Jaws

Jaws is a fantastic blockbuster by Steven Spielberg, and premiered in the summer of 1975. It was Spielberg's first major film - most of his work prior to Jaws was direct-to-video short films or television specials. The film is significant for it's difficult production which, in many aspects, ended up improving the film in many ways. Spielberg had wanted to use a mechanical shark that would pop up at key points and scare beach-goers and swimmers. However, the shark failed so many times that several scenes were rewritten to make the shark more of an ominous presence ala Alfred Hitchcock's movies rather than a big fake-looking prop. In addition, the filming was set to wrap in 55 days, but the film wasn't complete until after 159 days. This delay actually let the script become more refined, leading to a much more appropriate dialogue and some ad-libbed lines.
In essence, the plot to Jaws sounds more like a B-movie horror than what it has become today. A giant killer shark is terrorizing the beaches of Amity, and three men - Police Chief Martin Brody, an oceanographer named Matt Hooper, and a shark hunter named Quint. They pile into a boat and try to track and kill the shark, nearly dying in the process.
The score for Jaws is fantastic and brands the movie perfectly. It creates suspense and combined with the lack of visual representation of the shark in the film, it fills the viewer with a sense of heavy dread and fear. Without the score, Jaws would almost be comedic due to the lack of fear from the audience and the movie wouldn't have done nearly as well, in my opinion. Spielberg used the disadvantages placed against him to prosper in terms of editing, sound, acting, and camera movement to create an amazing and thrilling blockbuster experience that will not soon be forgotten.

Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful recently premiered in March of 2013 and as a big fan of The Wizard of Oz and Frank L. Baum, I bought a ticket and saw it on opening weekend. Starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Zach Braff, Michelle Williams, and directed by Sam Raimi, I was actually rather disappointed with this movie. The story is set before the events of the Wizard of Oz movie, and revolves around "Oscar Diggs" also known as "Oz" who is a circus magician who has a penchant for flirting with any woman with a heartbeat. When his circus career begins to experience a decline, he hops a ride in a hot air balloon and gets sucked into a nearby tornado. As he pleads for his life, the wind around him suddenly stops and he lands in the colorful and mysterious land of Oz. It's at this point the film goes from 4:3 format and black & white to 16:9 and overly-saturated with primary colors. It's also at this point that I realized they were really pushing for the "3D" effect of the surrounding flora and wildlife of Oz - much in the same way the original Wizard of Oz was trying to utilize Technicolor with the Munchkinland set and the colorful costumes. Oscar meets Evanora (Mila Kunis) who proclaims that he is a prophetic wizard and insists that she take him to the Emerald City to meet her sister and save their world from the wicked witch. James Franco's character struggles with the lie of pretending that he is a wizard, and Franco does a decent job of pretending to be a scumbag. The characters that we recognized from the original Wizard of Oz universe (such as Glinda the good witch and the wicked witch of the west) are far more bland than they could've been. The whole universe that the story was set in was rather deflated. The fact that there were three warring witches - bestowed with actual magical powers - need Oscar Diggs (very much non-magical) to swoop in and save these poor ladies from each other feels cheap and almost demeaning.
The most disappointing part of the movie was the cheap tricks of visual development over meaningful plot development or production. In the original Wizard of Oz movie, the ending of the movie tied all the elements of the plot together with the main characters in Oz representing real life people in Dorothy's life and giving her the opportunity to appreciate her friends and family more. In Oz the Great and Powerful, this is mostly absent and the story feels somewhat incomplete. The entire movie felt like it was a tech demonstration of the capabilities of CGI and 3D cameras. The wise Good Witch Glinda that we knew is now simpering, whiny, and unable to perform more than a bubble spell. The frightening Wicked Witch of the West who held Dorothy captive in her tower and was prepared to murder her over some slippers now runs from a fight and gets scared by a cloud of smoke. Maybe this movie was geared towards children and I was just duped, or maybe Sam Raimi doesn't care for plot over pretty pretty pictures. Either way, I was rather disappointed with this film and regret paying money to see it.

The Princess Bride

We watched The Princess Bride in class and I must say I enjoyed it very much. The story was campy enough to make up for the very obvious movie sets and plaster rocks. Andre the Giant stole the show with his role as Fezzik; all of the characters in the movie were wonderfully silly. The set design seemed very low budget, as there was often gymnastic landing pads on the ground for the actors to visibly jump onto and nearly every prop seemed to be made of painted plaster. Many of the backdrops were very obviously painted and placed far too close to the camera and thus were easy to identify right away. However, the silliness and the bedtime story aspect made up for the set design. The story is a classic, with many memorable and famous lines like: "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father. Prepare to die." and "As you wish." I like the concept of breaking in and out of the story to focus back on the grandfather and the little boy, and it's especially funny to see all the old posters and 80s memorabilia lining the walls of the little boys room. The beginning opens up to a not-so-subtle plug from Nintendo, which no 80s kids movie is complete without.
The production quality of the film was decent, as I said it seemed a little low budget for the stunts and set design. It felt a little like The Labyrinth with David Bowie and it seemed like the director did their best to add just the right amount of campiness to soften the low budget feeling, but not too much to make it a true cult classic. The camerawork was rather well done, there were some very well-defined shots and landscapes that felt very solid and well-planned.
The film leaves you with a very sweet and sentimental feeling, much like a bedtime story. A very easy watch for when you are home sick or had a bad day.

Harold and Maude

In class we watched Harold and Maude, and I must say I was very taken aback by this film. I had never seen it before, and didn't know what to expect. Harold is a spoiled, melodramatic young man living with his vapid and self-centered mother. Harold spends most of his time hanging out at funerals and pretending to commit suicide to shock his mother because he hates her so much. One day at a funeral, Harold meets a rather kooky old lady named Maude, who makes a habit of stealing cars and generally causing trouble. Harold and Maude eventually become friends, stealing cars and trees and even police motorcycles together. When Harold's mother employs his uncle in trying to fast-track him to get drafted to the war, Maude poses as an anti-war protester to help Harold so he doesn't have to join the army. Eventually Harold begins to fall in love with Maude, and they even sleep together. In the end, on Maude's 80th birthday, Harold intends to propose to her when Maude breaks the news to him that she took "the tablets" already and would be dead by midnight. Panicked, Harold calls an ambulance and rushes her to the hospital, but it's too late and Maude dies in the hospital. Distraught, Harold drives around in his fancy sports car around a cliff before sending the car off the edge. For a moment the camera makes it seem that Harold died in the crash, but then we see him standing on the edge holding his banjo. After a moment he begins to play the song that Maude had sung with him and skips away, having truly learned how to live his life the way he wants to. I really enjoyed the movie even though it was nothing like I expected. The dark humor contrasting with the sunny moral of the story make it an easy cult classic.
The director made very good use of the soundtrack as well as camera movement and well-timed shots to create a film environment that was subtle and gripping at the same time. There were a lot of quiet scenes in the film with no dialogue, where actors would simply stare at each other or complete tasks silently, with no score or sound effects laid over the natural sound. Many films have difficulty knowing when not to have the actors speak, and Harold and Maude executed this very well in my opinion. Many of the suicide scenes with Harold were horrifying at first, but the more you saw, the funnier it got. The absence of music or sound effects during those scenes heightened the humor of the slow, deliberate loading of a gun or of Harold floating face down in a swimming pool.