Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Universal, 6.22) is just another serving of idiot-brand dino sausage. Same software, same template, aimed at popcorn rabble. Did I hate it? No and yes. But we all know what the shot is. Universal continues to push the same dino buttons because millions of easy-lay types have paid good money to see the sequels. The Jurassic franchise is downswirling, and Chris Pratt is devalue-ing himself. No good can come of this except to the benefit of Universal stockholders.

There’s a single, stand-alone moment that gets you — i.e., the sight of a long-necked, cow-like dinosaur moaning in despair, all alone as volcanic lava bombs rain down upon Isla Nublar as the last ship departs. The island is being consumed by the Mount Sibo volcano and this poor sad dinosaur is stuck on the pier, awaiting a fiery death. It’s the only formula-free bit in the whole film.

It’s very dispiriting to see director Juan Antonio Bayona, whose sublime crafting of The Orphanage (’07) made it one of the finest horror films of the 21st Century…it’s very dispiriting to see such a gifted director succumb to by-the-numbers, corporate-format, hack-level filmmaking.

I regret that Bayona felt obliged to begin Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom with an action-teaser sequence — the exact same strategy (i.e., a promise of gorey thrills) that so many other films in this realm have gone for.

I’m annoyed that Jeff Goldblum accepted a fat paycheck to shoot a windy Congressional testimony scene — one that boils down to an editorial warning about disturbing the natural order of things.

I hate that the first time we see Pratt’s Owen Grady, he’s building his own home — singlehandedly! — in some remote wilderness location, and I hate that he’s singing to himself when Bryce Dallas Howard‘s Claire Dearing first approaches with the expected proposition — i.e., returning to Isla Nublar to transport the dinos to a new island. And I hate the fact that no one mentions financial compensation for either Dearing or Grady as part of the deal, etc.

I was annoyed by the predictable p.c. flavor in the screenwriting and casting realms — Daniella Pineda playing Dr. Zia Rodriguez, “an ex-Marine who’s now the Dinosaur Protection Group’s paleoveterinarian”, as a blunt-spoken, tough-as-nails type, while Justice Elio Smith squeals and cries and all but weeps with panic as Franklin Webb, the Dinosaur Protection Group’s systems analyst and hacker.

Last night I tried to catch a 7 pm all-media screening of Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom (Universal, 6.22) at the AMC Century City, but I almost didn’t make it. It happened in theatre #2, where two previous screenings had occured at 10 am and 3 pm. I arrived around…oh, 6:50 pm but all the seats seemed to be taken. I asked a Universal staffer if I should leave and she said, “No, no…we’ll figure it out.” Things didn’t look at all hopeful.

On top of which the crowd looked kind of mongrelish to me — overweight, T-shirts, jeans and sweat pants. There were a lot of kids there, and they all seemed to be wolfing down popcorn, candy and super-size soft drinks. A typical mall mob, the kind you’d see at Magic Mountain or Disneyland or Knotts Berry Farm. A thought went through me — “Do I want to sit with these awful-looking people? I don’t see any of my critic friends here. This is not my kind of scene.”

But I shook myself out of that mindset, manned up and decided to do my job, even without a seat. After a while I walked up the left-side aisle and sat down on the steps.

Ten seconds later a nice 30ish woman said, “We have a seat here.” It was five or six in from the aisle. “Oh…thank you so much!,” I said. I shuffled my way in and sat down, and right away felt a twinge of concern. On my right was a 20something woman of no particular distinction, but to my left…good God…was a Jabba-sized Latina who was sitting with a similar-sized friend. And Jabba #1 was eating, eating and eating. The movie began and she kept chowing down like someone who hadn’t eaten in days.

Her first course was some kind of chicken salad, tomato and cucumber dish inside a deep plastic container. Then came the second course — a butter-soaked tub of popcorn and a big slurpy drink. Then she opened up a bag of Doritos.

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t give her the HE stink-eye. I just sat there like a sphinx and tried to concentrate on the film. But every now and then I snuck a peek.

I couldn’t ignore the fact that Jabba #1’s reactions were extremely coarse and downmarket. I was reminded of those close-ups of Collisseum cheap-seat serfs watching Christians get eaten in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Sign of the Cross. Every time a person got eaten by a dinosaur, Jabba #1 went “oooh, hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” Movies like Fallen Kingdom are obviously made with this kind of person in mind. She really loved the huge alligator-like dino that leapt out of the sea to eat a squealing 20something guy who was trying to climb into a hovering helicopter — “Eeeeee-hee-hah-hah!” Anything and everything that happened of a stupid or low-rent or pandering nature, Jabba #1 was in movie heaven.

