Seongyong's Private Place

Campus animals in the evening (2013/07/10)

Posted on July 10, 2013 by kaist455

It is still bright, and they are active as ever despite heat.

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cats, Geese, KAIST | 1 Comment

In the House (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : On seductive/dangerous writing

Posted on July 9, 2013 by kaist455

Both frank and deceptive about what it is going to do, “In the House” simultaneously presents two plots and then observes how they roll together – and how they come to manipulate each other. The movie has a dark fun with its tense but playful process, and there are many good reasons not to trust what is presented to us. We know its unreliable storyteller is not entirely trustworthy, but it is curious to see how the plots thicken as interacting with each other, and we gradually become his fellow voyeurs along with his main reader.

His main reader is Monsieur Germain(Fabrice Luchini), a high school literature teacher of Lycée Gustave Flaubert who has just started another usual semester at his school. Some changes in the school including student uniform are brought in this semester, but the daily routine of Germain and other teachers remains same as before. No matter how much he tries to introduce Flaubert or La Fontaine to his students, most of them are not interested in what he wants to teach them, and they do not even care about a simple writing assignment on how they spent their weekend.

While checking his students’ submitted essays with disappointment and disdain as usual, Germain’s interest gets perked up when he comes across an essay a lot better than others’. It is written by a 16-year-old student named Claude Garcia(Ernst Umhauer), and it is about how he insinuated himself into one decent middle-class household during the last weekend. Claude’s classmate Rapha Artole(Bastien Ughetto) looked happy with his loving parents who usually came to the school to pick up their son, and, as a boy belonging to an unhappy household, Claude became interested in how they lived in their house. He approached to Rapha as a kind classmate willing to help him preparing for the upcoming mathematics exam; he soon entered the house, and then he wrote later about what he observed and sensed while he looked around Rapha’s house.

Germain feels something unwholesome from Claude’s writing, but he also finds it both tantalizing and well-written. He has some doubt about its veracity, but, as a failed author, he also recognizes a budding talent from the essay. He is also curious about what will happen next – mainly because he is tantalized by the closing remark “To be continued”.

As a good teacher, Germain encourages Claude to write more while teaching him more about writing in private. Claude keeps submitting his writings, and we get to know more about Rapha and his family through Claude’s view. Rapha’s father(Denis Ménochet), a jovial but rather aggressive man, is busy with some Chinese client of his company, and he and his son are basketball enthusiasts. While they usually watch the big games on TV or play basketball at the local gym together, Mrs. Artole(Emmanuelle Seigner), an attractive housewife, remains a little detached from her family while mainly concentrating on her plan of remodeling their house.

As Germain and his art gallery manager wife Jeanne(Kristin Scott Thomas) are fascinated with the continuing domestic drama within the Artoles, they also wonder about whether it is true or not, and so do we. Rapha does exist as Claude’s schoolmate, and Germain and Jeanne coincidentally meet Mr. and Mrs. Artole later in the story, and they all look exactly same as depicted in the flashback sequences. But is Claude really telling them exactly what he observed from his subjects?

That question does not matter much to the director/adapter François Ozon, for he has lots of fun with how Claude’s story is developed, analyzed, and modified as Claude and Germain spend more time together. There is even a small lecture scene on how story should be developed for holding readers’ attention, and there is also an interesting moment in which the Artoles are depicted with two contrasting approaches as the ‘fictional characters’; they become comic caricatures at first, and then they are changed into a more down-to-earth version after revision. With such acknowledged manipulation, Claude’s story is even developed into an outrageous circumstance worthy of trashy TV soap drama as Claude himself is involved with everyone in the household, and we more wonder about his motive behind his story.

