FC Barcelona Sport

I run the risk of sounding like a giant dork when I say this, but Jurassic Park is one of my favorite Steven Spielberg films ever. I honestly think it’s the first movie that the theatre going experience stuck in my memory, and to this day I remember being scared of the dinosaurs even though I was fascinated; I remember the T-Rex being so loud as he ran after our protagonists that the floor was vibrating and that I tucked my feet under me in my seat because of this.

For anyone that hasn’t seen Jurassic Park you are missing out. It is Spielberg at his blockbuster best. The film is iconic proof that you can make a good adaptation of a great novel, maintain action and suspense without sacrificing character and story and even appeal to kids and adults alike. It has style, great direction and even moved the art of special effects forward.

Jurassic Park is the amusement park of the twentieth century and after an unfortunate accident creator John Hammond needs to get experts in the field to sign off on his park so he can convince his investors to move forward with funding. When archeologists Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler & chaotician Ian Malcolm arrive they are treated to the parks true wonder – Hammond and his scientists have found a way to clone dinosaurs and have them on display in his private island theme park. However, when the Grant, Sattler and Malcolm are sent on a tour of the park with Hammond’s lawyer and grandchildren something goes terribly wrong and the dinosaurs begin to overrun the park and turn the tables on the humans that recreated them.

This plot line is a perfect example of how to stay faithful to the source material yet make it work for film. If you have ever read the novel Jurassic Park is based on I think you will agree that the film is different in a lot of ways, yet somehow a faithful film. What Spielberg and crew managed to do was take all of the wonder, science and human interest from the book to the screen and keep the central dilemma – man vs. nature.

Part of what works so well about the film is that Spielberg made the film to be exactly what it should be – a monster movie. This is a story about science, nature and chaos, but more than anything this is a modern Frankenstein; man became too ambitious and tried to create life and now must deal with what happens when these creatures turn on them. The monsters are scary, but every character knows the events that are occurring are simply the nature of the beast.

I wish that the follow-ups to Jurassic Park were as good as the original, but sadly Spielberg’s first is the crown-jewel of the three film franchise. Even though he directed the second and some pretty cool elements are in there, nothing can hold a candle to the first foray into the world of Jurassic Park.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writing: Michael Crichton & David Koepp
Dr. Alan Grant: Sam Neill
Dr. Ellie Sattler: Laura Dern
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Jeff Goldblum
John Hammond: Richard Attenborough
Robert Muldoon: Richard Peck
Gennaro: Martin Ferrero
Tim Murphy: Joseph Mazzello
Lex Murphy: Ariana Richards
Ray Arnold: Samuel L. Jackson
Dennis Nedry: Wayne Knight

John Hammond: Dr. Grant... if there's one person here who can appreciate what I'm trying to do.
Dr. Alan Grant: The world is changing so fast, and we're all running to catch up. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but look. Dinosaurs and man... two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have suddenly been thrown into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea of what to expect?
John Hammond: I don't believe it! Hah! I don't believe it! You're supposed to come here and defend me against these characters and the only one I've got on my side is the bloodsucking lawyer!
Gennaro: Thank you.

The more I watch Elf the more I realize how much I genuinely love this movie. I really think it is one of my favorite Christmas movies ever made. As integral a part as Will Ferrell, James Caan and the rest of the cast is to the magic that makes Elf I truly believe that Jon Favreau is the glue that makes Elf work.

After the disappointment that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I was astounded to realize that Jon Favreau did with Iron Man what I expected Spielberg to do with Indiana Jones - Favreau made a Spielberg-esque film that delighted and enraptured on every level and brought you into the characters so that you identified with them all. Iron Man reminded me of something I never realized before; Jon Favreau is a damn good director. Looking back at Elf I would venture to say that he is one of the best directors of his generation.

You may want to disagree with me saying this about Favreau but you need to stop and look at the evidence. The mark of a good director is very obvious traits that should appear very subtlety because they need to fit the film the director is composing – compare a good film to a bad film and you will see it – you may not be able to identify it but you will be able to tell there is a difference. That difference is the hand and mind of a good director. A good director will have a beautiful film where the visuals fit the world they are trying to create, every shot works to build pieces of the puzzle and more than anything a good director draws you into the story and the characters in such a way that the two are indelibly connected and you empathize with the characters and want to watch them on their plight.

Elf like Iron Man has all of this and the common trait between the two films is the man at the helm – Jon Favreau. If Elf was handled by a different director it would have been an entirely different film. Chris Columbus for example would have been static in his shots, used little to no background action except where absolutely necessary and in the end you would have walked away laughing at Ferrell and not remembering much else about the film; if someone like Tyler Perry had directed Elf the jokes would have been heavy handed, the look of the film far too exuberant and characters would have paused at the end of jokes waiting for reactions.

