Jaws Film Review

Jaws is really a marvel in filmmaking. Despite the disaster of its production, it spawned one of the most iconic films in history. It’s directed by Steven Spielberg, and stars Roy Scheider as Chief Brody, Robert Shaw as Captain Quint, and Richard Deyfuss as scientist Matt Hooper. The plot of Jaws is when a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, Chief of Police Martin Brody must hire scientist Hooper and fishing Captain Quint to stop it. Now when I think about it, this plot is really a “B Movie” plot. It sounds like a straight to home video release, not the big budget summer blockbuster that it is. So why is the film so great despite its lack luster plot?

How can I talk about jaws without talking about the score? The theme song is fantastic, in that it does exactly what a score should do. Which is emotionally manipulate the audience. As the camera is going through the water as the music builds as we get closer and closer to a person, we as the audience get closer and closer to the edge of our seat anticipating the attack. The editing was solid, it used some creative cuts in that enhanced some scenes. The first scene at the beach cuts from Brody sitting on the beach to people in the water by using people walking in front of the camera. It helps make you on edge like Brody is.

Now the writing is what really makes this film. The three main characters, Brody, Hooper, and Quint all have this relationship with the water. Brody had a drowning accident as a kid and becomes terrified of the water. Hooper was attack by a shark as a kid and rather than become afraid like Brody, he becomes enamored with sharks and becomes a marine biologist. Quint is a survivor of a mass shark attack and becomes a shark hunter. Yet it is Brody who in the end kills the shark and has to overcome his fear, because if Hooper or Quint had done it than no one would have grown as a character. In fact, Quint is destroyed by his hate of the shark. 

                Jaws is not without its flaws. There are some shots that last too long and could have been cut. The opening sequence could have moved the credits to improve emotional transitions. And there’s flawed logic in how the shark is killed. But after the credits have rolled the flaws are not what you walk away with. You remember the great characters and dialogue, the incredibly climatic ending, and the intense shark attacks overlaid with some of the most intense music in a film.

Jurassic Park 3D Film Review

                Jurassic Park was released in theaters in 1993, so I was too young to see it in theaters at the time. But I spent dozens of nights of my childhood watching one of the most well known “family monster movies” of our time. So it a happy surprise to find out that the film was rereleased into theaters. I was however not happy to learn that most theaters were only showing it in 3D, but I’ll get into that later. The film is directed Steven Spielberg, who is probably my favorite director of the 90’s. While the film stars Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler, and Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm.

                If you haven’t seen Jurassic Park and don’t know the plot, shame on you. But for those of you haven’t. In Jurassic Park, Doctors Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm are asked to tour a new park of living, cloned dinosaurs. During a preview tour, the theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaurs to run amok. When I first saw this film as a kid, their were some parts of the plot I didn’t fully understand. For instance, there is a subplot about one of the computer technician Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) who is stealing the dinosaur DNA from Jurassic Park for another company. I did not realize that he shut down the power to the park in order to steal the DNA, and therefore putting everyone in danger. Watching it again as adult it was obvious, but I was also able to enjoy the film more.So I loved this movie as a kid despite missing key points and loved it more as an adult able to catch everything.

                The acting in this movie is great in most regards. It was important for the actors to emote the shock and terror when the dinosaurs got loose. The two kids in the movie Tim and Lex (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards) do a fantastic job of this. In the iconic raining scene when the T-Rex gets out, they are losing their minds. While Grant and Malcolm sit speechless, mouths agape, and just watch helplessly. Of course there’s more to the acting than silence and screaming. There are smaller scenes like between Hammond (Richard Attenborough) and Nedry start arguing, and it feels like these characters have had this argument before. You can just hear how annoyed they are by each other.

                The technique of the film is where I had the most revelations from watching it a kid to watching it now. First, the soundtrack throughout the film is very consistent, it sounds like it reuses the main theme multiple times throughout and just plays different parts. And even different songs sound like it's straight from the theme. It’s a great song and it doesn’t take away anything from the film, I just thought that was funny. Next, Hammond says “Spared no expense” like six or seven times in this movie. It’s a great little character trait that fleshes out Hammonds character of how he wants to impress everyone so much. There is a scene after the dinosaurs had gotten out and Hammond is eating the ice cream they were all suppose to eat together. After some dialogue Sattler takes a bite of some and mentions that is good, and for the last time Hammond says “Spared no Expense” as if he’s making fun of himself. It’s this great little catharsis for Hammond who has just learned what he’s done wrong and I certainly couldn’t catch that as a kid. Next, the effects for the dinosaurs hold up surprisingly well, the 3D messes with the CG some, but we’ll get to that later. Lastly, the scenes when they arrive at the island and leave the island are almost perfect opposites of each other. When they arrive, Grant takes a prolonged look when they get off the helicopter and Hammond takes his arm around him to lead him into the island. When they leave, the opposite happens, Hammond takes a prolonged look and Grant puts his arm around him to lead him away from the island and to the helicopter. There is also some play with the cinematography in this same regard.

