Remember the first time you watched Jurassic Park on the big screen? Steven Spielberg created something like we’d never seen before, taking Michael Crichton’s masterpiece science fiction novel and giving it the visual spectacle it deserved. Remember the ice cream scene? When giant dinosaurs are after you, there’s nothing like ice cream. A new book will take you back to that magic, and teach you not how to walk like a Saurian, but to eat like one. In Dayton Ward and Elena Craig’s Jurassic World: The Official Cookbook, available now here at Amazon, fans of the original movie and the franchise finally get to sink their teeth into something straight out of the amusement park ride adventure, just as the latest movie, Jurassic World: Dominion, is being finalized for a summer 2022 release.
Take a look inside the book, released this week, courtesy of the publisher:
This year on January 1 I reviewed the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett, the show about the Star Wars bounty hunter’s return, 38.5 years in the making. The series’ first season had a bit of a tepid start, but over the next six episodes Star Wars fans learned what was happening. This was never intended to be a separate series, but the third season of a Boba Fett/Mandalorian hybrid, Saturday morning Western serial like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas created with Raiders of the Lost Ark. This may be Disney’s best amusement park ride yet. Maybe it would have made more sense to some if it were called some Western title like Star Wars: The Outcasts and didn’t have those two separate titles. Criticisms of this season have all been like that, all of it form over substance (or maybe it’s just people who forgot to have fun). In my first review I identified what I thought the series needed to do in its next six episodes. So how did they (and I) do?
Did you know Jurassic World was a trilogy? The last film in the trilogy–and sixth in the Jurassic Park franchise–makes its way to theaters this summer. Jurassic World: Dominion, which sees a new trailer this week (watch it below) follows 2015’s Jurassic World and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It looks to be a franchise bookend of sorts, with Jeff Goldblum returning as Ian Malcolm–the character that would define Goldblum’s trademark style thereafter–and digging even deeper to bring back Sam Neill as Alan Grant and Laura Dern as Ellie Sadler. BD Wong is back, too, as Dr. Henry Wu. So far only the first movie, Steven Spielberg’s landmark 1993 CGI and special effects spectacle, Jurassic Park, has matched the excitement and thrills of Michael Crichton’s original novel. But what could executive producer Spielberg and director Colin Trevorrow do to light a fire under this franchise?
Happy New Year! My wish for everyone is they get their own bacta tank jacuzzi to help recover from last year… and the year before that, and…
It’s been 38.5 years since I first saw Boba Fett die, at the sneak preview of Return of the Jedi. It was the low point of the movie–I’d rather they’d kill off Han Solo. Let the mysterious bounty hunter drift off into the sunsets. Practically speaking it meant decades of no Boba Fett, and nothing but minor appearances of Boba Fett in the Marvel comic books. So we’ve all had a long time to picture how Boba Fett survives bumbling into the Great Pit of Carkoon, nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlacc, to be slowly digested over 1,000 years, which was as baffling as making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Now thanks to Jon Favreau, we get to see the vision in his head, in the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett, now streaming on Disney Plus. (Moderate episode highlights and a revisit to 1983 and 1997 follow).
The thing about being a kid in the 1970s and 1980s was that your view of television history is skewed by the advent of reruns. Ron Howard and Clint Howard are much older than me, and yet because of reruns of The Andy Griffith Show and Gentle Ben, and the original Star Trek, I feel like I grew up along with, or maybe only a little bit behind the characters these actors played at a young age. So for anyone who grew up with the Howards on television or those that only think they did by way of reruns, you’re in for a fun insight into the life of these brothers behind the scenes in their new bookThe Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family, available now here at Amazon. Long before Ron would direct Solo: A Star Wars Story and Apollo 13 and Clint would populate all of Ron’s movies and act in most of the Star Trek series as characters from Balok to Muk, a young couple in New York tried to make it in the movie biz.
In the hour-long second “season” of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian–Making of Season 2, executive producer/director Jon Favreau says he hoped to bring all the kinds of Star Wars fans together for a special moment, and he seems to have done that in this year’s superb second season of The Mandalorian, although it’s difficult to compare Disney Gallery‘s eight-episode first season of behind the scenes glimpses to the single, albeit packed, episode fans got from Disney+ this year, released on Christmas Day. As far as making all the groups of fans happy, expect that fans of the last episode’s special climactic scene won’t get to see a “making of” feature on that component yet.
