pallantine, but he fails miserably and naturally this increases his frustration and anger. He makes an assassination attempt on Pallantine's life, but fails in this act also. Finally he redeems himself when he saves the life of an underage prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster, turning in one of the most professional child performances in cinematic history) from her abusive pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel).
Robert De Niro is nothing short of a force of nature in the lead role. After having famously worked as a cab driver for months to prepare for the part, he effortlessly creates a scarred man beyond help who sees no harm in trying to clean up the streets through acts of violence. This is an unmistakably scary performance; there are no traces of Robert De Niro here. Jodie Foster, who has become one of the very few famous child actors to become a highly respected adult performer, gives a turn far beyond her years at the time, flawlessly downplaying Iris' outward self-confidence and inward vulnerability (which is exactly how many 14-year-old girls AND boys are even now), Cybill Shepherd brings sophistication and grace to the career-driven blonde bombshell Betsy, and Peter Boyle is perfectly cast as Wizard, the streetwise guy who Travis turns to for advice. For better or worse these are all types you could find in just about any street, and De Niro, Foster, Shepherd and Boyle breathe life into them with absolute accuracy.
Working from Paul Schrader's uncompromising screenplay (Schrader used Arthur Bremer as the inspiration for Travis), Martin Scorsese achieves his most accomplished directorial achievement after Raging Bull. He was perhaps the ideal director to tell this story, having been raised on crime films whilst grown up in New York's Little Italy, and he pulls no punches (keep an eye out for him in a cameo appearance as a guy in Travis' cab going home to kill his unfaithful wife). Scorsese summons all the tools and elements of film-making to bring to the table a ferocious portrait of America reduced nearly to the status of a cruel and dark wasteland that sucks people in and crushes all their hopes and dreams: most notably, the editing is fluid, the cinematography is grainy as it should be and never too intrusive, and Bernard Herrmann's jazzy and evocative score is instantly recognizable.
With this landmark film that changed the cinematic landscape forever, Scorsese, Schrader and De Niro all worked to make a social statement that is still so true and shocking, but one you simply can't look away from no matter how harder it may be to stomach. As (possibly, depending on whether you view Travis as a villain or as just as a really deranged antihero) troubling as it may be there have always been many Travis Bickles all over the world, and that's where Taxi Driver's timeless and universal truth lies.
Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro in perhaps his most famous role) is a lonely and mentally disturbed Vietnam veteran who doesn't feel welcome anywhere in his community, New York City. Suffering from insomnia (probably due to his experiences in Vietnam) he spends most nights taking drugs and hiding out in porno theatres waiting for the day to come when someone will give him the time of day. After awhile he decides to take a job as a taxi driver around NYC, and through this line of work he witnesses the full extent of urban malaise in New York. Sickened by this, Travis decides to set out to try and clean up the city for good using no-holds-barred violence. In the meantime, he tries to forge a relationship with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a stunning campaign aid for presidential candidate Charles Pallantine, but he fails miserably and naturally this increases his frustration and anger. He makes an assassination attempt on Pallantine's life, but fails in this act also. Finally he redeems himself when he saves the life of an underage prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster, turning in one of the most professional child performances in cinematic history) from her abusive pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel).
Robert De Niro is nothing short of a force of nature in the lead role. After having famously worked as a cab driver for months to prepare for the part, he effortlessly creates a scarred man beyond help who sees no harm in trying to clean up the streets through acts of violence. This is an unmistakably scary performance; there are no traces of Robert De Niro here. Jodie Foster, who has become one of the very few famous child actors to become a highly respected adult performer, gives a turn far beyond her years at the time, flawlessly downplaying Iris' outward self-confidence and inward vulnerability (which is exactly how many 14-year-old girls AND boys are even now), Cybill Shepherd brings sophistication and grace to the career-driven blonde bombshell Betsy, and Peter Boyle is perfectly cast as Wizard, the streetwise guy who Travis turns to for advice. For better or worse these are all types you could find in just about any street, and De Niro, Foster, Shepherd and Boyle breathe life into them with absolute accuracy.
Working from Paul Schrader's uncompromising screenplay (Schrader used Arthur Bremer as the inspiration for Travis), Martin Scorsese achieves his most accomplished directorial achievement after Raging Bull. He was perhaps the ideal director to tell this story, having been raised on crime films whilst grown up in New York's Little Italy, and he pulls no punches (keep an eye out for him in a cameo appearance as a guy in Travis' cab going home to kill his unfaithful wife). Scorsese summons all the tools and elements of film-making to bring to the table a ferocious portrait of America reduced nearly to the status of a cruel and dark wasteland that sucks people in and crushes all their hopes and dreams: most notably, the editing is fluid, the cinematography is grainy as it should be and never too intrusive, and Bernard Herrmann's jazzy and evocative score is instantly recognizable.
With this landmark film that changed the cinematic landscape forever, Scorsese, Schrader and De Niro all worked to make a social statement that is still so true and shocking, but one you simply can't look away from no matter how harder it may be to stomach. As (possibly, depending on whether you view Travis as a villain or as just as a really deranged antihero) troubling as it may be there have always been many Travis Bickles all over the world, and that's where Taxi Driver's timeless and universal truth lies.
Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
In 1981, executive producer/co-creator George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg, longtime friends and the men responsible for the two biggest hits of all time up to that point (Star Wars and Jaws), teamed up to give the world Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first (and by a considerable margin the best) of four films following the adventures of Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, and in the process they introduced to the world both a character and a series of films that changed not just cinema, but worldwide pop culture.
It's 1936. The one and only Harrison Ford breathes life into the arrogant but lovable Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, a man who by day is a boring college archaeology professor, but by night scours the Earth in search of priceless ancient artifacts not for personal gain, but so they can be restored and stored in museums for future generations. In this particular adventure, Dr. Jones travels to Egypt to capture the famed Ark of the Covenant, an ancient chest said to contain the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. The problem is the Nazis are also after it, having learned that any army that wields it is invincible. Along the way our hero is reunited in a Nepalese bar with his feisty ex-flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and doges all sorts of booby traps and life-threatening situations in his quest to retrieve the Ark before the Nazis and his archaeological rival Dr. René Belloq get their hands on it. Our hero is no Superman though, as he gets beaten and bashed up at every time, while Marion is no token damsel in distress either, but rather a tough, independent woman who (most of the time) doesn't need Indy at all.
Like all the best movies ever made, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a series of awesome scenes strung together by a perfect narrative: Indy finding the basket of snakes in the back seat of the plane with him; Indy in the pyramid finding the location of the Ark by using the staff and the medallion; having to face his fear of snakes whilst being trapped in Egyptian asp-filled Well of Souls; the truck chase; dodging bandits in a Cairo market; the fight with the Arab swordsman (which was originally supposed to be a much longer sequence, but Ford was suffering from dysentery on the day and ask Spielberg if he could "just shoot the guy"), and my personal favourite, Indy dodging the giant rolling boulder after retrieving the golden idol. With this masterpiece Spielberg and Lucas raised the bar for the action-adventure film-making so high that it still has not been matched.
Yes, E.T. made more money and Schindler's List (which I must confess is barely superior for me) and Saving Private Ryan earned him his well-deserved and long overdue recognition from AMPAS, but Raiders of the Lost Ark remains Spielberg's most unabashedly fun piece of escapist entertainment, one which still serves as an inspiration for countless filmmakers and writers alike (most clearly evident in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, a remake Spielberg apparently enjoyed which was made in the '80s by three kids whose lives the original changed.) The quintessential action-adventure movie of all time
It's 1936. The one and only Harrison Ford breathes life into the arrogant but lovable Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, a man who by day is a boring college archaeology professor, but by night scours the Earth in search of priceless ancient artifacts not for personal gain, but so they can be restored and stored in museums for future generations. In this particular adventure, Dr. Jones travels to Egypt to capture the famed Ark of the Covenant, an ancient chest said to contain the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. The problem is the Nazis are also after it, having learned that any army that wields it is invincible. Along the way our hero is reunited in a Nepalese bar with his feisty ex-flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and doges all sorts of booby traps and life-threatening situations in his quest to retrieve the Ark before the Nazis and his archaeological rival Dr. René Belloq get their hands on it. Our hero is no Superman though, as he gets beaten and bashed up at every time, while Marion is no token damsel in distress either, but rather a tough, independent woman who (most of the time) doesn't need Indy at all.
Like all the best movies ever made, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a series of awesome scenes strung together by a perfect narrative: Indy finding the basket of snakes in the back seat of the plane with him; Indy in the pyramid finding the location of the Ark by using the staff and the medallion; having to face his fear of snakes whilst being trapped in Egyptian asp-filled Well of Souls; the truck chase; dodging bandits in a Cairo market; the fight with the Arab swordsman (which was originally supposed to be a much longer sequence, but Ford was suffering from dysentery on the day and ask Spielberg if he could "just shoot the guy"), and my personal favourite, Indy dodging the giant rolling boulder after retrieving the golden idol. With this masterpiece Spielberg and Lucas raised the bar for the action-adventure film-making so high that it still has not been matched.
