Jurassic Park (1993)

3/3

This is one of my top all-time favorite movies and here's why. We are drawn into another world, full of magic and wonder - dinosaurs are alive! - but with ever-mounting foreshadowing of trouble in every scene. Things get ugly and out of hand real quick.

At the time, early '90's, Spielberg's CGI was revolutionary. I daresay it's the first movie to every successfully employ computer graphics of this magnitude and the dinosaurs turn out very realistic and scary and a lot of fun to watch. I can't even imagine how long it took computers back then to process all that data.

Michael Creighton's theories are intriguing and backed by enough science to make it good science fiction. Just mix a little dino DNA you find in mosquitoes stuck in amber with frog DNA and bam, you get a new dinosaur. But, as with any Creighton story or Spielberg movie, Jurassic Park was about much more than just the thrill of the chases and the graphics.

For one, there was solid acting here. Sam Neill is a good hero: distant, cold, serious at first, all about science and no nonsense, but comes around in the end, as he gets to know the kids. His American accent comes off a little stiff and proper, but it works. Samuel L. Jackson (wait, he was in this movie?!) must have a clause in all his movies saying he's got to have a great line. Here, it was, "Hold on to your butts." And Jeff Goldblum was basically born to play this role: a smarmy, sarcastic, unkempt, pompous know-it-all who would get on your nerves in real life but who is fun to watch in a movie.

Secondly, the theme music was composed by none other than John Williams of Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter. It is now legendary. We played it in band in middle school.

Finally, there were some deeper questions raised with this movie, questions about the ethics of scientific experiments and exploiting nature in the name of business. Even if we can do something, we need to stop and think if we should or not. Is it a good idea to bring dinosaurs, huge, strong, ferocious animals, back into existence? We learn pretty quick that "life finds a way" and that nature usually wins out over man. As for a little writer/director commentary, the first person to be eaten by a dinosaur is the lawyer, as he sits on the toilet, crying for his mommy.

All in all, Jurassic Park is an unforgettable movie. The best Spielberg scene is when the T-Rex gives a loud roar amongst the ruin of the fossilized bones, as a the Grand Opening banner falls down in the background. Boom.

Barton Fink (1991)

2/3

It makes sense that I should write a review of Barton Fink right after I write a review of Blue Velvet because they actually have a lot in common. Barton Fink is a strange movie, even for the Coen Brothers. Much like Blue Velvet, it maintains a pervasive sense of general darkness throughout and insanity is a driving (and ever-mounting) force. By the end, it was hard to tell what is real and what is a dream or Fink's imagination or the story he's writing, which is again, similar to Blue Velvet. It's not a happy movie or funny or light-hearted like other Coen Brother movies have been. Yet it was superbly written and acted.

Actually, writing and acting is what this movie relied upon, given that this had to be a low budget film-- no glitzy special effects here (in fact on the contrary, it seems to relish in its own simplicity and starkness). John Goodman was a super and very evil bad guy who reminded me of a ramped-up version of his role as a crooked Bible salesman in O, Brother Where Art Thou?. John Turturro's character, our protagonist, was misguided and self-centered, like many writers are perhaps, though I'm not sure if he really deserved all that befell him in the story. Since he was also lonely and sad; it seems his only real crime was to complain about the noise coming from the hotel room next to his. Or was that just a symptom of a deeper flaw? Hmm...

The secondary characters were not your cliche stock characters, rather they were very interesting: Tony Shalhoub was an eccentric and in-your-face studio exec; Steve Buscemi was a quirky hotel receptionist (Like Wes Anderson, the Coen Brothers like to use the same handful of actors in just about all of their movies, in one role or another); the actor who played the father of Frasier in the sitcom (Steve Mahoney) here played a drunken, washed-up famous author (who I've heard the Coen Brothers based on the life of William Faulkner); the actor playing the producer did a great job making him an awful combination of a mobster (like the boss in Miller's Crossing) and Jerry Cromwell (the evil producer from the novel Karoo by Steve Tesich); even the elevator operator was unique.

Other than the great acting, this movie was full of symbolic/intellectual cinematic/literary 'elements' (I'm sure there's a more accurate term for them)- like the obnoxious mosquito buzzing just out of reach of the camera and the hotel being so hot that the wall paper glue melts and finally the entire floor catches on fire. Being the talented and clever writers/directors they are, the Coen Brothers added in these symbolic 'items' as the cherry on top of their screenplay, to offer a secondary layer of reflection/representation of its bigger themes (like mounting insanity or an evil being let out of the box)- these 'items' also add to the mystique and fascinating character of the film.

