17. The Land Before Time (1988)

Code-name: TBLT(yeah, at this point, I just got lazy)
...and that's the last surviving sketch I did when I was younger of these iconic characters (plus two notable "guest" characters from last in the series)

Director: Don Bluth
Composer: James Horner

Cast:
Littlefoot- Gabriel Damon
Cera- Candace Huston
Ducky- Judith Barsi (RIP 1978-1988)
Petrie- Will Ryan
Spike- Frank Welker
Littlefoot's mother- Helen Shaver
Narrator/Cera's dad/Rooter- Pat Hingle (RIP 2009)

...oops, my mistake, he played Cera's dad in the sequels...
Burke Byrnes played him in this movie and had only one line "Come Cera, Three-Horns never play with long necks"

Write-up:

Earliest Memories and Nostalgia

This movie and I go so far back that I don't remember the impact so much as what I've been told about the impact it had on me.
For starters, I was under the impression that this movie came out in 1989 because I remember that I was 3 when it was my favorite movie. To date myself even further, I'm told that I rented this from Blockbuster so many times that one of my grandmas bought the VHS for me. To this day, I still have it, and the last time I played it (2 years ago to prep for this entry)... well, it's still in perfect working condition.

Bits and pieces of images have stayed with me throughout the years. Some good, some bad. Two scenes in particular, I remember my reactions  to them so clearly.

Spoiler Alert
1) the T-rex sequence
[interestingly, Steven Spielberg approached Don Bluth, insisting he remove 10 minutes of finished film footage because it was deemed too intense for kids... despite his reservations, he followed his advice]

2) the aftermath of 1)- :sob: the death of Littlefoot's mother

Funny how when you're a kid, the things that stick with you the most are the things that either scared the beejezuz out of you or they make you cry your bloody eyes out...

Anyone who read my "Neverending Story" entry (I'll post the link for those curious or hadn't yet) knows how much Artax's death almost ruined the movie for me
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/05/80-neverending-story-1984.html

The last time I watched this movie, this particularly sad sequence was nowhere near as hard on me as Artax's death scene.
Heck, Littlefoot's grieving period lasted maybe 10 minutes and I was over it within the next 30 seconds.

But that was a rough scene to watch when I was a kid. I distinctly remember asking my mom  “why did she have to die?”and she kinda explained to me that parents can't always be together with their kids, it's just the way it works sometimes...

Somehow, I get the feeling that was enough reassurance for me that I was able to move past that.

Looking back on this movie after all these years, it's still a treasure. Despite the scary and sad moments sprinkled in between, it has a certain charm you simply don't see in movies anymore. It touched on some parts of me I hadn't gotten in touch with in years. The characters are lovable and memorable. The score is compelling... but for nostalgia's sake, I was balling my eyes out when the end credits came on that last time. :P

"If we hold on together" has a special place in my heart where I worked hard to learn how to play it on keyboard (all from memory), it was the first place I hear the name Diana Ross...

don't worry, I was okay after the first 30, er, maybe 60 seconds...

I actually I think I was more sad because the credits meant the movie was over and I was having SUCH a good time that I hated to see it end.

But gotta love the score in this movie (the fact James Horner stuck around for the first couple sequels was something  I never took for granted). After the song ends, more of the score plays to close things out.

One more funny moment before I go into more detail:
On the VHS, there was one commercial before the movie starts.
Pizza Hut being awesome lets you know that you're in the 80's. Seeing it again after all these years was such fun, like it was just yesterday I last watched it.

Basically, it's about a kid going to a friend's birthday party, his mom telling him via voiceover how to behave. OMG, thank God for YouTube :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4065smJLXk

The Storybtw, I'm willing to forgive those who didn't grow up with this movie, but for those who haven't seen it at all... shame on you

[Some impressive trivia]
Spielberg & Lucas were originally going for their own version of the "Rite of Spring" sequence from Disney's "Fantasia" but to make it more appealing for their young target audience, they changed gears and decided to make the characters talk

That was one of my favorite parts of "Fantasia"... up until the tar pit scene... that's hard to watch :(
anyway, moving on...

As a once-budding paleontologist (my career choice when I was in 2nd grade.. don't know why I didn't follow through with that aside from the fact all the dinosaurs had been dug up), I'd have to guess this takes place somewhere between 65-70 million years ago.

Plant life on prehistoric Earth was dying, so the dinosaurs are working their way towards the fabled "Great Valley."
In the opening act, we see a couple of our main characters hatch from their eggs. With Littlefoot's arrival, things get pretty dramatic in a hurry. Firstly, he's the only surviving egg in his family and secondly, because he almost gets taken by an oviraptor (a species that steals and eats eggs). But this is quickly alleviated by the cuteness factor :P not as cute as Ducky hatching, mind you, but still too cute.

Early on, we spend a lot of time with Littlefoot's herd where his mother finds a tree-star for him and tells him how they're going to get to the Great Valley. Along the way, he meets Cera and they have a good time playing until they're both alerted to the fact dinosaurs keep to their own kind.
That night, they wind up together again after chasing the same frog, but this gives way to the epic T-rex fight scene. Not only does Littlefoot lose his mother (:sob:), but "a "clash of continents" earthquake separates him from his grandparents and Cera from her family.

As I mentioned above, Littlefoot's grieving period lasts for a good 10 minutes. I never recalled it being so long and for a kid's movie (yeah, despite all the other dramatic things taking place), that's kinda depressing. We do get one moment of cuteness to break up the tension a bit, a bunch of pterodon babies fighting over a berry :P

Finding his tree-star again helps him remember his mother's directions to the Great Valley, convincing him to press forward, but we don't get taken out of this stupor until we meet Ducky. Shortly again, we meet Pterie, another pterodon who apparently can't fly... yeah, go figure...

Cera joins up with them later on as well, but not before she confronts the T-Rex, believed to be dead until her ramming shenanigans wake the beast up. Naturally, she uses this insistence (with her own edits obviously) to her advantage, easily impressing Littlefoot's new friends. In the reenactment, she accidentally launches Ducky several yards away from them, but she comes back with another dinosaur she met after he hatches.
So with Spike the stegosaurus, our quintet is complete.

Through the course of the rest of the movie, Littlefoot and Cera have their power struggles, vying for leader of the "herd" and deciding what their next route should be.
To this end, Littlefoot finds out he was wrong about the T-Rex being dead and Cera winds up taking everyone else the wrong direction. Luckily for Spike, Ducky and Petrie, Littlefoot helped them get out of the :gasp: tar pit they were in, which leads to some good laughs and ultimately putting Cera in her place.

The final obstacle: taking out the bad guy, which they do through a pretty elaborate plan that plenty of "edge of your seat" moments.
Petrie learns how to fly (yeah!! one of the best moments in animation history) and the sequence ends with the T-Rex dragging him into the water after the others knock him into the deep end with a boulder.

Now that I think about it, that's another moment I remember from my younger days... maybe even from the first time seeing it. There was this heavy moment of sadness, quickly followed by absolute JOY when it's revealed he survived.
Yeah!!

Littlefoot finds himself discouraged again, gets advice from his mother's spirit (this time in the form of a brontosaurus shaped cloud), which winds up leading him TO the Great Valley.
That reveal scene, how the sun undoes the shadows little by little and in one fell swoop, the entire valley is revealed, the music swelling with TRIUMPH.
YEAH!!
Thinking about it now, I'm getting all kinds of feels... it really is spectacular, particularly for 80's animation... not that I'm mocking my favorite decade, but considering this was done on paper... yeah, it's amazing.

Then we get final words from our narrator and... it's all over :sob:

The Characters

Doing this movie with talking dinosaurs was a good start... but without colorful characters, a movie like this just wouldn't work. Especially not in the world of animation.

Heck, these characters became so iconic and beloved that they launched a franchise of direct-to-VHS releases... granted, they went downhill within four years and none have the same *glow* as the original... just couldn't get enough of them.

I'll go in classic order :P

We have our starring apatosaurus/brontosaurus
[the story goes that brontosaurus was the original name, but palentologists had already discovered a similar longnecked dinosaur that they had dubbed Apatosaurus... I'm sorry, I'm gonna use brontosaurus because I just prefer the way that name sounds]

Littlefoot

my favorite character of the quintet :D
I can't quite explain why (or why I loved brontosaurus), it's just always been that way. But I'm guessing most of it is because he's the leader, one of the smartest members of the group, and brave... so many good qualities.

So naturally with all the arguments he and Cera have had over the years, I'm going to take his side. Because 9 times out of 10, he's usually right and she just wants to be right however wrong she is about a situation.

Interestingly, while watching this movie back, things were a little different. Things used to be black and white, but as stubborn as Cera can be, he had this share of stubbornness here too. Which is understandable with all the stuff going on, but it surprised on one or two occasions where he came almost bossy, although not as bad as...

Cera the triceratops...
where do I begin?

She certainly gets her stubbornness and attitude from her father, but that's not enough to sway my opinion. Littlefoot's the voice of reason in the group whereas Cera tends to make snap judgements and stuck with them until proven otherwise. Throughout this movie, she is a bit of a pain, being antagonizing and all that.
I think the only time I was really in her corner was in third movie, particularly when she chooses to stay Littlefoot's friend despite her father's reservations.
One fun fact: she was the only character who maintained the same voice from this movie across a couple sequels... namely all the good ones (per my opinion II-IV).

Ducky the sauralopus...
everyone thought parasauralopus, but one of my dinosaur posters had a species that looked much more similar to her.
Speaking of voice actors, for a quick moment, Judith Barsi's last role was in another Don Bluth animated film, a little movie called "All Dogs Go to Heaven." I didn't discover the tragedy that befell her until a couple years ago, just before I saw this movie again, and I delighted in every moment ("All Dogs Go to Heaven" on the other hand, the last 10 minutes including the credits got the waterworks going a bit).

She and Petrie have the youngest mindset among the characters.
No matter what's going on, she's always the optimist. She's ridiculously adorable (I literally shrunked up, unable to withstand her cuteness this previous watch), and her heart's always in the right place. Kudos for bringing her in to lift up the mood of this movie at its halfway point because that was certainly called for.

Petrie the pterodon...
His voice was done by Will Ryan in their film (as much as Don Bluth staple as Dom Deluise) and Jeff Bennett had done it ever since. That's of some comfort to me, as someone who flips out when voices change actors. A little consistency is very nice.

I always found him hilarious, giving me the most laughs throughout this movie. Kudos to Will Ryan for this voice that always has me in stitches. I'm still not sure if it's what comes out of his mouth or how it comes out of his mouth :P he's just so quirky and lovable.
He and Ducky balance quite well with him being the pessimist to Ducky's optimist in this movie. 
Of course it's hilarious when jokes are made about him not being able to fly, but when he finally does... again, what a great moment.

Spike the stegosaurus...
my 2nd least favorite character.

Out of no fault of his own, mind you, I just find kinda hard to connect when he's the only one who doesn't speak and his running gag is his insatiable appetite for food. There's less personality to work with, but throughout the sequels he does have his moments, when the words (maybe two EVER, lol) come out and when his loyalty for his friends and family shines through.

The Sequels and Other Legacies

I stuck it out with this series for a very long time and I'm surprised how many volumes it got up to. Finally got some closure on that because I hadn't checked in since I heard of a title that mentioned "Tinysauruses".

The last one I saw was The Great Longneck Migration, which was X... I'd missed 3 other sequels... even though Channel Awesome vlog personality & Don Bluth fanatic Marzgurl hated on most of the sequels, it sounds like I really didn't miss anything.

As I mentioned, my favorites were the first three sequels. I remember seeing II at Blockbuster, thrilled, and I enjoyed it so much I picked up every sequel since... sometimes without even renting them.

I was so fond of the series, great times watching them 8-)
My favorite was always part IV, 100% because of the designated "guest character" they introduced. I loved that Littlefoot met another longneck to play with and I loved Ali. Such a great character. The gist was that her migrating herd was passing through around a time Littlefoot's grandpa got sick and only a flower from their native land could cure him. But it was dubbed too dangerous to return to.
LIttlefoot's determined to go and asks Ali to tell him how to go there. Because she's shy around his friends (having been with only longnecks her whole life), she feels more comfortable if just the two of them go. But of course, it can't just be that way. Everyone winds up going to the Land of Mists one way or another.
So yeah, one of my fondest childhood memories was watching this movie countless times.
The song "It Takes All Sorts" is very nostalgic for me (since seeing the first trailer on III's VHS), but even that doesn't equate to the power of "If we hold on together."

Yeah, for whatever reason, they decided throughout the series to have three songs per movie. Great at first, but even I got tired of it after a while... especially after the first three sequels.

I forgot what age I was, but I wrote Universal Studios saying how I was a fan of the series and they actually replied to me. Even include a plastic figurine of Spike, which is in my tub full of dinosaurs in the basement, and dozens of sketches of the characters (I might have included one of my many drawings in the letter). The letter itself, I lost track of some time ago..
It also gave me a quick description of the next two movies, one where Chomper makes a second appearance and the other where Cera's nieces appear.

So among my questions, I asked if we'd see the characters as teenagers. Being with the series as long as I was, they gave me a BS answer... "if you continue to watch the movies, you will see them grow up with you"... they never got any older.

They did, however, go through new management starting from V onward.
Yep, the voice acting talents of Scott McAfee, Candace Huston, and Heather Hogan were gone... replaced with Thomas Dekker (one of several voice actors to play Littlefoot over the years), Anndi McAfee and Aria Noelle Curzon...

Regardless, I did stuck it out for a long time... I own V, VI, VII and VIII that I got on DVD... I rented IX and X, and more or less gave up. I found other interests an such, it happens.
I just didn't connect with them with the new cast the same way.

I also had one of the computer games growing up. It went through the chronology of the movie, scene by scene, and had all kinds of mini-games.

Coming Soon

Gonna stay animated for another week.
This time to my favorite Disney movie.

18. Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Code-name: Vegas
[where else?]

Director: Stephen Soderbergh

[yeah,  as a long time fan of this movie, I can't believe it's the same dude who directed "Magic Mike" and "Behind the Candelbra," both of which I saw back to back the first and only time]

Type: dramedy, adventure, heist

Notable Award:
ALMA- Andy Garcia for Best Supporting Actor

[on a side note, I don't think Brad Pitt did this movie just because there could have been a Teen Choice award in it for him]

Cast:
Danny Ocean- George Clooney
Rusty- Brad Pitt
Reuben- Elliot Gould
Frank Catton- Bernie Mac [RIP 2008]
Virgil Malloy- Casey Affleck
Turk Malloy-Scott Caan
Livingston- Eddie Jemison
Basher- Don Cheadle
The Amazing Yen- Shaobe Qin
Saul- Carl Reiner
Linus- Matt Damon
Terry Benedict- Andy Garcia
Tess- Julia Roberts

Cameos at Rusty's poker game:
Topher Grace [That 70's show]
Barry Watson [7th Heaven]
Joshua Jackson [Dawson's Creek]
Shane West [Once and Again]
Holly Marie Combs [Charmed]

Write-up:

Opening Remarks

I actually managed to list all Ocean's 11 from memory, either by actor or by character (most of them, both), with the exception of Livingston.

For the record, I have not seen the original movie by the Rat Pack. And I'm not sure if I want to. With the whole original vs. remake scenario, I tend to lean towards the version I see first and as a result, the second one does not live up to the same expectations.

I don't know how this movie appeared on my radar, why I wanted to see it as much as I did. Whatever the reason, I think of it as one of my first truly mature movies. I grew up on cartoons and many of my first movies were comedies. Everything else, I just didn't have the patience for.Don't get me wrong, "Ocean's 11" does have its slow moments (as often is the case, in the third act), but it's not usually the type of movie I go for.

And all of these types of movies, large ensemble heists like "Tower Heist" and "The Italian Job"... even "Now you see me" fits into this genre, "Ocean's 11" is the best representation.

On the whole, what makes it, not just glimmer but, SHINE... of course, is the cast. Particularly the dynamic of Clooney and Pitt.

You could jokingly say that this is a movie full of big stars, and if they weren't stars yet, they would soon be. Seriously, if you weren't a big star before this movie, you were on your way up to the A-list.

The biggest, brightest example of this: Matt Damon.
Shortly after this movie became a hit, he became a big action star (opposed to smaller projects like "Good Will Hunting") with the Bourne series

Plot

Ample Spoilers along the way...

The three act structure is pretty solid here, one of many things that rock about this movie

I: meet the players
2: forming the plan
3: the heist

Danny Ocean's out on parole after serving some time in jail.
We don't get a lot of details outside of his testimony in front of the parole board:

"My wife left me, I was upset, I broke into a self-destructive pattern"

It can't be much worse than House driving his car into Cuddy's house after she broke up with him.

So naturally after spending time in jail, the very first thing you do is get together with your best buddy, leave for Las Vegas and plan a massive heist... to get back at the new guy your ex-wife is seeing.

That's all well and good. Unless of course the guy happens to be as powerful as Terry Benedict; the man in charge of the trifecta of Vegas casinos: MGM Grand, Mirage and Bellagio. The combined total of cold hard cash in their underground vault on a Fight Night, the night they plan to rob it: $160,000,000+

And with any good heist, you're going to need a team of men with a unique set of skills.

