I just finished watching "War Of The Worlds" with my sister. This is the first time I've seen it, and my sister thought the best way to maximize my movie-watching experience would be to turn out all the lights in our creepy house and jack the volume up on the movie. Ugh. Well... I was scared. "War Of The Worlds" scared me. But only while I was watching it... I'm no good with suspense and/or horror of any kind. My knack for adrenaline relies solely on large roller coasters and crushes on boys.
I have a couple of points I would like to make about this movie.
1. Dakota Fanning has talent. When you look at a girl that age-- what was she, around 10 when this movie was filmed?-- and see her acting like a real little girl would and pulling out emotions like a real little girl would do, it's awe-striking. Fanning doesn't really pull that Mary Kate and Ashley shtick, where she says something and it's cute because it came from a teeny person with curly blonde hair. Fanning has a certain authenticity about her that I've noticed not only in "War Of The Worlds" but just most of her work in general.
Whenever I think about child stars I project them into the future. I see Miss Fanning being a very successful actress, but I am concerned if she will ever reach that drugs/alcohol/sex tape phase, and if she would be able to eventually regain her respectability (what we call a "Jessica Simpson"). This factor aside, Fanning has her success cut out for her. As a child star, she has worked her way into being a "dark" actress. Dark movies, generally speaking, do better than your typical "Are We There Yet?" (P.S. "Snow Dogs" is the exception, not the rule.) This is also a concern: consistently being in darker movies at such a young age, will she grow mentally unstable? Fanning's got all the right things going for her, but so many windows of opportunity to destroy them. At any rate, I'm rooting for her.
2. [MOVIE SPOILERS INCLUDED] H.G. Wells makes a good point, which was essentially why I didn't have a whole lot of fear after the movie. Aliens... even if they DID exist, even if they DID invade our planet with superior technology, even if they DID somehow learn to breathe in our atmosphere, would eventually die anyway because their immunity system has adapted to THEIR planet, not ours. If they wanted to eventually adapt to Earth their whole population would die before evolution kicked in. The only way it would be possible would be if their home planet had a similar atmosphere to Earth's. But then Earth would be just like the planet they had already, so why even bother trying to overtake us if we're just going to have Tom Cruise throw grenades at you?
There. That was a couple of points. In other news, I found out today that I was accepted to Pratt Institute, a prestigious liberal arts college in Boston. It's a terrific school, but I don't know how I can afford a tuition of 30 grand, plus the additional costs of housing, books/supplies, etc... sigh. But I'm just excited that they accepted me. That means they reviewed my writing portfolio that I spent forever putting together and said, "You know... this stuff's all right." It means a lot to me. Such a shame I'm going to Cardboard Box University instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment