1984

Terminator Review

October 29, 2016 by JD Hansel

MINOR SPOILER ALERT

Oh, how I love the ’80s. The ’80s developed the styles of particular cult ’70s musicals into a New Expressionism – one that emphasized deep, vivid colors and bright lights flashing through dark, gray cities. This mix of warm grays, cold blues, and hot reds spread across theatrical sets was complimented by over-the-top acting of Lloyd, Fox, Moranis, Curry, and others, bringing a theatrical quality to cinema that had not been seen since the days of German Expressionism. The use of electronic music made everyone feel like the future was just around the corner, but whether that future was exciting or dystopian depended on the movie. There is, of course, a spectrum to ’80s cinema, and much of it was very light and clean and harmless, but the darker end of the spectrum was home to the dark, dystopian action films: Blade Runner, RoboCop, Aliens, Batman, and perhaps the most emblematic of them all, Terminator.

Regrettably, I didn’t love Terminator quite as much as I’d hoped. I liked it just fine, but since I’m not usually a big fan of an action movie for action’s sake, I found it somewhat lacking. Its characters could have been a little bit more interesting, although Schwarzenegger was about as fun to watch as I had expected, and the story could have been a little bit more dramatic or devious. The ending left me a bit unsatisfied because it means that very little was actually accomplished apart from that which was necessitated by the rules of time – all of the events of the film (that take place in the ’80s) are already predestined, and couldn’t have possibly gone any other way. The ending would have been more satisfying if their actions in the ’80s somehow prevented all the horrible robot wars of the future or had caused all of the horrible robot wars, but as it was it felt weak. I don’t really consider this film to be a disappointment, however, because it was exactly what it needed to be – an excursion into fun science fiction with that beautiful ’80s charm.

Romancing the Stone Review

July 27, 2016 by JD Hansel

I’m a little conflicted. This movie is loaded with clichés. I generally don’t like it when a film is very cliché, but this movie is different. First of all, it’s from the early ’80s, so many of these things that seem cliche today may have been totally original at the time. Secondly, the fact that the movie is cliché does not mean it’s boring – it’s actually very exciting.

I’m not a fan of action for action’s sake, but the action in this film works well. I’m very impressed by the way that what would traditionally be considered a “man’s action flick” that makes up one part of the story and the “chick flick” that makes the rest of it are integrated excellently to make a rounded film that anyone can enjoy. It’s a very ’80s movie with a fun adventure, good performances, interesting twists, enjoyable romance, and one heck of a theme song. It’s no surprise that this team-up of director Robert Zemeckis and composer Alan Silvestri soon led to Back to the Future, but let’s not let the magnificence of the BttF franchise overshadow the delightful movie that launched Zemeckis in the beginning.

This Is Spinal Tap Review

June 18, 2015 by JD Hansel

I don’t review documentaries. I just wouldn’t know how. Generally speaking, the world of film production can be split into two career paths: documentary and narrative. The difference is actually pretty big since it is the role of the narrative filmmaker to tell a cohesive narrative story with a plot, whereas the documentary filmmaker has to find an interesting way to document history, which generally includes a story of sorts. Because of this, a documentary can be done in many different ways, and most of them are valid, just as long as the information being conveyed is accurate and/or expressed effectively. To me, that makes a documentary harder to judge. Add this to the fact that the writers have limited control over the story since it’s based on reality, and the fact that a lot of documentaries are made for television (while I only do theatrical releases), and it should be pretty clear why I can’t bring myself to review the docs I watch.

Then there’s This Is Spinal Tap, which is a scripted story with fictional characters, making it more like a narrative, but it’s done in a documentary style. Those in the know refer to this as a mockumentary, although this film calls itself a “rockumentary” because it concerns the lives of members of a hard rock group in the 1980s. There’s actually very little story, and it seems more like a compilation of SNL-like sketches than a real movie, but that’s where the documentary style really helps. When I watch a documentary – especially one that’s largely just following musicians around – I don’t expect plot. I just expect to learn about interesting characters, which is what this film provides.

One of the rules I have for movies is that it should be difficult to watch broken up over a span of days. Ideally, I should hate to pause the movie for a second (if I’m seeing it first viewing). If I wouldn’t mind pausing it to go watch something else, coming back to the film to watch the rest the following week, that’s usually a sign that the story isn’t right. This film, which I felt fine with pausing, can get away with it because it’s simply understood that the story isn’t the point – the only goal is to get laughs. Thankfully, the film meets that goal, although I did not laugh as much as I wanted to. Instead of laughter of various degrees throughout the film, I actually had a few really big laughs during specific, spaced out parts of the film. Most of the times when I was not getting a good laugh felt like filler, but I may have just been missing the parody of other music documentaries at the time. Either way, this mockumentary is a good time, and I highly recommend it to fans of documentaries, rock music history, or comedy in general.