Luckily, this is taking place in a movie, so they've got a wide variety of personalities to go with those skills. If not for those personalities, this movie would have sucked :P

The Cast

By the time this movie was available at Blockbuster, I think I knew the name Matt Damon.
I never watched it, but I knew Bernie Mac had a TV series back then.

I also knew who Julia Roberts was even though this was couple years before I saw "Pretty Woman."

And of course, there was Clooney and Pitt.
Two of the biggest names and I had yet to see any of their acting. I mentioned in my "Spider Man" review that I didn't get the pin-up appeal of Brad Pitt. Most of this was due to the fact he always seemed to have long hair in his movies. Nowadays, I say "It depends on the guy," but I didn't get why the long hair made all the other girls adore him.

Clooney was another big name that I didn't really know, but he already had an outstanding reputation.
Who would have thought putting them together would turn into something so amazing?

As for everyone else... I don't think the little Chinese guy (that's an actual line from the movie, btw) went on to do anything else.

Casey Affleck never made it as big as his brother. It's funny I should mention "Tower Heist" because he was in that.
And I was going to spend this paragraph trying to explain how I get him and Dave Franco mixed up (Franco was in "Now You See Me"... yet another tie-in I didn't expect when I named-dropped that film... loved it)

The other of the Malloy "twins" (they look nothing alike but that's how Clooney and Pitt called them in the movies), Scott Caan, would later make it big on the reboot of "Hawaii 5-0."

[Amazing bit of trivia: the twins were originally gonna be the Wilsons but they were doing that "Tenenbaums" movie and had to drop out... I don't think the movie could have handled their star power in addition to the main guys, lol]

Other than Matt Damon, I think of Don Cheadle as the biggest break-out star this movie has. I found his character Basher charming in a quirky sort of way (had to be the accent!!) with a wicked sense of humor, in both good and bad situations.
His biggest gigs include the Showtime series "House of Lies" and, of course, some of the "Iron-Man" movies... for whatever reason, I still haven't warmed up to his version of Captain James Rhodes. (That discussion will continue in the next month or so, promise).

An older audience might recognize Carl Reiner from "All in the Family." I hadn't seen that series and probably should, but he brings his own wily sense of humor to this part.

When asked [again] about being up for his part in the 'grand scheme,' he has a comeback for Clooney so good, there was simply no comeback for it.

"If you ask me that question again, Daniel, you won't wake up the following morning"[pause]Clooney (whispers to Pitt): "He's ready..."

Had it come from anyone else, this joke wouldn't have worked.

Another great addition is Andy Garcia as the villainous Terry Benedict. This is my first encounter with him and he blew me away. The way he carries himself on screen, maybe it's just that mob-style mentality he brings to his other roles, can't help but be impressed by that.

Then of course Julia Roberts shines as the only big female role in this movie. No matter who it is, she doesn't let anyone push her around. An admirable quality for sure.

The Writing

The best parts of this movie for me are a tie between the acting and the writing. Naturally, without a good script, this wouldn't have worked as well.

As Rusty, Brad Pitt is the one member of the team able to keep Danny in check, especially when it appears his priorities are a bit scrambled. Spending more time trying to woo Tess than working on the plan.

Their dynamic is amazing in that they know each other so well, they can finish each other's sentences. This is almost to the point of clairvoyance. They don't even have to say anything and the other knows exactly what their thinking.

My personal favorite: the one line that kept me coming back to the movie:

They'd just recruited Saul and Clooney is talking to Pitt:

"So Saul makes 10, 10 ought to do it, don't you think?... you think we need one more?... you think we need one more...... all right ,we'll get one more"

Absolutely priceless. Especially since Brad Pitt gives absolutely no indication he's dissatisfied with just 10 guys... it's just the aura he gives off as he's resting his chin on the counter.

Everyone works off each other so well. Even when plan A's have to give way to plan B's and C's, the improvisation often works out better than the original scenario.


Another thing that stood out to me about this movie when I was younger was that it had great balance between drama and comedy. There were enough light movements in between to break up the drama.


Other Lovable Details


It's one of those great movies my family and I like to watch together. As I do, my mom loves the Poker scene with Eric Forman from That 70's Show and other TV actors who have no idea what they're doing.


"Look, all reds!"


We also love poking fun at the fact that in almost every scene Brad Pitt is eating...
I got halfway through the movie and gave up counting how many scenes.


Apparently it was more than coincidence. Rumor is that everyone was so busy working on the movie that they barely had time to eat and Brad Pitt came up with the idea to give Rusty that unusual character trait.
And supposedly during one scene, they did so many takes that he wound up eating 40 shrimp.


My dad pointed out during our last viewing of this movie that the featured prison is Rahway Prison and on a recent customer call there, he drove by it.


One thing that also stood out to me was the second to last scene in front of the Bellagio fountain. "Clair du Lune" is playing in the background, all the guys are reflecting on the fact they got away with the money and they all go their separate ways one at a time.
When I was younger, I wasn't a fan of this scene. It was just so serious and kinda sucked the fun out of the movie for me. Or I just didn't fully grasp the genius or the beauty of it.


Combined with the fountain, the looks on everyone's faces, the swelling of the music, it's amazing to watch now that I understand it. I guess I just needed to mature a bit and it's great when you can appreciate more things from your favorite movies with age.


I only recently saw "Ocean's 12." It brought back a lot of the same players, which was nice, but unlike this movie, the great scheme didn't fully make sense. We saw the heist take place, but all wasn't fully explained until afterwards.


Coming Soon


Oh wow... got a really big one coming up next week...
I spent this past weekend looking back on some nostalgic things. Mostly music, both good and bad, and "High School Musical" (which remains as awesome as it was the first time I saw it).


Next week's movie is about as nostalgic as it gets.
Most likely my very first "favorite" movie.
I don't remember this, but supposedly I rented it so much from Blockbuster that one of my grandmas finally bought it for me.


