Movies

Jurassic Overload

We sign up to get Peacock so we can watch the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana bicycle races. We even opt to spend the ten bucks a month to have the no commercials option.1 One of the big banners that show up at the top when you open the Peacock app is for the new Jurassic Park movie – Jurassic World: Dominion.

Hey, what the heck, I enjoyed the first movie way back when and its free, so I thought I’d check it out. I lasted 15 minutes before turning it off, Chris Pratt on a horse roping dinosaurs like a wild west cowboy… So this past Monday while the Vuelta cyclists were on a rest day, I talked Donna into watching the 1993 original movie.

Wow, amazing how much you forget in 30 years. Not the main bits that have become pop culture touchstones, the water class vibrations as the T-Rex approaches or the lawyer in the out house, etc, but the acting. Jeff Goldblum’s over the top smarminess, Lora Dern’s poorly acted wide-eyed innocence, Sam Neil’s character arc of kid hating to kid loving and Wayne Knight’s whatever.2 I did forget that Samuel L. Jackson was in it though and I kept waiting for him to drop a Mofo, but alas I was disappointed.

Anyway, turned out the first movie wasn’t as great as I remembered it was, so I thought I’d give to new movie one more try. This time I made it to right around the hour mark when the movie sort of morphed into the Star Wars cantina scene and then flipped immediately into a Jason Bourne movie which where it lost me…again.

Along with the latest Jurassic World: Dominion, the first 3 Jurassic movies are available for watching on Peacock right now, but The Lost World & The Lost World: Fallen Kingdom aren’t for some reason. I have a copy of The Lost World that someone gave me and I probably watched it back in 2015, but I can’t remember anything about it. I have seen the third movie, Jurassic Park III, and I seem to remember thinking it was OK, but that was 20 years ago.

That left the second movie, The Lost World. Jurassic Park, left to see on Peacock. Guess what? This one is another steaming pile a dino droppings. I made it about 45 minutes before hitting the stop button. The only thing remotely noteworthy about this movie was there was a young guy that plays a photographer that goes to the island with our core group of Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore and Richard Schiff that sounded a lot like Vince Vaughn. I had to stop the movie and check IMDB. Holy Crap! It was a 27-year old Vince Vaughn.

Random Little Library

Back in the days of sunny skies and breathable we were on a walk around the neighborhood when just a couple blocks from home we stumbled on a couple boxes of books on the front wall with a sign that read “Free. Take Some.”

It was a varied assortment of kids to young adult books. Donna picked through and selected several books that she thought were appropriate to send along to the nieces and nephew in Washington and I selfishly picked out three books, that spanned 3 centuries in publication dates, I might like to read. All of them were made into movies, only one of which I have seen, so maybe I’ll read the books, then watch the movies, just to compare them.

Published in 2010 was I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore and all I knew of this book was that it had been made into a movie. A not very successful one if I recall correctly. It was fairly entertaining book about an alien race that looks just like us living on earth until they can return to their home planet and reclaim it. But it turns into teen romance with monsters and hero aliens. Because it turns out to be the first book in a series of seven it doesn’t so much as conclude, buts just stops. The movie is available on IMDB for free (with adds), but after I watched the trailer, I won’t watch the movie because I’m not a teenager any more.

Published in 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, AKA Bladerunner, was the source material for one of my favorite movies of all-time, but I have never read the book on which it was based. I am a voracious sci-fi reader and have actually never read anything by PKD. Though I have seen more than a half dozen or so of the movies or TV shows based on his writings. While the book is different from the movie in many ways, the core plot is the same and I can see where the cinematic choices made for a better movie.

First published in French in 1864 A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne wasn’t translated into English for publication in 1871. According to IMDB there are three movie versions, 1959, 1988 & 2008 to go along with numerous TV series, TV mini-series, TV movies and a video game based on this material. I have seen none of them and I have also not read the book. Now is my chance. Wow. I couldn’t read it. The language was, well, different. Was it the translation, was it the language of the time, was it a combination of the two? I don’t know, but I couldn’t finish through the second chapter.

But as I was hungry, I sallied forth to the dining room, where I took up my usual quarters. Out of politeness I waited three minutes, but no sign of my uncle, the Professor. I was surprised. He was not usually so blind to the pleasure of a good dinner. It was the acme of German luxury- parsley soup, a ham omelette with sorrel trimmings, an oyster of veal stewed with prunes, delicious fruit, and sparkling Moselle. For the sake of poring over this musty old piece of parchment, my uncle forbore to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.

The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad disappointment-which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to table after all?

