I am always a bit more open minded than my critical cohorts when it comes to the differences in media, like books, movies, stage, and television. Each one has its merits; each one has its drawbacks. When it comes to scares? Books are able to get to the nitty-gritty; movies, with a touch of close up and a blast of instrumentals, are the way to go; comedies are terrific on the stage, where the actors can use their skill to keep us giggling, television works slightly better, due to the fact we’re all so comfortable on our couches at home.
These are observations of mine. Not science. But it seems to work in theory. And for every rule there is a delicious exception. Have you seen Deathtrap? A thriller on the stage. And I felt that Chicago, the famed musical, surpassed itself on the movie screen, even though it was quite good on stage-a place where musicals can wonderfully flourish.
However, today’s movie list gives us something that I can only see on the big screen. Movies have an ability to transport us to a different time moreso than any other media. It encompasses two of senses and, given an immediate image, our brain shortcuts to that space. Recently, I had treated myself to a binge-watch of the series of MindHunter on Netflix.
It was excellent.
However, as an ex-smoker, I craved cigarettes. For in the seventies, when the series was based, smoking was completely allowed. Even on airplanes.
ON AIRPLANES.
Right there, an ashtray in the armrest. And it was there. Right there, on my Vizio.
To say I was transported is an understatement. I mean:
The characters rode around without seatbelts.
There were no metal detectors in the prisons.
I was transported. I remember those times, if only in glimpses. I was alive, to be sure, and remember my mother never insisting seatbelts until they became law in the late eighties. The images carried away my existence.
Special effects transport us. That's my point.
Which brings us to today’s topic. One of the weird criticisms I’ve had of the original Star Wars trilogy was that the movies were a bit too perfect. George Lucas had intended to create great drive-in space operas from the fifties. He didn’t. Instead, Fox, seeing the rough footage, saw the potential and, yes, special effects shot up. There now were no strings holding up the Death Star, wheels on the landspeeder, and the whole thing went from cult possibility to fandom. Such mistakes would have pulled the audience to the reality of the flimsy, repetitive tale, and the powerhouse would have never lifted off the ground.
Special effects have an incredible impact on the film world. The thing now? You can do them on your home computer without incident. Even I, with my mediocre talent and motivation, can make a total travelogue that roughly cobbles together with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
That’s awesome. Special effects have become part of our language of movies and I’m not complaining. So much part of our language, that even movies that would not benefit from them, still get some treatment. Make up is not more of a special effect. Costumes can even be special effects. To be clear, I define special effects are choices made by the filmmakers beyond the scope of the performers and script to enhance the overall tale.
Trust me, some directors never used special effects in a way that should be merited. Hitchcock surely stabbed someone in the shower in a barrage of effects to communicate the horror of the moment, but, overall? His films relied on your imagining what they were talking about moreso.
My, have times have changed. Below? You’ll find movies where the special effects brought a film to life in manners that you never knew possible, to the point where my socks were, literally, blown off. Some of these movies, if it weren’t for the special effects, I would not have watched otherwise.
5. Forrest Gump
Here’s an idea, let’s bring a drama to the screen that is also a history lesson. But not only that, let’s show how each event flows to the next, in an unending series of luck. It was a massively tall task that was given to Robert Zemekis with this title and he worked his magic. Bob had a skilled ability to take massively human stories and put special effects around them with such confidence, that the effects were taken for granted. He was not the first to do this (I’m looking at your Speilberg), but he was the first to do it with such number and with such calm that, like with this film, you would forget that special effects are even happening.
He cut his teeth on his first big title with Romancing the Stone, another example of this kind of filmmaking, where the wonderous and the banal meet and it’s perfectly normal. He ratched up a sweet comedy like Back to the Future and turned it into a summer festival with too much sugary food, but we bought it, due to the fact that, again, he rooted the special effects in a heartfelt story, with engaging characters and strong performances.
With those moments, he came to the top of his game with Forrest Gump. A story about a man with an intellectual disability who the audience would naturally sideline to institutions and pressed him a focal lense to see American history without opinion. Mr. Gump meets JFK, going to Civil RIghts Marches, fights in Vietnam, runs across America, and still maintains a sense of innocence that carries him through the horrors and the highs.
Here’s where the special effects come in.
He MEETS JFK.
I mean it. He walks in, in ‘found footage’ and shakes his hand. Now, in 1994, when the movie came out, the whole photoshop thing was a rarity, new to the scene. We were aware of it, but only true geeks had computers with the skill and cash could access the memory eaters that were needed to edit pictures flawlessly on computer. So we were vaguely aware. But these special effects were seamless at the time.