And for anyone following my blog actively, they can probably piece together the fact that it's.... animated...

19. Spider-Man (2002)

Code-name: MJ

Director: Sam Raimi
Composer: Danny Elfman

Cast:
Peter Parker- Tobey Maguire
Mary Jane Watson- Kirsten Dunst
Harry Osborn- James Franco
Norman Osborn- Willem Dafoe
Uncle Ben- Cliff Robertson  (RIP, 2011)
Aunt Mae- Rosemary Harris
J. Jonah Jameson- JK Simmons

Notable mentions (actors who got big later on):
Elizabeth Banks as Daily Bugle secretary Betty Brant
Joe Manganiello as Flash
Octavia Spencer as the check-in girl at the wrestling match
Bruce Campbell as the ring announcer at the wrestling match

Notable Nominations:

OSCAR- Best Sound
OSCAR- Best Visual Effects
(lost to "Chicago" and "Lord of the Rings: the two towers")

Grammy- Best Film Score- Danny Elfman
Grammy- Best Original Song- "Hero" by Chad Kroeger
(lost of "Lord of the Rings" and Randy Newman's obligatory Pixar cameo, "If I didn't have you" from "Monster's Inc.")
Musical Extras
I don't get where all the Nickelback hate comes from. Granted, I find their albums very uneven, but I love their songs on the radio, how we have this really rough voice does these beautiful melodies... but "Hero" is such a great song. A great way to end the credits.

As for Danny Elfman's score, he's up there for me with John Williams and Hans Zimmer. While he started his career as part of the band Oingo Boingo, he really has brought so much to movies. His work with Tim Burton is so iconic and perfectly canvases the eerie, spookiness of his work. For the "Spider-Man" movies, they wouldn't be anywhere near as impactful as they are without his score resonating in the background. So iconic and such a part of this trilogy's success story.

Write-up:

Beginnings

At best, I guess you could say I was a casual comic-book movie fan before "Spider-Man" turned all that around for me. I'd only seen a couple "Batman" movies (by that time, I think all but "Batman Returns"). Enjoyed the original Tim Burton film that turns 25 this year and "Batman Forever," #73 on my list in case you missed it:
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/06/73-batman-forever-1995.html

Well, to be fair, "Spider-Man" made the genre more accessible for me, but I didn't become super fanatical about the Marvel universe until years later.

It led me to X-Men (which I really need to rewatch), Fantastic Four (which I didn't care for) and Daredevil (... I just can't, it was too horrible, one big reason I'm not a huge Ben Affleck fan, but after "Argo," I'm intrigued to see his take on Batman... just as long as he promises to leave the phony Christian Bale Batman voice out of it).

"Batman Forever" had its moments, which I went into great detail about, but "Spider-Man" really resonated with me. I guess because it was about an awkward teen in high school that got super powers. I was going on 16 at that time, so I could relate.

Definitely a great theatrical experience, especially with wide angle shots of Spider-Man flying through the city, although it did run a little long towards the end.
I don't remember much of the banter that resulted with my family after we all went to see it. My mom and I enjoyed it enough where we saw the sequels at the movies as well.

One thing I did remember, oddly enough, was that I actually left the theater for a bathroom break somewhere in the "running long" territory of the third act.
Maybe it's because we don't buy drinks and tubs of popcorn anymore (contraband candy on the other hand...), I hadn't gotten up during a movie since then... actually, I think that was the only time ever.
And I'd sat through the likes of "Avatar" (TWICE!), "Les Miserables," "The Hobbit" and the Lord of the Rings franchise without a break.

Yeah, it is a little TMI, but with my blog titled as it is, movie going experiences are all up for grabs.

The Story
BEWARE: AMPLE SPOILERS FOR ALL SPIDER-MAN MOVIES AHEAD

Or should it be "stories"... there are multiple plot points and themes explored in this.

At the forefront we have Peter Parker's coming-of-age story.

During a school field trip, he gets bitten by one of the museums' "super-spiders" and gains powers. In addition to the biologically occurring silk in his wrists, he gains muscle mass, strength and improved senses (the 6th 'spidey sense' and vision allowing him to discard his glasses). As if it wasn't bad enough that he was coping with puberty and a school-girl crush.

Part of his character arc also involves his relationship with his Uncle Ben. He's the closest thing to a father figure he has and he doesn't appreciate that until after his tragic death. Much like in a lot of superhero origin stories [especially notable in "Batman"], the death of a family member is the activating incident that leads/solidifies to the assumption of a crime-fighting secret identity.

In other words, he takes Uncle Ben's now famous mantra to heart:
"with great power, comes great responsibility"
so Peter learns to use his newfound powers to fight crime in NYC in order to clear his conscience of the one misstep he made that led to his uncle's death.

Then of course is the love triangle:

Peter's had a crush on Mary Jane since the day she moved in next door to him. But while he goes through his changes and assumes his crime-fighting role, his best friend Harry swoops in and asks her out.
This is, of course, after she dumps her jerk of a boyfriend, Flash, upon high school graduation.

One way or another, Peter does manage to sweep MJ off her feet, but some of it is helped by the complicated dynamic Harry's dad brings to the equation.

Norman Osborn is developing something at his company, OSCORP, to maintain their military contract and it goes terribly wrong. If that wasn't enough, he gets fired from his own company when they get an offer to sell to their chief competitor. Therefore, he assays the role of the villain. First to get his revenge on them and second to take down Spider-Man.
His motivation for this... I'm not sure... he offers Spider-Man the option to ally with him and turns against him when he refuses...