With the second season opener “The Marshall,” I thought the new season would be more of the same (see my review here). A bit light on plot, and so similar to a few episodes from the first season, I figured Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, & Co. were going to deliver some more good entertainment, but not take too many risks. Not one week later I had to take that back, as the episode “The Passenger” delivered a spectacular single-story episode reminiscent of Alien and The Thing. The fourth episode of the season, “The Siege,” was a return of characters from season one and more of the single most important, far-reaching draw for any age group or other demographic, Baby Yoda, given the name Grogu in last week’s episode. But if you take a look at this season, especially episodes 11, 13, and 14, what you may find is the third greatest Star Wars movie. Or at least your third favorite. I’ll avoid spoilers for yesterday’s new episode “The Tragedy” below except to mention the director and that the episode blew me away, but let’s dig into this season so far.
Plenty of genre television is out there right now for viewers at home to consume. But discovering that one that is so exceptional is truly an exciting thing. So you might stumble through Tales from the Loop or Locke & Key or Briarpatch and give up before you even get to the halfway point, but then you land on The Mandalorian and know what great genre television has the potential to be.
The trailers look just like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story, which both reflected so much the original Star Wars from 1977 more than the other entries in the franchise. It’s not so much that Disney and Lucasfilm put together a movie based on every kid in the 1980s’ favorite background character, because George Lucas already made a movie about that guy, his dad, and a whole army of lookalikes. It’s hard to find a cooler character than Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back, until Lucas delivered on the fan service and inserted him into the original, special edition of Star Wars. It’s not only that. Or that, like Solo: A Star Wars Story, it’s clearly a full-fledged space Western. Or that fans get to see familiar elements of the franchise again, like carbon freezing, speeder bikes, scout walkers, patrol dewbacks, familiar bounty hunters, and Imperial bunkers hidden in the forest. And it’s not that the lead is played by its rising young actors known for badass characters, Pedro Pascal and co-star Gina Carano. Or that the series features a story by genre favorite Jon Favreau, with a host of episode directors like Thor: Ragnarok’sTaika Waititi, or noted Star Wars animaster Dave Filoni, or Solo director Ron’s daughter, actor Bryce Dallas Howard.
Well, it’s that, but not only that. It’s that added gravitas that Star Wars is better at than possibly any other franchise. It’s adding those dynamic, major character actors in supporting roles who make the magic happen sometimes even from the corner of the screen, from the likes of Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Christopher Lee, Terence Stamp, Brian Blessed, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Linda Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, Max von Sydow. Would Star Wars be Star Wars without the characters these actors brought to life? Definitely not.
For the second trailer for the new streaming series The Mandalorian, that means more Carl Weathers–who we saw in August’s first public trailer and April’s “sizzle reel” at the annual Star Wars convention. Along with Giancarlo Esposito and that toughest of older tough guys in movies, director and Jack Reacher villain Werner Herzog, we have plenty to look forward to. As the norm these days, unfortunately to watch this series you’ll need to subscribe to another streaming platform, this time that’s the Disney+ streaming service (or… once the Blu-ray arrives should you not want to feed the Disney machine any further).
So check it out–your next look at The Mandalorian, plus five new official posters:
It’s not so much that Disney and Lucasfilm put together a movie based on every kid in the 1980s’ favorite background character, because George Lucas already made a movie about that guy, his dad, and a whole army of lookalikes. It’s hard to find a cooler character than Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back, until Lucas delivered on the fan service and inserted him into the original, special edition of Star Wars. It’s not only that. Or that, like Solo: A Star Wars Story, it’s clearly a full-fledged space Western. Or that fans get to see familiar elements of the franchise again, like carbon freezing, speeder bikes, scout walkers, patrol dewbacks, familiar bounty hunters, and Imperial bunkers hidden in the forest. And it’s not that the lead is played by its rising young actors known for badass characters, Pedro Pascal and co-star Gina Carano. Or that the series features a story by genre favorite Jon Favreau, with a host of episode directors like Thor: Ragnarok’sTaika Waititi, or noted Star Wars animaster Dave Filoni, or Solo director Ron’s daughter, actor Bryce Dallas Howard.
Well, it’s that, but not only that.
It’s that added gravitas that Star Wars is better at than possibly any other franchise. It’s adding those dynamic, major character actors in supporting roles who make the magic happen sometimes even from the corner of the screen, from the likes of Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Christopher Lee, Terence Stamp, Brian Blessed, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Linda Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, Max von Sydow. Would Star Wars be Star Wars without the characters these actors brought to life? Definitely not.
For the latest trailer for the new streaming series The Mandalorian, that means Carl Weathers–who we saw in April’s “sizzle reel” at the annual Star Wars convention (yet to be posted by Lucasfilm, but check out a watchable version below), with a first look at Giancarlo Esposito, and that toughest of older tough guys in movies, director and Jack Reacher villain Werner Herzog. Not seen in this trailer, but expected to be added to the list, is Nick Nolte, who we can imagine could get us to that similar kind of character as Woody Harrelson or Paul Bettany in Solo.
So check it out–your next look at The Mandalorian:
