Okay, so I have a decent sized collection of DVD's- my wife always says I never watch any of them but I keep buying more. So I decided to re-watch my collection of films (and their "making of" bonus feature) and see if they hold up, at least to my personal taste and choice. Now, I've always felt like, since Brian has had his review site, i wanted to stray from the normal when I would contribute and write articles about things not the norm because movie reviews are the most abundant review you normally would see on the web but after thinking about it, i won't even try to come up with in depth analysis on these films like a professional would do because I don't know anything about the technical side of filmmaking- only what I like and don't like. But, since I already own all of these films, I would say the scores will be mostly generous. Let's see what happens:
*side note: I have a shitload of burned DVD's that I will not be rewatching because obviously if I didn't care enough to purchase it from a store, it wasn't all that important to me.
WEEK 1:
Our home entertainment cabinet was a gift for my wife when she graduated college a couple of years ago. Didn't get to put it together for her until we actually moved in together last year. But, it's of a nice colored wood and is pretty sturdy from having come from Wal-Mart. The problem is the height of the lower shelves; pretty much just enough to slide a DVD case into the back recesses of it and never see it again. So, when I wanted to start watching these films, I had to crawl back into this cabinet like i was manevering into John Malkovich's head and pull out the long forgotten purchased DVD's from probably when I was 21 or so. And the first one I found was (1) Pulp Fiction. It comes in a pretty nice sleeve highlighted by Uma Thurman's face in the middle of a square. Inside they have the regular booklet but it comes with several reviews of the film from different but respectable periodicals (sorry, forgot Entertainment Weekly had one). There is also a slick glossy menu from Jack Rabbit Slim's, the restaurant homage to 1960's icons that Vince (Travolta) and Mia (Uma) go to and have their famous dance scene. I'd have to give the packaging an A.
This took me 3 nights to get through due to my normal day to day hubbub and fatherly duties but in the end I was quite gratified. The dialogue is just as snappy as I remembered and the actors chosen deliver it quite well. Even Eric Stoltz who normally irritates the hell out of me was funny in his brief role. The film is long and certainly feels it but you feel like you saw something pretty unique by the end of it. I think the cab scene is still the shits though; that stupid cab lady keeps repeating the same line "How does it feel like to kill a man?" I was hoping Bruce Willis would come back and say "How does it feel like to get stiffed of your cab fare? Shut the flip up or you'll find out." Sam Jackson is at his most Sam Jackson-ess with all the F bombs and being a bad ass and stuff and is highly enjoyable to watch. I'd give him the MVP of the film which has a kind of flat ending but you feel like you've gotten a full story so it's not too big a hamper. And as strange as it is, the music in this film is really catchy and stays with you for a while, especially if you're stuck in traffic and caught behind another fucking train trying to get home. I'm going to move somewhere where the trains are all derailed. I'll give it A-.
WEEK 2:
The "Making of" was called Pulp Fiction: The Facts- clever huh? It's like 33 minutes long and they basically are showing you how Tarantino became in the movie biz and what led to him creating this story. Tons of the actors from the film are interviewed and some people that got him his start are there too. Everybody goes down on their knees in this and unzips his tight little pants. When asked what he thought when a person passed out during the premiere, he said "This movie fucking works!" You can't fake that kind of enthusiasm which is a lot more innocent watching his older stuff than it is now where he's kind of crowned himself "King of all obscure pop culture." It was a nice feature though- it also gets an A-.
Next on the list was (2) Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. My wife and I rented the 3rd installment in this series and after 3 tortorous hours, we both looked at each other and said "Huh?" The plot was all over the place and by the end, I thought Jack Sparrow was sleeping with the octopus looking thing. Anyways, it took a few nights to get through this one as well, mainly because my daughter had a particularly hard time getting to sleep when we started it; she was screaming in her baby language, but I've roughly translated her thoughts: "Is Orlando Bloom in another period action film?" Yes, sweetie, he is. Overall, this plays much better than the sequels: Depp is quite wacky and very fun to watch, Bloom's just kind of there, Keira has more boobage than I remembered and Geoffery Rush just about steals every film he's in. But, I'm giving MVP to Depp; this will be one of, if not the, role he is most famous for and it's a good, unique performance. Score is B.
The making of was just one of the features on this massive 2 disc set which had over 10 hours of bonus stuff, but the main documentary was 37 minutes and covered every aspect of the film, the actors, the script, the visual effects and even the premiere and clipped them down to about 6 minutes of footage to show you each. But, the rigamarole to get this one done was amazingly huge. I mean the amount of money it took to get this made was phenomenal because they talk about all the boats they had to rent to haul supplies out to the islands, then out to the ships where they were filming. Jerry Bruckheimer came off like a real prick though; just talking about how big and successful it will be; i'm sure he could have given a shit less what it was about. I'd give this a B+.
On Saturday night, my wife and I were trying to decide what to do and what's more romantic than having a movie night with your girl? well, the choice means every thing and unfortunately, the next film in my rotation didn't have that kind of "snuggle up next to me and watch" kind of connotation. But, it does have the distinction of being one of my favorite films since childhood- I'm of course talking about (3) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. This is as wonderfully goofy and heartfelt as I remember. Gene wilder's performance has to go down as one of the most uniquely eccentric yet warm title characters to ever be put on film. Just a humble opinion. His witty, sarcastic, and even sometimes down right sinister comments and actions are such a far cry from most young adult adventures that it doesn't seem to be made for a child at all. The first part of the film has a very sad song sung by the mother that i always fast forwarded through as a kid, but I used some restraint. But i saw my hand creeping towards the remote..... I definitley give this film an A. Wilder is crowned MVP with a close second being the girl who played Veruca Salt, the nasty little wench. Her name is Julie Dawn Cole (as I learned from the doc on the DVD). It was a little over 30 minutes and was wildly informative. Tons of cool little tidbits were invovled in it, such as Wilder saying he wanted to do an entrance where he was supposedly crippled or else he wouldn't do the picture. And the only reason this got made was to coincide with the release of a new Quaker Candybar, which subsequently melted much too early once it was on shelves. If you're a fan of this flick, do yourself a favor and devote half an hour of time to see the behind the scenes work on how this got made. It's really entertaining. A definite A.
So, you'd think I'd be done by now, but no, i'm not. I actually had to finish watching the doc by myself the next morning because my wife and I started talking like we're apt to do and then got so tired we had talked right through it. But, well worth the journey.
The next morning before she had to go to work as we were cooking up some Bob Evans hash browns and feeding the baby, i put in (4) Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, DC's big screen treatment of it's hit animated series. It only clocks in at an Hour and sixteen minutes and it has no documentary on it's making so i thought it would be a quick fun treat. The animation itself is a real treat, very dark and moody and the show, as this film itself, is more influenced by film noir than the over the top actions of comics. The story is pretty deep and deals with a long lost love interest, a secret group of conspirators and Batman and Bruce Wayne's identities hang in turmoil. The love story got a little long winded for me at times but the final fight scene between Bats and Joker is totally worth it. If I had to give an MVP award, it would definitley go to the awesome voice stylings of Mark Hamill, aka the Joker. He has some pretty risque lines in this. This is a solid B. I think if you love the animated series like I do, you won't be disappointed with this flick. Okay, now it's Monday and back to work. Happy July 4th!
- Jessie