As Claude keeps his story rolling under Germain’s guide, Germain finds himself becoming a crucial part of the story thank to his apt pupil. Not only he is mentioned in the story, but also he becomes a manipulator behind the story, and he even commits a serious violation just for facilitating plot progression. Watching her husband more obsessed with Claude’s story, Jeanne wonders whether there is more than tutorial affection in his encouragement on Claude. Is he just seduced by Claude’s writing? Or…

The movie is based on Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga’s “El Chico de la Ultima Fila”, which means “The Boy in the Last Row”. While opening up the original story on the screen, Ozon gives us a voyeuristic fun of watching the characters as the camera peeping around the Artole household with Claude, and he keeps the tension in the story on constant level through his good cast. Fabrice Luchini and his co-actor Ernst Umhauer hold our attention with the possibly dangerous dynamic between their characters, Bastien Ughetto, Emmanuelle Seigner, and Denis Ménochet are believable in their domestic drama constantly adjusted throughout the movie, and Kristin Scott Thomas provides small amusing moments as her character tries to make her gallery profitable with those profoundly simple modern artworks.

I enjoyed the playful tone of “In the House” and the insidious undercurrent behind it, but I also felt distant about its clever game while watching the characters from the distance just like its main characters did. Like many other stories, the story in the movie eventually comes to a certain inevitable point, and it becomes less fun as a result. Anyway, I was entertained by its seductive progress, and you will probably enjoy the movie if you have ever attended a writing class.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Author, Family, High School, Husband and Wife, Teacher and Pupil, Writing | 3 Comments

Cheer Up, Mr. Lee (2012) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Loser filmmakers’ comic struggle

Posted on July 8, 2013 by kaist455

I enjoyed small funny moments in South Korean mockumentary film “Cheer Up, Mr. Lee”, and that was why I was relatively let down by what was shown around its ending. I know the characters in the movie are not that talented, but it seems they are hopelessly mediocre filmmakers instead of incorrigibly awful ones. Their end product in the movie lacks a comic punch as the finale, and it just drones on and on for around 10 minutes until a short but funnier scene appears and then the end credits follows.

Nevertheless, how these guys struggle for their first opportunity is fun to watch. One of them is Lee Byeon-heon(Hong Wan-pyo), who is absolutely not connected with a well-known South Korean actor Lee Byeong-heon. He is a 30-year-old director/screenplay writer who has not yet made his first movie, and his situation becomes more desperate when he quits his job after a trivial quarrel on the movie set.

Now he may have more time to write his screenplay he has been working on, but he looks pretty lazy in front of the documentary crew following him closely everyday. He drinks with his friends at night, and then he wakes up late in the next morning(or afternoon). He turns on his laptop as soon as he is awake, but it takes at least 7-8 hours for him to set himself on work mode. After cleaning his home, watching some movies(he usually watches bad movies for boosting his confidence), and preparing and eating his dinner, he finally seems to be ready to type something, but he soon goes out for drink again(his average actual work time is less than 1 hour). This cycle goes on and on, and we only see him changing the font of his screenplay title – and he has not written anything yet beside that. Personally, I am relieved to know that I have been quite productive in my recent thesis writing compared to this guy.

Observing Byeon-heon’s endless laziness, the documentary crew behind the camera naturally become frustrated with him a lot. We see them seriously discussing about whether they should change the focus or abort the production, but, surprise, their subject turns out to be not as lazy as they thought; Byeon-heon has somehow completed his screenplay in the end, and, according to a famous South Korean director in cameo appearance, it seems to be fairly good enough to be produced into a successful feature film despite its cheesy title.

As his screenplay goes around several production companies, we come to know more about Byeong-heon’s close friends/colleagues who also have not made a proper debut yet. Kim Beom-soo(Yang Hyeon-min) is a freelancing producer who tries too hard and too much whenever he talks. A rookie cinematographer Rho Seugn-bo(Heo Joon-seok) looks more pragmatic than others, but he is also jobless, so he is always obedient to his dear wife who earns dough instead of him. In case of Kim Yeong-hyeon(Kim Yeong-hyeon), this nameless actor did appear in few movies, but his appearances were very brief and barely recognizable, and nobody is interested in casting him or calling him for audition at present.

