What’s striking about this movie is how much it looks like an 80s movie.

Oh, hi — I bought a Jurassic Park 4K box set, because I think I’ve only seen the first one (or possibly two of them). I don’t really want to re-watch this movie, but I thought I should if I’m gonna watch the rest of them…

I guess this is the final… “Spielberg movie” Spielberg initiated. I mean, he did the second movie, too, but…

I mean, Jaws, Close Encounters, Indiana Jones, ET… and now Jurassic Park. But he was transitioning to a “serious director” (the awful Schindler’s List was released the same year), and I think this is like his final 80s movie? Just a bit late.

That is, I think there was a very distinct 80s sci-fi/action movie thing (Gremlins, etc) going on with Spielberg and his compatriots — it’s what we think of when we think of “80s movies” (except for the John Hughes stuff, of course). And this is where it ended. Sassy kids and all.

I just love that somebody in the props dept spent so much time paper towels around this set.

Finally.

Wow. When they switch to the CGI shots in this 4K version, it’s a bit fuzzy, but it holds up. This 30 year old CGI is better than most of what they do today.

(Or is it all practical? I guess it could be practical? A lot of rubber.)

Ah, this is where all the memes come from.

Whee!

Sassy.

What’s fascinating about this movie is that it’s barely a movie at all: We get the premise presented in the first half hour, and then we get 90 minutes of people being being terrorised by dinosaurs. In one extended scene after another.

And the weird thing is that is works. We’ve barely been introduced to the characters, which is something you’d think matters if we’re gonna be invested in them being terrorised, but nope.

Aww.

But then when I thought this was some kind of masterpiece, the tension drops…

Yes!

This really is one of Spielberg’s better movies, isn’t it? No nonsense; just action.

Jurassic Park. Steven Spielberg. 1993. ⚄

Nice deck!

Anyway, I’ve seen several (two? three?) of Yang’s movies the last year, and I’m rather unimpressed. But this one seems less bad. So far.

I don’t really know what this movie is going to be about yet, and I like that. It’s got a somewhat Rohmeresque thing going on…

It’s the album all the DJs are playing — the D. J. Dance Music album.

Anyway, Yang is a respected director (or rather, he was), but I just don’t quite get it. He was extremely influenced by various European arthouse directors, but to my eye, his movies seem like failed pastiches, really. They’re more about making a movie than having something to make a movie about.

I.e., the opposite of, say, Bergman.

So I wonder where the Yang cult is coming from — there’s so many interesting directors, and Yang’s movies are just so… just… there.

That’s the harshest review of this movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

Not Duran Duran Duran?

Dance party!

This is definitely the best of the Yang movies I’ve seen. It’s still not… all that great.

Taipei Story. Edward Yang. 1985. ⚃

This is a Criterion 4K release — and I didn’t quite expect that to happen. I mean, I saw this movie on VHS back in the 80s, and I remember thinking it was kinda lame? But I remember no details beyond that.

Heh heh, such social satire.

Oh yeah, parody game shows were big back then… before all those parodies became actual game shows.

Whoa. Or rather, I can see how they wanted that to be a “whoa” scene, but it wasn’t quite…

Into the custard!

Whoa.

It’s Napoleon, see?

Gilliam goes for “zany” mixed with “satire” a lot, and neither actually translate to “funny”… But it’s amusing for sure.

Oh, I thought this was a flop? But nope — it was a box office success. I’m probably getting it mixed up with the Munchhausen thing…

See? Zany. But pretty amusing.

Are all the Monty Pythonses gonna make cameos in this?

There’s so many shots like this — where the framing is really uncomfortable, as if the cinematographer has been given no choice but to film like this, possibly because of issues with constructing the sets? So many shots have this cramped, amateurish quality about them — you could just sort of imagine one of the American post-Spielberg directors doing this movie? Like Joe Dante. And it’d be one of “those 80s movies” instead of being this odd thing…

Yes, it’s Sean Connery for a couple of scenes.

These two are the best characters in the movie.

I can totally see somebody having this as their favourite movie ever. It’s just overflowing with oddball ideas and weird settings. And there are some pretty good jokes in here, too. But to me it didn’t quite work? All the famous people cameos, the squishy sets, the off-kilter cinematography… It just left me being bored a lot.

Time Bandits. Terry Gilliam. 1981. ⚃