Disclosure Day

It is difficult to say that Steven Spielberg was ever at his zenith, because, frankly, he always has been and always will be. But in 1999, it's fair to say Spielberg was riding high. Just a few days before he won his third Oscar for Saving Private Ryan (but controversially lost Best Picture to Shakespeare in Love), Spielberg appeared on an episode of Inside the Actor's Studio. The clip that has survived in the modern-day internet and goes viral every so often is the one in which host James Lipton pointed out the connection between Spielberg's parents and the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In essence, Spielberg's father was an engineer, and his mother was an artist. To communicate with the nearly arrived aliens, the humans use music produced with computers. Spielberg was clearly elated and told Lipton he had never realized that before.

However, my personal favorite moment was during the question-and-answer session near the conclusion of the episode in which Actors Studio students got to ask him questions. One student asked him two questions: one related to the act of listening, and one about whether or not he believed in aliens. After the chuckling from everyone had died down, Spielberg produced an elaborate, brilliant answer about the power of listening and how his own Jewish faith reminds him of the necessity to listen. He then paused, smirked, and calmly said, "I do believe in aliens."

Steven Spielberg has directed musicals, horror flicks, action, and, of course, science fiction, among others. He has done everything from the Peter Pan story to dinosaurs to the Holocaust, from animation to comedy. Yet just as Martin Scorsese is forever inextricably linked to gangster sagas, and Alfred Hitchcock is to thrillers what Michael Moore is to politically charged documentaries, Spielberg will never stop being tied to stories of aliens. We all know his alien films: the optimistic tale of family and friendship in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and cautious first contact in Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well as the horrors of what he described as an allegory to the reaction of 9/11 in War of the Worlds. He has never shied away from the possibility that we are not alone. (Even Indiana Jones met them.) After passion projects like West Side Story in 2021 and The Fabelmans in 2022, Spielberg has returned to them yet again, this time in Disclosure Day. 

If you were disturbed by the genocidal invaders of his adaptation of H.G. Wells' famous story, rest assured, Disclosure Day is more Close Encounters than War of the Worlds. It's a story that attempts to marry themes of truth and faith, however clumsily, all while trying to convince us that humans would stop killing each other if only aliens showed up to distract us all. The story focuses on two people: Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a meteorologist based in Kansas City,  and Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), a cybersecurity expert on the run. Kellner is whom we meet first in a somewhat peculiar opening at a wrestling match. We see that his girlfriend (Eve Hewson) has been taken hostage by a mysterious cabal led by Noah Scanlon, the leader of a corporation called Wardex that serves as a secret arm of the U.S. government and is played by Colin Firth. Kellner has in his possession some sort of powerful, non-man-made tool that Scanlon desperately wants. 

Our other main character is Fairchild, a meteorologist with aspirations to become a lead anchor. One morning before work, as she and her boyfriend (played by Wyatt Russell, the son of Goldie Hawn, the star of Spielberg's first theatrical film, Sugarland Express) discuss possibly packing up and moving to a new city, but their conversation is interrupted by a cardinal who presents itself before her and takes her breath away. Inexplicably, she suddenly can speak Russian, Korean, and even a unique language that might not be from our own planet. Her on-the-air alien speech causes herself to faint, and it also gets the attention of Scanlon and his gang. Simultaneously, a Wardex defector who wants people to know the truth about aliens, whether or not they have visited us before, and what Wardex has done to them, also desperately seeks Fairchild out while trying to match her with Kellner before it's too late. This man, named Hugo Wakefield, is played by Coleman Domingo.

Early reaction to Disclosure Day suggested it was his "best film in twenty years." I wouldn't put it that way. It's not as good as War Horse or The Post, for example, and the only film of his in the past twenty years that it is unquestionably better than is Ready Player One. (Yes, I liked Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.) Part of this is due to diminishing marginal returns; in essence, it's hard to top not only some of the alien classics already mentioned but a whole host of other work, especially when you consider he has been nominated for fifteen Oscars in the past twenty years alone for directing, producing, and writing. Another part of my somewhat muted response is the screenplay by David Koepp. Koepp, who also wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, has always been one of the sharpest writers in Hollywood, but sometimes his dialogue here adds to the goofiness of the situations.