When Byeong-heon’s screenplay is finally accepted by some production company, Byeong-heon and his friends are delighted to hear that news and start hoping for the best, but, as some of you know, that does not promise anything to them in fact. After all, filmmaking is business, and the production company begins to check more thoroughly whether Byeong-heon’s screenplay is really profitable from Day 1. They point out flaws and problems. They suggest omissions and revisions. They demand more, and the time quickly passes by as Byeong-heon and others keep discussing and writing during this long pre-production process.

I have no idea about how much the reality of South Korean movie business is reflected in the movie, but I have indirectly heard about young frustrated South Korean filmmakers below the industry through several articles, and the director/screenplay writer Lee Byeong-heon, who previously worked with Kang Hyeong-cheol in “Speed Scandal”(2008) and “Sunny”(2011), gives us a hilarious tragicomedy reflecting that sad reality. With the serene narration by Jo Hyang-gi, its comic scenes are low-key as expected from its mockumentary style, but they will give you lots of laughs as they show the characters as a bunch of losers who will probably never get out of their respective bottoms unless miracle happens. They try, but they get frustrated, and then they drink at night as before, and nothing is changed for them as usual.

It is apparent that Byeong-heon’s struggle in the movie is partially inspired by the director’s personal experience, and the director does not hesitate to make a fun of his fictional self-portrayal. We may sympathize with Byeong-heon’s desperate circumstance, but he is also a petty and pathetic loser who harasses his ex-wife with sudden visit in the middle of night just because he is drunk and he wants to see his little daughter. His ex-wife, who is incidentally not shown in the movie, handles him sensibly, and so does a female employee of the production company, who puts her work first even when she happens to be stuck with two guys in a summerhouse.

The movie loses some of its edges as approaching to its predictable ending during the third act, but it is still an amusing comedy, and I came to feel sorry for these hopeless losers in spite of their unlikable sides. I think the movie could have been more mercilessly funny, but I guess sometimes you have to cheer them up regardless of whether they are really talented or not. At least they keep trying, don’t they?

Posted in Movies | Tagged Comedy, Mockumentary, Movie Director, South Korean Film | Leave a comment

The Lone Ranger (2013) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Meet an overblown oddball western

Posted on July 6, 2013 by kaist455

“The Lone Ranger” has several moments of unadulterated fun although it is messy and uneven on the whole. It is not as bad as some reviewers said, and it is certainly nice to hear William Tell Overture being pumped up on the soundtrack during its spectacular climax sequence, but, as the story schizophrenically swings between seriousness and zaniness, the movie loses its balance amid too many things stuffed into its thin plot. As a matter of fact, the movie is packed too much, and, as getting a little bored due to its uneven pace, I even made a list in my mind for checking those familiar genre elements during my viewing on this Thursday night: desert, plain, rock mountain, mine, Monument Valley, outlaws, rangers, Indians, US Army, drunks, prostitutes, Christians with bible, Chinese workers, train, train station, railroad company, bordello, scorpions, rabbits… and horse dung.

It is not so surprising that the movie also reminds us of many western films, and its opening sequence is clearly influenced by “Little Big Man”(1970). At a country fair in San Francisco, 1933, a young boy wearing Lone Ranger costume enters a quiet, unpopular Wild West exhibition, and he encounters a very old Indian man named Tonto, who tells him the story about how he met a man who would be known as the Lone Ranger during the Wild West era. Even with the heavy make-up making him barely recognizable, Johnny Depp gives another typical offbeat performance, and I and others had no difficulty in recognizing him as watching his character’s odd mannerisms including trying to feed a dead bird he always wears on his head(I dearly hope it no longer smells).

Before Tonto’s ‘great warrior’ became a righteous vigilante wearing mask at the end of their first adventure in 1869, he was a young idealistic lawyer named John Reid(Armie Hammer). When he is returning to his old hometown in Texas to visit his Ranger brother Dan(James Badge Dale, who has recently been quite ubiquitous in these days) and Dan’s wife Rebecca(Ruth Wilson), he has no idea that he is on the same train with a notorious outlaw Butch Cavendish(gleefully nasty William Fichtner), who is being escorted to the town in a separate compartment. With the assistance from his henchmen ready for his arrival, Cavendish quickly escapes right before the train arrives at the town, and that is how Reid meets Tonto, who had been shackled along with Cavendish.

