Scott Mendelson: On seeing Jurassic Park 20 years ago...

I'll make this simple.  My first theatrical viewing of Jurassic Park remains, without question, the best theatrical movie going experience of my life. It encapsulated pretty much everything good about the theatrical experience, including any number of elements that are perhaps non-replicable in today's film culture.  The viewing was an unexpected advance-night screening, back before every movie opened on Thursday at 12:00 am, if not 10:00 pm or earlier.  Jurassic Park had a whole slate of advance screenings on Thursday the 10th of June, starting at I believe 8:00 pm.  I had presumed I would be seeing it sometime that weekend, but my mother informed me that my dad was coming home from a business trip and he was picking me up in time for a 10:00 pm screening.  Obviously excited, I hurriedly rushed to finish the original Michael Crichton novel that I had been blazing through.  We got to the theater early enough and the auditorium, as well as the auditoriums around us, were absolutely jammed packed.  Everyone was excited to be there, but nobody really knew what they were in for.

Brandon Peters ranks the Evil Dead films...

RANKING THE EVIL DEAD

Well, this is the shortest rankings I’ve done so far.  If I did French Connection or John Carter, there could be shorter ones.  I really love the Evil Dead franchise.  I think it’s a perfect trilogy as is right now.  All three films are great on their own level.  I’m not against additional films in the series or the remake that’s being done.  The remake has a heavy hand from Sam Raimi AND Bruce Campbell, so I trust it.  And the fact that they both WANTED to do the remake is encouraging.  My only worry is that it’s a good film, but I’m hoping its not overhyped.  There’s a lot of crazy praise happening for it.  I feel I’m someone pretty well versed in horror/desensitized, so it takes a lot to genuinely scare me.  And you got to make your over the top gore count for narrative and character to give it that impact you want from me.  I’m excited for it though, I really am.

Now…lets RANK

Brandon Peters's Evil Dead franchise retrospective part V: Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Brandon Peters has returned! Leading up to the April 5th release date of the new Evil Dead remake, Mr. Peters will be doing his voodoo with the Evil Dead series. He continues with a bonus look at Drag Me To Hell. For those who want my original theatrical review, go HERE. Otherwise, without further ado...

Drag Me To Hell

2009

Director: Sam Raimi

Starring:  Alison Lohman, Justin Long, David Paymer, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao

Rated PG-13 (I watched the Unrated cut)

You tricked me, you black-hearted who-o-o-o-o-ore! You b-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-itch!

                        ~Goat

If you’re question why I covered this film in my EVIL DEAD retrospective series, then you’ve never seen Drag Me To Hell.  And if you haven’t seen Drag Me To Hell, stop reading, go out and Netflix or BUY it (it's like $5 at Fry’s).  You've been missing out on one of the best horror films of the previous decade. 

R.L. Shaffer: On seeing Jurassic Park 20 years ago...

This is the second of a handful of essays regarding your first (and second and/or third) viewing of
Jurassic Park twenty summers ago, as we brace ourselves for the film's 3D IMAX rerelease this Friday.  I'm sure every single one of my readers has such a memory so feel free to share them in the comments section below.

Memories of Jurassic Park:

By R.L Shaffer

I was a mere 12 years old when I first visited Jurassic Park.

From the very first teaser (seen above) I was hooked. As a self-professed lover of dinosaurs (or dino-sars as Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm pronounced it), it would be my duty to see any film about these mysterious creatures. I didn't know what I was going to get, either, but if director Steven Spielberg was going to take me there, I was more than willing to enjoy the ride.

Brandon Peters's Evil Dead franchise retrospective part IV: Army of Darkness (1992)

Brandon Peters has returned! Leading up to the April 5th release date of the new Evil Dead remake, Mr. Peters will be doing his voodoo with the Evil Dead series. He continues with a look at Army of Darkness. As only a casual Evil Dead fan, this was an extra-special treat as this isn't a film series that I've memorized by heart. This was as informative for me as I hope it will be for you. So without further ado...

Army of Darkness

1992

Director: Sam Raimi

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Ian Abercrombie, Marcus Gilbert, Richard Grove…also Bridget Fonda and a line-less Linda, Night of the Living Dead remake’s Patricia Tallman as a deadite and Wedding Singer’s Angela Featherstone as an S-Mart girl

Rated R

Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun.