Yes, I focused on the film and took mental notes all through it, but I couldn’t completely divorce myself from the Jabba #1 factor. I mostly pushed it aside but I kept twitching when she laughed. I’ve said this dozens of times over the years, but hell is truly other people.

Guys like Jeff Sneider don’t understand the concept of owning Blurays, and to be honest half the time I question it myself, given the excellent quality of high-def streaming these days. But I’ve just ordered Kino Lorber’s 60th anniversary Bluray of William Wyler’s The Big Country, and for two good reasons: (1) It’s been newly remastered in HD (the last Bluray version surfaced in 2011, from MGM Home Video) and (2) it’s been completely de-mumpified.

Besides removing the horizontally-stretched “mumps” effect, this upgrade process also pulls in extra visual information from both sides of the frame.

But the mumps taffy-stretch effect that afflicted The Big Country‘s 2011 Bluray wasn’t a CinemaScope issue, as William Wyler‘s 1958 western was shot in 8-perf Technirama and then printed down to 35mm.

The problem was caused, rather, by the MGM Home Video geniuses who transferred the film, which had been restored in 2007 by the Academy Film Archive with support from the Film Foundation, to a high-def Bluray format.

I reached out Tuesday evening to Kino Lorber’s senior acquisitions vp Frank Tarzi, hoping to discuss the technical particulars. (Tarzi had previously helped with factors leading to Kino Lorber’s decision to issue their Marty Bluray in 1.37 rather than the dreaded 1.85.) But it was late by the Manhattan clock, and Tarzi didn’t respond.

Comparison images stolen from DVD Beaver review of Kino Lorber Big Country Bluray.

Mumps above, no mumps below

The general reaction to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Universal, 6.22) is that it vaguely blows. If I wanted to be harsh in my summary I would say it sucks dino balls, but I can’t say anything firsthand until I see it this evening. You know that a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 68% + a Metacritic score of 53%…you know what that means.

I could have gone to a 10 am press screening, but I had to see a dermatologist around the same time. HE will render a verdict tomorrow morning.

The director of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is Juan Antonio Bayona, whom I’ve personally known for over a decade. I still swear by The Orphanage (’07), his brilliant first film that was produced by Guillermo del Toro. I didn’t feel as enthused about The Impossible (’12) and A Monster Calls (’16). In any event Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom refers to him as “A.J.” Bayona, and that can’t be right. His first name is definitely Juan, and the second is absolutely Antonio — really, I know the guy, why would he switch them around?

In David Lowery‘s The Old Man and the Gun, Redford plays the real-life Forrest Tucker, a career criminal and prison escape artist. It looks and sounds like good, well-mannered fun. I don’t really believe the elderly Redford (turning 82 in August) as a hardcore bank robber, but the trick of these films is to nudge you into going along despite your reluctance. Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, Tom Waits and Elisabeth Moss costar.

A couple of months ago I wrote that the last really good old-criminal movie, of course, was Phillip Borsos‘ The Grey Fox (’82). It starred Richard Farnsworth (61 during filming) as real-life bank robber Bill Miner. The tone of that film was established by Miner’s kindness and gentility, and that seems to be the idea with Lowery’s film also.

On 11.11.16 several publications quoted Robert Redford saying that he’ll probably hang up his acting spurs after making David Lowery‘s The Old Man and the Gun (Fox Searchlight, 9.28).

Less than two hours after those stories hit Redford’s publicist, Cindy Berger of PMK*BNC, told Deadline that any and all notions of retirements were bogus. “[Redford] is certainly not retiring now from acting because he has several projects coming down the pike,” she said.

See me, feel me, protect me, touch me, marry me, have kids with me…shed a bumblebee tear.

Remember when it was first announced that Hailee Steinfeld had passed on Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York to star in Travis Knight‘s Bumblebee (Paramount, 12.21)? At the time that seemed like a shallow and opportunistic way to process things, but now it looks like she dodged a bullet, especially given the obstinate determinations of guys like Sam Adams.

Last night I asked HE’s own Mark Frenden to assemble new HE:(plus) banner art. I said I wanted to use a sliver of a revised American Friend poster that Frenden created three or four years ago, in which I substituted for Dennis Hopper. I think it came out pretty well. Still a fair amount of tweaking left to do on HE:(plus), but it’s on track to launch sometime around 6.20 or thereabouts.

