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Movies
6.23.2000
Imaximum impact
Everest, Jordan are huge
Movie credits and rating
By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer
The six-story-tall screen at the new Feinstein IMAX Theatre comes to life this weekend with two films (and separate admissions) -- Everest, a look at a 1996 attempt to reach the top of the world's tallest mountain in a film that has been shown to great success at IMAX theaters since 1998, and the new Michael Jordan to the Max, about the legendary Chicago Bulls basketball star.
They couldn't be more different. They demonstrate two ways that IMAX changes how we look at the world.
For sheer grandeur, Everest is the more impressive. It makes superb use of the huge-frame format and is more like what most of us think of when we think of IMAX projection. There's nothing quite like suddenly feeling as if you should duck under your seat as an avalanche comes ripping down a mountainside, or shuddering as the camera peeks over the shoulder of a woman climber who's crossing an icy chasm on an aluminum ladder placed across the crevasse.
A lot of this awesome-looking adventure film congratulates the climbers for their bravery. But I was even more impressed by the unsung heroes of Everest -- the camera crew that had to lug the heavy equipment, sometimes getting ahead of the climbers who were struggling to take each step near the top, where the oxygen level is one-third what it is 29,028 feet below. The camera crew was led by co-director David Breashears, who, in 1985, became the first American ever to reach Everest's summit twice. Bravo!
The film follows the adventures of three climbers -- America's Ed Viesturs, Spain's Araceli Segarra, who hoped to become the first Spanish woman to make it to the top, and Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of the first Sherpa to climb Everest alongside Sir Edmund Hillary in their 1954 record-breaking ascent. (The film's trio of climbers were accompanied at first by Japan's Sumiyo Tsuzuki, but a cracked rib early on forced her to stay at the base camp and mostly on the cutting room floor.)
In the middle of the surviving trio's journey, another team that had gone ahead gets caught in a sudden storm of freezing, hurricane-force winds that will leave eight of them dead, including one of Viesturs's friends. This event ends in the dramatic rescue of a climber who barely makes it out alive. His rescue is told in photographs rather than on IMAX film because the camera crew was among those who came to his aid and had to leave their heavy cameras behind in the process.
Viesturs's final steps up to the summit, painful and slow because he chose not to use an oxygen tank, are excruciating. They add drama to an already dramatic movie that is filled with thrills and wonders . . . and is narrated by Liam Neeson.
He's huge!
One of the world's sporting wonders, former Chicago Bulls basketball star Michael Jordan, is the heart of Michael Jordon to the Max .
This is a reverential, congratulatory and celebratory movie that will please Jordan fans and his family most of all. It might just as easily have been called Michael Jordan: Saint .
Although the interviews with Jordan on an empty basketball court and moments from the final games of his career -- as the Bulls vie for the 1998 NBA championship crown -- were filmed for the huge-image IMAX cameras, it's clear that a lot of the other grainy footage was blown up from conventional film stock. Scenes from Jordan's early years employ old family photos and even black-and-white newspaper photographs to tell his story. Several of his TV commercials -- shilling for expensive shoes and high-energy drinks -- are shown in small-frame format.
Despite the title, there are no great insights about Michael Jordan the man in Michael Jordan to the Max. You won't know much more about his life off the basketball court when you leave the theater than you did when you went in. There's a brief interview with his mother and a sorrowful sequence in which he reacts to his father's murder. Jordan seems like a very nice, sincere, down-home kind of guy . . . and one terrific basketball player.
Jordan seems most human when he tries to become a professional baseball player with the Chicago White Sox in the Bulls' off-season. Baseball was Jordan's early passion, not basketball, and although he tries real hard, it's clear from the footage that he should have stuck to basketball, a realization that he quickly comes to himself.
We see snippets from several basketball games that look like the kind of plays you might have caught on the TV news, most especially against the Utah Jazz, who opposed the Bulls in the finals. Nevertheless, Jordan's remarkable ability to get a basketball through a hoop against all odds makes for some startling plays.
Although the film is narrated by Laurence Fishburne, there's a lot of breathless commentary from TV and radio sports announcers throughout, along the lines of "A win for the Bulls would mean a championship; for Michael it would be a cementing of his legacy."
Perhaps the most awe-inspiring moment of Michael Jordan to the Max is the same shot that's shown at the beginning and end of the film, when a solo Jordan comes whipping down the court and leaps to make a basket, the camera rising off the floor with him and then spinning around him. Wow!
**** out of five
Everest
Starring : Ed Viesturs, Araceli Segarra, Jamling Tenzing Norgay, Sumiyo Tsuzuki, Liam Neeson.
Producers: A MacGillivray Freeman Films release written by Tim Cahill and Stephen Judson, directed by David Breashears, Greg MacGillivray and Judson.
Rated : G.
Running time: 45 minutes.
*** out of five
Michael Jordan to the Max
Starring : Michael Jordan, Laurence Fishburne.
Producers: A Giant Screen Sports release directed by James D. Stern and Don Kempf.
Playing : Feinstein IMAX Theatre.
Rated : G.
Running time: 45 minutes.
