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Post by topbilled on Apr 17, 2023 2:40:32 GMT
Coming up:
Dinosaur Adventures
Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of JURASSIC PARK
Presented by Jlewis
June 3
THE LOST WORLD (1925)
June 10
THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)
June 17
THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969)
June 24
THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)
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Post by topbilled on Jun 3, 2023 14:59:15 GMT
Essential: THE LOST WORLD (1925)
Jlewis:
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the first JURASSIC PARK. Three months ago saw the 90th anniversary of the first KING KONG. Both had a huge impact on Hollywood cinema in regards to the art of special effects wizardry and fantasy/sci fi genres. Although JURASSIC PARK was hardly the first to combine life-sized animatronic robots and computer generated imagery, it showcased the spectacle in ways not seen before.Likewise, stop-motion animation utilized in KING KONG was not new. MATCHES: AN APPEAL, made around 1899 by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper of England, is the oldest surviving example of that technique available online and Russia’s Ladislas Starevich also predated KONG’s Willis O’Brien in his earliest efforts as well. Eight years prior to KING KONG, O’Brien scored an earlier triumph with THE LOST WORLD, also featuring the stop-motion technique combined with actors in split screen and other intricate set-ups. JURASSIC PARK may be the most famous movie featuring dinosaurs, but this was essentially the one that started it all. It was not the first of its kind, but it was the most impactful and has been resourced for countless documentaries on the subject.Possibly the earliest attempt to bring dinos to the screen, featuring actors dressed in costume, was the 1905 Hepworth title PREHISTORIC PEEPS (which still exists in the British Film Institute archive but is not viewable online).Nine years later, Winsor McCay’s GERTIE THE DINOSAUR featured, in hand-drawn-with-ink-on-paper and shot frame by frame, a Brontosaurus a.k.a. Apatosaurus who first conversed with his creator in a circulating vaudeville performance on stage and, later, a 14 minute version was released theatrically with live-action scenes of McCay himself added. This was a key film that got O’Brien motivated to try bringing to life clay dinosaur models of his.That same year (1914) also saw D.W. Griffith (of BIRTH OF A NATION notoriety) create two dinosaurs in live-action for his 25 minute BRUTE FORCE, one being an impressive life-size hydraulic Ceratosaurus and another quite likely the earliest “slurposaur,” an alligator dressed up to look dinosaur-like. O’Brien’s own THE DINOSAUR AND THE MISSING LINK was completed in 1915 but was not widely released theatrically until Thomas Edison’s Conquest Pictures acquired it two years later. This highly entertaining little short, if static and jagged in its motions, includes an early slender version of Kong as a character who interacts with a Brontosaurus, along with stop-motion cave people.Among the eleven or so short productions he cranked out the next six years, two others are worth mentioning: MICKEY’S NAUGHTY NIGHTMARES (1917), presumably lost, was the first to combine animated models with live-action actors and the rather ambitious 40 minute long (half of which survives today) THE GHOST OF SLUMBER MOUNTAIN, produced by Herbert M. Dawley the following year, can be seen as a test-trial of sorts for THE LOST WORLD. Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World was a best seller in print in 1912 and work began on O’Brien’s cinematic adaptation shortly after he presented some test footage featuring a family of Triceratops, Allosaurus and Stegosaurus to Doyle himself in 1922. Ever the practical joker, Sherlock Holmes’ famous author passed the footage off as “genuine” proof of yet to be discovered crypto-beasts at a meeting of the Society of American Magicians.First National, a major studio later absorbed by Warner Brothers, bankrolled the production with live stars involved and Harry O. Hoyt handling full direction of the live performers. The final result had its premiere on February 2, 1925 and, two months later, made the history books as the very first movie shown way up in the air in an airplane, something else we take for granted today. Fortunately for us, THE LOST WORLD is not a…lost…film. There are small portions that may still be, but its novelty value has prevented it from falling through the cracks like so many other silents, being given multiple 16mm treatments throughout the 40s and 50s for educational and home entertainment purposes. The DVD version I watched was from the Blackhawk Films Collection and put out by Image Entertainment in 2001 with “50% more footage than any version available in 70 years,” plus outtake footage also recovered.The basic feature runs 93 minutes, but Flicker Alley was able to improve upon this with its 2017 BluRay that was expanded to 104 minutes with both Blackhawk and Lobster Films involved in the restoration recovery. It may still not be 100% complete but it is as close to its original premiere version as one can possibly get for a film of its vintage. Some modern viewers may scoff at the overall quaintness of this production, but I have always found it enormously entertaining. I can imagine how much more impressive it looks on a bigger screen. Yes, the story demands you to stretch the believable factor since there is no way so many dinosaurs can live in a small plateau in the Amazonian rain forest, especially flying Pteranodons that escape to other territories easily (and this poses a problem with THE VALLEY OF GWANGI and other films more recent that I will profile later).In the original version, a similar Pterodactyl does, in