Category: Movies

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

1st in the series not based on a novel (2nd if you count The Lost World) is slight but somehow more enjoyable for it. Punches its weight…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Jurassic Park III:

It would be silly to suggest that a $93 million dollar dinosaur movie that is part of one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time could somehow be stealthy, but I really knew nothing of this film until it was in theaters.

You have to remember that in the years between the release of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic Park III (2001), the internet was a very different place. Sure, there was a ton of information out there, but you didn’t trip over it like you do today – you needed to know what you were looking for and actively seek it out.

More importantly, though, the landscape of summer movies had changed since the last film. We had a new Star Wars trilogy, the surprise of The Matrix, the first good comic book movie in years (X-Men) and the promise of another (Spider-Man). Within the year, the first installments of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were finally coming to theaters. Who needed dinosaurs?

It’s a Hollywood adage (attributed to Ben Burtt unless someone can come up with another source) that movies aren’t released, they escape. It certainly feels true in the case of Jurassic Park III, and not solely because of the under the radar nature in which it hit theaters in 2001. More than anything, it feels like a movie they made because everyone in Hollywood sees things in trilogies and so they finished this one because they had come this far and it seemed silly to stop now.

Jurassic Park III starts from a position of weakness, possessing an also-ran feel that’s hard to shake off. First picture not based on a novel, first picture not directed by Spielberg, first picture not scored by John Williams, first picture without Richard Attenborough or Jeff Goldblum. The impression that the film was an afterthought is completely untrue; the budget was larger than the previous films, director Joe Johnston had been interested in the picture all along, and the film made over $350 million worldwide – impressive compared to anything but the first two installments. But it feels true…

But why? I don’t think there’s any one thing to point to as a problem with Jurassic Park III – except possibly for that III – it just feels very much like the sequel that it is. The story is not bad, particularly, just not massively compelling.

The initial idea for The Lost World was a rescue mission, which was the only plausible reason for Ian Malcolm to willingly go to a dino-infested island. The rescue didn’t come across as clearly as a major plot point in the film as in the novel, so I guess they decided to tap into it for the plot of this picture. That’s a recurring theme, by the way – going back to the novels and using anything they didn’t get around to before.

In this case, the rescue involves the son of a presumably wealthy couple, the Kirbys, who shanghai Dr. Alan Grant and his assistant into the rescue mission on Isla Sorna (Site B and the location of most of The Lost World). Bringing Grant along as an unwilling conscript is a good concept, as the makeup of the character can remain consistent.

The Kirbys are in fact divorced and more importantly not good for the large sums they have promised their mercenaries and consultants. I don’t know which should have been the tip-off, that Tea Leoni would be married to a schlub like William H. Macy’s character, or that Macy would be paired with a TV actress. Either way, it’s news to Grant (Sam Neill) and Billy Brennan (Allesandro Nivola), who have been promised too much money to refuse in exchange for their services as guides for an aerial tour of the island. In fact, they are horrified to learn that the Kirbys intend to land on the island to search for their son Eric (Trevor Morgan), missing since a a parasailing excursion ventured too far to Isla Sorna, now a biological preserve if you remember from the end of the last film (if you were still awake and watching).

With the reluctant dinosaur experts in tow, the party does everything wrong and the mission goes south almost upon landing on the island. So inept is this plan that they didn’t even realize their dinosaur expert has never been on the island they are searching. The mercenaries are really more like hobbyists, led by the always entertaining Michael Jeter. Depending on your viewing habits, you may know him more from serious works like The Green Mile or The Fisher King or silly turns in Air Bud, Mouse Hunt and famously Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street, but in either case you’d never accept him as a hard-ass soldier of fortune.

It’s so great to have Sam Neill back as Alan Grant. Such a fine actor and it’s a really great part. I quite enjoyed Goldblum leading The Lost World: Jurassic Park as Ian Malcolm – he was excellent – but Alan Grant was sorely missed. Neill portrays the paleontologist with a mix of scholarly intellect, scientific determination, rugged bravery and boyish enthusiasm. Some of the best parts of the Jurassic series depict the curiosity and sense of wonder about these animals, often embodied as much by Grant as by younger characters. It’s something that Spielberg and Johnston both do extremely well, and it’s not to be overlooked. The pictures could very quickly be silly, overwhelmed by forehead-slapping “how could you be so stupid” moments to the point where the motivation behind continuing to make the films could come into question. But the filmmakers succeed in reminding the audience why this is all worth the ride, tapping into the human fascination with dinosaurs and love of a great adventure.

Of course the real stars of the picture are the dinosaurs, as it should be, and they’ve introduced a new big bad for this third time out, Spinosaurus. More than possibly any of the dinosaurs that have appeared in the series previously, Spinosaurus really looks nothing like my childhood study of dinos. Sure, a lot of the animals in these films move and act very different to our old perceptions of them, which is completely appropriate, as we’ve learned so much. (At least what we think we know has changed a lot, which some people think is the same thing.) Spino is very cool, but a bit lacking the brand recognition of T-Rex. The whole “Rex is the top of the food chain thing” was getting a bit long in the tooth (pun intended) and a new big bad seems to be a good solution, but since there’s no academic setup or exposition, it just seems to be sort of an arbitrary addition – the equivalent of “faster, more intense” direction. It just kind of appears to up the stakes and thusly feels like pandering. Besides, where the hell was this thing hiding on the island for the entirety of the last movie?

Sadly, while they shook up the Rex dynamic, the filmmakers continued their obsession with Velociraptors, the Wolverine of this franchise. Going by the Jurassic Park films, you are led to believe that Velociraptors were the most important and perfect animals on Earth and only their extinction kept them from becoming our rulers.

Easily the best stuff in Jurassic Park III was cribbed from the first novel; the twin set-pieces of the river raft sequence and the aviary. If you read the book, nothing was as sorely missed from the film Jurassic Park so much as the sequence in the aviary. Even a quick glimpse of Pteranodon as the final shot of The Lost World couldn’t sate my appetite for these animals. The entire film is worth it just to see this sequence.

And it’s not like a lot of your time is eaten up by this film, anyway. The filmmakers clearly heard the complaint about the overlong Lost World and took it seriously. While the picture repeats some of the pacing missteps of the last film, Jurassic Park III at least wasn’t leaving itself open for criticism about being too long, clocking in at 93 minutes. Over a half an hour shorter than Lost World – that’s like a 30% haircut. Which is appropriate, because the issue with Lost World wasn’t that it was too long in of itself, it’s that it was too long for a picture that spent four seconds on setup and dropped you on the island in the first 15 minutes; it was inconsistent and made the thing seem longer than it was.

I like Jurassic Park III; anyone who doesn’t like it, finding it needless and derivative is not off-base; there are legitimate issues with the film. It hews closely to the Matrix/Pirates of the Caribbean/Back to the Future template for unplanned trilogies (I think I’ll call the phenomenon the Rule of Unexpected Triplets: the second installment in an unplanned trilogy will be so long, over-busy & clunky that the third film will seem OK by comparison). I maintain that it pulls its weight, though, and at least it can’t rightly be blamed for the franchise’s long hiatus. If you want to learn more about that, a cursory search on the web will turn up more than you want to know about dino/human hybrids. ::shudder::

Incidentally, my favorite acting performance in this film? Bernie Zilinskas (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1012545/), a school friend of mine from way back whom I had completely forgot had gone to Hollywood until he unexpectedly popped up in a brief speaking role in this picture. I nearly fell out of my seat at the AMC Braintree theater when a familiar looking guy stands up at Dr. Grant’s lecture to ask a question near the beginning of the film.

