War of the Basements
Unless you've been living in a cave somewhere in West Bumblefuck, PA, you are probably aware of the fact that Spielberg's remake of "War of the Worlds" is in theaters and stars a very crazy, very scientologific, Tom Cruise. Given the recent slew of embarassing (to say the least) attempts at showing his face in public in order to promote this flick-- I mean the BET Awards, come on now-- I exercised a great deal of mental caution in approaching the movie theater in Burbank last night.
After 2 hours of Cruise, Fanning, an exhausting number of basement settings and armies of gigantic alien tripod robots, I can safely say that I genuinely liked the movie for reasons beyond the Cruise. I absolutely love watching actors struggle with inferior but intelligent species from distant galaxies whether it be in a cheeseball MST3K movie or Ripley duking it out with the queen in Aliens. "War of the Words" certainly has this plus A LOT of pointless extras getting vaporized on hillsides by the alien machines that are equipped with insanely acute human searching mechanisms (and could probably find Bin Laden for us if Spielberg would just release the technology- but I digress. Back to the part I like about aliens killing people). In addition to the vaporizing, they also liked to suck the blood out of people and spray it over the rolling hills of the eastern seaboard which probably made for the most visually stunning CG shots in the movie.
As for Cruise and Fanning, I liked know that there was a great possibility that they could be torn apart in a bloodbath at any second due to the invincible power wielded by the invaders. The tension is so great at some points that there really seems like there's nothing left for them to do but DIE! Yay! Wouldn't that have been the ultimate cinematic payoff? I'd be a volunteer spokesperson for this movie if that were the case! Unfortunately, Spielberg doesn't share my hatred of these 2 actors (their characters weren't too likable either). But cheers to the aliens!
I couldn't find any good alien shots from the new movie but found this rad old Orson Welles photo. Can you say, Jack Black?
After 2 hours of Cruise, Fanning, an exhausting number of basement settings and armies of gigantic alien tripod robots, I can safely say that I genuinely liked the movie for reasons beyond the Cruise. I absolutely love watching actors struggle with inferior but intelligent species from distant galaxies whether it be in a cheeseball MST3K movie or Ripley duking it out with the queen in Aliens. "War of the Words" certainly has this plus A LOT of pointless extras getting vaporized on hillsides by the alien machines that are equipped with insanely acute human searching mechanisms (and could probably find Bin Laden for us if Spielberg would just release the technology- but I digress. Back to the part I like about aliens killing people). In addition to the vaporizing, they also liked to suck the blood out of people and spray it over the rolling hills of the eastern seaboard which probably made for the most visually stunning CG shots in the movie.
As for Cruise and Fanning, I liked know that there was a great possibility that they could be torn apart in a bloodbath at any second due to the invincible power wielded by the invaders. The tension is so great at some points that there really seems like there's nothing left for them to do but DIE! Yay! Wouldn't that have been the ultimate cinematic payoff? I'd be a volunteer spokesperson for this movie if that were the case! Unfortunately, Spielberg doesn't share my hatred of these 2 actors (their characters weren't too likable either). But cheers to the aliens!
I couldn't find any good alien shots from the new movie but found this rad old Orson Welles photo. Can you say, Jack Black?
posted by Lauren at 9:27 AM
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