Entry One in the 2018 Jaws Posts

As long time readers of this blog know, JAWS is the "Quint"essential Independence Day movie at this site. I've shared a number of posts on this greatest of adventure films, and there is always something to add each time. Last night gave us two distinct experiences to add to the memory file.

First of all, this was a film presentation, not a digital screening. This was a personal print provided by director Sacha Gervasi, a friend of the American Cinematique. It was worked out by an organization called  Cinematic Void,  which has been presenting a series of films on New England Nightmares. The print is from the 1978 re-release of the film and it has not been cleaned up or re-mastered. The host mentioned that it was extremely difficult to find film prints for Jaws, everything now being digital. They asked their personal friend Director Gervasi who accommodated them. Much like the print we saw last year of John Carpenter's "The Thing", there is a lot of red hue in the color palate as the film stock fades and bleeds over when projected. Never the less, it is always great to see a "film" and not just computer images masquerading as film. The grain and imperfections do diminish the look of the movie, but they also induce memories of seeing films from the time period, which do wear down after thousands of screenings.

Now second, the guys introducing the film, and many of the audience, made the mistake of describing "Jaws" as a horror film. People, this is an adventure film with horrific elements but it is hardly "horror". While it uses some of the "B" movie tropes of horror films, like the opening scene or the jump scares when sharks and bodies appear, the vast majority of the movie is taken up by a struggle of a common man to face down political, cultural and natural obstacles in overcoming a problem. The second half of the movie is pure sea-faring adventure.

This movie is 43 years old, and yet, 600 plus people paid to see it in a sold out presentation last night.

The power of this film continues to draw in fans, as it has done for this family for forty years. This is my daughter Amanda's favorite movie, and we dressed appropriately for the occasion.

Check out these kicks. The tie ends of her shoes are the barrels Quint uses to bring the shark to the surface. The inside sole of the shoe also has an image of the Beach Closed signs from the film. Saturday was her birthday, and she considers the movie to be a continuous gift that she receives every year. To feed that animal, check out the bed set that was one of my gifts to her .

 Sweet Dreams Kid.

(We have another Screening scheduled later in July at the Hollywood Bowl, see you there. )

"Deterrence" On MovieRob's Genre Grandeur Project

MovieRob is my blogging colleague from Israel. He has hosted me on a Lambcast Show a couple of times and we have both been participants on other Lambcast Shows as well.Every month he solicits entries for his series he titles "Genre Grandeur", where a theme or genre, suggested by one of the many writers he knows,  is used as an invitation for articles on his blog site. This month the subject was political thrillers and I contributed a essay on the Rod Lurie film "Deterrence". If you click on the poster below, it will take you to that review and to Rob's site. Spend some time there if you can, but be careful, Rob is the most prolific blogger on The Lamb, he has thousands of posts and you may not want to get too lost in time there.

10 Summer Suggestions

You will find a lot of lists for this years movies, and a lot of lists for summer films of the past. This is a list of suggestions for summer viewing, mostly for a family audience but occasionally with a slight adult bent to it.

As the sun goes down late, around 8:00, and you have finished the chicken you grilled or the burgers that made up your summer dinner, it's time for a movie. Here are ten films that I can recommend for a breezy summer evening. Don't worry about if they are great, or story structure or performance quality. Some of them have those characteristics, but I'm searching for a mood. I want you to be relaxed and enjoy the companionship of your family, romantic partner, or just the dog sitting on the couch next to you.

For the Whole Family:

The Muppet Movie

This is a no-brainer. The first movie featuring the Muppets is a delight from the opening song with Kermit on Banjo, to the finale, with a cast of hundreds singing about the Magic Factory. 

You will not find a warmer, safer place for everyone to be.

Murder By Death

This will be the Movie of the Month next month on the Lambcast. It is a Neil Simon Comedy, that plays with old style movie murder mysteries. An all star cast shows that timing, clever dialogue and a nicely visualized setting, can make even the silliest of plot twists seem fun. Don't bother trying to figure it out, just enjoy some old pros lampooning some old pros.

I think Maggie Smith is the only surviving cast member. [James Cromwell was just in Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom,  how'd I forget that?]Tell the kids that  Professor McGonagall is in the movie.

(There is some sexual innuendo in the film, so if the kids are little be aware. It's not bad by most TV standards of today)

Seventh Son

This is a completely forgotten film from just a few years ago. Jeff Bridges is a witch hunting wizard and Julianne Moore is a dragon-witch. Yep, that's what it says. This comes off as a contemporary version of a Harryhausen film from the 1960s. It also has Alicia Vikander in it. 

Teen Friendly

Logan's Run

Teens will be amused and probably a little skeptical because the effects are so old fashioned, but the story is fun, it has a little romance and it is a different take on dystopias than they have seen before. It came out the year before the first Star Wars, and everything of course changed after that. 