Oh yes, I did see Jurassic Park III in the theater, despite my earlier stated ignorance of the project. As I alluded to in my review of the original Jurassic Park novel, this topic and these films are something of a family affair. We all love them and share an enthusiasm that is unmitigated by the quality level of the production. Which came in handy with the subject of my next review, Jurassic World…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” url=”http://www.jurassicworld.com/” name=”Jurassic Park III” description=”Adventure runs wild when renowned paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) agrees to accompany a wealthy adventurer (William H. Macy) and his wife (Téa Leoni) on an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, InGen’s former breeding ground for prehistoric creatures. But when they’re terrifyingly stranded, Dr. Grant discovers that his hosts are not what they seem, and the island’s native inhabitants are smarter, faster, fiercer and more brutal than he ever imagined in this heart-stomping thriller.” director=”Joe Johnston” actor_1=”Sam Neill” ]

Main Cast	Sam Neill Dr. Alan Grant William H. Macy Paul Kirby Téa Leoni Amanda Kirby Alessandro Nivola Billy Brennan
Rating	PG-13
Release Date	Wed 18 Jul 2001 UTC
Director	Joe Johnston
Genres	Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Plot	A decidedly odd couple with ulterior motives convince Dr. Alan Grant to go to Isla Sorna (the second InGen dinosaur lab.), resulting in an unexpected landing…and unexpected new inhabitants on the island.
Poster
Runtime	92
Tagline	This Time It’s Not Just A Walk In The Park!
Writers	Michael Crichton (characters), Peter Buchman (written by) …
Year	2001

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

This film exists for 1 & only 1 reason: so Spielberg could have a King Kong moment with Rex on the mainland. Should have just remade Kong…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of The Lost World Jurassic Park:

Jurassic Park was a triumph in filmmaking, a great story and a dino-sized hit. This last fact is the reason Steven Spielberg insisted to making a sequel, even talking author Michael Crichton into writing another book. Which Spielberg then completely ignored…

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is possibly the all-time best example of the perils of going into pre-production without waiting for the source material.

Spielberg had dinosaurs on the brain after the smash hit that was Jurassic Park, and who can blame him? He wanted more, and guys like him don’t hear “no” a lot. Crichton knew there was no good reason for a second novel, but was swayed. One visualizes the director dressed in John Hammond’s all-white outfit, shaking his amber-tipped cane and insisting that “creation is an act of will”.

The novel The Lost World was published in September of 1995. The film adaptation escaped into theaters in May 1997. That’s barely 20 months; do you know how long it takes to make a big-budget FX picture? Hint: more than 20 months. So how do you compress all that pre-production, filming and post-production into that amount of time, not to mention the lengthy marketing timeline? Very poorly, actually…

No, I’m being glib. The real answer is that you don’t. You can’t. So you have to start pre-production before the novel is released. In actual fact, you probably start before the book is even written. Anyone spot a potential problem with that?

Jurassic Park was a great movie because it was a great story. Everything else, the FX, the music, the direction – that all just helped. Spielberg thought his movie succeeded because he knows how to make big summer blockbusters. And of course, he does. But you simply can’t take shortcuts like this, no matter how good you are.

Dismissing the offer of Joe Johnston to direct, the filmmaker proceeded with his vision for the film; he wanted to get a Tyrannosaurus Rex onto the mainland. That’s kind of it, actually. He really made this picture almost entirely because he wanted to get a dinosaur smashing stuff in San Diego. Makes me wonder if they let him film that sequence whether he might have let Johnston direct. If he wasn’t such a ball-hog and insistent on this one idea, there may have been a good film to be had. Instead, we got The Lost World.

All of the exposition I praised in Jurassic Park is missing in The Lost World; Goldblum is feverishly packing in as much dialogue in the first 10 minutes as possible as you can virtually see Spielberg ripping pages out of the novel and chucking them. Whenever a sequel goes back to the original source material and grabs everything they didn’t get around to the first time, it’s a sure sign that they’re short on material. Or in this case, that Spielberg is haphazardly grabbing anything that looks interesting as though he were a kid in a penny candy store.