                Here it is, the thing I’ve been holding off on the entire review. The main difference between watching Jurassic Park as a kid and watching as an adult, the 3D. First you should know, I hate most 3D. Especially that new atmospheric 3D that makes it feel like you’re watching through a window. If 3D is going to be in the movie, I want stuff flying at me, not away. And that’s the kind in Jurassic Park, the atmospheric crap. Now obviously they didn’t shoot this in 3D back in 1993. So it’s a conversion, and not a great one at that. I’ve seen 3D movies that were fine, the 3D didn’t add much but it didn’t take away anything. The 3D in Jurassic Park adds nothing and takes away from my immersion to the film. The 3D makes the motion too clear and almost jagged looking, there’s no motion blur. This is a problem for me since real life has motion blur. Also, the depth of field is too shallow for 3D. If a movie is in 3D the depth of field should be deeper than normal, like in real life. In Jurassic Park it kind of hurt my eyes in certain close ups or if something particularly large is in the foreground when our focus is the middle ground. Now the biggest offender of the 3D is the CG dinosaurs. You would think that they would be the easiest conversion, wrong. It actually makes them look more like they’re not actually there. A moment of this that is stuck in my mind is in the raining scene when the T-Rex first gets out. When Grant and Lex are on the ground and the T-Rex snorts Grant’s hat off, the T-Rex looked like he was behind Grant and not directly in front of him because of the 3D.

                Jurassic Park is a great film that provokes the idea of science vs. nature, and how far is too far? It was great when it first came out and it’s great now. If you didn’t get a chance to see it in theaters when it first came out, go see it in theaters if you can. Or if you’ve never seen it and can’t see it in theaters, pick up the DVD. Now if you are like me and don’t like 3D. Try to find a theater playing it in 2D. But if you don’t mind or even like 3D, then by all means see it that way.

Children of Men Film Review

                Many films have theorized their own take on an apocalyptic future for mankind, but few as hauntingly plausible, real, and engaging as “Children of Men”. The film was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, which by the way is my favorite Harry Potter film. The film takes place in the not so distant future of 2027, where nonspecific natural disasters, wars and terrorist acts have ravaged most of the world and left it without government or authority. Britain still stands without relative structure with strict police and even stricter immigration patrol. And to top it all off, for some unknown reason women have become infertile and it has been about 18 years since a child has been born. The story follows Theo Faron (Clive Owen) who is approached by his ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore) in need of help smuggling the first pregnant girl in 18 years out of the country.

                The first starring role I ever saw from Clive Owen was in “Shoot ‘Em Up”, a campy, trigger happy action movie from 2007. And while he did fine in that film, it didn’t give him much substance to show his acting chops. “Children of Men” however is a very dramatic and character driven film, so the acting means a whole lot more. And Clive Owen does a great job as the protagonist “Theo”. The emotion he shows in the more panicky scenes is very real and believable. Julianne Moore and Michael Caine also have supporting roles in the film. Moore does fine, nothing to write home about though. And Michael Caine gives a fun, lasting impact performance. Even though he’s only in the first half of the film he is easily one of the most memorable characters.

                The only way I can think to describe the film score for the film is operatic. It’s all non-diegetic music is almost all very soft string instruments with operatic vocals in either a different language or just pretty tones. This only comes up during emotional scenes and is there to empower those scenes, which it does quite well. The diegetic music on the other hand ranges from The Beatles to The Rolling Stones. This music comes up during scenes where the characters have a minute to breath and are having fun. It’s a good contrast of music, and helps the audience to sympathize with the way the characters feel in the scene, whether they feel good or bad.

                Now I can’t talk about this scene without talking about its extensive use of “The Oner” technique. Using this technique is very expensive and very difficult, but with no edits or cuts it makes the scenes where it is used feel so much more real in “Children of Men”. And it is used quite often. One of the first scenes is actually a Oner, even if a not particularly long one. This was a smart way to wean the audience into the kind this style of cinematograph. But there are two scenes where the Oner is most notable.

