The 1993 smash ‘Jurassic Park’ represented a quantum leap in how dinosaurs are depicted on the big screen.

Instead of shooting actual lizards or resorting to stop-motion magic, director Steven Spielberg’s team used CGI to render the most dynamic dinosaurs ever captured on film.

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Those stunning creations are the main pleasure to be mined from ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park,’ the 1997 sequel to Spielberg’s monster mash. The film just hit Blu-ray as part of a ‘Jurassic’ trilogy, a hefty collection including all three films (so far) as well as a copious array of extras and 7.1 surround sound.

What’s even more obvious seeing the film anew in High-Def is how little Spielberg brought to the project. It ranks as one of the weaker films in his otherwise exemplary canon, a pedestrian affair not worth the master’s attention.

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This week’s HomeVideodrome podcast finds us debating the pronunciation of the last name of John Cazale, discussing the lovely disposition of Tommy Lee Jones, as well as the goings on at the Austin Film Festival.  Of course, we also go through this week’s crop of releases in the most chaotic manner possible.  So go listen, and enjoy!

Captain America: The First Avenger is the next step in Marvel’s massive attempt at crafting a cinematic universe for their comic book creations.  Marvel’s days of licensing out their characters for stand-alone Hollywood movies are thankfully over, with Jon Favreau’s excellent Iron Man ushering in a new era of comic book moviemaking.  The visionary approach taken by Marvel is that with each movie they make, they are crafting a larger mythos, a new universe for their classic characters to play in, not unlike the Ultimates line of comics they launched years ago.  We’re getting films less concerned with being stand-alone entities, that instead have more freedom to tie into, reference, and cross over with each other.  In other words, this is the way comic book movies should be.

Chris Evans, who previously played a Marvel’s Human Torch in Tim Story’s lackluster Fantastic Four films, fills the boots of Steve Rogers, the scrawny, strong-willed nobody destined to become the Cap himself.  With the Nazi menace sweeping Europe, Rogers attempts over and over again to sign up to go fight the good fight for good ol’ Uncle Sam, however his sickly physical attributes consistently result in his rejection.  Rogers’ determination to enlist catches the eye of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a German scientist who has found asylum in the U.S., who wants to use the good-hearted Rogers to test his super-soldier serum.  The experimental drug turns the scrawny Rogers into a super-man, however he ends up being used as a marketing tool to sell war bonds on the home front under a persona called “Captain America,” rather than fight the enemy at their doorstep.  But when one of his best pals gets caught behind enemy lines by a rogue Nazi organization called Hydra, Rogers springs into action on his own, and soon Captain America and his Howling Commandos tear a swath in the European countryside, battling the wicked Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) and his Hydra troops.

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Director Steven Spielberg is back on his two-films-a-year schedule.

The Oscar-winning auteur pulled off that impressive stunt in 2005 (‘Munich,’ ‘War of the Worlds’), 2002 (‘Minority Report,’ ‘Catch Me if You Can’) 1997 (‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park,’ ‘Amistad’) and 1993 (‘Schindler’s List,’ ‘Jurassic Park’).

For 2011, Spielberg has ‘The Adventures of Tintin,’ based on the popular Belgian comic books by Georges Remi, waiting in the wings. But Oscar prognosticators have their eyes on ‘War Horse,’ Spielberg’s tale of a bond between a horse named Joey and its owner (Jeremy Irvine) through the darkest days of the first World War. The animated ‘Tintin’ seems more like standard kiddie fare gussied up by Spielberg’s fondness for the genre. The real excitement belongs to ‘Horse,’ a film that feels epic in all the right ways based solely on the trailer.

Let’s hope ‘War Horse’ makes us forget about “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.’

The other hot new trailer is ‘My Week with Marilyn,’ a peek at the ‘Some Like it Hot’ star’s first foray across the pond. Michelle Williams draws the unenviable task of bringing Marilyn Monroe back to life, but if the trailer is any indication she pulls the feat off with alacrity. Add Judi Dench, a veritable Oscar buzz magnet, and you’ve got the best reason yet to recall the beauty and pain behind the country’s most iconic bombshell.

–SEASON FOUR OF ‘BREAKING BAD’ FINALLY PREMIERES

Unfortunately, I don’t have AMC and refuse to pay another $30 just to get it along with 50 lame-ass channels I’ll never watch, so I’ll have to wait for DVD. But wait for DVD I will and with the idea in mind of voraciously eating up each and every episode in a weekend binge.

From the performances to the directing to the writing, the story of a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who goes into the meth business with fairly good intentions, is some of the best television I’ve seen since “The Sopranos” and “The Wire.”The arc of the characters, especially the main character, Walt (played brilliantly by Bryan Cranston), his wife, and his partner Jesse, is what keeps you glued year after year. Even as they surprise you, the show is so well written and layered that in the end whatever they do makes perfect sense.  