fact, get captured and brought to the big city, but the movie more famously uses a Brontosaurus. The beautifully executed 2001 BBC/A&E TV version of THE LOST WORLD (with the WALKING WITH DINOSAURS animation crew involved and one of ten adaptations so far) follows the original source more closely in this regard. Doyle himself provides a personal introduction to our cinematic adventure here, before we start our story in London where romance is on hold. Poor newspaper reporter Ed Malone (Lloyd Hughes) can not convince his fiancée Gladys (Alma Bennett) to marry him until he faces danger personally as a real man’s man. The periodical he works for, the Record-Journal, had recently ridiculed Professor Challenger (wonderfully over-played by Wallace Beery in blistering whiskers) due to his claims that prehistoric beasts live on a plateau somewhere near the borders of Brazil, Colombia and Peru.Yet Ed somehow manages to get him to accept his offer to travel there with him as a journalist. Also along for the trip are big game hunter Sir John Roxton (Lewis Stone, famous in the later MGM Andy Hardy series), aging Professor Summerlee (Arthur Hoyt, brother of the director), Challenger’s butler Austin (Francis Finch-Smiles), Zambo the “Indian” (Jules Cowes in dated blackface) and Paula White (Bessie Love) whose daddy may still be alive in the lost world jungle. Inevitably Paula becomes the better romantic match for Ed than the one he’s engaged to, who…in a surprise move…remarries while he is gone so he can stick with Paula. Despite the whole silly premise and the inclusion of a chimpanzee with an ape-man in the jungle (but Bull Montana does a wonderful job in suit and makeup), there is a surprisingly documentary quality to the early scenes with actual South American critters involved (jaguar, peccary, sloth, black bears posing as spectacle bears, boa constrictor, capuchin monkeys and so forth). The troop splits with Zambo and Austin staying off the plateau and the others venturing onto it. First drama, after observations of a Pteranodon in flight and eating some pig like creature, involves a seemingly harmless Brontosaurus destroying the tree they use as a transportation bridge and, thus, they are trapped on the plateau for a while.This continues with more beasts in our ancient menagerie. A hungry Allosaurus kills and feasts on a Trachodon (or Anatosaurus or Edmontosaurus as it is known today), battles a Triceratops family and then threatens the humans who scare it off with bullets and fire before getting killed in a battle with a defensive Agathamaus. This Triceratops cousin of sorts was modeled by O’Brien carefully after a very famous Charles R. Knight painting done in 1897. Unfortunately he does not survive a second battle with a Tyrannosaurus, which also grabs the Pteranodon in flight as an extra meal. Other species include Stegosaurus, quite often in intricately staged dino-herds with multiple beasts moving…all frame by frame. Remember that computer generated imagery was a good six decades into the future; all this was a labor of love…and patience.Our humans find more protective shelter in a cave that the big dinos can’t get into so easily. John Roxton explores it further and discovers an escape route and manages to contact Zambo and Austin for help, some of it involving a pet monkey Jocko that is well at climbing. Sadly, John also finds the skeleton remains (has it been that long?!) of the late Daddy Maple White as identified by a locket picture of Paula. They all eventually escape by rope, but first must deal with an erupting volcano that causes much destruction but only claims a handful of dino lives in the process. (I should point out that JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN DOMINION repeated this exact same plot 93 years later.) Earlier a Brontosaurus fell off a cliff when battling an Allosaurus and landed in the thick mud of the jungle far below. This encourages our group to collect him and bring him back to London by boat, a move similar to KING KONG, THE VALLEY OF GWANGI and, especially, THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK.As with Steven Spielberg’s film, the drugs wear off and the bumbling Bronto can no longer be subdued on board with ropes. Unlike the T-Rex, he is still a herbivore who only causes destruction to buildings and tramping on humans with his feet and tail. The London Bridge gets considerable damage just before he tumbles into the Thames and swims his way out towards the ocean, his final destination unknown. Professor Challenger looks all challenged in defeat in our closing moments but the love life of Paula and Ed moves forward.Although this was a hit, many of O’Brien’s subsequent projects over the next couple years never got completed. Director Hoyt collaborated on the earliest of these, including a retelling of the legendary Atlantis story for First National. There was also a pre-Universal version of Frankenstein attempted at RKO, along with the aborted CREATION that provided some dino-footage for KING KONG, done at RKO where he remained for a full decade as an effects specialist. Much of O’Brien's work in the later thirties and forties involved matte painting and optic print effects, including some stunning work for CITIZEN KANE. Yet another unfinished project for that studio later became VALLEY OF GWANGI with Ray Harryhausen supervising…and Harryhausen was a huge fan of O’Brien who got to work alongside him twice.As for O’Brien’s personal life, it was quite the roller-coaster ride. His first marriage ended in divorce and his volatile wife shockingly killed their two sons a year before her own death. He also suffered from tuberculosis which caused blindness over time. Fortunately, his second marriage was a happy one and it kept him anchored later as his career continued uninterrupted. His final years were kept busy with such efforts as THE BLACK SCORPION, a few minor contributions to a 1960 remake of THE LOST WORLD (done with “slurposaurs” rather than his stop-motion creations) and IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD which was released posthumously.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 10, 2023 14:57:09 GMT