Yes, E.T. made more money and Schindler's List (which I must confess is barely superior for me) and Saving Private Ryan earned him his well-deserved and long overdue recognition from AMPAS, but Raiders of the Lost Ark remains Spielberg's most unabashedly fun piece of escapist entertainment, one which still serves as an inspiration for countless filmmakers and writers alike (most clearly evident in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, a remake Spielberg apparently enjoyed which was made in the '80s by three kids whose lives the original changed.) The quintessential action-adventure movie of all time
Review: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
It received a standing ovation at Cannes. It brought Princess Diana and Ronald and Nancy Reagan to tears. It made a star of seven-year-old Drew Barrymore, raked in the most box office revenue of any movie made up to that time (and more than any movie made in the '80s), made us realize that ugly space turds could be lovable and peaceful, spawned a swarm of lesser copycats and even Richard Attenborough, the director of Gandhi, the film that beat it to Best Picture at the Academy Awards, conceded that it was robbed. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, underneath all the hype and even its apparent "saccharine" nature that in some ways has tainted its reputation, is still a film that can reduce grown men to blubbering messes by the time the end credits begin to roll, and that can still enchant viewers young and old as much as it did in 1982.
Working from a story he had nurtured since childhood and that evolved into a wonderful screenplay by Melissa Mathison, Spielberg – in following the adventures of Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely 10-year-old boy from a single-parent family who is befriended by an alien botanist left behind on Earth by accident by his people – offers a knockout directorial effort that is by far one of his best. By cleverly choosing to shoot the film chronologicically he coaxes wonderful performances from all his cast, both the kids and the adults (Thomas drew on the memory of the day his dog died in order to achieve the emotion he needed to evoke on the last day of filming). More importantly for a fantasy film, he marriages all the post-production elements seamlessly: Allen Daviau's cinematography in the bike flight sequences provides the viewer with an adrenaline rush that has rarely been matched before or since in cinema, the visual effects (albeit largely due to the touch-ups that occurred for the film's 20th anniversary re-release in 2002), don't show 27 years, and John Williams' towering score ought to be compared to works by any classical composer.
Its huge success made it a worldwide phenomenon in its time and its fanbase just keep growing in numbers, and rightfully so. However, despite its enviable performance at the box office, and the considerable amount of praise that critics and audiences continue to heap on it, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial also remains one of the most widely misunderstood of all films. Frequently still written off by some as just a standard piece of frothy, cutesy juvenile drivel, this is actually far darker film than it initially seems. In the true fashion of most of the blockbusters he's helmed, here Spielberg makes you look underneath all the wondrous fantasy aspects of the story to uncover its true thematic power and importance. E.T. actually offers depictions of nuclear family break-ups, loneliness, isolation, humans testing on non-human species, and tolerance, and some have even claimed E.T. is a Christ allegory (which Spielberg vehemently denies.) Once the viewer discovers these deeply-buried thematic elements of the story, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial becomes much more than the sum of its parts.
Although Spielberg considers this to be the epitome of all his work as a director, I very slightly prefer Schindler's List and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but this has a fair claim to be the very last word in family film-making. It's a film that I can watch whenever I'm need of inspiration, and time has done nothing to diminish its wonder. Who would've thought that an ugly space turd could work his magic on successive generations like that, even after nearly 30 years?
Working from a story he had nurtured since childhood and that evolved into a wonderful screenplay by Melissa Mathison, Spielberg – in following the adventures of Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely 10-year-old boy from a single-parent family who is befriended by an alien botanist left behind on Earth by accident by his people – offers a knockout directorial effort that is by far one of his best. By cleverly choosing to shoot the film chronologicically he coaxes wonderful performances from all his cast, both the kids and the adults (Thomas drew on the memory of the day his dog died in order to achieve the emotion he needed to evoke on the last day of filming). More importantly for a fantasy film, he marriages all the post-production elements seamlessly: Allen Daviau's cinematography in the bike flight sequences provides the viewer with an adrenaline rush that has rarely been matched before or since in cinema, the visual effects (albeit largely due to the touch-ups that occurred for the film's 20th anniversary re-release in 2002), don't show 27 years, and John Williams' towering score ought to be compared to works by any classical composer.
Its huge success made it a worldwide phenomenon in its time and its fanbase just keep growing in numbers, and rightfully so. However, despite its enviable performance at the box office, and the considerable amount of praise that critics and audiences continue to heap on it, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial also remains one of the most widely misunderstood of all films. Frequently still written off by some as just a standard piece of frothy, cutesy juvenile drivel, this is actually far darker film than it initially seems. In the true fashion of most of the blockbusters he's helmed, here Spielberg makes you look underneath all the wondrous fantasy aspects of the story to uncover its true thematic power and importance. E.T. actually offers depictions of nuclear family break-ups, loneliness, isolation, humans testing on non-human species, and tolerance, and some have even claimed E.T. is a Christ allegory (which Spielberg vehemently denies.) Once the viewer discovers these deeply-buried thematic elements of the story, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial becomes much more than the sum of its parts.
Although Spielberg considers this to be the epitome of all his work as a director, I very slightly prefer Schindler's List and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but this has a fair claim to be the very last word in family film-making. It's a film that I can watch whenever I'm need of inspiration, and time has done nothing to diminish its wonder. Who would've thought that an ugly space turd could work his magic on successive generations like that, even after nearly 30 years?
Review: Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
What can one say about Pulp Fiction, that hasn't already been said about it? One of the best action films ever? No doubt about that. A masterpiece? Said thousands of times. Quentin Tarantino best film? Said even more. One of the best of the '90s? Been said even more again. It's one of those all-around great movies. Everything from the directing, writing, acting, editing, soundtrack, humour, even the set pieces – the adrenaline shot, the "Bad Motherf*****" wallet, and of course the much-documented suitcase (the contents of which we never find out) – is flawless.
Then there's the classic characters. The two bickering hit men Vincent Vega (a career-resurrecting performance by John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (a hilariously unforgettable Samuel L. Jackson), their boss's sexy wife Mia (Uma Thurman), the desperate prize-fighter, Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) and the two clumsiest bank robbers ever put on film (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer), all of them enjoyable. Travolta, Jackson and Thurman were all nominated for Oscars for their performances.
This was the movie that changed the face of indie films forever. But ultimately it's Tarantino's movie. He is responsible for putting all the elements of it together to form one massive and enormously enjoyable ensemble piece. His direction is outstanding and his screenplay – one of the best ever written – is even better. With great character development, wild action scenes, brilliantly inspired dialogue and memorable conversations between the characters involving everything from robbing restaurants to foot massages to the names of European hamburgers, it's no wonder why it won the film's only Oscar.
Throw in some clever editing, a typically Tarantino '60s and '70s soundtrack, and fine cinematography – the single shot of Jules and Vincent walking through the foyer of an apartment building is a highlight – and you've got yourself a masterpiece, one of the best movies of all time.
Let's face it, Pulp Fiction is most certainly not one to show to the kiddies (the F-word is used an unbelievable 271 times throughout its 2 1/2 hours, and that's just for starters) or to watch with Grandma (the rapist scene is not for the faint-hearted), but that only makes it even more of a guilty pleasure.
It remains the crowning achievement of one of the most daring and individual film-making talents to come out of the '90s.
10/10.
Then there's the classic characters. The two bickering hit men Vincent Vega (a career-resurrecting performance by John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (a hilariously unforgettable Samuel L. Jackson), their boss's sexy wife Mia (Uma Thurman), the desperate prize-fighter, Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) and the two clumsiest bank robbers ever put on film (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer), all of them enjoyable. Travolta, Jackson and Thurman were all nominated for Oscars for their performances.
This was the movie that changed the face of indie films forever. But ultimately it's Tarantino's movie. He is responsible for putting all the elements of it together to form one massive and enormously enjoyable ensemble piece. His direction is outstanding and his screenplay – one of the best ever written – is even better. With great character development, wild action scenes, brilliantly inspired dialogue and memorable conversations between the characters involving everything from robbing restaurants to foot massages to the names of European hamburgers, it's no wonder why it won the film's only Oscar.
Throw in some clever editing, a typically Tarantino '60s and '70s soundtrack, and fine cinematography – the single shot of Jules and Vincent walking through the foyer of an apartment building is a highlight – and you've got yourself a masterpiece, one of the best movies of all time.
Let's face it, Pulp Fiction is most certainly not one to show to the kiddies (the F-word is used an unbelievable 271 times throughout its 2 1/2 hours, and that's just for starters) or to watch with Grandma (the rapist scene is not for the faint-hearted), but that only makes it even more of a guilty pleasure.
It remains the crowning achievement of one of the most daring and individual film-making talents to come out of the '90s.
10/10.
Review: Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994)
Every so often there are movies that seemingly get released right at the right time and subsequently become cultural phenomenons beyond their creators' wildest dreams. These movies often largely retain that success and esteem over the years (Gone with the Wind, Star Wars and Jaws among others) or age poorly and get viewed as undeserving of their huge success at the time (for instance, Independence Day). Although no movie appeals to absolutely everyone's taste, Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump certainly can be said to belong more in the former category. Released in 1994 it raked in nearly seven hundred million dollars worldwide, becoming the second biggest box office hit of '94 (after The Lion King) and mopped the floor at that year's Academy Awards, winning six trophies including Best Picture (although I prefer Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption by the tiniest of margins, but this isn't about those two), Director and Actor. It's a classic that, after first seeing it in 1997 when I was 9, has stayed with me to this day. I'm about to explain why.
