Posted on June 27, 2018 at 9:41 am
This is a fascinating look at the difference between the way the script for “Sleepless in Seattle” looked on the page and the way it finally appeared on the screen. We don’t know how many of these changes were intentional and how many were slips of the tongue or amended by the actors because they felt more natural.
Posted on June 26, 2018 at 9:39 pm
If “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” has you missing Fred Rogers, take a listen to this Motley Fool podcast interview about parenting, kids, and money, filled with Mr. Rogers’ quiet decency.
Posted on June 23, 2018 at 2:20 pm
Becca Harrison writes in Prospect about “From Ocean’s 8 to #MeToo: why the gender bias in film criticism matters:”
This week, Hollywood stars and reviewers alike have waded into debates about the gender of film critics.
In a promotional interview for Ocean’s 8, its stars—Mindy Kaling, Cate Blanchett, and Sandra Bullock—suggested that they’d like more women to review their film.
Bullock talked about the need to “balance out the pool of critics” so that it “reflects the world we’re in,” while Kaling said that “often I think there is a critic who will damn it in a way because they don’t understand it, because they come at it at a different point of view.”
Responding to the cast’s view that men might be more dismissive of their film than women, Buzzfeed critic Alison Willmore tweeted that this was “the same argument an angry teen boy uses when telling me why I shouldn’t get to weigh in on Suicide Squad.”
“It’s also an argument whose end point is that there should never be bad reviews, because that just means the critic wasn’t the right audience.”
But Willmore’s argument misses the point. The issue of individual films aside, there is a pressing need for publishers and editors to diversify criticism—and to trust that women and people of colour can write critically about films, even when they are “the right audience.”
Posted on June 21, 2018 at 3:30 pm
B| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril |
| Profanity: | Mild language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Extended and intense sci-fi/action peril and violence with many characters injured, eaten, gored, and killed, volcano, |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | June 22, 2018 |
| Date Released to DVD: | September 17, 2018 |
“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” is a mildly entertaining but utterly unnecessary fifth in the series inspired by doctor-turned blockbuster author Michael Crichton’s books.
It does recognize that if you’re going to keep making movies about reconstituted dinosaurs, it’s time to get them off that island. Yes, I remember they made it to San Diego in #2, but by now we feel we know every leaf and tree on the island that was once the theme park created by twinkly-eyed, mega-rich John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) with the help of scientist of questionable ethics Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong), where so, so many things have gone wrong, as Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) way back in the OG “Jurassic Park” back in 1993. He predicted that the results would be unpredictable, and not in our favor: “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Dr. Malcolm is back again as this film begins, and he’s still not on board with dinosaurs existing at the same time as humans. He’s testifying at a Congressional hearing because the island has a retconned volcano eruption and if the world does not save them, all of the dinos will be wiped out. “Let it happen,” says Dr. Malcolm. That’s nature, and it will prevent them from wiping us out. But of course there are those who consider the dinos, however created, an endangered species now, and are trying to raise money to save them. This includes former all-business, now all-love-for dinos Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard, thankfully out of the stilettos and able to run in flats), paleovetrenarian Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda), and, of course, this movie’s house computer whiz and full-time scardy-cat, hacker Franklin Webb (Justice Smith of “Paper Towns”).
Just when it seems all is lost, Claire gets the dream offer from retconned former Hammond partner and ailing ultra-rich guy Benjamin Lockwood, who lives with his young granddaughter Maisie (excellent screamer Isabella Sermon). If she can persuade former love interest Owen (Chris Pratt) to help her extract samples of different species, Noah-style, he will put them in an isolated compound where they will never bother anyone or be bothered by anyone ever again.
Yeah, you know what Dr. Malcolm would say about that. He’d also say, “Never trust a rich guy, or, maybe, trust a rich guy but never trust his henchmen who want very, very, very much to be rich guys, especially after Dr. Wu shows up again, plus Buffalo Bill from ‘Silence of the Lambs.'” About that, though. Rafe Spall and Toby Jones use their best American accents for the evil want-to-be-rich roles but they are pretty bad at business. They accepted how much per dino?
So, basically, this is a movie of dinosaurs on the island running away from a volcano while humans run away from the dinosaurs (Remember — you don’t have to be faster than the dinosaurs. You just have to be faster than some other humans.), followed by humans running away from dinosaurs and evil humans at Lockwoods cool, creepy, Victorian mansion, followed by, oh yes, a big fat cliffhanger. Get ready for #6, “Jurassic World: Electric Blue-galoo.”
Here’s what’s good. Director J.A. Bayona knows how to tell a story with a camera, and the film is well-paced and stylishly told. The original had Spielbergian magic in the story-telling as well as the special effects, though. This one is several orders of magnitude down the evolutionary scale, so to speak, on both counts.