Essential: THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)
Jlewis:
 Ray Harryhausen saw KING KONG before his 13th birthday at Radio City Music Hall and became a huge fan of Willis O’Brien and his stop-motion technique, later working with him in 1947-48 on the RKO production of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG and in 1955 for THE ANIMAL WORLD, the second of three features he would make for Warner Brothers. His first experiment done on 16mm was EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD, which featured dinosaurs, and a second, untitled, that incorporated a best friend in split screen combination with a stop-motion alien creature.Viewed today, these may seem a bit crude but such projects were mighty ambitious undertakings for any 18-19 year old and helped get him employed at the George Pal Puppetoon studio later. After making some interesting stop-motion wartime instructionals for the U.S. Army Special Services, he embarked on a series of delightful Mother Goose and fairy-tale renditions for the 16mm educational market, interrupted during the time of his collaboration with O’Brien on MIGHTY JOE. His first solo feature effort, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, was done in 1952. This began as an indy production by Jack Dietz and Mutual Productions, based in part on a Ray Bradbury short story featured in The Saturday Evening Post. (Bradbury was a friend of Harryhausen from many years back and they remained especially close right up to Bradbury’s passing just eleven months before his own.) Warner Brothers purchased the $285,000 production for $800,000 and spruced it up with added scenes involving stars Paul Christian and Paula Raymond to increase the romantic chemistry and a new score by David Buttolph.The studio had rarely ventured into the sci fi and horror genres before but felt the need in this new era of changing trends (with HOUSE OF WAX in 3-D being prepared for release at this same time). They spent a bit more on promotion and publicity than usual. It all paid off after the film had its debut on June 13, 1953 (70 years ago this month). It is estimated that the film earned close to 5 million with increased sales overseas. In Japan, the first GODZILLA (GOJIRA) was clearly influenced by it; one key difference, however, is that the Tokyo destroyer spit fire while the star in this one only appears to in the poster art and not in the actual film.Financial success is not the same as critical success and both contemporary and modern reviews have often been mixed. Yet it delivers everything one would want in a fifties spook adventure, all told in a compact 80 minutes with hardly a minute of boredom. I guess the fact that it was shot in black and white, if sepia-tone in some premiere prints, and features special effects that look a trifle antiquated by post-JURASSIC PARK standards may work against it among today’s crowd. The premise is very unscientific but great effort is made to seem scientifically plausible. Tom Nesbitt (Paul Christian) suggests the possibility that the creature he saw was a prehistoric reptile that had miraculously survived being encased in ice and was blasted out when atomic tests were done by the U.S. military in the Arctic Circle. Dr. Thurgood Elson (Cecil Kellaway is wonderful in this role) confidentially tells him that mammoths/mastodons that have been preserved that way were thousands of years old and not millions and always dead. We don’t hear more theories in this regard so viewers can develop their own. Simply put, a Rhedosaurus, a made up for the screen creature that was presumably extinct for 100 million years, is positively identified by Tom and another eyewitness, a fisherman in Quebec. Colonel Jack Evans (Kenneth Tobey) and Dr. Elson’s lovely assistant Lee Hunter (Paula Raymond) are also convinced by Tom’s sincerity.The Rhedosaurus makes a journey southward along the north Atlantic coastline, attacking a ship and a lighthouse. There is a consistency about him: he is apparently antagonized by bright lights that flash upon him. Likewise, a bathysphere also features a beaming light and Elson agrees to investigate the creature underwater in one, a risk that ends in his drowning. Final destination is the creature’s original spawn-ground…today’s New York City! Like King Kong, he arrives in the Big Apple as an unwanted guest. One policeman gets chomped on after shooting him, but most of the destruction occurs to buildings in much the same fashion as the brontosaurus in THE LOST WORLD, along with little attacks like the street light that were repeated by the T-Rex in Spielberg’s THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK. Human contact to the creature’s blood proves toxic, either due to atomic radiation or something prehistorically contagious and, after much sickness is spread (as revealed in cleverly edited mock newsreels that suggest events happening far faster than they would be in reality), it is decided to contain the creature in the Coney Island amusement park where he makes as his final destination. Tom is involved in the heroic shooting of an isotope gun from a Cyclone rollercoaster car as our prehistoric star dies in a blast of fire and fury.Director Eugène Lourié previously worked with French directors like René Clair, Max Ophüls and Jean Renoir as a production designer and brings considerable sophistication to what is otherwise a modest B-horror. Also involved in the screenwriting were three others: Fred Freiberger who was later a producer of STAR TREK; Robert Smith and Louis Morheim. It features several memorably poetic lines such as the ones heard in the early scenes involving the atomic tests in the arctic: “I feel we’re helping to write the first chapter of a new Genesis. Let’s hope we don’t find ourselves writing the last chapter of the old one.” Shortly before his untimely passing, Elson greatly enjoys the excitement of seeing something scientists had never seen before deep underwater (the joyful, boyish delivery of the great character actor Cecil Kellaway adding tremendously to the overall suspense): “This is such a strange feeling. I feel I am leaving a world of untold tomorrows for a world of countless yesterdays. Lee was right. I should have brought the Dramamine pills.”After the success of this film, Harryhausen joined forces with producer Charles H. Schneer in operation with Sam Katzman at Columbia Pictures. This team produced a steady two decade stream of both low-budget black and white B-films and more ambitious color A-budget ones, including such cherished fantasy masterpieces as THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. Harryhausen contributed to at least two other studios with one title each (Hammer Films/20th Century Fox and MGM), although most of his later work was done in England instead of Hollywood. His trio of Warner-backed dino-films each have great interest to me, including a delirious all-over-the-place documentary, Irwin Allen’s THE ANIMAL WORLD, which features more dino footage by both Harryhausen and O’Brien (utilized for memorable stereo View-Master reels). Yet it would be more than a decade between that production and his next and final Warner-backed effort, THE VALLEY OF GWANGI…
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Post by topbilled on Jun 17, 2023 8:07:13 GMT
Essential: THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969)
Jlewis:
 Not exactly a masterpiece like KING KONG which it resembles in many aspects, THE VALLEY OF GWANGI failed to make much of a dent at the box-office during its initial release but nonetheless did well in reissue and as a frequent shown-on-TV offering that many of us of a certain generation saw in our youth.Steven Spielberg paid some homage to it in the two JURASSIC PARK films he personally directed: examples include the T-Rex killing an Ornithomimus in his first film and the dino lasso-ing (but with motorscooters and jeeps rather than horses) in the first sequel. Its most enduring legacy is Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation a.k.a. “dynamation” that overshadows the various shortcomings in the script. Willis O’Brien wanted to do a movie about dinosaurs and cowboys decades earlier but RKO pulled the plug on his The Valley Of The Mists before it got past the pre-production and storyboard stage in February 1942. (The new wartime climate shifted the studio’s confidence in such subject matter; its initial interest being started by Hal Roach’s success with ONE MILLION B.C. and its “slurposaurs,” followed by Walt Disney’s better executed dinos in the animated FANTASIA.)William and Edward Nassour later bought the rights to his story, but made plenty of changes of their own for their modest CinemaScope feature THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN in 1956. After O’ Brien’s death in 1962, Ray Harryhausen was committed to bringing a better adaptation to the screen with Charles H. Schneer producing and, with plenty of dinos featured in his most recent ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (a much better film than Roach’s, that appeared in 1966), he was certainly on a roll and ready to tackle this project. Principal photography involving the actors took place in Almeria, Spain and neighboring areas, mostly between July and October 1967 and with Jim O’Connolly as official director in charge. The tedious special effects work, along with additional retakes and the elaborate incorporation of humans with smaller animated models, continued through late October 1968. Working titles changed during the lengthy production time from The Valley – Time Forgot to The Valley Time Stood Still and, finally, the incorporation of the star beastie’s name.Our story is set “somewhere south of the Rio Grande” early in the 20th century. A “forbidden valley” is entered by a thief who captures a “dawn horse,” prehistoric Eohippus, in a sack and later dies of exhaustion and claw marks all over him. His mother, a stereotype “gypsy” named Tia Zorina (Freda Jackson), warns those taking custody of the novelty animal that Gwangi will seek revenge on anybody else who enters that valley. In due course, she pops up later when our main characters capture Gwangi himself to provide more warnings… and helps sabotage their efforts later as our plot-line’s additional obstacle.A former stunt horse-rider Tuck Kirby (James Franciscus) arrives into a big Mexican town where he befriends a local boy Lope (Curtis Arden) and reunites with his ex-lover T.J. (Gila Golan) whom he had once abandoned at the wedding altar and is now part of a wild west rodeo tour. These two present the typical heterosexual romance of our story (like Ann Darrow and John Driscoll in KING KONG) with the usual “will they or won’t they?” questioning that concerns his masculine ego versus her ambitious career-gal ambitions (i.e. will she or won’t she settle down in his future ranch in Wyoming and give up a life of glitter and glitz?).Also involved in our story are two more involved in the rodeo, Champ (Richard Carlson) and Carlos (Gustavo Rojo), the latter is related to the psycho-Tia and a bit shady in his behavior (and all shady sorts must die by tooth and claw at one point); otherwise, neither character does all that much in our story, being far less important to viewers. Slightly more important than these two but still less important than Tuck, T.J. And Lope (and not important enough for us viewers to be certain if he