Fleeing Jurassic Park III

Minutes into Jurassic Park III, the movie I'd planned to review, I lost it. It was obvious we'd all seen this movie before, only in better-written, more vivid and original form. The bottom line is that dinosaurs keep getting smarter, while screenwriters are getting dumber. Anybody dumb enough to get on that island again deserves what he gets. The raptors are getting as familiar and menacing as Mickey Mouse. So I bolited, skipped illegally across the hallways of the megaplex to write a weekly wrap-up instead. I saw Legally Blonde, Score, and the big romantic comedy of the summer, America's Sweethearts. The latter, despite the great cast, is a near-total disaster. What can you say about a week in which the most entertaining movie was Legally Blonde? Hang on for Planet of the Apes next Friday.

We are deep into the summer doldrums, and to what is shaping up as a sub-par movie summer. Score (Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando) is a stylish, genial, high-end crime saga, one of those old-style movies in which the good guys are classy, harm no one, have high ethical standards, and have the neatest tools in the world. The movie is a bit flat and predictable. There is the by-now standard deranged computer hacker who screams at his mom while stuffing junk food into his mouth and hacking into the most sophisticated computer systems in the world in nano-seconds to find out anything anybody wants to know. DeNiro plays an aging burglar who is depressed about having to do one more big score so he can get out of the game and shack up with Angela Bassett. But in this movie, DeNiro is a little too depressed. Norton, a young wannabe, takes him on. Norton does a great job of playing a pseudo-psychotic who keeps you guessing right up to the end precisely what he is capable of. The movie is worth seeing, if only to see these good actors, atmospheric scenes of Montreal, and an aging Brando do one or two neat scenes that suggest the great actor still has it.

Legally Blonde (Reese Witherspoon) suggests another dumb teen movie, but manages to transcend the genre. Witherspoon plays a seemingly brainless but good-hearted Malibu-Barbie type who applies to Harvard Law School to pursue her snotty boyfriend (who dumps her once he's admitted because he needs someone more serious) and who, in the name of diversity, gets admitted. The twist is that this airhead is a sympathetic victim, turned on by snotty peers, jeering classmates, and insulting professors. You know the plot without seeing the movie, but one interesting thing about this film, which goes against expectations, is the way Witherspoon's (who was great in Clueless) character [note: Actually, that was Alicia Silverstone, but who can tell? -T] hangs on to her odd values. If movies are a barometer of anything, this one may be telling us it's okay to obsess on manicures and how you look again. There are, of course, all of the familiar cliches about elitist kids and Harvard. Hollywood needs some new targets. But still, this is the most enjoyable movie I saw all week, which says something.

America's Sweethearts is the summer's most ballyhooed romantic comedy. This should have been a knockout movie. It has a great cast -- Billy Crystal, John Cusack, Julia Roberts, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christopher Walken, and a great target to feast on -- Hollywood hype, studio culture, and press junkets. Who better than Billy Crystal to write and star in this kind of a movie?

But America's Sweethearts is a shockingly awful movie. The truth is, when push comes to shove, any film is often simply about the writing, something that did in Final Fantasy, and the writing in this one is just terrible. The movie is crammed with slapstick gags that aren't funny, a plethora of masturbation and penis jokes (the Farrelly Brothers do this a lot better), and just crummy dialogue. It's a major disappointment, given the talent involved, maybe one of the biggest of the summer. This movie has about five laughs in its nearly two long and arduous hours.

Personally, the movie I've been waiting for all summer is coming out next week -- the re-make of Planet Of The Apes. According to the movie mags, they were re-shooting the end of this movie as recently as last week, a bad sign. But there's always hope, even this summer.

Comments

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Jurassic Park was amazing. It was a true summer-movie-experience. The kind of movie that reminds you what movies used to be like when you went just to have your mind blown and not brainwashed by some overly sensitive "real life drama" that you could get by spending the weekend with your own disfunctional family.

The sequal was pathetic. The special effects were still cool and in a few parts, you still were on the edge of your seat, but it was a sequal that shouldn't have been made.

I wouldn't even consider going to see, buying or even renting the second sequel. The gee-gosh of the special effects is gone now and it'd be a battle just to maintain the suspension of disbelief from the now-standard special effects to the detraction of whatever plot they managed to scrounge together.

You'd think with the big names, big bucks and big experience, they could have used the money and talent behind the third movie and done something seperate and unique rather than rehash the boring dinasaur thing.

Re:Witherspoon in Clueless?

[Anonymous Coward]

She was great in Ferris Beuller!

Re:Clueless jonkatz

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you have a point. However, Jon Katz is far more of a journalist than any of the other Slashdot crew (except perhaps Roblimo, who doesn't really post anything anymore) since he's the only one who generates any original content (except for a semiannual piece like CmdrTaco's "why linux will never be mainstream" which is usually just a long rant. Then again, that's usually what a jonkatz piece is also...).

There was a question a few years ago as to whether or not Slashdot is journalism. To my it's clearly not, since they don't have any hand in creating content. To call Slashdot journalism is an insult to true journalists who investigate subjects and write their own content. Slashdot is more like a leech, waiting for other people to send in newsy things and all they have to do is click a accept/reject button, and maybe throw in a few comments here and there. Slashdot does serve a useful purpose, and it's good at what it does, but it's not journalism by any stretch of the imagination.

Witherspoon in Clueless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that Alicia Silverstone that was in Clueless, not Witherspoon? She was in Election and Pleasantville. Both fine movies.

Re:Witherspoon in Clueless?

[jfunk]

Witherspoon is at least a thousand times the actress as well.

I was never one to bash Katz, but this is getting ridiculous. He appears to be the one that's Clueless. I've seen bad reviews of movies before (that christian "save our children" guy being one primary offender) but to review a movie by talking about other movies?