The point is that while a good director doesn’t want to be noticed, once you start paying attention you should be able to see the marks of a good director all over their film. Jon Favreau is a good director and because of his handling of Elf his film has been added to the Christmas must-see list of countless fans world wide.

Buddy: Did you have to borrow a reindeer to get down here?
Miles Finch: Hey, jackweed, I get more action in a week than you've had in your entire life. I've got houses in L.A., Paris and Vail. In each one, a 70 inch plasma screen. So I suggest you wipe that stupid smile off your face before I come over there and SMACK it off! You feeling strong, my friend? Call me elf one more time.
Buddy:He's an angry elf.

Though I know it will be on a major television network at least once before Christmas Day I could not resist the opportunity to see It’s a Wonderful Life at a flashback screening. I am glad I did. Having only ever seen the film on television I was reminded how often I don’t truly pay attention to movies on TV. Though I have seen It’s a Wonderful Life at least once a year I cannot recall the last time I sat and watched the film from start to finish.

As usual with any Jimmy Stewart movie I was struck by how fabulous he really is. There is just something about that man that is utterly relatable, the everyman, all while being the perfect embodiment of his characters. This man truly is one of my favorite actors of all time and I believe will deservedly be idolized by actors and cinemaphiles for years to come.

What I never truly appreciated about It’s A Wonderful Life is how truly funny it is. I always appreciated the dramatic elements of the film, the story structure, the tragedy, etc. but I never really paid attention to the great humor. While the movie isn’t a comedy the warmth and natural delivery brought to the script makes the gentle one liners and witticisms standout as endearing and memorable.

I did sit and wonder last night why It’s a Wonderful Life has not been remade. The answer is pretty obvious, other films have been based around the same concept, but if you were to actually remake It’s a Wonderful Life and update the film any studio would have a full fledged outrage on their hands. This movie is truly placed in the very scant “perfect movie” category in Hollywood and I don’t think anyone would risk touching it. The only person I can even think of that I would trust to remake this film is probably Steven Speilberg who is essentially the modern day Capra.

While I know that It’s a Wonderful Life is not a perfect film, it has been caught up in such an idealistic cloud over the past decades that I cannot find any real flaws in the film – every aspect about it just seems to make the movie that much more endearing and timeless.

Director: Frank Capra
Writers: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett & Frank Capra
George Bailey: James Stewart
Mary Bailey: Donna Reed
Potter: Lionel Barrymore
Uncle Billy: Thomas Mitchell
Clarence: Henry Travers

George Bailey: Now, come on, get your clothes on, and we'll stroll up to my car and get... Oh, I'm sorry. I'll stroll. You fly.
Clarence: I can't fly. I haven't got my wings.
George Bailey: You haven't got your wings. Yeah, that's right.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a science fiction classic. I have been trying to see it for years and only successfully saw it when I got it from my Netflix queue a few days ago.

On principle I shouldn’t like The Day the Earth Stood Still because it is a message movie, but I do; the message in this movie is give up your nuclear arms and wars or you’ll pay the consequences. This is the entire message Klaatu braved hundreds of thousands of miles in space to deliver. This all makes sense for the film when you realize that it is a cold war film and people across the globe were afraid of the bomb.

Despite being a message movie at its core The Day the Earth Stood Still is quite entertaining; the characters are fully developed, all the relationships make sense and the plot moves at a nice speed that unfolds information for the audience as they need it not before.

I think that Klaatu is a great member of the annals of film aliens. While he represents a different view of the otherworldly outsider than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did this year, it is a view of the alien type that probably influenced Spielberg when creating his earlier science fiction works like E.T.. There is both a fear of the outsider and a curiosity about what they can bring to us.

However, I do have to say that my single favorite thing in The Day the Earth Stood Still was Gort. A giant (mind you eight foot tall was big for special effects at the time) robot that was capable of destroying everything in its sight and who only Klaatu could control – that’s my kind of cold war paranoia. Gort is not only a protector of Klaatu but you find out that the robot is some sort of intergalactic peace officer created by Klaatu’s people.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a highly enjoyable film even if it has slightly suffered from being so era specific; however, seeing the original has me highly excited to see the remake when it comes out next month. Just imagine Gort with modern cgi.

Director: Robert Wise
Writer: Edmund H. Noth
Klaatu: Michael Rennie
Helen Benson: Patricia Neal
Tom Stevens: Hugh Marlowe
Professor Barnhardt: Sam Jaffe
Bobby Benson: Billy Gray
Gort: Lock Martin

I have an irrational fear of large bodies of water & sharks; for this reason (among others) Jaws terrified me as a child. In fact I’ve completely blocked the first time I saw the film out of my memory. The second time I watched the film I was a teen and my brothers sat on either side of me, holding me down so I had to watch. Even then, I disliked the film because it scared me. I don’t remember quite when it happened, but somewhere between that viewing and film school I grew to appreciate Jaws as a well made movie, this led to me being able to view the film more and eventually buy it on DVD.

