These are not necessarily all my favorite films nor would I say that I even consider all the films on this list to be some of my favorites, this is simply a list of films that will stay with me forever.
It should also be noted that I have tried to get a link to the original trailer for each one of these films, so enjoy those as well.
Jurassic Park
Not Spielberg’s best film technically, I’ll admit that. However I have vivid memories of watching ‘Jurassic Park’ at a very young age and thinking “I want to make movies”. I credit this film for getting me interested in making films and becoming a lifelong Spielberg fan.
Citizen Kane
The story’s a bit dated, and there are some moments I finch at just how dated it is however from a technical standpoint ‘Citizen Kane’ is one of the greatest if not the greatest films of all time. If your looking for story over style then I’d say by all means rent ‘Casablanca’ but ‘Citizen Kane’ will forever be stuck in my head as a technical masterpeace. Orson Wells did so much with a camera and effects that had never been done before he’s should almost be credited as more of an inventor then a director.
Psycho
I watch a lot of films, a lot, this includes horror films and to be quite honest ‘Psycho’ is one of only a handful that actually gave me chills. It’s a masterpiece of film making and story telling and Anthony Perkins delivers one of the greatest performances of all time.
No Country For Old Men
This film will always stand out in my mind for it’s stark imagery and contrast of the beautifully cinematic Texas countryside and the brutal violence and bloodshed that splashes across the screen. The Cohen Brothers delivered a slow and meaningfully paced thriller keeping the frame wide, the camera locked down in true Roger Deakins fashion. Incredible performances from the large ensemble as well as a great original story by Cormac McCarthy also help.
The Sixth Sense
I leave a good film talking about it, I leave a great film wanting to go back and see it again the same night. Such was my experience with ‘The Sixth Sense’, the story is strong and the characters are compelling enough so that the film does not fall into the trap of just being one long set up for a 5 minute payoff at the end. I found this problem with a few of M. Night Shyamalan’s other films as well as ‘Matchstick Men’. The Sixth Sense has a killer ending that blows the viewer away the first time but it’s not all about the ending, the film is strong enough to carry it’s own on repeat viewings.
Back To The Future
Genius, absolute genius. Time travel has proven to be one of the hardest plot devices to pull off but Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale seem to have pulled it off as near perfect as any master peace. Of all the films on this list ‘Back to the Future’ (along with it’s inferior but still enjoyable sequels) is probably my most discussed. I have had endless debits about the implications of time travel whiten the reality of this film. Along with ‘Jurassic Park’ this is one of a few films I try to watch at least once a year if not more.
Saving Private Ryan
Truthfully when I think of this film I don’t even think about the beach scene, sure it’s graphic and incredibly violent but in the context of the film it’s not just violence for the sake of violence. There are a few scenes I will never forget; when a member of Waffen SS stabs a certain US soldier (name withed for spoilers) that scene is both brutal and tragic, one of a few times I have been almost moved to tears in a film. Another one of my favorite scenes is when the men are camped out in an abandoned church (I believe it’s a church) and there talking about their families back home one of the soldiers tells a story about his mother which is one of the most moving scenes I have ever watched. “Saving Private Ryan” is a master peace by every definition but be warned if you have not seen it: it is one the most realistically gory and violent films ever made.
Minority Report
Another film I have spent literally days of my life thinking about, the ethics of the DC pre-crime unit forcing one to ask the question “Is it right to arrest someone for a crime they will most likely commit even if they have not done so yet? And what if the system you trust turns on you? What if you are told you will kill someone you have never met in less then two days? These question make ‘Minority Report’ a great ethical debate, however it’s also a technical master peace as well. Janusz Kaminski’s brilliant use of light to create a modern sci-fi neo-noir. The bleach bypass of the film makes for beautiful almost black and white color. If I ever made a film half as thoughtful or half as beautiful as ‘Minority Report’ I’d be happy.