I guess that the Coen Brothers are known for writing interesting characters and clever stories that are offbeat and that make you think. This one was no different in that regard; Barton Fink was just one of their dark movies. I'd say it's in line with their Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men, both of which are tragic and gruesome stories. So all in all, I enjoyed it while at the same time found it nerve-wracking and awful- and that's why I respect it and consider it a well-made movie. Maybe if it were cheerful instead of gloomy, it would get 3 stars.

The Matrix (1999)

3/3

I often tell people that The Matrix is my favorite movie of all times because I think it is; It is really tough for a movie buff like me to be able to pin down that one top top film to call the best, but I think that The Matrix is it for me. So I guess that makes it a pretty big deal. Recently I decided I'd better watch it again so that I could take notes and officially answer why. The following is what I came up with.

First off, The Matrix (1999) was one of the first rated R movies I saw, so it carries all that nostalgic coolness for me, much like how many guys my age feel about Boondock Saints I think. It was a really awesome movie for a 13 year old. The effects are amazing and were really truly revolutionary at the time (Not to mention the sweet music accompanying the effects-- i.e. Rage Against the Machine). The fight scenes where Neo dodges bullets and kills off dozens of bad guys before the dust has time to settle were simply unprecedented and spellbinding. The blend of martial arts and high technology was a unique idea that turned out to be incredible. Plus, this is the role that Keanu Reeves was born to play-- he can be stoic/reflective/pensive without worrying about killing the mood of the movie.

But I like this movie for more reasons than its special effects and heavy metal; now that I am no longer 13 and have a deeper appreciation for the story and the meaning behind it. There is an easy general Christian interpretation for this movie, as my former camp director told us at the religious summer camp I attended in middle school. A few examples: Neo is trapped in a life that isn’t the one intended (like people who haven't been "saved" yet); believing in something more than this life and being freed and becoming incapable of dying (believing in Jesus will save you and give you everlasting life in Heaven); the difference between "being shown the path and walking it" (how it's up to a Christian to walk in the light once he/she's accepted the truth); ‘The One’ will be the savior of humanity. Etc. etc. You don't have to snoop too hard to see these big themes. You can certainly appreciate this movie if you do not buy this interpretation however.

Which leads me to the next reason why I am in love with this movie. There is also a philosophical side to this movie, which Adriano Palma, my Philosophy 101 professor, liked to bring up in class- it's called existentialism. Descartes said that there is no way to tell what our reality actually is—either we are living the way our mind perceives we are, or we are only minds/consciousnesses held within a fake reality or a dream world, under the control of some mad scientist, (or AI machines who want to harvest humans for the electricity their bodies produce). How can we really know that what we perceive around us in our day-to-day lives is reality? Maybe we can't. We can only know that we think (I think, therefore I am/ I exist). The Wachowski Brothers went deep.

The deepness does not stop there, however. The Matrix also questions fate and whether or not we can control our own lives (i.e. the vase scene that represents how Neo cannot escape his own destiny of becoming The One, just like we can't control ours). Whether you agree or not, it's very Oedipus/Minority Report and is stimulating to contemplate. The movie also brings up the power and mystery of love (how nobody can tell you you’re in love, you just know it and how Trinity saves Neo at the end by confessing her love for him etc. etc).

It doesn't hurt that The Matrix is superbly written. It is gripping and the suspense builds as the truth of the Matrix unravels. There's a perfect natural draw towards rooting for Neo; I suppose we all can identify with the desire to be transformed from a cubicle-bound nobody into "The One." Now, Roger Ebert, my favorite professional movie critic, decries the so-called "cliched" 3rd-act fight sequence as a shame (here), but I think that it's one of the best parts of the movie. I can't see any other way to end the story than have Neo fight and defeat the agents, who represent the evil and cold-heartedness of the machines behind the Matrix. It's the fight between good and evil and you can't write your way around that.

Alas finally, I was drawn to The Matrix because of its post-apocalyptic setting and because of its ominous warnings about the dangers of AI. I have become sort of obsessed recently with Apocalypse stories recently considering they're hard to ignore these days. Although I don't believe we're anywhere near achieving AI, we do have reason to question its merits. Funny enough, my religious camp leader and philosophy professor both said that the Wachowski brothers probably didn’t intend for their movie to bring up either the Christian or Descartes’ point of view. But I have a feeling that they knew exactly what they were writing. They knew it was going to be way more than just a summer action blockbuster. And I dig it.