Goofiness or not, even respected thespians like Blunt and Domingo struggle to make sense of these lines, while others like Firth, an Oscar-winner, certainly make peculiar choices (in his case, by barely moving his lips when he speaks). Yet as summer popcorn entertainment in the vein of what audiences have come to love from a movie by Spielberg, Disclosure Day suffices. There are action-packed car chases and even an exciting moment involving a train. Yet as a truth thriller akin to something like The Parallax View or All the President's Men, it falls short.   

Still, it is a work of Steven Spielberg, and it's always a gift to see something he does. Along with his frequent collaborator Janusz Kamiński (his cinematographer since Schindler's List), he has a singular talent for making simple moments like men opening car doors in unison or a character looking off in the distance feel grand and operatic; this skill is one of the reasons he has remained the paramount director of Hollywood since he first broke out onto the scene. It's these typical Spielberg moments, like those chase scenes, that will send chills down your spine. If you can tolerate some of the more problematic parts of Disclosure Day, it's worth one more alien tale from the master of cinema.

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The Land Before Time

Surprisingly or not, dinosaurs were part of children's imaginations long before Jurassic Park. Dino-obsessed kids of the 1980s likely were exposed to neat and inventive productions about fearfully great lizards even before the hit ABC series Dinosaurs. For example, there was the 1985 TV segment Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs (in which Gary Owens turned into a prehistoric creature), and the 1987 educational short starring Fred Savage called Dinosaurs: A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time! (as well as the cool song "Mesozoic Mind" that accompanied it). But even after all that, in 1988, young dinosaur fans were gifted with the animated feature The Land Before Time.

Wondrous, pre-Disney renaissance animation accompanied by James Horner's wonderful score is how The Land Before Time commences, and what a start it is. Horner's score is among his very best, particularly in those opening moments, signifying with that dominant brass and celestial choral arrangement that you're really in for a treat with this film. Executive produced by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall, The Land Before Time was directed by Don Bluth, the animator behind several well-regarded animated films of the era, including The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, and All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Pat Hingle as the narrator tells us that our story is "in the time of the dinosaurs." But something is clearly wrong. Everything seems so dark and apocalyptic, and there is little food to eat. Trees are dying, and the leaf-eaters are starving. The sky is all sorts of dismal colors. It's like the dinosaur scene in Fantasia, only slightly less terrifying. There's a new young Apatosaurus named Little Foot (voiced by Gabriel Damon), who joins his grandparents and mother on a journey to the Great Valley in search of a better life and more food. However, there are all sorts of obstacles in their way, starting with a giant "earth shake", as the young ones call it, or clashing of the continents, as our narrator explains. This earthquake causes Little Foot to be separated from his mother.

Also separated from their families are Cera (voiced by Candace Hutson), a Triceratops, and Ducky (voiced by Judith Barsi), a Saurolophus. Little Foot is depressed and Cera is overly stubborn, but the three of them eventually decide to band together and make their way to the Great Valley. Little Foot knows the way, for his mother told him. Fortunately for him, the directions are pretty simple: it's something like they have to keep walking until the great ball of fire in the sky reaches the ground and then they'll eventually find it. Along the way, they find two more members to join their band: Petrie, a Pteranodon who can't fly, and a new-born Stegosaurus named Spike who doesn't talk. Petrie is voiced by Will Ryan, the only adult among them, and whose choices I found distracting compared to the natural voices of the younger actors; to me, his voice acting sounded like a bad Robin Williams impression.

One of their obstacles is each other, as their parents tell them things like "three-horns never play with long-necks." They'll have to overcome their differences. (Incidentally, this was criticized by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who wrote about how one of the songs used in a sequel was the articulation of what he called "liberal multiculturalist ideology", while also noting the irony of having a song celebrating differences in a movie where dinosaurs eat each other, but I digress.) Beyond their squabbles and the swamps and the lack of food and the platonic shifts, though, is a mighty T-Rex (because of course there is), whom they call "Sharp Tooth", constantly chasing them.

