Day 8: A Most Thrilling Monday

Monday, April 25, 2011

DAY 8, MOVIE 1:

The Fugitive (1993), directed by Andrew Davis. This is a movie I’ve wanted to see for a while, friends have been recommending it to me for years, and I really wanted to see the performance that Tommy Lee Jones won his Oscar for. As far as action movies go, The Fugitive was really well thought out. Unlike so many other action movies, which are just noise and have faded out of memory, The Fugitive has stood the test of time thanks to a number of memorable scenes, and story that’s character driven, rather than plot driven. So many scenes, especially the escape sequence and the sewer chase, have been referenced and spoofed countless times, and for good reason. Director Andrew Davis clearly knew what he was doing; he set out to tell the story of a man on the run trying to prove his innocence. The thrills in this movie are real; Davis crafted each scene with the utter most care, relying on perfect setups and character interaction, instead of incoherent noise, chaotic editing, and cheap jokes. Every event in this movie spawned from the decisions that characters made, which made the action so much more thrilling to me. More recent action movies can take a lesson or two from The Fugitive.

DAY 8, MOVIE 2:

Scream 4 (2011), directed by Wes Craven. This might get a little complicated, so try to stay with me here. I am a fan of the Scream movies; have been ever since my brother showed me the first one when I was only about six or seven years old. They’re the perfect blend of comedy and horror, satire and suspense. The first one, as we all know, was genius, as it dissected the very clichés that made up the horror genre. And now with Scream 4 we have an equally genius horror movie that takes on remakes and reboots. I don’t want to talk too much about Scream 4. I think you’ll get the most fun out of it knowing as little as possible. But I will say that my expectations were exceeded. The plot is simple: Sidney Prescott returns to Woodsboro, and a new batch of murders arise. But of course it’s not the story or the killings we care about in a Scream movie, it’s the dialogue. I will be bold and call Scream 4 the Inception of horror movies. This is in the way that it was a sequel about people trying to be a reboot to the movie that this is a sequel to, with a movie within a movie within a movie. There are so many layers to this movie, but everything is part of the same story, and it is all perfectly balanced. Think of it like a Twizzler, with each strand being either a sequel or a reboot, and the two are twisted into one delicious treat! Wes Craven uses Scream’s trademark self aware dialogue to his advantage to create some great suspense. By using the pattern of the first movie, he makes us think we know what will happen, but then do something completely different at just the moment we don’t expect it. And at the same time as of all this twisted craziness, the characters even dissect the original movie as they live through this “reboot” of those events. It was brilliant, but more importantly it was fun. Scream 4 was good, smart, bloody fun. If you’re as much of a movie geek as I am, then please see this movie, you’ll love it!