He used to be too focused, and got bashed for it, now he's done a 180 and appears to have developed literary ADD.

Re:Witherspoon in Clueless?

[Malcontent]

Witherspoon is a fine actress. I haven't seen this movie yet but from the ads it seems to have a simple message for all the young girls of america.

"You see those popular and beautiful girls in your school? what you don't realize is that they are smarter then you too. Face it honey you are both ugly and dumb".

I am glad I don't have any girls, I would hate to be them if this movie becomes popular.

Re:Witherspoon in Clueless?

[mrfiddlehead]

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon here and declare that JonKatz is a m*r*n.

Another tidbit, that he failed to note, is that the writer of Jurassic Park III, Alexander Payne, is repsonsible for the script of two of the funniest American films in recent years. The remarkable Citizen Ruth (an incredible indictment of the entire Right To Life AND Right To Choose movements) and the above mentionned Election, with the adorable Ms. Witherspoon.

This alone is reason enough to sit through the film and listen closely to the dialog, not something, I fear, that the ignominous Mr Katz seems to be capable of; at least not in the context of the sometimes fine art of film review.

Now, if only we could find out to which multiplex he went so can inform the management of his dubious boasts and boliting.

Re:Clueless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you figured it out? I mean, after reading Jon Katz's articles for so long, I've come to one, undeniable conclusion.

Jon Katz doesn't watch movies.

That's right. I'm almost certain he writes his reviews based on the trailers. "Hey, that Witherspoon chick looks kinda familiar. Wasn't she in......CLUELESS! Yes! I'll put that in my review! And of course, I know the plot before I see the movie; that qualifies me totally, 100% to write an objective, unbiased, informative review."

One the off chance that he actually makes it into a movie theater, he's mumbling "What a goddamned shitty movie" to himself as he is paying for his popcorn.

When he sits down and the film reel starts, he reviews the movies in the pre-feature trailers - each one of them being a horrible muddle of teen-insulting drama permeated by violence and shallow characters. Including That-New-Disney-Flick(tm).

Gene Siskel would be proud. *cough*

Clueless?

[Phaid]

Reese Witherspoon wasn't in Clueless. Alicia Silverstone played the blonde stereotype lead character in that one. Witherspoon's characters in various films have been compared to Alicia Silverstone's Clueless character, which may explain the confusion.

Re:Clueless?

[Webmonger]

Yeah, she was in Cruel Intentions too, where she played the nice girl.

not too smart to jump on a T-rex

[joss]

I haven't seen JPIII (or II for that matter) but the raptors in JPI definitely weren't that bright. I mean when a t-rex turns up do you (?)
a) run like crap
b) jump on it's back and give it love bites

I guess they're on an accelerated learning program.

Re:Minutes into? How many minutes?

[Glytch]

I dunno, it's happened to me once. I watched the first few minutes of Biodome, and for some gosh darn reason I thought that it wouldn't be much.

Re:Star Wars tie in

[Glytch]

I haven't seen JP3 yet, and I'm kind of hoping, nay, praying that you're kidding.

Re:Agree with all except Planet of the Apes

[Glytch]

Yeah, but with Tim Burton. The man's got a gift for weirdness.

Re:Planet of the apes?....

[kzinti]

I beleive that was ripped from a Simpson's episode. Very funny, but you should have given some credit.

Of course, he DID say it was courtesy the Simpsons.

That Ape musical is one of the richest bits of parody the Simpsons has ever produced, and it's one I point to when I want to illustrate that the Simpsons isn't just comedy - it's social commentary.

--Jim

Jon

[Laxitive]

I think what you WANT to say was that Alicia Silverstone was great in Clueless, and that Reese Witherspoon was great in Election, and that Reese Witherspoon's version of Alicia Silverstone's character in Clueless was great!

See? Much clearer.

-Laxitive

Re:Planet Of The Apes

[uradu]

> Is it true that members of Mensa are telekinetic and can jerk off with only their mind?

That's the ONLY way they can accomplish it, I'm afraid. You win a little, you lose a little.

Duh.

[Kyobu]

What can you say about a week in which the most entertaining movie was Legally Blonde?

Well, that's because you didn't see Ghost World. Anyone coulda told you that all the movies you reviewed would suck, except for The Score. I was disappointed to see that every single review of it has trashed it, because De Niro and Brando are two of the best living American actors. But even though I sometimes disagree with reviewers, it's rare that I disagree with everyone. So I'll skip it. But as for the others, it was pretty obvious they were going to be shallow, by looking at the trailers, who was in them, and what they were about. What was he last "romantic comedy" that had any redeeming value? Probably Chasing Amy, and that one doesn't even count. And Legally Blonde is such a tip-off summer-movie lame-pun name that you didn't even need to see the retarded trailer to know it would be terrible. Ghost World, though, was a subtle movie that actually contained (gasp!) beauty, and perceptive observations, and acting, and all that stuff! Plus, Steve Buscemi is my hero.

You may have noticed that I haven't given a lot of evidence for my opinions. Well, tough. I'm too lazy.

Re:Duh.

[Wraithlyn]

"I was disappointed to see that every single review of [The Score] has trashed it."

Actually most critics are generally liking it it... check out Rotten Tomatoes which is kind of a meta-review site; they don't review anything themselves, they just keep track of dozens of REAL reviews (read: Not by Jon Katz).

At the time of this writing, The Score has a 71% approval rating, which is VERY high for that site. (For example, Tomb Raider has 15%, Pearl Harbor has 25%. The general consensus seems to be that the script is only average and somewhat predictable, but this is made up for in spades by the magnificent acting of De Niro, Norton, and Brando.

Personally I thought it had some familiar caper-plot elements, but was NOT a cliched, predictable plot. Spoiler warning: Norton's retarded janitor angle was original and brilliantly played, as was how De Niro broke the safe. And I'd like to meet someone who wasn't surprised (at least for a second) when Norton suddenly started lying and delaying in the middle of the heist in order to eventually betray De Niro.