Super 8

The best Spielberg film not made by Steven Spielberg. It's as if Close Encounters and E.T.  were crossed with an adolescence version of Indiana Jones. 80s kids love "The Goonies", millennials ought to treasure this one. 

  

The Way Way Back

This is my favorite coming of age film in the last decade. It features performances from Steve Carrell, Toni Collette and best of all, Sam Rockwell, in what should have been his first Academy Award nominated performance. Being 14 is hell, but you can get through it with the right assist. 

Adults and Teens Hardened by our Coarse Culture

Die Hard with a Vengeance

The first two "Die Hard" films were Christmas set, this one is the first of two set in the summertime. New York is sweating and Jeremy Irons looks cool in all his scenes as a villain while Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, perspire in every scene.

In a post 9/11 world, bombings in Manhattan seem like a poor choice for a movie plot, but if you can distance yourself from that tragedy, this is full of the "Die Hard" attitude that we have come to love.

The Man From Uncle

Baby Boomers like me are nostalgic for the shows of our youth. This update of the TV program features two newly minted stars, in a fashion show set in the 60s, but with a little more sex and violence.

The Deep

Michael Crichton may have had his way with techno thrillers but Peter Benchley owns the ocean. Normally, I'd recommend JAWS, but lets go different this week. This is a treasure hunting adventure with some violence, sex and Robert Shaw riffing on Quint with a different role.

Romantics

The Summer of 42

This is another coming of age story, but it is set during WWII and it has a lot of humor mixed with a poignant summer crush on on older woman. If you have not seen this one, indulge yourself in a piece of very funny sadness. 

Lambcast: Jurassic World: Forbidden Kingdom

Dino-lovers delightfully devour devolving double take on "The World Jurassic".

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Do you go to a Jurassic Park movie for the story, characters and wonder that the idea of dinosaurs living in the modern world would evoke, or do you go to see a monster movie, you know with visually interesting creatures ripping up various human characters in a variety of ways? Your answer to this dichotomy will largely tell you whether you are going to like this movie or hate it. "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" is a creature feature. It is not an adventure movie or a science debate, it is people running and screaming from monsters. Sometimes those people get away, sometimes they don't. If the characters were more well drawn, you would probably care which, but frankly, this film could not be bothered to worry about actually killing one of our somewhat sympathetic heroes, mostly it is just concerned with mayhem.

Director J.A. Bayona appears to be a critics darling, having made three widely praised film. I've not seen "The Orphanage" but I did see "The Impossible" and  "A Monster Calls".  These are both fine films with effecting personal and emotional weight to them. I do notice however, that he is not a credited screenwriter for either of those film, nor is he credited for "Fallen Kingdom". It appears then, that the elements that make his material work best will be the way he frames and shoots the story, rather than the story itself. Those folks who respect his work may want to go back and see if what they really like is the concept or screenplay rather than the direction.  He has put together a reasonable thrill ride for us, but there is very little in any of this which would lead you to believe he is more of a visionary than a craftsman. Aside from two or three nice little moments, this is a picture that could have been assembled by anybody capable of the logistics required to move this mass of technology.

Just two scenes seem to have the visually creative touch that was present in the two of his movies I've seen. First, there is a clever moment when an expedition lands on the island that contained the former amusement park, and we see their vehicle driving down main street as we look at a tracking shot from behind the demolished vendor's booths and stores. We see some stuffed dinosaur toys back-lit against the vehicle, until one of them runs off revealing that it actually was a small dinosaur. That was effective. There is another scene late in the film where the reflection of a dinosaur if superimposed over the face of a character in the reflections from a display window in a diorama. That works well also. Otherwise, there are really no surprises. Monsters do what they are expected to do, we get a couple of false paths that turn to jokes and a few jump scares that work effectively, and that's about it.

Chris Pratt and Dallas Bryce Howard are probably worth what they were paid for the film. She is a lot more appealing in this story than in the first re-boot "Jurassic World", and he continues to bring enough humor to make the movie lively, or at least lively at times. Her conversion to animal rights activist seems a little week, but she does work well with the dinosaurs and Pratt, especially on the island sequence. Pratt gets to make most of the jokes in the film which is fine because that's what he does best. When he has to be a combination of Rambo, Bruce Lee and John McClane, it is harder to take the movie seriously. Two fine actors are wasted in the movie and another one has a felony committed in his name. Ted Levine, who is so memorable as "Buffalo Bill" from "The Silence of the Lambs", has a thankless role as a villain, who is so stupid as to demand to be paid when crazed animals have disrupted an auction, and then goes souvenir seeking in the most dangerous scenario imaginable in this plot. Geraldine Chaplain, who was in "Dr. Zhivago", also has a thankless role that sets her up as an important character in the household where the climax of the film takes place, and then she is dropped completely.

