Jurassic Park (Sacred Cow), Jurassic World: Rebirth, M3GAN 2.0, Sorry Baby

17:59Adam Kempenaar:there's multiple yes there are multiple examples but there's one key scene yes and i think we're thinking of the same one early in the film where basically the movie it lays out its emotional exposition is what it does in that scene between trying to fill in their backstories and paralleling

18:15Josh Larsen:them. And it's all to your point through dialogue. It doesn't work at all. It's what I think does happen a fair amount in Jurassic Park and happens in a lot of these movies, really. So when I see a significant portion of a film like this, finding a way to do it better, I have to admire the movie for that.

18:33Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. You talked about it being streamlined and the objectives, and I get it. There's also the flip side to that, which is sometimes when the movie lays out too neatly what the objectives are, step one, step two, step three, as there are here, then you are, as an audience member, very keenly aware of how much time it's taking to accomplish those objectives. And so it's like, is the movie going to get there? How much time are we going to take here between step one and step two? And there was quite a gap between step one and step two. But to that original question along those lines, Josh, what do you want?

19:07Adam Kempenaar:Well, for me, it doesn't matter if it's a Jurassic Park movie or could be any movie. It's really the same for me. I want characters and I want stakes. They're related, right? What's my investment? What's your investment really in this film? And I think that's a problem. It was a problem for me. Ultimately, if they complete the mission, if I'm rooting for them to complete the mission, it's evil pharmaceutical guy helps his company make, according to him, trillions of dollars. And let's say I don't care as much about that. Well, then the best case scenario is a mercenary with a heart of gold doesn't have to take dangerous missions anymore.

19:45Adam Kempenaar:Okay, cool. I guess that wasn't much for me, Josh.

19:49Josh Larsen:It depends if you, it depends how much you buy Henry, the Bailey characters alternative of, of which he suggests early on. Hey, let's take the, um, you know, these samples and make this free. You know, we'll like, what does he say? They crowdsource it so that the pharmaceutical benefits will be available by anyone. Now, do I think that's hokey? But it's a little hokey. It's not exactly what I needed to root for, but it does balance out what you're talking about. It does give you a third choice.

20:19Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. But also it is introduced late enough into the film that for a while it took me a bit to get invested in the film. And I'm glad you mentioned that because that's another thing to add to my list. I can't believe I forgot it. It's another thing to add to my list of ways this movie, I think, isn't completely weighed down by the legacy of the original, but certainly is anchored by it. I'm going to give you a few. Right. And why is that one in particular? because that goes back to the line that is in Jurassic Park, right? That Hammond says, and the lawyer has the funny quip where he says, yeah, we'll have a coupon day or whatever where the families will come.

21:03Adam Kempenaar:Hammond says science shouldn't be just for the elite. It shouldn't just be for the rich. It needs to be for everyone. That's an echo of it here in that science should be for all. Clearly a callback to the film, right? So the prologue, as you already mentioned, is very similar to Jurassic Park. There's the objects in mirror are closer than they appear nod in the, in the shot where we're introduced to the Rupert friend character. Also we're introduced to him through the rear view mirror. I don't think that's by accident. Clearly David Koepp must be a health food nut because I'm pretty sure he thinks that all of these dinosaur experiments would actually have been successful if the workers could just stop eating junk food.

21:43Adam Kempenaar:I love that. A Snickers wrapper plays a prominent role. And there's a brushing of food off a map that directly echoes Sam Jackson's brushing of junk off Nedry's desk in the original. There's, of course, a notable use of flares. I wrote all these down. I caught them all, Josh. A notable use of flares to distract a dinosaur.

22:03Josh Larsen:Which is also a Gareth Edwards thing. Yeah, probably. Especially in Godzilla.

22:06Adam Kempenaar:That's sort of a visual motif that I think he uses really effectively. so when dinosaurs ruled the earth the banner hanging the same banner maybe not the exact same but it is for all intents and purposes hanging in a museum and i think it's even at that point when we see it in the film starting to come down yeah like it is but it's definitely echoing the motion right sure uh there's of course a direct mention of alan grant there's a dinosaur eye shot that felt pretty similar to the t-rex scene there is i know we'll get into this there is a behold the dinosaurs in a field scene that certainly felt similar there's the decision that we've already talked about to introduce the delgado family into the mix with the two girls and cut between those two storylines that mirrors the storylines in the first one where you have grant with the kids and everyone else and honestly none of that easter egg kind of stuff really bugs me i don't i don't think it overwhelms i don't think it overwhelms the movie or anything and and you know as i said some of that delgado stuff i think contributes to the bloatedness of the plot even if i genuinely do like their scenes together and like those characters but i will be honest josh by the time we got to the end and and maybe you know you can just tell me i'm being too cynical here but this is how i felt by the time we got to the end and there's no spoiler here and the penultimate shot is almost the exact it really is the exact same shot as the one in Jurassic Park where characters look out the window or look at the water and see birds gliding gracefully along and we cut back to their content, reverent faces.

23:45Adam Kempenaar:By that point, it was too much. Homages are one thing. It's another thing to co-opt emotional beats and just copy and paste them in, especially when on the whole, this movie, I think, exudes a fraction of the reverence for the natural world that the original did.

24:03Josh Larsen:Well, I think this might be a case of, you know, not having seen a couple of those other Jurassic Park movies that I have, because the things you're critiquing, I found to be much worse in those movies. And this handles them to my mind just a little more delicately, at least in a way that didn't bother me. I would say to that last point in particular i think this movie makes space for the spielbergian wonder much more than the other installments and we we reviewed jurassic world together and and that one the thing i held the incident the most is the cruelty towards the dinosaurs that it it gave us just by killing them you know indiscriminately and that was part of the action um this brings us back to the wonder whether you find it hope that's where i wanted to go lazy um you know i think it's probably going to be a mileage may vary moment by that ending when it echoed the ending of Jurassic Park.

24:58Josh Larsen:I had been, had such a good time that I was willing to forgive that and, and see it as an echo, not just a lazy echo, but an echo of spirit that the movie had earned for me by that point. So I think it's earned some of those homages. Uh, I also think that some of the homages are doing original work here, um, or at least clever enough work. The, the Snickers thing, again because it happens in the cold open we can talk about in detail it's not really a spoiler but i just love how gareth edwards uses that visual detail their storytelling economy right in that it's funny there's the connection that you mentioned sure little easter egg for the people enjoy that not too much where it's distracting but also it's this signature of the human folly that's it's reminding us that this whole series has been about human control for as

25:47Adam Kempenaar:much as you can control something is always going to go wrong because you shouldn't be messing

25:51Josh Larsen:closet you shouldn't be messing with this in the first place and so i thought that was actually a clever way to continue that theme um but yeah to your point about the homages though i think you can go beyond jurassic park what i found you know i would say to me i could take it or leave it some people are going to love it some people are going to be annoyed by it there are way more spielberg nods here than jurassic park the mosasaurus sequence where with the sailboat it's an extended jaws i mean it could be pulled from jaws the way that is that is handled i i found that like i found it kind of enjoyable that they decided to say hey we're going to lean into the jaws the jossiness of this yeah there is this one worked less well for me um one of their the creatures they have to track down is one of the flying dinosaurs so it has a nest in the side of a cliff and inside the nest is built in like a abandoned temple from an ancient civilization Indiana Jones is all over that it feels like it you're that one I was like okay come on now and you know the one thing I also did not work for me at all it's a minor plot detail but the younger Delgado daughter a tiny baby dino you know comes finds her and she adopts it ET vibes all over that with the animatronic and of course that whole thread line I didn't need either so it was just interesting to me that they were they weren't just returning to the Jurassic model.

27:14Josh Larsen:They were returning to the Spielberg model in ways that I would say they had a, you know, a 500 batting average or a 50 % success rate on that. Yeah.

27:22Adam Kempenaar:I think that is very clear that Edwards is trying to tap into that model. And maybe before I counter on the wonder point as well, I'll at least acknowledge that the shot or moment I was alluding to earlier that I think really is amazing. And overall, I agree with you. I think the action scenes for the most part the action scenes are are rendered very well and are pretty thrilling there is a shot i don't think we want to spoil it exactly i will just say that there is a a shot later that makes tremendous use of nighttime and clouds at nighttime and a very large dinosaur and I suppose a sense of camouflage and the way that dinosaur emerges is a genuine surprise and a genuine bit of misdirection and awesomeness, a different kind of wonder.

28:21Adam Kempenaar:But yeah, no, that's a good point. It really is. It really is great. Now, I will have to take your word for it on how the wonder is handled in relation to the other sequels. At least, you know, I don't remember. it's been a while now, the other ones that I have seen. And I know we are going to discuss this more when we talk about Jurassic Park. That's one of the key elements of that film that make it successful. Rebirth eventually tries to summon awe, but when Edwards finally cues the wonder, it's too little too late, or it was for me. And when I say cue the wonder, that's how it felt to me. Not entirely ineffective, but a bit obligatory.

29:01Adam Kempenaar:And so late in the film, I looked at my watch, It was at least at the 90 minute mark. I think there's a reason why Spielberg, you know, besides it worked for the story, why he put that scene so early in the original film. By the time we get it in this film, Josh, we've almost entirely seen the dinosaurs as threats, as grayish gross mutations. And this scene, despite how great the score is, again, going back to the original, recalling the original film, making great use of that. and needing it, really needing it to do that work, it's not enough to undo that fact or to balance out the fact that we've seen them as threats up until now.

29:43Adam Kempenaar:And I do believe the Jonathan Bailey character in particular, his sense of wonder in the moment, but here again, something we'll dive into deeper when we talk about Jurassic Park, I do think Edwards miscalculates a bit what produces that sense of wonder for the audience or what the equation is. He makes it mostly about scale. The size of the dinosaurs, their size in relation to the humans, the sweep of the valley and the several dozen dinosaurs dotting the landscape. You know what we get very little of until late in the scene? Faces, reactions. The audience's experience, we experience wonder through the characters more so than the camera.

