The Movie I Just Watched Thread 2: Revengeance

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT (2022)

What a charming lark. Should it have been more? Absolutely. But for a slightly winking look at Cage's life wrapped in a fairly standard 'workaholic dad needs to reconnect with his child', I liked it. Pascal and Cage have great chemistry, and Cage does get to deliver some stellar work. It still just felt like a third or fourth draft, polished enough to get made but lacking a certain depth that could have put it into another level. Underdeveloped would be the word I'd use to best describe it.

It's Cage, though, and he is always, always worth watching.

JURASSIC PARK (1993)

I don't care how many times I've seen it or how dated the effects look (it's maybe the one time in the film they don't totally hold up), but that build to and reveal of the brachiasaur is still breathtaking. And then Ellie and Grant's giddy disbelief at what they're seeing, the music slowly building, and then that money shot of the herds in the distance. That's the film's thesis right there, and if it doesn't work, it is DOA right there. And it works like gangbusters.

It's kind of amazing that the effects for that sequence held up so well for so long, and they're really only now beginning to look dated.

Neill, Dern, Goldblum, and Attenborough sell the living shit out of that moment and yeah, it still works.

I should resurrect the laserdisc thread. I have all four releases of Jurassic Park on that format, including the 'neighbors are calling the cops' DTS release.

Yep the brachiasaur sequence is amazing, but the T-Rex attack sequence is one of those special "movie moments" that will stay with me for my entire life.

It truly is...majestic.

JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION (2022)

While not nearly as big an act of cowardice, this is the franchise's RISE OF SKYWALKER -- a backpedal away from many of the ideas in the previous film in order to give us the comfortably familiar. It goes to so many lengths to recreate JURASSIC PARK -- both literally and figuratively -- it makes you wonder why they blew the place up in the first place.

I watched Jurassic Park a couple of weeks ago and it's still a great movie. I will never get bored of seeing the T-Rex save the day at the end.

Recently watched Jurassic Park as well, helluva watch with the noise cancelling headphones.

Was thinking earlier about with the series ending with Dominion, what would another adaptation look like?

Would Jurassic Park in the form of a 8 or 10 episode series work well?

Make it harder edged, without the family angle that Spielberg lent to it. Give Hammond more of a cut throat feel to him, not the kind grandfather.
Maybe showcase the first few attempts at the opening of the park, the finding of the amber etc… the island and the events of the evening of the Dino breakout having a build up of 3 episodes or so.

I was thinking of Mendohlson as Grant, Olyphant as Malcolm, Brosnan as Hammond…

Trying to think of Sattler and Nedry…

Thoughts?

I didn’t even realize the new one was already out.

Call Me Roy Again wrote:

Recently watched Jurassic Park as well, helluva watch with the noise cancelling headphones.

Was thinking earlier about with the series ending with Dominion, what would another adaptation look like?

Would Jurassic Park in the form of a 8 or 10 episode series work well?

Make it harder edged, without the family angle that Spielberg lent to it. Give Hammond more of a cut throat feel to him, not the kind grandfather.
Maybe showcase the first few attempts at the opening of the park, the finding of the amber etc… the island and the events of the evening of the Dino breakout having a build up of 3 episodes or so.

I was thinking of Mendohlson as Grant, Olyphant as Malcolm, Brosnan as Hammond…

Trying to think of Sattler and Nedry…

Thoughts?

I'd love to see a "prestige TV" re-adaptation of Crichton's novel that eschews any of the movie iconography and goes for the graphic violence presented in the book, alongside more faithfully presenting Crichton's conception of some of the characters (Hammond and Gennaro, in particular, even though I prefer Movie Hammond over Book Hammond).

There is still quite a bit of material from the novel that the movies haven't used yet (the river rapids sequence, guests under siege in a hotel, infiltrating a raptor nest, etc.).

Enough has changed about what we think dinsosaurs looked like that you certainly wouldn't run the risk of a new adaptation looking the same.

And if we're recasting....

Grant - Matthew Goode
Sattler - Maya Hawke
Malcolm - David Tennant
Hammond - Ricky Gervais
Nedry - Haley Joel Osment

DailyRich wrote:

Enough has changed about what we think dinsosaurs looked like that you certainly wouldn't run the risk of a new adaptation looking the same.

And if we're recasting....

Grant - Matthew Goode
Sattler - Maya Hawke
Malcolm - David Tennant
Hammond - Ricky Gervais
Nedry - Haley Joel Osment

Damn… Gervais as Hammond is inspired, especially if he plays it as the more cynical business man.

And hell yes to Osment as well! He would be perfectly cast in a “role not yet seen” for him.

Also… Jon Hamm as Dodgson? To appear in season 2 for a proper The Lost World adaptation?

Call Me Roy Again wrote:

Damn… Gervais as Hammond is inspired, especially if he plays it as the more cynical business man.

Yeah, that's the idea, play him more like the book and less like Cuddly Uncle John from the film.