            ~Ash

With the success of Darkman, Sam Raimi was finally able to bring to life his vision of Ash fighting deadites in medieval times.  Originally titled The MediEvil Dead, the film was the first in the series to be backed by a major studio.  However, the film is still done on the cheap.  Bringing the comedic aspect of Evil Dead 2 to the forefront this time around, Raimi unleashes an insanely fun, quotable film featuring an encore performance by Bruce Campbell and a tribute to the comedy and adventures Sam Raimi enjoyed growing up.

Brandon Peters: On seeing Jurassic Park 20 years ago...

This is one of two of three essays regarding your first (and second and/or third) viewing of Jurassic Park twenty summers ago, as we brace ourselves for the film's 3D IMAX rerelease this Friday.  I'm sure every single one of my readers has such a memory so feel free to share them in the comments section below.

Jurassic Park Memories

Brandon Peters

Yes, that photo supporting the article is ridiculous…but I just kinda “had to” use it. Hilariously, its one of those images that sticks in your head from the movie.

Jurassic Park was one of those films that comes along once every 8-10 years that just restores your faith and fulfill the magic of seeing a film in a theater to the highest level.  There was an absolute joy and “level up-ing" of my love for cinema after viewing this movie.  An event movie in the greatest sense. And man, was there a craze following it.

Watch/Discuss: Kick Ass 2 gets a red-band trailer.

Get More: 

Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

I'm not allowed to post my The Incredible Burt Wonderstone review quite yet, but I will say that this film and the one opening Friday marks an interesting turn for Jim Carrey, theoretically eschewing the pure star vehicle in favor of broadly comic "I'm just here to be funny" supporting turns.  Since Carrey never really had that portion of his career where he slowly broke into lead vehicles (like for example Will Ferrell), this is pretty new territory for him and something I look forward to as we near the 20th anniversary of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective next January (congrats - you're old).  Anyway, the rest of the trailer seems fine, although I can't help wondering if this will be a classic case of 'rooting against action', where we want to maintain the happy ending of the first film, with Dave living happily with his father and dating Katie (who happily is returning) while young Mindy gets the childhood she was previously denied.  

Dumb parent worries: Will my kid get spooked by PG-13 trailers like After Earth in front of PG-rated movies like Oz?

I made an offhand joke a couple days ago about all of the big summer release trailers being dropped online and presumably into theater this week.  I'm taking my daughter to see Oz: The Great and Powerful tonight and I'm curious to see which trailers are attached to PG-rated Disney family adventure.  Obviously The Hangover part III is probably not going to make an appearance.  But what about the more mainstream PG-13 entertainments like Iron Man 3 or After Earth?  So will the first 15-20 minutes or so of my daughter's moviegoing experience consist of a series of trailers for big summer releases that she can't see?  Will I have to explain that "No, sweetie, *this* Iron Man movie is for adults."  I've had to do that before, like when when she spotted the DVD of Snow White and the Huntsman at Best Buy, and I always feel like an idiot when doing so.  The other thought that comes to mind is a 12 year old news story, one which I gave little thought to at the time.  

Pity... Universal cancels Oblivion's early IMAX release.

Having rather loathed Tron: Legacy, I've had to work myself up in order to get excited about Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion.  Yes, Tom Cruise usually makes sure that his big-scale pictures are a cut above and yes the film looks better with each trailer, but the biggest cause for hope was its release schedule.  The film's national release was set for April 19th, but the film was also going a full week early in IMAX only, giving paying audiences a week-long sneak preview in IMAX and other larger-screen formats.  But alas, that promising move by Universal has been cancelled.  Chalk it up to Cruise wanting to do international press for the film's overseas debut on the 12th and the film's US debut on the 19th, chalk it up to Universal wanting an extra week of play for their 3D reissue of Jurassic Park on April 12th, but audiences will not be seeing Oblivion: The IMAX Experience one week early after all.  Color me genuinely disappointed.

Trailer: Fast & Furious 6 spoils but excites while laying down the flag as the biggest action franchise around.

