The War Horse

Posted on December 23, 2011 at 12:30 pm

The second Steven Spielberg movie of the week opens on Christmas Day, a grand epic, is big, long, ambitious, and showy. It is a work by a master, but it is not a masterpiece. Every detail is carefully considered. Every leaf on every tree is perfectly aligned so that every sunbeam and shadow fall perfectly across them. Every equine muscle, every country cottage, every blade of grass, every puff of smoke from a discharged weapon is exquisitely framed and lit, but the visuals outweigh the story. The result is serviceable but stodgy, stuffy, and static. The poetry and symbolism of the stage play (with a multi-operator puppet as Joey) is replaced by postcard-picturesque images that are visually rapturous but feel thin in comparison to the movie’s aspirations.

It’s “Black Beauty Goes to War,” the story of a magnificent horse named Joey and Albert (a dull Jeremy Irvine), the boy who loves him. When World War I begins, Albert’s father sells Joey to a gallant young officer (Tom Hiddleston), who promises Albert he will do everything he can to keep Joey safe and get him back home after the war. But war has a way of changing everyone’s plans and soon Joey is on his own journey that will take him back and forth between the British and the German forces and, for a short idyllic time, a respite with a frail but brave little French girl and her affectionate Grandfather. The horse can switch sides in a way that a human cannot, and the movie makes clear the difference between the soldiers who are taken prisoner and shot and the animals who are inherently neutral and thus commoditized. The brutality of war affects the human characters differently as we see in their responses to the animal.

The sweep and grandeur and tragedy of the film pay homage to majestic WWII-era filmmakers like John Ford, with gorgeous cinematography by Janusz Kaminski. One quiet scene of breathtaking power recalling the real-life Christmas truce reminds us of our better angels. But it also reminds us of Spielberg’s better films.

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The Adventures of Tintin

Posted on December 21, 2011 at 8:00 am

Two box office champion directors and a cult favorite joined forces for a film that was a first for all of them, a 3D motion capture animated story. It is clear that director Steven Spielberg, producer Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings”) and co-screenwriter Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead”) were thrilled at the total freedom of animation, bringing storyboards to life without any pesky problems posed by weather, local ordinances, camera placement, safety, or the laws of gravity. And so they have created a film that is non-stop, brilliantly staged action, with every mode of transport and obstacle, half Indiana Jones, half M. Hulot, with a touch of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, turning the entire material world into a giant Rube Goldberg contraption. Wonderfully cinematic shots and transitions show us how the masters have fun with pure, unleashed movie story-telling.

The comic book stories of the boy reporter Tintin created by an artist/writer known as Hergé (Georges Remi) are wildly popular in Europe but not well known in the US. Tintin is brave, capable, inquisitive boy of indeterminate age, probably somewhere around 14. His excuse for getting involved in all kinds of adventures is that he is a reporter though neither the books nor the movie waste any time on the details of actually writing or filing stories, or, indeed, on any facts about Tintin’s origins or family. He has a dog, Snowy, who is as intrepid as he is, and their journeys give them many chances to rescue one another in many exotic locations.

Spielberg and Jackson (whose WETA firm did the animation) did not try to copy the iconic linge claire style pioneered by Hergé, though there is a sly nod to it in the delightful opening credits and in a street artist’s sketch of Tintin at the beginning. Instead it is an intensely detailed motion and performance capture with hyper-real textures and 3D effects that make the vertiginous chase scenes feel very visceral. Tintin (voice of Jamie Bell) buys a model ship that turns out to be of great interest to a mysterious man named Ivanovich Sakharine (voice of Daniel Craig). That leads Tintin to an adventure that involves cities, a desert, an opera singer, a potentate, pirates, dim policemen (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson), as he is drawn into a multi-generational saga involving lost treasure. Along the way he meets up with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), a drunken sailor who is part sidekick, part clue.

