RETRO REVIEW: “Jurassic Park” (1993)

August 19, 2020 by Keith Garlington

Normally my Retro Reviews are chosen by my Twitter followers who vote in a poll to determine what film I’m going to watch (you can follow me @KeithandMovies). But this week someone else inspired my choice of movie. My son just started his freshman year of college and he’s taking a film appreciation course. His first assignment was to write an essay on his favorite film. Interestingly he chose “Jurassic Park”. And guess what film was showing as part of our favorite theater’s ‘Welcome Back‘ promotion? It was written in the stars.

Many consider Steven Spielberg to be the father of the summer blockbuster. “Jaws”, the “Indiana Jones” films, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and of course “Jurassic Park” make a really strong case. “Jurassic Park” would become Spielberg’s biggest money-maker. It shattered box office records becoming the highest grossing film of all-time (until James Cameron’s “Titanic” came along in 1997). The film was a hit with critics and went on to win three Academy Awards. It’s still beloved by many including my son. After seeing it again on the big screen I was reminded of why it has such a following.

“Jurassic Park” was based on a Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Smelling a potential smash hit, Spielberg and Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to Crichton’s novel before it was even published. Crichton was then hired to write the screenplay with David Koepp. They set their story on a fictional island near Costa Rica where a wealthy entrepreneur and his team of scientists have created a theme park around the cloning of dinosaurs. It was a story ripe with potential, but only if the special effects could sell its ambition. “Jurassic Park” turned out to be an incredible visual achievement and a groundbreaking step forward for movie technology.

Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Richard Attenborough plays businessman John Hammond, a gazillionaire who bought his own island to build his dinosaur park. After an accident leads to the death of one of his dino handlers, Hammond is pushed by his investors to bring in a team of experts to verify whether the park is safe for the public. Hammond invites paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neil) and paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). The lawyer for the investors Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) invites math whiz and chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).

Once on the island the group are taken to meet Hammond. On the way they are astonished at the sight of a massive living, breathing brachiosaurus. They arrive at the park’s visitor center where Hammond gives them a tour of his laboratory. The group’s amazement turns to skepticism once Hammond reveals the science behind his venture. In one particularly terrific scene they all gather around a table for lunch and discuss the wisdom and ethics of Hammond’s venture. As Goldblum’s Dr. Malcolm candidly states, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

In a last ditch effort to impress his guests Hammond sends the group along with his two grandchildren Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Lex (Ariana Richards) on an automated SUV tour around the park. Meanwhile Hammond’s disgruntled computer programmer Dennis Nedry (Wayne Night) has secretly been paid handsomely by an outside corporation to swipe dinosaur embryos from the park’s lab. Nedry shuts down the security systems enabling him to steal the vials and escape to a nearby dock where a boat awaits. But he inadvertently shuts down the SUVs leaving three doctors, a lawyer, and two kids stranded outside of a Tyrannosaurus Rex enclosure.

With the electric fences deactivated the T-Rex escapes attacking the two SUVs in what many consider to be the film’s most memorable sequence. Watching it again I was blown away by Spielberg’s masterclass on scene construction. The framing of his shots, the crisp editing, the impeccable sound design, visual effects wizard Stan Winston’s mind-blowing animatronics, and other details such as Spielberg using no score during the bulk of the sequence. It’s a scene full of nail-biting tension even for people like me who already knows what happens.

Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures

In addition to the stand-out special effects, Spielberg, his DP Dean Cundey, and production designer Rick Carter deserve loads of credit for creating a convincing setting that grounds a fantastical concept. Shot mostly in Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, and on the Universal Studios lot, Spielberg and his team manage to sell Jurassic Park as a palpable place full of awe and wonder. And it still sparks the imagination after all these years.

And while I’m doling out credit, Crichton and Koepp earn their’s by putting together a fun and engaging array of characters. Neil and Dern are the leads and they fill the shoes of their characters well. And there is terrific supporting work from Attenborough, Night, Ferrero, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bob Peck. But there is one thing I distinctly remember from my previous viewings and it still holds true today – Jeff Goldblum steals every scene he’s in. His Malcolm is smart, weirdly charming, hilarious, even heroic when he needs to be. Unfortunately he gets put on the shelf in the last act, but Goldblum still makes every scene he’s in better.