Despite my hope that Universal wouldn't feel the need to expand upon their superb Super Bowl commercial, Universal doesn't just have a new trailer, but an incredibly lengthy 3:22 trailer to boot.  It basically does little more than to expand upon the plot spoilers hinted at in the teaser, with only the last 60 seconds or so devoted to spoilery stunts and action.  I could argue that the trailer should have ended at the 2:20 mark and gone out as an extended tease, but I know that I'm shouting at the wins.  It's great stuff, although I rolled my eyes a bit at the random shots of gyrating women and the cliche of having the main female heroine (newcomer Gina Carano) squaring off against the main female villain (back-from-the-dead Michelle Rodriguiez) rather than having cross-gender fighting.  Those quibbles aside, this looks pretty spectacular, and it seems that the once laughable Fast & Furious franchise is now basically the top pure action franchise in Hollywood in the moment, give-or-take the newly rejuvenated 007 franchise.  The stunts look great, everybody looks happy to be back, and this could easily be one of the biggest movies of the summer, if not the biggest behind surefire smashes Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness. Sung Kang is still around, meaning that we're still in pre-Tokyo Drify territory.  Expect his fiery demise to get ret-conned somewhere along the way, perhaps in a gambit involving time travel.  Anyway, Fast & Furious 6 looks like a genuinely great piece of earthbound action.  Now can Universal quit while it's ahead and not spoil anything else from here on out?

Scott Mendelson

Fast & Furious 6 teaser wins the Super Bowl. I dare Universal to not cut any more marketing materials until after it opens.

Well, that was worth the wait, but then Universal, like Paramount's Transformers series, has always done well by way of Super Bowl teasers with this long-running franchise.  A few notes.  A) Are the random shots of scantily-clad gyrating women really necessary?  B) I still think Universal is nuts not to open this one in April where it will absolutely dominate the pre-summer season.  Oh sure, it may well win the Memorial Day weekend race, but everybody loses a little by the demo head-to-head match ups.  The Hangover III and Fast & Furious 6 are literally targeting the same demographic and both films will open a bit less than they otherwise would have without direct competition.  Coming off the obscenely good and quite popular Fast Five, an unopposed Fast & Furious 6 would be looking at a $100 million+ Fri-Sun debut.  Heck, The Hangover part III may well have a shot at that too under different circumstances, even if the second film wasn't quite as beloved as the first one.  But going head-to-head?  Now both will be lucky to get past $75 million apiece.  For what?  A dick-measuring contest?  Anyway, last point, this is such a grand and effective teaser that I challenge Universal to stop.

Fast & Furious 6 gets poster and most boring title possible.

They just couldn't wait one more day could they?  Universal is of course debuting the first teaser for the sixth Fast and the Furious film tomorrow during the Super Bowl, and the prime reason for curiosity was discovering what the title was going to be.  Well, wonder no longer, cause Universal had to release the above teaser poster and spoil all the fun.  And really, Universal, Fast & Furious 6?  That was the best you could come up with?  They could have gone with any number of more creative titles for this sixth installment.  And while my personal pick, Faster & Furiousier, is probably never going to happen (followed of course by Fastest and Furiousest), the producers certainly had license to have a bit more fun than they've obviously chosen to do.  Also, boring title aside, we have a synopsis, which takes the story in the most logical next direction (the gang teams up with Dwayne Johnson in exchange for pardons), but it's also a little odd when you consider the last film.  

If you recall, the whole point behind the big $100 million drug money heist was to earn the financial security needed to not live on the lam anymore.  Yet now we learn that they are basically suffering from the same 'this is no way to raise a family' issues they had last time.  Minor issues to be sure, likely more to do with the generic plot synopsis than any real script problems, but I do hope that part 6 is indeed a continuation rather than a rehash.  What made Fast Five more than just hollow action stunts is the attention to continuity from the previous installments that gave the film an emotional kick that it otherwise would not have had.  Anyway, Fast & Furious 6 opens May 24th, against The Hangover part III.  One of those should damn well move since they are both targeting the same demographic, but that's not my problem.  I'll post the Super Bowl teaser sometime tomorrow evening.  So what would be your pick for a better, more creative title for this sixth entry?  Oh, and the official synopsis is below (spoiler warning if you didn't stay for the end credits of Fast Five).

Scott Mendelson

Since Dom (Diesel) and Brian’s (Walker) Rio heist toppled a kingpin’s empire and left their crew with $100 million, our heroes have scattered across the globe. But their inability to return home and living forever on the lam have left their lives incomplete.

Meanwhile, Hobbs (Johnson) has been tracking an organization of lethally skilled mercenary drivers across 12 countries, whose mastermind (Evans) is aided by a ruthless second-in-command revealed to be the love Dom thought was dead, Letty (Rodriguez). The only way to stop the criminal outfit is to outmatch them at street level, so Hobbs asks Dom to assemble his elite team in London. Payment? Full pardons for all of them so they can return home and make their families whole again.

Review: Mama (2013) is a horrifying psychological drama trapped inside a mostly routine ghost story.