30:31Adam Kempenaar:And by the time we finally get, I thought we were going to get it, Josh, and he cuts away almost immediately from Bailey and goes to the dinosaurs. Most of the grandeur by the time we get to Bailey, most of the grandeur of that scene had passed for me. And so by the time it is about Bailey and his experience, he's a phenomenal actor. I really do believe that. By the time he's shedding a tear, I didn't feel it.

30:54Josh Larsen:I would say that sequence was serviceable to me. I would put it on the same level as we talked about the stars. They're doing their job. That sequence for me did its job. This is the Titanosaurus herd, I think we can say, which is the second of their three dinosaurs that they need to get a blood sample from. Here's maybe why I'm a little more generous towards it. I do think it's nicely set up earlier in the film, and maybe this is why it didn't bother me that it came at the point it did, but the movie begins in New York city where basically Scarlett Johansson's character is being recruited by Rupert friends, corporate, you know, the pharmaceutical corporate guy, and they're stuck in traffic at one point because, and I may get my dinosaur wrong here.

31:40Josh Larsen:I think it's a brachiosaurus, but it has basically wandered into the streets. I did like the setup of this where at this point in time, um, dinosaurs have mostly moved towards the equator because they can't survive anywhere else. And people now are just kind of annoyed by them. Yeah. Lost interest. So in New York city and this giant beast, which honestly, I thought the effects are well done that produced a certain amount of awe, this shot of this giant beast on this street in Manhattan. But what, what are the people in the movie do? They're just honking at it. They're just pissed. It's making them late.

32:14Josh Larsen:It's disrupting their day, but it's a nice little precursor of, um, the scale and scope you're talking about and, and reminding us of the, um, the grandeur of these creatures. There's also a line, and this brings us back to, to Bailey's Henry, um, the scientist who, who goes along. And when Rupert friend is trying to recruit him, he points out, you know, have you ever seen a dinosaur in the wild? And Henry says, no, he says, if you've never done that, you're only like a guy who's been to the zoo. and and there's nothing visual about that but there's character stuff that you're talking about going on there yes and so when we got to the titanosaurus scene in the field i think it worked a little better for me because i was remembering the earlier moment that's the payoff and you can understand why he's responding how he is you're right about the attention to scale because that that is the one thing that made uh edwards um godzilla so distinct is that was movie was all about dwarfing the humans and emphasizing the immensity of Godzilla and those creatures.

33:17Josh Larsen:So maybe he, maybe he leaned a little too far here, but, but I think, I think the movie worked well enough. I think that sequence, I should say worked well enough for evoking this tradition of basically overall, Adam, I thought this movie respected its monsters. And you touched on this about the wonder and the grandeur of the terror scenes too. I thought, I thought rebirth allowed these monsters to have both pathos and terror in a way that was kind of tapping into the Spielbergian wonder thing too. Yeah.

33:46Adam Kempenaar:Maybe that scene in that moment, the crying in particular didn't work for me because I was still also hung up on what we were discussing partly earlier. And this also goes back to something in the original Jurassic Park. Most of the movie's attempts at poignancy just fell flat to me. Backstories about dead friends on training missions, missed mother's funerals, dead children, like the more people are having conversations about these things and actors have to do a lot of heavy lifting with their, their eyebrows and their eyes, you know, to, to get us to care about the characters, get us to buy into the stakes of their mission.

34:24Adam Kempenaar:The, the less interested I was, it is funny because there's something else that, that I'm sure we'll want to bring up when we talk about Jurassic park, how self aware where that movie is or isn't about sort of the question of commerce and its place, right? Creating a blockbuster movie and creating this park that's driven by capitalism. You referenced this, right? This whole mission and this whole concept of this movie is built around the idea that now nobody cares about dinosaurs anymore and in fact the mutations were all a byproduct of the fact that no one wanted to go to places like the original jurassic park anymore because it wasn't enough or just to see the brachiosaur walking around anymore right so they had to amp everything up and turn them into freaks to get people to care and here we are all walking into the summer movie where it's littered with dinosaurs that are a bunch of freaks.

35:33Josh Larsen:But is it though? See, I think one thing I liked about this movie is that it's bookended by that, this idea of the genetically experimented on dinosaurs, but the three main targets we encounter, and we also have a T-Rex sequence too. Those are all original old school dinos. And so that's kind of what I liked about it.

35:57Adam Kempenaar:If you go in and you're right to that point, if you go in expecting that that's what you're going to get. And let's be clear. There are plenty of dinosaur attacks and dinosaur evasions in this film. But if that's all you think you're going to get, like the first hour of this movie, there's almost no dinosaurs. There's a lot of there's a lot of just setting up of the story and character stuff or at least plot stuff between the characters. Right. Yeah. Before I'd have to clock that our hours, our sounds a little.

36:25Josh Larsen:I mean, you have minutes. I really like the open, the cold open worked well for me. So that carried me through for a while, but yeah, it takes a little while, um, to get to the real action. I do want to, before we go, just call out one action set piece. Cause I do think we get, oh, maybe four, possibly five standout sequences here. And there's a detail in one that I love. It is the T-Rex. Um, not going to spoil it entirely, but let's just say the Delgados are making their way across the island. this family and they encounter a t-rex great reveal i'm not going to spoil it of not only what the creature is that this is you know um it reveals patience that edwards brings to another bit of misdirection misdirection for the audience and it also has a little detail i'll just say there is a rubber raft yellow rubber raft that's involved and we get a great shot where a character is hiding underneath it.

37:22Josh Larsen:The T-Rex is above and pushes it snout into the raft. And you can see the triangles of the teeth protruding into the rubber to the breaking point, things like that. Like you, and I, maybe there was like some CGI assistance in that imagery, but you think of a visual idea, a simple idea like that. It is all you need. You do not need like a supercomputer creating herds of beasts rampaging across the screen. That is not nearly as scary as a simple evocative image, which makes that one of the, I would say, many standout action set pieces in Rebirth.

38:01Adam Kempenaar:Jurassic World Rebirth is currently playing in wide release. If you see it and agree or disagree with us, email us, feedback at filmspotting.net. Yes. It's me. What a shock, etc. My path to personal growth has been paved with disappointment. I think we can agree that my biggest mistake was that I cared too much. Actually, the biggest mistake you made was murdering four people and a dog. Continuing the trend, I suppose, of confusing movie titles, if only to me. Megan 2.0, that's M the number three. G-A-N 2.0, the sequel to 2022's hit killer doll movie. And Josh, you, in preparation for this one, caught up with the original Mithrigan.

38:52Adam Kempenaar:You liked it. Is it possible, based on your ratings, I can't remember exactly where you landed. Three and a half, I think, out of four for this one on your site. Were you just a three for the other one? Do you like this one even more? A better sequel?

39:05Josh Larsen:I had so much fun with this one, Adam. One of the most entertaining times in a theater this year, halfway through. And yeah, I mean, I'm no expert. I came to Megan late. I'm not going to pretend like I was right there at the beginning. I was certainly curious about the first film, but it went by me. And then when I heard everyone kind of going nuts for it, I just marked it. Like, I'm going to have to catch up with that. A sequel was the perfect excuse. I did like this better because I feel like Megan 2.0 has a firmer sense of what it wants to do. It is a little longer, I believe. It, in a way, is more expansive, but its concerns are more focused.

39:47Josh Larsen:And I found this to be a rather compelling, interesting, provocative satire of the artificial intelligence, you know, ethical debate that we're either having or that we should be having right now. And it's funny, some of the responses I've seen, they fault Megan 2.0 for its ethics on the notion of AI. And I just feel like this isn't a movie that's really trying to make a statement that it wants people to agree with. It is instead making fun of the illogical rationale in this debate or the poor reasoning or the hubris that's involved in it. is really taking a bigger look at all of these questions we're embroiled in and having a lot of fun with them while also exposing, as I said, some of the hubris and so forth behind it.

40:37Josh Larsen:So it's a smart movie. It's really smart. And people, I thought the first film was not so much about AI. It was about, to me, handing over our parenting responsibilities to technology. That's a very different thing. And it was a smart satire on that level. I enjoyed it for the elements it had. It got a little bit away from that and went for some, you know, horror kills and things that were in a different direction. So I just love the focus that Megan 2.0 has. And it partly attained that by shifting genres. This is something that other folks are holding against it as well. It's not a horror film.

41:17Josh Larsen:It is like a sci-fi spy game genre flick. It's like, you know, Mission Impossible. I described it as Mission Impossible if you took out Tom Cruise and plopped in RoboCop, except RoboCop was a, you know, killer female doll. And that worked for me. This sort of idea of let's play in a different sandbox with related ideas. And here's the key, but further expand on this central character, which has always been the crowning achievement. Always. These two movies now, it's the hallmark of them. The fact that they've been able to come up with a completely fabricated character who feels so real, a distinct personality, someone who is funny, who is sassy, yet somehow has this eerie element of automation to her that keeps you at a certain distance.

42:08Josh Larsen:and it's this thrilling combination of performance and special effects. They're using animatronics here, but they're also using a child actor, Amy Donald, in both films. For some of the sequences, the vocal performer, Megan's voice, which is so key, is by Jenna Davis. And even in the sequences here in 2.0 where Megan, the program, is stuck in a smaller desktop body that looks like Eve from WALL-E, it's that vocal performance that is so strong that lets us know this is the same quote-unquote person with the same attitudes and the one we've kind of come to maybe not love, but enjoy. And so I think that's a real feat too, that they've not only been able to carry that over to Megan 2.0, but expand on it in terms of who Megan is as a threat and sort of a figure we root for.

43:03Josh Larsen:So, yeah, I don't know that people have been down on Megan 2.0 as much as just said, here are sequelitis things that have frustrated me. I went the other direction. I thought they took a big risk here and it paid off.

43:18Adam Kempenaar:I don't know why you had to look at me like that when you said handing over parenting responsibilities to technology. I don't need your judgment or the judgment of a doll with a number in her first name.

43:30Josh Larsen:Are you looking for a Megan? Are you in the market? for a Megan there in the Kempinar household? I mean, things are busy. You guys are juggling a lot, so I wouldn't entirely blame you.