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Imaximum impact
Everest, Jordan are huge
Movie credits and rating
By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer
The six-story-tall screen at the new Feinstein IMAX Theatre comes to life this weekend with two films (and separate admissions) -- Everest, a look at a 1996 attempt to reach the top of the world's tallest mountain in a film that has been shown to great success at IMAX theaters since 1998, and the new Michael Jordan to the Max, about the legendary Chicago Bulls basketball star.
They couldn't be more different. They demonstrate two ways that IMAX changes how we look at the world.
For sheer grandeur, Everest is the more impressive. It makes superb use of the huge-frame format and is more like what most of us think of when we think of IMAX projection. There's nothing quite like suddenly feeling as if you should duck under your seat as an avalanche comes ripping down a mountainside, or shuddering as the camera peeks over the shoulder of a woman climber who's crossing an icy chasm on an aluminum ladder placed across the crevasse.
A lot of this awesome-looking adventure film congratulates the climbers for their bravery. But I was even more impressed by the unsung heroes of Everest -- the camera crew that had to lug the heavy equipment, sometimes getting ahead of the climbers who were struggling to take each step near the top, where the oxygen level is one-third what it is 29,028 feet below. The camera crew was led by co-director David Breashears, who, in 1985, became the first American ever to reach Everest's summit twice. Bravo!
The film follows the adventures of three climbers -- America's Ed Viesturs, Spain's Araceli Segarra, who hoped to become the first Spanish woman to make it to the top, and Jamling Tenzing Norgay, son of the first Sherpa to climb Everest alongside Sir Edmund Hillary in their 1954 record-breaking ascent. (The film's trio of climbers were accompanied at first by Japan's Sumiyo Tsuzuki, but a cracked rib early on forced her to stay at the base camp and mostly on the cutting room floor.)
In the middle of the surviving trio's journey, another team that had gone ahead gets caught in a sudden storm of freezing, hurricane-force winds that will leave eight of them dead, including one of Viesturs's friends. This event ends in the dramatic rescue of a climber who barely makes it out alive. His rescue is told in photographs rather than on IMAX film because the camera crew was among those who came to his aid and had to leave their heavy cameras behind in the process.
Viesturs's final steps up to the summit, painful and slow because he chose not to use an oxygen tank, are excruciating. They add drama to an already dramatic movie that is filled with thrills and wonders . . . and is narrated by Liam Neeson.
He's huge!
One of the world's sporting wonders, former Chicago Bulls basketball star Michael Jordan, is the heart of Michael Jordon to the Max .
This is a reverential, congratulatory and celebratory movie that will please Jordan fans and his family most of all. It might just as easily have been called Michael Jordan: Saint .
Although the interviews with Jordan on an empty basketball court and moments from the final games of his career -- as the Bulls vie for the 1998 NBA championship crown -- were filmed for the huge-image IMAX cameras, it's clear that a lot of the other grainy footage was blown up from conventional film stock. Scenes from Jordan's early years employ old family photos and even black-and-white newspaper photographs to tell his story. Several of his TV commercials -- shilling for expensive shoes and high-energy drinks -- are shown in small-frame format.
Despite the title, there are no great insights about Michael Jordan the man in Michael Jordan to the Max. You won't know much more about his life off the basketball court when you leave the theater than you did when you went in. There's a brief interview with his mother and a sorrowful sequence in which he reacts to his father's murder. Jordan seems like a very nice, sincere, down-home kind of guy . . . and one terrific basketball player.
Jordan seems most human when he tries to become a professional baseball player with the Chicago White Sox in the Bulls' off-season. Baseball was Jordan's early passion, not basketball, and although he tries real hard, it's clear from the footage that he should have stuck to basketball, a realization that he quickly comes to himself.
We see snippets from several basketball games that look like the kind of plays you might have caught on the TV news, most especially against the Utah Jazz, who opposed the Bulls in the finals. Nevertheless, Jordan's remarkable ability to get a basketball through a hoop against all odds makes for some startling plays.
Although the film is narrated by Laurence Fishburne, there's a lot of breathless commentary from TV and radio sports announcers throughout, along the lines of "A win for the Bulls would mean a championship; for Michael it would be a cementing of his legacy."
Perhaps the most awe-inspiring moment of Michael Jordan to the Max is the same shot that's shown at the beginning and end of the film, when a solo Jordan comes whipping down the court and leaps to make a basket, the camera rising off the floor with him and then spinning around him. Wow!
**** out of five
Everest
Starring : Ed Viesturs, Araceli Segarra, Jamling Tenzing Norgay, Sumiyo Tsuzuki, Liam Neeson.
Producers: A MacGillivray Freeman Films release written by Tim Cahill and Stephen Judson, directed by David Breashears, Greg MacGillivray and Judson.
Rated : G.
Running time: 45 minutes.
*** out of five
Michael Jordan to the Max
Starring : Michael Jordan, Laurence Fishburne.
Producers: A Giant Screen Sports release directed by James D. Stern and Don Kempf.
Playing : Feinstein IMAX Theatre.
Rated : G.
Running time: 45 minutes.
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