I don't think there's any need for me to talk about the story, so let me begin with the cast ensemble Zemeckis assembled for this film. Sally Field will always be Mrs. Gump to me, and she turns in a beautiful performance as a strong woman with integrity who vehemently refuses to think of her son as a retard and does her best to make sure he never sees himself as one. An Oscar-nominated Gary Sinise is riveting as the hard-bitten but scarred military man Lt. Dan who comes to learn from Forrest the values of redemption and selflessness. Robin Wright Penn is heartbreaking as Forrest's free-spirited but deeply troubled true love whose life takes a very different route to Forrest's, and Mykelti Williamson also gives a very touching turn as Bubba, the African-American young man with a heart of gold who becomes Forrest's best friend in Vietnam.
But at the risk of sounding like a hyperbolic and dangerously obsessed fanboy, I daresay the acting masterclass Tom Hanks puts forth here is the finest display of acting I have ever witnessed. No other actor before or since has made such a convincing transformation into the heart, body and soul of another person as Hanks does here. Every delayed or confused mannerism is spot-on, his Southern accent is flawless and his every emotion letter-perfect. In the whole film, particularly the grave scene towards the end, you look into his eyes and you don't see Tom Hanks, you see Forrest Gump. Utter perfection.
Many will say the storyline is a contrived, manipulative and even conservative affair (and, admittedly, in some respects they may be right), but they're oblivious to the darker subtext in Eric Roth's screenplay and the many postmodern storytelling methods Zemeckis deploys here. While we watch Forrest encounter so many historic people and events, we see Jenny experience the negative side of '60s and '70s counterculture as she protests the Vietnam War, embraces alcohol, drugs and illicit sex and also for much of the film's duration Forrest's impairments are exploited for laughs. When we analyze this side of the story the film becomes much darker than it initially seems. The unconventional methods Zemeckis uses in telling Forrest's story enhance this – in his narration he discusses things that are yet to happen and the placing of Tom Hanks into old footage of the real-life events gives the movie a revisionist historical feel.
Another huge plus is the soundtrack, containing most of the greatest artists from the '50s to the early '80s.
Forrest Gump's charm and appeal is timeless, and its artistic craft is even better. It's a rollicking tapestry of American history from the '50s to the '80s (both good and bad), driven by a powerhouse ensemble cast and a brilliant crew working on a brilliantly constructed screenplay filled with dozens of lines that have entered the lexicon, all brought together by the love and passion of a genius director. Forrest Gump is a classic that will look handsome in any DVD collection, and is yet another movie that never leaves me feeling amazed no matter how much older I get. A true classic.
I don't think there's any need for me to talk about the story, so let me begin with the cast ensemble Zemeckis assembled for this film. Sally Field will always be Mrs. Gump to me, and she turns in a beautiful performance as a strong woman with integrity who vehemently refuses to think of her son as a retard and does her best to make sure he never sees himself as one. An Oscar-nominated Gary Sinise is riveting as the hard-bitten but scarred military man Lt. Dan who comes to learn from Forrest the values of redemption and selflessness. Robin Wright Penn is heartbreaking as Forrest's free-spirited but deeply troubled true love whose life takes a very different route to Forrest's, and Mykelti Williamson also gives a very touching turn as Bubba, the African-American young man with a heart of gold who becomes Forrest's best friend in Vietnam.
But at the risk of sounding like a hyperbolic and dangerously obsessed fanboy, I daresay the acting masterclass Tom Hanks puts forth here is the finest display of acting I have ever witnessed. No other actor before or since has made such a convincing transformation into the heart, body and soul of another person as Hanks does here. Every delayed or confused mannerism is spot-on, his Southern accent is flawless and his every emotion letter-perfect. In the whole film, particularly the grave scene towards the end, you look into his eyes and you don't see Tom Hanks, you see Forrest Gump. Utter perfection.
Many will say the storyline is a contrived, manipulative and even conservative affair (and, admittedly, in some respects they may be right), but they're oblivious to the darker subtext in Eric Roth's screenplay and the many postmodern storytelling methods Zemeckis deploys here. While we watch Forrest encounter so many historic people and events, we see Jenny experience the negative side of '60s and '70s counterculture as she protests the Vietnam War, embraces alcohol, drugs and illicit sex and also for much of the film's duration Forrest's impairments are exploited for laughs. When we analyze this side of the story the film becomes much darker than it initially seems. The unconventional methods Zemeckis uses in telling Forrest's story enhance this – in his narration he discusses things that are yet to happen and the placing of Tom Hanks into old footage of the real-life events gives the movie a revisionist historical feel.
Another huge plus is the soundtrack, containing most of the greatest artists from the '50s to the early '80s.
Forrest Gump's charm and appeal is timeless, and its artistic craft is even better. It's a rollicking tapestry of American history from the '50s to the '80s (both good and bad), driven by a powerhouse ensemble cast and a brilliant crew working on a brilliantly constructed screenplay filled with dozens of lines that have entered the lexicon, all brought together by the love and passion of a genius director. Forrest Gump is a classic that will look handsome in any DVD collection, and is yet another movie that never leaves me feeling amazed no matter how much older I get. A true classic.
Review: The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
In this review I'm not going to give a plot synopsis of this film because I'm sure everybody else who has commented on it has. However, I will express the positive effect it can have on the viewer if they let it.
The acting is uncommonly magnificent. Morgan Freeman delivers the greatest performance of his brilliant career as the seasoned life-serving prisoner Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, Tim Robbins holds his own against Freeman as Andy, the central character, James Whitmore's portrayal of the institutionalized Brooks provides the backbone of the story, Bob Gunton is wonderful as the corrupt Warden Norton, and Clancy Brown's commanding performance as Captain Hadley, the sadistic head prison guard, almost makes him steal the show from Freeman.
Frank Darabont's restrained direction of the delicate story is critical for the film to not become sentimental or clichéd, and his beautiful adaptation of the Stephen King story on which the movie is based is a real breath of fresh air. On account of Darabont, the film shows that special effects are not needed to tell a great story in film. As a 21-year-old male, I love special effects movies as much as the next person, but they get boring after a while. Plus many people forget that there was a time in cinema when the blockbuster didn't exist, when they made movies that just told great stories and gave the audience a chance to be uplifted by those stories without the creators having to resort to special effects. I applaud you for having the guts to make a non-commercial film that reminds people of that in this day and age, Mr. Darabont.
SPOILER ALERT!
As with all truly great films, 'The Shawshank Redemption' is full of scenes that have become entrenched in the public's collective consciousness. There's the scene where Andy plays the opera record over the loudspeaker for all the inmates in the prison, Captain Hadley bashing "Fat @$$" to death for crying during his first night in prison (a very powerful scene), Red giving his "Rehabilitated?" speech to the board of parole officials, the Warden getting his final judgement, and of course, Andy crawling to freedom through what Red in his narration calls "500 yards of s**t-smelling foulness I can't even imagine,", the scene which for me is perhaps the greatest movie scene of the '90s.
END OF SPOILERS!
I thoroughly recommend this cinematic masterpiece, which has earned its place in my humble top ten films of all time list, to anybody. Whatever gender, age, religion, nationality etc. you are and whatever language you speak, I guarantee it will change your life, or perhaps even save it. Movies like 'The Shawshank Redemption' only come along once every decade, if that. Unforgettable.
10/10.
The acting is uncommonly magnificent. Morgan Freeman delivers the greatest performance of his brilliant career as the seasoned life-serving prisoner Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding, Tim Robbins holds his own against Freeman as Andy, the central character, James Whitmore's portrayal of the institutionalized Brooks provides the backbone of the story, Bob Gunton is wonderful as the corrupt Warden Norton, and Clancy Brown's commanding performance as Captain Hadley, the sadistic head prison guard, almost makes him steal the show from Freeman.
Frank Darabont's restrained direction of the delicate story is critical for the film to not become sentimental or clichéd, and his beautiful adaptation of the Stephen King story on which the movie is based is a real breath of fresh air. On account of Darabont, the film shows that special effects are not needed to tell a great story in film. As a 21-year-old male, I love special effects movies as much as the next person, but they get boring after a while. Plus many people forget that there was a time in cinema when the blockbuster didn't exist, when they made movies that just told great stories and gave the audience a chance to be uplifted by those stories without the creators having to resort to special effects. I applaud you for having the guts to make a non-commercial film that reminds people of that in this day and age, Mr. Darabont.
SPOILER ALERT!
As with all truly great films, 'The Shawshank Redemption' is full of scenes that have become entrenched in the public's collective consciousness. There's the scene where Andy plays the opera record over the loudspeaker for all the inmates in the prison, Captain Hadley bashing "Fat @$$" to death for crying during his first night in prison (a very powerful scene), Red giving his "Rehabilitated?" speech to the board of parole officials, the Warden getting his final judgement, and of course, Andy crawling to freedom through what Red in his narration calls "500 yards of s**t-smelling foulness I can't even imagine,", the scene which for me is perhaps the greatest movie scene of the '90s.
END OF SPOILERS!
I thoroughly recommend this cinematic masterpiece, which has earned its place in my humble top ten films of all time list, to anybody. Whatever gender, age, religion, nationality etc. you are and whatever language you speak, I guarantee it will change your life, or perhaps even save it. Movies like 'The Shawshank Redemption' only come along once every decade, if that. Unforgettable.
10/10.
Review: The Matrix (Andy & Lana Wachowski, 1999)
Let's take a brief trip back to 1999. Bill Clinton was president of the United States, war was raging in Kosovo, two young men committed mass murder at Columbine High School, everyone was paranoid about Y2K and September 11th was still a day with no negative significant meaning. In cinema there was only one sci-fi movie on everyone's minds: Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. But not one month before that film opened, Andy and Lana (as it seems we must call him/her now) Wachowski brought us a sci-fi movie that must have had George Lucas panicking when he saw it: The Matrix, a trippy, visually spectacular and groundbreaking look at what the future could be like. And it was shot in Australia.
The brothers Wachowski were influenced by many earlier sci-fi and fantasy texts (among others, various cyberpunk films and novels, anime and even Alice in Wonderland) when coming up with the story for The Matrix. Keanu Reeves stars as Thomas A. Anderson, a white-collar worker for a software company who leads another life at night, one lived in computers as the hacker Neo. He believes the world he exists in is
completely real and is tracked down by a band of outcasts rebels led by the enigmatic Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and the tough female Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). From Morpheus Neo learns that the world the
"real" world he knew beforehand is actually the Matrix, a virtual dreamland run by evil supercomputers in which most of humanity is unknowingly trapped. Believing Neo is the messianistic "One" who will liberate humanity from the Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo the chance to join him. Neo does, and now the battle to save humanity begins.
However, the rebels' efforts are thwarted by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), a ruthless and almost indestructible sentient program that will remorselessly kill to maintain order in the system.
Ignore Keanu Reeves' wooden acting and the occasionally uninspired dialogue; after all, this isn't a movie that depends on flawless acting and writing to succeed. Unlike so many other sci-fi films before and since, The Matrix provides stimulation for the mind as well as eye candy in equal measure. The Matrix's story is a confusing (for first-time viewers) but very mentally stimulating one, discussing themes of dystopia, corruption, totalitarianism, the power of the individual and humanity's potentially hazardous relationship with technology. But the true meat in the sandwich undeniably lies in its technical prowess. The highly groundbreaking and inventive special effects have been written about, copied and have caused The Matrix to become one of the most parodied movies ever made, and not once do they show 11 years. The sound design and effects could just be the very best I have ever heard. Zach Staenberg's editing is frenetic, fluid and crisp, making the convoluted plot and all the flawlessly executed technical elements come together perfectly for maximum impact. The Matrix earned Oscars in all four of these categories and justice certainly was served. Also worth mentioning is the gritty yet aesthetically pleasing art direction by Aussie Owen Paterson, Bill Pope's inventive cinematography, which arguably what was the real reason why the bullet-time sequences were so revolutionary, and Don Davis' Vangelis-esquire score adds to the suspense enormously. Love or loathe this knockout masterwork, you could never say that it didn'ttake its genre in a very new direction.
Every so often, a movie with almost no hype surrounding it comes out, takes the world by storm and comes to have a lasting impact not just on pop culture but film-making as well. The Matrix is such a movie. Although it took me quite a few years to fall completely under its spell (when I first saw it at 11 it confused the hell out of me), The Matrix is a movie (like very few others) that never fails to suck me in and leave me stunned and eager for more by the end. Unfortunately it was followed by two unoriginal sequels that arguably were only produced to fill cash registers, but even they did nothing to tarnish the brilliance of this one. The Matrix has earned its place in humble all-time top twenty films list, and I can't see it falling out of that list for a long time. A true roller-coaster ride of a movie.
The brothers Wachowski were influenced by many earlier sci-fi and fantasy texts (among others, various cyberpunk films and novels, anime and even Alice in Wonderland) when coming up with the story for The Matrix. Keanu Reeves stars as Thomas A. Anderson, a white-collar worker for a software company who leads another life at night, one lived in computers as the hacker Neo. He believes the world he exists in is
completely real and is tracked down by a band of outcasts rebels led by the enigmatic Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and the tough female Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). From Morpheus Neo learns that the world the
"real" world he knew beforehand is actually the Matrix, a virtual dreamland run by evil supercomputers in which most of humanity is unknowingly trapped. Believing Neo is the messianistic "One" who will liberate humanity from the Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo the chance to join him. Neo does, and now the battle to save humanity begins.
However, the rebels' efforts are thwarted by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), a ruthless and almost indestructible sentient program that will remorselessly kill to maintain order in the system.
Ignore Keanu Reeves' wooden acting and the occasionally uninspired dialogue; after all, this isn't a movie that depends on flawless acting and writing to succeed. Unlike so many other sci-fi films before and since, The Matrix provides stimulation for the mind as well as eye candy in equal measure. The Matrix's story is a confusing (for first-time viewers) but very mentally stimulating one, discussing themes of dystopia, corruption, totalitarianism, the power of the individual and humanity's potentially hazardous relationship with technology. But the true meat in the sandwich undeniably lies in its technical prowess. The highly groundbreaking and inventive special effects have been written about, copied and have caused The Matrix to become one of the most parodied movies ever made, and not once do they show 11 years. The sound design and effects could just be the very best I have ever heard. Zach Staenberg's editing is frenetic, fluid and crisp, making the convoluted plot and all the flawlessly executed technical elements come together perfectly for maximum impact. The Matrix earned Oscars in all four of these categories and justice certainly was served. Also worth mentioning is the gritty yet aesthetically pleasing art direction by Aussie Owen Paterson, Bill Pope's inventive cinematography, which arguably what was the real reason why the bullet-time sequences were so revolutionary, and Don Davis' Vangelis-esquire score adds to the suspense enormously. Love or loathe this knockout masterwork, you could never say that it didn'ttake its genre in a very new direction.
Every so often, a movie with almost no hype surrounding it comes out, takes the world by storm and comes to have a lasting impact not just on pop culture but film-making as well. The Matrix is such a movie. Although it took me quite a few years to fall completely under its spell (when I first saw it at 11 it confused the hell out of me), The Matrix is a movie (like very few others) that never fails to suck me in and leave me stunned and eager for more by the end. Unfortunately it was followed by two unoriginal sequels that arguably were only produced to fill cash registers, but even they did nothing to tarnish the brilliance of this one. The Matrix has earned its place in humble all-time top twenty films list, and I can't see it falling out of that list for a long time. A true roller-coaster ride of a movie.
Review: Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, for me, is the be all and end all of science-fiction pictures. Adapted from Phillip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner's history is one of a legendarily troubled shoot, and egregious financial disappointment. However, like some other films that experienced such stressful and humble beginnings and ultimately grew in importance and popularity with each passing decade (like Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life), Blade Runner's esteem now with film critics and audiences alike shows that in 1982 it was simply a movie that was decades ahead of its time.
Blade Runner is as visually awe-inspiring a movie as you will ever see. Justifiably celebrated for its mesmerizing production design, Scott and his crew, also putting to work visual effects that don't show 26 years, paint a wrenching but no less aesthetically pleasing portrait of what maybe 2019 Los Angeles will look like: dystopic, polluted and brimming with corruption and corporate greed. You could only hope to see such amazing eye-candy from a director who is arguably one of the last true visionary directors (that now being a term which, it seems, is thrown around nearly as much these days in Hollywood circles as "You'll never work in this town again!").
But therein does not lie that magic ingredient that makes Blade Runner the seminal masterpiece of science-fiction film-making – that is in two other aspects of the story. The first of those is its ocean-deep and universal themes. Blade Runner is a movie that challenges the viewer to ponder not only what it means to be human, but WHY we are human. Through the central characters of Deckard (the central male whom we know more about than he knows of himself), played by Harrison Ford, Rachael (the female replicant and love interest of Deckard's who is the most advanced of her kind but still knows only mortality), played by Sean Young, and Roy Batty (the revengeful replicant who wages war on both Deckard and his own maker), played by Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner is a timeless, universal and marvelous analysis and deconstruction of the human condition in all its dimensions. And the characterizations by Ford, Young and most notably Hauer all leave indelible impressions.
Also broadening the narrative scope of the film is the mind-boggling fusion of postmodern cyberpunk and future neo-noir. This adds yet another layer of beauty and intrigue, especially in Vangelis' instantly recognizable score and with the cynical and introverted Deckard feeling much like a role Humphrey Bogart might have accepted.
The second definitive sign of Blade Runner's colossal greatness lies in its cautionary tale view of the future – and in 2009, unlike 1982, we all know how alarming the possibility of it successfully predicting the future is. After all, 2019 is only 10 years away. Pollution, slavery, prostitution, global warming, corruption. Technological enslavement? Think about that the next time you buy a piece of audiovisual equipment or even the next time you fire up your computer. Good sci-fi always tries to predict the future. Only the very best get it right.
In summary, you can throw 2001: A Space Odyssey or Metropolis or even The Matrix at me, but in my book, with its ageless eye-candy, its questions about life and human nature, and its gritty yet all-too-possible prediction of the future, Blade Runner is the definitive science-fiction movie of all time.
Blade Runner is as visually awe-inspiring a movie as you will ever see. Justifiably celebrated for its mesmerizing production design, Scott and his crew, also putting to work visual effects that don't show 26 years, paint a wrenching but no less aesthetically pleasing portrait of what maybe 2019 Los Angeles will look like: dystopic, polluted and brimming with corruption and corporate greed. You could only hope to see such amazing eye-candy from a director who is arguably one of the last true visionary directors (that now being a term which, it seems, is thrown around nearly as much these days in Hollywood circles as "You'll never work in this town again!").