Re:Another correction on the casting [was Re:hmm]

[Robotech_Master]

Oops. Mia maxima culpa. My brain short-circuits from time to time. :P

--

Re:hmm

[Robotech_Master]

Frankly, I thought J Park 3 was pretty good. Sure, it's formulaic--but what do you expect, War and Peace? If you go to a Jurassic Park movie, then presumably you want to see a Jurassic Park movie. I mean, hell, look at the Evil Dead trilogy. Evil Dead 2 was a lot more of a remake of the first Evil Dead than JP 3 was of JP 1, and it's still considered a cult classic.

The JP 3 director knew what he was doing. There were no slowdowns, few plot holes, no wasted time--it was nice and tight at 90 minutes. There were a hell of a lot fewer annoying characters in it than the first JP; the kid (played by one of the child actors from The Sixth Sense, by the way!) was actually a decent character and not someone you kept wishing would get eaten by a dinosaur, and there was no annoying lawyer or Jeff Goldblum either. Sam Neill, always a fantastic actor, did a great job of playing this grown up boy who never quite lost his sense of wonder, even when he tried to hide it under a callous exterior; William Atherton and Tea Leoni were also quite good and very believable as the divorced couple who are brought back together by the the island. There were some cute in-jokes and references back to the first film, too.

I never saw the Goldblum sequel because, hey, I didn't really like Goldblum's character. And from what I've heard, I didn't miss much. But this--this was a sequel worth seeing.

--

This is Slashdot's Boycott of the MPAA?

[Quarters]

So I bolited, skipped illegally across the hallways of the megaplex to write a weekly wrap-up instead.

Way to go, JK. You're really stickin' it to em now!!

What total and utter crap....

Re:The advert says...

[Moofie]

I'm not going to cry any crocodile tears for Crichton. He sodomized his own (pretty good) novel Jurassic Park by magically resurrecting the most obnoxious character, just so they could hire Jeff "I Only Play Goofy Slightly Charismatic Scientists" Goldblum for JP2.

Guess what...he still sucked. : )

Re:Clueless jonkatz

[ConceptJunkie]

I've always considered the articles in Slashdot as simply first posts in a new comment thread. C'mon, that's all they are, they are just done by the same people all the time, but the quality is rarely above the rest of the comments.

I saw this as an opportunity to read some good reviews submitted by readers, but rather, everyone is just bashing JonKatz, which to be honest, is about as unchallenging and unfulfilling as bashing Dan Quayle, except for that huy above who did some nice analysis of his sentences.

Re:Minutes into? How many minutes?

[gmhowell]

At least Katz is honest. It is not at all unusual for a movie critic to leave the theatre not long after the opening credits.

(Seen it myself. Lucky enough to score some press tickets while on my college newspaper.)

Re:PRICELESS!!!

[Restil]

Of course it was a satire. I picked up on that in the first 2 minutes of the movie. But satire alone doesn't make something funny or entertaining. "Scary Movie" accomplished this MUCH better, even if it only addressed one genre of movies.

You in fact seem more entertained by the reviews you percieve to be false than by the movie itself. I don't personally look to critics for my entertainment, although thats not to say they can't be entertaining in their own special way. But reviews should be utilized to determine if its worth my time and money to see the movie in the first place, and afterwards to see if others agree with my point of view.

Therefore, anyone who wants to see a dry movie full of top named actors(resses) weakly poke fun a the very industry they stake their livelihoods on, by all means, go see American Sweethearts. However, if you're just bored on a Saturday night, watching grass grow or paint dry will probably be more entertaining and certainly far less expensive.

-Restil

Re:Movies suck now.

[Restil]

Thankfully, with you posting, I don't feel that need. :)

-Restil

Movies suck now.

[Restil]

Not all movies. I'm sure there are some good ones out right now, as there have always been bad ones over the years. The problem is, while sitting through a bad movie, I can usually pick up (during the 20 minutes of previews) a few good candidates for GOOD movies.

I was dragged to see America's Sweethearts last night (I had a couple female companions..... what was I to do? say NO!?!? :). There was not ONE preview that screamed at me "You have to see this!" Thats what previews are for anyways, to take the only good 1 minute worth of footage from a movie and make it out to be the best movie ever produced in the history of movie making. If the content of the movies is so bad they can't even pull THAT off, I've come to realize there might be an actual REASON I haven't been to a theatre more than 3 times since Phantom Meanace was released.

So what's the deal? Do movies suck more now than they used to, or am I just changing and finding that movies tend to pander to the less neurologically active audience?

-Restil

Re:Movies suck now.

[gorilla]

However that doesn't prevent a true increase or decrease in quality. I don't think there are many people who would disagree that the mid seventies was not as good a time for music as the mid eighties.

Re:Movies suck now.

[Dirtside]

It's the Nostalgia Effect.

1. SELECTIVE MEMORY. People tend to remember the good stuff and forget the bad stuff. If you take any particular year, say, 1972, there were just as many pieces of shit that came out in 1972 as there were pieces of shit that came out this year, or five years ago, or fifty. But it's been 29 years since 1972, and the bad movies have mostly vanished into history. What are people going to bother to remember, "The Godfather" or "Invincible Super Chan"?

2. GETTING OLD AND CRUSTY. It's an almost invariable truth that as people get older, they become less flexible, less open to new ideas, and less interested in variety. Some people manage to avoid this entirely, but it's rare -- virtually everyone suffers from this to one degree or another.

There are other, smaller factors, too: As time goes on, there are more and more people in the world, so there are a greater number of people making movies, and thus more movies are released; even if the proportion of crap movies stays constant, the total number of them increase. And other things.

This happens with all media, and virtually all other things. Music, books, video games, movies...

Re:Movies suck now.

