RELATED LINKS:--Movie Mania With N. Paul: Week 10
--Movie Mania With N. Paul: Week 9
All NFL players are human beings. That means they enjoy things outside of their profession. They have hobbies and tastes and interests just like you and me.
For Redskins tight end Niles Paul, it's going to the movies.
Every week or so I'll sit down with Paul and we'll converse about the most recent movies he's seen, debate about their strengths and weaknesses, needlessly scrutinize or praise actors and directors, analyze his Netflix queue, and, hopefully, find another window into Paul's personality.
In our latest conversation, we discuss Mark Wahlberg's latest movie "Deepwater Horizon," which the Redskins screened during training camp, and Paul gives his opinion of the new Tarzan movie released during the summer.
The entire team saw "Deepwater Horizon" together in training camp. What do you get out of seeing a movie collectively?
It's just an experience you can have with your team in the theater, having fun, throwing popcorn, enjoying a good movie, that's a team bonding experience.
I was surprised out how explosive the second half of this movie was. Were you ready for this movie to be like that?
I mean, I thought the movie was going to be boring. I thought it was going to be a terrible movie, but it ended up being really good. It was way more exciting than what I thought it was going to be, I guess I had my expectations low. I wasn't prepared for all the action they had in it.
Do you remember when the BP oil spill happened?
Yeah, I do. I didn't know about what actually went on though.
Did you find all of the action sequences detrimental to the story?
Well, like I said, I went into that movie with low expectations. I just thought it was going to be of those play-by-play, you've heard it before type stories. But when I watched, I got a lot more action, a lot more drama, the director [Peter Berg] definitely surprised me with the direction they went in.
What's been your favorite Mark Wahlberg movie?
"Four Brothers." I just like the characters he chooses to play, a wide variety of characters, and he can take on the challenge and switch face to whatever he has to. He was a thug in Four Brothers, a gangster, and he was changing when he was growing up and they just showed his evolution as a person. It shows his dynamic as an actor.
You told me you saw "The Legend of Tarzan." I haven't seen it yet. Should I see it?
Yeah, you should see it on a big TV. As far as the storyline, it's watered down. If you can get past the storyline and just enjoy the actual movie, the CGI, there were some parts where they could have put a little more effort, a little more money, but it was amazing to see this man swinging from trees and the direction they went in telling a story after the fact of Tarzan and what he had to do.
So what is the timeline for this?
Tarzan was back home and was called back to the jungle. He thought he was coming back for a meeting visiting people, but he was tricked. There were some natives who wanted to kill Tarzan. That's pretty much what the story's about. It's just him getting in touch with his wild side and embracing who he is as a person.
And Samuel L. Jackson is in this?
Yeah, he' s George Washington Williams, an important black figure in history. He was a general in the military, the actual guy. They took actual events of going to the Congo and blasting the slave trade that was going on in the Congo. He played a prominent role in history. They tried to incorporate Tarzan into it. It was like the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, and they took historical facts and threw in a fictional twist on it.
I feel like Jackson is in at least five movies every year.
His role isn't big, but he's definitely noticeable.
And they got the CGI apes down pretty well?
Yeah, that was the best part. The only iffy part was the trees, when they were running through the trees, the CGI was pretty bad. You could tell they were just in a room on a vine running through a green screen.
The live-action movies are a big deal right now. Do you think turning all of these Disney cartoons into live-action is going to be good for Disney?
We have the technology to do so, so why not? I'm going to see it. I have no problem with seeing a live-action "Lion King."
Some people probably just don't want to change their memories of the cartoon version.
With the advancement of technology in our generation, there's a new generation coming up that may deserve a new form of what we had to experience. "The Lion King" was arguably ahead of its time and we loved it growing up. I feel like you throw in a live-action version of it now, we can appreciate it and the little kids growing up, they can love it like we did.
What part of "The Lion King" gets you excited to see it in live-action form?
I think Simba's journey to find his truth. That's going to be interesting to see how they flip Simone and Pumba.
They've just got to keep the voices.
Yeah! They've got to.