Mama

2013
100 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

There is potential for an absolutely fascinating character study hidden within Andrés Muschietti's Mama, but unfortunately the film feels content to follow the road oft-traveled in its genre.  The film's first ten minutes or so are absolutely superb, and the opening credits are among the best in rest years, if only for how succinctly they offer copious exposition in a way that is downright chilling in its simplicity.  In a sea of remakes and franchise reboots, it is indeed admirable that Mama attempts to tell an original horror story, and I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's often quite creepy.  But the real-world horror that we are presented with is actually scarier and far more disturbing than the supernatural elements at play, which puts the viewer in an odd position of wanting less horror and more drama.  The picture is well-acted and contains a few genuine surprises during its relatively brief 100 minute running time.  But the film somewhat hampers its intentions by coming out of the gate so strong that what it offers for much of its running time is merely the wrong kind of horror.

Trailer: Tom Cruise *is* Wall-E in Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion!

It's no secret that I think Tron: Legacy is one of the worst would-be blockbusters in recent memory.  So the idea of another sci-fi would-be tentpole written and directed by Joseph Kosinski doesn't exactly fill me with glee, although the screenplay assist from William Monahan and Michael Ardnt should be noted.  But two things give me relative optimism.  First of all, Tom Cruise generally doesn't make out-and-out terrible films.  Oh sure Rock of Ages was among the worst films of his career, but he had a supporting role in that ensemble and everyone has to shoot an air ball sometime.  Second of all, this film is getting a full week of IMAX-only release, which I'd like to think Universal wouldn't be doing if the film wasn't going to get decent word-of-mouth ahead of its national April 19, 2013 release date.  As for the trailer, the first half amusingly resembles a live-action version of Wall-E before introducing Morgan Freeman and kicking into a somewhat more generic science-fiction action picture.  I'm betting that Sony wishes it had released its teaser for M. Night Shyamalan's somewhat similar sounding After Earth, although we'll see how the Will Smith sci-fi film compares when it teases next weekend with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The cast is pretty solid, including the likes of Olga Kurylenko, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Andrea Riseborough, and Melissa Leo.  I wouldn't say it looks *good* so much as to admit that it doesn't look *bad*.  Anyway, as always, we'll see.  If you have any thoughts, share them below.

Scott Mendelson   

A kingdom with no ruler: The current animation landscape...

For the second year in a row, Pixar will not have anything close to the best animated film of the year and will not have the highest-grossing animated film of the year, not worldwide anyway. This is not a rant to bag on Pixar, as they will be fine (I'm optimistic that they are merely experiencing growing pains) and I'm more curious to examine what the animation field looks like without an uncontested leader. The critical disappointments of the likes of Cars 2 and Brave along with the lack of any guaranteed masterpieces for a little while puts Pixar in a position where it's now just 'one of the guys'.  Disney has been trying to reclaim its once-uncontested title, but it too now sits in a position where it's 'just one of the gang', as there is no guarantee that the likes of Wreck It Ralph will even out-gross The Lorax domestically (worldwide, Tangled was the first Disney toon to top $350 million since Tarzan back in 1999).  Critically, Disney has not had an out-and-out gem since Meet the Robinsons back in 2007, where it was matched by Pixar's Ratatouille.  So the question becomes what does the animation landscape look like when neither Disney or even Pixar is the uncontested king of the proverbial hill?  The answer is somewhat more exciting than you'd think.

Wreck It Ralph vs Flight in the Weekend Movie Preview.

Easily expected to be the biggest film this weekend, Wreck-It Ralph is the latest release from Disney Animation. The plot follows Ralph, the protagonist in the fictional video game Fix-It Felix, who tires of being the bad guy and leaves his game to find another in which he can become a hero. Along the way he encounters Tamora Calhoun, a sergeant in the Call of Duty/Halo style game, Hero's Duty and Vanellope von Schweetz, an 8 year old girl in racing game, Sugar Rush. But while Ralph is trying to realise his dream, Schweetz discovers a problem within her own game, one that could have dire consequences not only for the cast of Sugar Rush but the entire arcade - and it looks like Ralph leaving his own game could be the cause of all the problems. Development on Wreck-It Ralph began a number of years ago, as an idea from story artist Sam Levine. At that point the picture was known as Joe Jump and featured an over the hill character attempting to make the transition into modern videogames. Levine was making good progress on the project (enough for a rough synopsis to turn up online) but when John Lasseter took over as head of Disney Animation in 2006, the status of Joe Jump became unclear. While the Pixar honcho let Levine (and his writer) work on the project for a further year, it began to languish, and with little sign of moving forward, Joe Jump was put on the shelf and Levine was assigned to another project. While Lasseter was impressed by the core idea, he wasn't sold on the story itself. 