43:40Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, we got our hands full right now. Certainly bringing up the topic of hubris is appropriate for this week's show. You've convinced me I need to catch up with the Megan series. And hey, they've got the name already set for the third one. You know there's going to be a third movie.

43:58Josh Larsen:There has to be a trilogy, right? Yeah, and I think, you know, they must have known it all along. That's why they chose their name at the beginning.

44:05Adam Kempenaar:Megan 2.0 is currently playing in wide release. If you see it and agree or disagree with Josh's take, we would love to hear from you.

44:12Josh Larsen:You can email us feedback at filmspotting.net. Listening is the number one thing you can do to support an independently produced show like ours. There are a couple of other things you can do. You could take a minute to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Doesn't matter if you're brand new or have been around for 20 years. Every time we get a new review, it helps us reach new listeners. Another way to support us, and this is really the lifeblood of the show, it is to join the FilmSpotting family over at FilmSpottingFamily.com. We want to say thank you to advisory board member.

44:46Josh Larsen:There are a couple of levels you can choose when you're becoming a FilmSpotting family member. The advisory board people, these are the folks with all the poll. Scott Bosch from Pocopson, Pennsylvania. I hear that's just outside Philadelphia is on that board. So thanks so much for that, Scott. Scott's a good follow on Letterboxd as well. If you want to keep up with him there, his username is S-B-O-S-C-H.

45:12Adam Kempenaar:And Scott's always an active participator in those advisory board calls, which we very much appreciate. Scott says, I was looking to get into more podcasts and wanted a movie one. Honestly, I probably first gave it a try because of the play on Trainspotting, which I love and thought the name of the show was clever. I probably started listening around 2007 because I remember No Country and There Will Be Blood being early reviews I listened to. A favorite review or segment, my all-time favorite moment, is still the I'm Still Here review. That sticks in my head all these years later. Yeah, memorable.

45:43Adam Kempenaar:A review we got wrong. Okay, Adam is wrong on the Dune movies. These are exactly the kind of films we should want from blockbuster filmmaking. They introduce fully formed worlds and never slow down to hold the audience's hand. they demand you pay attention even on multiple viewings but most importantly they are a visionary work from a filmmaker not something created by a committee from a studio also they're basically star wars for grown-ups and that ain't too bad either i do appreciate that adam has truly earned back the moniker of art house adam though i don't know scott i think i can appreciate the approach and what you're saying i agree they are the kind of films we should want from blockbuster filmmaking but still not really like the storytelling that much.

46:22Adam Kempenaar:Letterboxd Top 4, Star Wars, The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, and Taxi Driver. Okay, listen, I know this is like the most basic film bro for faves, but I'm in my mid-40s, and these are the movies I discovered as I was getting into movies and are pretty responsible for me becoming a cinephile. A favorite he revisited recently. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a favorite, but I recently re-watched Thief as part of seeing all of Michael Mann's movies with my son. It really clicked for me in a way it didn't. The first time I loved it. Yeah, good movie. A random film or filmmaker. He loves Josh's PTA, calls him the greatest filmmaker of his generation.

46:59Adam Kempenaar:And I can't be convinced otherwise. Okay. We won't try. We're good with that. A movie he credits with becoming a cinephile. There were a bunch I hunted down at the local video store, but the first in a theater that kind of opened my mind to what movies could be is probably pulp fiction. And finally, a book about movies or movie making from Scott, The Film Club. It's about a period of time where a man watched movies with his son after he dropped out of high school. That's a new title to me. Yeah, new to me.

47:25Josh Larsen:Is your impression fiction or is it like a diary nonfiction? It is. Okay, fiction.

47:30Adam Kempenaar:Fiction is my impression, but I'm going to have to look it up and learn more. Thank you so much, Scott, for that and for your support of Film Spotting by being a family member. If you would like to become a family member, you can learn more at filmspottingfamily.com. Something pretty bad happened to me. Did it just happen? No, it was a little over three years ago. Well, that's not that much time. I know this is hard to talk. That's Ava Victor with John Carroll Lynch in the Ava Victor written and directed Sorry Baby, which is currently playing in limited release. Victor plays Agnes, a college professor still trying to process a traumatic experience.

48:12Adam Kempenaar:Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges also star. The film debuted at this year's Sundance where Victor won the screenwriting prize. I know you saw Josh at the Chicago critics film festival where it got a lot of good buzz there and it continues to get a lot of good buzz. I'm really frustrated that I can't see it, but where I'm located, it's not going to play at my favorite theater until later in July. But since you've seen it and it is opening in theaters in Chicago this weekend, we wanted to make sure to give it a little time. It's Victor's writing and directing debut. So the key question for us here at FilmSpotting is, should this be a Golden Brick nominee?

48:52Josh Larsen:Yeah, I mean, for me, it's I think we have maybe four titles in the run at this point at the midway point of the year. And I think it's in the lead right now. This is such a strong debut with that unique authorial vision that we talk about. And yet at the same time, it's very unassuming in its sense of assuredness. I don't know. I've been having trouble trying to describe to people whether this is a friendship comedy that kind of sneaks in some intense seriousness, or is this first and foremost something like a, and I don't mean this derisively, but like a trauma drama that understands laughter is a part of that real life experience as well.

49:40Josh Larsen:It is this balancing act that is, this is the unique voice that we're looking for in a golden brick that a filmmaker has. It is the balancing act of those tones. Also the balancing act of the movie's construction. It jumps in time in ways that is not ostentatious, but crucial for the effect and the reveal of certain plot developments. And everything that I've described in terms of the tone of the movie itself can also be found in Victor's lead performance. the way they just hit. There's a scene here, and I don't think this is a spoiler, so I'll say it, but there's a scene early on when her friend Liddy tells her that, tells Agnes that she's pregnant.

50:21Josh Larsen:And we're watching Victor's face receiving this information, and you see the genuine excitement for her friend, for Agnes's friend. You see disbelief that this is happening, and this is the stage of life they're in. And then they give a little sideways glance that just tells us Agnes knows in that moment, their friendship will never be the same. And so for Victor to be able to bring all that to a small scene, it's just an example of what happens throughout in the performance, in the movie. And it's one of those that the longer you sit with it, you'll realize how accomplished it is in what it is trying to do.

50:59Josh Larsen:And yeah, you mentioned Hedges in there. So good to see him back on the screen. and John Carroll Lynch, just like, I mean, maybe a six minute scene, like just kind of like slips into your chest and, and scoops out your heart and tucks it in his pocket and walks away. It's like you, before he even did it, you realize you've been devastated by this little mini performance in the movie. So a lot of reasons to see this movie, Sorry Baby on its own, but especially as we're considering the golden brick nominees for this year. Can't wait.

51:32Adam Kempenaar:Sorry Baby is currently playing in select cities. If you see it, we would love to hear your thoughts. Feedback at filmspotting.net. We have put it off a couple of times, but next week we promise, and it sounds like Sorry Baby may be in the running anyway, it's our top five films of 2025. So far, I know we both have been trying to catch up with anything and everything we can see, but that's not all. We're going to talk about the best, second best, I don't know, maybe third best, and that certainly wouldn't be a bad position to be in when you hear some of these titles in a second, of the year 1960.

52:10Adam Kempenaar:We're going to talk about Billy Wilder's The Apartment. This movie is in the film spotting pantheon, and it was part of the 21st film spotting marathon back in 2010. We, of course, recently completed, Josh, our 51st marathon. And we're talking about this movie because it is celebrating its 65th anniversary. And we've got this ongoing Pantheon project where we're trying to give a full in-depth discussion. Both of us, me and you, we're trying to give an in-depth discussion to every movie that is in the Pantheon. Those movies from 1960, well, it is competing against Psycho, Breathless, and La Dolce Vita.

52:54Josh Larsen:Yeah. Yeah. And The Apartment, all those four films in one year is pretty incredible. I'll confess, Adam, I've already rewatched this. We had a night where the family was just looking for something to watch together. And a lot of times we end up with classics that kind of pleases everyone. And so I was like, hey, I've got the apartment coming up. Only Debbie had seen it at that point. And so let's give it a whirl. Love when these movies go over so well with younger generations and just loved watching it. Again, we are going to have a great, great conversation about this one.

53:25Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Also next week, results and your feedback from the current FilmSpotting poll asking you to choose your favorite film of 2025 so far. You can vote and leave a comment at FilmSpotting.net. If you would like to see a schedule of future shows, at least what we currently have planned, you can visit FilmSpotting.net slash episodes. From director Robert Altman comes a story of Hollywood. I got a writer in here who's got a pitch I think you ought to hear. I think it's hot.

53:52Josh Larsen:We open outside San Quentin. The Graduate, Part 2. And Mrs. Robinson had a stroke. Adam, I am deep in preparation for Cinema Interruptus, The Player, which will be this August at Gene Siskel Film Center. And one question I have in the back of my mind is if The Apartment is one of those classic movies whose poster lines the halls of the studio, if you remember in The Player. There are so many posters. And you know Altman and his collaborators chose specifically which ones. There's some reason, right? And now I'm thinking, are we going to spend a full day at Interruptus? I think someone even asked me this on social media, just dissecting the posters in the background.

54:29Josh Larsen:And I'm panicking because you could absolutely do that with this movie. There's so much good movie Hollywood lore to dig into. But of course, the format for this, we only have three days to make it through the player after watching it on that first day. So we can't get stuck on the posters too long. So many other details we want to dig into. Again, those tickets for Cinema Interruptors are now available. Our dates are August 11 through 14. So August 11, we watch the player in full. And then the next couple of days, we start at the beginning and go through it scene by scene. Anyone can jump in with a question or a comment.

55:07Josh Larsen:We're going to offer a four-day package that's available. If you want to be there for the whole thing or if you can only make one day, there are single-day tickets. and you could get those at syscofilmcenter.org slash interruptus. This week on our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, it is part two of their For Love or Money pairing. They are going to add to the materialist debate. I keep seeing as more reviews roll in on Letterboxd. Adam, I feel like I get one that's a rave, and then another one will come by that's just ripping it apart. It's really been a divisive film, which is interesting for what's, you know, sort of a romantic comedy or dramedy.