But therein does not lie that magic ingredient that makes Blade Runner the seminal masterpiece of science-fiction film-making – that is in two other aspects of the story. The first of those is its ocean-deep and universal themes. Blade Runner is a movie that challenges the viewer to ponder not only what it means to be human, but WHY we are human. Through the central characters of Deckard (the central male whom we know more about than he knows of himself), played by Harrison Ford, Rachael (the female replicant and love interest of Deckard's who is the most advanced of her kind but still knows only mortality), played by Sean Young, and Roy Batty (the revengeful replicant who wages war on both Deckard and his own maker), played by Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner is a timeless, universal and marvelous analysis and deconstruction of the human condition in all its dimensions. And the characterizations by Ford, Young and most notably Hauer all leave indelible impressions.
Also broadening the narrative scope of the film is the mind-boggling fusion of postmodern cyberpunk and future neo-noir. This adds yet another layer of beauty and intrigue, especially in Vangelis' instantly recognizable score and with the cynical and introverted Deckard feeling much like a role Humphrey Bogart might have accepted.
The second definitive sign of Blade Runner's colossal greatness lies in its cautionary tale view of the future – and in 2009, unlike 1982, we all know how alarming the possibility of it successfully predicting the future is. After all, 2019 is only 10 years away. Pollution, slavery, prostitution, global warming, corruption. Technological enslavement? Think about that the next time you buy a piece of audiovisual equipment or even the next time you fire up your computer. Good sci-fi always tries to predict the future. Only the very best get it right.
In summary, you can throw 2001: A Space Odyssey or Metropolis or even The Matrix at me, but in my book, with its ageless eye-candy, its questions about life and human nature, and its gritty yet all-too-possible prediction of the future, Blade Runner is the definitive science-fiction movie of all time.
Review: Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Oskar Schindler was not a good person in the strictest sense of the word. A member of the Nazi Party, he drank like a fish, gambled, conducted dealings on the black market and cheated on his wife innumerable times. Yet he found salvation by doing something so great even he could not comprehend its greatness: he changed himself for the greater good, saving the lives of more than 1100 Jews employed in his munitions factory from the hatred of the Nazi regime.
1993 was arguably the greatest year of Steven Spielberg's life. First he made the rip-roaring Jurassic Park, a still technologically astounding movie that revolutionized special effects and paid for his kids' educations for the next thirty years. But later, he presented us with Schindler's List, a film as remarkable as Schindler's achievement that beat nearly all other '90s historical dramas into submission and finally bagged him the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for which he had long been unfairly passed over. And if he still hadn't won it would have probably spawned conspiracy theories.
Spielberg has said that the filming of Schindler's List "was the most satisfying experience of my professional career," claiming it is the best film he has ever made. Even if I do say so myself, he's absolutely right. Working from Steven Zaillian's masterfully constructed adaptation of Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark, he elicits an outstanding performance from Liam Neeson as Schindler (who justifiably lost at the Oscars to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia), and Ralph Fiennes pulls off what is easily one of the scariest performances in cinema history as Amon Goeth, the SS commandant and director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau labor camp whose favourite pastime was using Jews for target practice.
However, this is unquestionably Spielberg's greatest directing job. Utilizing grainy black-and-white cinematography, Spielberg cleverly uses lots of wide panning shots and hand-held cameras to evoke just the right amount of shock and sympathy for Holocaust victims in each scene. Also, he seems to have realized that in order to completely nail a film of such depth and importance as this, you shouldn't even attempt to glamourize the Holocaust or answer the questions it has left in modern society. All you have to do is assess what happened and get the facts right.
In the production notes in the Schindler's List DVD, Spielberg writes: "No one can do anything to fix the past - that's already happened. But a picture like this can impact us, delivering a mandate about what must never happen again." Now I know the chances of you reading this are devastatingly low, but if you are, Mr. Spielberg, you need not worry because as a result of this powerhouse masterpiece you have single-handedly re-awakened awareness of the Holocaust, ensuring that it (hopefully) will never be repeated or forgotten. You are a god among giants, sir.
1993 was arguably the greatest year of Steven Spielberg's life. First he made the rip-roaring Jurassic Park, a still technologically astounding movie that revolutionized special effects and paid for his kids' educations for the next thirty years. But later, he presented us with Schindler's List, a film as remarkable as Schindler's achievement that beat nearly all other '90s historical dramas into submission and finally bagged him the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for which he had long been unfairly passed over. And if he still hadn't won it would have probably spawned conspiracy theories.
Spielberg has said that the filming of Schindler's List "was the most satisfying experience of my professional career," claiming it is the best film he has ever made. Even if I do say so myself, he's absolutely right. Working from Steven Zaillian's masterfully constructed adaptation of Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark, he elicits an outstanding performance from Liam Neeson as Schindler (who justifiably lost at the Oscars to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia), and Ralph Fiennes pulls off what is easily one of the scariest performances in cinema history as Amon Goeth, the SS commandant and director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau labor camp whose favourite pastime was using Jews for target practice.
However, this is unquestionably Spielberg's greatest directing job. Utilizing grainy black-and-white cinematography, Spielberg cleverly uses lots of wide panning shots and hand-held cameras to evoke just the right amount of shock and sympathy for Holocaust victims in each scene. Also, he seems to have realized that in order to completely nail a film of such depth and importance as this, you shouldn't even attempt to glamourize the Holocaust or answer the questions it has left in modern society. All you have to do is assess what happened and get the facts right.
In the production notes in the Schindler's List DVD, Spielberg writes: "No one can do anything to fix the past - that's already happened. But a picture like this can impact us, delivering a mandate about what must never happen again." Now I know the chances of you reading this are devastatingly low, but if you are, Mr. Spielberg, you need not worry because as a result of this powerhouse masterpiece you have single-handedly re-awakened awareness of the Holocaust, ensuring that it (hopefully) will never be repeated or forgotten. You are a god among giants, sir.
Review: The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Every once in a while, a film is released which revives its dead genre. In the early '90s, for the horror/thriller genre, The Silence of the Lambs was that film. After a tribe of awful horror flicks (e.g. 1988's Child's Play) with recycled story lines like serial killers hunting dumb teens, The Silence of the Lambs took the serial killer movie to a new level.
The Silence of the Lambs swept the 1991 Academy Awards, becoming only the third film in history - after 1934's It Happened One Night and 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - to win all five major categories (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay), and the first horror movie to win Best Picture. This is a tremendous achievement when it was released more than 12 months before, considering the Academy's notoriously short attention span. Each award was well deserved, with Best Director Jonathan Demme both marvellously pulling off the most gripping scenes and never losing sight of the human element of the picture, Best Actor Anthony Hopkins and Best Actress Jodie Foster both delivering unforgettable performances as the dangerously intelligent cannibal serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the less-than-perfect but strong willed rookie FBI Agent Clarice Starling, and Ted Tally's Best Adapted Screenplay both delivering snappy, quotable dialogue ("Oh, and Senator, one more thing: LOVE your suit!") and perfectly tapping into the mind of a serial killer.
This is the horror film that they all want to be, but almost all of them won't. I've only ever seen one other that is in quite the same league as this, and that is The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan must have watched TSOTL about 12 times while making that film). This groundbreaking masterpiece of horror is the standard by which all other horror movies are measured, and it is indeed the film that for which Hopkins, Foster and Demme will all be remembered.
10/10.
The Silence of the Lambs swept the 1991 Academy Awards, becoming only the third film in history - after 1934's It Happened One Night and 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - to win all five major categories (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay), and the first horror movie to win Best Picture. This is a tremendous achievement when it was released more than 12 months before, considering the Academy's notoriously short attention span. Each award was well deserved, with Best Director Jonathan Demme both marvellously pulling off the most gripping scenes and never losing sight of the human element of the picture, Best Actor Anthony Hopkins and Best Actress Jodie Foster both delivering unforgettable performances as the dangerously intelligent cannibal serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the less-than-perfect but strong willed rookie FBI Agent Clarice Starling, and Ted Tally's Best Adapted Screenplay both delivering snappy, quotable dialogue ("Oh, and Senator, one more thing: LOVE your suit!") and perfectly tapping into the mind of a serial killer.
This is the horror film that they all want to be, but almost all of them won't. I've only ever seen one other that is in quite the same league as this, and that is The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan must have watched TSOTL about 12 times while making that film). This groundbreaking masterpiece of horror is the standard by which all other horror movies are measured, and it is indeed the film that for which Hopkins, Foster and Demme will all be remembered.
10/10.
Review: Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989)
(NOTE: This one was written when I was 17 so it's a little out of date with my life now, but I'm still very proud of it)
About three months ago, this came on TV where I live at about 11.30 on a Saturday night (why it had to be on that late I have no idea). I taped it and watched it the next day and it's the only movie I've recently seen for the first time that really kicked me in the pants. About five days later I immediately bought the DVD. I was that blown away.
SPOILER ALERT!