The first is the car scene. Where everyone in the car is talking and having some fun when trouble comes along, and all the while the camera pans and moves throughout the car. You may not even realize it the first time you watch the scene, but it’s really quite impressive. The second is during the climax and the major action scene of the film. It clocks in at around 6 minutes of one take and is phenomenal, with very well choreographed movement, acting, gun fire, and even explosions. There is only part of this Oner that threw me off. At one point of the Oner some specks of what looks like blood gets on the lens of the camera, this took me out of the immersion a bit but I let it slide. I then found out later that it was cg and nothing actually got on the lens during the scene. I guess this was suppose to make you feel like you were actually there with Theo and add to the immersion, but it just reminded me that there was a cameraman and did the opposite.

“Children of Men” gives a thought provoking and disturbingly possible vision of what the near future could hold for the human race. If you’re like me and you liked Alfonso Cuaron’s “Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban” in pacing, tone, and enjoy character driven films, then you should make “Children of Men” you’re next movie to see.

Princess Bride Film Review

                Normally I hate romantic comedies, but I was pleasantly surprised by The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride came out in theaters in 1987 and is based on the book by the same title, released in 1973. It was directed by Rob Reiner, who directed Stand by Me the year before, with the screenplay written by William Goldman, the writer of the book. The film stars Cary Elwes as the male protagonist, and Robin Wright as the leading lady.

                In The Princess Bride Buttercup (Robin Wright) and Westley (Cary Elwes) are two young people that fall in love and wish to marry. But with no money, Westley leaves to seek his fortune so that he can buy a ring and support his love. Five years later, after hearing news that Westley had killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts, Buttercup reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), heir to the throne of Florin. Before the wedding, she is kidnapped by three outlaws: an extremely short Sicilian boss named Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), a Turkish giant named Fezzik (André the Giant), and a Spanish master fencer named Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin). The outlaws are pursued by Prince Humperdinck with a complement of soldiers, and quite separately, a masked man in black.

                 This film has a similar style of comedy and tone to the Mel Brooks film Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The film has sword fights, kidnapping, murder, and torture. But it’s handled light heartedly and swashbuckler like. Without giving too much away, there is a scene where the villain’s right hand man asks if he wants to be present for torturing the hero and the villain replies “… you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped.” And I’ll admit, up until that point I hated the villain (in a good way). He’s a conniving a-hole from privilege that always gets what he wants, but that line is delivered with such sincerity that I had to laugh at it. Which brings me to the acting, I thought was great. The actors fit their roles great and delivered their lines believably. I never had a moment where I thought a line sounded off. If the villain was played by a different actor, the line above may not have had as strong an affect as it did on me.

                One particular aspect of the film that I found endearing is that it is made a frame story. Above I mentioned how the film begins and plays out, well I actually left something out. The film actually begins a boy (Fred Savage) sick in bed when his grandfather (Peter Falk) comes by to read him a story. The story is The Princess Bride which is actually a book that this film was based on. Besides this being a cute Meta wink to the audience, it also serves as the way the film is presented. The story is framed, meaning that an introductory or main narrative is presented for the purpose of setting the stage for a more emphasized second narrative. The film is narrated by the grandfather, and the story is broken up as we go back to the grandfather and sick boy multiple times, reminding us that we are in fact in a story book. In fact, at the end of act two a major plot point is presented and the story immediately because the sick boy refuses to believe what just happened. The boy asks who kills the villain at the end, and the grandfather tells him nobody does. This is a shock and a major spoiler to the end of the film, but the film itself gives it. But I think it works even better this way. Now for the last act of the story, you’re wondering “Why isn’t the villain killed? Does he die by accident? What happens at the end?” You become even more invested in the story rather than deterred.

                Probably the strongest or most obvious theme of the film is that ‘True Love Overcomes All’. Westley goes though just about anything and everything to get to his love. He fights man, nature, beasts, and storms castles for her. Westley even overcomes death for his love of Buttercup. And you don’t have to take my work on the last one. He literally says that that’swhy he wants to come back to life.

                The Princess Bride is not the most thought provoking movie and can seem shallow to the more cynical. But it’s an entertaining film that has great comedic timing, writing, and acting. If you enjoy the silly comedic style of Mel Brooks films such as Blazing Saddles and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, then you should definitely see The Princess Bride. And if you haven’t seen those movies either, go watch those too!