Despite apparently against the wishes of most who were involved (as they had nothing to do with the following films), the success of The Land Before Time resulted in a whopping thirteen sequels, as well as a TV series and fourteen spin-off games. I think I only have seen one of them (the 1994 sequel, The Great Valley Adventure, which for some reason we watched in my second-grade class, but that's Catholic schooling for you). The Great Valley Adventure found its way onto Total Film's list of the fifty worst kids movies. It was also this sequel that started incorporating musical numbers into the franchise. None of the cast returned, either, except for Hutson, who provided the voice of Cera for a total of four times, including the fourth film, which is her last acting credit. Unfortunately, tragedy struck the same year The Land Before Time was released when young Judith Barsi was the victim of a double murder-suicide at the hands of her father. The film All Dogs Go to Heaven, in which she provided the voice of Anne-Marie, is dedicated to her.

Regardless of Zizek's critique, The Land Before Time is, for better or worse, remarkably simple, but it works. It is able to successfully pull the emotional strings almost as deftly as its competitor Disney films before and after did. It can be a bit repetitive at times, with Cera acting bratty and Sharp Tooth chasing after them being familiar notes, but I'm a sucker for stories of friendship and survival. Thus, The Land Before Time feels rather apt these days. It's a great watch for parents who might want to introduce part of their childhood to their young children during these uncertain times.

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Stop, It's Oscar Time: The Best Movies of 2017

Hey there, cats and kittens.

After an awful year for Hollywood and the entertainment industry but a pretty darn good one for films, 2017 showed that Hollywood has continued to inch its way in the right direction in terms of more diversity in film, better visual effects, and terrific (albeit sometimes unoriginal) storytelling.

And so, here are the best films of 2017 (and, as usual, some overrated ones), just in time for the upcoming Academy Awards:


10. Get Out
Before I get started, I have to note that Get Out is basically tied with It, the coming-of-age Stranger Things-before-there-was-Stranger Things adaptation of Stephen King's famous novel about a killer clown. Both are horror films that weren't all that scary, both made a ton of money, and both will have long legacies. But I'm so opposed to ties on top-ten lists, that after some back and forth, I decided to put Get Out at number ten and have It as an honorable mention. Why is Get Out here and not It? While I'm impartial to coming-of-age films, I really liked the way Get Out seemed so fresh and original, while It is based on a popular book from the 80s that was made into a popular TV miniseries in the 90s that inspired a recent hit Netflix show and will now have a sequel.

I feel fortunate that I knew as little as possible about Get Out before watching it. You should, too (if you're one of five people who hasn't seen the movie.) So I won't go into the plot. All I'll add is that Get Out is the movie I'm rooting for for Best Picture (as well as Best Original Screenplay), mainly because it's a horror movie, and the last (and only) horror movie that won Best Picture was Silence of the Lambs in 1992. I enjoyed most of the performances (especially Daniel Kaluuya, Bradley Whitford, and Catherine Keener), and I appreciated how writer-director Jordan Key Peale put a unique spin on the villains. This is a very intelligent and astute movie. There are not many films quite this clever.

9. Battle of the Sexes
A biographical film about the most famous tennis match of the 20th century, Battle of the Sexes works on three different levels: it works as an exhilarating, though at times clichéd, sports film; it works as a loud-and-proud movie about gender equality; and it works as a delicate and mature same-sex love story. I can't think of another movie that does all three so easily.

Like Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' directorial debut (a little movie called Little Miss Sunshine), this undoubtedly is a crowd-pleaser. If that's not you're kind of movie, you might want to stay away. Beyond that, it's more than challenging to not see the Battle of the Sexes tennis match of 1973 as a parallel to a lot of what happened during the U.S. presidential election of 2016. If you're not interested in re-opening those wounds, you also might want to avoid this movie.

Not to say that there aren't any problems with the movie (like it's use of a "magic gay man"), but it's still one of the year's best. It's certainly one of Emma Stone's best performances, and if you can understand that Steve Carell is meant to be as obnoxious as possible, you'll love his performance as well. They're supported by a big cast that includes Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Andrea Riseborough, Alan Cumming, Natalie Morales, Austin Stowell, and Tom Kenny.

8. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
First, the elephant in the room: I am aware of how problematic this movie is. While I am not sure I would agree that it is a racist movie, it is certainly a movie that is about as tone-deaf about race and racism in the United States as there can be. I can only conclude that writer-director Martin McDonagh, an Irishman, probably didn't think too carefully about how some situations and characters (and unnecessary character arcs) would be received in the U.S., especially among minority communities.

Some have defended him by calling the criticism "alarmist". I'm not sure if that's a fair word to use. The concerns about the movie are genuine, but there is a lot to like about the movie. Why do I like the movie? I loved Frances McDormand's performance; it may be even better than her iconic role in Fargo. In a year in which Wonder Women wasn't nominated for anything, we should celebrate tough, bad-ass women as much as the Academy will let us. (Yes, I didn't care for Wonder Women, but I recognize that everyone else on the planet did. And if a major blockbuster that made tons of money and was adored by fans and critics alike can't get nominations, I don't know what can.) I like the other actors in the cast as well, mainly Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson,

The backlash against Three Billboards is most likely justified. I liked this movie, and I really hope McDormand wins another Oscar; I just wish McDonagh had thought more carefully before making some of the choices he made.

7. The Post
While it's impossible not to watch Battle of the Sexes and think about the events of 2016, it is also impossible to watch The Post and not think of the events of 2017. This movie loudly trumpets the role of the media and cautions against a reactionary executive. Meryl Streep, in her first performance in a Steven Spielberg-directed film, is legendary Washington Post head Katherine Graham. Hanks reunites with Spielberg in his performance as editor Bill Bradlee. Hanks' performance is a bit too, well, Hanksy. (Do we really need him playing every kind of Jimmy Stewart-esque character there is? Apparently yes, because he's been cast as Mr. Rogers). Streep's performance, however, is exceptional, as always. How easy she continues to make this all look. Like other movies on this list, there is a great supporting cast: Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, and Michael Stuhlbar.

Of the three most recent Steven Spielberg-directed somber historical motion pictures (the other two being Lincoln and Bridge of Spies), The Post is the best. While there is the uncomfortable controversy regarding the fact that this is The Post and not The Times, meaning the filmmakers exaggerated the role of the Washington Post in releasing the Pentagon Papers while not giving the New York Times enough credit, I was willing to overlook it, but it probably doesn't help its Oscar chances. (For the record, I can't figure out why they didn't just make it The Times. Perhaps because Graham and Bradlee are such well-known figures.)

If you are concerned that Speilberg and frequent Trump critics Streep and Hanks are going in for an unabashedly pro-media, anti-fascist film, rest assured that this very much is a bipartisan critique on the U.S. presidents and their administrations that repeatedly lied to the American people about the situation in Vietnam. That list includes both Democrats and Republicans: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon (who is featured throughout the film through the use of those infamous tapes).

6. Coco
Pixar's first musical is a grand celebration of Mexican culture that is so magnificent, it has become the highest grossing film in Mexican history. Anthony Gonzalez plays 12-year-old Miguel, an aspiring musician in a family that has banned music. Miguel runs away, and through an accidental bit of magic, he finds himself in the Land of the Dead during Day of the Dead. Racing against time to avoid being permanently stuck there, Miguel finds his ancestors (who hate music as much as his living relatives), a helpless musician named Héctor (voiced by Gael Garcia Bernal) longing to be remembered by the living, and one of the most famous singers in history named Ernesto de la Cruz (voiced by Benjamin Bratt).

Coco starts off with lots of spirit, and then sort of drags a bit in the second act. However, that's when the music starts, and man, does Gonzalez have an incredible singing voice. The third act is where most of the film's heart is, and it's one of the most pro-family messages in a while, even if it lays it on a bit thick. The images of the Land of the Dead (particularly that gorgeous bridge) are some of Pixar's most stunning, just as beautiful as the stuff seen in WALL-E, Up, and Inside Out. Aside from its lame title (you can read here the controversy behind why it was changed), this is an awesome film for movie-goers of all ages.