It has a lot of alcohol for a PG movie and some parents may be uncomfortable with the repeated references, some intended to be humorous, to drinking and drunkenness. And some will find the non-stop action overwhelming and just too much to process, even in these frenzied movie-as-video-game days. Even the exacting eye of Spielberg and the prodigious talent of WETA have not quite mastered the physics of movement with motion capture technology. The textures are wonderfully vivid and tactile and the angles and velocity are superb and the seas and ships toss convincingly. But the weight of the bodies when characters leap or fall or objects crash feels strange and somehow off and the faces never find the right spot between the realism of the textures and a more stylized or cartoony look. This is one element where they should have been more true to the original.

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Who Inspired Lucas and Spielberg?

Posted on July 11, 2010 at 1:53 pm

Two of the greatest story-tellers of the 20th century say that they both learned how to tell a story from the illustrations of Norman Rockwell. George Lucas (“Star Wars”) and Steven Spielberg (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Jurassic Park,” “Jaws”), close friends and sometime collaborators (the Indiana Jones movies) both collect the work of America’s foremost illustrator because they love the way he packs an entire story into just one frame.

For the first time, their collections are being made available to the public at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum in Washington D.C. until January 2, 2011 in an exhibit called Telling Stories. In a movie accompanying the exhibit, the film-makers talk about how as children they scrutinized every detail of the pictures to understand the story behind each one and how that inspired their visual styles. Spielberg talks about two paintings in particular that continue to inspire him — one of an author at his typewriter dreaming up a story about Daniel Boone and one of a boy holding on for dear life to the end of a high dive board, peering down at the endless space below. He says the first inspires him to tell stories and the second is how he feels every single time just before he signs on to do another film.

Rockwell has been taken for granted, marginalized, and dismissed as corny by those who think that art has to be anguished and the era of representation is over. But shows like this one are recognizing that he deserves to be seen as an artist of the first rank in ability and importance. He is not unaware of despair, squalor, and pain. Indeed, it is all there in his pictures, if you look. But his images are aspirational, inspiring us to live up to the values and dreams of our forefathers and, when we fail and fail again, to start over.

The Smithsonian has an online slide show of the highlights of the exhibit. And visitors to Stockbridge, Massachusetts should be sure to visit the Norman Rockwell Museum. The images are always powerful, but the chance to see the brushstrokes and the work that went into all of the preliminary sketches will deepen your appreciation for Rockwell as an illustrator and an artist of the first rank. I highly recommend his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator: Norman Rockwell, the DVD NORMAN ROCKWELL: An American Portrait, and the catalog of the show, Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. But most of all, I recommend seeing Rockwell’s pictures, masterful in technique and in spirit.

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E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for language and mild thematic elements
Profanity:	Brief but very strong language for a PG
Alcohol/ Drugs:	E.T. gets tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	Characters in peril, apparent death
Diversity Issues:	All characters white
Date Released to Theaters:	1982
Date Released to DVD:	October 8, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003UESJLK

“E.T’s” 30th anniversary is being celebrated with a gorgeous new re-issue and I have one to give away. To enter, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with E.T in the subject line and tell me your favorite movie alien. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I’ll pick one winner at random on October 14. Good luck!

A young boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) finds an extraterrestrial who has been left behind when his expedition of alien botanists had to depart quickly to avoid detection. He brings E.T. home, finding through their connection a way to begin to heal his sense of loss at his father’s absence.

E.T. loves Elliott, but begins to weaken in the Earth’s atmosphere and needs to go home. With the help of Elliott and the neighborhood children, he sends a message to his friends. But before they can come for him, he is captured by government scientists. E.T.’s connection with Elliott is so strong Elliott becomes very ill, too. But both recover, and the children return E.T. to the spaceship, after E.T. reminds Elliott that they will always be together in their hearts.

This is an outstanding family movie, with themes of loyalty, friendship, trust, and caring. One of the most purely magical scenes in the history of film is when Elliott’s bicycle lifts off up into the sky.