55:46Josh Larsen:So it'll be very curious to see where the Next Picture Show folks land on Materialist. They, of course, previously talked about Pride and Prejudice. So part of their discussion will be comparing it to that Joe Wright film. New episodes of The Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday, and you can get them wherever you get your podcasts. It is time now for Massacre Theater, where we perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. last time we massacred this scene. Hey, Aaron!

56:16Adam Kempenaar:I think you're the devil! You know I'm not! How? Because I think we have the kind of friendship where if I were the devil, you'd be the only one I would tell. Well, you were awfully quick to run after Tom's help. All right, fine, yes!

56:32Josh Larsen:And if things had gone well for me tonight, then I probably wouldn't be saying any of this. I grant you everything. But give me this. he personifies everything that you've been fighting against and I'm in love with you How do you like that? I buried the lead. Albert Brooks there with Holly Hunter in 1987's Broadcast News, written, directed by James L. Brooks. Along with Massacring That Great Scene, we also had a review of Materialist and The Life of Chuck. Why did we choose a scene from Broadcast News?

57:10Adam Kempenaar:Well, here's Aaron in Manhattan. You guys massacred Broadcast News, the James L. Brooks film about a brilliant woman caught in a love triangle with a smart, capable, sincere, but cynical Albert Brooks and the pretty boy charmer William Hurt. I haven't seen Materialist, but it sounds like a similar premise executed to much less than perfection. Every character in broadcast news is so uniquely themselves and evocatively performed. You never doubt who these people are and you never question why they are who they are. Also, there is not a line in broadcast news that makes me think, put your pen down.

57:42Adam Kempenaar:As you said about Materialist, if anything, I want it to keep going forever. In fact, maybe I'll go watch it right now.

57:49Josh Larsen:Here's Evelyn So from New York City. Einstein, very clever, Adam. That's Albert Brooks's real name. Highly doubt I'll win twice in a row, but I had to write in because I love broadcast news. The link is easy too, cited as one of Celine Song's inspirations for materialists. Also involving love triangle and romantic dramedy, although there is way more calm in this movie. Hurrah and bye. Need to go have my one minute of crying.

58:16Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, I don't remember what we changed Jane's name to if we did, and I assume we did, but we had to change Aaron's name. And I went with Einstein because indeed his name in real life is Albert Einstein. I will note that Sam wasn't aware of the Celine song list when he picked this movie. He was just going purely off the love triangle, but it is one of those films that is on the list of inspirations for Materialist. Finally, Liz Stickle in Wheaton, Illinois says both films with career women who are the best at what they do caught in a love triangle between Mr. Charming and Mr. Good Listener. I think that's a good way to frame it.

58:56Adam Kempenaar:Now, she has another line here, Josh, that I'm actually going to refrain from reading because it references the ending to Materialist and broadcast news. And while it isn't explicitly a spoiler per se, it could be a spoiler if you are someone who has seen broadcast news, but not materialists. And I will just note for Liz out there anyway, I agree with her. So thank you, Liz. Yeah.

59:22Josh Larsen:I think we split on this point when we reviewed broadcast news. I forget what the occasion was, but I loved it as you did until we got to that ending. Yeah. Okay. Well, we can't really discuss it anymore. Go find it in the archives, find it in the archives and we'll, Yeah, we get to it there.

59:40Adam Kempenaar:Though it's a bonus content review, but not to belabor it, I think you're referencing maybe the very, very, very end of broadcast news. I don't think that's what Liz is referencing. Oh, okay.

59:51Josh Larsen:Okay.

59:51Adam Kempenaar:I'm just assuming she is. We'll talk off air. We'll talk off air, Josh. Okay.

59:54Josh Larsen:Reach into the film spotting hat and pick out this week's winner. Our winner is Brandon Gittles here in Chicago. I hope I got that right, Brandon. Congratulations.

1:00:03Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. At least we think you're in Chicago. I'm basing that off a previous entry. Congratulations, Brandon. You can email us at feedback at filmspotting.net to claim your prize, either a trial membership to the Film Spotting family, if you're not already one, or a Film Spotting tote bag or Film Spotting t-shirt. Tear sticks are doping for actors.

1:00:26Josh Larsen:Do you want to be the Lance Armstrong of theater? No. Get off the stick.

1:00:32Adam Kempenaar:We move on now to this week's edition of Massacre Theater, impeccably chosen by producer Sam. So good. How he remembered this, I don't know, but I love it. Yeah, it's going to be fun. You have the bigger role here. I actually have a part that has been combined, two parts combined into one. There is but one of me here. We have changed the name of my character as we do to try to make it a little bit harder. I don't know that that's going to work. Josh, people who know this movie are certainly going to know this scene right away.

1:01:09Josh Larsen:And also, you know, this is in your contract. If I have more lines in massacre theater, you, you get to take on a second part. So we're just following, we're just following your contract here.

1:01:19Adam Kempenaar:I really want to see the hand gestures. That's all I'm going to say. I might need him to help me. Okay. I started off. Actually, you started off. I'm going to give you the action. Are you ready? Let's do it. And action.

1:01:35Josh Larsen:Okay. Here's a thought. I see an empty stage. I see drums. I see a drummer. I see a microphone. And I see a singer. Dad, come on. What? We gave this stuff up. Listen. Listen to me, Cal. Look, when I was a kid, when I was a little boy, I always wanted to be a dinosaur. I wanted to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex more than anything in the world. I made my arms short and I roamed the backyard and I chased the neighborhood cats and I growled and I roared. Everybody knew me and was afraid of me. And then one day my dad said, Bobby, you're 17. It's time to throw childish things aside. And I said, OK, Bob. But he didn't really say that.

1:02:12Josh Larsen:He said, stop being an effing dinosaur and get a job. But, you know, I thought to myself, I'll go to medical school. I'll practice for a little while and then I'll come back to it. Dad, how is that a skill? I forgot how to do it. You're a human. You can never be a dinosaur. Hey, I lost it. Hey, what's the point? The point is don't lose your dinosaur. And scene. Now, the problem is the writing's so good.

1:02:39Adam Kempenaar:Notice I said the writing, not the performance, though you were fine, Josh. I broke character there and started laughing.

1:02:44Josh Larsen:It's so good. And also, oddly inspirational. I think I'm just going to keep that in my back pocket if I'm feeling down. Don't lose your dinosaur.

1:02:53Adam Kempenaar:I think we need to make t-shirts or maybe coffee mugs. If you know what film we just massacred, email the movie's title and your name and location to feedback at filmspotting.net. Your deadline is Monday, July 14th. We will select the winner randomly from all the correct entries and announce it in a couple of weeks. Dr. Grant, my dear Dr. Sutler, welcome to Jurassic Park.

1:03:23Adam Kempenaar:Yes, welcome. Help yourself to as much melted ice cream as you'd like. Also, if you need to use the restroom, please note that we've set them up al fresco. Very chic. Just how huge of a hit was Jurassic Park in 1993? Seven movies grossed over$100 million that year from seven to one in The Line of Fire, Indecent Proposal, Mrs. Doubtfire, Sleepless in Seattle, The Firm, The Fugitive. and in the top spot, Steven Spielberg's CGI Game Changer, which was the only one of those smashes to gross over$200 million because it actually grossed over$300 million. It's not difficult to see why it was such a success.

1:04:04Adam Kempenaar:Long before IMAX, Dolby Vision, and other enhanced viewing experiences, seeing Jurassic Park at the cinema in 93 felt like, well, going to Jurassic Park. And that was true even on my relatively dinky little screen at the Capitol 2 where I worked in Newton, Iowa. The memorably awestruck faces and near-collapsing bodies of Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern's Dr. Ellie Sattler when they see the brachiosaur, that was pretty much all of us. So dazzled by the special effects that maybe for the first time watching a movie, we didn't have to work at all to suspend our disbelief. Spielberg, like Richard Attenborough's John Hammond, had done it.

1:04:44Adam Kempenaar:He created real dinosaurs. Josh, when we were teasing this discussion recently, you proposed that to give Jurassic Park the fairest possible shake, you were basically going to try to brainwash yourself. This time, you would watch Jurassic Park pretending that a different all-time Spielberg classic didn't exist. I jumped in to suggest that title had to be Raiders of the Lost Ark, the 80s kid action-adventure equivalent of this 90s kid fave. While he's no Indiana Jones, Dr. Grant even has a similarly defining look, Panama-style hat, red paisley bandana around his neck, aviator-style sunglasses. You said Jaws, and I'll be honest, I didn't make anything more of it beyond the obvious connections of giant things with giant teeth chomping people and blockbusters, with Jaws, of course, being the reason that word exists.

1:05:35Adam Kempenaar:We revisited Jaws for its 45th anniversary in 2020. And with insights from that conversation still fresh in my mind as I watched Jurassic Park, I noticed the connections maybe went a little deeper. Aren't Jurassic Park and Amity Beach both essentially amusement parks, places for family entertainment, places for family entertainment that bring in or have the potential to bring in lots and lots of dollars that also happen to be wildly unsafe? you're responsibly unsafe, considering that in both cases, the decision makers have more than enough information to make the calls to shut the parks down. But Sheriff Brody succumbs to the pressure to open the beach, and poor Alex Kintner is sacrificed, just as Hammond's obsession to get his park open leads him to almost sacrificing his own grandchildren.

1:06:27Adam Kempenaar:Tell me, were you able to view Jurassic Park through a Jaws-less lens? And if so, did your strategy pay off? Or is it possible that your selective amnesia clouded you from further appreciating the work of Spielberg and screenwriters David Koepp and Michael Crichton adapting Crichton's novel?

1:06:46Josh Larsen:It sounds like I might have thrown you off by that suggestion. It sounds like I put Jaws in your head. And so now I'm curious to hear how that might have affected your viewing. I was largely successful. It required a lot of work. It was, you know, brainwashing myself wasn't easy because I've always found the parallels to be so clear. But whenever I would start to hear that music, that Jaws score coming in the background, I just, I said, no, I shut it off and I focused on what was on the screen and pretended like I was a kid who maybe did grow up in the 90s, had not seen Jaws, maybe knew nothing about it, and walked in to watch Jurassic Park.