A Beautiful Mind
Perhaps it was because I did not know the story of John Nash or anything about the film when I first watched it, but I was absolutely riveted from start to finish. Great performances and amazing direction by Ron Howard (a director who in my opinion is severely underrated).
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
One could argue that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ was the last great western. Sergio Leone’s dollars trilogy had already come, and John Ford’s far less gritty westerns were long dead. The story of ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ could almost be a metaphor for the dying western genre (if somebody could make a decent PG-13 western today I guarantee it would easily top $100 million domestically). It’s a fun and rowdy film that I consider to be something of a technical master peace as well.
Once Upon a Time in The West
If I had to pick what I would consider to be the ‘coolest’ film on my list it might be this one. Praised and remembered for a man with no name in a dollars trilogy people tend to over look this Sergio Leone gem. Amazing performances from Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, and the gorgeous Claudia Cardinale, shot with all the extreme close ups, huge wide shots and awesome gun slinging action that made the dollars trilogy epic.
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
It’s an argument near as old as the chicken and the egg: Eastwood or Wayne, I’ll weigh in for Eastwood 100% all the way. Clint Eastwood is the toughest cowboy to ever don spurs. The iconic images, wide barren landscapes, extreme closeups on the eyes and trigger fingers, and the awesome final showdown in the grave yard have made ‘The Good the Bad and The Ugly’ you don’t need me to explain it, just listen to Ennio Morricone’s score.
Pan’s Labyrinth
Striking, terrifying, beautiful, violent and awesome. ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ is quite the trip, blurring the lines between this world and several others, it’s a dark and twisted fairy tale with beautiful sets, props, lighting, and costumes. This film is worthy of being hung on a wall in an art museum.
The Incredibles
In my mind Pixar is the best animation house currently in existence, and yes, it gives Disney in the 30’s and 40’s a run for it’s money. Pixar makes films with a formula but it’s not the same formula that say Warner Brothers uses to make summer blockbusters. It’s a formula of collaboration and perfecting a story before they ever begin working on the film, it’s a formula of what John Lassiter calls ’sanding the underside of the drawers’. The dedication to art and story ensures that everything that comes out of Pixar Animation will be an enjoyable and heart warming film that will enthrall young and old alike without stooping to cheep humor. There all good films, but ‘The Incredibles’ is one of my favorites.
Key Largo
Often overlooked in the Humphrey Bogart, I’m not sure why I like this film so much more then say ‘The Maltese Falcon’ but I do. I like the claustrophobia that’s created by the hurricane outside the resort, I like the tropical setting and the idea of a vacation gone horribly awry.
Some Like It Hot
Hilarious, one of the funniest films of all time even if it is a bit dated in terms of content. The first time I watched I was even a bit surprised at what Billy Wilder and the writers were able to get away with in terms of content (lets just say the censors had larger snippers back then, heck back then censors still had snippers). Content aside, this is a hilarious comedy/gangster/musical.
Infernal Affairs
Ever hear of ‘The Departed’ Martin Scorsese’s Oscar winning 2006 film? It’s actually an English remake of a 2002 film from Hong Kong, the film; ‘Infernal Affairs’. I’ll admit I’ve never seen ‘The Departed’ so that in no way colors my review. ‘Infernal Affairs’ is a master peace of cinema and an classic cat and mouse thriller. Thoughtful and action packed.
The Prestige
With ‘Memento’, ‘Batman Begins’, ‘The Dark Knight’ Christopher Nolan has proved himself to be one of the greatest living directors who’s capable of artistic integrity as well as delivering a commercially successful film. Of all his films I think ‘The Prestige’ is my favorite. It’s on that list of films I try to see at least once a year.