After his brother and others are later killed by Cavendish and his gangs during the search outside the town, Reid, luckily rescued and then nursed by Tonto, is determined to bring Cavendish to the justice. Tonto goes along with him because he sees the signs telling that he should help Reid realize his destiny as a ‘great warrior’ – and he also has his own personal reason to track down Cavendish, which is later revealed through a long flashback scene.

Following their journey, the movie constantly changes its gear among many various modes with a certain degree of wackiness. Sometimes it becomes a ruthless modern western(but its depiction of violence stays in PG-13 area), sometimes it is turned into a quirky comedy between a mismatched duo, and sometimes it bulks itself up into an exciting adventure movie. Various characters are naturally thrown into this busy mix, and some of them are pretty colorful. Reid and Tonto meet a spunky bordello madam in private later in the story, and Helena Bonham Carter has a little fun with her character and her deadly ivory right leg. Some of Cavendish’s dim henchmen are nice comic contrast to Cavendish’s savage acts such as taking out a heart out of his dying victim and then eating it, and Tom Wilkinson brings a little humor to his thankless role as his character’s scheme associated with not only Cavendish but also his railroad company is revealed.

These elements could have worked well together, but they mostly clashed with each other in discord. While it tries to be an innocent fun as its inspiration had been, the movie also tries to be a sort of serious revisionist western through putting more dramatic emphasis on Tonto than Reid, who mainly functions as a straight guy to his bizarre partner. The result is frequently incoherent; one action sequence starts with lightweight comic action, but then it is suddenly hurled into a grim massacre reflecting the cruelty behind the America history. It could have worked if the movie had been more serious, but, in the story featuring silly laughs including an alcoholic horse(he is later named Silver, by the way) and not-so-cute desert rabbits, most of its serious moments feel awkward.

At least, the director Gore Verbinski, who previously made “Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl ”(2003) and its two big sequels and a wonderful western animation “Rango”(2011), keeps his disjointed movie rolling and bouncing. Like many good western films, the movie admires the vast views of its barren landscapes through its camera during many scenes, and its frantic action scenes evoke the fun and joy we got from Indiana Jones films. Yes, they are pretty unrealistic CGI action scenes where no one gets hurt seriously no matter what happens, but they are handled with brash style and exuberant energy, and I did welcome its loony train action sequence which involves two trains rapidly running in parallel.

As an odd couple of the story, Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer are adequate in their contrasting appearances. I personally think Depp should play a little more normal character now after having played so many off-the-wall characters, but he is one of rare actors who are effortless in playing such characters, and he becomes the mask for his character rather than hiding behind the outrageous appearance. Hammer nicely complements Depp’s showy quirkiness with his straight deadpan performance; he is bland at times, but he and Depp have a good comic timing between them, and his performance becomes more enjoyable once his character goes all the way for saving the day.

I am not very familiar with “The Lone Ranger”, and I must say William Tell Overture is still associated with that hilarious sex scene from “A Clockwork Orange”(1971) in my mind, but I had a fairly good time with the movie itself even though I recognized its flaws. The movie could have been shorter and tighter, and, though its budget was not totally wasted, it was really a misguided decision to bloat it into a $250 million blockbuster without considering its relatively limited appeal compared to other blockbuster films. Considering how fabulous “Rango” was, maybe the movie could have worked better as an animation feature film.

At this point, it seems the movie will be one of the biggest box office disasters of this year, and many already compared its imminent failure to that of “John Carter”(2012), another bloated old-fashioned misfire I did not recommend but was willing to defend for many reasons. I cannot recommend this overblown oddball western despite its good things, but, sometimes, a big misfire is more interesting to watch than bland blockbuster films.