1:07:35Josh Larsen:And I understand, I've always understood the appeal, the allure for the record. Both of us have always liked this movie. We liked it when we first saw it and have liked it largely since. I think what this allowed me to do was to look for other areas that I have maybe not appreciated enough about this film because I was spending time dismissing it in comparison to Jaws. And one thing that now this isn't a deal breaker, this doesn't elevate it to the level of Jaws, but you've referenced twice now, Richard Attenborough as Hammond and Adam. That was maybe my major takeaway from this viewing is that even separate from the Jaws comparisons, I love what you're you're bringing out there.

1:08:21Josh Larsen:In a way, he's maybe a version of the mayor, of Amityville's mayor, except we have an extremely complicated figure here, not this straight-up villain who we're going to get in later Jurassic films. These corporate CEOs who are clearly, even if they pretend to be nice, just avaricious, caring nothing for anyone. Here we have this grandfatherly, kindly, gentlemanly man who appreciates nature, who loves dinosaurs, who loves his grandkids, but is also a self-deluded, you know, the term we'd use now is a disruptor, right? A rich guy who thinks they can just skip the line because they've inherited, usually these guys inherit their money, and just wreak havoc for the rest of us by being dumb and rich.

1:09:10Josh Larsen:and you know there's a line that jumped out here in jurassic park hammond hates inspections they slow everything down and i thought of i haven't watched this yet but i was listening to a slate culture gab fest discussion of the recent documentary about that titanic submersible company the entrepreneur who he died with clients when the vessel failed and they were talking about how the doc brings up all of the safety regulations that were ignored in in the favor of speed and and profit, essentially. Hammond is that guy too. And Attenborough allows us to see that guy. There were more Hammond scenes than I usually noticed.

1:09:51Josh Larsen:And I think it's because I was looking for things like that to notice by putting Jaws to the side. I think Attenborough is very good in the performance and you referenced the ice cream scene. I think that's a key scene for it. This comes when - It's a good scene. Everything has fallen apart and he's there eating the ice cream because what does he say? Otherwise it will melt. And it's just like, it's binge eating, it's guilt eating, and there's regret there. But what does he also do in that scene? I forget the exact particulars, but doesn't he reference his future plans that he still has for this enterprise?

1:10:24Josh Larsen:So in the face of his grandchildren almost being eaten, he's remorseful, but he's not done. You're right. You're absolutely right. Harry Nedry was a mistake. That's obvious. We're over-dependent on automation. I can see that now. Now the next time everything's correctable, creation is an act of sheer will. Next time it'll be flawless. And this is the kind of complicated characterization that I don't think the rest of Jurassic Park has, that I think is strewn throughout Jaws, that every character has. Here we get it, and it's something I didn't give the movie credit for, maybe because I was focusing on the characters who didn't have it, and I missed the guy who did, which was Richard Attenborough's Hammond.

1:11:12Josh Larsen:So, yeah, I think I like the movie a little bit more this time around, and that was one of the reasons. I can see that.

1:11:18Adam Kempenaar:I really like the performance. I do agree that character is maybe more complex than I gave him credit for before or gave the screenplay credit for before. This is the third time, I think only the third time I've seen Jurassic Park start to finish anyway. I probably saw parts of it a hundred times when it came out because I was working at the movie theater when it came out. I am still chasing the high, I think, of that initial viewing. Based on the last two viewings, I do still find it thoroughly fine. And I definitely didn't have selective amnesia with Jaws when it came to that comparison. And you can compare Hammond to the mayor.

1:11:59Adam Kempenaar:Sure. There is another comparison I found more interesting. I'll say this, though, sort of big picture about the movie and touch on that comparison, which I want to dig into more. The effects, puppetry, animatronic and the early CGI remain movie magic. Yeah. Hold up so well. And as a cautionary tale disguised as an amusement park thrill ride, its intensity is undeniable. Though I'm drawn to the parallels between Hammond and Spielberg as obsessed visionaries bent on creative control. And that includes not just Spielberg himself, but the Spielberg stand-ins that are strewn throughout his work. that was among my big surprises watching the film this time and when we talk about these sacred cows usually when it's been 10 plus years we see those elements just like you were touching on attenborough watching through a different lens or just watching it for the first time in a while there are always things you didn't pick up on before or you just found more fascinating and i had three things we'll get into i won't go into detail on all of them now but there were three elements that really stood out to me and they all josh mark jurassic park as specifically spielbergian beyond just the craft of it which does make the film more interesting to me even if i'm still critical of the film and one of those things is is the jaws of it which we've already touched on.

1:13:36Adam Kempenaar:And look, I understand the challenges or the problems, the flaws of making the connection between Jaws and Jurassic Park or leaning too heavily into it. One of those is whereas there is some levity in Jaws, some levity in Jaws, there are moments of straight up comedy in Jurassic Park. It is a much lighter movie overall. And that could partly explain why some of the things I'll touch on don't pack the same punch. But it still is, in many ways, Jaws on land. Also, I understand the exercise that you were embarking on, right? Trying to kind of free yourself from seeing it through that lens. But I also think this can be a little bit misleading when people hear me say what I was doing or even what you were doing.

1:14:25Adam Kempenaar:I didn't have Jaws in mind at all when I watched or thought about Jurassic Park the last time I saw it in the theater when it was re-released in 2012. And I thought it was just okay then too, nor was I actively comparing it this time either. This is the stuff you're thinking about when you're processing your reaction and trying to understand why you're reacting the way you are. JAWS is just a reference point for helping me figure out why I'm not or what I'm not responding strongly to. It's not the reason I'm not responding strongly. And I think there's a key difference there. You said something interesting too, when you mentioned kind of putting yourself in the shoes of being a kid watching Jurassic Park.

1:15:06Adam Kempenaar:And you and I both surely saw, even though we weren't old enough to see Jaws in the theater, we both surely saw Jaws when we were kids for the first time. Though I don't think of Jaws at all as a kid's movie, whereas Jurassic Park definitely does feel like a kid's movie, right? Fittingly for Spielberg, he introduces kids into it. They're almost the main characters along with Dr. Grant. We experience the movie in some cases through their eyes, their sense of wonder, their sense of fear, certainly. so wanting more from it or maybe wanting it to be more serious like i do anyway isn't fair though even that's nuanced josh because you know jaws i don't think the r rating existed then or it definitely didn't but jaws was rated pg and it's still pg now if it came out now obviously it would be at minimum pg 13 yeah but i still think that jurassic park has to say it's a kid's movie is still difficult because it has more violence in it and more intense scares in it, I think, than Jaws does.

1:16:14Adam Kempenaar:I don't even think it's close. I think that T-Rex sequence alone is far scarier than anything in Jaws. And you may remember this when I took my kids back in 2012. Quinn was only about five and a half years old. Now, people listening may say, gosh, how could you have done that? Well, I hadn't seen Jurassic Park at that point in many years, right? Since it came out. So I didn't remember how intense it was. And I was taking his slightly older siblings and five and a half. That's the age when you get really into dinosaurs. I was really into dinosaurs at five and a half. He was super into dinosaurs.

1:16:47Adam Kempenaar:I thought, okay, I'll bring him along at the T-Rex sequence. He flipped out so much. I had to call his mother and have her pick him up at the movie theater before I could go back in and finish the movie. So I'm just saying, five and a half may sound obviously like it's too young to see Jurassic Park, but whatever the ideal age is, I'm going to say it's a lot closer to 13 than it is five. Okay. So, so kids movie. Okay. Sure. But in terms of that comparison, right, if we're thinking about it in its relationship to Jaws, because of those very clear connections to it, the satire element is there, But the commentary about putting economic interests ahead of public safety is nowhere near as potent.

1:17:35Adam Kempenaar:I'm not as attached, nor do I care about nor simply want to spend time with the characters, anyone in this movie. Asterisk, I'll come back to one of them. The way I want to hang out right with Brody and Quentin Hooper. the screenplay has it does obviously have a few very memorable lines and scenes life finds a way clever girl malcolm's big lunch monologue none of them really strike but the same force as some of the key scenes and jaws and then emotion too and i think this movie is going for some real emotional moments so i think this is totally fair and this will lead into one of my other big surprises despite a lot of very pointed attempts to play up Grant's transformation and his relationship with the kids.

1:18:21Adam Kempenaar:Nothing here has the same impact, at least for me, as, you know, Brody and his son at the dinner table or Mrs. Kintner slapping Brody. So this isn't the only level on which I'm going to be critical of this movie is just comparing it to Jaws. But since this is how we initially framed the conversation, I do think it's fair. And the connections between the two films are obviously undeniably there. Yeah.

1:18:44Josh Larsen:And to be absolutely clear, and this is where I'll close off on the Jaws things just for myself, is by no means did I come to this viewing and say that Jurassic Park is as good as Jaws and that I had just been nostalgic in my estimation. I think every point you made is true. I've written about at length about the ways it falls short of Jaws. And the word I keep coming back to in that critique is mechanical. Jurassic Park feels mechanical to me and Jaws does not. My exercise here was, again, to give myself blinders so that I could find newer things to appreciate. And to that end, it was successful.

1:19:23Josh Larsen:Yeah, and it was successful in new ways, new things I found, as I said, largely Attenborough, but then just re-appreciating and being able to enjoy the things I've always liked about Jurassic Park without a yeah but. And I do want to spend some time on the brilliant sequences in Jurassic Park, which I do think the filmmaking is on par with what you get in Jaws. And this time, those blinders allowed me to only think about them on their own terms, to notice maybe particular choices and decisions and techniques and notice more of them. That's what happened to me, Adam, is I noticed it's not just the T-Rex sequence, which I do want to spend a little time breaking down.

1:20:08Josh Larsen:It's not just that where I noticed Spielberg's prowess, but telling myself to just look for it in this movie, I want to bring up one shot. And it's a seemingly inconsequential shot. It happens early on. It's where Grant, Ellie, and Malcolm are in one of the tour cars going along the tracks. And they're looking out the window, and Spielberg chooses a profile shot. So we see all three of them from the side in the same frame, and we can see a little bit of each of their faces. And this is where that, you know, I think it's one of the clever bits of dialogue where Malcolm begins with God creates dinosaurs and then proceeds.