This was easily one of my favorite Retro Review revisits so far. It was nice to see how remarkably well “Jurassic Park” holds up, but I wasn’t expecting to have so much fun with it. It’s a movie that really flourishes on the big screen and puts an emphasis on the value of that experience. I can enthusiastically say that I liked “Jurassic Park” more this time than during my original 1993 theater visit. Maybe I’m just starving for a good summer tentpole movie. Or maybe this is simply Spielberg once again proving himself to not only be the father of the blockbuster but also the king.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

First Glance: “The Secrets We Keep”

August 18, 2020 by Keith Garlington

Things get a little dark in the upcoming thriller “The Secrets We Keep” from Israeli director Yuval Adler. Set in New York shortly after World War II, the film (from a screenplay by Adler and Ryan Covington) takes an intense look at revenge, absolution, and coping with enormous trauma. Speaking to the film’s subject matter, star Noomi Rapace told Entertainment Weekly that it left her and co-star Joel Kinnaman “emotional trainwrecks“. I’m instantly intrigued.

In the film Rapace plays a Holocaust survivor named Maja who is still trying to put her life back together some 15 years after the war. A chance encounter with a man played by Kinnaman brings back a flood of emotion flashbacks. Maja is convinced this mysterious man was her leading tormentor during the Nazi occupation. Maja takes matters into her own hands, abducting the man and intent on getting his confession of guilt by any means necessary. The always good Chris Messina plays her husband, torn between supporting his wife and doing what’s lawful. This looks really good.

“The Secrets We Keep” comes out in theaters September 16th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “I Used to Go Here” (2020)

August 17, 2020 by Keith Garlington

In the new easy-going comedy “I Used to Go Here” Gillian Jacobs plays Kate, a down-on-her-luck author of a new not-so-great novel. She gets news from her publishers that low early sales numbers has forced them to cancel her scheduled publicity book tour. To make matters worse her fiancé recently broke up with her mere weeks before their wedding. And I thought I was having a rotten week.

That sets up this engaging but uneven new film from writer-director Kris Rey. The movie explores the rut thirtysomething’s often find themselves in after their big life aspirations don’t quite turn out as planned. Your career choice hasn’t been what you hoped. Most of your friends are married and having kids while you’re still single and calling off weddings. This is Kate in a nutshell. She graduated from college full of drive and ambition. She set off to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. But fifteen years later with an ex-fiancé and her first published book floundering, she’s left questioning her past decisions and uncertain about her future.

Photo Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

“I Used to Go There” gets off to a really good start, spending its time focused on Kate as she manages her disappointment while clinging to any optimism she can find. She gets a call from her old literature professor David Kilpatrick (a perfectly smarmy Jemaine Clement) who invites her to come to her alma mater to do a reading from her new book. Once back in the cozy college town of Carbondale, Illinois she begins gushing nostalgia and remembering when her life was full of energy and ambition.

These scenes work well because Rey portrays Kate’s struggles with a thoughtful and witty authenticity. Meanwhile Jacobs does a terrific job earning our empathy mostly through the film’s first half. Her performance is rooted in honesty and brings out a frazzled and charmingly awkward quality to Kate that makes her character easy to root for. That is until the last act where things unfortunately unravel.

While in Carbondale Kate befriends a group of college students living in her old house: Hugo (Josh Wiggins), Animal (Forrest Goodluck), Emma (Khloe Janel), and Tall Brandon (Brandon Daley). The movie uses Kate’s friendship with the coeds to playfully highlight her regression as she drowns her adult woes by hanging out and getting stoned with her new (and considerably younger) friends. There’s a great chemistry between the four young people and through them Kate reconnects with the care-free days of her youth. A welcomed release? Probably. Ill-advised? Most definitely.

Photo Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

But this is also where the movie eventually loses its focus, specifically in the final 30 minutes. The story gets sidetracked with an overlong and out-of-tune spy mission where Kate and the coeds try to uncover if Hugo’s girlfriend April (Hannah Marks) is cheating on him. The whole thing feels yanked out of another movie, even throwing in a weird sanitized “American Pie” angle with the Tall Brandon character. From there things get a little icky as Kate makes some bad choices that the movie kinda condemns but with very little conviction.

“I Used to Go Here” has all the right ingredients and it utilizes them for the majority of its 85 minute running time. It has some fine performances especially from Jacobs and Clement. And I haven’t even mentioned Rammel Chan who is hysterical as Kate’s student liaison Elliot. It’s a shame the film can’t stick its landing. The final act leaves you wondering about the story’s overall ambition and the late-movie tonal shifts are distracting. Still, there are things to like and Rey dodges a lot of college movie clichés and cheap comedy tropes in telling her story. At least most of the time. “I Used to Go Here” is now available on VOD.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

REVIEW: “Project Power” (2020)

August 14, 2020 by Keith Garlington

In a crazy year that has been essentially devoid of big action-packed tentpole movies, it’s kinda nice to see something like “Project Power” come along. This stylish Netflix banger from the directing duo of Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman has the look and feel of a big screen summer blockbuster. And it has two catchy names as top draws – Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Both have fun bringing their signature charisma while successfully jumping a few narrative hurdles along the way.

