Review: Walt Disney's "TARZAN" is Something Old, Something New, and Sometimes Amazing

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 114 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tarzan (1999)

Running time:  88 minutes ( hour, 28 minutes)

MPAA – G

DIRECTORS:  Chris Buck and Kevin Lima

WRITERS:  Tab Murphy and Bob Tzudiker & Noni White; from a story by numerous writers (based upon the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes)

PRODUCER:  Bonnie Arnold

EDITOR:  Gregory Perler

COMPOSER:  Mark Mancina

SONGS:  Phil Collins

Academy Award winner

ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE/FAMILY

Starring:  (voices) Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Brian Blessed, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knight, Alex D. Linz, Rosie O’Donnell, and Nigel Hawthorne

The subject of this movie review is Tarzan, a 1999 animation fantasy-adventure film and musical directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima.  The film is based on Tarzan of the Apes, the first Tarzan novel written by Tarzan creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Walt Disney’s Tarzan focuses on a man who was raised by gorillas, but who must decide where he really belongs when he discovers that he is a human.

Tarzan, Walt Disney’s animated version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic character Tarzan, was one of the best films of the year 1999.  In fact, it was better than the Academy Award winner for Best Picture that year, American Beauty.  Many film fans and critics point to 1989’s The Little Mermaid as Disney’s return to the kind of high quality animation that made the studio so famous from the later 1930’s to the early 1950’s.  From 1989 to 2004 (when Disney stopped making feature length animated films for theatrical release, for the foreseeable future), Tarzan stands as a high water mark, being one of the best efforts of that second golden age of Disney animation (known as the “Disney Renaissance”).

However, the film isn’t just a great effort in animation, it’s also a great film, period.  Like classic Disney films, there is something for everyone.  The drama, humor, action, and adventure reach across generations to entertain anyone, especially if adults have open minds about opening up to the story of an animated film.

In this version of the classic tale, the gorilla Kala (Glenn Close) rescues an orphaned human after she finds its parents’ murdered bodies.  She names him Tarzan (Alex D. Linz) and takes him as her own because she is left childless after a leopard killed her infant.  Years later, the adult Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn) discovers he is human when he falls in love with Jane Porter (Minnie Driver), who comes to Tarzan’s jungle home with her father, Professor Porter (Nigel Hawthorne).  His love for Jane forces Tarzan to decide where he belongs when he has to choose between staying with his gorilla family or following Jane back to England.

Unlike many Disney animated films, Tarzan is thoroughly a boys’ action/adventure tale filled as it is with jungle chases over trees and through dense foliage and with combat fought to the death.  He is a boy’s man, having fun all day, surfing by his feet over thick and long tree branches, and he’s a whirling dervish of flips, twists, spins, leaps, dives, etc.  The film is, however, also quite poignant in its drama, particularly in the romance between Tarzan and Jane and in the relationship between Tarzan and his mother, Kala.

What would a Disney cartoon be without laughter and songs?  There is plenty of humor, some of it surprisingly provided by Rosie O’Donnell as Tarzan’s gorilla playmate, Terk (performed when she was still the “Queen of Nice.”).  The musical score is also very good, soaring and emotional.  However, it is Phil Collins’ song score that really makes the film, and Collins finally won his long sought after “Best Music, Original Song” Oscar® for a track entitled, “You’ll Be in My Heart.”

9 of 10

A+

NOTES:

2000 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Music, Original Song” (Phil Collins for the song “You'll Be In My Heart”)

2000 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Phil Collins for the song “You'll Be In My Heart”)

Updated:  Saturday, August 02, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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Oscar-Winning Visual Effects Artists Launch Kickstarter Campaign

Image copyright © 20013 Studio ADI

Academy Award-Winning Team Attempts to Resurrect Lost Art of Classic Horror Film Through Launching Kickstarter Campaign

In the spirit of classic films such as Alien and The Thing, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. aspire to bring “Harbinger Down” to the silver screen with the help of fan support for their independent project

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Academy Award-winning Visual Effects artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., co-founders of Studio ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.) have launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring their science fiction/horror film celebrating animatronics and makeup FX, “Harbinger Down,” to the silver screen. Gillis and Woodruff hope fans are excited to help not only make a new horror classic, but also to uplift an art form. The filmmakers’ goal is to raise $350,000 from fan support via the Kickstarter campaign by June 7, 2013 to get the project off the ground.