Posted in Movies | Tagged action, Indian, Railroad, Ranger, Train, Western | 1 Comment

Cats and a dog (2013/06/29)

Posted on July 4, 2013 by kaist455

In these days, I begin to like dogs more than cats…

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cats, Dog, KAIST | 1 Comment

A free summer day (2013/06/28)

Posted on July 4, 2013 by kaist455

We went to the beach near Sam-cheok, and then we went to the cave nearby. Too bad the photography is now allowed inside the cave.

Posted in Photos | Tagged East Sea, Kang-won area, Samcheok | Leave a comment

A mountain on a cloudy day (2013/06/27)

Posted on July 4, 2013 by kaist455

It was cool and cloudy, but, overall, it was a sweaty hiking at Mt. Seorak of Gang-won area.

Posted in Photos | Tagged Kang-won area, Mt. Seorak, Summer | 1 Comment

Cell Cycle Symposium (06/26/13)

Posted on July 4, 2013 by kaist455

I went to Cell Cycle Symposium last week. It was hot, but we had a good time at this resort.

Posted in Photos | Tagged Cell Cycle Symposium, East Sea, Kang-won area, Summer | Leave a comment

Cold Eyes (2013) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Be careful – and be watchful

Posted on July 3, 2013 by kaist455

“Cold Eyes” is a pure exercise in thriller and professionalism. It is a taut, efficient work not wasting any minute throughout its 2-hour running time, and we are entertained by its main characters defined and driven by their professionalism. Everything we need to know about them for the story is mostly presented through how they do their jobs, and most of them are smart and resourceful enough to be the competent players of their crafts. In their intense battle of wits, a trivial thing noticed in one situation can be a crucial chance for reversal in the other circumstance later, and, like many good thrillers, that makes us constantly anxious about what will happen next.

The movie draws our attention from the beginning with its terrific opening sequence introducing its main characters as also subtly signaling to us that something is going on under the surface. We initially see a young woman in the subway who seems to be on some clandestine mission, and we also notice an ordinary-looking middle-aged man in the same subway car. Both are very watchful about their surroundings, but they are also very, very careful about being not noticed by others – and each other, perhaps.

Keeping the distance between themselves, they do not directly talk or interact with each other at all during this long sequence, but the movie lets us grasp step by step what is really going on between them while a bank robbery plan is expertly executed second by second at the place not so far from their location. There is a cool, calculating mastermind behind this robbery, and we observe him overseeing his henchmen from above while meticulously monitoring the situation outside the bank building. His henchmen do exactly as planned under his careful direction, and everything goes well for them except one small but problematic delay – but all of them successfully escape from the scene in the end thanks to his well-prepared plan.

It is the latest task of Chief Hwang(Seol Kyeong-gu) and his unit in the special department of the Seoul police to track down and arrest these professional criminals. The department is hidden somewhere within the downtown area of Seoul with an appropriate cover for their workplace, and they do not wear uniform often because they must not reveal their unofficial operations to normal citizens(one of police officers jokingly said at one point that they can only wear it when attending their colleague’s funeral).

Aided by the high-tech equipments available to them, Chief Hwang and his unit and others at the department patiently scan over the crime scene to find their culprits. While it is no surprise to us nowadays, it is still rather frightening to see in the movie how our daily life in public can be easily spotted and then monitored through advanced modern technology. Even with only one minor credit card payment, they can immediately get an approximate daily activity zone of yours through your credit card record, and, if you are not as good as the characters in the movie, they will soon locate you within a few hours through many video cameras placed around the streets and alleys of Seoul.

Hwang’s unit members, including a rookie officer named Ha Yoon-joo(Han Hyo-joo), are deft followers/disguisers, and many suspenseful moments in the film involve with how they keep their heads down while never losing the targets on their sight. They fortunately get one lead at the start, but they are well aware of that a brief glance or a casual word can ruin the whole operation, so they must be careful in every step of their maneuvers.

Intensely focusing on their work process, the movie throws some interesting ethical perspectives into the plot. While fully understanding what should be done for their assigned work, Chief Hwang clearly sees the gray morality from what he and his people are capable of as shadowy public servants monitoring the city in the name of law & order. He admits that they may infringe upon the civil rights of the people they should protect and serve, but he and his people choose to stick to what they are doing right now while never looking back, for that is probably the only way they can deal with many morally difficult situations such as when they are ordered not to blow their cover even though they see two people in a dire danger nearby.