Now I genuinely think that Jaws is a filmmaking masterpiece; a film that shows what a genius like Spielberg can do, and how to make a truly terrifying picture. The film still works on my irrational fears, but I know that this is not why the film scares me, it scares me because it is masterfully crafted and executed.

The story of Jaws is simple. Chief Brody has just moved with his family to small Amity Island in search of a more peaceful existence than New York where he felt that he could never make a difference as part of the police force; Amity is a small town that relies on its summer tourist season, and the majority of the residents need profitable summers to exist the rest of the year. All is good on the island until right before the peak of the summer season a girl is killed in a shark attack, and rather than admit that the people of the island are in danger the town mayor refuses to let Brody close the beaches and hunt the shark which of course leads to more deaths before the town goes insane with greed trying to hunt the shark for money and finally Brody is allowed to do what he was attempting all along and hunt the shark without interference.

When Jaws was released in 1975 critic Roger Ebert wrote that Jaws is “a sensationally effective action picture, a scary thriller that works all the better because it’s populated with characters that have been developed into human beings”; this is probably the best description of why Jaws works that I have ever read, and it truly gets to the core of the remarkable talent of the filmmaker behind the movie.

No one can deny that the actors are amazing; there is no bad performance in the film no matter how large or how small. An entire essay could be written on the scene in the belly of the Orca where Hooper, Quint & Brody discuss their scars. However, I will save that topic for another viewing and instead move on to what no one expected from Jaws - Steven Spielberg.

Until Jaws Spielberg was only known for directing tv episodes, Duel, and Sugarland Express. People in the industry thought he was competent, but no one saw him as a directing force to be reckoned with. Spielberg did what so many filmmakers would not have the patience for; he made a film on the water, not in a tank like Cameron did with Titanic, but in the water at Martha’s Vineyard. The entire cast and crew were on separate boats for a majority of the film trying to tame mother nature, a mechanical shark and lighting conditions to get a good shot. Then the opening sequence of Jaws came on screen and by the end of the film people knew the name of Steven Spielberg.

Jaws is a classic. It’s over 30 years old now and I would not replace the rubberized mechanical shark with CGI any day.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Peter Benchley & Carl Gottlieb
Chief Bordy: Roy Scheider
Matt Hooper: Richard Dreyfuss
Quint: Robert Shaw

Brody: I'm tellin' ya, the crime rate in New York'll kill you. There's so many problems, you never feel like you're accomplishing anything. Violence, rip-offs, muggings... kids can't leave the house - you gotta walk them to school. But in Amity one man can make a difference. In twenty-five years, there's never been a shooting or a murder in this town.

There are several classic films that I somehow missed seeing early in my life. I didn’t see The Wizard of Oz until I was 19, Casablanca until I was in my first film classes, etc. Until last night I had never seen Lawrence of Arabia. Honestly, when I was young I was never interested in the film and when I finally gained my appreciation for classic cinema everyone told me that Lawrence of Arabia was a sight to behold on the big screen and I really didn’t want to see the spectacular visuals on (at that time) VHS. Lucky for me a theatre nearby did a flashback screening of the film so that I would not be subjected to watching what was originally shot in 70mm on my 13 inch tv screen.

I do believe that Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best character studies I have ever seen. If I were still in film school I could probably devote an entire paper to the character arch of Lawrence and how we can visually see him change through cues in the film, and how the character emotionally changes as well (but I’ll only bore you with a brief synopsis here). Lawrence is a character that goes from being an idealist, to a believer, to a man without a country and all the while he is praised by all and still this does not satisfy him because he cannot become who he truly wants to become.

At the beginning of the film we see Lawrence racing through the English countryside on his motorcycle where he meets (what I later came to feel) a sad death compared to his heroic life. At his funeral dignitaries, reporters and officers swarm out after it ends each giving their own heroic opinion of Lawrence to newsmen and each other though most freely admit they didn’t actually know him. Finally, reporter Jackson Bentley is asked his opinion of Lawrence and of course he tells the reporter the typical heroics of Lawrence; once the reporter leaves Bentley remarks that Lawrence was “the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum & Bailey” and is berated by another attendee of the funeral who did not know Lawrence. This is perhaps the best set up for any character in the history of film save Keyser Soze.