It's 1959. Rebellious English professor John Keating (a wonderfully restrained, Oscar-nominated performance from Robin Williams, free of his usual quirks which are enjoyable but would be unnecessary here) arrives at Welton Academy, a posh all-boys school with an ages-old curriculum set in stone. Mr. Keating ignores the school's approved teaching methods, much to the dismay of Headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd), and instills in his students a love of poetry, inspiring them to ignore authority and make their lives extraordinary. This backfires when aspiring actor Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) commits suicide after his father (a role tailor-made for Kurtwood Smith, better known now for his identical but comic role as Red Forman in TV's "That '70s Show") forces him to become a doctor. Mr. Keating is blamed for this tragedy, and his remaining students stand up for him when he is threatened to be fired.
Dead Poets Society is a film about rebelling against authority. Mr. Keating is one of the great cinematic school teachers, and if he were real I'd give anything to be in his class. Williams is brilliant, but the real acting honours go to the actors playing the students, especially Leonard (who ironically now plays a doctor in TV's "House") and most notably a young Ethan Hawke, who delivers a tour de force performance as Todd Anderson, the student who is hit the hardest by Neil's death. Tom Schulman's glowing Oscar-winning screenplay is filled with less-than-perfect characters, a dash of much-needed humour, it avoids sentimentality and considering I often HATE poetry, it makes the stuff seem interesting.
However, it is Australian director Peter Weir's (who makes me, a budding filmmaker myself, proud to be an Australian) masterful handling of two key scenes late in the film which catapults it way beyond average status. The first is Neil Perry's suicide scene. Neil and his father have an argument one night after his father discovers Neil acting in a stage play. His father holds the power in the conversation and orders Neil to follow a career in medicine. Later on when his parents are asleep, Neil walks into his father's study, opens a drawer in the desk, takes out his father's revolver pistol and pulls the trigger. Weir wisely splashes this scene with dull and depressing colours (blacks and whites) to suit the mood described in Schulman's script, but instead of actually showing Neil pulling the trigger, Weir cuts away to Mr. Perry laying in his bed being awoken by the chilling sound of a gunshot downstairs. This makes my hair stand on end every time I watch the film.
The second is the exceptional climax. Now that Mr. Keating has been held responsible for Neil's death, he has been fired and interrupts his former class (now taught by Mr. Nolan) to get his things before he leaves. Todd Anderson causes an outburst and sticks up for Mr. Keating by standing on his desk and shouting "O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!" like Mr. Keating instructed his students. Soon half the class joins in, with Mr. Nolan shouting at them to all sit down. The class giving Mr. Keating a standing ovation shows how much one person can impact others' lives, either positively or negatively. In this case, Mr. Keating has given his students direction and a reason to live. It surely stands alongside One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as one of the most unforgettable movie climaxes ever. Damn you, Oliver Stone.
END OF SPOILERS!
If there are any teenagers like me out there who are reading this review and haven't yet seen this remarkable film, I urge you to do so. It could just change your life.
10/10.
About three months ago, this came on TV where I live at about 11.30 on a Saturday night (why it had to be on that late I have no idea). I taped it and watched it the next day and it's the only movie I've recently seen for the first time that really kicked me in the pants. About five days later I immediately bought the DVD. I was that blown away.
SPOILER ALERT!
It's 1959. Rebellious English professor John Keating (a wonderfully restrained, Oscar-nominated performance from Robin Williams, free of his usual quirks which are enjoyable but would be unnecessary here) arrives at Welton Academy, a posh all-boys school with an ages-old curriculum set in stone. Mr. Keating ignores the school's approved teaching methods, much to the dismay of Headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd), and instills in his students a love of poetry, inspiring them to ignore authority and make their lives extraordinary. This backfires when aspiring actor Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) commits suicide after his father (a role tailor-made for Kurtwood Smith, better known now for his identical but comic role as Red Forman in TV's "That '70s Show") forces him to become a doctor. Mr. Keating is blamed for this tragedy, and his remaining students stand up for him when he is threatened to be fired.
Dead Poets Society is a film about rebelling against authority. Mr. Keating is one of the great cinematic school teachers, and if he were real I'd give anything to be in his class. Williams is brilliant, but the real acting honours go to the actors playing the students, especially Leonard (who ironically now plays a doctor in TV's "House") and most notably a young Ethan Hawke, who delivers a tour de force performance as Todd Anderson, the student who is hit the hardest by Neil's death. Tom Schulman's glowing Oscar-winning screenplay is filled with less-than-perfect characters, a dash of much-needed humour, it avoids sentimentality and considering I often HATE poetry, it makes the stuff seem interesting.
However, it is Australian director Peter Weir's (who makes me, a budding filmmaker myself, proud to be an Australian) masterful handling of two key scenes late in the film which catapults it way beyond average status. The first is Neil Perry's suicide scene. Neil and his father have an argument one night after his father discovers Neil acting in a stage play. His father holds the power in the conversation and orders Neil to follow a career in medicine. Later on when his parents are asleep, Neil walks into his father's study, opens a drawer in the desk, takes out his father's revolver pistol and pulls the trigger. Weir wisely splashes this scene with dull and depressing colours (blacks and whites) to suit the mood described in Schulman's script, but instead of actually showing Neil pulling the trigger, Weir cuts away to Mr. Perry laying in his bed being awoken by the chilling sound of a gunshot downstairs. This makes my hair stand on end every time I watch the film.
The second is the exceptional climax. Now that Mr. Keating has been held responsible for Neil's death, he has been fired and interrupts his former class (now taught by Mr. Nolan) to get his things before he leaves. Todd Anderson causes an outburst and sticks up for Mr. Keating by standing on his desk and shouting "O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!" like Mr. Keating instructed his students. Soon half the class joins in, with Mr. Nolan shouting at them to all sit down. The class giving Mr. Keating a standing ovation shows how much one person can impact others' lives, either positively or negatively. In this case, Mr. Keating has given his students direction and a reason to live. It surely stands alongside One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as one of the most unforgettable movie climaxes ever. Damn you, Oliver Stone.
END OF SPOILERS!
If there are any teenagers like me out there who are reading this review and haven't yet seen this remarkable film, I urge you to do so. It could just change your life.
10/10.
Review: Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
As you probably could've guessed from my username, Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future is one of those very special and rare movies that I would defend vehemently. One of the most inventive, adrenaline-pumping, amusing and eye-popping movies of all time, and one that's completely devoid of pretension, pomposity and self-consciousness, Back to the Future is a film that never fails to leave me feeling like I'm on Cloud Nine. Here's why.
The year is 1985. Rebellious Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, a last-minute replacement for Eric Stoltz, who failed to exude the laidback charm Zemeckis wanted the character to have) lives in the quaint (and fictional) Californian town of Hill Valley, where he has a beautiful and supportive girlfriend named Jennifer (played by Claudia Wells). Marty despairs of his alcoholic mother Lorraine and pushover father George (Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover) and thus spends most of his time hanging out with Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), a goofball scientist who, as it turns out, has just invented a DeLorean time machine (the time machine originally was intended to be a refrigerator, but Zemeckis changed it to a car because he worried that after seeing Marty walk through a refrigerator kids would follow suit). During a test run, however, Marty is accidentally sent back to 1955. Now, whilst trying to get back to the future, he encounters run-ins with his father's lifelong bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) and must somehow make sure his parents-to-be meet and fall in love – which is not as easy it sounds when Lorraine falls head over heels in love with him.
There is no department that makes a false move on this film. Firstly, the cast dynamic is flawless: Fox's Everyman affability has never been put to better use, Lloyd enjoys what is unquestionably the defining role of his career as the nutty scientist, Thompson and Glover revel in playing Marty's parents as teenagers and adults in middle-age, and Wilson brings menace and later even a little accurate lowliness to his role as the pathetic bully who finally gets his comeuppance. Technically, Back to the Future has aged like wine as well: the art direction is effective in its subtlety and accuracy to '50s culture, the editing is swift, but not to an extent that you can't make out everything that's happening on-screen, and although there aren't as many of them as you'd think given the type of film this is, the special effects are still superb by today's standards. Alan Silvestri's jazzy, electronic score is yet another element that raises the excitement enormously.
But at the end of the day, this really is Bob Zemeckis' show. Firstly he and Bob Gale co-wrote an ingenious screenplay so bursting with invention and peppered with sparkling humour (see the 1955 dinner scene, most notably) and heart that the years have done nothing to lessen the sense of wonder it brings. Secondly, his direction of Back to the Future is perfectly executed, especially for a blockbuster (and even I must admit to having a love/hate relationship with blockbusters sometimes): Zemeckis' directorial effort here is energetic, slick, cunning and fast-paced in the action scenes and cleverly subtle in the slower moments, his passion for the story apparent in every frame. Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, leave the blockbusters to the true masters and stop embarrassing yourselves.
Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future, one of the highest-grossing films of the '80s and a film that continues to have a huge impact on popular culture and film-making to this day, is a spectacular blockbuster that flawlessly combines dazzling and incredibly exciting action sequences with a sweet thematic centre that never ventures into cheesy territory, all the while being laced with wickedly funny humour. It's a film that, like very few of its contemporaries, has managed to avoid developing a negative reputation due to its large-scale success and continues to enchant new legions of young movie fans as well as remaining an all-time favourite of many older movie fans, and it will continue to do that for many years to come.
