In Contention

Tag: The Terminator

  • INTERVIEW: Quentin Tarantino

    Quentin Tarantino at the Los Angeles premiere of Inglourious BasterdsNearing the end of January on an awards season run for a film that bowed at Cannes is an odd time to be crossing paths with a filmmaker to talk about the goods, but that’s where I found myself with Quentin Tarantino this year.

    Making the publicity rounds in the wake of the DVD and Blu-ray release of his film “Inglourious Basterds” and, of course, keeping exposure high with Oscar nominations eminent, Tarantino is nevertheless as indefatigable as ever.  Last week he popped up on one of Conan O’Brien’s final episodes of “The Tonight Show,” which the filmmaker says was an honor.  “I’ve always had a fun time doing his show,” he says.

    He was coming off a weekend that yielded Critics’ Choice Movie Awards recognition for his film’s ensemble, supporting actor Christoph Waltz and a screenplay honor for the writer/director himself at the time, but in the week since, Waltz and the ensemble were again rewarded, this time by the Screen Actors Guild.

    The film awards circuit is a much different beast than it was 15 years ago when Tarantino exploded onto the scene with “Pulp Fiction,” even if his long time confidant Harvey Weinstein is still at the campaign’s helm.  So it’s a little difficult not to press him for how those differences strike him, now that he’s back in the season’s good graces.

    Interestingly enough, he’s reminded of a similarity first.

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  • The Film Experience’s ‘Terminator’ retrospective

    Arnold Schwarzenegger in The TerminatorBefore I tear into McG’s “Terminator Salvation” in T-minus 10 minutes, I thought I’d offer one last sliver of positivity for those who, like me, love this franchise.  The always intrepid Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience has been writing up a retrospective on the three entries in the series to date, with extended looks at the first and second films already up.  He’ll be getting to “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” in due time, though I don’t know if he’ll be including “The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ or not.

    Here’s his intro on 1984’s “The Terminator”:

    In March of 1984 when The Terminator began filming, the director James Cameron and the producer Gale Ann Hurd were no Hollywood heavyweights. Cameron was no one’s idea of a visionary (except for perhaps his own) and had only one feature under his belt, Piranha 2: The Spawning — auspicious beginnings! Hurd had learned the production ropes on B movies for Roger Corman. Cameron and Hurd intended for the dark, fast and cheaply made robot movie to be their calling card. Seven months later in October the movie premiered with only its deceptively simple premise (killer machine hunts woman) and Conan the Barbarian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to sell it. The Terminator was an immediate hit, though not quite a blockbuster. It earned a Conan-like $38 million gross in its initial run (which I believe is something roughly in the ballpark of $90 million in 2009 ticket sales).

    As a franchise it was a slow starter but as a stand alone movie The Terminator was anything but.

    And on the 1991 follow-up:

    The Terminator cost 6 million to make, Terminator 2: Judgment Day would cost 100 million plus. The budget wasn’t the only thing exploding: salaries, visual effects, setpieces, ambition, and public reaction were all supersized. Yet for all of this exponential external growth, Cameron smartly kept his focus tight and intimate.

    Sarah Connor’s opening narration and the imagery of post-apocalyptic LA it plays over, both review the first movie and download Cameron’s game plan for the sequel…

    In other words, it’s more of the same… only bigger (we notice immediately by way of shinier effects and massive fireball explosions). This repeat template is familiar but it won’t be comfortable. We’re also going deeper. The story structure is varied only enough to reflect the passage of time. But what has that passage of time wrought?

    Check out each of the in-depth pieces over at The Film Experience.