Podcast Episode 60: We Root For The Dinosaurs In JURASSIC WORLD

Well that went about as well as expected.

What is there to say about Jurassic World?  It is a film which is at best problematic, and at worst complete garbage.  But then again, it's not as if The Lost World and Jurassic Park III really left a high bar to clear.  We all have fond memories of Spielberg's original and with good reason.  It's not only a fun and visceral piece of popcorn entertainment, but it's also a film that's brimming with great performances, compelling characters and sharp opinions on the scientific process and its sometimes dodgy relationship with morality and commerce.  It is, simply put, an all timer.

Jurassic World is none of those things.  Sure, you've got some fun set pieces and lots of crazy dinosaur action that, taken on its own, mostly works.  And it's fun to see what an actual working version of a dinosaur theme park would look like, even if some of it seems pretty half-baked.  I'm looking at you, nifty transparent gyro-ball car that is inexplicably autonomous with no safety measures.  (Seriously, how is that thing allowed to travel into restricted areas and why doesn't it automatically return to the gate when the ride is shut down?)  Then again, the idea of raptors being trained as some sort of military spec-ops unit is exactly my kind of ridiculous.  At one point someone compares them drones.  Seriously.

The main problem is that, while the dinosaurs all look great (though I wish they'd employed some more practical effects) the human characters and their relationships are all very poorly rendered.  Whether it's the two kids with their dramatically inert divorce backstory who exist solely as MacGuffins to be rescued, Irrfan Khan's well-meaning but oblivious benefactor or Vincent D'Onofrio's goateed asshole whose villainy is as ill-defined as his occasional southern accent, none of these characters ever gain any emotional traction.  The only characters who are able to provoke any kind of strong reaction are Chris Pratt's Owen and Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire.  Unfortunately that reaction is one of abject hatred and disdain.  Both are boring and two-dimensional on their own, but when paired together they threaten to single-handedly destroy the entire film.  Director Colin Trevorrow aims for this sort of old school, screwball comedy vibe that is executed in such a tone-deaf manner that it actually left me hoping against hope that both of the protagonists would end up devoured by the Indominus Rex, a genetic hybrid dinosaur whose abilities vary wildly (and are promptly forgotten) whenever the script seems to have backed itself into a corner. They might as well have named it Conveniensaurus Rex.

I mean sure, I guess you could "turn your brain off" and just enjoy the dino-mayhem and Jake Johnson's delicious snark.  But all Transformers movies to the contrary, I'd like to think that audiences are better than this.  We should demand higher standards from our blockbusters.  Truly great movies have characters you LOVE and root for, not just empty spectacle that trades on nostalgia and cheap sentiment.  The fact that Jurassic World had the biggest opening weekend of all time IN THE WORLD is more than a little bit depressing.  Maybe there will be a tremendous drop-off in second week grosses, but I kind of doubt it.  My social media feeds are full of people who loved this movie and most critics seem willing to shrug it off on the basis of, "It could be worse."  But I'd rather watch a movie like Tomorrowland which has a point of view and fucks up the execution, or Jupiter Ascending which attempts grandiose world building and sinks under the weight of it's own confusing bureaucracy.  Those movies at least have something to say.  Jurassic World is a snake oil salesman, selling you some slick packaging filled with actual cinematic poison.

Expect a sequel to be announced later this week.

Bart and Jamie join me on the podcast this week where we break down Jurassic World's numeous flaws and also revisit that timeless classic Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  Jamie discovers that the Terminator timeline/continuity is even more fucked up than any of us ever realized.

Next Week: Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (!) and Pixar's Inside Out

PODCAST: Daley Planet - These Ghostbusters Have No Dicks (Feb 1, 2015)

We had a little hiccup in the recording process this week, which means that while we recorded about an hour's worth of podcast for the latest Daley Planet, I'm only publishing the first 25 minutes or so.  The last half sounded like it was recorded in an echo chamber for reasons passing understanding.  Oh Garageband, you fickle beast!

But this little mini episode is still pretty good!  You can listen to Bart and I expound upon our totally not sexist trepidation over the recently announced Ghostbusters reboot cast and then hear us contemplate Chris Pratt's cinematic future.

Coming Soon: The Daley Screening tackles Nightcrawler and begins a full rewatch of the Jason Bourne franchise, beginning with The Bourne Identity.  No glitches in that one!

Somehow That COWBOY NINJA VIKING Movie Just Got More Awesome

Yesterday I mentioned that every studio wants newly minted movie star Chris Pratt to headline their potential franchise pictures.  One of the first such projects to snag Pratt is the magnificently titled Cowboy Ninja Viking.  It's the story of an assassin who utilizes his multiple personalities to kill folks in what I can only assume is a series of increasingly hilarious manners.  There is no word yet on whether the ninja personality is in fact named Johnny Karate.