For example, Mr. Gump saves five people from enemy fire, and, the camera moves through the shot, with tracer bullets FLYING AT THE CAMERA. The sensation is that we are there, just moments from Mr. Gump’s nose, in as much peril as he is.
Actor Gary Sinise, one of the best actors in Hollywood, goes from having legs to losing them in that firefight. The argument could be made to hire an actor missing his lower claves, but, having the able bodied actor go from having legs to not, means we feel his misery and see the pains of the process. Special effects, coupled with a highly capable performer, means that we were able to join the character on that journey.
Amazing stuff.
4. Death Becomes Her
Okay here is my first title where the movie was...meh, but it was so beautiful to look at, you can’t help but get caught up in the famed fight scene that houses the end of the first act. The fact that it is also direct about Bob Zemekis is also saying something. But, here, he cranks up the violence, but, to balance, he makes a real life cartoon, where the hits don’t kill, but, instead, twirl the head. It gets to the point where you can’t stop watching and, again, with strong performances of Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, you want to see where they go.
Why is the movie meh? After the incredible fight scene? The film loses momentum and you can’t really get over what you say. There is something called, “too good to be true.”
3. TRON/TRON: Legacy
What if you just did motion capture? What if there was not a single set piece or costume in the entire movie? What if you just filmed actors, and inserted EVERYTHING afterwards? You’d save money, one would think.
But they didn’t, because, when Disney brought this concept to the table? This idea of a completely digital fabrication of the scene? It had not been invented yet. They had to make the computers and figure out to make the tale happen.
Tron was an incredible piece that, for many in the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, the filmmaking community looked at as a cop out. Little did they know that, even today, with movies like the Avengers and Avatar, this is the way movies are made. You film the performers and insert them into various scenes and costume them as you see fit. But at the time, a weak story (waaaay ahead of it’s time, as the internet was only available to the chosen few in the early 80s) and some story plotholes (if a person is playing a video game, how can the programs have any kind of free will or choice in their digital world?), made the film flop. The sequel was also a bit heady and lost many audiences.
But even the sequel did something unique. Took one of the protagonists from the first movie, digitized his voice and his looks and inserted him into the sequel. While it had been done before, like in movies like The Crow and Sky Captain: The World of Tomorrow’s already dead villain, it had never been done with so much verve and length prior to TRON: Legacy. What ends up?
A visual feast.
2. An American Werewolf in London
Here’s another title that, when removed from the famed sequence at the end of the first act, you realize the film never really goes beyond what we’ve already seen in so many other titles.
But I’m posting it because it does something many of these other movies did not. In a world of visual effects, lt went a different route.
Practical. This movie uses effects that are real, not digital. And, in the middle of the movie, we have the actor endure a series of make up changes that only show up in the film for several seconds. Hair is pushed out of fake skin. Contact lenses are used with a sudden eye opening. He yells in pain, rolls over, and more latex is applied and we what do we get?
A young man turning into a werewolf.
And it is, truly, amazingly terrifying. The art has been lost. Unless you go to Universal Studios Orlando, where they still do a show about the viseral power of pratical movies, especially horror movies. I guess the shock of fake blood causes the expressions that keep us riveted to the screen.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Speaking of practical effects, I really could not decide between Jaws or Werewolf. Jaws, because of the malfunctioning robot that was the antagonist, used the beast as little as possible, but every expense was made for the machine. Speilberg made the decision to just hide the technical snafu and it made for Hitchcock-esque suspense, as it wasn’t until the final scenes we saw the monster in all its glory. But the special effects were shuffled aside, in my humble opinion.
I would mention Star Wars, but that’s just low hanging fruit.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is another one, but I realized, slowly, this is a live action/cartoon. Special effects abound, but I found that its uniqueness took it in a very different direction. You are, basically, watching two similar movies at once.
1. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Mr. Cameron used to work in special effects and, with each picture, he wants to push the envelope. Avatar is his pinnacle so far, Titanic is an amazing visual piece, centered in a terrific, old-school romance.
But those were like drinking Jolt cola. It was too much sugar and too much caffeine, to my brain. I kept being pulled out of the title to marvel at the set pieces, which meant I had to work my way back to the tale at hand.
Alas, before he got full of his own confidence, he kept it deceptively simple and wonderfully horrific. Two killer robots hunting down an innocent kid and his survivalist mother. We had all the tropes of a feminist slasher movie, only now, with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terrific charisma and a liquid (!!! that’s the special effect) metal robot that can change shape.
I was totally agog.
Thoughts?
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