The man they are chasing after also never looks back in his work. As soon as his latest work is done, he receives the payment along with another job to do from a seemingly old, humble shoemaker whose cold eyes betrays a ruthless criminal boss hiding behind his shabby appearance. They seldom discuss about their nameless powerful clients, but they know well about what their clients want through what they are requested to do(in one case, they steal a bunch of account books instead of money), and they do not care as long as they get paid well.

As Chief Hwang and his unit getting closer to this criminal organization, the directors Kim Beyong-seo and Jo Eui-Seok keep the tension being accumulated along the plot, and they never step back. They skillfully manipulate the level of suspense with patient shadowings, quick moves, and small nice moments of humor, and they always make the movements on the screen clear to us even when their movie becomes quite busy with many characters respectively operating around one area. They also make good use of the streets and alleys and buildings of Seoul, and that gives a nice realistic touch to the movie while providing the canvass for its slick visual approach to the story.

The actors are well-cast, and they do more than filling their archetype roles. They are unassuming as required, but their good performances reveal the interesting sides of their characters even when they are coolly occupied with their works. Seol Kyeong-gu, who has been recently mired in several disappointing films despite his talent, gives a solid performance as a tenacious chief dedicated to his work and his people, and Jeong Woo-seong is effective as his formidable match who may win their deadly cat-and-mouse game through his brain and body.

Between her two co-actors, Han Hyo-joo is lovely and feisty as a rookie with prodigious visual memory, and one of the best moments in the film is the smooth visual presentation of how she recalls and looks around every detail spotted in her surveillance work. Although we do not see a lot about Yoon-joo’s private life except one brief scene at her home, Han Hyo-joo is an engaging actress to watch, and her character is a smart and strong character to observe; even at the most frustrating moment, Yoon-joo can quickly recover her strength as soon as she spots a chance, and the climax sequence in the third act reminded me that good thriller films are driven by characters rather than actions. The movie has an excellent action sequence, and I must say this is a rare moment where the police in the movie chase down the culprits through a clever plan instead of mindlessly driving after them(and they actually consider public safety, by the way).

The other characters in the movie are mostly defined by their appearances and their behaviors, but the screenplay by Jo Eui-seok gives considerable space to some of them. Lee Jun-ho is likable as one of Chief Hwang’s unit members, and you will be amused by how appropriate his code name is considering his agility. As the strict head of department, Jin Kyeong is both commanding and caring; while she rarely loses her cool façade in front of others, one small detail implies how many times she has been frustrated with her superiors while trying to do her job, and her small private scene with Seol Kyeong-gu shows us two seasoned public servants who have seen and experienced lots of unpleasant things together for many years. The movie wisely does not force them into an unnecessary romantic relationship, so they are just presented as the close colleagues sharing the deep understanding of the nature of their work.

“Cold Eyes”, which is released as “Watchers” in South Korea today, is the remake of Hong Kong thriller film “Eye in the Sky”(2007) produced by Johnnie To, and there is a small nod to that film around its ending. I have not watched “Eye in the Sky” yet, so I cannot tell whether the remake is as good as the original, but I can say that, like Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed”(2006), “Cold Eyes” is a very good remake which can stand on its own with style and substance. Like its characters, the movie does its job well, and the result is an unexpectedly splendid genre piece deserving to be mentioned at the end of this year.

Posted in Movies | Tagged Bank Robbery, Criminal, Eavesdropping, Police, Shadowing, South Korean Film, Surveillance, Thriller | 1 Comment

Jurassic Park (1993) ☆☆☆(3/4) : You can still believe they’re alive again

Posted on June 30, 2013 by kaist455

“Jurassic Park” has aged well as one of the notable milestones in the special effect history. The special effect technology in Hollywood has moved on a lot since its remarkable achievement in 1993, and you may glimpse its dated aspects while discerning the holes and flaws in its standard monster flick plot, but there is still awe and wonder whenever the movie looks at its small and big prehistoric creatures. It may look old, but you can still believe they’re alive again.