Essentially, “Breaking Bad” is a study of evil; an examination of how there are no half-measures when it comes to dealing with the devil. You can’t dip your toe in a dirty business and expect to hold on to your soul.

With no threat of being accused of hyperbole, I can assure you no dramatic film aimed at adults released in the last five years has been half as good as any episode of “Breaking Bad.” Television is where Hollywood shines right now.

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I’m too lazy to research it, so instead I’ll make an audacious unfounded proclamation: there has never been a one-two punch comeback like Steven Spielberg had in 1993.

After the misfire of “Always” and the colossal misfire of “Hook,” he returned to the director’s chair for “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List,” two vastly different movies that demonstrate the different ways that a movie can inspire awe.

Even aside from Spielberg’s contributions, 1993 was a pretty solid year.

The Nominees:

“The Fugitive” – Easily the benchmark for big-screen adaptations of TV shows, featuring an Oscar winning supporting turn from Tommy Lee Jones.

“Schindler’s List” – This was not the sure-fire home-run it seems to be in retrospect. Spielberg turns artsy, but wisely remains high concept in doing so.

“The Piano” – As contrived a movie as you’re ever likely to see. Feel free to tell me where I’m wrong. I can’t be swayed.

“Remains of the Day” – Anthony Hopkins. A shotgun. Awesomeness ensues. Not really, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t go see that movie. Merchant-Ivory. Like Simpson-Bruckheimer. Only…boring.

“In the Name of the Father” – I feel like I should remember this movie more than I do. It’s about…jail, or something. Right?

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From my “Avatar” review:

“Steven Spielberg’s sixteen year-old dinosaurs are light years ahead of “Avatar” in the reality department.”

Cameron might have used more terabytes, megabytes, spiderbytes, or whateverbytes to create the Na’vi and the paradise planet of Pandora than Steven Spielberg ever dreamed possible in 1993, but in the convincing me this is real department — in the convincing me this is not computer generated department — “Jurassic Park” blows “Avatar” away. Peter Jackson’s Kong and Gollum are also light years ahead of “Avatar.” (more…)

So, when it came time for our little girl to watch her first grown-up movie, I was torn between Saving Private Ryan and a film I have loved since I was a kid, Godzilla, King of the Monsters.  Now, Private Ryan teaches important, practical lessons that every American should learn, like how to maneuver your infantry company across a beachhead under fire to wipe out a Nazi crew-served weapons bunker. On the other hand, Godzilla has a hideous dragon with radioactive breath.  Tough call, but we decided to save Private Ryan for when she’s six – better late than never.

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What is the enduring fascination with a 55-year old flick that stars a fake Japanese reptile stomping Toyko into matchsticks?  The first thing is that Godzilla is a truly entertaining movie.  Actually, it’s two movies.  The version most Americans have seen on TV is the 1956 re-cut version of the 98-minute original Japanese movie, Gojira.  Some American producers decided it could make them a bundle, but it needed a bit of familiarization before the American audience would accept it.  They hired a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr to film some awkward footage as American reporter “Steve Martin,” cut out a lot of draggy filler, and shipped the slimmed down 80-minute final product to drive-ins all over the fruited plain. (more…)

Jurassic Park – a family-friendly nature preserve featuring 7-ton prehistoric carnivores.
What could possibly go wrong?

If you’re a writer struggling to put together a screenplay, but it’s a big mess and you don’t know where to begin, this is the post for you. I’m going to explain the easiest way I know how to bring structure to your screenplay and solve the problems you’re having.

In my last post, I suggested that “doing the right thing is worth the struggle” is a common inspirational message found in many of the most stirring Hollywood movies. However, each individual film has it’s own particular moral theme that it wants to get across to the audience. And it’s this moral theme that will be your guide to figuring out how to solve the problems in your screenplay. (more…)

Lots of filmmakers set out to make an evocative picture without concern for making an engaging one. Their motivation, I believe, is to do something out of the ordinary that will set them apart as artists. They see storytelling as a conventional skill, subject to, well, convention: Why bother with tension and release and plot? Anybody can do that. I, the artist, will evoke a mood. And that certainly can turn out okay, but most of the time it does not. Most of the time, it results in another volume for the ongoing arthouse library of self-indulgent twaddle.

Two Lovers is a splendid exception, both evoking a mood and telling a story. Not a complicated story, not a Jurassic Park story, and not even a Moody Family Drama story, but a story of familiar feelings in what for most us will be an unfamiliar setting populated by unfamiliar people. Two Lovers is mood-heavy account of a young man’s simultaneous romances with two women. Instead of ending up in bathos–the usual destination–the filmmakers show this young man carrying around his past while he tries to find a happy future. This conflict directs the nature and depth of the romances. In the end we see how happy endings are sometimes the saddest of all. (more…)