Most "making of" documentaries are little more than puff pieces in which the director and lead actors bs about what a wonderful experience it was to make the film and why you should go see it. The Hamster Factor is quite a bit different. Fulton and Pepe were brought on as "witnesses" rather than promoters. The documentary is refreshingly honest about the process including the moments of doubt, the temporary loss of vision, the angst following test screenings and the eventual success of the movie. The Hamster Factor also does a better job at describing the technical details of how the film gets made from pre-production debates in bare-walled offices with distressed office furniture, to on-location production to editing in bare-walled offices with distressed office furniture.
Reviews
10 Reviews
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys
(1996 Video)
A step above other "making of" documentaries.
29 June 2003
The Others
(2001)
If you like classic ghost movies...
13 August 2001
This movie appears to be one of those that you will either love or hate. Generally I think you might love it if you thought that the original The Haunting (1963) is one of the scariest films ever made while the remake (1999) is one of the worst films every made. You might like this film if you are bored with all of the gimmicky variations on slasher horror films. You might like this film if you liked The Innocents (1961). You might like the film if you like a slow well-structured plot rather than a thrill-a-minute ride.
You might strongly dislike this film if you thought that any of the above or Unbreakable and 6th Sense were booring in comparison.
The Others is old-style psychological gothic horror with a twist. Beautifully directed, beautifully acted. No stupid men in rubber masks jumping out with big knives.
You might strongly dislike this film if you thought that any of the above or Unbreakable and 6th Sense were booring in comparison.
The Others is old-style psychological gothic horror with a twist. Beautifully directed, beautifully acted. No stupid men in rubber masks jumping out with big knives.
The Haunting
(1963)
One of the best horror movies ever made...
28 June 2001
One of the best parts of a horror movie is watching how people self-destruct under pressure. The original of The Haunting is probably one of the best horror movies ever made, it does quite a bit more with less and pulls off a truely creepy film.
The plot is familiar if you've seen the remake. Dr. Markway rents Hill House, a house with a 90 year history of horrifying events and madness. Dr. Markway intends to live in the house with a selected group of certified psychics and mediums. Of the half-dozen psychics he invites, only two, Elanor Lance, and Theodora ("just Theodora") show up at the house.
The cinematography (filmed in glorious black and white) does an excellent job of demonstrating the claustrophobic insane atmosphere of the house. While the remake attempts to make the point with 3D modeled effects, the original does an excellent job with simple variations in film stock, camera angles and lighting. Many of my early childhood night terrors involved faces that appeared in the furniture when the lights went out. The original captures the same creepy sense that there are faces in the victorian scroll-work and gothic towers. The actors are frequently shot at odd angles, from the floor, or from above completing the sense that the view is skiewed.
The set design complements the cinematography. Unlike the remake where the set design was overdone with cherubic faces, the original looks like a victorian house until its heart and soul is revealed.
One of the key points that makes the original work so much better than the remake is that the original knows exactly how much information to tease out to the viewer and how much is left to speculation. (This is a technique that made the original Blair Witch Project successful.) The movie provides us with tantilizing peeks at the secret life of the former inhabitants but lets the viewer fill in the gaps.
The ghost story is highlighted by the romantic and character tensions between the investigators. All of the characters have their flaws, Dr. Markway is more concerned about his investigation than the people he works with, Theodora knows what everyone is thinking and tends to be tactless, Elanor is the romantic clinger seeking approval, and Luke can't see past the material value of the house. The contrast between the four characters is very well played and the love triangle in the film merges with the supernatural climax.
Overall, this is one of my favorite horror films. If you liked this you would probably also like The Exorcist and The Innocents.
The plot is familiar if you've seen the remake. Dr. Markway rents Hill House, a house with a 90 year history of horrifying events and madness. Dr. Markway intends to live in the house with a selected group of certified psychics and mediums. Of the half-dozen psychics he invites, only two, Elanor Lance, and Theodora ("just Theodora") show up at the house.
