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:
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?
No guns, no killing the other patients, and no cops. The titular Hotel Artemis in Drew Pearce‘s directorial debut film is a secret hospital for criminals, criminals who must be members to utilize its elite services, which consist of high-tech, life-saving medicine. Services are provided under the direction of a craggy, battle-hardened, and effective nurse known primarily as “the Nurse,” played by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, in what is probably her most exciting and outside-the-box role so far. She has hard rules for guests in the same vein as the Continental Hotel in John Wick, and parallels to that movie’s plot device made obvious in the trailers may have been what kept away some of the action movie audience. Now streaming and available on disc formats, Hotel Artemisis worth giving a second chance, if only because you’re looking for something action-packed that feels like a 1980s “B” action flick.
The year is 2028 with more riots in Los Angeles, heating up worse than ever as police and citizens face off on the downtown streets. And the battle is approaching the door of the Hotel Artemis. Enter two brothers played by this year’s rising star Sterling K. Brown(Black Panther, Marshall, The Predator) and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse), both just shot while robbing a bank. Everyone takes on city name aliases in the hotel, theirs Waikiki and Honolulu. They join other guests Acapulco, played by Pacific Rim: Uprising’sCharlie Day, and Nice, played by the decade’s number one female action star, Sofia Boutella(Kingsman: The Secret Service, Atomic Blonde, Star Trek Beyond). The humor is all tongue-in-cheek, the kind that makes James Bond movies work so well. Along with directing, Pearce also wrote the script, and the combination of the best of today’s actors and his banter bouncing between them turns a freshman effort into something better.
The cast gets better, too: Dave Bautista plays the Nurse’s loyal orderly Everest in a role different from how we’ve seen him in Guardians of the Galaxy,Blade Runner 2049, or Spectre, except for that tardemark tough-guy physicality. Jeff Goldblum plays both a criminal and the owner of the hotel, which presents a bit of a conflict for the Nurse along the way, Zachary Quinto plays his whiny wannabe son, and rounding out the cast is The Predator’sJenny Slate, a wounded cop who shares a past with someone inside the hospital
One of the more unusual offerings previewed this weekend at New York Comic Con 2018 is a collectible taking you back to the original Jurassic Park. That’s the good movie, the memorable one that faithfully follows the story of Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel. The one where Dr. Ian Malcolm was supposedly killed in the book, but kept alive in the movie thanks to the spark Steven Spielberg saw in Jeff Goldblum‘s performance. Dr. Malcolm provided the powerful lesson of the movie with the punchline, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
And for whatever reason Spielberg included Goldblum in this GQ-worthy shirt-open pose. It’s the image that would, years later, launch a thousand memes.
Now thanks to Chronicle Collectibles, you can get your own homage to this… infamous (?) scene, the first officially licensed, limited edition 1:4 scale Dr. Ian Malcolm statue.
An all-star cast from the past and present heads up the new action-thriller Hotel Artemis. The first trailer is out and it looks like a new take on John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, maybe colliding with Atomic Blonde. It stars Academy Award winner Jodie Foster as The Nurse–the head of a members-only, exclusive, secret hospital for criminals, built on two concepts: Trust and Rules. And it all goes spy vs. spy as the bad guys must face even badder bad guys. Foster looks and sounds great as a tried and true, battle-worn healthcare worker who has clearly encountered any and all kinds of patients and circumstances over the years. Hotel Artemis–oddly enough–seems to fit right into her catalog of films like Flightplan, Panic Room, Inside Man, and Elysium.