Harbinger Down, set to star notable sci-fi and horror film actor Lance Henriksen, depicts a group of grad students who have booked passage on the fishing trawler Harbinger to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Orcas in the Bering Sea. When the ship's crew dredges up a recently thawed piece of old Soviet space wreckage, things quickly become deadly. It seems that the Russians experimented with tardigrades, tiny resilient animals able to withstand the extremes of space radiation. The creatures survived, but not without mutation. Now the crew is exposed to aggressively mutating organisms. After being locked in ice for three decades, the creatures aren't about to give up the warmth of human companionship.

“Animatronics and Makeup FX have been utilized less frequently in recent films, but this is not because of audience disinterest,” announced Gillis, who will write and direct the film. “In the spirit of sci-fi/horror classics, Alien and The Thing, Harbinger Down is a tense, claustrophobic full-length creature film that will feature only practical Animatronics and Makeup Effects. Fans of the art of Animatronics and Makeup FX know this technique is currently overlooked by the big studios; I'm hoping the fans will help us remedy that by supporting this labor of love.”

“Our company, Amalgamated Dynamics, will create the kind of Oscar caliber Creature Effects for which we are known,” commented Woodruff, who will produce, along with Studio ADI’s Jennifer Tung. “Traditional techniques still have a place in modern genre films. We didn’t give up painting, when cameras were invented.”

Gillis and Woodruff have over 60 years of experience between them and have worked with many top filmmakers, including James Cameron, David Fincher, Paul Verhoeven, Ridley Scott, Neill Blomkamp, Robert Zemeckis, Joe Johnston, Nora Ephron and Mike Nichols just to name a few. The filmmakers are utilizing Kickstarter to ask supporters of “old-school” visual effects to give them the opportunity to show it.

Contributors to the Harbinger Down Kickstarter Campaign will receive unique, amazing, thrilling, one-of-a-kind incentives for supporting the project. More details about the project can be found on the Harbinger Down Kickstarter website: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film


About Studio ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.)
Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. was founded by Academy Award winning creators of special characters and character effects artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. Calling upon a diverse range of talents and techniques, Studio ADI creates prosthetic make-ups, animatronic puppets, actor duplicates and replica animals. With over twenty years of professional experience, we bring “real” character effects to the set to interact with the actors, lighting and practical atmosphere. We pride ourselves on working with the industry’s leading Computer-generated imagery (CGI) companies to find the right balance of digital and practical effects. For more information and a resume of work on past productions, visit the Studio ADI website: http://www.studioadi.com/ or, the Studio ADI YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/studioADI

Review: "The Terminator" is Still a Bad Ass (Happy B'day, Arnold Schwarzenegger)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 3 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Terminator (1984)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: James Cameron
WRITERS: Gale Ann Hurd and James Cameron, with William Wisher
PRODUCER: Gale Anne Hurd
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Adam Greenberg (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Mark Goldblatt
COMPOSER: Brad Fiedel

SCI-FI/FANTASY/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton

The subject of this movie review is The Terminator, a 1984 science fiction and action film from director James Cameron. Essentially an independent film, The Terminator was not expected to be a success. Not only was the film a commercial and critical hit, but it also spawned three sequels, a television series, and other spin-offs, including several comic book series. Of note, author Harlan Ellison received a screen credit on later releases of the film to acknowledge his work as a source for the film.

In the future, an artificial intelligence named Skynet, a kind of super computer, rules the planet and wages a total war on the small bands of human who survived Skynet’s initial genocidal campaign against mankind. When the human resistance reaches a point that it has defeated Skynet, it sends the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to kill the Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the woman who would one day give birth to John Connor, the leader of the successful human resistance. One of John Connor’s most trusted fighters, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) volunteers to follow the Terminator into the past to save Sarah, the woman Reese has secretly loved since the day he first saw an aged photo of her.

Directed by James Cameron, The Terminator was one of the last low budget science fiction movies to have a measurable impact on filmmaking. Short on funds, Cameron relied on story and well executed action sequences to keep the viewer on the edge of his seat. It is a far cry from the bloated SFX extravagances that Cameron would go on to shoot.

Cameron reveals just enough of the bleak, burnt out future to simultaneously whet our appetites and to then leave us begging for more. He aims the camera close in to the actors and uses quick cut editing to heighten the sense of drama and tension. Layers of shots from several angles strengthen the dramatic impact of the story; you simply can’t ignore this film. It is a simple story – a man has to save the woman he loves from a relentless killer. However, Cameron uses his directorial prowess to up the ante when it comes to the chase; the pursuit is one long, unrelenting, bloody hunt.

In one scene in particular, the Terminator arises like a broken phoenix from its funeral pyre, still alive and still following its program. Before the magic of computer generated imagery (CGI), this scene had to be shot in stop motion glory. An evil leer made of silver metal teeth spread across its face, the machine marches on to terminate its target. These few moments of filmmaking reveal the savvy of mind that can create his vision despites restraints of budget or technology. Cameron was good a long time before CGI.

The Terminator was a career defining and career changing moment for Schwarzenegger. The machine he portrays isn’t simply a cold efficient killer. It’s part specter and part machine – magic and science. His portrayal combines the coldest sci-fi villain with the scariest horror movie monster – Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Michael Myers from Halloween. As he storms through Los Angeles looking for his target, he examines his environment with the cool detachment of scientific device and stalks Kyle and Sarah with the hell born determination of masked slasher.

Biehn and Ms. Hamilton are very good in their parts. Reese is the consummate soldier, a sinewy runt, his body marked with gross scars. He has the single-minded determination to follow his commander’s orders and to successfully conclude his mission even at the cost of his life. Ms. Hamilton’s Sarah Connor is a dumped on young woman, whose comeliness hides behind a façade of homeliness and humility. The real woman in her waits the day when she can emerge fully formed and ready to throw off her waitress’s apron and kick butt.

Largely forgotten in the age of computer-enhanced movies, The Terminator remains as visceral, as funny, as exciting, and as poignant today as it was then. By no means perfect, it was more entertaining movie magic than thoughtful movie making. However, one cannot deny how effectively this movie delivers the thrills. Think of it as a B-movie made by an intelligent filmmaker steeped in the slums of maligned genres like horror, science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. This is the groundbreaking work of art that came from that ghetto.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2008 National Film Preservation Board, USA: “National Film Registry”

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Review: Wes Craven Makes "Scream 3" Worth the Repetition

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 52 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Scream 3 (2000)
Running time: 116 minutes (1 hour, 56 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong horror violence and language
DIRECTOR: Wes Craven
WRITER: Ehren Kruger (based upon characters created by Kevin Williamson)
PRODUCERS: Cathy Konrad, Marianne Maddalena, and Kevin Williamson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Peter Deming
EDITOR: Patrick Lussier
COMPOSER: Marco Beltrami

HORROR/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Patrick Dempsey, Parker Posey, Scott Foley, Deon Richmond, Emily Mortimer, Lance Henriksen, Jenny McCarthy, Matt Keeslar, Patrick Warburton, Liev Schreiber, Kelly Rutherford, and Jamie Kennedy

When a series of murders are tied to Stab 3, a movie about the tragic events in her life, the most famous survivor of the Woodsboro massacre, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), leaves her secluded residence in Northern California to visit Stab 3’s Hollywood film set. Of course, the remaining survivors of Woodsboro and of the other Woodsboro-related murders – hot tabloid TV reporter, Gail Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Woodsboro deputy, Dwight “Dewey” Riley (David Arquette), are also on the scene. But they all soon learn that in the third film of a trilogy, all the rules are thrown out the window. The killer could be anyone, and even heroes can die.

Scream 3 is supposedly the closing chapter of the Scream franchise, and it’s a pretty good send off. Ehren Kruger’s script is certainly in the heart and vein of Scream creator Kevin Williamson’s scripts for the first two films. Kruger ably captures the self-referential, meta-lite atmosphere of the earlier films, and Kruger’s is less a satire or homage to horror flicks and more itself a good horror movie.

The cast is good, and the actors really understand their parts. The players who are supposed to be campy murder victims play their parts with relish, while the leads are intense and skillful. But the true hero of Scream 3, as he was for the first two, is horrormeister Wes Craven, who may be the most successful director of horror films in the history of movie making. He’s also skillful and adept at making even the rough spots in this move work, because he helms slasher flicks with the verve of an auteur making art films.

Scream 3 is not great, but it’s scary and funny and hard to stop watching. It’s clever and witty, both in its smart moments and in its lesser scenes. Though it seems to fall apart in some scenes of its last act, the film is worth viewing for its many genuinely creepy moments that keep you on the edge of your seat.