[e_lehman]

Hollywood just has too few ideas in its collective mind:

• Every movie must be set in New York or Los Angeles. If, by oversight, the setting is actually someplace else, then that someplace will be depicted as a New York or Los Angeles resident would imagine it. (Which is pretty much like New York or Los Angeles, but papered over with some shallow stereotypes.)
• Everyone in every movie aspires to be famous, rich, powerful, and glamorous-- much like someone who goes to Los Angeles or New York to be in the movie industry. No one aspires to a stable job, a good family, and fun with friends. That's just dumb. Who would do that?
• There must be a love interest. Middle of the Peal Harbor bombing? Love interest. Legal thriller? Love interest. Man struggling alone across Greenland icecap? Uh, flashbacks to love interest. And she meets him at the end. And seems him off. And, um, parachutes in briefly to resupply him.
• At all key moments, viewers must be provided with unambiguous guidance on how to feel in the form of an overdone musical score.
• A character that survives torture, escapes through a crocodile-infest swamp, and then blows up the enemy fortress must endure an artful dirt smudge on the cheek and a modestly torn shirt to indicate his or her travails. (Fortunately, there was a discount laundry/dry cleaner, not depicted, just outside the crocodile-infested swamp.)
• The entire world constantly hangs by a thread, but everything Turns Out Okay in the end.
• There are good guys, and there are bad guys. Moral ambiguity is right out. ("Well, gee, that 'bad guy' really kinda has a legitimate point there, when you think about it"-- NO! BAD! CUT-CUT-CUT!)
• [insert your own here]

I've taken to watching foreign films. Subtitles are a drag, and I often miss cultural references, but at least there is some variety. And a foreign film has to really prove itself to get into Blockbuster. In contrast, it seems that worse an American film is, the more the studios hype it in order to compensate.

Re:Movies suck now.

[MentalPunisher2001]

Foreign films can be interesting.
I saw a foreign film (German, I think) about transvestites, homosexuals, and a guy (heterosexual) who couldn't keep his snake in his pants.

It was actually a REALLY entertaining movie, and nowhere was the plot EXTREMELY weird.

I liked the part at the end where the guy had met up with an old love interest, took her home, and she offered him a spray that was given to mating bulls. The guy turns it down, and she ends up in the bathtub with the boyfriend of one of the homosexual guys (!), who happened to be "the straightest homosexual" the group of gay friends had seen. Anyways, it was cool because it was so different, and always believable.

I never did get the name of that movie, although I wish I had.
Not that it would matter, my DVD player would probably be unable to play it (wrong region code).

Re:Planet of the apes?....

[jfunk]

That Ape musical is one of the richest bits of parody the Simpsons has ever produced, and it's one I point to when I want to illustrate that the Simpsons isn't just comedy - it's social commentary.

You're right, but I thought the "Betty Ford Clinic" musical was a better example.

Mainly because they double up on the commentary in that one and I simply enjoy bitterness.

Re:hmm

[gorilla]

Isn't this more or less true for any movie which gets 2 sequels? The big name directors don't want to keep on making the same movie over and over, so you get a minor leaguer like David Fincher or Jonathan Mostow instead of Ripley Scott or James Cameron, the SFX have to remain true to original, so they look the 7 or 8 years old they are, and often the original actors have decided they want to do something else, so you either have nonsenical character changes, or unexplained changing faces.

I won't even mention what happens when you have six sequels

Re:Movie thoughts

[gorilla]

I would have to say no, based upon the fact that no computer games have $85,000,000 budgets.

Re:taking jonkatz to school

[alexjohns]

Again, whoa. On of the first two prepositional phrases has to go. The rest of the sentence is terrible and should be srapped.

There's a law about this. Something like: "Any post that's a spelling flame is certain to have a spelling mistake in it." Can't find the reference. Of course, Jon is supposed to be a professional writer. Makes you realize just how important an editor and/or proofreader is. (My wife edits stuff. It's not as easy as it sounds. You've either got a knack for it or you don't.)

Jargon file entry for spelling flame.
--
Alex Johns

Re:JP3

[NetJunkie]

A summer movie is a good action movie that is fun to see without being a true piece of art. It's a way to have fun.

I think a lot of people dislike movies just to dislike movies.

JP3

[NetJunkie]

We saw JP3 last night and liked it. It's exactly what they tell you it is...people running from cool looking dinosaurs. It isn't going to win a lot of awards (maybe special effects), but it's a great summer movie to see.

Movie reviews on this site have become totally useless. Unless the movie is about some population of people being repressed for being different and can be compared to Columbine Katz doesn't like it. Hey John, pretend the people on the island are being persecuted for being different and the dinosaurs are the "jocks" and then maybe you'll like it!

Re:JP3

[John Miles]

Hey Jon, pretend the people on the island are being persecuted for being different and the dinosaurs are the "jocks" and then maybe you'll like it!

Hey, considering all the Lord of the Flies allusions in the movie, it's actually not that much of a stretch.

Re:JP3

[thelexx]

WTF is a 'summer' movie and how exactly is one different from that of any other season? Pablum is not only allowed but expected? Sounds like you are parrotting some reviewer. You and the kid above who figured out that he has to 'disengage the logical part of his brain' to ensure movie enjoyment are exactly the kind of LCD that the US movie industry are pandering too. Watch a couple of decent import or indie US films and you may just remember what real cinema is capable of.

LEXX
Who loves film but HATES Hollywood.

Re:Clueless jonkatz

[Refried Beans]

I'd be happy if someone would proofread the articles before they are posted. I've seen so many spelling errors and outright typos recently, I think some junior high kids would be a good change. At least they are still getting taught basic English skills and might review their writing before hitting the submit button.

Minutes into? How many minutes?

[JohnnyBolla]

I'll be the first to admit that I am disappointed by many movies, but minutes? This movie could have kicked ass, but you'll never know if you left "minutes" into it.