Slumdog Millionaire
As Danny Boyle will tell you; when you shoot in India you can’t work the same way as you would in the States, Canada or England. You have to adapt to an ever changing environment. You can’t close a street, so you have to shoot with people on it, a crew members brother will show up one day, it’s absolute chaos. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ embraces this. The Si 2k made for a very light and portable cameras in the tight environment which allowed Boyle to shoot fast and dirty this comes across in the frenzied pace of the film. Technical aspects aside, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a brilliant, thoughtful and ultimately heart warming story.
All The Presidents Men
I had something of a toss up between this, ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘The Insider’ but ultimately I chose ‘All the Presidents Men’ because it paved the way for the other two as well as dozens of conspiracy thrillers. The true story of the two young reporters who unraveled the Watergate Scandal. The tension builds slowly as the two reporters become and more and more paranoid reacting to the real threats all around them and they dig deeper and deeper.
I know it’s technically 12 days until summer however that’s never stopped me before. The past week and a half I have been a busy bee editing Mythical Beast Films summer project called ‘Moose The Bounty Hunter’. We shot it in Princeton at the end of May and after a fairly intense week of editing, mixing and color correction we are ready to show it to the world.
If you like it please go to Youtube and give it a like or even perhaps subscribe to the MBF channel.
Thanks for watching. Keep an eye out as I may be posting an outtakes reel soon.
Just over two weeks ago I worked with What We See is What You Get operating a second camera at a Gaslight Anthem concert. The footage is going on their website as well as The Waster’s. Using just my footage (and none of the audio they recorded) I cut together a six minute video of the interview with two of the guys from Gaslight beforehand as well as the concert.
Check it out then tell me what you think.
(Apologies for the aspect ratio Vimeo sort of butchered the 16X9).
‘Up in the Air’ is a very hard film to explain. Something about a guy who goes around collecting frequent flyer miles and has no personal relationships. In writing this review I was hoping to shed some new light on the plot that would make readers jump into theaters on November 25th however I can’t really. The fact is ‘Up in the Air’ just very hard to summarize (well summarize and make it sound cool) without spoiling most of the movie. Just know that I liked this movie.
George Clooney is Ryan Bingham a corporate downsizing expert who travels the country doing a job some employers are too afraid to do: downsize. Sometimes employees cry, other times they use a string of colorful but not to original words, and occasionally they turn violent. These are a few reasons a company might hire a consultant like Ryan Bigham to do their dirty work. This job allows Bingham to remain in motion at all times making very few personal connections. In a hotel bar Bingham meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), he takes her to his room and then they part ways agreeing to meet again should their layovers ever cross ways. Bingham goes back to his corporate office for an important meeting, his boss Craig (Jason Bateman) informs him that the new hotshot Natalie (Anna Kendrick) has come up with a way to lay people off over the internet essentially making him obsolete. This greatly jeopardizes Bingham’s constant on the move lifestyle and his goal of obtaining ten million frequent flyer miles.
The film is not really about a guy trying to get ten million frequent flyer miles, it’s about the way different types of people interact with each other. Their are about six ‘main’ characters and each approach life and relationships in a very different way. So that’s really what ‘Up in the Air’ is a character study of six people, each trying to be happy and looking in different places.
‘Up in the Air’ is a well crafted character expose. The photography is not flashy but their are a lot of interesting visuals, as well as a brilliant title sequence by Shadow Play Studios (they also did ‘Thank you for Smoking’ and ‘Juno’).
My decision to see ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ was pretty last minuet, I just got up at seven on Saturday morning and looked for tickets, I made the right decision; purchasing a ticket for ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’. It was one of my favorite films from the festival.
‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ is a documentary about about the revitalization of Disney animation from 1984-1994. It chronicles a fascinating power struggle between Disney CEO Michael Eisner, Nephew of Walt, Roy Disney and head of animation Jeffery Katzenberg. From the lowest point in Disney history, in the early eighties when the animation department was moved out of the original building that Walt built to a run down off site location, most of the animators felt they would all loose there jobs by the end of the week. It was even suggested that Disney get out ofthe motion picture business! This dismal state of affairs is how ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ begins and it carries us right through to one of the many high points in Disney history: ‘Beauty and the Beast’ had just been released and ‘The Lion King’ was going into production.
