Generally regarded as the very first summer blockbuster, Steven Spielberg's Jaws enticed audiences with state-of-the art special effects and a signature blend of suspense, humor, thrills, action, and adventure when it hit theaters in June of 1975. Often imitated but rarely duplicated, Jaws set the standard for what would become the formula for aptly nicknamed popcorn flicks. Not surprising, then, that it would take Spielberg to outdo himself and perfect his own recipe with 1993's movie of the summer, Jurassic Park.
When I saw Jurassic Park for the first time in theaters during the summer of 1993, it blew me away. Like most kids, I always found dinosaurs and their disappearance fascinating. The fact that real-live monsters once roamed the earth expanded the boundaries of my imagination. Jurassic Park took that imagination and ran with it. While I enjoyed the ride with Doctors Grant, Sattler, and Malcom as they struggled to make it out of John Hammond's theme park alive, it was the dinosaurs I could not get enough of. The t-rex, velociraptors, gallimimuses, triceratops, brontosauruses, and dilophosaurus seemed so real. Sure, other movies and television shows featured dinosaurs before, but none of them succeeded quite like Jurassic Park, thanks to Spielberg and his team who spared no expense. I obsessively loved the movie so much that I saw it in the theater a record-at-the-time seven times. Yes, you read that right--seven times. I even dreamed of owning a Jurassic Park-themed Ford Explorer as seen in the film. Beyond compelling me see the it seven times in the multiplex, Jurassic Park helped intensify my overall love for movies as well as books, in its own way. When Spielberg's dino-romp left theaters later that summer, I felt an unexpected sense of loss. I badly needed to revisit Jurassic Park, so I picked up a copy of Michael Crichton's original novel and tore through it. Twice. Reading the book only made me love the movie all the more, if that was even possible. The sequels had the some effect. Though I anxiously anticipated each one, they never lived up to the originality, entertainment value, and sheer perfection of the original, and to this day, a desire to watch Jurassic Park resurfaces at least once every summer. Slightly tangential observation: Like 1990 (and 1998 to a lesser degree), 1993 represents another one of those magic years because of the numerous CDs, songs, and movies from that year that stick out as favorites, Jurassic Park included.
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The scene in which the little girl dressed in a red coat winds her way through the chaos and terror of the Nazi liquidation of a Jewish ghetto sticks out as one of the most indelible ever filmed. And that says a lot, considering the film confronts audiences with scene after scene of unimaginable violence. Truth be told, no single movie made a more lasting impact on my high-school brain than Schindler's List.
Generally speaking, I knew about World War II and Adolf Hitler's crusade to rid Europe of its Jews. History books and classes had offered introductions to the topics as early as elementary school. But not until I watched Schindler's List in 1993 did I start to realize the extent and horror of the Holocaust. Like everyone else I knew who experienced the film, I found what I saw on screen heart-breaking and unbelievable. But it also raised several questions. How could people commit such atrocities against one another? Why didn't the German people stop the Nazis? What did the rest of the world know about Hitler's Final Solution? What took the Allies so long to intervene? How did and do Germans and Germany overcome this part of their history? Recognizing that films about the past--even those based on actual events--should not be confused with history itself, the questions prompted by Schindler's List served to further pique my interest in history and deepen my fascination with Germany, the Holocaust, and World War II. And though the answers may seem obvious at first glance, they proved much more complex and typically led to an entirely new set of questions. So much so that Schindler's List and the questions it posed laid the foundation for my eventual pursuit of a graduate degree in history and for informing the research topic of my grad school thesis paper, in which I examine the confluence of popular film, victimization, cultural memory, and history. It's no wonder Schindler's List made my list of most influential elements of popular culture. A common slogan in the aftermath of World War II has been "Never Again," usually plastered over images not unlike ones seen in Schindler's List. Yet victory over Hitler failed to prevent genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda, among others. In today's current political atmosphere, with demagogues and nativists rising to positions of power the world over, remembering the Holocaust and other genocides as well as acknowledging the xenophobic and authoritarian rhetoric that compelled almost entire societies to commit genocide against themselves seems timely and important. When facts, science, the arts, compassion for humankind, and the freedoms of speech, religion, and press come under attack, films like Schindler's List remind us what can happen when humanity lets fear, apathy, and anger rule the day, thereby not only justifying hate crimes and intolerance but condoning them, too. And therein lies the danger. |
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I am a self-proclaimed pop culture geek and list enthusiast who is celebrating the big four-zero by counting down the most important, influential, and favorite music, movies, television shows, books, and video games of my life so far. Categories
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