6 of 10
B

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"Alien vs. Predator" Always Fun to Watch

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 152 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux


AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for violence, language, horror images, slime and gore
DIRECTOR: Paul W.S. Anderson
WRITERS: Paul W.S. Anderson; from a screen story by Paul W.S. Anderson, Dan O’Bannon, and Ronald Shusett (based upon the Alien character created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett and the Predator character created by Jim Thomas and John Thomas)
PRODUCERS: Gordon Carroll, John Davis, David Giler, and Walter Hill
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David Johnson
EDITORS: Alexander Berner

SCI-FI/ACTION/HORROR/THRILLER with elements of mystery

Starring: Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen, Ewen Bremner, Colin Salmon, Tommy Flanagan, Joseph Rye, and Agathe De La Boulaye

For those who have at least a vague idea of what’s going on, AVP: Alien vs. Predator is a dumb, mildly entertaining picture with some genuinely thrilling, scary, and heart-stopping moments. During an archeological expedition in Antarctica, a team scientists and archeologists discover an ancient pyramid beneath the ice and a deadly trap. The team, led by Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), a top expedition and field guide, find themselves caught in the middle of a small war between two legendary movie monsters, the Aliens and the Predators. Only one species will survive, and the numbers don’t look good for the humans.

Alien vs. Predator is a movie-fan movie the way Freddie vs. Jason was a movie for fans of movies. You kinda had to know what’s up with Freddie and Jason to really enjoy that flick (or to at least have a chance of liking the film); thus it is with AVP. Those who have seen the four films of the Alien franchise and the two films in the Predator franchise will best know what’s going on in this story. If not, you may have some trouble, as some of the teenagers who made up most of the audience where I saw this movie. Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s script assumes the viewer is familiar with both the Alien and Predator films, or with the various Alien vs. Predator comic books that Dark Horse Comics has been publishing since 1990 or the AVP video games.

Is this a great film? No. Could it have been a great film? Probably not. Anderson makes a film that lies flat; even when his screenplay has the characters digging through the mysterious circumstances they keep finding themselves in, the story seems to lack an extra dose of oomph. In the end, it is an adequate sci-fi monster thriller. Although the film doesn’t overly rely on CGI, the SFX are actually quite good and for the most part seamlessly blend with the live action.

Even though it’s a simple-minded popcorn movie merely meant to generate cash for a huge, multi-national media corporation, AVP is still a popcorn movie that registers nicely on the interest scale. It’s one of those bump-in-the-dark movies that you can watch over and over again. You don’t have to think, just sit there and wait for the monster to come running out of the shadows, or at least just sit there and laugh at the holes in the plot because this movie often ignores its own internal logic. If you liked the original films that inspired this, you’ve probably been waiting years for the next installment of these franchises (even longer in the case of Predator), and you’ll take anything you can get. AVP is better than the last two Alien films and it’s way better than Predator 2. Call this one a home video monster flick classic.

6 of 10
B

Review: "Near Dark" is a Unique Vampire Flick

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 66 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Near Dark (1987)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow
WRITERS: Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red
PRODUCER: Steven-Charles Jaffe
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Adam Greenberg
EDITOR: Howard E. Smith

HORROR

Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, Tim Thomerson, Joshua John Miller, and Marcie Leeds

Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar), an innocent Texas country boy encounters a mysterious beautiful girl named Mae (Jenny Wright) one dark summer night. A night of kissing and necking turns weird when Mae bites Caleb. When the first rays of morning arrive, Caleb discovers that the sunlight burns his skin. Before long, the girl returns with her “family,” a band of outlaws, and kidnaps Caleb, but these aren’t just any outlaws. They’re a vicious pack of vampire drifters, and Mae has seduced Caleb into their hellish lowlife of murderous mayhem and ceaseless evil. Led by a soulless murder named Jessie Hooker (Lance Henriksen), who claims to have fought in the Civil War, these killers sate their bloodlust in the most brutal fashion. Now, Caleb’s father, Loy (Tim Thomerson), and young sister, Sarah (Marcie Leeds), travel across the dusty heart of the American southwest looking for him, but will his new “family” let him leave.

The bankruptcy of its distributor assured that Near Dark would flop at the box office. However, its subsequent release on VHS introduced many to what remains one of the most original vampires movies. Director/co-writer Kathryn Bigelow and co-writer Eric Red originally conceived this film as a Western, and it also retains some of that flavor. There aren’t any great performances, although Bill Paxton brings an air of fun to this gruesome narrative as the gleeful killer, Severen.

What is memorable is Near Dark’s gritty realism, jagged pace, its thick layered nights, the raw gun violence, and how Bigelow makes the sun seem so darn terrifying every time it comes roaring back to dispel the inky blackness of night. Although the film never uses the word “vampire,” Near Dark stands as a unique treatment of the vampire story. Those final images of Jesse and his down-and-dirty lover, Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), burning in their funeral pyre are fine art.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, April 22, 2007

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