“Project Power” is written by Mattson Tomlin who is also busy co-writing Matt Reeves’ new Batman film. It took winning a bidding war with several big studios for Netflix to snag the rights to Tomlin’s script. It’s a dark-sided superhero tale of sorts, not without moments of levity, and with some social commentary sprinkled in for good measure. The concept is undeniably silly on the surface, but Tomlin does some interesting things with it and says some meaningful things along the way.

A new drug is introduced onto the streets of New Orleans by Teleos – a shady defense contractor secretly operating with government sanction. Once taken the pill triggers a single unique superpower that lies dormant in every person. But they only have it for five minutes. And while many powers are good, some can be instantly fatal to the user. As a slimy broker tells a potential investor during a sales pitch, “Results may vary“.

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

Needing a test run before mass production, Teleos hires a handful of local pushers to get their drug into the bloodstream of urban New Orleans. Among them is a well-meaning teen named Robin (Dominique Fishback), an aspiring rapper who sells the power pill as a means of taking care of her sick mother. One of her buyers is a New Orleans police detective named Frank (Gordon-Levitt). He secretly uses the pill as a way of combating the recent wave of super-powered crime across the city.

Enter Art (Foxx), an ex-Army Ranger who rolls into town intent on tracking down the supplier of the new drug. His trail leads to Robin who he kidnaps and forces to help him. But the two form an unexpected bond after Art reveals to her his intensely personal reasons for being there. Meanwhile the police have been informed that Art is a powerful drug dealer who is setting up shop in the city. Frank is sent to apprehend him while Art continues his hunt for Teleos.

As you can expect, paths cross, truths are revealed, and alliances are formed. There’s also plenty of action, much of it easily exceeding the gore limit of the normal superhero movie. In one scene alone a thug is impaled through the neck with an ice sculpture. Another has his hand shot off. And one goon simply explodes after popping a power pill (I warned you about those side effects). And that’s not counting what is ‘chillingly’ going on in the background of the scene (I’ll leave it for you to discover). There are a couple of instances where they shaky cam and frantic editing are too much. But for the most part DP Michael Simmonds puts together some thrilling compositions and some of his camera tricks really pay off.

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

Joost and Schulman move from scene to scene with a propulsive energy, but they still make room for their characters to develop. There isn’t a lot of time wasted on backstory, most of which comes through haunting flashbacks inside of Art’s head. Instead it’s the interactions between the characters that inform us the most. To be clear, this isn’t a movie of complex relationships or deep dives in psychology. Still, the three main characters are well-served by Tomlin’s script and the good all-around performances from Foxx, Gordon-Levitt, and Fishback.

And while “Project Power” is far from a deep contemplative think piece, it does place itself in a setting rich with issues to speak on. Inner-city drug use, poverty, corruption, government neglect – its all addressed in some form or another. And perhaps more than anything, the movie explores the notion of the haves and the have-nots specifically in the area of power. As Art succinctly puts it, “In the real world power goes to where it always goes – to the people who already have it.”

“Project Power” comes along during a time when we all could use a little escapism. It ends up being a fun, high-energy offering of big screen caliber action, timely dashes of humor, and a lively chemistry between its three stars. I also admire it for being a superhero(ish) movie that doesn’t adhere to any genre formula nor does it waste our time with yet another origin story. The film doesn’t quite cover all of its story angles, but it’s still solid ‘kick back and enjoy’ entertainment and a nice getaway for those looking for one. “Project Power” premieres today on Netflix.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

REVIEW: “The Birdcatcher” (2020)

August 13, 2020 by Keith Garlington

Director Ross Clarke’s World War II era drama “The Birdcatcher” is built on a tough-to-sell premise that needs practically all of its creative parts to work perfectly. Unfortunately they don’t all quite gel leaving us with a movie full of good intentions but shaky execution and storytelling that’s never as convincing as it needs to be.

Set in 1942, the movie centers around a 20-ish young lady named Esther (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), the daughter of a Jewish barber in Trondheim, Norway with aspirations of going to America and becoming a movie star. She’s a sweet, starry-eyed dreamer who like many has her innocence stripped away by the Nazi occupation. During a Jewish roundup Esther is separated from her parents but manages to escape into the snowy hills.

