![]() Meanwhile, other scenes, staged at the Warner Bros. We see the fake Frost home before Jack Frost dies, and even after he comes back, we get scenes set in actual bits of nature, which creates a jarring contrast. The problem is that this atmosphere comes and goes. It’s obvious that the film’s director, Troy Miller, wanted the film to have some kind of fairy-tale sensibility. ![]() I suppose it’s arguable that the hideous snowman looks more like Clooney than Keaton?) (According to the film’s IMDb trivia page, George Clooney was originally supposed to play Jack Frost, but decamped to make Batman & Robin. Man, that resin! This set appears very briefly, in only one scene (1:07:29–1:10:10), and is even more fake looking that the Frost home, to the point where it looks almost like something out of Batman & Robin (made one year prior): ![]() The idyllic scene is complete with a frozen waterfall, sculpted of fiberglass resin. Huge “snowbanks” run along the ice and 30 Ponderosa pine trees dot the landscape. The pond, constructed 25 feet above the main stage, includes an ice skating rink, 95 feet long by 40 feet wide. ![]() (Note how in the daytime images you can see the edge of the set, which ends in a matte painting.) We just pushed a button, and the setting changed to whichever time of day we required.” We designed a system so that every single light was on dimmers and was all computer programmed. “It took about 20 minutes to change over the look. Shooting in the Dome enabled him to switch between night and day as desired: You may not know to look at it, but Jack Frost was shot by the legendary cinematographer László Kovács, who lensed numerous classic films, including Easy Rider Five Easy Pieces What’s Up, Doc? Paper Moon Shampoo New York, New York (which features wonderful self-consciously fake sets) Ghostbusters and Say Anything…. And forgive me if I post too many screenshots, but these sets deserve to be seen!) (Note that you can click on any of these images to see larger versions. The first set, the Frost family home, “was loosely based on a real home the production found in Truckee, California.” The film used that house for a shot early on, when Charlie comes home from school:Īfter that, the movie employs a reconstruction built by production manager Mayne Berke inside the Dome, alongside “400 feet” worth of street, “about 200 trees from an Oregon tree farm,” and “1,000 tons of chipped ice plus 60 tons of flocking.” Much more impressive are three of the film’s exterior sets, which were constructed, according to Warner Bros.’ production notes, inside the Spruce Goose Dome in Long Beach, CA. Three of Frank Zappa’s four kids have bit parts, and Henry Rollins plays a hockey coach with anger-management issues. It’s peppered, however, with random Xmas spices. One year later, however, thanks to a magical harmonica (?), he comes back to life as that hideous snowman, which allows him to reconnect with his kid, and be the father he never was.Īs you’ve by now no doubt gathered, the script is more or less awful. Feeling suddenly remorseful, Jack Frost tries driving to the cabin in the Rockies where his son and wife are spending the holiday, but he drives off the road in a snowstorm, R.I.P. (He’s also never there for his wife, played with admirable grace by Kelly Preston, but interestingly she says she’s OK with that.) A recording session leads Jack to miss one of Charlie’s hockey games, and a label tryout takes him away on Christmas Day-you get the idea. Michael Keaton plays Jack Frost (his actual birth name), an aspiring blues rock singer whose devotion to his career means he’s never there for his twelve-year-old son, Charlie. But at the same time, it has its charms, which I will spell out in extravagant detail after the jump.įirst, a brief synopsis of the plot. It’s hardly as good as true classics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman Returns. So I’m not writing this to recommend that you watch it. Which is why, during the holidays, I finally watched Jack Frost-yes, Jack Frost, the 1998 children’s movie starring Michael Keaton as a hideous animatronic snowman.Īnd I survived to tell the tale! Jack Frost isn’t as terrible as some (like Roger Ebert) have made it out to be, but at the same time it isn’t great, either-it’s mediocre. ![]() I’m helplessly fond of ’80s & ’90s Hollywood films with animatronic puppets created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and large fake snowy landscapes constructed on soundstages. ![]()
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