The year is 1985. Rebellious Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, a last-minute replacement for Eric Stoltz, who failed to exude the laidback charm Zemeckis wanted the character to have) lives in the quaint (and fictional) Californian town of Hill Valley, where he has a beautiful and supportive girlfriend named Jennifer (played by Claudia Wells). Marty despairs of his alcoholic mother Lorraine and pushover father George (Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover) and thus spends most of his time hanging out with Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), a goofball scientist who, as it turns out, has just invented a DeLorean time machine (the time machine originally was intended to be a refrigerator, but Zemeckis changed it to a car because he worried that after seeing Marty walk through a refrigerator kids would follow suit). During a test run, however, Marty is accidentally sent back to 1955. Now, whilst trying to get back to the future, he encounters run-ins with his father's lifelong bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) and must somehow make sure his parents-to-be meet and fall in love – which is not as easy it sounds when Lorraine falls head over heels in love with him.
There is no department that makes a false move on this film. Firstly, the cast dynamic is flawless: Fox's Everyman affability has never been put to better use, Lloyd enjoys what is unquestionably the defining role of his career as the nutty scientist, Thompson and Glover revel in playing Marty's parents as teenagers and adults in middle-age, and Wilson brings menace and later even a little accurate lowliness to his role as the pathetic bully who finally gets his comeuppance. Technically, Back to the Future has aged like wine as well: the art direction is effective in its subtlety and accuracy to '50s culture, the editing is swift, but not to an extent that you can't make out everything that's happening on-screen, and although there aren't as many of them as you'd think given the type of film this is, the special effects are still superb by today's standards. Alan Silvestri's jazzy, electronic score is yet another element that raises the excitement enormously.
But at the end of the day, this really is Bob Zemeckis' show. Firstly he and Bob Gale co-wrote an ingenious screenplay so bursting with invention and peppered with sparkling humour (see the 1955 dinner scene, most notably) and heart that the years have done nothing to lessen the sense of wonder it brings. Secondly, his direction of Back to the Future is perfectly executed, especially for a blockbuster (and even I must admit to having a love/hate relationship with blockbusters sometimes): Zemeckis' directorial effort here is energetic, slick, cunning and fast-paced in the action scenes and cleverly subtle in the slower moments, his passion for the story apparent in every frame. Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, leave the blockbusters to the true masters and stop embarrassing yourselves.
Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future, one of the highest-grossing films of the '80s and a film that continues to have a huge impact on popular culture and film-making to this day, is a spectacular blockbuster that flawlessly combines dazzling and incredibly exciting action sequences with a sweet thematic centre that never ventures into cheesy territory, all the while being laced with wickedly funny humour. It's a film that, like very few of its contemporaries, has managed to avoid developing a negative reputation due to its large-scale success and continues to enchant new legions of young movie fans as well as remaining an all-time favourite of many older movie fans, and it will continue to do that for many years to come.
Review: The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003).
Where does one start when putting Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings – a movie which has, in less than a decade, become almost unanimously hailed the world over as one of the most ambitious projects and one of THE definitive achievements in the entire long history of motion pictures – under the spotlight? Just as one cannot do justice to J. R. R. Tolkien’s staggering and immortal literary fantasy masterpiece in merely a few words, thus is also the case for Jackson’s unprecedented film adaptation. Because, with this operatic, timeless story of good triumphing over evil – with themes of love, sacrifice, redemption, mythology and corruption of power thrown in for good measure – Tolkien and Jackson each pulled off an extremely rare achievement in their respective mediums: they “built a church.” Furthermore Jackson single-handedly introduced virtually an entire generation – myself included – to the life’s work of Professor Tolkien. It is not impossible to do the film justice, but extremely few have fully done that, so I’ll do my best.
But before I attempt to navigate just how Jackson, who has referred to the making of The Lord of the Rings as “like laying down the train-tracks while the train was moving forward,” was so successful, I want to get something less important out of the way, and forgive me while I reminisce briefly.
I was fortunate enough to first see The Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen during its opening weekend in Australia in 2001 when I was 13, the perfect age for it. While I still to this day consider seeing Star Wars on the big screen at the age of nine when it was re-released in 1997 to be my fondest movie-going memory, that film only gets it over Fellowship in a photo-finish, and since the two are apples and oranges in terms of genre I still thought Fellowship was completely unlike anything I’d seen before. Witnessing the Fellowship crossing the Bridge of Khazad-dum followed by the showdown between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the Balrog was, and continues to be, the most awe-inspiring thing I’d seen since… well, the Death Star blowing up (and all those scenes still make my eyes light up like a pinball machine). And as soon as the lights in the cinema went up after the credits began to roll, virtually every person in the audience rose to their feet and started clapping and cheering. In all my movie-going experiences, that’s the only time I’ve been part of an audience that honoured a movie with a standing ovation at the end (perhaps with Star Wars in ’97 and The Two Towers and The Return of the King most of the audience knew what they were in for). Furthermore, and no doubt by some total fluke, Fellowship was released at just the PERFECT time. Of course, we all know and wish we could forget what happened in September of 2001 and it was not the movie’s huge worldwide box office taking but rather, the hugely positive and lasting impact it had, and continues to have, on so many people which proves that movies like Fellowship, when they’re done right and released at the right time, give people hope and inspiration. When we get those feelings from a film, as we do with real-life experiences, the film becomes a miracle. Feelings of hope and inspiration elicited from a movie are feelings that no one, neither the director nor the attendant behind the cinema concession stand, can give you, and nobody and nothing can ever take it away.
Okay, that’s that. Now for some deconstruction.
First, to the visual side of The Lord of the Rings. Visually, it is indeed ravishing in every sense of the word. Its scale and technological wonders make it heaven on your eyes, and in every frame there are so many beautiful things to look at that with every viewing you notice something there that you simply never noticed before (something that defines any true classic). The design is so richly detailed and by turns shimmeringly beautiful and powerfully arresting that you feel like you can just reach into the screen and touch the rainforest treetops of Rivendell or Lothlórien, or smell the gritty underbelly of the almost dystopic caverns of Isengard. Much of this is due to the many spectacular New Zealand locations on which the movie was filmed – indeed, Jackson’s choices of locations were so beneficial overall to New Zealand’s tourism industry that then-New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated, “Peter Jackson has done more for New Zealand’s tourism industry than any man since Captain Cook!”
Still on the visual aspect of The Lord of the Rings, overshadowing the sets and costumes are the indisputably awe-inspiring special effects. They have the same effect as the sets and costumes, however they overpower other technical aspects of the production when we learn there was much more at stake with the special effects. And the special effects are, it must be said, nothing less than special. In fact, what am I saying? To merely write them off as “special” is both an understatement and an injustice. It’s almost as if Peter Jackson has made a 3-D movie that you don’t need to watch while wearing those stupid glasses, to get the adrenaline rush that 3-D brings. The dragon firework; Frodo’s blurred and almost otherworldly vision when he puts on the One Ring; the dormant demon erupting out of Cate Blanchett’s Queen Galadriel when she sees the Ring; the river flooding Isengard to the ground; Mount Doom blowing its top and the tower of Orthanc collapsing to the ground, causing an earthquake after the destruction of the Ring; and the afore-mentioned showdown on the Bridge of Khazad-dum to name but a few. All become indelibly etched in your memory forever. And then there’s Gollum (played to sheer perfection by Andy Serkis), the first completely lifelike (if that’s the right adjective to use in relation to a non-human character) computer-generated character ever commited to celluloid. Gollum was the main reason as to just why the realism of the visuals in The Lord of the Rings was so critical to the outcome, especially in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, because he is the character through which the story’s moral of how power corrupts is delivered. Visually, The Lord of the Rings is, to put it lightly, a dream come true.
Another visual plus is Andrew Lesnie’s exhilarating cinematography – indeed, the effectiveness of the picturesque New Zealand locations in the overall look of the movie has a great deal to do with his camera and he deserved every gram of the Academy Award he won for Fellowship. Two photographic shots in the entire piece that never fail to leave me awestruck are the tracking shot of the butterfly hovering along the caverns of Isengard, then up and over the tower of Orthanc (despite that shot being mostly computer-generated) and the haunting mise-en-scene (following Arwen’s (Liv Tyler) vision of Aragorn’s (Viggo Mortensen) passing) of leaves floating over Aragorn’s casket to show the withering passage of time. Sublime.
Yet despite the size of what they have to compete with, the entire cast never misses a beat. Elijah Wood goes through the motions as Frodo for most of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, before Frodo goes renegade in the second half of The Return of the King, with Wood nailing a depiction of dependence and attachment to the Ring that is critical for the story’s message of corruption of power to come through. Andy Serkis chews up and spits Gollum back out with such ease that it seems Gollum was the role he was born to play. The same can be said for Ian McKellen, who had never even heard of Tolkien’s novel when Peter Jackson and co-screenwriter/producer Fran Walsh offered him the part of über-wizard Gandalf. Viggo Mortensen gives the somewhat arrogant Aragorn a refreshing mix of anger and vulnerability, Miranda Otto transforms a stock damsel in distress into one of the best action heroines in recent cinema history, and as father and son John Noble and Sean Bean each portray complex, almost deranged men who have succumbed to their shared susceptibility to power and greed so brilliantly you could be forgiven for mistaking Noble and Bean for an actual father and son pair.
However, in my opinion the actor who pulls the rug out from underneath everybody else here is Sean Astin. And in just one short scene. The expression on Astin’s face after Wood’s Frodo sends his Sam home in The Return of the King simply makes you want to, for a very short while, choke Frodo to death. How the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences snubbed this heartbreaking performance – and about three other performances in King – and granted only one acting nomination for the entire trilogy (but no disrespect at all to Mr. McKellen) is anyone’s guess. But of course, the only negative all the actors in the trilogy will get is being forever thought of as their characters, even if half have already managed to escape the typecasting. In the eyes of fans everywhere, Wood IS Frodo, McKellen IS Gandalf (despite his career-best performance in Gods and Monsters) and Mortensen IS Aragorn and so on, just like Mark Hamill IS Luke Skywalker, Sean Connery IS James Bond (that one’s probably not a negative though) and Harrison Ford IS Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Even after little more than eight years, the cultural impact of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings cannot and should not be underestimated. Jackson has made himself one of two prolific individuals – the other being J.K. Rowling – who have re-awoken children and teenagers of the twenty-first century to reading. After the release of just The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien’s works shot right back up to the top of bestseller lists worldwide. Jackson’s adaptations also slowly pulled the rug out from underneath the more-hyped Harry Potter movie adaptations, both critically and financially. The movie, along with J.K. Rowling’s Potter series and its own subsequent movie franchise for credit where it’s due, has given rise to endless merchandising and pieces of fan-fiction. But perhaps most of all to Jackson’s credit, he crafted a fantasy masterpiece so undeniably perfect, and with such passion and stubborn determination, that it eventually forced a bunch of fickle old men and women to get over their seventy-six year-long bias (even Steven Spielberg – who only shut the Academy up when he started to make serious films like the masterpieces Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan – and George Lucas can’t lay claim to that). To close, I can’t come up with a statement of my own with which I can do justice to Peter Jackson’s colossal adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in just one sentence, so as one critic wrote following The Return of the King’s December 2003 release, “Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
But before I attempt to navigate just how Jackson, who has referred to the making of The Lord of the Rings as “like laying down the train-tracks while the train was moving forward,” was so successful, I want to get something less important out of the way, and forgive me while I reminisce briefly.
I was fortunate enough to first see The Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen during its opening weekend in Australia in 2001 when I was 13, the perfect age for it. While I still to this day consider seeing Star Wars on the big screen at the age of nine when it was re-released in 1997 to be my fondest movie-going memory, that film only gets it over Fellowship in a photo-finish, and since the two are apples and oranges in terms of genre I still thought Fellowship was completely unlike anything I’d seen before. Witnessing the Fellowship crossing the Bridge of Khazad-dum followed by the showdown between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the Balrog was, and continues to be, the most awe-inspiring thing I’d seen since… well, the Death Star blowing up (and all those scenes still make my eyes light up like a pinball machine). And as soon as the lights in the cinema went up after the credits began to roll, virtually every person in the audience rose to their feet and started clapping and cheering. In all my movie-going experiences, that’s the only time I’ve been part of an audience that honoured a movie with a standing ovation at the end (perhaps with Star Wars in ’97 and The Two Towers and The Return of the King most of the audience knew what they were in for). Furthermore, and no doubt by some total fluke, Fellowship was released at just the PERFECT time. Of course, we all know and wish we could forget what happened in September of 2001 and it was not the movie’s huge worldwide box office taking but rather, the hugely positive and lasting impact it had, and continues to have, on so many people which proves that movies like Fellowship, when they’re done right and released at the right time, give people hope and inspiration. When we get those feelings from a film, as we do with real-life experiences, the film becomes a miracle. Feelings of hope and inspiration elicited from a movie are feelings that no one, neither the director nor the attendant behind the cinema concession stand, can give you, and nobody and nothing can ever take it away.
Okay, that’s that. Now for some deconstruction.
First, to the visual side of The Lord of the Rings. Visually, it is indeed ravishing in every sense of the word. Its scale and technological wonders make it heaven on your eyes, and in every frame there are so many beautiful things to look at that with every viewing you notice something there that you simply never noticed before (something that defines any true classic). The design is so richly detailed and by turns shimmeringly beautiful and powerfully arresting that you feel like you can just reach into the screen and touch the rainforest treetops of Rivendell or Lothlórien, or smell the gritty underbelly of the almost dystopic caverns of Isengard. Much of this is due to the many spectacular New Zealand locations on which the movie was filmed – indeed, Jackson’s choices of locations were so beneficial overall to New Zealand’s tourism industry that then-New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated, “Peter Jackson has done more for New Zealand’s tourism industry than any man since Captain Cook!”
Still on the visual aspect of The Lord of the Rings, overshadowing the sets and costumes are the indisputably awe-inspiring special effects. They have the same effect as the sets and costumes, however they overpower other technical aspects of the production when we learn there was much more at stake with the special effects. And the special effects are, it must be said, nothing less than special. In fact, what am I saying? To merely write them off as “special” is both an understatement and an injustice. It’s almost as if Peter Jackson has made a 3-D movie that you don’t need to watch while wearing those stupid glasses, to get the adrenaline rush that 3-D brings. The dragon firework; Frodo’s blurred and almost otherworldly vision when he puts on the One Ring; the dormant demon erupting out of Cate Blanchett’s Queen Galadriel when she sees the Ring; the river flooding Isengard to the ground; Mount Doom blowing its top and the tower of Orthanc collapsing to the ground, causing an earthquake after the destruction of the Ring; and the afore-mentioned showdown on the Bridge of Khazad-dum to name but a few. All become indelibly etched in your memory forever. And then there’s Gollum (played to sheer perfection by Andy Serkis), the first completely lifelike (if that’s the right adjective to use in relation to a non-human character) computer-generated character ever commited to celluloid. Gollum was the main reason as to just why the realism of the visuals in The Lord of the Rings was so critical to the outcome, especially in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, because he is the character through which the story’s moral of how power corrupts is delivered. Visually, The Lord of the Rings is, to put it lightly, a dream come true.
Another visual plus is Andrew Lesnie’s exhilarating cinematography – indeed, the effectiveness of the picturesque New Zealand locations in the overall look of the movie has a great deal to do with his camera and he deserved every gram of the Academy Award he won for Fellowship. Two photographic shots in the entire piece that never fail to leave me awestruck are the tracking shot of the butterfly hovering along the caverns of Isengard, then up and over the tower of Orthanc (despite that shot being mostly computer-generated) and the haunting mise-en-scene (following Arwen’s (Liv Tyler) vision of Aragorn’s (Viggo Mortensen) passing) of leaves floating over Aragorn’s casket to show the withering passage of time. Sublime.
Yet despite the size of what they have to compete with, the entire cast never misses a beat. Elijah Wood goes through the motions as Frodo for most of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, before Frodo goes renegade in the second half of The Return of the King, with Wood nailing a depiction of dependence and attachment to the Ring that is critical for the story’s message of corruption of power to come through. Andy Serkis chews up and spits Gollum back out with such ease that it seems Gollum was the role he was born to play. The same can be said for Ian McKellen, who had never even heard of Tolkien’s novel when Peter Jackson and co-screenwriter/producer Fran Walsh offered him the part of über-wizard Gandalf. Viggo Mortensen gives the somewhat arrogant Aragorn a refreshing mix of anger and vulnerability, Miranda Otto transforms a stock damsel in distress into one of the best action heroines in recent cinema history, and as father and son John Noble and Sean Bean each portray complex, almost deranged men who have succumbed to their shared susceptibility to power and greed so brilliantly you could be forgiven for mistaking Noble and Bean for an actual father and son pair.
However, in my opinion the actor who pulls the rug out from underneath everybody else here is Sean Astin. And in just one short scene. The expression on Astin’s face after Wood’s Frodo sends his Sam home in The Return of the King simply makes you want to, for a very short while, choke Frodo to death. How the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences snubbed this heartbreaking performance – and about three other performances in King – and granted only one acting nomination for the entire trilogy (but no disrespect at all to Mr. McKellen) is anyone’s guess. But of course, the only negative all the actors in the trilogy will get is being forever thought of as their characters, even if half have already managed to escape the typecasting. In the eyes of fans everywhere, Wood IS Frodo, McKellen IS Gandalf (despite his career-best performance in Gods and Monsters) and Mortensen IS Aragorn and so on, just like Mark Hamill IS Luke Skywalker, Sean Connery IS James Bond (that one’s probably not a negative though) and Harrison Ford IS Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Even after little more than eight years, the cultural impact of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings cannot and should not be underestimated. Jackson has made himself one of two prolific individuals – the other being J.K. Rowling – who have re-awoken children and teenagers of the twenty-first century to reading. After the release of just The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien’s works shot right back up to the top of bestseller lists worldwide. Jackson’s adaptations also slowly pulled the rug out from underneath the more-hyped Harry Potter movie adaptations, both critically and financially. The movie, along with J.K. Rowling’s Potter series and its own subsequent movie franchise for credit where it’s due, has given rise to endless merchandising and pieces of fan-fiction. But perhaps most of all to Jackson’s credit, he crafted a fantasy masterpiece so undeniably perfect, and with such passion and stubborn determination, that it eventually forced a bunch of fickle old men and women to get over their seventy-six year-long bias (even Steven Spielberg – who only shut the Academy up when he started to make serious films like the masterpieces Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan – and George Lucas can’t lay claim to that). To close, I can’t come up with a statement of my own with which I can do justice to Peter Jackson’s colossal adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in just one sentence, so as one critic wrote following The Return of the King’s December 2003 release, “Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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