Before there was “Jurassic Park” there was “Dinosaurs!” starring Fred Savage. I kid you not. Before the instant Spielberg classic became the go-to film for dinosaur action, most little kids grew up with this stop-motion documentary featuring that generation’s favorite child actor. Though dated in pretty much every way you can imagine (factually, visually and musically), “Dinosaurs!” must have done something right, as they still show it at the dinosaur exibit of the Smithsonian.
Phillip (Fred Savage) has a problem: his school report is due tomorrow but he hasn’t a clue what to write about. After a bizarre musical dream sequence which was most likely the result of substance abuse, Phillip awakens to the answer: Dinosaurs! However, he doesn’t know anything about them except that they were big, scary and are all dead. But have no fear, Phillip is apparently a very special young boy who not only receives rock n roll visions but also has an omniscient narrator ready to explain everything to him and write him his report.
Growing up before 1994, this video was pretty much a staple of every dinosaur-hungry child’s diet. They saw it at least once, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if it holds some sort of Blockbusters rental record of some kind. Personally, I had a copy on BetaMAX and wore it out into a pile of dust. Rewatching it recently, “Dinosaurs!” is a product of its time: seriously dated and hard to take seriously in this day and age of special effects epics such as “Jurassic Park” and factually accurate documentaries such as “Walking with Dinosaurs”. Never-the-less, whether current paleontological findings have rendered the science of this film completely without merit or not, it’s still one of the best sources of cheesy 80’s nostalgia you are ever likely to come across.
The film starts out with young Phillip having a dream sequence set to a cheesy rock song called “Mesozoic Mind”. Basically, an 80’s rock band made up of dinosaurs share the basics of a few of the more well-known species with the audience (Apatosaurus glided past, tall as any tree). Believe it or not, there’s an actual website dedicated to this song and you can even watch a video of it there. While so goofy and cheesy your brain may fossilize inside your skull, “Mesozoic Mind” is actually kind of catchy…in an “oh god I can’t get this god damn song outta my head!” sort of way.
Fred Savage’s magical journey through the mysterious history of dinosaurs is rather short and only really teaches you the basics about fossils and constantly stresses the fact that we know next to nothing about Dinosaurs (well, that’s how it was in 1987, anyway). Being probably the least visually exciting, this portion of the film is the bit most people tend not to remember. I recall finding the middle section boring and usually went to get a glass of Kool-Aid Purplesaurus Rex while it was playing.
The climax of the film is Phillip’s actual report on dinosaurs to the class. In reality, it’s a stop-motion sequence which was animated in 1980 by Will Vinton (the creator of the California Raisens) and then tacked on to the end of the movie for the 1987 release. The brightly colored and cartoonish claymation is fun to watch and likely the source of my unbridled love for all things stop-motion (sorry, Gumby). Here is where the movie mostly shows its age, not solely in the special effects but with the flat out inaccurate history lesson on dinosaurs. Granted, not all of it is misinformation, but paleontology has made so many leaps and bounds since 1980 that the information presented in the film is really obsolete. But who cares? Claymation is fun. And those purple triceratops moo like barnyard cows.
This movie isn’t so easy to find anymore, as most video stores that still have a VHS section likely threw their’s out from over-use some years ago. Still, if you’re ever at the Smithsonian you might want to take the time to sit and watch the thing. It’s so bad it’s good.
Grade: N (for “Nostalgia”)
The Legend of Boggy Creek
The Legend of Boggy Creek is not for everyone, let me just get that out of the way. It’s very slow, very subtle and delivers its scares more in a “What was THAT!?”-fashion than with cheap jumps and loud noises.
The production values are low. VERY low. This was a TV-movie made back in the late 70’s, after all. But then, that’s half the charm of the film. The Legend of Boggy Creek is filmed in a documentary-style, on location in Fouke, Arkansas, and even having the dramatizations re-enacted by the actual witnesses of the events.
That’s both a good and bad thing, however. While having the genuine witnesses re-enact the sightings and struggles adds that extra ounce of credibility to the “True Story”, it also provides for moments of down-right painfully bad acting.
Before I get too ahead of myself, the basic plot of the movie is that back in the day, a strange “hairy man”, not unlike a sasquatch, was frequently seen prowling around the area of Fouke, Arkansas, traveling along the creeks riddled within the dense forests. The “Fouke Monster” murdered live stock, damaged property, harassed citizens and left bizarre 3-toed footprints wherever it went.