Re:The advert says...

[ewoods]

It's false advertising. It all takes place on Isla Sorna (site b, same island as in 2). I saw it last night. I had free passes. What a waste! The effects are not nearly as good, it has some genetically engineered overgrown crocodile monster that kills the t-rex. It has a terrible (and unbelieveable) plot. DO NOT SPEND REAL $ ON THIS FILM.

JonKatz

[WheelDweller]

Does anyone else here watch "The Critic" on USA? I keep thinking "John Katz: I't stinks!" :) (No, in fact I have NO useful comment, aside from this attempt at humor, why?) Have a nice day, guys!

The Critic did something like this

[Savatte]

Does anyone remember that show The Critic, with Jon Lovitz? They had a movie parody about Jurrasic Park where the dinosaurs were so smart that they could dislosdge a key from a lock and have it fall on the newspaper. Then when the dinosaur opens the door he has a pipe and speaks with an english accent. Good stuff.

*cough cough* Memento

[GECK]

Well, What about Memento? That was a good movie... umm... okay, lord of the rings looks to be "okay" as well, if it will ever come out...

---------------------------
Garden of Eden Creation Kit

Another correction on the casting [was Re:hmm]

[hiryuu]

William Atherton and Tea Leoni were also quite good and very believable

As I recall, you've mixed up your Williams. Atherton was the nemesis-scientist in Bio-Dome, among other things, while JP3 fatures William H. Macy (of Pleasantville and loads of others).

Re:Clueless jonkatz

[Wraithlyn]

"First, his jurassic park III "review" was a cop-out"

No kidding! What the hell was that?? "Gee, I went to see Jurassic Park III, but much to my surprise when the movie started, those losers actually made it about DINOSAURS again, so I left without even giving it a fair chance."

For some real reviews of Jurassic Park III check out Rotten Tomatoes (No I am not affiliated with them) The reviews are about half positive, half negative.

Re:Do recent movies suck?

[bellings]

I can't remember a decent movie I've seen in the theater in the last year or two.

That's bullshit. Memento was a good movie. Crouching Tiger was interesting, and certainly qualifies as "decent". Princess Mononoke was pretty damned cool. LA Confidential was certainly worth watching. There have been a whole shitload of smaller releases that have been worth watching -- Buffalo '66 springs immediately to mind.

All this bullshit about how there are no good movies anymore bugs the crap out of me. There have always been a bucketload of crappy movies, and there have always been a few gems that stand out, against the odds.

But if you keep insisting on giving money to the people that make movies like Pearl Harbor, you're going to keep seeing movies like Pearl Harbor. I have very little sympathy for you.

Re:Do recent movies suck?

[bellings]

perhaps you need to see more movies.

Nah. Most movies are pretty crappy.

Re:Do recent movies suck?

[bellings]

Whatever.

Hollywood has always been a giant shit factory, and only by happy accident have you ever found some still edible corn in the middle of all that excrement.

I just get pissed off at clueless folks who pretend like this situation is somehow "new", or that there's no corn left in the bowl. There has been plenty of nuggety goodness in the past few years, and I have no sympathy for someone who keeps paying good money to eat the brown stuff.

Re:Movie thoughts

[e_lehman]

Movie: $10 for two hours. Totally passive.

Computer game: $50 for many tens of hours. Interactive. Increasingly social.

And I wonder if computer games now actually require more work to create than movies? (Diablo II vs. American Sweetharts, say?)

Re:The advert says...

[BadDoggie]

The TV commercials for Jurassic III take bits of the movie and not only re-arrange them out of sequence but out of context as well. The purpose of this, of course, is to make the movie seem more exiting than it really is.

...which is why I wish to Wotan they'd let the people who make trailers edit the whole damned film to begin with.

Did Michael Crichton have anything to do at all with this film, the third consecutive rape of what started off as a pretty good novel? I mean besides the "based on the book" credit.

woof.

Pity the Europeans who will get these films a few months later, badly overdubbed.

hmm

[Docrates]

Anybody dumb enough to get on that island again deserves what he gets

And anybody dumb enough to go see that movie deserves what he gets...

Honestly, didn't you know what to expect when you went to see it? I did, I knew exactly what I was gonna get, and that's what I got. No more No less. But at least I'm not complaining...

Re:hmm

[Boone^]

Thanks for not siding with the rest of the people who bash stuff just for the sake of bashing. I wasn't expecting some deep movie that would change the way I thought. I just wanted something that would entertain me for a bit, and it did. Worth my $4.50 matinee price.

Re:The advert says...

[the gnat]

Remember, the character in the book is totally different. I read an article (part of a larger book about Hollywood vs. history) by Stephen Jay Gould that described this quite nicely: basically, Crichton's Ian Malcolm is ranting about how the park system is too complex, how the science and technology involved is beyond current understanding- thus it's inevitable that something will fail, because "shit happens."

In the movie, however, it's "life will find a way", the usual Hollywood BS about the limitations of human endeavor, arrogant scientists destroying us all, etc. The point is _totally_ changed into something Joe Sixpack and the scriptwriters can understand. There's a world of difference between these worldviews, which most people miss- it's the single largest difference between the book and the movie.

By the way, you should watch "Silverado", a mid-80s western (along with "Unforgiven", one of the few great movies in the genre to come out in the last 20 years). It's got a superb cast (Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Brian Dennehy, etc.), and Jeff Goldblum plays a very oily bad guy. Much different.

-Nat

Movie thoughts

[KaiserSoze]

Allright, without going too far off the deep end, I have got to scream out that movies suck. period. Seriously, does the MPAA expect me to spend up to $10 to go see one of the following films?