Come to think of it, that's a really flimsy explanation.
[after rewatching the film... a painstaking undertaking because my little used, glitch-free DVD chose tonight to give me a hard time... apparently he decides to go after Spider-Man because at the World Unity fair where he destroys the OSCORP board members, he realizes he's the only person able to stop him]

As I'd gone into a few times before (again, I swear that him popping up in my movies is pure coincidence), Willem Dafoe knows how to play a heck of a villain. In addition to the super strength and improved reaction time (his transformation oddly mirrors that of Peter Parker after he gets bitten by the spider... okay, the writing was done on purpose and cleverly done so), the "performance enhancers" he experimented with also gives Norman Osborn a psychotic dual personality.
I hadn't seen more than 5 minutes of the movie, but this scenario really does have Jack Nicholson ala "The Shining" written all over it.The psychosis appears in the form of the Green Goblin, but on numerous occasions, it leads to angry outbursts that result in rocky situations. Most notably on Thanksgiving. On top of learning Peter Parker's secret identity, he yells to Harry off-screen that MJ is only after him for his money.

...Jerk move. And it kills me when Harry defends him:
"That is a great man. If I'm lucky I'll be half of what he is"...

Looking at all the facets of his character arc throughout the trilogy, I really do not like Harry Osborn... the only time this wasn't true was when he learns Peter's identity towards the end of the second movie.... more on all that later.

The only other storyline left is the second most notable 'antagonist' in Spider-Man's life:
J. Jonah Jameson, Editor in Chief of the Daily Bugle, who seems to be hell-bent on smearing his image, proclaiming that he's a villainous vigilant. All this despite Peter's efforts to convince him otherwise.
Yeah, I find this annoying, but as we see in "Spider-Man 2," there'd be an ingredient missing in these films without Mr. Jameson's explosive derogatory outbursts :P

Actors and Character Development

So many great memorable characters throughout this movie and the trilogy...

Easily, Tobey Maguire is my favorite part of this. He owns the socially awkward nerd archetype that he begins this movie with. He's the underdog you want to see finally catch a break and even with superpowers, it's always a struggle.
Batman has his struggles as well, but I find that I gravitate more towards Marvel superheroes because they're more real. They're real, relatable people that have power thrust upon them or (in the case of Iron-Man), have to adapt to overcome difficult, sometimes, life-threatening situations. And they all have something to overcome, demons to fight.

Tobey brings such great vulnerability to this role, I couldn't help but follow him to some other movies. I remember one of them being "SeaBiscuit."
I'd mentioned with Ralph Macchio and Emma Stone that I fell in love with their acting after one role that led me to other movies, but their other work didn't carry the same weight for me. Didn't have as big an impact.
I still have hope for Emma Stone, though.

With Tobey, I thought he did really well in two other movies.
I'd already mentioned in my Gatsby review where I thought he was a perfect Nick Carraway.
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/05/theatrical-review-great-gatsby-2013.html

I have a vague recollection that I'd wanted to see "Wonder Boys" years ago because he was in it. When I was binging on all the RDJ movies I could find (granted, I did my research beforehand), I did get around to it.
Ironically, Terry Crabtree ranks among my least favorite characters that he played, but everyone else was amazing. A really well made movie.
http://dreamypoproyalty.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/wonderful-wonder-boys-4-the-writers-writer/Peter Parker goes through so much throughout this movie as I'd already said. He grows into this role, gains a sense of responsibility and finds his niche, his place in the world and it comes from a very honest place. Wanting to do right by Uncle Ben and protecting those he loves.And getting with MJ is also part of his motivation. Also my second favorite Kirsten Dunst role (the first being "Bring it On")
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/04/86-bring-it-on-2000.html

I hadn't really seen her in much since then, although I'm still considering seeing "Melancholia" since it'd been her first movie in YEARS.

MJ's characterization does have its critics, but I just find her so pleasant to watch on screen. Even with the incessant screaming in times of peril.
She does come to realize her love for Peter Parker, but watching the two of them struggle through the second movie was hard. Will they/won't they... the fact they did get together in the end was one of many reasons why I felt the third movie kinda ruined the franchise.

It's easy to root for them through the first couple movies, but with all the ups and downs in the third... however much of it I remember (only saw it once in its entirety and that was in theaters in 2007)... was it really worth it?

As for Norman Osborn, watching the movie again... he was really quite fascinating to watch. I don't know if it's because of all this time I'd been spending with Willem Dafoe these past several months, between the movies on my list and "The Grand Budapest Hotel." To me, it doesn't appear that he's all bad. It appears that he still does have a conscience and outside of the office, he seems like a really nice guy. He's very supportive of Peter, treating him almost like a son. But by the finale, it's clear that he's gone too far in the wrong direction to receive any type of redemption.

Thoughts across the trilogy

Shortly after coming up with this list, I got "Spider-Man 2" on DVD. Watching it again got me thinking that maybe I should have picked it in place of the original in my list.
I'm obligated to stand by my rankings, but to be fair, even though I enjoy the sequel more than the original and felt it outdid the original in a number of ways, the original "Spider-Man" is on my list for nostalgic purposes. And also because I consider it as the superhero movie that officially turned me onto the genre to the point I love going to theaters for the cinematic experience they provide.

It's rare that a sequel is better than the original movie.
Firstly, I loved the character of Doc Oc. I'm not sure if it's the way the original comics were written, but I thought his character was really well written.
He was an intelligent likeable guy, a brilliant scientist who became a villain when an experiment goes totally wrong. Then by the finale, he realizes the error of his ways and redeems himself before his unfortunate demise. I also liked how they tied up all the loose ends, what with Harry learning that Peter is Spider-Man and that his father was a nutjob and Peter and MJ end up together in the end.

Then the third movie happened.
The reason I'd been unable and unwilling to see it a third time is that the movie is just too damn long. When it's on TV, it's always cable and it runs for 3 hours.
And it just seemed to be one horrible decision after another.