The low-budget, documentary-style of the films gives it a creepy, believable atmosphere. The best scares in the movie come from the brief glimpses you get of the dark, hairy monster, usually at a distance, shambling its way through the woods late at night. All you see is a large, black figure which is only vaguely human in appearance (but more often looks like Cousin It on steroids) and the imagery will strike a chord with anyone who has ever been walking through the woods late at night and thought they glimpsed “something” from the corner of their eye.
There is no gratuitous gore or overly grotesque monsters (you never even really “see” the monster at all), so it’s a horror movie that’s perfectly appropriate for children so long as they don’t suffer from ADD.
As I mentioned earlier, some of the yokels starring in the movie, actors or authentic, can get on your nerves rather quickly. To paraphrase one of the funnier moments:
Narrator: “Sir, living out here all alone in these woods, have you ever seen the Fouke Monster?”
Hermit: “Ya’ll take a gander ats them there bottles hangin’ frum dat tree over yonder? Dat’s mah bottle-tree, shore ‘nuff. I uses them bottles fer floats when ah sets mah fishin’ traps. Every day a big ole hawk comes a flyin’ ovah dem traps. Not shore whut ‘tis he’s lookin’ fer, buts I waves ta him anyways. Every day, yassir.”
Narrator: “Er, yes…but have you ever seen the Fouke Monster?”
Hermit: “TAIN’T NO SUCH THANG!!”
It’s either funny or annoying, depending on your point of view. But I suppose the major detractor of the film is their attempt at a “Climactic Ending”, dramatizing an encounter where the Fouke Monster supposedly invaded the home of some family and tried to kill everybody for no good reason. The segment just doesn’t gel with the rest of the film and watching a bunch of hillbillies wrestle with what’s most likely another hillbilly in a gorilla costume is just absurd.
Barring that ridiculous portion of the film, The Legend of Boggy Creek is one of the better “Bigfoot” movies out there and delivers its scares in a subtle yet effective manner. I wouldn’t recommend it for the focus-challenged, but for anyone who has ever been interested in American folklore and monsters of urban legend, it is a must-see.
It gets a C+. It would’ve scored a solid B if it weren’t for that last part of the movie.
Grade: C+
The Story Behind the Short Film Featuring Instagram Photos
Social media has indeed made wonders to many people whether in writing or in taking photos. Today, there are a growing number of people active on social networking sites who have become so creative while using Instagram.
If there’s one unique and well though of project on this famous photo sharing site, it has to be that of a French artist named Thomas Jullien. Thomas created a short film that featured 852 Instagram photos not of his own but from the site’s users. The photos covered several important cities including Berlin, Paris, New York and Sydney making the short film into a world tour.
According to Thomas Jullien, his goal was to “create structure out of chaos” and he did achieve that with his crowd source film. He believes that Instagram is a great resource for all types of photos but just lacks structure.
The short stop-motion kind of film was amazingly done and displayed photos of similar tourist spots in four international cities in split seconds such that it brings the viewer to different places around the world. [Read more…]
Michael Moore and Fahrenheit
After finishing Fahrenheit 9/11 in 20004, Michael Moore still had no US distributor. He sought out Harry Weinstein at Miramax, which is owned by Disney. Weinstein agreed to back the movie, but he needed the approval of his superiors at Disney. The CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner, vetoed the distribution of the film. Miramax still held the rights to Fahrenheit 9/11, but could not distribute it.
By the time Michael Eisner vetoed the distribution of the film, Miramax had already given Michael Moore $6 million. This was to be bridge financing that Miramax would recover when the film’s distribution rights were sold. The $6 million more than covered the costs of making Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore hardly had any expenditure for the film. No one but himself was paid a salary and much of the footage he obtained at little or no cost from film libraries. After seeing a rough cut of the film, Weinstein asked Eisner to reconsider his decision. After getting a report on the content, Eisner declared that Disney would not change its position on distributing the movie. [Read more…]
Movie Review: Breast Men
Let’s face it, people are obsessed with looking good. We go to the gym to sculpt our bodies, put creams and chemicals on our face to slow down the effects of aging. We get face lifts to remove wrinkles, and tummy tucks to make sure we’ve got flat abs. But if there’s one cosmetic surgery procedure that have truly charged the face of the aesthetics profession and even culture itself it will have to be breast augmentation, or putting silicone breast implants on women to make them feel more “adequate” where it counts – the breasts. [Read more…]