Les Miserables gets character posters and a very familiar theatrical one-sheet. Can't friggin wait...!

The four character posters, highlighting the four lead actors/characters (Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfriend, and likely Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway) are after the jump.  I have little to add only to repeating my foaming-at-the-mouth excitement from earlier discussions of this project.  December 25th, or whenever Universal lets me see this thing, can't come soon enough.  The above comparison, which basically speaks for itself, came from Average Film Reviews.

Scott Mendelson

An extended look at Les Miserables. It still looks wonderful.

This four minute featurette goes into detail about the gimmick of allowing actors to sing live on set as they are filmed.  As if I wasn't anymore excited by the project on principle, this sounds like a wonderful experiment that seems to be working very well.  And the discussion about Hathaway's performance of "I Dreamed A Dream" (around 3:20) is one of those wonderful moments where you realize that the filmmakers indeed made the right artistic choice for exactly the reason you hoped (in this case, doing the song less as a triumphant ode to resiliency and more as a rock-bottom admission of defeat). I know the disappointments of Phantom of the Opera and The Producers have quieted Oscar talk for this one, but this still feels like the one to beat.  It's a fantastic and wrenching drama filled with obscenely good songs performed by some of the best musical actors in the film industry.  In the words of William Hurt in A History Of Violence, "How do you fuck *this* up?".  Anyway, I'm not thrilled about Universal moving the film to December 25th, mostly because I want to see it sooner and there are already a bazillion releases during the last two weeks of the year as it is.  Let's hope one or two of them take refuge in the now nearly vacant December 14th slot (yes, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will be huge, but there is room for viable counter programming). Les Miserables opens on December 25th.  If it's as good as I want it to be, this may be the first film in 4.5 years that I end up seeing twice in a theater.  At the very least, I will certainly be buying the soundtrack.

Scott Mendelson    

Review: The Bourne Legacy (2012) not only fails to reboot the franchise but retroactively poisons what came before.

The Bourne Legacy

2012
130 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson
While Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy is being touted as a spin-off from the Matt Damon-starring spy franchise, it actually functions more as a retroactive prequel.  Rather than expanding the story or going off in a different direction, it spends an unholy amount of its screen time explicitly explaining the history and science behind a completely different 'super assassin' program from the one that once bred Jason Bourne (imagine if The Phantom Menace was primarily *about* midichlorians).  Instead of telling a story of relevance or creating interesting characters that happen to exist in the world established by Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass (and of course stemming from Robert Ludlam's original novels), Tony Gilroy takes a proverbial pick-axe to the series, undoing much of the prior narrative while retroactively turning Jason Bourne (of course played by Matt Damon and occasionally seen here in still photographs) into not a conflicted anti-hero but a force of chaos.  All of this would be forgivable and possibly intriguing if the resulting film weren't so bloody dull and unengaging.  But The Bourne Legacy makes me want to apologize for every mean thing I ever said about The Bourne Ultimatum.  The third film may have been a dumbed-down and amped-up remake of the superb Bourne Supremacy, but it at least had a pulse and sheer entertainment value.  The Bourne Legacy makes one yearn for the comparatively high-quality thrills and chills of Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. 

Why Kristen Stewart's public apology is far more disturbing than her (and Rupert Sanders's) apparent transgression.

It could be argued that director Rupert Sanders and actress Kristen Stewart owe an apology to a handful of people.  Obviously they are in respective deep trouble with Robert Pattinson and Liberty Ross.  They certainly owe an apology to Saunders's two children, and perhaps some kind of apology to certain studio executives at Universal and Summit/Lionsgate, since their allegedly adulterous actions will certainly have some kind of impact on the respect fortunes of Snow White and the Huntsman (with a sequel now in doubt) and Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part II (which may well increase in interest ala Mr. and Mrs. Smith).  But other than that, neither of these people owe any of us a damn thing.  I am less troubled by the apparent adultery (or attempted adultery?) than I am by Kristen Stewart's public apology, seemingly specifically intended for Mr. Pattinson but released out into the open for all to see as a kind of public mea culpa.  I don't blame Ms. Stewart for this instant press release so much as I blame a media/popular culture that demanded a public apology for an inherently private indiscretion.