gets killed or merely severely injured by a falling cage door) is a visiting scientist Professor Bromley (Laurence Naismith) who has come to investigate the newly discovered circus property, the Eohippus now named “El Diablo.”Simply put, we have a struggling circus troupe that needs a new attraction for their show and a scientist who is curious about unknown creatures that may still be alive after millions of years of extinction, fodder to keep our recycled LOST WORLD plot going. El Diablo escapes as our major players enter the “forbidden valley.” The second prehistoric beastie to present itself is a Pteranodon (called a Pteradactyl here), which attempts to fly up with Lope but is roped down cowboy-style and dies in the process. Before the professor can claim the carcass for further study, Gwangi himself shows up.Previously, another set of cow-folk on horseback chase an Ornithominus right into Gwangi’s jaws… Gwangi being an Allosaurus with three fingers on claws instead of two like T-Rex. He follows them back to the others to also taste-test the dead Pteranodon before chasing the humans into cave crevices. Also entering into the mayhem on two separate occasions is a Styracosaurus that battles Gwangi in scenes that echo Harryhausen’s previous Ceratosaurus versus Triceratops battle in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. battle (again, never mind the differing Jurassic and Cretaceous time-frames for the animals involved). In a second battle, the constant roping that the cowboys attempt on Gwangi and the spearing of the Styracosaur helps cause the horned one’s death and the mighty carnivore’s capture after it gets clonked in the head a.k.a. King Kong style.Also like Kong, Gwangi becomes the new star of the show back in town, “never seen before by human eyes” as Champ promotes. Tia tries to set him free with the help for a doomed-to-become-lunch dwarf with no name (Jose Bergos) and, again Kong-style, the mighty beast chases humans all over town and gets to munch on one more resident briefly. It all ends in a church that is set on fire. Even though this scene isn’t much different than the roller-coaster fire in THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, it is interesting to note that churches were often sanctuaries from the middles ages through the 19th century for people to escape from what they perceived as “evil”…and Tia kept insisting that Gwangi was evil even if it is just a hungry animal confused by its new surroundings.VALLEY OF GWANGI repeats many plot-points from films that came before and would, in future decades, get recycled itself. Going back to our Pteranodon sequence, which makes little sense in reality since such a creature could easily fly away from the “forbidden valley” and get seen by humans all over Mexico, paleontologists generally agree that Jurassic and Cretaceous era pterosaurs had back feet that were not strong enough to carry a human. However, Hollywood seldom places much emphasis on scientific accuracy and what pleases the popcorn gallery once tends to get repeated again and again….and again. Harryhausen previously featured a Super-Pterodactyl kidnapping Raquel Welch in ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and this was a replay of O’Brien’s famous battle between King Kong and a Pteranodon snatching Ann Darrow over three decades earlier. Likewise, JURASSIC PARK III and JURASSIC WORLD both featured equally ridiculous scenes that not only recycled both O’Brien and Harryhausen but, in the latter film, Walt Disney’s FANTASIA by adding a Mosasaur (known officially as a Tylosaur) into the mix.Now…regarding the whole “how can dinosaurs appear in Mexico and stay restricted to the valley all this time?” question. There has been some speculation over the years by fans of this film that they are in some sort of time warp and have stumbled out of an alternative universe. Just four years later, time warps were often the topic of a popular Saturday morning TV show, Sid and Marty Krofft’s classic LAND OF THE LOST and this too featured dinosaurs.Sci fi and fantasy stories continued to evolve through the decades: Warner Brothers-Seven Arts, which backed GWANGI, also backed (as Warner Bros. & Village Roadshow Entertainment) THE MATRIX franchise three decades later with its own multiple “realities” of The Mind and, more recently, the multi-Oscar winning EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE has made “multiverses” fashionable in mass entertainment. Back in 1969, GWANGI had an accompanying Dell comic book version, selling for 15 cents at the time but marketed today on eBay for $30-80 depending on its condition. This more fully fleshes out the story but leaves out any of my suggestions here. The film producers were far more concerned about getting dinos and cowboys together regardless of the “how” and “why” involved, but the whole set-up is nebulous enough for viewers to make their own interpretations.Several of Harryhausen’s set pieces still hold up quite nicely, even compared to all of the computer generated imagery of today. All of El Diablo’s scenes are beautifully done, especially the shot of him sniffing a real horse. The roping of Gwangi is also flawless and I would bet O’Brien would have loved this on screen had he still been alive to see it. Probably the weakest sequence involves Gwangi versus a circus elephant simply because a real elephant, even just in close-up shots, would have been far more believable than a stop-motion one. Also it appears to be the same model used in Harryhausen’s earlier 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH which was done much better.Despite its flaws and its repetition of stock themes, this is still a highly entertaining adventure romp from start to finish and, sadly, the kind of weekend matinee fare that “they just don’t make anymore.” Too frightening for the small fry, it is nonetheless perfect entertainment for those over, say, ten years old. Weekend matinees involving this kind of movie continued as a nationwide activity for another decade and included many memorable B-budget stop-motion dino favorites from WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH to CAVEMAN with Ringo Starr before the advent of VHS and computer games kept many kids away from the movie theaters unless Spielberg’s name was promoted above the title.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 24, 2023 15:00:35 GMT