The film would prove to be another massive success, but even Spielberg realized quickly that his monsterous production was all hat and no cattle. The film was so obviously barren of purpose, particularly after the critical success of Schindler’s List, that it would cause the man to reevaluate his career and he would spend the next few years and films trying to do something meaningful.

After opening with a scene from the first book, the entire premise of the film and justification for its existence are crammed into a very small amount of screen time. You could be excused for failing to grasp the plot of the picture because someone asked you to pass the popcorn – it’s that quick. If you were a little late to the theater, you’d have missed it entirely.

Not that it really matters. Much like its filmmaker, The Lost World assumes you don’t care about the why or the how, only that there’s another bunch of dinosaurs somewhere and it’s open season on humans. There’s a dinosaur escalation factor of enormous proportion – you see them early and often. The picture set new box office records at the time, so I guess the creators were right…

If this review hasn’t been negative enough, here are some other criticisms of The Lost World:

• Combining the book characters of Doc Thorne and Eddie Carr into one character, played well by Richard Schiff, isn’t really a problem – except that it makes no logical sense, since they then need to introduce another member to the party. So they create activist/photographer Nick Van Owen (Vaughned into existence by Vince Vaughn). This is to support the film’s invented subplot that the team is there to document the animals in order to go public with their existence and create support for leaving the animals alone, unsupervised, on an island that they’ve provably escaped from already. And some of them can fly.
• The acting…wait, no, I’m sorry, I can’t let this go. Instead of a simple plot that was already written, some combination of Spielberg, screenwriter David Koepp and the producers has stepped off the path, making changes for no particular reason, and now they have to start making up crap to get them back. This is pretty much a good summary of the problems with this film.

• Product placement – this film is the first time my friend Paul brought my attention to the increasingly sinister prevalence in product placement in film. Up until then it had really escaped my notice and I sort of shrugged it off, but time has proven him more than right…
• Back to the acting, or rather the casting: the main “bad guy”, InGen CEO Peter Ludlow (played with crisp English coldness by Arliss Howard) is such a stereotypical “rich jerk in a suit” it’s ridiculous. But that’s not the biggest problem. They also cast Harvey Jason as Ajay Sidhu, the longtime Indian hunting partner of Pete Postlethwaite’s African big-game hunter Roland Tembo. What’s wrong with that? Well, apart from the fact that Howard isn’t from England, Jason isn’t from India and Postlethwaite isn’t from Africa – they are all short, bald white men in a frequently dark setting. The fact that Tembo doesn’t wear glasses is the only reason I could distinguish him from the other two, who both wear thin-framed glasses. This may seem a minor point, but when a dozen or more people are running away from a dinosaur at night in the jungle, it’s more than a little difficult to tell who anyone is, particularly since they didn’t bother to give Jason’s character anything to do. Jason’s only real speaking scenes were left on the cutting room floor. At one point Tembo mentions something to Ludlow about Ajay, even using his name, and I thought “Who the hell is Ajay?”

• Vince Vaughn. Just because Vince Vaughn…
• The dinosaur expert that is clearly meant to be Dr. Robert Bakker. That’s not even inside baseball – it’s just dumb.
• The kid. Granted, the two precocious kids in the novel have been exchanged for one precocious kid in the film, which should be addition by subtraction. And for the most part, the character of Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), the child of one of the former Mrs. Malcolm’s is fine and credible. But there’s a cutesy gymnastics thing going on that nearly made me walk out of the theater. It’s “I don’t like sand” bad…

• And that sort of crappy humor makes up almost the entirety of the San Diego portion of the film. It really is tacked on. I’d go as far as to suggest that if the film ended with the humans safely leaving the island, The Lost World, despite all of the negatives, would be considered a pretty good film. But the superfluous fourth act that is the Kong homage is so dreadful and pads an already overlong runtime.
• I actually remember when the film ended that I had to run out of the theater to use the head, having finished my dino-sized drink, not realizing the picture was going to be so long. I begged my friends not to compare notes on the movie until I got back, because I wanted the first shot at it; I wanted to rant about what the hell I just saw and didn’t want to miss a second of criticizing it…

Yikes, pal, you must really hate The Lost World, huh? Not at all – what makes you say that?

