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I like movies.
I see a lot of them in the theatre. Going to the movies is better than seeing them at home. This summer has been disappointing, though. Not that last summer was any better. In 1996, I actually paid to see "The Rock", "Mission Impossible", and "Twister" among other stinkers. At least I saw "Trainspotting" last year.
"Lone Star" was also wonderful, and made "A Time To Kill" pale in comparison.
Likewise, this year I can feel good about seeing "Men In Black". There are only so many mindless action movies I can handle, and "Face/Off" fit into that niche nicely. Jackie Chan also entertained me this summer, which is a strong slap to Hollywood considering "Operation Condor" was made six years ago. In the first five minutes of the movie, Jackie Chan gets to be Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Inspector Clouseau. Now that's entertainment.
"The Fifth Element" looked to be good eye candy, and after a fair endorsement from Tim Teramoto (who used to work at Sony Image Works and should know good eye candy) I went to see it. The movie offered more than that, including witty references to its stars, tributes to sci-fi classics, and a few barbs at others. It is a shame that the stylistic gem was pushed away by other movies with more hype, but far less luster, like "Speed 2".
Recently I saw "Copland". I know Stallone can act, because Rocky is a good movie. Most people might remember that, too, if Sly had not turned the character into a joke by doing sequel after pitiful sequel. Fighting professional wrestler "Thunder Lips", played by Hulk Hogan, in Rocky III alone would have done it. But he pounded Rocky worse than any onscreen villian with two more terrible movies. The next time some agent wants to dust off an action hero for a quick sequel, someone should point out that Stallone had to appear in one movie with DeNiro, Keitel, and Liotta to make up for seperate movies with Mr.T, Dolph Lundgren, and Tommy Morrison.
So while I was glad that Stallone got a chance at a worthwhile project, I could not be surprised by his acting ability. Nor overly impressed. After all, Al Pacino did a much better job as a shuffling down-on-his-luck figure in "Donnie Brasco" earlier this year. In my opinion, it was more a relief to see Pacino act without screaming than Stallone. When Stallone yells, "Throw down your weapons and prepare to be judged", I laugh. When Pacino grabs a nightclub table with both hands and shrieks "Gimme all you got", I feel embarrassed for the guy. He's better than that.
Aside from the ones I mentioned, I saw nothing. A dedicated movie goer, I averaged one trip per month during the industry's busiest period. I was not interested in any of the carbon copy romantic comedies out there. "Spawn" and "Event Horizon" may have great effects, but the producers should have spent more effort in writing scripts rather than designing sets and costumes. I like Mira Sorvino, but she makes as believable a scientist as Keanu Reeves does, so I can skip "Mimic". Jodie Foster seems more suited for the role, but I've read the book, "Contact", and I'd rather keep my own ideas about how it should look.
Which brings me to my real summer outrage. Hollywood killed a good book this year. Not "Contact". From what I hear, the production stayed close to the book. I would not know, really, and I already mentioned that.
I do not mean that the movie deviates slightly, either. For some people that does ruin everything. As I said at the start of this ramble, I liked "Trainspotting", which was adapted from Irvine Welsh's book of the same title. Not everyone appreciated the adaptation. So be it. I understand that some characters, some themes, get sacrificed to the whims of the marketing people. That doesn't upset me; it confirms I have better taste than marketing people.
The movie I'm talking about is "Starship Troopers". Greg Carter mentioned the existence of the book after we saw the trailer this summer. So I picked it up for the beach. I read it and loved it. Which made it a great disappointment to learn that the movie only superficially resembles the book.
It would be too much to expect that Heinlein's political and social musings remain in a sci-fi action production. But at the very least one would expect that the filmmakers keep the sci-fi action around.
A main feature of the book is the power suits used by the troopers of the title. The suits allow the so-called mobile infantry to act as individual machines of destruction. Drop ships eject capsules holding the troopers in their suits, the troopers peform much mayhem, another ship retreives them later. Sounds perfect for a movie, right?
Enough for another movie to have already appropriated the idea. Remember the drop sequence and recover plan for the marines in "Aliens"? So did the producers of "Starship Troopers". They did not want to risk copying previous work. They thought the story had original elements, and they would focus on that.
In one sense, it is wonderful that the film makers did not want to rehash ideas. But that book is the original source of the ideas. Imagine if some studio made "Sodom and Gomorrah", and decided to leave out the destruction by lava because "Dante's Peak" and "Congo" already used volcanic eruptions.
Besides, "Aliens" took a small piece of Heinlein's pie. The power suits are still up for grabs.
Instead, they settled on keeping the tough drill instructor, to be played by Michael Ironside, and the army of alien bugs that the troopers must face. Good to see that the producers wanted to keep things original. I'm willing to bet the suits were just too expensive to do on film.
The irony is, I'll probably see it in November anyway. During the beach Ultimate tournament in Wildwood, I learned one of my teammates worked on the movie. He is an animator for Tippett and is responsible for exploding bug heads, among other things. Come Thanksgiving weekend, I will sit and enjoy Eric Levin's handiwork (mousework?) and hang around to see his name in the credits. Just as I did for movies that Tim Teramoto worked on in post-production.
Maybe that is Hollywood's new strategy. Get huge teams to work on movies so that everyone in the nation knows someone involved. Leverage those six degrees of seperation. It works for me, anyway.
But, hey, I like seeing movies.
Last Updated: 26 August 1997
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