5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The most controversial (and yet one of the best) Star Wars films ever, The Last Jedi has proved that this franchise is here to stay for a while. To some, this is bad news. As David Chen of Slash Filmcast pointed out, there were three types of fans who were disappointed by the movie: the alt-right crowd angry at all the diversity in the newer films of this franchise, the hard-core fans who feel writer-director Rian Johnson is overstepping his bounds with his creativity, and film nerds who were picking apart the film's plot holes. (Nobody wants to be in the first group; everyone wants to be in the third.)

Whatever. I loved this film. I loved its meta quality. I loved the final performance of the late, far-above-great Carrie Fisher. I loved the cagey, alienated, disillusioned portrayal of Luke Skywalker by Mark Hamill. I adored a reunion scene that I won't elaborate on because I think it's too soon to spoil. I was so impressed by the acting of Daisey Ridley, who continues to inspire young girls around the world, and Adam Driver, whose portrayal of the malicious Kylo Ren continues to remind us of the limitations of Millenials. I was thrilled from start to finish (save for that lame casino scene), and I applauded the performances of Laura Dern, Oscar Isaac, and others. Johnson took some big swings and mostly hit it out of the park, regardless of what the three types of the agitated had to say.

As I wrote in my review, there will come a time when fans tire of this franchise. Star Wars is not Marvel, another Disney-owned studio, with enormous longevity. But for now, considering how wonderful the three most recent movies have been, why stop now?

4. Kedi

A cat in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul during my 2011 trip. They're everywhere.

Who would've thought that a Turkish documentary about the feral cats of Istanbul would be so entertaining? And yet, it is. It goes without saying that this is a must-see for cat lovers, but even if you hate cats, you'll probably like this movie. As one man in the documentary says, you can't really trust people who don't like cats.

This documentary takes us through the streets of Istanbul, one of the world's great cities. And while we meet lots of different common folks, the main focus is on Istanbul's cats. As someone who's traveled there, I can affirm to you that these creatures are indeed ubiquitous, and unlike most places, they really don't seem terrified of humans.

This documentary, directed by Ceyda Torun, will tug at your heart and make you impressed by the resourcefulness of these felines. Her camera takes a very active approach to following them around and telling their stories. This movie is the most surprising must-see of last year.

3. The Big Sick
The Big Sick is one of the very best romantic comedies in a long time. Based on the real-life love story of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and writer Emily V. Gordon, Nanjiani plays himself (which is kind of weird), and Gordon is wonderfully played by Zoe Kazan. Among the supporting cast are Holly Hunter and Ray Romano as the parents of Emily; Zenobia Shroff, Adeel Akhtar, and Anupam Kher playing Kumail's family members; and Bo Burnham and Aidy Bryant as his comedian friends. All are fantastic. The first discussion over lunch Kumail has his Emily's parents at the hospital is probably the funniest scene of the year.

There's so much in this movie: comedians, love, family drama, interracial dating, and a health crisis to top it all off. I'm deeply disappointed that this movie didn't get more nominations, like for Best Picture, for example, though I am happy that Nanjiani and Gordon are nominated for Best Original Screenplay. In terms of acting, we've never really seen Nanjiani pull off stuff this dramatic, and Kazan is as charming and perfect as ever. You owe it to yourself to see this movie.

2. The Salesman
The second Best Foreign Language Film by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (who did not attend last year's Oscar ceremony to protest Donald Trump's travel ban of Iranians entering the U.S.), The Salesman is yet another fantastic marriage of subtle tenseness and acute observations of the unique difficulties ordinary people face. Set among the backdrop of a local production of the play Death of a Salesman, this movie has all the ingredients of a great Farhadi thriller: toxic masculinity, suspicion, paranoia, and false choices. Like he did with A Separation, About Elly, and Le Passé, Farhadi has made a tense movie without including any typical Hollywood cliches. I greatly await his next motion picture, which will be his first Spanish film.