I'm basically already in love with this movie, but I'm even more smitten now that Universal is negotiating with John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch to come on board the fledgling project.  Woo hoo!

I loved John Wick.  Like, really REALLY loved it.  It is, quite frankly, some of the best down and dirty fight choreography I've ever seen, plus it's easily the best character Reeves has been given since Constantine if not The Matrix.  And while my wife had some serious problems with the film's brutal depiction of puppy murder, I actually respect the film even more for treating Wick's dog the same way many inferior versions of this type of story have traditionally treated the hero's wife or child.  It's not only a novel approach, but it actually provokes a much richer emotional response from the audience.  Besides, it's hard not to love a movie with that many point blank headshots.

Stahelski and Leitch are former stunt men/coordinators and I cannot wait to see what kind of insanity they dream up for Cowboy Ninja Viking.  I'm imagining Pratt headbutting dudes with a Norse helmet and stabbing dudes in the face with his horns.

In the words of Veruca Salt, "I WANT IT NOW."

No Shit: Disney Likes Chris Pratt For INDIANA JONES

After the disastrous misfire of Crystal Skull*, we all collectively decided that Indiana Jones was probably better left alone.  Everyone except Disney that is, who bought up the franchise rights in a package deal with Star Wars back in 2013 and have been looking to reboot the series with a charismatic new star.  While Star Wars is on pace to dominate theaters this coming Christmas, things have been fairly quiet on the Dr. Jones front aside from some unsubstantiated rumors of Bradley Cooper's involvement.

Now we can add Chris Pratt's name to the list.  Deadline's story just says that Disney is pursuing Pratt, which feels like a no-brainer to the point that I question how real this might be.  After the success of Guardians Of The Galaxy and with Jurassic World on the way, there is no doubt that Pratt is at that top of every studio's casting wish list for at least one major franchise.  Short of also sending Andy Dwyer to a galaxy far, far away, Indy is probably the next biggest pre-sold property Disney is developing at the moment.  It would be stupid for them NOT to be pursing Pratt.

Sidenote: What if Pratt ends up cast in one of the Star Wars stand alone films?  If they're really looking at him for Indy, they MUST be considering him for young Han Solo.  Could Pratt pull off the Disney trifecta of Marvel, Star Wars and Indiana Jones?

Do we really need a new Indiana Jones?  Of course not.  We also don't need new Ghostbusters nor do we need a new Snake Plissken, but there's simply no stopping these things now.  Until they secure a writer and/or director, it remains to be seen whether or not we'd get a total reboot of the character or if we'd just get further adventures of Indiana Jones which maintained some continuity with the previous films.  Conventional wisdom would say a full on reboot, but I think Harrison Ford would totally show up as older Indy to bookend the film.

I'm not entirely sure that I'd buy Burt Macklin as an archaeology professor, but at the end of the day, we could do much worse than Pratt.  We could end up with Bradley Cooper.




*I finally rewatched this recently and I maintain that while the film just does not work, I still appreciate what Spielberg was going for.  There's no way to ignore Ford's age in that movie, so setting it in the 50's and telling a story filled with the iconography of that era - atomic bomb tests and flying saucers - is hardly the worst decision they could have made.  The worst decision they could have made was casting Shia LaBeouf.

JURASSIC WORLD Can Never Live Up To The Legacy Of JURASSIC PARKS AND RECREATION

At this point I shouldn't have to extol the virtues of NBC's Parks and Recreation.  Sure it had a rocky first season, but once Paul Schneider exited to make room for Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, it was pretty much comic gold from that point on.  But the most miraculous recovery comes in the form of Chris Pratt.  When I watched the pilot I thought that Andy Dwyer was perhaps the most irritating and unfunny character imaginable.  Now he is quite simply THE BEST.

The show is about to kick off it's final season and I'm both happy and depressed that NBC is airing the last run of episodes two and a time (Hurrah!) in order to burn off the show as quickly as possible. (Boo!)  But when it's all said and done, at least I can live secure in the knowledge that Chris Pratt has a very healthy movie career ahead of him.  Next up on the docket is Jurrasic World, the fourth sequel to Jurassic Park, and hey, "park" is also in the title of his TV show, so of course an intrepid YouTube user has utilized this clever bit of wordplay to generate an alternate trailer in which Pratt's dino-wrangler is actually Andy Dwyer the whole time!

I'm sorry, but that last bit with the Parks and Rec theme song playing over the raptors just downright tickles me.  Also, Pratt's actual Jurassic World dialogue, which feels so stiff and awkward in the real trailer, works like gangbusters when intercut with the Burt Macklin shtick.  I will now choose to believe that Pratt actually shot this whole movie in character as Andy Dwyer playing Burt Macklin.  This can only enhance my enjoyment of the final film.