Probably not going to watch this movie either. The 2008 movie with Brendan Faser is three bucks to rent on Amazon and the 1959 movie with James Mason & Pat Boone is a dollar more at $4. The 1988 version is free on Amazon, it has 3 one-star ratings only because they couldn’t give it a zero. But to top it off, here is a quote from the listed director, Rusty Lemorande: “Only the first eight minutes of this film were directed by me. The rest of it is the sequel to the Kathy Ireland vehicle Alien from L.A. (1988) directed by Albert Pyun, which was tacked on by the producers and renamed “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in order to fulfill contracts with foreign distributors.”

She Looks Familiar

On Saturday when I finally gave up on watching Californication with mere minutes to go in the Season 5’s final episode. I once again tried on Hulu for something worth watching and received the same results (what is that quote about trying the same thing over and over again?) My best option now was to open up Plex and pick a movie I own digitally because if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have a copy of it. Ooh, here is one I love and haven’t watched in a while, Ronin. Foreign locales, international intrigue, gun fire and car chases.

Natascha McElhone in Ronin

Early on when the team of mercenaries is gathering a bar in Paris, in walks a woman who is going to be the leader their mission. Hey, she looks familiar. I’ve seen her in something I’ve watched recently.

Natascha McElhone in Californication

I hit pause and open up IMDB page for Ronin, dang, no wonder I thought I recognized her, she is the same actor who plays David Duchovny’s girlfriend/soul mate/baby mamma in Californication, Natascha McElhone.

$20,000 In Legal Fees


Day 1 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Aiken, SC to Birmingham, AL. In our continuing effort of never having to drive in Atlanta, our first day’s drive across Georgia included a back road route that took us more than 30 miles south of that megalopolis. We were barreling along GA16 about 10 miles west of Monticello when we blew by a convenience store with the rather odd name of Sack-O-Suds. I thought to myself that it sounded familiar. Then it hit me, the movie My Cousin Vinny. This was the place that our two “heroes” shoplift a can of tuna from and it lands them in jail for murder. By now we are a couple miles down the road and I think to myself out loud, “Should have taken a picture.” My co-pilot says, “Well, turn around.”

Not too far from crossing into Alabama the Lady Bug flies past the 20,000 mile mark.

Jesus Christ Superstar


Got a double dose of JCS for this Easter Weekend. Not only did I watch my favorite 1973 version, but Sunday night Donna and I watched the 2018 John Legend live version on NBC, actually enjoyed both.

The 1973 one will always be my “go to” version for holiday watching, because it comes with the voices I am most familiar with. Probably because several of the movie cast reprise their roles from the 1971 concept album that was my first exposure to the work. But the 2018 one was actually pretty good, the single stage with simple sets reminded me more of the stage play I saw in high school and have to admit that as much as I liked Josh Mostel’s King Herrod in the movie, Alice Cooper’s version was kick-ass.

Oh what a pity if it’s all a lie.
Still, I’m sure that you can rock the cynics if you tried.
So, you are the Christ, you’re the great Jesus Christ.
Prove to me that you’re no fool; walk across my swimming pool.
If you do that for me, then I’ll let you go free.

I wonder if NBC will re-run the live version next Easter?

WWJD


From the song “Trial Before Pilate” on the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar:
-Pontius Pilate-
Don’t let me stop your great self-destruction.
Die if you want to, you misguided martyr.
I wash my hands of your demolition.
Die if you want to you innocent puppet!

Friday I watched Jesus Christ Superstar on the TV in the living room. Donna poked in a couple of times as she like the music, but doesn’t really care for the movie. Last year I watched the movie on the laptop and the video quality was not that great, but my rip of the 720p resolution DVD which in of itself was made from the 1973 movie film really looks fuzzy only 9 feet away from a 52″ TV. I’ve read there is a blu ray version of the flick available, but I have also read it wasn’t remastered in any way so I’m not to keen on buying it. There is probably a torrent out there of it. What Would Jesus Do? Would he download the torrent to see if it worth maybe buying it?

Today we watched the totally forgettable movie The Intern. From the title I thought it was that stupid Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson thing, but the trailer had Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway and it seemed kind of fun. And it was, but at 2 hours it was about 15-20 minutes too long. We didn’t need the interns Ocean’s Eleven side trip, Ben at the kid’s birthday party and we didn’t really need the whole infidelity sub plot.

In between we had breakfast out with a small contingent of the MMC, lunch out with a friend, a three mile walk in Hitchcock Woods and plenty of screened porch time. The 3-day holiday weekend is winding down and tomorrow it will be back to work for me and back to the grind of retirement for Donna.

Happy Easter

JCS Tour Bus

In an almost Easter weekend tradition, we watched Jesus Christ Superstar this afternoon. I connect with this movie on several levels, the 2-album rock opera was probably included in my 12 albums for a penny introductory package from the Columbia House Music Club in 1971, I made a field trip to New York with my high school Current Events class to see the stage play on Broadway in 1972 and if I had any musical or dance talent I probably could have been any one of those background players (I know I dressed the part in 1973.)

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 156