90’s Era

Mob Films in the 90’s

Oscar Buendia

Goodfellas

• Stellar Cast

• Based of real life events

• One of my favorite films

Casino

• Great Acting

• Also based on real life events

• Robert DeNiro

• Joe Pesci

A Bronx Tale

• One of my favorite films of all time

• Great Story

• Directed by Robert DeNiro

• Robert DeNiro also acted

Notable Films of the Era

• Pulp Fiction

• Godfather Part 3

• Reservoir Dogs

TITANIC 1997

• Directed by: James Cameron

• Produced by: James Cameron & Jon Landau

• Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet

• Editing by: James Cameron, Conrad Buff, and Richard A. Harris

• Release Date: November 1st 1997 (Tokyo International Film Festival)

• December 19th 1997 (United States)

• Budget: $200 million

• Box office: $2,122,580,226

Main Characters

• Leonardo Dicaprio played as Jack Dawson: Cameron said he needed the cast to feel as though they were really on the Titanic, relive its liveliness, and "to take that energy and give it to Jack, he's an artist who is able to have his heart soar".Within the film, Jack is portrayed as a penniless man.

Kate Winslet

• Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater/: Cameron said Winslet "had the thing that you look for" and that there was "a quality in her face, in her eyes," that he "just knew people would be ready to go the distance with her". Rose is a 17-year-old girl, originally from Philadelphia , who is forced into an engagement to 30-year-old Cal Hockley so she and her mother, Ruth, can maintain their high-class status after her father's death had left the family debt-ridden. Rose boards the RMS Titanic with Cal and Ruth, as a first-class passenger, and meets Jack. Winslet said of her character, "She has got a lot to give, and she's got a very open heart. And she wants to explore and adventure the world, but she [feels] that's not going to happen."

Plot

 

• On April 10th 1912, the Titanic ship sailed for the very first time. Of the passengers there was 17-year-old first class passenger Rose and her fiancé Cal. Cal was as rich as Rose and her family was, but her family has secret financial issues. Rose is not in love with Cal and does not want to marry him, but her mother is dependent on her because marrying Cal will help pay for their financial problems.

• Rose attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the ship until Jack Dawson saves her life. Jack Dawson was a third class passenger who won his cruise tickets by playing a card game. Rose and Jack begin to fall in love and Cal starts to realize it. Cal forbids Rose to spend anymore time with Jack but she continues to do so.

• On April 14th 1912, the Titanic hits an iceberg and begins to sink. Jack and Rose are together in the water when Jack sinks and dies right in front of her. There were 2,223 passengers in total, 1,514 died, and 710 survived. The film shows flashbacks of Rose telling her story, 84 years later.

TitanicAgainst expectations, the film went on to become the highest-grossing film to date (it was surpassed in 2010 by Cameron's directorial follow-up, Avatar), grossing more than US$ 1.843 billion in box-office receipts worldwide, and transformed DiCaprio into a commercial movie superstar, resulting in fan worship among teenage girls and young women in general that became known as "Leo-Mania." He was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, including a second Golden Globe nomination. Upon the success of Titanic, DiCaprio stated in 2000: "I have no connection with me during that whole Titanic phenomenon and what my face became around the world [...] I'll never reach that state of popularity again, and I don't expect to. It's not something I'm going to try to achieve either."

Jurassic Park (1993)Directed : Steven Spielberg

Released: Universal Studios

Starring: Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern

Screenplay: Michael Crichton, author of the NY Times Best Selling novel of the same name.

Winner of 3 Academy Awards: Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound

Budget: $63 millionBox Office: $914 million

DNA and Its Possibilities

In the film, DNA was extracted from a mosquito trapped in amber which drank blood of the dinosaurs. This allowed scientists to clone them.

The OJ Simpson murder trial, which happened right after the movie came out, brought DNA to the collective conscientiousness.

S o H ow D o Yo u B u i l d a D i n o s a u r ?•All the dinosaurs were created by Industrial Light and Magic•Large models were built and then scanned into computers with a laser.•Advanced computer programs animated the creatures. The advancement of computers throughout the 1990s made “Jurassic Park” possible.

Sources

• BibliographyInternational Movie Database. Jurassic Park. 2011.

<http://www.imdb.com>.

Jurassic Park. Dir. Steven Spielberg. 1993.

Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation. "Jurassic Park." 1996. Computer Effects: Creatures, Jurassic Park. <http://library.thinkquest.org/3496/zjurassic.html>.

Selena

• Jennifer Lopez as SelenaConstance Marie as Marcella QuintanillaJon Seda as Chris PerezEdward James Olmos as Abraham Quintanilla Jr.

• The movie was a huge success in the Hispanic Market.

Box office: $35,450,113

The Queen of Tejano Music

Selennaaassss• Popularized Selena’s music in the American markets. Everyone now knew

Selena and Jennifer Lopez.• Selena sung most of the songs that appeared in the film. Jlo lips sung. • Movies based on a person’s life is mostly more about the acting than

anything else. • The actors, with the help of the Quintanilla family, were able to study each of

their characters and accurately portray them in the film.• The movie makers were very good at making montages and making them

flow.• Bidi Bidi Bom Bom

Jennifer Lopez: The Break Out Star

• Many did not want her to portray Selena because of her Puerto Rican descent.

• Lopez began a successful acting and signing career after this film. Critics have noted as this being one of Lopez’ best acting performances.

• She learned from the Quintanilla family on how to portray the Tejano singer.

• She studied Selena’s mannerisms when she performs. She even learned a trick Selena did with her lips while performing.

And that’s Selena

The Year 1999

• Napster debuts

• Kid Rock and Ricky Martin are popular music icons

• Pokemon and Harry Potter are popular

• The internet is becoming more advanced and popular

• The world fears Y2K

The Matrix

• Directed by The Wachowski Brothers

• Debuted March 31, 1999

• Stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving

• Won 4 Oscars in 2000, including Best Visual Effects

• Focused on an important event of the time: Y2K and the internet becoming more popular

Special Effects

• Main actors spent 4 months in martial arts training

• The famous Bullet Time sequence, where Neo dodges the bullets, was created through a combination of still photography and computer graphics

• Fight scenes sometimes took ten days over schedule to complete shooting

• Opening scene took $10 million to shoot

• Wachowski Brothers wrote 14 drafts of the screenplay