The cinematography (filmed in glorious black and white) does an excellent job of demonstrating the claustrophobic insane atmosphere of the house. While the remake attempts to make the point with 3D modeled effects, the original does an excellent job with simple variations in film stock, camera angles and lighting. Many of my early childhood night terrors involved faces that appeared in the furniture when the lights went out. The original captures the same creepy sense that there are faces in the victorian scroll-work and gothic towers. The actors are frequently shot at odd angles, from the floor, or from above completing the sense that the view is skiewed.
The set design complements the cinematography. Unlike the remake where the set design was overdone with cherubic faces, the original looks like a victorian house until its heart and soul is revealed.
One of the key points that makes the original work so much better than the remake is that the original knows exactly how much information to tease out to the viewer and how much is left to speculation. (This is a technique that made the original Blair Witch Project successful.) The movie provides us with tantilizing peeks at the secret life of the former inhabitants but lets the viewer fill in the gaps.
The ghost story is highlighted by the romantic and character tensions between the investigators. All of the characters have their flaws, Dr. Markway is more concerned about his investigation than the people he works with, Theodora knows what everyone is thinking and tends to be tactless, Elanor is the romantic clinger seeking approval, and Luke can't see past the material value of the house. The contrast between the four characters is very well played and the love triangle in the film merges with the supernatural climax.
Overall, this is one of my favorite horror films. If you liked this you would probably also like The Exorcist and The Innocents.
Swordfish
(2001)
Not half as slick as it pretends to be...
15 June 2001
This is one of those movies that doesn't live up to it's opening. The movie starts with a prophetic monologue from Gabriel (John Travolta) that reveals just how much of a bad-guy he is and makes an implied promise that this movie was going to be somehow different from the spy thrillers you've seen in the past. In the end, it's all the same stuff all over again. The opening starts with an FX bang, and then languishes in cheap sexploitation for the next hour and 20 minutes.
This movie diserves to be knocked down at least three points for the women's roles, we have: *sexy spy *druggie pornstar bad mother *faithful young daughter *screaming victim *a half-dozen eye-candy prostitutes
The movie never quite offers the promise given in the opening. Most of the movie consists of an extended flash-back. What you see is what you get and while many thrillers (including The Usual Suspects) treat the flash-back as an unreliable narrator, in this movie what you see is what you get. The film attempts to set up some sexual chemistry between the Hero (Hugh Jackman) and Ginger (Halle Berry) that primarily relies on putting Berry into a series of revealing outfits. When this movie can't build suspense, it relies on titilation. By the time the flash-back ends, I honestly stopped caring if Gabriel was going to get away with it.
This movie diserves to be knocked down at least three points for the women's roles, we have: *sexy spy *druggie pornstar bad mother *faithful young daughter *screaming victim *a half-dozen eye-candy prostitutes
The movie never quite offers the promise given in the opening. Most of the movie consists of an extended flash-back. What you see is what you get and while many thrillers (including The Usual Suspects) treat the flash-back as an unreliable narrator, in this movie what you see is what you get. The film attempts to set up some sexual chemistry between the Hero (Hugh Jackman) and Ginger (Halle Berry) that primarily relies on putting Berry into a series of revealing outfits. When this movie can't build suspense, it relies on titilation. By the time the flash-back ends, I honestly stopped caring if Gabriel was going to get away with it.
Moulin Rouge!
(2001)
Still trying to mull it over
6 June 2001
I must admit, I'm a sucker for musicals so my opinion is distinctly biased. If you get p***ed off when characters in a movie break into song, you probably won't like my review.
Music: Of course, the music is anachronistic which becomes a bit of an inside joke. Christian (played by Ewan McGregor) is hailed as a brilliant original modern poet while spouting lines from popular music written two generations after 1900. Of course we recognize them as top ten hits. The Bohemians at the end of their summer of love (1899) find them strikingly new and original.
Most of the musical production numbers are medleys of songs appropriated from popular culture. Madonna, Cole Porter, The Beatles, Nirvana and Sting get pulled out of context and used in weird ways. This is not new. Bing Crosby and Fred Astare managed to recycle more than 20 Irving Berlin songs in Blue Skies. In most of the cases the songs get put through the wringer and come out as completely new compositions. In some places the two songs are mixed into contrasting harmonies and lyrics that actually work well. In other places you end up with a jumbled mish-mash of songs that don't really fit well together and spoil the effect. In other cases the transformations demonstrate a twisted sense of black humor. (Jim Broadbent's and Gary Oldman's dramatic duet of "Like a Virgin" complete with chorus line is worth about half the price of admission.)
Plot: Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled but the plot and the scripting seemed to be one of the weaker parts of this movie. Not only was the music appropriated, but the script in places was appropriated as well. The script alternates between slapstick and tragedy. If you've been raised on too much opera, the movie keeps you guessing, is it heading towards Tosca or La Boheme? The climax comes right out of Charlie Chaplin and then dumps you right into Verdi with a sweet Hallmark tag at the end.
I suspect this is a movie that most people either love or hate. I'm a bit in the middle. As a musical, this certainly isn't Sound of Music and it isn't even Evita. The closest musical I can compare it to is Bob Fosse's almost-biography All That Jazz which is another movie that viewers either love or hate. I suspect that All That Jazz would be a good barometer for determining if you want to see Moulin Rouge. If you thought All That Jazz was worth watching, then you would probably appreciate Moulin Rouge. If you find that self-referential and critical musicals are overly self-indulgent, then you probably should skip Moulin Rouge.
Music: Of course, the music is anachronistic which becomes a bit of an inside joke. Christian (played by Ewan McGregor) is hailed as a brilliant original modern poet while spouting lines from popular music written two generations after 1900. Of course we recognize them as top ten hits. The Bohemians at the end of their summer of love (1899) find them strikingly new and original.
Most of the musical production numbers are medleys of songs appropriated from popular culture. Madonna, Cole Porter, The Beatles, Nirvana and Sting get pulled out of context and used in weird ways. This is not new. Bing Crosby and Fred Astare managed to recycle more than 20 Irving Berlin songs in Blue Skies. In most of the cases the songs get put through the wringer and come out as completely new compositions. In some places the two songs are mixed into contrasting harmonies and lyrics that actually work well. In other places you end up with a jumbled mish-mash of songs that don't really fit well together and spoil the effect. In other cases the transformations demonstrate a twisted sense of black humor. (Jim Broadbent's and Gary Oldman's dramatic duet of "Like a Virgin" complete with chorus line is worth about half the price of admission.)
Plot: Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled but the plot and the scripting seemed to be one of the weaker parts of this movie. Not only was the music appropriated, but the script in places was appropriated as well. The script alternates between slapstick and tragedy. If you've been raised on too much opera, the movie keeps you guessing, is it heading towards Tosca or La Boheme? The climax comes right out of Charlie Chaplin and then dumps you right into Verdi with a sweet Hallmark tag at the end.
I suspect this is a movie that most people either love or hate. I'm a bit in the middle. As a musical, this certainly isn't Sound of Music and it isn't even Evita. The closest musical I can compare it to is Bob Fosse's almost-biography All That Jazz which is another movie that viewers either love or hate. I suspect that All That Jazz would be a good barometer for determining if you want to see Moulin Rouge. If you thought All That Jazz was worth watching, then you would probably appreciate Moulin Rouge. If you find that self-referential and critical musicals are overly self-indulgent, then you probably should skip Moulin Rouge.
Shrek
(2001)
Just to throw a bit of a political spin on it
25 May 2001
Shrek is probably about as close as we are going to get to a satire of the Mickey Mouse empire without the Disney legal strike team shutting down the movie. In fact, if this film was produced on a smaller budget by an independent we probably wouldn't be watching it.
Shrek strikes an incredible good balance between lowbrow and highbrow humor combining them in ways that are entertaining while still satarizing the over-sweet faery-tale movie cannon that we grew up with. Disney may throw in a few anacrhonistic winks and nods into its animated films (setting a Big Boy in the Andes). Shrek actively subverts the entire genre with twisted references to just about every Disney animated film made, and Disneyland its self.
While this is a very good film, it certainly had some down-points. The primary character and scenic animation is beautiful but the minor characters look and move like "Thunderbirds are Go." In many scenes the minor characters just don't move like human beings. Since most of the best humor in the film is grounded in the visual (and textual) references to other films, I don't expect Shrek to be a classic. Mike Myers slipping in and out of a pesudo-scots accent was slightly irritating.