• America's Sweethearts: I was always under the impression that 'romantic comedies' were a genre of film that was quite formulaic, in that they were about some schmuck (be it guy or girl) who wanted to go out with some other schmuck who was already attached to someone. We get real sad that poor Blah isn't going to end up with his/her true love, but many music montages later, they end up in love. Hoo-hah. Now you want me to go see a movie where the characters are Hollywood stars and their secretaries, and you want me to feel sorry for them? As if I should care about the lives of two (even fictional) Hollywood people and their love problems(heh, whereas I do care about dinosaurs overunning a small island off the coast of Costa Rica. touche.) I'm sorry, I know movies are about transporting us to this magical land, but with the whole point of the movie to be we feel sorry for the characters, this one loses me a bit.
• Jurassic Park III: This is the story of the movie studio that went to the well one too many times without a sturdy bucket. In fact, I don't even think the writers had a bucket. I think they may have been using cheese cloth and vegetable strainers. There was so much potential for the Jurassic Park series. As the first book ended, the dinosaurs were last seen headed for the mainland. You could have set JP movies in the South American rainforest, or even the American Southwest, and had a more believable movie than sending another group of retards to the island and land their damn plane there!! Ah well, as McTeague once said, "Art can go no further!"
• Final Fantasy: Another movie like the Jurassic Park sequels, in that it had so much going for it, they could work with so many different subplots of the greater FF storyline. They could have had Summoners, Ninjas, Wizards, Moogles (well maybe not the last one). The point is they decided to focus on no real creatures, no exotic weapons (c'mon, those things were just laser guns, I want to see a bio-rifle that shoots out a green cloud while going 'WHAA-OOO-WAA-OOO-WAA-OOO'), and no magic or summoning per se (you could consider Aki's little show either, but don't kid yourself). In fact, the ONLY thing I noticed that was remotely in connection with the games was the earth Gaia, that was straight outta FF7. Overall, I wasn't too disappointed, because I had seen the reviews in advance, and my expectations were pretty low. In fact, the animation was even better than I was expecting, even as the plot almost made my brain melt [why would that retarded general keep firing that gun even when it said it was going to explode? if he wanted to get his revenge, why in the hell wouldn't he just lay off and let the gun recharge so he could keep firing full strength?].

These are some probably off-base trains of thought, but I just woke up, so please excuse my insanity.

From the looks of things...

[bonzoesc]

...the MPAA is screwing themselves over with shitty movies, so we don't have to do it by watching them after buying them. I guess I'll just goof around with my 8-year-old camcorder rather than fork over $8 to see a movie I've seen before.

Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate

JP3 wasnt that bad...

[Rackemup]

I watched JP3 the other day and I didnt think it was that bad, but maybe I just like seeing big dinosaurs chase stupid people (apparently so do many other people since they're already talking about a JP4).

I admit, the first dino scene with the plane did look kinda cheesy (it was obvious that was an animatronic dino instead of CGI) but I thought the bird-cage and some of the raptor scenes were done pretty well. Maybe they should've thrown a Compy attack in for good measure, but I went to the theatre to see dinosaurs and that's what I got. Long ago I discovered that turning off the logical part of your brain while watching a movie is the only sure way to have a good time.

Katz shouldn't be bashing a movie after only seeing the first few minutes, that's like reading the first 2 pages in a book and saying the plotline was terrible. If you dont like dinosaurs, please go rot your brain in another Reese Witherspoon movie.

P.S. If the spineosaurus had run out onto the airstrip and eaten Tea Leoni in the first 10 minutes of the movie I would've paid to see it on a regular-fare night instead of a cheap-night... god she's annoying.

Re:The advert says...

[Enigma2175]

I hate to point this out, but Crichton has never written a good book.

I have to disagree with you on this point. I think The Andromeda Strain is well written and quite a good read. If you haven't ever read it, I would recommend you give it a try. I believe this was his first book that was made into a movie, and it has just been downhill from there. Hollywood has ruined him, he now writes his books like a screenplay, so they'll be easier to adapt to the screen. Hollywood should just hire him as a screenwriter and skip the painful step of the book. Maybe it would make the movies a little better.


Enigma

Sweethearts: made for hollywood, by hollywood.

[cvd6262]

Steve Oldfield, an Emmy-winning entertainment reporter agreed to a cameo in "Sweethearts" after he read the script and saw that it was all about making fun of real-life hollywood. He thought that this could be a blast, but admitted that the average joe, who didn't even know what a junket was, would probably be left out.

Apparently, the studio got word of this, or talked to someone of the same opinion, and changed the script after the shooting was done. They removed most of what Crystal had wanted to movie to be about and tried to repackage it as what it is.

So it's little wonder that it failed, regardless of the casting.

What has the MPAA done now?

[martyb]

Minutes into Jurassic Park III, the movie I'd planned to review, I lost it. [...] So I bolited

Bolited? Hmmm, the closest word to this that I could find was:

bolide n : a very luminous meteor (sometimes exploding) [syn: fireball]

Heh. Image comes to mind of a new MPAA video content protection scheme: critics who don't like a film are caused to explode, thus acting as a warning to others... would YOU want to copy a film that might make you blow up, to? :)

Re:America's Sweethearts

[sv0f]

Hank Azaria [...] stole the show and is worth seeing because of him.

Agreed. He was brilliant. Didn't he also do the memorable 'Agador Spartacus' in 'The Birdcage'? That was another great performance.

For eye candy, you can peep Catherine-Zeta Jones and Julia Roberts.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is indeed stunning.

I also thought she maximized her character. She was dead-on as a Hollywood prima donna bitch. But Zeta-Jones, Azaria, and Alan Arkin, and Walken had the only well-written parts in the movie. And of this bunch, only Zeta-Jones had significant screen time. The rest of the actors -- Cusack, Roberts, and Crystal -- walked around the same goddam hotel for two hours spewing what were, to my ears, non-sequitir after non-sequitir. Plus, the series of 'revelations' after the screening are beyond belief, as is Cusack's attraction to the utterly boring Roberts. Billy Crystal's script and direction utterly fail.