1. The Florida Project
The Florida Project is a masterpiece. Like Tangerine before it, Sean Baker finds atypical stories so worth telling. To paraphrase the fine folks at Pop Culture Happy Hour, this movie might seem like it's going to be "poverty porn" and overly didactic, but it isn't. I don't know how Baker and team managed to do a movie like that this way, but they did. Part of it may be due to the performances, which are perfect. With all due respect to Sam Rockwell's more ostentatious performance in Three Billboards, The Florida Project features probably Willem Dafoe's best performance yet, as the hotel manager and borderline babysitter for the hotel's kids and their parents. (I'm rooting for him to win the Oscar, though he's the underdog.) There are also so many other brilliant performances by unknown actors who for some reason have not been nominated for anything this awards season (especially Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite as the daughter and mother, respectively, living in this low-rent hotel not far from Disney World). This movie is probably one of the best of the decade, and I cannot wait to see the next projects directed by Baker.

Honorable Mentions: The Disaster Artist, Thor: Ragnarok, The Lego Batman Movie, It, Call Me By Your Name


Fortunately, the films in my top ten show a list of diversity: The Florida Project features a diverse cast set in economic situations American films rarely feel comfortable detailing; The Big Sick features an interracial love story, and much of the cast members are Pakistani or Pakistani-American; Kedi and The Salesman are both foreign films from countries with majority-Muslim populations (Turkey and Iran, respectively); Coco celebrates Mexican culture and features a Latino cast and is co-directed by a Mexican-American; Star Wars: The Last Jedi is (controversially, for some stupid reason) probably the most diverse Star Wars movie ever; The Post certainly doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, but it does star Meryl Streep as Graham, a towering figure in American journalism; and finally, Battle of the Sexes features basically an all-white cast (except for Morales), but essentially half the cast is female (and of course, it's about one of the U.S.'s most celebrated gay athletes). Three Billboards has its controversies, but it is led by a strong woman playing a strong woman. And then of course, there's Get Out, which uniquely visualizes the U.S.'s problems with race.

I do hope Hollywood continues this trend.

Overrateds of the Year: Wonder Woman, God's Own Country, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki, Columbus, Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, Okja, Marjorie Prime, The Square

Actor Who Was In Everything: Caleb Landry Jones (Get Out; American Made; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; The Florida Project)

Runner-Up: Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi; Goodbye, Christopher Robin; American Made; mother!; Crash Pad)

Fireman of the Year: Christopher Plummer (All the Money In the World) (and special shout-out to Jack Matthews for giving Plummer that title)

Oscars:

Best Actress:
Who Will Win: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Who Should Win: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

Best Actor:
Who Will Win: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
Who Should Win: Timothée Chalomet (Call Me By Your Name)

Best Supporting Actress:
Who Will Win: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
Who Should Win: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

Best Supporting Actor:
Who Will (Probably) Win: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
Who Should Win: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project)

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Jurassic World

"I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to maintain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!"
-Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm, "Jurassic Park"


I can still remember the day I saw "Jurassic Park" somewhat vividly. It was a hot summer day in 1993, and as I jumped out of our family's car, my mother explained to me that I might find the film to be scary because in the movie "some of the dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs." From the opening moments, I was completely mesmerized, and I probably had no idea that movies were capable of presenting such images. I loved it from start to finish. We left the theater, had lunch, then came back to watch "Free Willy." It remains one of the greatest days of my life. I can't imagine that twenty years from now I will remember watching "Jurassic World," the fourth installment in this franchise, the one where the movie's makers stood on the shoulders of geniuses and were so proud of their ability to make what is now the world's fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time (with $1.4 billion in just one month) and bring back the franchise from the dead. The trouble is that they never stopped to think if they should.