‘The Lion King’ producer Don Hahn directed ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’ and did a very good job at showing a non biased look at the craziness of the Disney Animation world from 1984-1994.
I loved some of the very candid moments in the film, we see a young Tim Burton (he hasn’t changed much), we hear the voice of a young John Lasseter. We are shown first hand the antics of a group of pent up, prodominatally male twenty something year olds. It’s a lot of fun and very informative.
Ricky Gervais is funny, his humor is often dark and cynical. So it’s safe to assume that anything he co-writes, co-directs and stars in will be fairly funny, cynical and dark. In ‘The Invention of Lying’ Ricky Gervais pulls punches to keep it PG-13, this is not ‘Extras’ or ‘Fame’, so not as dark as you may expect.
The film takes place in a reality much like ours, the only difference is that lying is totally and completely unknown. There are no lies, no flattery, no fiction. Advertisements always tell the truth “Pepsi: What you get when they don’t have Coke”, films are nothing but famous people reading historically accurate screenplays. Gervais plays Mark Bellison a failing screenwriter (stuck with the unlucky thirteen-hundreds), who has landed a date with his longtime crush Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner). At the door Anna makes it known how she feels about dating a ‘little fat man with a snub nose’. Mark feels bad about this but it’s not Anna’s fault nobody knows how to say anything but the painful truth.
The film progresses with several hilariously painful truths told by all the characters. Just as the idea that everybody can’t lie begins to become a dead horse, Mark discovers that he can in fact say something that’s not true. Of course everybody believes him so as he begins to come up with more and more stories his career as a screen writer begins to soar and so does the media attention given to him.
It’s an entertaining film a more dark and cynical then your average romantic comedy and much, much more funny.
There is a large cast of supporting actors including Jeffrey Tambor, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Louis C.K. and Rob Lowe. There is also a disgusting amount of hilarious cameos, however I won’t name drop as that would spoil the fun.
‘The Invention of Lying’ hits theaters on October 2nd.
Fans of Matt Damon should like of Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Informant!’ he’s a bit more doughy then usual and he rocks an odd little mustache but he’s what carries this humorous take on Mark Whitacre and the lysine price-fixing conspiracy.
The film is based on true events. I did not read the book and I don’t know much about the incident so I can’t say how well the film stuck to what really happened. But I will say the film tells the story in a way that is very believable.
Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is climbing the ladder at ADM and earning a boat load of money. Mark Whitacre also has has a problem, the lysine his company is supposed to produce is being destroyed by some mysterious bacteria. Whitacre’s been speaking to a shady Japanese business man for a while and it’s he who tells Whitacre that ADM has a mole and that he will reveal the identity of said mole and also provide a solution to the lysine bacteria if ADM will deposit millions into his off shore bank account. As any good employee would Whitacre tells his boss who intern tells the FBI. As the FBI is putting a trace on his phone Mark decides to come clean (sort of), at the insistence of his wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey). He tells the agent that there is actually a price-fixing conspiracy going on at ADM. The FBI opens an investigation of ADM which thorough the film grows more and more complex due to Whitacre’s habit of omitting certain aspects of the truth.
I liked this film, it was very funny. As stated before, it’s totally a Matt Damon vehicle, he’s in almost ever scene and all the laughs either come from his lines or from his character’s actions. Laughs are plentiful as are plot twists but it’s slower then what I was expecting. In a way it almost felt as if I was watching a very interesting and fact filled documentary about Mark Whitacre and the lysine price-fixing conspiracy. I mean that as a complement.
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Informant!’ it made me laugh out loud several times and I really got to know Mark Whitacre but as for the other characters I think if I had gotten to know them better it would have made Mark Whitacre’s story even more engaging.
