Frank Marshall
8 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
Somehow, like Dorothy with her cyclone, like Muntz in those old newsreeels, Carl has left the ordinary world behind and landed in a “Lost World” of his boyhood pulp fantasies — a world of lighter-than-air airships and biplane dogfights, of exotic refugees from a Dr. Seuss zoology, of “Wallace & Gromit”–esque dogs who cook, among other things, and even (in a conceit echoing the film version of Michael Crichton’s “Lost World” tale Congo) communicate in a way that is both goofily human yet hilariously canine.
Togo isn’t the first live-action dog-heavy film from Disney, of course; one of the titles the algorithm may recommend to you after you watch the new movie is Eight Below, starring the late Paul Walker and a lot of Siberian huskies.
Heck, Disney has made a minor cottage industry out of them, from Eight Below to Iron Will.
What do Homeward Bound , Eight Below , Balto and upcoming The Call of the Wild have in common with the latest live-action film to debut on Disney+?
From “Iron Will” to “Snow Dogs” to “Eight Below,” the studio’s executives clearly have a soft spot for rugged frontier tales of tough Arctic men and their canine companions.
When Togo was announced, I assumed it would be around the same lines, pull at the heartstrings, but overall just a snow dog movie like the multiple other films on the platform like Eight Below or Iron Will.
In that sense, the film has more in common with Joe Dante, who did Amblin’s Gremlins in 1985 and its gonzo 1990 sequel, and Amblin’s cofounder Frank Marshall, who did 1990’s Arachnophobia.
Sharing far more similarities with real-life 1993 drama "Alive" than the action-centric likes of 1993's "Cliffhanger" and 2000's "Vertical Limit," director Kormákur is forthright in telling a story more about the ordeal of human endurance than calculated thrills.The ensemble is bursting with great actors, which makes their roles' shortage of complexity somewhat of a missed opportunity.
For many moviegoers, the act is so abhorrent that its depiction must be associated with a last-resort effort to survive (Alive, 1993), an uncivilized tribe (Cannibal Holocaust, 1980), families of regressed or inbred killers (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, 1974; The Hills Have Eyes, 1974), or a mythical spirit that compels the hunger (Ravenous, 1999).
Congo…
In Alive, screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck) and director Frank Marshall (Arachnophobia) reenact the tale of this modern-day Donner party with queasy verisimilitude, right down to the moment and, yes, it is truly disgusting when the characters begin to strip off bits of raw flesh.
Inexplicably scripted by John Patrick Shanley (who wrote "Moonstruck"), nothing transcends the material.
But there's obviously a lot more to it and director Frank Marshall ("Arachnophobia"), using a script by John Patrick Shanley ("Moonstruck," "Joe Versus the Volcano"), has made a movie that tries to explore the inherent insistence of the human spirit to struggle for life against all odds.
The story, by Michael Crichton ("Jurassic Park") has echoes of earlier Chrichton stories, such as "Congo," "Twister" and "The Andromeda Strain" and those mentioned above.
For every Jurassic Park blockbuster there'll be three ponderous duds like Sphere or Congo, and you can take that to the bank.
This serious misfire is just one of several Crichton books turned into bad films, joining such stinkers as "Congo," "The Terminal Man" and "The Lost World: Jurassic Park."