Look, we’re always hardest on the films that we expect greatness from. I really thought this was going to be an amazing film and it wasn’t. Not even close. But do I hate it? Not even remotely. Why?

• Jeff Goldblum is once again great as Ian Malcolm, nearly everyone’s favorite character from Jurassic Park. I’d actually argue that people respond more to Goldblum’s portrayal of Malcolm than the character himself. I don’t think Malcolm is the hero of The Lost World film because he was the hero of the novel, I’d say that he is the hero of The Lost World novel because Goldblum made the character the star of Jurassic Park.

• (However, the flipside of this is that Richard Attenborough’s portrayal of John Hammond, described by Crichton as a dark Walt Disney, is so kindly and paternal that not only couldn’t they kill him off in the first picture, they’ve turned him into a philanthropist/environmentalist/naturalist/humanitarian grandfather presence in this one. So it cuts both ways…)

• Julianne Moore may have done this one strictly as a paycheck film (she’s admitted as much), but she’s too good of an actress not to stand out in anything she appears in. Dr. Sarah Harding is a good character, a unique character, and it’s just Moore’s bad luck to have so much screen time with Vince Vaughn. (Although, the character is forced to do some very out of character things, like carrying around bloody clothes and not cleaning her campsite, so maybe she earned this one…)
• Postlethwaite is a tremendous talent and makes Roland more interesting than any two other characters combined.

• The action set-pieces; there are some really good ones here. The sequence with the trailer being attacked by the parent Rexes is at least as good as anything in the first film. It’s a seriously long scene that just keeps upping the ante, Indiana Jones style…
• The look of the picture is great; frequent Spielberg collaborator DP Janusz Kamiński has shot a few clunkers, but they always look good. Actually, the locations aren’t quite as interesting, as they opted for California instead of Hawaii or New Zealand.

• The score by John Williams isn’t as iconic as Jurassic Park, but then, that’s a tough act to follow. There are still some great moments, along with the familiar cues.
• While it’s brief, I really like the scenes of the abandoned facility; reminds me of the interesting parts of the novel.
• Despite the rim-shot nature of a lot of the lines, there is some good humor and dialogue. “It’s so important to your future that you not finish that sentence.”

No matter how many problems The Lost World: Jurassic Park has, I can’t totally pan it. It still has good effects and John Williams and lots of dinosaurs. It coulda, shoulda been a better film, but then I suppose it could have been worse…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: B (7 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” url=”http://www.jurassicworld.com/” name=”The Lost World: Jurassic Park” description=”Director Steven Spielberg takes us back to the scene of Jurassic Park in The Lost World, the blockbuster sequel with even more dinosaurs, more action and more breathtaking visual effects than its record-breaking predecessor. The Lost World remains among the most successful films of all time and features an all-star cast including Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Morre and Pete Postlethwaite. It has been four years since the disaster at Jurassic Park and two groups are in a race against time that will determine the fate of the remote island’s prehistoric inhabitants.” director=”Steven Spielberg” actor_1=”Jeff Goldblum” ]

Main Cast	Jeff Goldblum Ian Malcolm Julianne Moore Sarah Harding Pete Postlethwaite Roland Tembo Vince Vaughn Nick Van Owen
Rating	PG-13
Release Date	Fri 23 May 1997 UTC
Director	Steven Spielberg
Genres	Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Plot	A research team is sent to the Jurassic Park Site B island to study the dinosaurs there while another team approaches with another agenda.
Poster
Runtime	129
Tagline	Based on the novel by Michael Crichton.
Writers	Michael Crichton (novel), David Koepp (screenplay)
Year	1997

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Near perfect example of an event movie; Spielberg isn’t the only one capable of delivering one of these, but it sometimes feels that way…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Jurassic Park:

It would be difficult to overstate how huge this film was in the summer of 1993. Jurassic Park nicely illustrates the definition of event movie. When the film was released in the summer of 1993 it was the first time I remember standing in a massive line for a movie since Return of the Jedi. It was the first time since Batman that people insisted on going to a good theater with a big screen to see the picture.