The major felony is the misuse of Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm character form the first two Jurassic Park movies. In those films, he was the voice of reason with a sardonic voice and the ability to let the air out of someone too inflated with themselves, in a sarcastic and hysterical manner. In this film, he has two brief scenes that bookend the movie. He sits behind a table and pontificates to a Congressional panel on the risks of the Dinosaurs being removed from potential danger. I don't think he has a single joke, facial moment or tone that makes his appearance here essential. Someone else in the movie makes a joke about writing fortune cookies, that's what all of Goldblum's dialogue is. His aphorisms about DNA would make Jeremy Rifkin blush with overkill.

This looks impressive on the side of a tall building in L.A.

Tomorrow on a podcast, I suspect that most of the participants will be happy to poke holes in the logic of the story. Believe you me, that's what I expect to do in order to make the conversation amusing. However, there are some good action sequences in the film. The opening mission to the park to recover some DNA was well staged and there were some clever moments in it. The sequence with Claire and tech guy/coward Franklin Web, where they are trapped in a control room at the park was perfectly fine at giving us tense jump scares and some funny moments. I also enjoyed the scene in you young girl's bedroom as she hides from a monster under her covers. Chris Pratt's hero mode is more functional there. Pratt got some good laughs in a scene where he and Howard are getting a blood donation from a T-Rex. So there is fun to be had, but you have to turn off your brain to enjoy it.

Ranking the Jurassic Park films seems to be one of the things that people are doing as they talk about this film. I have some opinions on that as well, but I will save those for the Lambcast. Otherwise I suggest you see the film, load up on popcorn, candy and soda, because that is where all the nutritional value of your visit to the theater will be.

Lambpardy!!!

http://www.largeassmovieblogs.com/2018/06/lambcast-431-lambpardy.htmlHoly mackerel, I'm hosting this episode of Lambpardy. Listen to me struggle with math in front of people. Oh, and other people play a game.

Podcast Hosting - Upload Audio -

Tag

In hosting the Lambpardy episode this week, two of the guests mentioned this as a rave for the week. Now I had planned on seeing it later on, but when a window opened up, we dove through based largely on the positive word of mouth. I will say that the movie is entertaining and there are some good laughs to be had here. I don't want to oversell it however because while it is worthy, it is not something that requires an immediate watch.

The trailer introduces the concept pretty well, but like a lot of trailers, it also gives away a couple of the better gas or "tag" lines from the movie. When you see the phrase "based on a true story" in the sales material for a movie, you should always be cautious about believing too much of what you see. The article that this film is based on was in the Wall Street Journal back in 2013. I suspect that the emotional depth that this film goes for toward the end was better covered by the Journal, because you can clearly see what some of the embellishments in this story are .

Five adult friends have continued a game of Tag that they have played in the month of May for 30 years. That is the premise of the article, and that there were sometime elaborate tricks played to tag the next person, some of which do get used in the movie. What is certainly been added is the notion that one player has never been tagged and that the group members will resort to physical aggression in pursuit of the game. Basically, the whole of Jeremy Renner's character. "Jerry" is the master of the game and he also happens to be a fitness guru who knows six different types of martial arts and participates in "free style running" as a hobby. This is the material that clearly marks this as a movie entertainment rather than an essay on friendship and the factors that sustain it.

I think Renner is an excellent actor, and he makes some very interesting choices when choosing his movies. Having been tapped to be in the Avenger's films [except Infinity War] he has done serious work, like his awards worthy performance in last year's "Wind River",  but he has also made films that are clearly just commercial projects with some schlock thrown in, "The House" or "Hansel and Gretel :Witch Hunters". "Tag" falls somewhere in the middle. There is a theme here that has some depth to it, this mostly comes out in the last twenty minutes of the movie, but there is a lot of movie wise guy cleverness that also takes up a bunch of screen time. For example, Renner internal monologues his responses to the various attempts to tag him. He sounds like Robert Downey Jr. in his Sherlock Holmes mode. It is completely unrealistic but that doesn't mean it's not fun.

Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Jon Hamm and Hannibal Buress play the pursuers, each with quirks and motivations that add something amusing to the story. Johnson portrays the future of those states with legal pot businesses, a customer who has lost motivation to do anything else. Hamm is the successful executive who can't let his failure to tag his friend go. Buress is an emotional cripple who gets the least about of backstory but who does get several nice lines during the game. Helms however is the main protagonist and he has played this part in "The Hangover", "We're the Millers" and others for a decade now. He is a pro at these parts, you know exactly what to expect from him. Isla Fisher gets a chance to recapture the mania of her performance in "Wedding Crashers" as the wife of Helm's character and an even more competitive person than her husband. Leslie Bibb lampoons a dozen characters she has played on television or in movies with her needy version of Renner's bride to be.

There is not really one of those mid credit sequences or post credit coda's that dominate the comic book movies these days, but if you leave when the credits start, you will miss two big laughs. Renner and the rest of the men do a version of the Crash Test Dummies song from the 80s. Renner can actually sing but it is still funny. There is one final touch at the end of the song that will bring a smile to your face as well.