By the way, Roberts fans (not me) will be disappointed by this movie. She dresses poorly, shows no radiance, and her glorious smile is nearly absent. Of course, this is in line with her dowdy character, but still. Julia Roberts without the girly-girl-isms is just another anorexic brown-haired woman.

Re:JonKatz and the Case of Broken Moral Compass

[sv0f]

There's theft and then there's theft. Everyone draws their own line. I've seen two movies for the price of one and felt no guilt. I've also walked out of shit movies and received no reimbursement. And, on occasion, I've had to leave movies because of loud patrons and been compensated with a single free pass (come back another day and try again!) but not the time I wasted on the aborted effort.

Sure he does

[MacGabhain]

He just goes out of his way to watch movies that a: are quite obviously not the least bit intellegent and b: have already been reviewed by everyone else on the planet. If they happen to require any sort of historical perspective, he predictably sounds like an typical 15 year old (The guy's what, 40 or 45?). I seem to recall "It made me think 'Gee, the world was really different back in the 30s'" from one of his recent ones.

I may have just missed it, but I'd find it really amusing to see him review something like Memento. That's probably the best-done movie to hit his lilly-white suburban multi-plex lately. If he ever ventured into the parts of the world where a lot of the geeks he claims mouthpiece status for live (the *gasp* CITIES), he could try his hand at discussing the sucesses and failures of something like "The Luzhin Defence", the film adaptation of V. Nabokov's brilliant work on obsession "The Defense". That would be fun to see. (Although it would be much more fun to see the confused looks on his face all the way through either movie.)

Alas, he stays true to going to bad movies with pretty pictures and lots of shiney things and then panning them because everyone else has as well.

The advert says...

[jamesots]

The TV trailer says "Different island, different monsters..." and should end my saying "same film".

Planet of the apes?....

[3-State Bit]

Personally, the movie I've been waiting for all summer is coming out next week -- the re-make of Planet Of The Apes.

....I think I'll wait for the musical.

Snippets follow, curtesy of the simpsons. The broadway show has now been in preparation for I don't know how many years! I can't wait for it to come out!

"Dr. Zaius"

Ape: Help, the human's about to escape.
Troy: Get your paws off me, you dirty ape.
Ape: [gasping] He can talk!

Apes: [in unison, rythmed] He can talk
He can talk
He can talk
He can talk
He can talk
He can talk

Troy: [singing] I can siiiiiing!

[funky beat of "Rock Me Amadeus" starts playing]

Female Nurse Ape: Ooh, help me Dr. Zaius!
Apes: [in unison] Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius
Oh... Dr. Zaius
Ape: Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius.

Troy: What's wrong with me?
Zaius: I think you're crazy.
Troy: Want a second opinion.
Zaius: You're also lazy.

Apes: [in unison] Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius

[one ape starts breakdancing]

Oh... Dr. Zaius
Ape: Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius.

Troy: Can I play the piano anymore?
Zaius: Of course you can.
Troy: Well I couldn't before!

[plays piano]

"You'll Never Make a Monkey Out of Me"

Troy: [singing] I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me

Oh my God, I was wrong
It was Earth all along

You've finally made a monkey
Apes: Yes, we've finally made a monkey
Troy: Yes, you've finally made a monkey out of me
Apes: Yes, we've finally made a monkey out of you

Troy: I love you, Dr. Zaius!

~

Planet of the Apes...and Heston

[Schwarzchild]

I'll give it a shot, but it's not going to be the same without Charlton Heston screaming "DAMN YOU!" at the end...

I have to agree with that statement. Although the original Planet of the Apes seemed to be sort of a B-movie it contrasted highly with the points in the film (Humans cannot talk, etc) and the acting of Heston making it seem more than a B-movie. I only say that because it seems like Heston had graduated from making epic movies (Ben-Hur and Ten Commandments) to cult movies (though a lot smaller budget) like Omega Man, POTA, and Soylent Green. Even though the sci-fi films he made in the latter part of his career may not have had the production values of other of his films the acting that he did in those films was nonetheless usually on mark as in the statue of liberty scene at the end of Planet...you can truly sense his disgust and rage with humanity.

I did read the novel by Pierre Boulle back in the 8th? grade and thought it was very good but in a different way than the movie.

I hold hope for this new interpretation of Planet though because I love Burton's movies (Batman, Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands) but it's always tricky when you do remakes....especially of classics (or cult classics).

taking jonkatz to school

[rfsayre]

Dear Jon, Good try. In the interest of brevity, I will not remark on any misuse of the endash. Consider the colon, semi-colon, or rewording instead.

So I bolited, skipped illegally across the hallways of the megaplex to write a weekly wrap-up instead.
"Bolted" is spelled wrong. "Illegally" is misplaced. There should probably be an "and" after the comma.

What can you say about a week in which the most entertaining movie was Legally Blonde? Hang on for Planet of the Apes next Friday.
Well, you seemed to say quite a bit. If you were serious the article would have ended there. What can you say about a review that confirms its futility in the first paragraph?

We are deep into the summer doldrums, and to what is shaping up as a sub-par movie summer.
This sentence doesn't read well. Say it out loud. The phrase "sub-par movie summer" should not be used by a professional writer.

Score (Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando) is a stylish, genial, high-end crime saga, one of those old-style movies in which the good guys are classy, harm no one, have high ethical standards, and have the neatest tools in the world. The movie is a bit flat and predictable.
One sentence, three lists, eight commas. Following that ornate creation, we have the choppiest sentence in the article. Interesting juxtaposition.

The movie is worth seeing, if only to see these good actors, atmospheric scenes of Montreal, and an aging Brando do one or two neat scenes that suggest the great actor still has it.
"Seeing" or "see", one of them has to go. Professional writers generally don't use the adjective "neat", unless they mean "tidy."