However, these are minor quibbles. This is one of the few films I'll probably see twice in the theatres.
Shrek strikes an incredible good balance between lowbrow and highbrow humor combining them in ways that are entertaining while still satarizing the over-sweet faery-tale movie cannon that we grew up with. Disney may throw in a few anacrhonistic winks and nods into its animated films (setting a Big Boy in the Andes). Shrek actively subverts the entire genre with twisted references to just about every Disney animated film made, and Disneyland its self.
While this is a very good film, it certainly had some down-points. The primary character and scenic animation is beautiful but the minor characters look and move like "Thunderbirds are Go." In many scenes the minor characters just don't move like human beings. Since most of the best humor in the film is grounded in the visual (and textual) references to other films, I don't expect Shrek to be a classic. Mike Myers slipping in and out of a pesudo-scots accent was slightly irritating.
However, these are minor quibbles. This is one of the few films I'll probably see twice in the theatres.
Flower Drum Song
(1961)
Hollywood tackles Chinese-American culture
22 March 1999
Rogers and Hammerstein seem to return over and over again to musicals about culture and race. In Flower Drum Song, they attempt this using San Francisco's Chinatown.
Young Mi Lei arrives from China with her father to finalize an arranged marriage to nightclub owner Sammy Fong (played by show-stealer, Jack Soo). Sammy, of course, is an all-American guy who prefers his girlfriend. Mi Lei, of course, falls in love with the son of her host, a man who stands in between Chinese and American culture.
The musical numbers are mostly forgettable (with the possible exception of Soo's drawled "Don't marry me") and the resolution predictable and sappy. But hey, it's a musical
Young Mi Lei arrives from China with her father to finalize an arranged marriage to nightclub owner Sammy Fong (played by show-stealer, Jack Soo). Sammy, of course, is an all-American guy who prefers his girlfriend. Mi Lei, of course, falls in love with the son of her host, a man who stands in between Chinese and American culture.
The musical numbers are mostly forgettable (with the possible exception of Soo's drawled "Don't marry me") and the resolution predictable and sappy. But hey, it's a musical
The Night Before
(1988)
Weird prom-night movie
19 March 1999
I think the best reason to see this flick is to see Keanu Reeves in his earliest, and perhaps quirkiest role. Reeves plays a young loser who wakes up in an alley on prom night with no memory, no car, and no date. The rest of the film is a meandering series of misadventures involving pimps, dealers and car thieves.
Put your brain on hold while watching this one.
Put your brain on hold while watching this one.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
(1986)
Suburbia comes to the big city
19 March 1999
It seems that my childhood was filled with a bunch of movies with the same plot: suburban teens come to the big city to find adventure. Of course Hollywood does everything in multiples so this is no surprise. The two other movies I remember with this theme are Adventures in Babysitting and The Night Before (Keanu Reeves in I think the most bizarre prom-night movies ever made.)
Ferris Bueller is perhaps the only one of these three that actually works. The conflicts are engaging, the action shots are funny, and one actually gets a chance to care about the characters. Of course this film is also a big nostalgia kick for me.
Ferris Bueller is perhaps the only one of these three that actually works. The conflicts are engaging, the action shots are funny, and one actually gets a chance to care about the characters. Of course this film is also a big nostalgia kick for me.
Snake Fist Fighter
(1973)
Interesting early Jackie Chan Film
11 March 1999
I think the best reason to watch this film is to see an early example of Jackie Chan's work. I was not very impressed with this film on its own. The plot seemed to be too disoriented and choppy. The quality of the dubbed voices on this film are miserable. There is not much chance to build sympathy for the characters that get killed or hatred for the villain.
Jackie Chan's later style combines traditional martial arts fighting with some of the same beautiful comic style also used by Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin and Gene Kelly. Bits and pieces of this show up in Snake Fist Fighter. The movie is probably worthwhile for Jackie's fans who want to see how much he has developed over the 27 years of acting.
Jackie Chan's later style combines traditional martial arts fighting with some of the same beautiful comic style also used by Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin and Gene Kelly. Bits and pieces of this show up in Snake Fist Fighter. The movie is probably worthwhile for Jackie's fans who want to see how much he has developed over the 27 years of acting.
Tell Your Friends