Okay, I guess it’s still a thing in some corner of the culture. At least give the organizers credit for finally recognizing that in real day-to-day life, people of either gender are never judged by their appearance. At least we’re past that hurdle. So the next Miss America winner will probably be a bit pudgier than normal. This is where we are, no turning back.

Posted on 4.26.15: At last night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, emcee Cecily Strong “created a moment” when she asked all members of the media in the ballroom to raise their hands and take a solemn vow: “I solemnly swear not to talk about Hillary Clinton’s appearance, because that is not journalism.”

Strong is correct — serious journalism and offering comments or asides about a person’s appearance are separate realms of expression. Do average citizens vote for or against a candidate based on his/her appearance? Absolutely not.

JFK‘s youth, matinee-idol looks, perennial tan and thick reddish-brown hair had no effect upon voter likes or dislikes. The fact that the Ronald Reagan didn’t have white or graying hair or a sagging, withered face when he ran for president in ’80 at age 69…nobody cared. They would have voted for him if he looked like Walter Brennan in Rio Bravo because they were voting for the man, not the appearance. Barack Obama‘s cappucino skin shade had nothing to do with his winning the ’08 and ’12 elections…zip. And Hillary Clinton’s grandma face and puffy eye-bags will have no effect on her popularity during the 2016 Presidential election. The election will be entirely about who she is or is not…about character, cojones and convictions.

There’s a new Olive Films Bluray of Robert Wise‘s Odds Against Tomorrow (’59). The only thing that distinguishes it from the 2016 BFI Bluray version, according to DVD Beaver‘s Gary. W. Tooze, is the 1.85 aspect ratio — a brutal cleavering of the BFI’s 1.37 version.

Tooze is such a toad about aspect ratios. In his review of the BFI Bluray he actually cheered the possibility of a 1.85 cleavering — “The dispute rages on about the aspect ratio…one day a 1.85:1 will surface!”

For what it’s worth an AFI.com assessment noted that Odds Against Tomorrow “marked the last time Wise shot in black-and-white within the standard aspect ratio — a formula which gave his films the gritty realism they were known for.”

1.85 cleavering, an approach vigorously argued and lobbied for a decade ago by Film Archive’s Bob Furmanek, is perhaps the worst thing to happen in the realm of home-video remasterings of ’50s and early ’60s films. If you doubt this, watch Criteron’s On The Waterfront aspect-ratio essay after the jump.

The “boxy” 2.16 BFI Bluray version above; Olive Films’ 1.85 version below.

Anyone who’s read Moses Farrow’s 5.23 essay about Dylan Farrow’s child molestation charges against her adoptive father Woody Allen as well as Robert Weide‘s “Q & A with Dylan Farrow” (12.13.17) and still insists that Allen’s guilt is absolute and unmitigated is just a bigot at this stage.

“Believe the alleged victim” and ignore everything else — the facts, the evidence, the presumably well-known fact that child molesters always repeat their crime. This is what Sam Adams, the The Playlist, Movie City News and their ilk are right now — high-denial Allen bigots, plain and simple.

Movie City News link, posted on 6.4.18.

This feels like a frenzied, Detroit-flavored version of At Close Range — i.e., young teenage criminal (Richard Wershe, Jr.) rats out ruthless, drug-dealing dad (Matthew McConaughey). Directed by Yann Demange, White Boy Rick was written by Steve Kloves, Logan Miller, Noah Miller, and Andy Weiss. Costarring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bruce Dern, Bel Powley, Piper Laurie.

Pic was initially slated to open on 1.12.18, was pushed back two weeks to 1.26.18, then again to 8.7.18, then again to 9.4.18. Do I hear a fifth release date?

In my February 2014 review of Demange’s ’71, a Belfast-set action melodrama set during “the troubles”, I noted that the emphasis was on “menace and fear and thrills and adrenaline…exceptional verisimilitude and throttling realism…in some ways reminiscent of Paul Greengrass‘s Bloody Sunday, this is a jolt-cola movie.”

I’ll just hop into my Pontiac Firebird, gas up, bat outta hell. But why would I want to lam it when I’m pure as the driven snow? Either way I’m too fast for the cops. And if they do catch me I’ll just pardon myself.

“I bought a brand-new air-mobile / It custom-made, ’twas a Flight De Ville / With a pow’ful motor and some hideaway wings / Push in on the button and you can hear her sing / Now you can’t catch me…whoa, baby, you can’t catch me…’cause if you get too close, you know I’m gone like a cool breeze.”

Senator John McCain: “I like presidents who don’t need pardons, much less those who fantasize about giving themselves one.”