Welcome To The JURASSIC WORLD Trailer

When I first heard that Jurassic World would be set in an actual, functioning dinosaur theme park, it was as if a light went on in my brain.  I never realized just how much I wanted to see that movie until someone actually said it out loud, and I instantly felt stupid for never having thought of it earlier.  Now we've got our first real look at Colin Trevorrow's version of Isla Nublar in the first trailer for the movie, which I thought was supposed to premiere during Thanksgiving football.  I'm happy to get it two days early, as now I can spend Thursday focused on my 12 pound ham.

I really love the world building here.  The lazy river, the water show, those crazy bubble cars...I am all about it.  I remain a little skeptical about that kid from i, but I dig that Bryce Dallas Howard is actually running around the park, striking Goldblum-esque poses with road flares.  I'll reserve judgement on the actual dinos, as we're way too far out for any of the effects work to be completely finished.  I do really, REALLY love that haunting arrangement of John Williams' original score.

Astoundingly enough, what I'm most concerned about right now is Chris Pratt.  Dude is trying real hard to put on his Serious Face for this movie, which is the opposite of what I was expecting.  Not that I thought this was necessarily gonna be Star Lord Plays With Dinosaurs, but he just looks so stiff and uncomfortable.  Pratt delivers his lines here with all the charm of a doorknob, something I never thought I'd hear myself saying.  Maybe he's playing some kind of total burnout, which could be totally great, but the way his scenes are cut together here, largely with no one to bounce off of, feels a bit clunky.

Then again, we've got that amazing shot of him riding a motorcycle alongside a pack of trained velociraptors.  The only way that could get any better is if Pratt was riding an actual dinosaur that had lasers strapped to its head.  I can still dream.

Podcast Episode 25: The GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Are Here To Save The Summer

To quote a certain blaster-toting raccoon, "Oh...YEAH."

This summer has been pretty fucking grim.  With the exception of 22 Jump Street, it's been a a steady stream of mediocre box office filler like Hercules or outright trainwrecks like Transformers: Age Of Extinction.  That's not to say that the summer's been a complete waste, but even the few bright spots like Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Snowpiercer and X-Men: Days Of Future Past have been largely dark and serious affairs - all three movies center around global apocalypse!  Where's the humor?  Where's the rollicking adventure?  WHERE'S THE GODDAMN FUN?

Turns out the fun lies with a sentient tree on the far side of the galaxy.

Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy, by far the company's biggest gamble to date, is an outright cinematic miracle.  On paper this, this movie simply should not exist.  Seriously, the very idea of a studio giving the Troma-raised James Gunn $170 million to make an outer space movie starring That Guy From Parks & Rec, a professional wrestler, a green-skinned assassin, a walking tree who only speaks three words and a smart-ass cyborg raccoon is absolutely preposterous.  The fact that it not only exists but has the same pound for pound entertainment value as The Avengers, a movie that needed five other films to set the stage before it could even happen, is mind boggling.

And yet, all these things are true.

Guardians Of The Galaxy finally sends the Marvel universe rocketing out into space and it's a fascinating place packed with oddball characters with whom you can't help but fall in love.  Sure, each character has their own particular set of quirks (Drax doesn't understand metaphors, Star-Lord is a font of 80's pop-culture references) that are essentially appealing on their own but it's the performances that truly elevate the material.  Chris Pratt cements himself as legit movie star (surely a relief to the Jurassic World producers) and Dave Bautista is an absolute joy on-screen, while Bradley Cooper brings a both acerbic wit and a wounded vulnerability to Rocket.  And for all the jokes about Vin Diesel playing a tree who only has one line, you'd be surprised just how much context and emotion can be conveyed solely in the phrase "I am Groot."  Special recognition should also be paid to Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan as Gamora and Nebula, the daughters of Thanos.  Both characters are a tad clunky on the page, constantly tasked with delivering necessary exposition and explanation.  Yet each of these actresses just ooze so much charm and personality on screen that they're almost able to trick the audience into walking away thinking their characters are more substantial.  Still, they're each total badasses, and while their characters feel a bit thin I expect both will be much better served in their second outing.

This wonderfully endearing collection of misfits is what sets Guardians apart not just from the rest of 2014's summer movies, but all other Marvel movies as well.  The Avengers is probably the closest analog here, but even they are just a bunch of folks who fight together out of a sense of duty and honor.  They feel more like a group of friendly coworkers who do a job and then go home to their respective lives.  By the time the end credits roll, the Guardians are already so much more than that.  They're not just friends, they're family.  That's a dynamic that we haven't really seen in Marvel's previous films and it's so simple and affecting that I didn't even realize it was something I had been missing.