The film cuts from the funeral into the longest flash back of all time and straight into Lawrence’s career with the British Armed Forces in Arabia. He is first sent on special assignment to seek Prince Feisal, and on his way he begins to show that he is not an ordinary soldier. From there his career as a soldier takes a different path; he convinces the Prince to give him 50 men and they will do the impossible by crossing the bleakest section of desert and taking a Turk occupied Aquaba, convincing mercenaries to fight with them on the way. On the way to Aquaba he proves himself to be more Arab than British to the Arab soldiers and proves he can do the impossible – they take Aquaba. He no longer wears his uniform, but the Arab robes given to him by his most trusted Arab ally Ali; it is obvious that he both sympathizes with and wants the best for the people he is actually fighting with – the Arabs not the British.

After every major mission he approaches the British General and asks to be reassigned; but he has made his own bed by proving the impossible possible and the General simply promotes him every time and sends Lawrence back into the field, filling his head with tales of how he will be a household name and a national hero and Lawrence returns to the Arabs more resolute than ever that the British will not replace the Turks as Arabia’s governors.

In the beginning Lawrence is happy among the Arabs; he identifies with them and is told more than once that he is “practically Arab”. As the film progresses his love for the Arabs becomes more and more bitter as he continues to realize that though he is better suited for the Arab culture than the British he cannot ever truly be an Arab and though he tries he knows he can no longer truly be British. By the end Lawrence is finally sent back to England and it becomes final to him: Lawrence wants to belong in the desert with the Arabs, but he cannot just as he cannot pretend to be excited about going “home”.

Steven Spielberg has been quoted as saying when he begins a movie he always watches four films: The Searchers, It’s A Wonderful Life, Seven Samurai and Lawrence of Arabia. Having now seen Lawrence of Arabia it is easy to spot how this film has influenced Spielberg to become the director that he is today.

Director: David Lean
Writer: Robert Bolt
Lawrence: Peter O’Toole
Prince Feisal: Alec Guinness
Sherif Ali: Omar Sharif
Jackson Bentley: Arthur Kennedy

Prince Feisal: Well, General, I will leave you. Major Lawrence doubtless has reports to make upon my people and their weakness, and the need to keep them weak in the British interest... and the French interest too, of course. We must not forget the French now...
General Allenby: [indignantly] I've told you, sir, no such treaty exists.
Prince Feisal: Yes, General, you have lied most bravely, but not convincingly. I know this treaty does exist.
T.E. Lawrence: Treaty, sir?
Prince Feisal: He does it better than you, General. But then, of course, he is almost an Arab.

It’s been nineteen years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released to theatres. Nineteen years for fans to hope that maybe, someday they’d get to see the everyman hero named Indy crack his whip in a new adventure again. Last night at 12:01 a.m. the wait ended and fans are going to be divided directly down the line.

I cannot say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a bad movie. It is well shot by Janusz Kaminski (although it looks vastly different than any of the previous films), there are numerous iconic images that strike of what makes Spielberg the king of Hollywood, the action sequences are fun, and Indy does get out of tight situations by the combination of brains and brawn that we have come to expect from the character.

This being said, my problem with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is that the movie takes us to a place where I don’t think Indy belongs. I have no problem with the Cold War instead of the Nazi’s trying to take over the world, but aliens are stretching it. Indy himself doesn’t even seem to do much in the “detective” work that we’re so used to seeing him do; he follows an old friends instructions and this old friend turns out to be bat crazy then they just kind of jaunt together wherever old crazy tells them to go.

All of the Indiana Jones films harken back to the over-the-top action adventure movies of the golden era of cinema, but Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade still managed to create realistic characters, realistic (yet fanciful) adventures and amazing action – yet Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seems to have finally walked just over the line where an homage to old action movies becomes a literal translation of old action movies. And this time we get old sci-fi movies as well, and I tell you I don’t think Doctor Jones can pull off sci-fi.

I won’t post any spoilers here as I know that this movie is going to be seen by almost everyone I know this weekend, but I will stress that you need to go into the movie knowing that this is not the Indiana Jones you remember, this is an Indiana Jones movie made for a new generation of kids who don’t want to think about what they are watching.

This is my final opinion: I waited nineteen years for a sequel to a movie that really didn’t need a sequel, I know that they had fun making it, but I would have waited another year or two for a movie that felt more like an Indiana Jones movie, not a movie that feels like another movie that happens to have the Indiana Jones characters in it.

I think far too many movies are being made nowadays because they are “fun” movies to watch. What happened to the days where my “fun” movies to watch were also smart?

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp
Indiana Jones: Harrison Ford
Marion Ravenwood: Karen Allen
Mutt: Shia LaBeouf
Mac: Ray winstone
Irina Spalko: Cate Blanchett

Indiana Jones: Put your hands down will you, you're embarrassing us.