Its story premise is utterly implausible to you if you are majoring in biology or have some basic biological knowledge on DNA. An eccentric enterpriser John Hammond(amiable Richard Attenborough) owns a private island called Isla Nublar, which is about 120 miles/190 km off the west coast of Costa Rica, and his big scientific project at the island is almost near the finish line. Extracting the dinosaur DNAs from the mosquitoes which sucked the blood from dinosaurs and then were quickly preserved in amber by chance more than 6.5 million years ago, Hammond’s scientists succeed in cloning dinosaurs through the complete assembly of their genomic data, and they successfully bring back 15 kinds of dinosaurs to the Earth. Hammond’s theme park in the island, aptly named Jurassic Park, is now in the preparation step, and the dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, Diloposaurus, Velociraptor, and Tyrannosaurus rex are being managed in their respective habitats under the high-tech security system and several safety measures including high-voltage fences, which gave me one of the cringe-inducing moments in the film when I watched the movie as a 10-year old kid.

That looked fairly plausible to me and other kid audiences in 1993, but now my mind observes its premise more critically due to my academic knowledge on how fragile DNA is. Maybe you can luckily get a mosquito who did suck a dinosaur, but it is almost impossible to get the whole genome of a dinosaur through the ‘preserved’ blood from 6.5 million years ago, for it is quite possible that the genomic DNA was damaged from the beginning. Not long after watching the movie again on this Saturday morning, my friend Michael Mirasol introduced me a recent New York Times article on how a group of scientists got the complete genome of prehistoric horse which lived about 700,000 years ago, and it described in details how fortunate they were to get enough DNA fragments for drawing the whole genome map of that ancient species. If you read that article, you will see how utterly preposterous the premise of the movie is(I also can tell you a lot about cloning process requires far, far more than acquiring genomic DNA data, but I am writing a movie review, not a science article).

Anyway, the movie goes along with its rather fantastic premise without thinking about it too seriously, and it magnificently delivers what it promises to us. Yes, we all knew we were going to see dinosaurs before going into the theater at that time, but we could not help but admire its series of awe-inspiring sights including a gigantic Brachiosaurus on lunchtime, and we fully identified with what the characters feel in front of these amazing sights. I know that, as old cousins of birds, some dinosaurs might have been furrier than we imagined, but the movie still reminds me of how enthusiastic I was about dinosaurs like many kids eagerly memorizing those long names of various dinosaurs.

It is unfortunate that its story does not go up as high as its special effects, and I see its flaws more clearly as a seasoned adult audience. Michael Crichton’s novel the movie is based on was an enjoyable book to read, but I was far more fascinated with the part involving its technological/scientific details(remember those fancy mathematical images decorating the book?) than the part involving story and characters, and the screenplay by David Koepp and Michael Crichton retains this weakness while being faithful to the novel. I appreciated that they made John Hammond more human and more sympathetic that his greedy and egoistic counterpart in the novel, and Richard Attenborough has a small poignant scene revealing Hammond’s innocent motive behind his ambitious project, but his character is as functional as the other main characters whose main functions in the story are 1) being dumfounded and 2) being chased by whatever they encounter on the island.

They are Dr. Alan Grant(Sam Neil), a paleontologist, Dr. Ellie Sattler(Laura Dern), a paleo-botanist who is Dr. Grant’s co-worker/girlfriend, and a cocky mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm(Jeff Goldblum), who usually talks about that famous chaos theory or gives good old-time moral/ethical lectures on Hammond’s advanced biotechnology to others. They are invited to the island for giving assuring judgments to Hammond’s concerning investors, and they soon find their initial concerns are right not long after they begin the tour ride along with Hammond’s two grandchildren and a lawyer representing the investors(his demise by one of the dinosaurs is probably a small amusing moment to some audiences).