And that music!  THAT MUSIC!  Holy hell.  I really dig the score by Tyler Bates, particularly his main theme, but I defy you to walk out of this movie without humming any of the ridiculously catchy tunes that create the rich musical tapestry which seems happily omnipresent throughout the film's running time.  My only gripe is that Guardians didn't come out in June.  If it had, Peter Quill's Awesome Mix Volume 1 (available for download, naturally) would have absolutely been everyone's soundtrack of the summer.

Episode 25 of the podcast, featuring the return of my brother Tim, sees us breaking the film down character by character, along with lots of speculation as to how the Guardians might fit into Marvel's bigger picture heading into Phase 3.  Jamie reveals her own master plan for how Captain/Ms. Marvel should be woven into the MCU and, in light of Simon West's stated desire to see a space-based Con-Air 2, we all list off movies that deserve a crazy sequel set in outer space.  Also, I'm an idiot for not only saying there are five Infinity Stones (there are six) but also for referring to Yondu as Yondo through the entire podcast.  What can I say?  It was late and I still had to pack for an early flight.

Next Week: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with special guests!

JURASSIC WORLD Could Make All My Dreams Come True

Jurassic World, the latest installment in the long dormant dino-franchise, is currently filming under the direction of Colin Trevorrow, whose Safety Not Garunteed I quite liked!  We know the cast includes Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jake Johnson, Judy Greer, Omar Sy, Vincent D'Onofrio and that kid with the potato gun from Iron Man 3. The action will go down at a fully operational dinosaur theme park, something I didn't even realize I wanted to see until someone said it out loud.  But will it just be another round of dinosaurs breaking out of their pens and chomping on terrified tourists?  JoBlo says not so much.

Let's backtrack for a minute.  Back in 2007 there was a script floating around for a proposed Jurassic Park 4 written by William Monahan (The Departed) and exploitation master John Sayles.  I never actually got a copy of it, but I read a few descriptions and they were, quite frankly, so absolutely bonkers insane that I couldn't believe it was an actual project that an actual studio was actually developing.  The story took place in a world where dinosaur attacks were taking place with increasing frequency around the world, so a soldier of fortune hooks up with a squadron of dino/human hybrids who can talk and shoot guns and together they embark on a mission to eradicate the world's remaining dinosaur population.  It's basically The Dirty Dozen with talking dinosaurs.

There is no amount of money I would not pay in order to see that movie.

I may have been denied the exquisite joy of dino-commandos, but it sounds like Trevorrow's going to get me pretty close.  According to JoBlo, Jurassic World will feature a new dinosaur cooked up in the lab din order to entice new customers to the park.  This is something that has never before existed in nature, a combination T-Rex/raptor/snake/cuttlefish.  I am downright tickled at the idea that I might hear people exclaiming the word "cuttlefish" in fear and panic multiple times in one movie.

But wait, it gets better!  Chris Pratt's character is supposedly a dinosaur trainer of some kind, a guy who leads a group of "good dinos" who have to hunt down this new beastie and protect the humans.  How exactly does one train a dinosaur?  Mind control tech?  Pheromones?  Maybe they have little artificial voice boxes like Darwin the dolphin on Seaquest!  Or maybe Chris Pratt can speak raptor!

Could I really be this lucky?  We'll find out when Burt Macklin: Dinosaur Trainer hits theaters in June of 2015.

Start Your Week Off Right With The New Trailer For GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Captain America: The Winter Soldier kicked off the summer in grand style.  Now it looks almost certain that Guardians Of The Galaxy will serve as the appropriately kickass bookend and close the summer out with a goddamn bang.

Every look at James Gunn's entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe looks even more preposterously fun than the one before it.  Seriously, I still can't believe that I live in a world where an outer space adventure movie starring Chris Pratt, a foul-mouthed raccoon and a walking tree-person voiced by Vin Diesel is allowed to exist, let alone be bankrolled by a major studio to the tune of $150 million.  And make no mistake, every single penny looks to be up on screen.  It feels like the entire movie takes place in one those richly detailed worlds that Guillermo del Toro leaves dangling in the margins of his movies, places like the Bone Slums of Pacific Rim or the Troll Market of Hellboy 2.  Are we really gonna get a planet shaped like a giant skull?  Fuck yeah.

I'm sure there are those out there who will complain that they still don't know what this movie is actually about.  Those people are dumb people.  If rocket boots, space prisons, John C. Reilly: Intergalactic Beat Cop and an upright raccoon with a giant laser gun hoisted up on his shoulder while scratching his crotch doesn't put your ass in the theater, you're barking up the wrong Groot.

As a bonus, here's a poster that should be hanging in dorm rooms all across the country this fall.  Don't let me down, college kids.