You couldn’t ask for a more exciting cast of Hollywood’s current big names. Joining Foster, Black Panther and Marshall actor Sterling K. Brown stars as Waikiki, a thief whose team gets wounded in a robbery. That team includes his brother Honolulu, played by Brian Tyree Henry(Atlanta, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse). The real badass of the film is one of our favorites, Atomic Blonde co-star Sofia Boutella as a jet-fueled, Bruce Lee-skilled assassin. Boutella has conquered the genre with roles in Kingsman: The Secret Service, Star Trek Beyond, and The Mummy. Who else would you want in your corner but an orderly played by Dave Bautista? Chuck, DC and Marvel, Blade Runner, and James Bond–Bautista has played some great parts in cool worlds. And it doesn’t stop there. These characters must confront another bad guy group, led by a cocky villain played by Jeff Goldblum. Hotel Artemis also hosts Jenny Slate (Venom, Zootopia, Parks and Recreation, The LEGO Batman Movie),Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes), and Charlie Day(Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim: Uprising, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).
Hotel Artemis is coming from the mind of writer/director Drew Pearce, known for writing big films like Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Iron Man 3, plus he’s also writing the next Ghostbusters and Sherlock Holmes movie. Get ready for a trailer done just right:
In that niche area of dystopian dog movies (that’s the adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and his Dog and… ?), Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs not only soars to the top of the list, it’s a great film in all sorts of categories: it’s new, yet a classic children’s story, it’s a timely political allegory, and it’s a solid movie about dogs. We knew Anderson had a grasp on animals in his surprisingly good Fantastic Mr. Fox, but audiences will soon learn he also understands dogs and dog behavior. The trailers don’t really prepare moviegoers for what lies ahead. Sure, it’s about an island of exiled dogs so of course audiences are in for a bleak ride, complete with at least one dead canine, lots of dogs in peril as well as many mutilated and diseased. Yet Isle of Dogs is surprisingly grand in scope, thought-provoking, and even heartwarming. And epic–don’t be surprised if you start thinking about the closest Martin Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick movie while you’re glued to the screen. Despite some witty dialogue in places from Anderson’s smart script, this is less comedy and more drama than his past efforts.
The dystopian world is better realized, bigger in scope, and yet more personal than typical futurist visions, beyond that dismal hopeless doom of Mad Max, The Postman, Escape From New York, Twelve Monkeys, Snowpiercer, Looper, Logan’s Run, and District 9. Isle of Dogs is probably closer to WALL-E and Planet of the Apes in feel. Isle of Dogs is gloomy and dark and bleak, but it offers a ray of hope for the future from a 12-year-old Japanese boy named Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) and a freckle-faced, high school exchange student named Tracy from Ohio (Greta Gerwig), both out to defy an autocratic government’s ban on dogs. That’s thanks in major part to the vivid, eye-popping world of future Japan filmed by celebrated Aardman Animations stop-motion cinematographer Tristan Oliver (A Close Shave, The Wrong Trousers, Chicken Run), and the encompassing sounds from this year’s Oscar-winning composer for The Shape of Water, Alexandre Desplat (Harry Potter series, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, The Golden Compass). As to the stop-motion, audiences can marvel at how far Hollywood has come since the Ray Harryhausen era. The film follows Anderson’s design choices first seen in his Fantastic Mr. Fox and only continues to add to the unbelievable magical movements carried forward by Aardman’s achievements. And instead of a typical Romantic, programmatic score, Desplat’s best choices can be found in his use of loud, almost frightening Japanese taiko drums, Fumio Hayasaka’s haunting theme from Seven Samurai, the more celebratory bits from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kije, and a simple recurring dog whistle.
Anderson offers up admirable tributes to Japanese culture and film, everywhere from costume design to modern TV reporting stylings, to Hayao Miyazaki themes and Akira Kurosawa landscapes, to traditional imagery like beautiful ukiyo-e on walls and cherry blossoms floating by at the right time. Isle of Dogs finds a firm footing on the children’s classics shelf of your film library, alongside Roald Dahl’s Mr. Fox but also his Willy Wonka. It also has much in common in tone with Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. The political allegory is thick and layered, a mix of the nuanced and the obvious, a mirror reflection of society that you’d have found years ago in a Frank Capra movie. Science is mocked, scorned, and worse. Experts are traitorous and immigrants are exiled. It’s also graphic in parts at a baser level, showing an animated meal from a dumpster with creepy crawlies that may make your stomach turn, plus an open chest surgery, bloody, torn body parts, and dogs with missing eyes and open wounds.