Essential: THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)
Jlewis:
 I was not a fan of this sequel to JURASSIC PARK when I saw it in theaters in 1997, but it has grown on me in repeated viewings. What turned me off initially was the very high casualty count. In hindsight, I realized that it was only marginally higher than the 1933 version of KING KONG but likely on par with that film’s 2005 remake. In addition, Steven Spielberg should be congratulated in his post-JAWS output for showcasing Mother Nature seeking revenge on the human species for all of the death and destruction it has caused the vast majority of other denizens that share the same planet.Two Tyranosaurus Rex-es literally tear apart the heroic Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) while he is saving the lives of our protagonists but he is the primary “good guy” victim, apart from the numerous “expendables” whom we never get to know. A cute girl gets attacked by a pack of itty bitty Compsognathus but she survives, while the older and should be wiser Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare) mocks the little critters and is revenged upon more ferociously. Most become dino-lunch by making the wrong decisions or being in the wrong place foolishly, including one who is more scared of snakes than T-Rexes and runs out of a protective cave too soon. Then there’s the sleezy Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) who is responsible for considerable mayhem and decides to re-steal T-Rex Junior a second time…only to become Junior’s first prey-victim with Daddy supervising. Even a dog becomes an appetizer by making the foolish mistake of barking when he shouldn’t. My guess is that the dog was a much yummier snack than the humans since so many of them are eaten with all of their clothes on, giving a curious “coated” taste. I can’t even guess why the Velociraptors found all of that metal artillery worn by the InGen troop appetizing.As expected, this is supposed to be sci-fi horror hokum, not documentary material. There is little here that paleontologists can agree with, although it was still too early in the nineties before most experts came to the agreement that the raptors, typically far smaller in real life back in the mid-Cretaceous than they appear on screen, sported feathers. At least this installment of the six film series (as of 2023… I’m sure another is in the works for the future) has aged better than other JURASSIC PARK and JURASSIC WORLD titles. There is no silly venom spitting, collared-lizard-look-alike Dilophosaurus or old-style Spinosaurus here, nor genetic re-hashes like the Indominous Rex and Indoraptor.Despite the state of the arts special effects, the story-line is pretty much a composite of the three films I previously reviewed here but with the additional “cloning” angle supplied by JURASSIC PARK the original. The off central American islands are full of escaped beasties which would not cause danger to humans who are smart enough to stay away but InGen, the company that initially created them through mosquito DNA in amber, has changed ownership from idealist Dr. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to his more ruthless nephew Peter Ludlow (already mentioned above) who is forced by his investors to try to bring InGen out of bankruptcy come hell or high water.The whole park idea went poof in the previous film so he decides to try, try again with a new set-up in San Diego after harvesting what is roaming wild and free on Isla Nublar and neighboring Isla Sorna. In typical villianish style, he mocks a returning Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) by saying his own suit coat is worth more than Ian’s income. Ian only reluctantly agrees to return with the elder Hammond’s insistence because his girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is foolishly there as a paleontologist…this story gets increasingly convoluted the more you try to comprehend it. As much as I love Moore as an actress and she is especially good in her role as Miss Hard-Hat dedicated as both scientist and medical vet out to save injured baby T-rexes despite Daddy and Mum’s disapproval, I still question how these two got together as a couple in the first place.Plus the fact Ian has a daughter from a previous relationship who looks nothing like him, although the stowaway-along-for-the-journey teenager Kelly Curtis is well played too by a talented Vanessa Lee Chester, who displays some gymnastic skills later when combating raptors. Backtracking to THE LOST WORLD of 1925, Ian is basically filling in the shoes of that film’s Paula White: he is only back because his girlfriend and stowaway daughter are in jeopardy but displays his bleak pessimism about the adventure throughout. Also joining Ian in his return trip are noble assistant Eddie Carr (again, whose fate I’ve already mentioned) and video cameraman Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) who later attempts to sabotage both Ludlow and safari hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) in their efforts in capturing a bull T-Rex.The latter two do succeed in the end in retrieving both Daddy and Junior-Rex and sending them drugged up on ship to California in a fashion not unlike the original LOST WORLD. Key difference with the ’25 original is that brontosaurs are herbivorous