1:20:46Josh Larsen:Right. Right. Well, we get all their faces in profile. As I said, it starts in focus on Malcolm. And then there's a rack focus to Ellie when she delivers the punchline. Women inherit the world. We can see Grant because of the framing choice. We can see Grant, who hasn't said a word throughout all of this, smiling in the background. there's character work there because this is a dynamic among the three of them that's been back and forth so the shot enables all of that to happen without a single edit and then we get the camera pushing in on ellie and swinging around so it can fully face her as she observes something out the window this is just again it's inconsequential but it could have been filmed in so many other ways where you didn't get the suspense you didn't get the characterization You didn't get the dynamic among the characters.

1:21:35Josh Larsen:This is what Spielberg does. And this is another thing by being able to just focus on the text in front of me. At least I could say, you know what? Never noticed that before. But how many filmmakers would shoot it that way and how many would be as effective in what they want to convey? I think there's a lot of that in Jurassic Park, which I was happy to discover this umpteenth time watching it.

1:21:57Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And for all of the revolutionary techniques that he is employing in terms of the effects, how about the classical approach with subtle things like just using props? You mentioned the scene between Hammond and Ellie when they are talking over ice cream. And I think this is I mean, it's obviously a key scene. I think it's a really important scene for reasons that I'll get into later. But how does that scene conclude? That entire scene has been them having this dialogue where he is eating that ice cream and they've been in conflict with each other. And by the end, she challenges him enough that he does seem to come around to her point of view or at least seems to acquiesce to her point of view and understand.

1:22:50Adam Kempenaar:They come to a meeting of the minds by the end of that conversation. And so how does it end? It ends with her taking a bite of the ice cream. The entire conversation, she hasn't touched the ice cream, Josh. She takes a bite of the ice cream at the end. She comments on how good it is. He says a line about how he spared no expense in the scene ends like those little touches are there for a reason. They add those little character touches, but they're very subtly. But it's there. They're bonding over the ice cream because they have come to an understanding by the end of that scene.

1:23:23Josh Larsen:Yeah. And to your point, like there are many moments like that which don't rely on CGI or animatronics or anything like that and are incredibly effective.

1:23:32Adam Kempenaar:Now, let's talk about another performance or another element of this film that absolutely elevates this movie, even though, unfortunately, I'm also going to bring it around to a criticism of this movie. I'm sorry. Jeff Goldblum is Ian Malcolm. I forgot how much damn fun he is having. He is going for it. in one of his earliest scenes. It may have even been his first scene. I can't remember if it's when they get to the island or they're still on the helicopter. He punctuates a moment. He's delivered some line, and he punctuates the moment by almost doing a dinosaur impression. He kind of snarls.

1:24:13Adam Kempenaar:So you two dig up dinosaurs? Well. Try to.

1:24:24Adam Kempenaar:he snarls deliciously and he's smiling the entire time i think his character well actually i don't i don't see how you would argue with this because you can just look at the screenplay and it's there in terms of the smartest dialogue that lays out all the big questions of the screenplay as a cautionary tale all the man versus nature hubris man playing god conflicts it's really only there because his character lays it out. Every time he opens his mouth. Yes. Every time he opens his mouth. And I'm going to get to the other thing that's usually coming out. If it's not this, he is saying something very intellectually interesting.

1:25:04Adam Kempenaar:And you want to hear more. He has the smartest dialogue in the film. And when he's delivering it, like the snarl, he's making fun choices. Like the time when he pounds on the table twice to, again, punctuate little moments. And what is he doing when he's not being super intelligent, being the smartest guy in the room? Every other moment is him taking every opportunity to hit on Laura Dern's character. Of course. Adore it, right? Like, honestly, sign me up for the version of Jurassic Park, Josh, where Ian Malcolm seduces Ellie into being the next future ex-Mrs. Malcolm. I'd be on board with that version of this film.

1:25:45Adam Kempenaar:And all of this, all of this is why, though, it's absolutely unforgivable that they somehow made a choice to sideline Ian Malcolm for almost the entire second half of the movie. The only choices Jeff Goldblum gets to make for the second half of this film are variations on how am I going to sit up and groan slightly differently? Oh, what do you know? It's Jeff Goldblum still just laying there on a table, sitting up occasionally.

1:26:10Josh Larsen:it's crazy it's criminal so first of all i have to say his performance prompted me to google images search for the burt reynolds playgirl spread because i swear on this watch goldblum is purposefully positioning himself or someone is someone directed him to in the exact pose of that reynolds you're right you're right it's amazing and it's when he has the shirt open it's like That's just brilliant. And in line with all the other choices he's making as a performer. Yeah. Right. Interesting what you say about Unforgivable to Lose Him because do I want more of that performance? Of course I do. I generally agree with you.

1:26:51Josh Larsen:But Megan 2.0 strangely suggested something to me. Jemaine Clement shows up early in that film as very amusing, as like a tech CEO, rich guy. And it's a completely joke performance that works for me. I loved it. And then after two scenes, I think he's gone. He's gone from the rest of the movie. And for a while, it was like, oh, he's not going to be back. But then after the film, I was like, would I really have wanted more of Jemaine Clement in the movie? Like, does the movie really need that? And so Goldblum is far funnier here in Jurassic Park, but it's a similar dynamic where I do wonder if they'd given us too much of that.

1:27:32Josh Larsen:If he'd been keep delivering the same thing, it would have worn thin. I also know it does wear thin because he is in, I think, like five at least of the next Jurassic movies. And yeah, he doesn't need to be. So maybe this is all he needs to be in Jurassic Park.

1:27:49Adam Kempenaar:I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. One other element I want to touch on, and it goes back to the practical effects that are on display here. My favorite dinosaur. Did you go through a dinosaur phase, Josh? I imagine almost every kid does or a good majority of us.

1:28:07Josh Larsen:I think it's weird because I was obsessed with animal nature documentaries and watching them on TV. But I don't remember dinosaurs being, you know, one thing about Jurassic Park. is I feel that's when it became more popular for kids to study. And both things kind of happened side by side. So I feel like I was almost, you know, it wasn't as big. Obviously, if you were into it, it was out there and maybe you just had to search for it a little bit more. So I was like a nature animal kid, but I don't remember having a dinosaur phase, which, yeah, strikes me as a little strange now.

1:28:41Adam Kempenaar:Okay. Yeah. I mean, those were the books that I was drawn to when back in the day you had nothing to do except go to the library, right? In the summer, you'd ride your bike down to the library and you get books and I got dinosaur books and Triceratops was always my favorite dinosaur, which is maybe why I love the scene so much. And that's a Stan Winston puppet. And to be able to have this great CGI use, but also then have something practical like that, a puppet where you can have Laura Dern actually lay on the thing and have it, have it breathe and have it feel that he feels the breath in.

1:29:14Josh Larsen:And when Grant does and rises with the belly, Those are like those are like the wonder touches. Right. Which, you know, I want to talk a little bit more about wonder at one point. And I do think Jurassic Park probably has more of it than I gave it credit for previously. But yeah, finish what you were saying.

1:29:31Adam Kempenaar:Well, I want to pivot actually to those Spielbergian aspects. So do you want to stay on wonder before we get into that?

1:29:39Josh Larsen:I want to quickly note that and this is for, you know, film spotting family members. it made me think of one reason I was so bad at trivia spotting with the dinosaur speed. Maybe it's because I didn't have those books that you were reading. But I did enjoy, after that debacle of my answer, which I don't even remember what it was, about how fast a T-Rex can run. I did enjoy two references to dino speed in this movie that I'd forgotten. We clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles per hour. I remember that. That was the question you botched. Yes, that was it. It was the botched question. I didn't remember there was the other reference at some point about raptors going 50 to 60 miles.

1:30:16Josh Larsen:Right. So I was closer. You know, just double that. Yeah. No. And I was close. Quadruple that, Josh. Quadruple that. Quadruple? Didn't I say 200 something? You were like 212. Yeah. Yeah, I was a little off. I mean, I'm pretty sure. You know, I should have spent more time with those dino books. No, as a kid, the Spielberg thing that always got me, it's in E.T. It's gotten everyone is the wonder thing, right? And it comes in moments big and small. It's in that moment with the Triceratops we just discussed. It is in the way we experience the reveal of the dinosaurs for the first time in that field through Grant.

1:30:59Josh Larsen:And it's not just in the CGI. Right. It's more in Grant's face. It's in the performance, him and Dirk. It's in the performance.

1:31:07Adam Kempenaar:And you know that they're looking at nothing. They're looking at nothing.

1:31:11Josh Larsen:So that's what makes it even more incredible. It's little touches like the expression, yes, but the way he fumbles with his glasses. This is a guy who we've known to not be really a, you know, a fuss budget professor type. Like he's very precise. He's very serious. so to see him suddenly like kind of be flummoxed tells you how how in awe he is and then the choice to have you know ellie looking the other way and him have to gently turn her head to like so you could see what i'm seeing those are those are choices again to your earlier point no effects are needed there but it's incredibly effective and then even here's one where there are a lot of effects but the same sequence i think it concludes with this beautifully composed long shot of them on the bluff looking at this, you know, safari type display of dinosaurs down by a lake in the background.

1:32:03Josh Larsen:It's just beautiful. And that's where we feel like we're sitting next to them taking all of this in. So, yeah, I think wonder is something that is a through line in Spielberg's work. It's interesting. And this shows goes to the point of my underrating of Jurassic Park is a couple of years ago for the Thinkership Movie Club. We had a meeting about transcendent Spielberg. And so I made a video examining the motif of people just looking up, you know, close encounters, ET. You can picture them all. It's like saying this, right?

1:32:32Adam Kempenaar:Yep.

1:32:32Josh Larsen:The opposite of the Kubrick shot in a way.

1:32:35Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, pretty much. Exactly.

1:32:36Josh Larsen:And I omitted Jurassic Park. I just, I didn't include one from there. And I could have and should have as this recent rewatch shows, because we get a few beautiful examples of that.