The book is splendid and more rewarding certainly, but the film stands on its own legs quite well and even adds some touches that improve the story, particularly the characterizations of Hammond and the grandkids. For all of his considerable talents with “big ideas” plots and storytelling, character development was never Michael Crichton’s long suit. When your stories are this good, that’s not as much of a deal-killer as it normally would be…

I think I was the only person in my family who didn’t read the novel before seeing Jurassic Park. The book came out in November of 1990, at which point I was a senior in high school and likely focused on my own crap. Besides, my dad and my sister are the scientists in the family; they actually read the books that these things are based on (and which I only try to read). I’m more like my mother – I want a good story. I tried several times to get through James Gleick’s Chaos and all of the Jack Horner, Robert Bakker and Steven Jay Gould books in order to better understand the science involved, but the lack of narrative in which to frame the concepts involved always loses my interest. One of the reasons I like Crichton’s writing so much, I suppose; he had a true gift for researching dry medical, scientific or business concepts and then weaving a tale from them.

The idea for the book was so ridiculously attractive, it’s small wonder that Crichton was able to demand a huge chunk of change and points before the novel even saw release. Steven Spielberg had the inside track, since he was already developing the tv series ER with Crichton, and it’s probably for the best that he got the rights. There’s something about “dinosaur theme park” that makes you involuntarily think Spielberg. But the other teams involved included Tim Burton, Joe Dante and Richard Donner, all of whom would have been capable of great things.

The novel really is excellent. Usual Crichton blend of detailed subject matter infused with thriller-type storyline. One thing the book conveys so much better than a film is capable of is the business concepts behind this venture. Both in Jurassic Park and in the sequel novel The Lost World, the story provides a credibility to the whole dinosaur experiment. What seems like a summer-movie conceit in the films is actually more than plausible as laid out in the books. This isn’t “hey what if we had these alien robots that could turn into cars” thrill-seeking; these are serious issues scientists, venture capitalists and ethicists are dealing with right now. Far from being science fiction, Jurassic Park possesses the Jules Vernian trait of being more like premature science fact.

David Koepp reworked Crichton’s adapted screenplay into something fit for the screen, even if it did drop some of the depth in translation. The dialogue is hugely quotable, smart and funny, and the film showcases a masterful delivery of exposition; Spielberg is somewhat known for this, but I don’t think he gets enough credit. His pictures deal in big concepts to a very broad audience with a populist approach, yet a whole lot of information gets imparted in a quickly paced and usually relatively brief amount of time. At 127 minutes, Jurassic Park is a fast-moving tale that never outstays it’s welcome.

Good actors, though not given a ton to work with. First acting appearance by Richard Attenborough in years. Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm, the rock star, chaotician – it’s a great film role, but the characterization makes a lot more sense if you’ve read the book. The lunch scene in the first act is the best in the film – really captures spirit of the book’s lessons and the thrust of the ethical dilemma facing scientists. And again, great delivery of exposition.

I don’t want to focus too much on the visuals, for while they are of course the main draw, it’s a mistake to think of this solely as an FX picture. The film is absolutely a master class of filmmaking legends showing their stuff. There’s a good mix of CG, miniatures and full-size animatronic models. The sound design is breathtaking, quite literally, and it’s delivered perfectly since Spielberg invested in the creation of the film sound standard DTS for the picture. The credits for Jurassic Park read like a VFX Hall of Fame roster: Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Phil Tippett and Michael Lantieri; Gary Summers, Gary Rydstrom, Shawn Murphy, Ron Judkins and Richard Hymns. And of course who could forget the score from maestro John Williams…

Jurassic Park truly is an amazing picture. Spielberg is just so good at building suspense; movie is so suspenseful that you don’t even realize that there’s only about 20 minutes of actual dinosaur footage in the whole thing. From the fantastic opening on, you really know you are in good hands. Spielberg is really flexing his muscles here with the adventure/suspense ratio. They make great decisions, like forgoing music in the T-Rex set-piece scene; that’s a gutsy move only made by experienced filmmakers who have honed their craft to an art form.