and T-Rexes are much more into human flesh, so that when the drugs wear off aboard the ship, you can guess what happens. Also in homage to all of these films, the big beast causes plenty of havoc in the big metropolis before Ian and Sarah successfully get both critters back on the ship and sent away into the Pacific. Personally I favor this final third act more than the earlier two thirds set on the islands since these sequences display more of an offbeat, if still morbid, sense of humor.The rolling-like-a-bowling-ball gas station globe and the destruction of a Blockbuster-esque video store provide amusing commentary on Mother Nature seeking revenge on human commercialization and consumption, while the spectacular stunt work of a 1969 Pontiac Custom S is more impressive as our heroes’ escape vehicle than the more modern vehicles on the streets. Most of these later San Diego scenes echo THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with T-Rex snapping at cars and street lights in similar fashion to Harryhausen’s Rhedosaurus. The fact that the film borrows so much from what came before it is more of a blessing than a flaw.In addition to the lasso-ing of dinos on the islands that resemble THE VALLEY OF GWANGI and the T-Rex stepping on humans as clumsily as bumbling Bronto in the first LOST WORLD, there are also some more subtle touches of delight. For example, KING KONG ’33 featured a scene of the mighty ape sniffing Ann Darrow’s clothing and, here, the bull T-Rex sniffs hanging garments inside Sarah’s tent with much the same curiosity. THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK marked, in my opinion, the apex of the franchise, outdoing the original in thrills and chills. As expected, JURASSIC PARK III was a let-down (but not the total fiasco some fans of the series make it out to be). The subsequent JURASSIC WORLD titles attempted to tweak the formula a bit to stay fresh, but still wound up recycling so much that we have seen in dino-films made back in the 20th century. (At some point, the silly Pteranodon kidnappings will hopefully lose their novelty value.)JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION subconsciously developed hunky “trainer” Chris Pratt’s Owen and his “pet” raptor Blue into counterparts to the many super-heroes populating the rival DC and Marvel franchises, so I am guessing that is the new strategy of such adventures.
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Post by topbilled on Jun 25, 2023 13:59:08 GMT
I'd like to thank Jlewis for doing an amazing job on the June essentials.
If you read all four of his reviews on dinosaur movies in one sitting, it is a like a great essay or academic paper covering the evolution of this interesting sub-genre.
These are films that typically would be off my radar...so I learned a lot reading what Jlewis had written.
***
Next month, Jlewis takes a well-deserved break. And I will be posting reviews on five films about Americans abroad, which were all produced in 1946.
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Post by NoShear on Dec 27, 2023 14:23:51 GMT
Essential: THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)
Jlewis:
I was not a fan of this sequel to JURASSIC PARK when I saw it in theaters in 1997, but it has grown on me in repeated viewings. What turned me off initially was the very high casualty count. In hindsight, I realized that it was only marginally higher than the 1933 version of KING KONG but likely on par with that film’s 2005 remake. In addition, Steven Spielberg should be congratulated in his post-JAWS output for showcasing Mother Nature seeking revenge on the human species for all of the death and destruction it has caused the vast majority of other denizens that share the same planet.Two Tyranosaurus Rex-es literally tear apart the heroic Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) while he is saving the lives of our protagonists but he is the primary “good guy” victim, apart from the numerous “expendables” whom we never get to know. A cute girl gets attacked by a pack of itty bitty Compsognathus but she survives, while the older and should be wiser Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare) mocks the little critters and is revenged upon more ferociously.Most become dino-lunch by making the wrong decisions or being in the wrong place foolishly, including one who is more scared of snakes than T-Rexes and runs out of a protective cave too soon. Then there’s the sleezy Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) who is responsible for considerable mayhem and decides to re-steal T-Rex Junior a second time…only to become Junior’s first prey-victim with Daddy supervising.Even a dog becomes an appetizer by making the foolish mistake of barking when he shouldn’t. My guess is that the dog was a much yummier snack than the humans since so many of them are eaten with all of their clothes on, giving a curious “coated” taste. I can’t even guess why the Velociraptors found all of that metal artillery worn by the InGen troop appetizing.As expected, this is supposed to be sci-fi horror hokum, not documentary material. There is little here that paleontologists can agree with, although it was still too early in the nineties before most experts came to the agreement that the raptors, typically far smaller in real life back in the mid-Cretaceous than they appear on screen, sported feathers.At least this installment of the six film series (as of 2023… I’m sure another is in the works for the future) has aged better than other JURASSIC PARK and JURASSIC WORLD titles. There is no silly venom spitting, collared-lizard-look-alike Dilophosaurus or old-style Spinosaurus here, nor genetic re-hashes like the Indominous Rex and Indoraptor.Despite the state of the arts special effects, the story-line is pretty much a composite of the three films I previously reviewed here but with the additional “cloning” angle supplied by JURASSIC PARK the original.The off central American islands are full of escaped beasties which would not cause danger to humans who are smart enough to stay away but InGen, the company that initially created them through mosquito DNA in amber, has changed ownership from idealist Dr. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to his more ruthless nephew Peter Ludlow (already mentioned above) who is forced by his investors to try to bring InGen out of bankruptcy come hell or high water.The whole park idea went poof in the previous film so he decides to try, try again with a new set-up in San Diego after harvesting what is roaming wild and free on Isla Nublar and neighboring Isla Sorna. In typical villianish style, he mocks a returning Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) by saying his own suit coat is worth more than Ian’s income.Ian only reluctantly agrees to return with the elder Hammond’s insistence because his girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is foolishly there as a paleontologist…this story gets increasingly convoluted the more you try to comprehend it. As much as I love Moore as an actress and she is especially good in her role as Miss Hard-Hat dedicated as both scientist and medical vet out to save injured baby T-rexes despite Daddy and Mum’s disapproval, I still question how these two got together as a couple in the first place.Plus the fact Ian has a daughter from a previous relationship who looks nothing like him, although the stowaway-along-for-the-journey teenager Kelly Curtis is well played too by a talented Vanessa Lee Chester, who displays some gymnastic skills later when combating raptors.Backtracking to THE LOST WORLD of 1925, Ian is basically filling in the shoes of that film’s Paula White: he is only back because his girlfriend and stowaway daughter are in jeopardy but displays his bleak pessimism about the adventure throughout. Also joining Ian in his return trip are noble assistant Eddie Carr (again, whose fate I’ve already mentioned) and video cameraman Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) who later attempts to sabotage both Ludlow and safari hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) in their efforts in capturing a bull T-Rex.The latter two do succeed in the end in retrieving both Daddy and Junior-Rex and sending them drugged up on ship to California in a fashion not unlike the original LOST WORLD. Key difference with the ’25 original is that brontosaurs are herbivorous and T-Rexes are much more into human flesh, so that when the drugs wear off aboard the ship, you can guess what happens.Also in homage to all of these films, the big beast causes plenty of havoc in the big metropolis before Ian and Sarah successfully get both critters back on the ship and sent away into the Pacific. Personally I favor this final third act more than the earlier two thirds set on the islands since these sequences display more of an offbeat, if still morbid, sense of humor.The rolling-like-a-bowling-ball gas station globe and the destruction of a Blockbuster-esque video store provide amusing commentary on Mother Nature seeking revenge on human commercialization and consumption, while the spectacular stunt work of a 1969 Pontiac Custom S is more impressive as our heroes’ escape vehicle than the more modern vehicles on the streets.Most of these later San Diego scenes echo THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with T-Rex snapping at cars and street lights in similar fashion to Harryhausen’s Rhedosaurus. The fact that the film borrows so much from what came before it is more of a blessing than a flaw.In addition to the lasso-ing of dinos on the islands that resemble THE VALLEY OF GWANGI and the T-Rex stepping on humans as clumsily as bumbling Bronto in the first LOST WORLD, there are also some more subtle touches of delight. For example, KING KONG ’33 featured a scene of the mighty ape sniffing Ann Darrow’s clothing and, here, the bull T-Rex sniffs hanging garments inside Sarah’s tent with much the same curiosity.THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK marked, in my opinion, the apex of the franchise, outdoing the original in thrills and chills. As expected, JURASSIC PARK III was a let-down (but not the total fiasco some fans of the series make it out to be). The subsequent JURASSIC WORLD titles attempted to tweak the formula a bit to stay fresh, but still wound up recycling so much that we have seen in dino-films made back in the 20th century. (At some point, the silly Pteranodon kidnappings will hopefully lose their novelty value.)JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION subconsciously developed hunky “trainer” Chris Pratt’s Owen and his “pet” raptor Blue into counterparts to the many super-heroes populating the rival DC and Marvel franchises, so I am guessing that is the new strategy of such adventures. I missed this the first time that 76 ball rolled around, TopBilled: I like your observation on American consumerism. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 27, 2023 14:36:26 GMT
NoShear,
That review was written by Jlewis. I agree, he made several good points.
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Post by NoShear on Dec 27, 2023 15:40:06 GMT
NoShear,
That review was written by Jlewis. I agree, he made several good points. I'm so used to your own reviews/stories posts that I thought it was another of your own, TopBilled - sorry for the assumption. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 27, 2023 15:42:45 GMT
NoShear,
That review was written by Jlewis. I agree, he made several good points. I'm so used to your own reviews/stories posts that I thought it was another of your own, TopBilled - sorry for the assumption. |
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