1:32:47Adam Kempenaar:So maybe a different kind of wonder here, right? This is more wondrous in terms of the technical proficiency in the craft. You touched on it already, but I'm going to ask a question, though it is maybe a bit of a sacrilegious question, about what is an incredible sequence. Don't get me wrong. The T-Rex sequence is incredible filmmaking, even if I think Lex's light getting stuck on is really clunky. I'm going to say that first. The sequence itself is great. But my sacrilegious question is this. Josh, everyone points to how incredible it is. The thinking behind the touch Spielberg's decision to show that the T-Rex is approaching with the ripple of the water in the cup.

1:33:36Adam Kempenaar:I went back and watched this three times just to make sure I wasn't crazy and that maybe I wasn't being too nitpicky. If you or others think I'm still being nitpicky, that's fine. Okay. My question is, why do we have to hear the thump of the T-Rex coming so loudly in the sound mix when the whole point of the shot and the design is that the water ripples in the cup are indicating that something big is coming?

1:34:11Adam Kempenaar:It's so clearly there. It does get louder, but it's so clearly there. Why aren't we just why isn't the the boy? Why isn't the kid in this in this case? Why isn't he and us through him, his point of view, seeing the ripple? And then we start to I can't believe I'm questioning Spielberg as a filmmaker. I was surprised is all I'm saying, because in my memory, I thought it was all about the the visual of the water. And it wasn't.

1:34:37Josh Larsen:We hear the sound, too. It's what we remember. It's what people talk about. I mean, I have an answer. I don't know if it'll satisfy you. It's exactly something I noticed on this rewatch. And it is what I do think makes Spielberg as a suspense filmmaker distinct. And especially in light of the other Jurassic movies that would come after this one. It is patience. he has patience as a suspense filmmaker that few others have and so if you break down this t-rex approach because i think it's all about until the attack once he once it attacks i still find it thrilling sure you can question why does this happen would they really do this there's that sort of stuff but it's all the approach pre-attack where spielberg's genius is on display and it's because the patience he has to milk every moment.

1:35:30Josh Larsen:To me, the audio is part of that. I would suggest the thud we hear is chosen because movies are a visual medium. And so if you want to get every ounce out of this sequence, you start with only sound. And so there are, think of all the steps Spielberg takes before we get the money shot, the full reveal of the T-Rex. First is the thud on the soundtrack. And wouldn't that give them all the alert, put them on high alert right away? I don't know. If you need an excuse, there was a thunderstorm. Maybe it could be mistaken for thunder. We know it's not. First thing you get, thud on the soundtrack. Then is the shot of the water shaking.

1:36:15Adam Kempenaar:I was thinking about them in unison. Seeing the ripple, we hear the sound, Josh. Now, Well, maybe we do hear a sound before that. Exactly.

1:36:23Josh Larsen:The thud, we hear a thud before we see the glass. What do we get after the glass? We get the rear view mirror shaking. And this is just building. It's more. We're like, at this point, by the point of the glass, we want to see this dinosaur. I get it. We get the mirror. Then what do we get? We get a shot through the night goggles that the goat is gone. I mean, this is excruciating at this point. Then we get the goat's leg falling on the roof of a car. Then we get a shot of the claw on the electric fence. Then it comes. Then the money shot of the goat going down the dino's throat. So if you count the first element as that thud, it's one, two, three, four, five, six suspenseful elements before the full monster is shown.

1:37:14Josh Larsen:To me, that is ingenious. It sets Spielberg apart from other action filmmakers who would cut that. If they cut that in half, they're still doing something special to my mind compared to most like monster creature features we might get.

1:37:28Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. And I don't disagree with any part of that breakdown. I think I'm just suggesting what if you just moved number two in that order to number one? Yeah, I think you could still show that patience.

1:37:41Josh Larsen:Yeah, it would be patient. But it goes back to that idea of like, again, movies being visual. So you start with sound. Starting with sound is always going to be a little more mysterious to me in a movie. There's something cloaked if you're just hearing it. So I have to think maybe that's why that was chosen. But it only extends from there to the action, you know, the action blowout from that point when it gets bigger and faster and louder. Well, maybe a little bit disappointing, too, was the fact that he returns to the trick with Dr.

1:38:12Adam Kempenaar:Malcolm. later in the mud puddle.

1:38:13Josh Larsen:It's also the jello being held up at one point.

1:38:16Adam Kempenaar:I knew there was I knew there were three. I kind of like that.

1:38:19Josh Larsen:I kind of like that.

1:38:20Adam Kempenaar:It becomes a motif. I was like, OK, OK, yeah, motif or just kind of overdoing it a little bit. I definitely like the ripple in the water effect. So the second thing in terms of what makes the Spielbergian that I definitely would not have have ever glommed on to when I saw this movie originally is that father figure element that now we so closely associate with Spielberg. Now, I'll say this part first. This, for me, is another weakness of the film in that, this part, that I'm not totally convinced that Hammond exudes enough terror concerning the fact that his grandchildren are out there, he's lost contact with them, and they're almost certain to get devoured by a T-Rex.

1:39:03Adam Kempenaar:I know in that conversation he says to Ellie, who better to get the children through Jurassic park than a dinosaur expert. I know he's in a state of denial. I agree with you. You read on that scene. It's guilt. It's there, but he is still shockingly calm throughout this entire sequence considering what he has just put his grandchildren through. The entire emotional arc of the movie is really put on Grant. It's Sam Neill and how he evolves. Evolution is the word. He himself puts on what he sees he and Ellie doing, but particularly him. From this guy who beginning or in the beginning of the film can't stand even the mention of the word kids to then warm, compassionate father figure who is constantly hugging and protecting these children as if they were his own.

1:39:56Adam Kempenaar:It's about him coming to terms with being this father figure. And what does he not ever do? What does he not do that the lawyer, who's the only parent figure, right, the only adult in the car with them, what does he do? He abandons them, right? What is her phrase? Think about everything we know about Spielberg from his films and also from The Fablements. What does Lex repeat multiple times? Two different times, and she says it multiple times. He left us. He left us. And what does Grant say? He did, but that's not what I'm going to do. He steps up to the plate and acts as a father figure and doesn't abandon them.

1:40:40Adam Kempenaar:And that then leads to that third part. And that part that is the most interesting to me, maybe, is the Spielberg choice.

1:40:49Josh Larsen:Well, let me ask you a question about that. Are you saying this is something you newly admired or you found it to be thin? because to me, this has always been one of the more mechanical plot lines.

1:41:01Adam Kempenaar:It's a little bit of both. I find that the emotional weight of it isn't really there. Right. I find it mostly to feel false. I find it interesting to talk about in terms of Spielberg as an auteur. So there's that. But I do ultimately find it a little bit weak. I find this one stronger or more compelling. This part makes me want to go back to Jurassic Park or talk about it more. The Spielberg choice, this notion of art or whatever you're obsessed with, your work versus family. And I alluded to this, right, when talking about Hammond and Spielberg in terms of the parallel or Spielberg stand-ins.

1:41:41Adam Kempenaar:Hammond and I noticed this Josh it's something I just I thought about when he starts to take them on the first tour right and he's showing off everything he's the showman he's like a director on a set putting on a show everyone has to get in their places he's responsible for all the departments they all have to follow his vision he wants to be responsible for every decision every act of creation. And what does he want? He wants perfection. He wants ultimate control. And the problem is, of course, he lives in a world, he lives in a human world where that type of control, that type of perfection is not allowed.

1:42:23Adam Kempenaar:And that takes us to that, or it's not possible. And that scene again, that ice cream scene, he is all about thinking, well, all I have to do is do better the next time. I can control it better. And what does she say? You never had control. That's the illusion. It was all an illusion. Well, what else is an illusion? Josh, filmmaking. Film is an illusion. It's fantasy. It's not real. And when she says to him that the only thing that matters now are the people we love, it's not the illusion. It's not the art. It's not the flickering light on the screen. It's the people we love. That's all that really matters.

1:43:02Adam Kempenaar:And I think you could maybe even, again, just humor me here, okay? I'm not even saying necessarily that Spielberg's thinking about this stuff, but it's fun to think about. Take the analogy a little bit further. Even by 1993, maybe there was part of Spielberg that still saw himself as kind of the punk kid upending the Hollywood order, making obsolete all the legendary directors that he revered. Go back to what Ian Malcolm says to Hammond when he is criticizing him for the decisions that he's made and what he's trying to do. He says, you stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could.

1:43:39Adam Kempenaar:And before you knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox. And now you're selling it. You're going to sell it. And then that line. But your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could. They didn't stop to think if they should. he's responsible for the blockbuster movie. He and his friends like George Lucas, all of that merchandise, Star Wars, it's about the figurines, whether they intended to do or not. And all the merchandise, it's all over the logos. Everything's Jurassic Park, right? All the merch that Hammond has everywhere. As we see the camera pans across all the merch that's now not going to be sold before it gets to him sitting at that table.

1:44:18Adam Kempenaar:So forlornly eating that ice cream. And here's at least a case where the parallel is very clear, again, whether it was in his mind or not. There is a line I came across, Josh, when I was looking something up where they had a dinosaur supervisor named Phil Tippett working on the film, who is a longtime Hollywood guy, like a legendary guy. And I'm animator, right?

1:44:42Josh Larsen:Stop motion.

1:44:43Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Yeah. And none of his stuff, or at least none of these models, his go motion models were used in the film. and he saw some of the early work that was being done, the CGI stuff, Spielberg showed it to him. And guess what he said? I think I'm extinct. And Spielberg said, that's a great line. I'm going to put that in the movie. And of course he put that in the movie, Dr. Grant saying, I think I'm extinct. So, you know, there's that part of it. And even what you were saying about like hating inspections, hating the lawyers. Well, what filmmaker wants the suits to come around from the studio, right?

1:45:17Adam Kempenaar:Looking at what they're doing and questioning the choices they're making. And all of that seems still like something that I could very much see as part of his psyche as he's making this film and seeing the similarities between him and a Hammond-like figure. And I do think, Josh, to go back to your question about whether or not some of this works, to go back to Grant, when he makes his choice, and what Spielberg has him do, right, is drop the claw. He drops the claw. Which is his decision ultimately to show that he has accepted domesticity and he has decided to put aside his dreams of only being on digs, right?