‘The Informant!’ hits theaters this Friday and it also stars Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Clancy Brown and Tony Hale
In today’s installment of ‘If I was head of a network’ I will take the seat of a cable network executive and choose four shows from the past decade that I would have made a bid for once they got the axe on broadcast.
With the exception of ‘Alias’ none of these shows ran for over three seasons and if you ask me a good chunk of the blame can be placed on the network.
So lets say I am the head of ‘The TF’ a channel that comes with your basic cable. (To spice it up we also have a deal with Hulu). These are my picks (arranged from, ‘I would jump in front of a train to get this show on my network’ to ‘I would like to have had a few more seasons but if not, it ended well as is’).
1) It would be hard to have a list of great shows canceled to soon and not have ‘Arrested Development’ on it. If you have never seen ‘Arrested’ stop reading this garbage, run to your local video store and rent all three seasons. It may take a three or four episodes to warm to however after that you’ll be hooked on what was, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, the funniest show to ever hit airwaves. I don’t want to judge but from what I can tell, the network messed this show up, throwing it in all sorts of crazy time slots, even airing an episode during an opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics! Creator Mitchell Hurwitz said he felt he had taken the show just about as far as he felt he could, however I still would have made a lucrative bid to bring ‘Arrested Development’ to my cable network.
2) I guess the only way to describe what happened here was that ‘television was just not ready for Pushing Daisies’ seriously. This show from Brian Fuller (who left ‘Heroes’ for it), is amazing, it’s dark but upbeat, morbid but happy, and very, very colorful. A man who can touch dead people, bring them back to life just long enough to find out who killed them and collect the reward. When I think of this show one word springs to mind, ‘delightful’, it actually makes me happy watching it it’s TV’s anti-depressant.
3) From Joss Whedon creator of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ came ‘Firefly’, canceled after just 14 episodes. The premise was simple; a western in space. A bunch of soft hearted smugglers always just one step ahead of the Alliance, hoping from one quirky terraformed planet to the next always delivering cargo on time and undamaged. Think ‘Han Solo heads to the Ok Corral’. An elaborate pilot was written for the series which took time to carefully introduce each member of the large ensemble, but the network felt that it did not offer enough action and demanded Whedon write a faster paced first episode, that’s where things began to go array. Hungry for more action the network took the episodes they had shot, which in order told a coherent story, and aired the ones with the most action first. (Imagine watching ‘Lost’ or ‘Heroes’ in order of which episodes had the most action).
4) Of the four shows on this list, Alias is the least deserving. It got a great run of 5 terrific seasons fully supported by the network. I stuck it here because I love it so much and would have loved another season or two (a network exc. thinking with the heart not the head). Season 5 felt a bit rushed although they were a bit limited with Jennifer Gardner’s pregnancy and several other people leaving. I feel if we had gotten a sixth season it would have allowed a bit more exploration of Prophet 5.
There you have it, feel free to comment, argue, sympathize, weep, express your rage, (Browncoats go to town).
Finally, I was thinking about including Rob Thomas’s ‘Veronica Mars’ however I just started watching so I can’t really say for sure. I’ll give it an honorable mention.
Last night I had the privilidge of attending one of a few extended preview’s in IMAX 3D for James Cameron’s upcoming film (his first in 12 years) “Avatar”.
Now I’m going to go into some detail about what I saw yesterday; before the preview began James Cameron came on screen to introduce it and state that all the footage was from the first half of the film so there were no major spoilers. However if you are one of those people who really freaks out about even the smallest of spoilers I recommend you do not read on.
I’ll start out by saying it was beautiful, which is not really what I expected. The trailer shows a few shots of the beauty found on the planet known as ‘Pandora’ however watching a few scenes from the 16 minute preview we were really able to get a taste of just how lush, rich and beautiful the landscape on this planet, which was created with computers from the ground up, really is.