Like Harry becoming Green Goblin 2.0. WTF? You'd think after he learned the truth about his father he wouldn't do the exact same thing and turn to evil.
And maybe it's these movies, but James Franco just annoys me in general. I can never take him seriously.Then MJ and Peter's relationship had too many peaks and valleys. It was exhausting.
As for Peter's "emo phase," what all the fanboys proclaimed as the worst part of the movie (aside from the treatment of Venom, obviously), I thought it was a freaking riot. Loved every minute of it.
It also made the same mistake that "The Dark Knight" made a full year later: they introduced a villain (in the case of Venom, a highly anticipated one) in the last half hour of the movie and he gets snuffed as soon as he's created.

One thing that really had me throwing a fit was how they ruined part of the original movie for me. Not to the same degree as "Karate Kid part III" mind you, but they totally manipulated a key part of the movie to say "that's not the whole story."
I hated how they went on to say that the guy Peter pursued after Uncle Ben was shot wasn't the guy that killed him... it was other guy... way to toy with our emotions, guys.

...and for the record, I hadn't seen the reboot series yet.
When I heard they were remaking the movies not even a decade after the original, I was about as pissed as I was over them remaking the Karate Kid. In a "it ain't broke for the love of God don't fix it"
After hearing some arguments in favor of it, I'm starting to reconsider. James Garfield is a positive in that direction (but again, I hate that you've got this great looking British guy but he's given roles that don't allow for his equally hot accent). But hearing that Emma Stone dies in the sequel... why subject myself to loving her as Gwen Stacy only to lose her in the end of it all?

Which reminds me, I hated that Gwen Stacy (ala Bryce Dallas Howard, another actor I can't get myself to like with the types of characters she plays) got Spider-Man to give her the upside down kiss in "Spider-Man III"... that was something special he had between him and MJ and they just spat on the memory of it.

Coming Soon

Brad Pitt posters were on practically every teen girl's bedroom walls in the 90's except for me. I didn't get the attraction until I saw him in the next movie on my list.
While I'm not a Bradgelina fan by any means, I'd come to enjoy him in a couple other movies since then. One is further down my countdown and another that lost its place to "Sweeny Todd"... a) because I couldn't do my favorite movies without "Sweeny Todd" and b) while this Brad Pitt film was a well conceived, well acted picture that I believed deserved a number of Oscars, I only saw it once and it's been 5 years...And I could say this is a movie with a great ensemble cast, but that'd just give it away, wouldn't it?

20. Avatar (2009)

Code-name: Na’vi

(but of course…)

 

Writer/Director: James Cameron

Composer: James Horner

 

Cast:

Jake Sully- Sam Worthington

Grace- Sigourney Weaver

Norm Spellman- Joel David Moore

Dr. Max Patel- Dileep Rao

Trudy Chacon-Michelle Rodriguez 

Colonel Miles Quatrich-Stefan Lang

Selfridge- Giovanni Ribsi

Neytiri- Zoe Saldana

Moat- CCH Pounder

Tsu’tey- Laz Alonso

Eytukan- Wes Studi

 

Notable Awards and Nominations:

OSCAR- Best Cinematography

OSCAR- Best Visual Effects

OSCAR- Best Art Direction

Nomination- OSCAR- Best Picture

Nomination- OSCAR- Best Director- James Cameron

Nomination- OSCAR- Best Sound Editing

Nomination- OSCAR- Best Sound Mixing

Nomination- OSCAR- Best Film Editing

Nomination- OSCAR- Best Original Score- James Horner

Golden Globe- Best Director- James Cameron

Golden Globe- Best Picture- Drama

Nomination- Golden Globe- Best Score- James Horner

Nomination- Golden Globe- Best Original Song- “I See You”

 

Write-up:

 

Getting politics out of the way first…

 

…a) because I hate politics in general and b) politics, no matter which side you’re on, stirs up a lot of negativity and I don’t want that bringing the vibe of this entry down

 

I suppose you could say “Avatar” is one of those “love ‘em or hate ‘em” sort of movies. There are strong opinions on both sides. I strongly support and adore the hell out of this movie. But I’d hate for people to take the opposite view for political reasons.

 

Going into this movie, despite how it might look on the surface, I didn’t want to see it for politics. I didn’t come away making it into this big political racket. On those grounds, I did see similarities between it and “Pocahontas” where the white man came to America for gold (much as they did to Pandora in this movie for this mineral ‘unobtainium’). Other people were saying it was akin to us invading Iraq.

 

That part, I really didn’t get. Still don’t. The mere insinuation of that just pisses me off. I mean, James Cameron had this idea in mind of years, long before we even invaded the Middle East, so they were just using the movie to suit their views.

 

But where I will get into the politics of it… how the hell did “Avatar,” arguably the most talked about picture in 2009 NOT win Best Picture? And it lost to a movie few ever heard of before awards season? A lot of us were still figuring out how “Brokeback Mountain” lost to a complete unknown film.

Seriously, if Hollywood is so liberal, why do certain pictures, considered to be very liberal, not get top honors?

 

I don’t remember much of what I saw in theaters in 2009. I didn’t start seriously keeping track until the following year. But “Avatar” blew my freaking mind… and the four of us saw it in 2D. My dad even came to the theater with us and he hadn’t been with us to a movie since 2002.

 

Then I saw it again with my mom and two of my aunts in 3D. Absolutely worth it. Just like it was worth it to get on blu-ray. Like the paper insert says, it’s “the movie blu-ray was made for.”

 

Escapism at its finest

 

In general, I am a huge sucker for escapism. “Avatar” took it to a whole new level. To this day, it’s probably the only valid argument for 3D movies in existence. Mainly because James Cameron knew to shoot it in 2D and 3D, opposed to converting it to 3D in post-production. That’s where you get the sloppiest of efforts. Ironically, one big example of what NOT to do regarding 3D film-making occurred in Sam Worthington’s other major film credit, “Clash of the Titans” and its ill-advised sequel.

