Monday, August 29, 2005

Movie Maturity?

It's funny how your tastes change as you get older, more mature. Tap water become Perrier, while others switch from regular coke to Diet. Back seat to front seat; front row to back row in a theater; Dr. Seuss to Socrates. For me one of the most obvious changes has been in my taste in film. It's gone from scenery to story. As much as I love visual effects, production design, and gross out gags, I find myself questioning their validity. How does it help the story? What is the story? I bring this up because of 3 films I saw over the past week for the very first time.

"The Incredibles", from Pixar Animation, had a wildly imaginative story, very clever, and answered all my questions leaving me wanting more. "The Terminal" on the other hand did not. Mind you, I'm not one to ever question Steven Spielberg, until now. (and I haven't seen War of the Worlds) There were too many stories being told in the film, and I only really cared about one: Would Viktor Navorsky get out of the airport and into the U.S.?" I didn't care about the love story, I cared about his friends a little, and I really didn't care why he was visiting. Anyway, it was a beautifully shot movie, but there were too many things going on that didn't matter. Lastly, "The Brothers Grimm" from visionary Terry Gilliam. Bad first half, great second half, tons of great scenery but not enough story. I had too many questions here that made it hard to enjoy until the action really started halfway through....but then I just wanted to see action as the story got lost. 11 years ago, I would have never questioned that sort of thing. 11 years ago I also closed my eyes when John Travolta stabbed Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction."

1 comment:

Anne Elser said...

Well, the cool thing about War of the Worlds is that you don't have time to even ask, "Where's the story?" I think for the first time in my life, this was a movie where I didn't miss it. It turned me into a singular giant nerve ending - leaving me one option only: to REACT. It was scary, but kind of liberating.
~Anne