The first scene was almost completely live action, I’m not sure if there was, CG at all. It was basically in introduction to the planet ‘Pandora’ a crusty, battle scared head of security informs a group of incoming marines that his job is to protect them from the hostile world outside the perimeter fence. He says that, at least for some of the marines he will unfortunately fail in his duties. This is when Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) rolls down the isle in a wheel chair.
The computer animation is really top notch, there were moments in the jungles of Pandora where I found myself wondering if James Cameron had not just taken his revolutionary stereoscopic camera system into a real jungle.
The CG was amazing, however I felt it took some getting used to. In the second scene they showed the paraplegic vet Jake Sully is first taking on his na’vi body (This is where the title ‘Avatar’ comes from, basically his brain is transfered into the body of Pandora’s indigenous species), I was not too impressed. This may have been because I had never seen a picture of the Na’vi before so perhaps I was expecting something different. I felt the CG Na’vi mixed with the live action humans was just a tad fake looking however this initial feeling may pass after watching even more of the film (December 18th!).
The next scene was high adrenaline chase which began as Jake squares off against a strange creature indigenous to the jungles of Pandora, the creature is frightened away by an even larger and scarier beast which Jake runs from. Although the chase was impressive the two creatures struck me as kind of plastic looking, and my disappointment began to mount, until…
The Next Scene, Jake is rescued from a pack of scavenging beasts by a Na’vi woman my mind really began to think that all this CG was real! The best was yet to come.
The Pandora jungle by day, as I said, looks pretty much like a jungle here on Earth, however come night fall the Jungle plants are illuminated with a beautiful and mysterious phosphorescent glow. My expectations for this film were gone, it was something I had never imagined. I no longer wanted to see James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’, no, I wanted to take a space ship to Pandora and actually walk around in this beautiful jungle (despite the beasts which rip you to shreds and hostile native peoples).
The final scene shows Jake along with some other members of the local Na’vi tribe trying to tame some kind of flying creature that resides high in the cliffs on the outskirts of the jungle. The Na’vi tell Jake that the beast will choose him, and he’ll know because it will try to kill him. Once again I found my self blown away during this action packed scene by how real the animation looked.
After the final scene, we were treated to about thirty seconds of epic battles, flying machines, military gunfire, explosions and all the makings of a great trailer. Today I watched the actual trailer for the first time thinking that it would be mostly a collection of clips from what we had seen in the preview. While there were certainly a lot of repeat clips, the trailer actually contained a lot of material not in the 16 minute preview.
“Avatar” looks amazing and well worth the wait, however as I said the whole experience takes a bit of getting used to, I worry that a 2 minute and 30 second trailer just won’t be enough to get people thirsty for more. Which is part of the reason I think Twentieth-Century Fox and James Cameron decided to have an event like “Avatar Day” to generate positive word of mouth.
“Avatar” hits theaters on December 18th and also stars Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana, and Giovanni Ribisi
I have been away for most of July, just hanging out in New Jersey visiting friends and family. However it was not purely social (although it was mostly social), I also gave Paul Howells a copy of ‘Initiation’. Paul is in the progressive punk band Free Yon and is also something of a musical genius, he graciously consented to write the score of ‘Initiation’.
I finished editing ‘Initiation’ back in June. It took longer then I had expected because of something horrible that happened to my computer. I am very happy with the final cut. All that’s left to do is score it (Paul’s got that covered) add some gun related effects and add the credits.
I thought ‘Initiation’ would be my one big project for the summer, however I am thinking that I will do another film later in August.
While I was in New Jersey I also began working on several projects (not film related) that are so awesome they will blow your shoes, socks, pants and quite possibly shirt away (so bring a change of clothes). However at this point in time they are very, very hush-hush. I will be revealing more about these projects as they begin to materialize.
That’s basically what I’ve been up to in a nut shell. Sorry for the lack of posts, but you know you wouldn’t have read them even if I had written them.
Travis Fantina (website)...
