1997

Titanic

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Titanic. Lightstorm Entertainment 1997.

Before watching the movie:

My impression of this movie is that in many respects, it got out of hand. The intent was to deliver a realistic example of what traveling on the Titanic would have been like, but the detail got out of hand. Also it’s impossible to get people to sit in the theater for over three hours of beauty passes over grand staircases, so a generic love story had to be dropped in, which also got out of hand.

Finally, Neil Degrasse Tyson got out of hand. I have a lot of respect for the docent astrophysicist, but even though I’ve heard the argument for fixing the sky to have accurate stars several times, I don’t buy it. Yes, there was a lot of detail lavished on the ship and costumes that would go overlooked by most people, but that detail has a lot more chance to impart valuable information about the setting than the positions of points of light in the sky. I like to be complete, but there’s a point where returns on detail diminish. Nobody was looking at the stars before Tyson complained.

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Trial and Error

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Trial and Error. New Line Cinema 1997.

Before watching the movie:

Michael Richards possibly trying to break (back) into film. Jeff Daniels, being Jeff Daniels. Courtroom comedy. I’m going in on the assumption that the main reason I never heard of this is the lack of starpower. The writing probably won’t be superb, but it ought to be fun for what it is.

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The Man Who Knew Too Little

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The Man Who Knew Too Little. Warner Bros. Pictures 1997.

Before watching the movie:

I can sum up everything that makes me look forward to this movie in one sentence: Bill Murray in a mistaken identity crime ring farce. Unfortunately, that probably makes the rest of this leader redundant.

Thinking deeper about what I expect though, I realize there’s little more than minor details separating this from other mistaken identity farces. That makes me less interested, but it should still be a good time with good jokes. Not every movie has to be a special snowflake to be enjoyable.

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Batman & Robin

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Batman and Robin. Warner Brothers 1997.

Before watching the movie:

Once again, here’s a film that lives in infamy, a fate that befalls far too many superhero movies. Often derided for being the campiest movie of the Batman series, it’s… well, it broke the franchise. Look at it this way, though: between it and Catwoman, it made Batman Begins possible. I’m hoping to find more reason to appreciate it than that, but if George Clooney is allegedly giving refunds on people’s tickets, how great can it be?

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. New Line Cinema et al, 1997.

Before watching the movie:

Somehow, when this movie came out, I didn’t hear about it. I was 11, a decent age to hear about movies like this coming out, but the first time I heard about it was when its first sequel came out. I didn’t know that Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was a sequel until I talked to my parents about it and they said they “saw the first one, didn’t like a lot of the content, and figured that the next would be even more” of what they didn’t like.

While I don’t expect to be as appalled as they were, I do expect an unfortunate pile of sophomoric humor on top of a pretty good Bond spoof.

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