The film could really have stopped after the 1st scene with the dinosaurs twenty minutes in, such is the power of that reveal. Even though CG has developed so much in the past few decades, these effects still stand up amazingly well, communicating the sense of awe at being alongside these creatures. That is the real triumph of Jurassic Park – not the visuals themselves but the masterful way in which the FX enable the storytelling.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass, barely

The Representation Test Score: C (5 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” url=”http://www.jurassicworld.com/” name=”Jurassic Park” description=”During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok.” director=”Steven Spielberg” producer=”Kathleen Kennedy” actor_1=”Sam Neill” ]

Main Cast	Sam Neill Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jeff Goldblum Dr. Ian Malcolm, Richard Attenborough John Hammond
Rating	PG-13
Release Date	Fri 11 Jun 1993 UTC
Director	Steven Spielberg
Genres	Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Plot	During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok.
Poster
Runtime	127
Tagline	Life finds a way.
Writers	Michael Crichton (novel), Michael Crichton (screenplay) …
Year	1993

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Franchise is pretty solid with understated charm of George Burns, but this is my clear favorite. Very good story arc, quiet scenes & acting.

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Oh, God! You Devil:

Here’s another family favorite from the back of the VHS tape cabinet. I don’t think I saw this in the theater, but I know we rented it (remember renting videotapes?) and also taped it off of cable. I can see the yellowing cassette label in my mind still.

Even though this picture was made 30 years, I believe there’s still room for this kind of quiet picture. I like the little moments that George Burns is capable of. Such a gifted comic. This picture sort of killed the franchise, since it’s much more fun to watch Burns as the Devil than as God. But after they pushed out three of these films I don’t think anyone was in a position to complain…

Rather than trying to write a narrative review of this picture that I’ve seen so many times, I just queued it up with my laptop in front of me and put down some thoughts. And these are those:

• Caring father singing Fugue for Tinhorns (from Guys and Dolls) to his sick kid. What a sweet little opening. Possibly the subconscious reason I sang this to my little girl as a baby…
• Y’know what’s funny? Even the actor names in the 80’s sounded like the decade itself; Ted Wass, Ron Silver, Roxanne Hart, Eugene Roche, Robert Desiderio, these are 80’s names. When’s the last time you ran into a Roxanne or Eugene?
• This film is the only example I can think of where I approve of one actor playing multiple roles. It isn’t just cool to see George Burns play God and the Devil, it makes narrative sense.
• The Devil goes by the name Harry Tophet. “I love to scare the hell out of people.”
• “He hates it. Says he wouldn’t play it for his dog. You ever heard that? Wouldn’t play it for a dog?”

• Love that Tophet has a “computer” in his dashboard. Pretty good for 1984. But what is the Devil driving? Is that a K car?
• “Hawaiian Chablis? I just never saw a wine with an expiration date before.”
• I do enjoy watching movies where the answering machine figures into the story, even mildly. It’s just amusing to me…
• The fire and brimstone to alert the lead character that he’s messing with sinister forces? A vaudeville/ballpark organ and a sound effects tape, mixed with a Hitchcockian dolly zoom?
• At the time I saw this picture I’d never been to a real wedding reception. When I finally attended one many years later, I somewhat expected people to actually do the hokey pokey, thanks to this movie…
• Interesting that someone who was perfectly willing to eat a dead snail would suddenly object to a living snail. I don’t get escargot. People are weird…
• “It’s the little things I enjoy.”

• Little old-fashioned tricks are so effective.
• I remember just about every single line and moment of this movie. I have no idea how many times I watched it from 1984-1986…
• Billy Wayne’s contract expires and he’s nothing but a burning contract. See, there’s some real menace here, under the soft and safe exterior. Burns actually has an nice underlying edge.