"Sounds great. I love the idea of redoing a faithful Jurassic Park. Now, you've never been a showrunner before, right? Great! Easy. Here are some notes. Can we also add a kid who is questioning his/her/their gender identity and sexuality? And why not have some dino/human forbidden love, ooh, a Sattler/Grant/Stego love triangle? Malcolm dying, that's a no. He has to headline his own spinoff, Ian Malcolm: Dinosaur Whisperer? And look, we're a trillion dollar company, can we not make corporate America the villain? How about rogue agents, like antifa or BLM? Seriously, love it; but we need some in-universe plot device that can tie this to the original movies like, they find a portal to a Lost World and :: head exploding gesture :: they come out INTO THE LOST WORLD."

"Just get back to me. We'll give you 8 mil an episode, but you have to promise to make it look like we gave you 2."

Doc Happenin wrote:

"Sounds great. I love the idea of redoing a faithful Jurassic Park. Now, you've never been a showrunner before, right? Great! Easy. Here are some notes. Can we also add a kid who is questioning his/her/their gender identity and sexuality? And why not have some dino/human forbidden love, ooh, a Sattler/Grant/Stego love triangle? Malcolm dying, that's a no. He has to headline his own spinoff, Ian Malcolm: Dinosaur Whisperer? And look, we're a trillion dollar company, can we not make corporate America the villain? How about rogue agents, like antifa or BLM? Seriously, love it; but we need some in-universe plot device that can tie this to the original movies like, they find a portal to a Lost World and :: head exploding gesture :: they come out INTO THE LOST WORLD."

"Just get back to me. We'll give you 8 mil an episode, but you have to promise to make it look like we gave you 2."

I mean… I guess…

Doc Happenin wrote:

"Just get back to me. We'll give you 8 mil an episode, but you have to promise to make it look like we gave you 2."

Hahaha yep.

Freddy vs Jason: "You kids need some assistance?"
"What the fuck do you think!"

Last night I could have gotten around to watching a classy movie that I haven't seen yet, but I wanted to watch something fun instead. This flick is a blood splattered good time. I know during this movie's time in development Hell, the scripts were overly complicated. I like that this movie's ssimply plot gives Freddy and Jason chances to be entertaining monsters. I'm not much of a Friday the 13th fan, but Jason going nuts at the rave is one of the movie's highlights; as the image of Jason on fire walking though the cornfield. Englund's performance as Freddy combines the fun hammy aspects of the character with menace. His first scene as a human does remind the audience that he is a disgusting creep. Finally the climatic fight is a blast.

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT remains some kind of minor miracle. It's impressive on a number of levels (including the fact that it exists at all), but this time around I found myself particularly appreciating Bob Hoskins' performance. It's not every actor that could bring believable emotional gravity to a monologue about a cartoon character dropping a piano on his brother's head.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (2022) - I was unfamiliar with the Youtube series, so when I saw this was playing I thought 'Oh, that looks cute.' And it totally was. A little "documentary" about a talking shell, it has equal parts humor, warmth and just the right amount of emotion to really make it work. At 90 minutes, it just stretches its plots out. Jenny Slate provides the voice of Marcel, a shell living with his grandma (voiced by the one and only Isabella Rossellini) and their interactions with a documentary filmmaker who happens to be AirBnBing the house at the time. As a note, this was the first movie I ever took my daughter to in an actual movie theater (that wasn't a short at Central Park) so this will definitely be one for the books. Really, really sweet and charming, and brings a wonderful smile to you at the end.

THE MAN FROM TORONTO (2022) - at best it's 'fine'. Kevin Hart plays himself, in this case a fast talking entrepreneur who gets mistaken for the titular man, played by Woody Harrelson, who is a contract killer. The CGI is dodgy as hell. The story is so run of the mill it wouldn't surprise me if it was written by Google's "totally not sentient" AI and the action scenes are mostly middling. There's a single fake towards the end that at least showed some vivre. The comedy mostly works, though it takes far too long to get Hart and Harrelson on screen together; when they do, they're an excellent buddy-cop duo. Hart is definitely funny, and Harrelson understands comedy enough to know he's not gonna make the jokes, but he can play against type and it mostly works here. The rest? Eh? Oh, and there's a dude who could totally play a young Val Kilmer in something.

Caught The Cat Returns yesterday, which is getting a very brief screeening to commemorate its 20th anniversary. It's an extremely basic and no-frills story from Studio Ghibli, but it's helped considerably by the fact that it's only 75 min. long - it feels more like a long short film than a feature-length blockbuster. All in all, nothing life-changing, but quite a bit of fun.

Just saw MEN by Alex Garland. Works best in the early stages, when there's beautiful moody suspense about. When mundane everyday horror gives way to balls-to-the-wall Repulsion-style psych horror, the movie paradoxically loses a lot of its scariness, and the symbolism is nothing if not hammer-handed. Never overstays its welcome, though. Probably three times more disturbing if you're a woman.