Photo Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

A lost, hungry, and freezing Esther runs into a sympathetic disabled teen named Aksel (Arthur Hakalahti). He’s the son of a brutish, Nazi-sympathizing farmer Johann (Jakob Cedergren) and obedient but secretive mother Anna (Laura Birn). Aksel hides Esther in the loft of their barn out of his parents’ sight, sneaking her food and taking a liking to her. Meanwhile his father frequently entertains and kisses up to a Nazi officer named Herman played by August Diehl (so good in last year’s “A Hidden Life”).

Knowing she’ll eventually be discovered, a resourceful Esther cuts off her hair and poses as a wandering lost boy named Ola. In a particularly ridiculous sequence Esther/Ola is caught by Herman who takes her to the family’s farm and encourages Johann to take her/him on as a farmhand. What could go wrong, right? Esther ends up tangled in a festering family drama that sends the story toward its inevitable climax.

Photo Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

Despite the sincere feeling behind it, “The Birdcatcher” is simply too hard to buy into. There’s no doubting that true stories similar to this actually exist and that realization give the film some weight. But it’s hampered by some needless clutter such as Aksel’s drunken abusive uncle (Johannes Kuhnke) and a poorly defined forbidden romance that may be a romance or may be something else (I still don’t know for certain).

Yet strangely despite its frustrations “The Birdcatcher” has an earnestness about it that makes it easy to digest. Much of it comes through Boussnina’s sensitive and committed lead performance. There’s also a touching epilogue that effectively knocks home the themes of empathy, compassion, and forgiveness. It doesn’t save the movie from it’s flaws, but it does stress the sincerity of its convictions. “The Birdcatcher” is now available on VOD.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

REVIEW: “Sputnik” (2020)

August 11, 2020 by Keith Garlington

Mere seconds into the trailer for the new film “Sputnik” I immediately felt strong “Alien” meets “The X-Files” vibes. That’s all I needed to be onboard with this Russian sci-fi horror picture from first-time feature film director Egor Abramenko. Originally slated to debut at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, “Sputnik” joined many other movies in seeing its big premiere postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully IFC Films is dropping it this Friday on VOD and it deserves an audience.

The story (co-written by Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev) opens with a prologue set in outer space. In 1983 two cosmonauts heading home from an orbital space station encounter something mysterious just outside the earth’s atmosphere. Their space capsule eventually lands but the retrieval team finds the mission commander Konstantin Veshnyakov (Pyotr Fyodorov) suffering from short-term amnesia and his co-pilot in a coma.

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films

The cosmonauts are taken to a secret research faculty in Kazakhstan ran by Colonel Semiradov (Fedor Bondarchuk). He is under pressure from Moscow to figure out what happened to the crew, specifically their “national hero” Konstantin. But it’s soon discovered that there is more at stake than just propaganda. Turns out Konstantin is host to an alien parasite that is using his body as an incubator of sorts. He doesn’t know it’s inside him, but Semiradov does and the potential benefits to the government could prove invaluable.

Semiradov recruits Tatyana Klimova (Oksana Akinshina), a neuropsychiatrist who is in hot water with the Health Ministry for using some controversial methods to save a young boy’s life. Semiradov needs someone willing to “take risks” to save a national hero for the government’s propaganda machine and save a potential weapon for the Soviet military. But to do so she’ll have to navigate through the facility’s numerous secrets in order to find out what’s really going on. And some of her discoveries have dramatic (and potentially fatal) implications.

“Sputnik” is built upon a surprisingly rich attention to character. It’s spends much of the first half uncoiling the people we meet almost exclusively through Tatyana’s point of view. Even as the action intensifies in the second half, the characters are always front and center. The performances are well-tuned for a Cold War era thriller. Akinshina brings a needed steely grit to Tatyana while Bondarchuk’s Colonel Semiradov is an enigma – cold, emotionless, and impossible to read.

Photo Courtesy of IFC Films

One of the film’s biggest strengths is found in the eerie atmosphere it maintains from start to finish. Abramenko makes great use of both visuals and sound to create a chilly and unwelcoming environment. Cinematographer Maxim Zhukov shoots in moody washed out color tones and with a slight grain to his images. It effectively looks cut from its time. Meanwhile the ominous score from Oleg Karpachev cuts in at the just the right moments, reenforcing the sense of dread.

I’m almost certain that “Sputnik” will be too much of a slow-burn for some. Yet at the same time Abramenko is constantly moving his story forward whether it’s through the chilling mystery or character growth. I love his patience in allowing his crafty genre brew to play out. And while the influences of “Alien” and “The X-Files” are all over it, “Sputnik” etches its own identity that feels fresh in this day of stale rehashes. “Sputnik” premieres this Friday on VOD.