Should they have? I say no, and loudly so. The 1993 film at the time seemed to have ushered in a new age of cinematic wonder, but instead in retrospect closed an era of better movie magic. If you don't believe me, just consider some of the visual effects before 1993 (like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the original "Star Wars" trilogy) and then consider some of the modern-day ones (like "The Avengers" and the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy). True, there are some directors, like Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky, who seem to take the time to really give their audiences impressive visuals, but Colin Trevorrow is not one of them. Trevorrow directed the mediocre independent film "Safety Not Guaranteed" three years ago, and he does deserve some credit for his work here. He and his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, use a camera that's fairly active, and their decision to use film stock instead of digital cameras was the right one because it creates a better visual link to the previous installments. But unlike Steven Spielberg, the director of the first two "Jurassic" films and the executive producer of the two most recent, Trevorrow is one of the many newer directors working with visual effects who seem to have no restraint. David Christopher Bell's article for "Cracked" explains this in more detail in a brilliant article in which he calls the visual effects of "Jurassic World" and other recent films "photorealistic carnage." He makes a further very important point: except for four minutes of computer-generated imagery of only fourteen minutes of actual dinosaur screen time in "Jurassic Park," every special effect utilized was an animatronic (or puppet or other practical effect) created by Stan Winston. In other words, CGI, itself groundbreaking in 1993, was a last resort and was used to better the visual experience on a case-by-case basis. In "Jurassic World," there was only one scene that I thought was using an animatronic. The scene features two protagonists who discover a butchered dinosaur and feel sorry for it. The audience seemed to share these characters' sympathy, conveniently not carrying that practically a dozen characters were eaten moments earlier.

Part of this wreck is not Trevorrow's fault. There was a profound sense of awe with that first movie, but then with each and every subsequent installment in the franchise, there was less and less. But had Trevorrow and his visual effects team used the same restraint and lack of color grading that was used in 1993, I think "Jurassic World" would have been much better. Its story and actors try to fill the gap. The world of "Jurassic World" is one in which the idea of living, breathing dinosaurs is no longer a novelty but a bore. Jurassic World is an amusement park much like Sea World, featuring roughly 20,000 visitors a day. Irrfan Khan plays the new owner, a billionaire so irresponsible he not only demands his scientists make bigger and meaner dinosaurs but also personally takes a helicopter out to do battle with the dinosaurs wrecking his park. The park's operations director is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, and she, too, is not very responsible, sharing the concerns that closing the park would be the end of the company. Finally, there's Vincent D'Onofrio, who's just as good a villain here as he is on Netflix's "Daredevil." D'Onofrio plays the hawkish security chief who believes that InGen, the corporation featured in most of the films, could use these animals for war purposes.

None of them seem to heed any of the advice of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), an animal trainer for the park who seems to be one of the few adults in the room. Pratt has continued to show that he can carry a film as an action lead and do so with humor as well. At one point, Grady gets into an argument with Howard's character, Claire Dearing, who needs Grady's help finding her nephews after a dinosaur breaks out. She insists that he track the boys' footprints or scent. "I was with the navy," he barks, "not the Navajo!" But while I could appreciate the humor of Pratt, I found his character's situations so unfathomably stupid. Grady works for the park training the Velociraptors and actually leads them into battle against the Indominus, a genetically-mutated dinosaur that is terrorizing the island (and looks unbelievably stupid). At one point, Grady and Dearing take a moment to break from shooting at the Pterodactyls flying around chewing on their fellow human beings so that they can smooch. I think if the talking raptor from "Jurassic Park III" had made an appearance, it would have been more believable than any of this junk.  

There are still other fine performances here. Omar Sy appears here as a fellow trainer of Grady's; you may have seen Sy in the international French hit, "The Intouchables." It's also interesting to see Wong return, and his role this time is much more interesting that his small appearance in "Jurassic Park." And really, at the heart of this movie are the two boys who are sent to visit their aunt Claire, who is too busy to spend time with them and sends them to explore the park with her assistant. They are played by Ty Simpkins (whom you might recognize from the "Insidious" movies) and Nick Robinson as the older brother, more interested in girls than dinosaurs, and who is particularly annoyed by babysitting his brother. Simpkins in particular is very good here. The two boys become aware that their parents are getting a divorce, and this understandably troubles the younger one. It made me think that Spielberg, whose films often feature a child's relationship to his father, insisted that the moment be included here. But that's another flaw of "Jurassic World": there are some real moments that work well with the human characters, but there are zero interesting moments featuring dinosaurs.

I think back again to that day as a six-year-old in 1993. Children are arguably the best audience members; they possess no prejudice towards movies. It doesn't matter if it's a black-and-white film, or whether or not it's in sound, or whether or not the language is a language they understand and use. To most children, particularly younger ones, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" can be just as exciting and thrilling as "The Lost World," the 1925 silent adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work. Certainly the young boy two rows behind me who wouldn't shut up the entire time found "Jurassic World" to be quite good fun. But it's the parents of these children who have a duty to find their young ones better movies to watch. My advice: if you have children, show them "Jurassic Park," and then lie to them and say that there were no sequels.