You probably haven’t had this much fun watching a rollicking fantasy movie this cool since you first saw the 1980 Flash Gordon movie starring Sam Jones, Max Von Sydow, Melody Anderson, Timothy Dalton, and Brian Blessed, accompanied by that memorable Queen soundtrack. It shouldn’t be hard to believe–seven weeks from its premiere and Thor: Ragnarok continues to sell-out theater screenings across the country. In a year full of so many comic book adaptations, and great ones at that, from Logan and Logan Noir to Spider-man: Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and even The LEGO Batman Movie, this was a great year for comic books on film. But Thor: Ragnarok rivaled them all from an entertainment standpoint. In many ways Thor: Ragnarok is a natural progression from both the past Thor films and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. But something about director Taika Waititi’s vision for Avengers Thor and Hulk in this latest film changed how the MCU can entertain. Instead of focusing on the events that the earlier Marvel entries–and comic books–are best known for, events like Civil War, Waititi returned to the reason we all turn to superheroes for entertainment: it’s because we like the characters. The end of the world is coming for Asgard, three great villains are wreaking havoc for our heroes, but Taikiki does something novel. He puts the setting where it belongs: in the background. And so we get closer to Thor, Hulk, Loki, Valkyrie, and even Thor and Loki’s sister Hela, by watching them interact. The result is a film that should be vying for the top spot with the likes of Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Logan, and Spider-man: Homecoming, on your comic book movie best-of shortlist.
Waititi really accomplished something difficult here. It’s not often the third film in a series completely exceeds the prior films (although it’s certainly arguable Spider-man: Homecoming trounced four prior Spider-man movies). The Incredible Hulk and Hulk were hardly comparable to Thor: Ragnarok as a Hulk movie (sans title only). And Thor and Thor: The Dark World weren’t remotely as memorable as Thor: Ragnarok. So what made it all come together? Clever dialogue from a tight script for one. And each actor needed no time to take their characters and march forward. Chris Hemsworth’s cocky God of Thunder has always sported a humorous side, but partnered with Tom Hiddleston’s on-again, off-again baddie Loki, and a Bruce Banner after he’s stuck in “Hulk mode” for two years (played by Mark Ruffalo), Thor: Ragnarok is every bit the next Avengers team-up film–it may as well be called Avengers: Ragnarok. It’s also a buddy comedy. Why not? In the comic books the serious and powerful characters of Hulk and Thor have always been less accessible than the rest so how better to reach audiences? And why not take that most-comic book of tropes and let them have their hero battle in the ring? Many comic book readers have been waiting for this film for a long time.
The entire art design and sound should be credited with the film’s success, too. Classic Jack Kirby imagery and style can be found throughout the production design. Funky psychedelic colors, lights, and imagery make this a fantasy film, as opposed to a superhero or sci-fi movie. Action choreography appears like it’s torn from the panels of a comic book page. Dazzling fantasy costumes by Mayes C. Rubeo (The Great Wall, John Carter, Avatar, The Librarian) include Cate Blanchett’s Hela destroyer outfit, Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie/Scrapper 142 outfit, Idris Elba’s Heimdall in Robin Hood garb, and Karl Urban’s iridescent Scurge armor. Music by Mark Mothersbaugh (The LEGO Movie, Lords of Dogtown, Fanboys, 21 Jump Street) includes audacious, sometimes triumphant, sometimes hilarious choices. And Magic Sword’s “In the Face of Evil,” Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” and Gene Wilder’s “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, were simply inspired inclusions that made the characters and film exactly how we want these characters to look and feel: Cool.
It was only back in 2015 that the fourth film in the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World, premiered its first trailer, and a rather bad one at that. Now as 2018 approaches we have a trailer for the fifth film in the series, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. And the latest trailer reveals yet another rehash of the original, brilliant, Steven Spielberg adaptation of Michael Crichton’ fantastic novel. As with Jurassic World, the effort is not entirely futile, Jurassic World was simple entertainment on a big scale–a feast for the eyes. But for some of us, for all its incredible special effects and fantastic futuristic technology, Jurassic World proved the maxim George Lucas laid out in reference to the success behind the original Star Wars–“Special effects are a tool, a means of telling a story… A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.” And that summed up Jurassic World–the umpmillionth variation on the Frankenstein how-not-to-build-a-monster story, and the latest twist on Crichton’s original look at a theme park gone haywire in his movie Westworld.
Yet if every other blockbuster that takes the leap into Sequel World is able to continue forward with more and more and more and pulls audiences into theaters, why not Jurassic Park? For those that want to reclaim even a spark of the original in the theater again, maybe it’s enough. So what does the trailer tell us that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has going for it?
First off, Chris Pratt is back. Audiences like Pratt movies in part because they simply like Pratt’s charm. He has the same brand of star power as John Wayne, who always appeared to be playing John Wayne in all his movies. Like Schwarzenegger, Willis, Van Damme, etc. It must be an action star thing. So if you’ve watched Pratt (like we have) in everything from Everwood to Guardians of the Galaxy 2, we’re wagering you’re going to like Pratt returning as dinosaur wrangler Owen Grady. Bryce Dallas Howard is an equally good if not better actor, with less of a fan following, and here she and Pratt are back again being snarky with each other (snore) in a Jurassic World preview. If they didn’t have chemistry in the first film, why would we expect it to surface in a sequel? Maybe what we need is the return of Jeff Goldblum in his best-loved role as Dr. Ian Malcolm? His performance in 1993 was so well-received that Crichton, who killed off Malcolm in the original novel, resurrected the character for the sequel. Did Goldblum’s return help The Lost World: Jurassic Park? Not really. But it’s been twenty years since we last saw Dr. Nature… Finds… a Way, so maybe enough time has passed so we can love him all over again.
And there are dinosaurs. We’ll never get tired of more dinosaurs. I want to see a triceratops racing a stegosaurus on the big screen. How about you?
Check out this new trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom:
In today’s Marvel panel in Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center for San Diego Comic-Con 2017, fans first learned details about Ant-Man and The Wasp. Michelle Pieffer was confirmed to be playing Janet Van Dyne, Laurence Fishburne will be Bill Foster, Killjoys’ Hannah John-Kamen will be Ghost, and Walter Goggins will be Sonny Burch. And we will get to see Michael Douglas don the Ant-Man suit. Hopefully this footage will be made public soon.
Next, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, and Karl Urban all were on the panel for Thor: Ragnarok, introducing a great new trailer for the film. In Marvel Studios third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe featuring Thor, Thor: Ragnarok, we catch up with Hemsworth’s Thor–absent from last year’s Captain America: Civil War. Where’s the (now short) golden-haired hammer-wielder been? In the first trailer for the film we see him imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his hammer and struggling to return to ward off the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela, played by Cate Blanchett.
Directed by Taika Waititi, produced by Kevin Feige, Thor: Ragnarok. The movie includes newcomers Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), and Karl Urban (Skurge).
In Marvel Studios third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe featuring Thor, Thor: Ragnarok, we catch up with Chris Hemsworth’s Thor–absent from last year’s Captain America: Civil War. Where’s the golden-haired hammer-wielder been? In the first trailer for the film we see him imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his hammer and struggling to return to ward off the destruction of his homeworld and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela, played by Cate Blanchett.
But first he is captured Spartacus style and thrown in an otherworldly Thunderdome. To survive he must face off against a rather angry and unforgiving fellow Avenger—the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). How did Hulk end up on the other side of the universe as a warrior in Sakaaran gladiatorial combat? We’ll have to wait and see.
Directed by Taika Waititi, produced by Kevin Feige, Thor: Ragnarok introduces characters old and new: Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, and newcomers Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), and Karl Urban (Skurge).