• “Things have a way of working out.”
• The scene at the record label is just fantastic. Burns would have made a great negotiator had he not gone into showbiz.
• I know that Billy Wayne’s music is terrible, but I can’t dislike it – I grew up with this cheesy soft rock. I actually really like the song for the rock n roll lifestyle montage…

• Also, the little piano ballad Bobby Shelton is writing for his wife is lovely…
• I wonder if this film was a big influence on Richard Marx. There’s a real resemblance…
• The best moments in this picture are the quiet conversations. There’s a really interesting pace going on here. Nothing moves fast, but it never drags. Scenes have lots of room to breathe. I genuinely do miss this 1980’s film-making style. Mostly…

Maybe there’s a lot of nostalgia going here, but I really still enjoyed Oh God!, You Devil decades later. I don’t know if it can be said that it holds up, any more than anything from the 80’s does, but it still works. Give it a watch; I bet you’ll enjoy it far more than you expect…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: C (6 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

 

[schema type=”movie” name=”Oh, God! You Devil” description=”George Burns is back as God, but oops, here he is as Satan, too. A young rock star is ready to sell his soul to Satan, and Satan is all too happy to oblige. Oops! Seems the fellow was watched over by God as a baby, so now the almighty and his nemesis have to duke it out over the soul.” director=”Paul Bogart” actor_1=”George Burns” ]

Main Cast	George Burns God/Harry O. Tophet, Ted Wass Bobby Shelton, Ron Silver Gary Frantz, Roxanne Hart Wendy Shelton
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 09 Nov 1984 UTC
Director	Paul Bogart
Genres	Comedy, Fantasy
Plot	George Burns is back as God, but oops, here he is as Satan, too. A young rock star is ready to sell his soul to Satan…
Poster
Runtime	97
Tagline	That’s funny, they both look like George Burns.
Writers	Andrew Bergman, Avery Corman (novel)
Year	1984

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Largely more of the same; possibly cuter with the emphasis on kids. More streamlined, which is good. Hard pressed to fill out even 140RVW…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Oh, God! Book II:

I’m not kidding – I really had a hard time even coming up with 140 characters about Oh, God! Book II…

Umm…it’s good? I frankly think in some ways Oh, God! Book II is better than the original, even without the novelty of the original premise. It’s just a cleaner story. On the other hand, if the first one was too long and it had to establish the whole concept of God coming to Earth and recruiting a spokesperson, you can reasonably assume that this simpler story should take less time. Which it doesn’t.

Louanne, the young actress who plays the eleven-year-old lead character Tracy Richards, is marvelous; very cute and precocious, but more importantly a kid. She acts like a kid, she gets frustrated with God about being put-upon and things being unfair. Really a nice contrast to the lead character in the original, worried about his job and family. Both work great, but differently…

Oh, God! Book II is a good picture; don’t let my extraordinarily brief review give you a different impression. It’s just that it is exactly what it looks like; if you saw the first one, you sort of saw the second one, too. Your preference almost certainly would be for whichever one you saw first. All of these would make better TV shows than feature films, but that’s sort of a minor point. They’re cute and fun…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: B (10 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

 

[schema type=”movie” name=”Oh, God! Book II” description=”God asks a young girl to help spread his word and influence with a slogan.” director=”Gilbert Cates” actor_1=”George Burns” ]

Main Cast	George Burns God Suzanne Pleshette Paula Richards David Birney Don Richards Louanne Tracy Richards
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 03 Oct 1980 UTC
Director	Gilbert Cates
Genres	Comedy, Fantasy
Plot	God asks a young girl to help spread his word and influence with a slogan.
Poster
Runtime	94
Tagline	That’s right, I made another movie. You know me, I can’t stop creating.
Writers	Josh Greenfeld (story), Josh Greenfeld (screenplay) …
Year	1980