Dedicated to Carrie and Eileen.

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Empire of the Sun

Steven Spielberg has created a legacy as the ultimate magician of the cinema. His movies have, for the most part, been bright, magical pictures, as is the case here in his 1987 film "Empire of the Sun." With this film, a coming-of-age World War II story, Spielberg indulges in familiar formulas: a lost boy without his parents, a yearning towards reconciliation, a feeling of miraculousness.

Almost always, Spielberg's combination works. Here it does at times, but there is no concrete epicenter, and instead it oversimplifies things and overly-complicates others. "Empire of the Sun" is a movie that often has that Spielberg quality of excellence but more often feels too long, too boring, and even too Spielberg.

A young Christian Bale plays Jamie Graham, the son of wealthy parents living in Shanghai in the 1930s as war breaks out between China and Japan (and the world, of course, for that matter). Jamie is as imaginative and charismatic as he is spoiled and selfish, but he is also quite interested in planes. In fact, it is his toy plane he tries to retrieve which separates him from his family during the chaotic and frightening invasion. Lost, scared, and confused, he returns home where food will run out. Often exactly in the right place, he joins an American sailor named Basie (John Malkovich), and the two develop a friendship, despite Basie constantly betraying him. The two are eventually captured and moved to an internment camp and wait for the war to end.

As mentioned, "Empire of the Sun" is either too complicated or too simple. It is too complicated as it involves an enormous amount of characters which were probably given their proper explanations in the autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard which the film is based on. There is a doctor, a young Japanese man Jamie befriends, a brutal Japanese captain, an impatient British couple, and parts of Basie's gang which are all practically ignored. It is often too simple, as well. Towards the end of the film, Jamie, now called Jim, witnesses a bright and sudden light approach and push against his body. Instead of allowing reasonably intelligent viewers to ascertain that this is most likely one of the atomic bombings on Japan, Spielberg inserts a radio broadcast to provide exact details of the event. If that still could not suffice, Jamie offers out loud his realization of what has occurred and how he mistook it.

Most of the film is wonderful to look at. It involves dreamlike visuals and another majestic score from John Williams. But at times it feels like another attempt at "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial," though it is worth noting that in 1987, Spielberg, along with his 1985 period piece "The Color Purple," was emphasizing his directorial range, shedding the perception that he could only direct children fantasy stories. (Then came "Hook" in 1991, and he would have to wait another two years with "Schindler's List" to finally secure the reputation he deserved and strived for.) Again, at times the quasi-fantastical nature of "Empire of the Sun" feels justified, and at other times it feels gratuitous. It is also noteworthy, though, that Spielberg discussed in interviews about this story being the anti-Peter Pan story in that this is about a boy who has grown up too quickly. And so far, no praise has been given by the reviewer to the performer playing that boy, Christian Bale (the future American Psycho and Batman). It is a very commendable performance, as are the other performers throughout this film (including Ben Stiller, who has said that he first gained the idea for his 2008 film "Tropic Thunder" while making "Empire of the Sun.")

Overall, "Empire of the Sun" has the feel of a inspirational picture that does not exactly inspire the feeling of being inspired. Instead the film drags on; there is a beginning, middle and end, but the middle seems of epic proportion and unjustly too long. It seems that as matter-of-fact as the story could be, it instead chooses to lack a definitive sequence of events. At times it's "Oliver," at other times it's "Stalag 17," and at other times it at least looks like "The Color Purple" but feels like it possesses the youthful optimism of "Hook." It is an interesting hybrid, and another example of his interest in World War II. World War II, a war Spielberg's father fought in, has often been the setting for Spielberg's stories. His first Hollywood attempt at the subject was "1941," then this film in 1987 (ignore the Indiana Jones films for now), and he finally secured a masterpiece with "Saving Private Ryan" (or "Schindler's List" if you prefer to consider that film the "third time's a charm" entity).

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