Parents should know that this film has constant sci-fi action and peril, scary animal attacks, volcano, characters injured and killed, including being gored and being eaten, murder, sad death, and guns.
Family discussion: Who was right about rescuing the dinosaurs? Do you agree that we keep creating technology we are not capable of controlling?
If you like this, try: the other Jurassic Park/World movies and the book by Michael Crichton
Posted on June 15, 2018 at 8:00 am
In honor of Father’s Day, my eBook, 50 Must-See Movies: Fathers
What do “Wall Street” and the “Star Wars” saga and, seemingly, about half the movies ever made have in common? They are about fathers. In “Wall Street,” Charlie Sheen plays the ambitious Bud, who respects the integrity of his blue-collar father, played by his real-life father, Martin Sheen. But Bud is dazzled by the money and power and energy of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). The movie will up the ante with Bud’s father’s heart attack as we see him struggle between the examples and guidance of these two male role models.
In “Star Wars,” Luke (Mark Hamill) does not know until halfway through the original trilogy that (spoiler alert) the evil Darth Vader is his father. He was raised by his aunt and uncle, who are killed very early in the first film, but the father figures who are most meaningful in his life are the Jedi masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Like Bud in “Wall Street,” Luke must choose between the good and bad father figures. Like Luke, Harry Potter is raised by an aunt and uncle, but he finds a true father figure later. For Harry, it is headmaster Albus Dumbledore. In opposition is He Who Must Not Be Named. Like Luke, Harry has the opportunity for great power on the dark side, but he lives up to the example set for him by Dumbledore.
The first stories ever recorded are about fathers. The central human struggle to reconcile the need for a father’s approval and the need to out-do him is reflected in the “hero of a thousand faces” myths that occur in every culture. In Greek mythology, Zeus is the son of a god who swallowed his children to prevent them from besting him. Zeus, hidden by his mother, grows up to defeat his father and become the king of the gods. Ancient Greece also produced the story of Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, and The Odyssey, whose narrator tells us “it is a wise man who knows his own father.”
These themes continue to be reflected in contemporary storytelling, including films that explore every aspect of the relationship between fathers and their children. There are kind, understanding fathers whose guidance and example is foundation for the way their children see the world. There are cruel, withholding fathers who leave scars and pain that their children spend the rest of their lives trying to heal. There are movies that reflect the off-screen real-life father-child relationships. Martin Sheen not only played his son’s father in “Wall Street;” he played the father of his other son, Emilio Estevez, in “The Way,” which was written and directed by Estevez, and which is about a father’s loss of his son. Will Smith has appeared with his son Jaden in “The Pursuit of Happyness” and “After Earth.” John Mills appeared with his daughter Hayley in “Tiger Bay,” “The Truth About Spring,” and “The Chalk Garden.” Ryan and Tatum O’Neill memorably appeared together in “Paper Moon.” Jane Fonda produced and starred in “On Golden Pond” and cast her father Henry as the estranged father of her character. Jon Voight played the father of his real-life daughter Angelina Jolie in “Tomb Raider.” And Mario Van Peebles, whose father cast him as the younger version of the character he played in “Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song” made a movie about the making of that film when he grew up. It is called “Badasssss!” In the role of Melvin Van Peebles he cast himself.
Director John Huston deserves some sort of “Father’s Day” award. He directed both his father and his daughter in Oscar-winning performances, Walter Huston in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and Anjelica Huston in “Prizzi’s Honor.”
Some actors known for very non-paternal roles have delivered very touching performances as fathers. Edward G. Robinson is best remembered for playing tough guys, but in “Our Vines Have Tender Grapes” he gave a beautiful performance as a farmer who loves his daughter (Margaret O’Brien) deeply. Cary Grant, known for sophisticated romance, played loving – if often frustrated — fathers in “Houseboat” and “Room for One More.” “Batman” and “Beetlejuice” star Michael Keaton was also “Mr. Mom.” Comedian Albert Brooks is a devoted father in “Finding Nemo.”
There are memorable movie fathers in comedies (“Austin Powers,” “A Christmas Story”) and dramas (“To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Boyz N the Hood”), in classics (“Gone With the Wind”), documentaries (“Chimpanzee,” “The Other F Word”), and animation (“The Lion King,” “The Incredibles”). There are great fathers (“Andy Hardy”) and terrible fathers (“The Shining”). There are fathers who take care of us (“John Q”) and fathers we have to take care of (“I Never Sang for My Father”). All of them are ways to try to understand, to reconcile, and to pay tribute to the men who, for better or worse, set our first example of how to decide who we are and what we will mean in the world.