 

The majority of “Avatar” was filmed in Hawaii, but you really did feel like you were in another world entirely. Everything was so beautiful. The creatures were so imaginative and gorgeous. My favorites were the banshees, those flying dragon-like creatures… so beautiful. The Na’vi are also really fascinating creatures. They’re so at peace with their environment, believing everything has its place and the balance of everything must be kept. Between the CGI and the motion-capture, this was special effects at its absolute best. Nothing quite like this has ever been done before and who better to handle it than the director of freaking “Titanic.”

I still maintain that movie was a waste of 3 hours and Leonardo DiCaprio dying at the end is reason enough to never sit through it again. So depressing and not worth the ugly sobbing. Still impossible to this day to hear “My Heart Will Go On” without tearing up… it’s frustrating that he’s such a handsome guy but most of his movies aren’t my type and those that are, he dies at the end… oh well, moving on.

 

Because of its sheer length (almost three hours), it’s not the type of movie I like to watch very often. Usually, I see it once a year or every couple years. But whenever I do, going back to Pandora is just one big jaw-drop.

 

Cast of Characters

 

As always, spoilers ahead

 

On this surface, this is another one of those movies where it really is more about the characters and visuals more than the actors. Most of which were relative unknowns going into this.

The only exceptions to this, I think, were Zoe Saldana, Giovanni Ribsi and CCH Pounder. I don’t remember any of their other credits, but they were faces and names that I knew were already out there. And Sigourney Weaver, of course, is the biggest name on the ticket.

 

Sam Worthington was an Aussie apparently living out of his car when he auditioned for the role of a lifetime.

Unfortunately, his other credits are few and none really held water. Movie fans and mythological buffs know what a waste of time the “Clash of the Titans” movies were. They bared little resemblance to the original version and the mythology wasn’t even accurate. Other than that, I knew Sam had done the thriller bomb “Man on a ledge” and had gotten himself into trouble with DUIs and such in reality.

 

It’s too bad because he played a damn good soldier. And like Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker,” experience taught him how to color outside the lines of the reality he’d come to distrust… the only difference is that Jake Sully wound up fighting for a much greater cause: the survival of a planet’s ecosystem and its dominant race.

 

Zoe Saldana, of course, is a bad-ass as Neytiri. All the guys can go as crazy as they want, raving how she’s this “9 foot tall naked blue chick,” but she’s probably one of the most lethal creatures you’ll find on Pandora. And that’s just her attitude ;)

Then again, there are times where Neytiri is hard to listen to because when she flips out on you, she freaking loses it… part of it being her vocal chords with the screaming.

 

There’s a lot of girl power in this movie, which is a rarity, and you get it in all forms.

Just as Neytiri is strong in her skills and her body, Grace (Sigourney Weaver) is strong in her heart and her mind. In layman’s terms, she knows her shit… especially when it comes to Pandora and the Na’vi. Then again, she, Dr. Patel and Norm has been studying them for 3 years, so they’re practically experts. And considering Jake is going into this with no real time to train because he’s a genetic match for his late brother’s avatar, anyone else in the AVTR program seems like an expert compared to him.

 

Grace spends a lot of this movie butting heads with the men in the military department, no matter how much they refuse to listen, she fights for her ideals to the death. And anyone who’d seen the “Alien” franchise knows just how much of a bad-ass butt-kicking actress Sigourney Weaver is (something I really didn’t appreciate or take note of until after this movie).

 

Michelle Rodriguez, who I believe had also been around for a while before “Avatar”, has a lot of sass that’s so admirable. Especially in the third act where she helps the AVTR people get where they need to go to help the Na’vi in their direst hour. She has no problem standing up to authority and just as willing to sacrifice herself for her beliefs.

 

As much girl power is in this movie, it does really suck that it gets most of them killed or almost killed.

 

With a bit of cautionary tale thrown in there, this really makes me hate us, the human race, in general because we’re capable of so much destruction. And for what? Is it really worth destroying a whole ecosystem just to save ours? What’s to stop that destructive cycle from continuing?

 

Sure, “Avatar” has a little bit of “Pocahontas” in it as it does have a little “FernGully”… supposedly there was so much discussion of plagiarism that “Avatar” was deemed ineligible for “best original screenplay” awards…

NEWFLASH! NOTHING IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE!

 

But while on the subject of plagiarism, when “Avatar” was first announced, I took issue with the name as a fan of the animé series.

I thought it was going to be based on “Avatar: the last airbender” and when that wasn’t the case, I contested that they couldn’t use the word.

It’s even sadder that the live action version that was released by M. Night Shamylan was a complete bust… they pronounced the names wrong and the way the characters were written, it’s as if they didn’t see the series at all..

 

…I shudder to think that “The Giver” adaptation will top that degree of mediocrity and non-adaptation, but based on the trailers, it’s leaning that way already.


Coming Soon


"Avatar" is the beginning of the end of my countdown.


With the exception of three of them, the rest of my top 20 favorite movies fall under one or some of the following categories:


1) I deem them the best in their given genre/director/actor
2) they started on a given genre of movies I became fond of
3) they were life-changing for me personally


The three exceptions have the following things in common:
1) They gained their accolades years after their release
2) I saw them all for the first time within the last 3 years because I couldn't ignore the accolades from movie fans and critics
3) like "Avatar," they had valid arguments for the "Best Picture Oscar
-ironically, two of them came out the same year so obviously they couldn't BOTH win


*I should also note with two of them, I only saw them once... which was the case with "Butch and Sundance" (I was lucky enough to catch "Rebel without a cause" and "little miss sunshine" a second time before writing my entries on them)... a little idiotic, but considering how high Richard Roeper and movie fans who follow the Reelz Channel rate them, my rankings will make sense once they're revealed


As for #19 next week, it got me officially started in the superhero genre. Also made me a fan of a particular actor...
Coincidentally (seriously I did not have that in mind when I put this list together), it was the movie my dad saw with us in 2002, which would be the last time until "Avatar" 7 years later.