Parents should know that the movie has scenes of peril that may be too intense for younger children. An apparent death is also upsetting. There is brief very strong language for a PG movie. This film was justifiably criticized for its almost complete absence of non-white characters.

DVD extras: Making of documentary, cast reunion, archives, trailer, behind-the-scenes footage, etc. Families who see this movie should talk about the way that the adults and the kids see things differently, and have a hard time understanding each other’s perspective. One reason is that they don’t try to share their feelings with each other. Could Elliott have talked to his mother about E.T.?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and they should try some Reese’s Pieces! They might also want to check out the classic movie E.T. catches a glimpse of, “The Quiet Man.”

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Cross “2001” with “ET” and “Blade Runner” and throw in some “Pinocchio,” some “Wizard of Oz,” some “Velveteen Rabbit” and a touch of “Our Town,” and you might have some sense of what to expect from “A.I.” It is an ambitious, complex, provocative movie that is likely to lead to more late night college dorm debates than anything since the ones about “2001’s” monolith and the ape throwing the bone.

The movie is about David, who looks like a 12-year-old boy but is really a “mecha,” a highly developed robot. It is set in the world of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and cities have been flooded. Population is strictly controlled, and robots that look and act like humans perform almost every service. Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) decides to take robots a step further and develop the first robot that can feel love. One of his employees, Henry (Sam Robards) is chosen to be the beta tester. Henry and his wife, Monica (Frances O’Connor), have a son, Martin, who is critically ill. At first, Monica is horrified by the idea of “adopting” a mechanical boy, but her need for love is so overpowering that she initiates the sequence that will bind David irrevocably to her forever. He immediately changes from a pleasant if emotionless toy into a child whose mother is his whole world. He loves, which means that he is needy, jealous, and He thinks like a three-year-old, calling for his mommy and wanting her all to himself.

Martin gets better and returns home. He and David are jealous of one another, and when Monica believes that David may be a threat to Martin, she sets him lose in the woods. David is determined to find the Blue Fairy who can turn him into a real boy, as she did with Pinocchio, because he thinks that will make it possible for Monica to love him. In the woods, David meets up with other abandoned mechas, including a robot gigolo named Joe (Jude Law). As he searches for the Blue Fairy, he sees disturbing sights: a gladiator-style demolition derby where people pay to see the destruction of mecha, a decadent city reminiscent of the place where Pinocchio turned into a donkey, and a flooded metropolis where David meets someone from his past. Wherever he goes, he tries to become real, so he can return to his mother as someone she can love.

Developed by Stanley Kubrick and completed by Steven Spielberg, this is a two-part invention of a movie that owes both its strengths and its weaknesses to the collaboration between two men of such prodigious talents and such different, even opposing sensibilities. Kubrick is the master of the cool image; Spielberg the master of the warm feeling. The juxtaposition of their influence is particularly apt for this story of the struggle between heart and brain, not just on the part of the mecha, but on the part of the orga (humans) as well.

Parents should know that the movie is rated PG-13 for some sexual references (Joe is a robot created to have sex with women, a crude joke about the equivalent for men) and some violence (mecha are destroyed, critically ill child, characters in peril). Children may also find the theme and some of the situations disturbing and may also be unsettled by the open-ended nature of the story, which leaves many questions unanswered. It will be most suitable for teens, who may enjoy debating some of the issues of love, vulnerability, the nature of humanity, the future of the human race, and even the meaning of life.

Families who see this movie should talk about whether what David feels is love, and Dr. Hobby’s real reason for creating him. Is there any way to make a robot “real?” If the movie is about making a machine that can feel, why is the title “Artificial Intelligence?”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Blade Runner (for older teens and adults, due to violence and dark themes). They might like to read the Karel Kapek play, “R.U.R.,” which coined the term “robot” and raises some of the same issues. They might like to take a look at this site about the famous Turing Test developed by computer pioneer Alan Turing to determine whether a machine could think. Turing said that a machine could be considered intelligent if it could fool a person into thinking that he or she was communicating with another person.

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