The movie virtually telegraphs this peril to us even before they arrive at the island. Besides an approaching tropical storm, there is an obnoxious employee with a cockamamy plot to steal dinosaur embryos(it is rather unbelievable that some corporate spy paid $750,000 to this bumbling jerk in advance for that), and we are not so surprised to see that the movie switches its gear from SF fantasy mode to horror thriller mode in the middle of the story.

It becomes relatively less interesting as a result while the characters keep running for their life under urgent situations, but, fortunately for us, the director Steven Spielberg is not only a masterful craftsman but also a talented storyteller. Even with a plain shot of the ripples in the glass of water(this simple effect was created by plucking guitar strings below the glass, by the way), he gives us a clear sense of approaching dread, and then we get a frightening action scene featuring a certain fearsome dinosaur quite determined to eat more than what is served. Although they are not directly shown on the screen during most of the running time, we indirectly come to learn about Velociraptors’ sheer ruthlessness(Sam Neil has a darkly humorous scene around the beginning where his character terrorizes a chubby kid by describing how they hunt), and these savage hunters are indeed effective villains during the tense kitchen sequence where Hammond’s grandchildren must depend on their wits and guts to escape from these lethal predators.

Spielberg and his crew effectively used CGI as another new tool available to them along with the older kinds of special effects. The CGIs in the movie are deftly mixed with live-action models to create very believable illusions on the screen, and the result is more distinctive and more vivid than those bland CGIs we usually get during summer blockbuster season nowadays. While CGI allowed more kinetic freedom for the dinosaurs in the film, more traditional special effects were also crucial in making them really look and feel like living animals, and that is why that intimate encounter scene with a Brachiosaurus(or the head of a Brachiosaurus, shall we say) carries an equal weight to the majestic CGI introduction scene of Brachiosaurus in full view.

While showing many dated aspects as a product of the 1990s(Many electronic equipments in the film do look old-fashioned, and I was personally tickled by the brief appearance of CD-ROM equipment), “Jurassic Park” holds its place well as an entertaining film on the whole. It is more apparent to me now that its story and characters feel deficient in comparison to its outstanding special effects, and that is a major reason why the movie is several steps below Spielberg’s great entertainment films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”(1977) or “Minority Report”(2002), but I enjoyed its technical aspects and it is undeniable that the movie is a terrific technical achievement to be remembered and cited.

Stan Winston, Dennis Murren, Phil Tippett, and Michael Lantieri certainly deserved Special Effect Oscar award for their superlative job, and the movie also deservedly won two Oscars for its sound mixing and sound editing; we will probably never discover how dinosaurs actually sounded like, but the people at the sound department did a very good job of making the creature sound effects both plausible and believable. John Williams’ great score superbly enhances many amazing sights in the film, and it is a shame that it was not Oscar-nominated along with his equally great score for Spielberg’s powerful film “Schindler’s List”(1993).

For the recent re-release, “Jurassic Park” is converted to 3D, and its 3D converting is well done as far as I can see. The resulting dimness is inevitable, but it is kept on a minimal level, and I was not distracted by 3D during my viewing. That reminds me again of the irony of 3D effect: it is better when we are less conscious of it, but then what is the point of using 3D if there isn’t anything to be enhanced by 3D? The movie tremendously entertained me and other young audiences in 1993 even without 3D glasses, and I was glad that I saved my money through attending a morning screening at the local theater.

　Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie itself as I did 20 years ago, and I willingly recommended it to one of my junior lab members when he said he had never watched it on a big screen. I am less enthusiastic than before as an adult reviewer, but the movie still has its own wonder compensating for its several weak points, and my admiration toward to the movie has never been decreased. It could have been better(Dr. Sattler, aren’t you curious about how they also cloned prehistoric plants?), but it is surely nice to see that one of my sweet childhood memories has lost none of its magic even after 20 years it was made.

Sidenote: When the movie arrives at the sentimental ending, it nearly forgets that the dinosaurs will eventually die within few days due to their genetically modified metabolism deficiency – but that fault would not matter much after the arrival of its unnecessary sequel “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”(1997), which was one of few forgettable works directed by Spielberg.