Witherspoon plays a seemingly brainless but good-hearted Malibu-Barbie type who applies to Harvard Law School to pursue her snotty boyfriend (who dumps her once he's admitted because he needs someone more serious) and who, in the name of diversity, gets admitted.
Whoa.

But still, this is the most enjoyable movie I saw all week, which says something.
But we know not what.

The truth is, when push comes to shove, any film is often simply about the writing, something that did in Final Fantasy, and the writing in this one is just terrible.
Again, whoa. On of the first two prepositional phrases has to go. The rest of the sentence is terrible and should be srapped. Bad use of pronouns, undescriptive adjectives, and questionable sentence structure.

I hope I wasn't too hard on you. Your sentence structure would improve a great deal if you chose more appropriate adjectives.

Art At Home

Re:Editorial Bias?

[baptiste]

I can't recall a single movie of late that he hasn't started off by saying "this movie sucks"

Funny - I don't recall him saying that about any of the 3 movies he reviewed above. In fact I thought he gave well thought out commentary on the movies (even if he got his blondes confused) Face it - JP3 does suck. But he bailed on a crappy movie to see three others, two of which he generally seemed to like and didn't use the word suck anywhere in the review. So is it Jon that's biased against movies or you who are biased against Jon?

IMHO I'm glad he reviewed these movies instead of JP3 cuase everyone knew it was gonna suck anyway :)

Nice Example, Katz

[dasmegabyte]

How are we supposed to attack the presiding notion of Free Software and Peer to Peer as being havens for social agitators and communists if we've got movie swiping criminals like Katz speaking for us?

Way to set back the movement, JK. Couldn't you just have accepted the lame dinosaurs and toughed it out???

Re:Nice Example, Katz

[Waffle Iron]

This particular form of intellectual property theft has been going on since the first duplex theater was opened. The politicians probably have warm fuzzy memories if sneaking into movies when they were kids; it's as American as apple pie. Hence, no reason to create special new laws like the DMCA to stamp out the perpetrators.

sneaking into movie == clever kid
watching DVD in wrong region == felon

He's right about Legaly Blonde.

[glrotate]

It's sad when this is the best movie I've seen this summer. Both AI and FF were tediously boring.

Re:Review of Jurassic Suck 3

[Rogerborg]

• raptors aren't just intelligent, they're super intelligent

Uh, yeah, rip off Aliens much? Anyone else catch themselves whispering "What do you mean 'They cut the power'. They're animals, man!".

Re:Minutes into? How many minutes?

[Spunk Junkie]

It's a proven scientific fact (no bullshit!) that something pivotal happens in ALL movies around the 25 minutes mark. Saw that in a documentary years ago and it's actually true. I'm 30 now and saw that documentary when I was 12, so I ALWAYS give a movie 30 minutes as every time I've checked, the 25 minute mark thing is bang on. The movie they used as an example was "Some Like It Hot" as the 25 minute mark is when Marilyn Monroe first appears.

Try it next time you watch a movie. Generally between 22 and 28 minutes, something major to the plot will happen.

Katz is a fool. I mean God, I say through Reanimator from start to finish, and that was on video which I could have stopped at any time. If I could do that I'm pretty sure a hack like Katz could have given the movie 30 minutes instead of defrauding the theatre.

Re:Katz is a little too bitter....

[tb3]

Movie reviewers tend to get jaded, after having to review at least one movie a week. I've got a friend who does movie reviews for radio, and he's so jaded, he hates almost everything.

Some of it has to do with the fact that he has to review a major release every week, and sometimes the only major release is a complete turkey.

I think reviewers (unless they're karma whores, see the Flithy Critic) just get sick and tired of all the crap they have to watch.

Re:Katz - All your opinions are belong to you

[tb3]

Oh, please, don't give them any ideas. All the studios do these days is shoot sequels and re-makes, and the re-make of "The Wages of Fear" was god-awful.

I jokingly predicted the remake of "Rollerball" and was horrified to hear they were actually releasing it this summer.

Some bright spark in Hoolywood is going to re-make "The Third Man", in a comtemporary setting, starring either Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. On that day I will have to hurt someone.

Clueless jonkatz

[jparp]

If jonkatz is getting paid to write these junior high school calibre reviews, then you guys need to seriously consider finding someone else. First, his jurassic park III "review" was a cop-out, (you can't just leave and say it sucked) His sloppy rants lack accuracy (ie, the witherspoon/clueless screw up)any kind of insight, and are void of any valid arguments. How old is he, twelve? i'm all for personal opinion, but if you're gonna post on a good page, you should at least use/have some skill.

"it was a dark and stormy night"

Planet of the Apes

[idonotexist]

has got to be the most successful (appealing to the masses and monetarily) movie of the year. While young, I grew up watching countless reruns of Planet of the Apes --- hell, my first view of the Statute of Liberty was in Planet of the Apes. Destroyed, of course. But, it was my first image of the statute.

Review of Jurassic Suck 3

[JBowz15]

This movie has us believe that raptors aren't just intelligent, they're super intelligent - smarter than primates...even smarter than Sam Neill! (Definitely smarter than the screenwriters.) Weren't they just "clever" in the first movie? Now they all gather and confer before killing someone. At this rate, by JP4 they'll all be using Debian Linux, wearing monocles and twirling mustaches: "Well, Dr. Grant, we meet again. You shan't escape me a third time!"

Editorial Effort [Re:Witherspoon in Clueless?]

[UberOogie]

I'm not one to get on the bandwagon of naysaying the site, but exactly how long would it have taken Katz to go to the IMDB to check this fact if he wasn't positive of its veracity?

Fifteen seconds? Twenty?

I've worked in publishing. People get fired every day for making mistakes less than this.

It is just shoddy.