1:46:00Adam Kempenaar:And being the best scientist in the world or whatever it is that he's now going to embrace being husband and father. I didn't buy it in this film, did you?

1:46:08Josh Larsen:No, no, no, no. And that's one critique I've long had that I think does still stand. Yeah, it's interesting what you're saying about Spielberg. And, you know, when I've when I've written about Jurassic Park before, I talk about how these cars are on predetermined tracks. They're in the park. There's no drivers. Right. That speaks to your point about control and how the movie does have a driver. It's Spielberg. and yet at the same time the predetermined path to me speaks to why Jurassic Park is a little bit lesser of a film in his filmography because it does feel just that predetermined in the themes in some of the choices in some of the characterizations and that brings me back to the you know the feeling of it being a little more mechanical than I would like from a Spielberg movie I still do feel that way about it even if I come to if I've come to appreciate it a little bit more.

1:47:00Josh Larsen:Also interesting what you're saying about the merchandising, because that jumped out at me too. And I was thinking, was this the first Spielberg movie that was merchandisable while it was being made? Right. In advance, they knew. You know, exactly. Because E.T. definitely became merchandise with the lunch boxes and all that sort of stuff. But that was after the fact. Even Raiders, which at this point would have been, what, 13 years old and three sequels. Yes, Indiana Jones got merchandised, but probably that didn't happen till Temple of Dune, maybe, or shortly after Raiders came out. They weren't thinking about it, as you said, while they were making it.

1:47:40Josh Larsen:And here it is clear that they're selling Jurassic Park while they're selling Jurassic Park. And so there's a level of self-awareness at play that I don't think his other films had at up until this point.

1:47:56Adam Kempenaar:Self-awareness, or you could say perhaps hypocrisy too. That's perhaps why the satire or if there is any satire isn't potent at all because they're, they're aware, they are self-aware that they're selling. And that's why even like, I don't think the opening scene, the opening sequence is that good, frankly. And one of the reasons I don't think it's that good is because it feels so sterile and artificial. It feels like it's done on a set. It doesn't have any of that kind of classic Spielberg authenticity to it. And everybody in it is wearing the exact same uniform with the exact same helmet. And it feels like they took figurines like out of the plastic and the vessels out of the plastic and put them on a set.

1:48:45Adam Kempenaar:and the models and brought them to life. That's how that scene feels to me. It feels so fake.

1:48:52Josh Larsen:It's tricky. I agree. It's not as strong as it should be to open up with the movie, though it does make two good decisions. We don't see much of the monster, right? And also the touch, the touch of having the one guy who gets it being dragged up and down. I mean, I don't know if I agree with you that Jurassic Park is scarier than Jaws, but that is scary to have this guy. like what why is he being dragged up and down why does that need to happen it's just one of those like you you inject like inexplicable elements into a horror scene like that and they become infinitely scarier because your mind is just like i don't know what's going on here now i want no part of it i did like that touch but yeah could have been a stronger opening for a spielberg

1:49:35Adam Kempenaar:monster movie for sure i mean we can save it for another time but josh that t-rex sequence is like eight to 10 minutes long. And once that T-Rex starts tearing apart the truck with the kids inside, what competes with that in Jaws for prolonged terror?

1:49:51Josh Larsen:Prolonged is a good question, but, and you know what? It's not fair because this goes back to when I saw Jaws, to your earlier point. It's like the bone chills from Jaws, seeing it as a kid, are so deeply embedded at this point. There's not going to be anything that's Jaws-like that's going to hit me that way. But I agree. It's like, it is a brilliantly sustained sequence. The patience that he takes to set it up pays off with the delivery, I think.

1:50:19Adam Kempenaar:It doesn't matter because the scariest thing in Jurassic Park is the lawyer wearing a suit with shorts.

1:50:27Josh Larsen:Yeah, bad luck.

1:50:28Adam Kempenaar:We can agree on that. Bad, bad luck. He deserves to get eaten just because of that. Can we agree? Sure. Why not? Jurassic Park is currently available on Peacock and VOD. We know you've seen it. So if you agree or disagree, and I feel like at least I'm going to get some emails. I love it. I want to hear why you love Jurassic Park. Oh, you're going to hear it. Please tell us. You're going to hear it. Feedback at filmspotting.net. Josh, that's our show.

1:50:58Josh Larsen:You can find Adam if you want to share your Jurassic Park thoughts on Instagram, Facebook, and Letterboxd as FilmSpotting. I'm at all those places as well. Blue Sky 2 as Larson on film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the FilmSpotting family at FilmSpottingFamily.com. You'll be able to listen early and ad-free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to FilmSpotting.net slash shop.

1:51:31Adam Kempenaar:We actually have a July 4th sale going on right now at the film spotting shop hats, t-shirts, stickers, magnets, you name it. It's all there. Film spotting.net slash shop in that film spotting archive. Lots of Spielberg sacred cows, including jaws episode seven 82 close encounters and Lincoln with Michael Phillips episode four 22 Raiders of the lost Ark, an infamous episode. the show's history. I mean, now Jurassic Park, me hating on Jurassic Park, may replace it because Michael famously doesn't like Raiders much. That's episode 413. Top five Spielberg scenes, episode 379. And then there's other reviews going back to 2005s or ranging from 2005s, War of the Worlds.

1:52:21Adam Kempenaar:That's episode 20 to 2022's The Fablemans. That's episode 900. hundred. Gareth Edwards, who made Rebirth. Well, the creator, we talked about that on 939 Rogue One, 615, 2014's Godzilla 491. Streaming or available VOD now. Josh, The Old Guard 2 playing on Netflix. I actually really want to see this. We like this movie, The Old Guard. We did. And this is the first time hearing of the sequel. Me too. Me too. It's the sequel to the 2020 film about a quartet of immortal warriors who protect humanity. Good news that Charlize Theron and really good news that Kiki Lane is back, among others. Director Gina Prince-Bythewood, not back.

1:53:04Adam Kempenaar:In limited release, you can see 40 Acres. This is a movie set in a famine-decimated near future about rural black farmers struggling to safeguard their farm. So this seems pretty intense. Matt Neglia from The Next Best Picture says, It's a gnarly post-apocalyptic survival thriller. And Danielle Deadweiler is no-nonsense and tough as nails. Did you see that coming, Josh? I mean, she can do anything, but still.

1:53:31Josh Larsen:Yeah, I mean, after her performance of the piano lesson, she's definitely a draw for whatever she's doing. And this setup sounds pretty good, too. So I might have to catch up with 40 Acres.

1:53:40Adam Kempenaar:Also being re-released in theaters, this is Spinal Tap. This was part of our 8 from 84 review, along with Stop Making Sense and Purple Rain. That was on episode 770 of Film Spotting. Yeah, great show. And I'm just going to say this real quick. This past weekend, the band that I've been in since seventh grade had to get together because we had a show Saturday night in our hometown. And just in case you thought maybe Spinal Tap somehow still wasn't relevant to bands or wasn't a film that most people our age didn't still adore. We might have sat there Friday night at about one in the morning, having a few beers and just watched a super cut of all the best lines and laughed our butts off Josh.

1:54:26Josh Larsen:So you do this after the show, not to get yourself hyped up to get ready to get ready. That's what I was wondering. That's right. Makes more sense. Did it pay off?

1:54:34Adam Kempenaar:Did you guys kill? We did okay, but we also did have some spinal tap-like moments on stage. It was fitting. Well, see, this is what happens. Well, it's really what happens when the performance is also your practice. Also out, you can see Video Heaven, a documentary about the era of the neighborhood video store from Alex Ross Perry. It's playing at Chicago's Davis Theater on Sunday, July 6th with a post-screening discussion hosted by critic Ignati Vizniewiczki. In wide release, you can see Jurassic World Rebirth. Next week, it's our top five films of 2025 so far and our Pantheon Project review of The Apartment for its 65th anniversary.

1:55:14Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe DeSoe and Sam Van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson. And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

1:55:34Adam Kempenaar:This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

1:56:01Adam Kempenaar:monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and for the first time, all in one place, the entire FilmSpotting archive going back to 2005. That's filmspottingfamily.com.

1:56:16Adam Kempenaar:The U.S. Virgin Islands invites you to explore the stunning islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. USVI is truly a one-of-a-kind destination with mouth-watering food, the warmest hospitality from the locals, vibrant culture, and pristine beaches. USVI has everything you're looking for in a getaway. And the best part? No passport is required when traveling from the U.S. Go to visitusvi.com to start planning your next vacation. That's visitusvi.com. USVI, naturally in rhythm. Okay, laundry stinks, literally. I mean, you could just keep buying new underwear. Not that I've ever done that.

1:56:55Adam Kempenaar:Or maybe sort your clothes into piles based on how re-wearable or filthy they are. Or just use Arm & Hammer Deep Clean. It's made for real-life stings and stains. So even if you don't do laundry the, quote, right way, Deep Clean will knock it out. I mean, it is from the number one liquid detergent brand that tackles more loads than any other. Come clean with Arm & Hammer Deep Clean. Number one claim based on total wash loads sold.

1:57:23Josh Larsen:This episode is brought to you by Bobcat. They started the compact equipment industry through grit, determination, and a whole lot of think we can't do that? Watch us. They set standards, broke records, empowered people to build bigger and higher, to dig deeper, to make the impossible possible. We've all been there, with doubters telling us what we can't do. Who cares what they think? We don't need their permission or forgiveness. We just get things done. So go ahead and doubt me. Judge me. Challenge me. But when the time comes, watch me. Bobcat.

1:58:01Adam Kempenaar:Hi, it's Kyle McLaughlin, host of What Are We Even Doing? You know, I've always believed the way you start your morning sets the tone for everything that follows. That first cup of coffee isn't just a routine, it's a ritual. That quiet moment before the day really begins. That's why I appreciate DeLonghi. For over 50 years, they've combined Italian craftsmanship, thoughtful design, and innovation for homes around the world. As the number one espresso machine brand in the world, they bring that same expertise to an espresso experience that feels effortless and makes mornings a little more delicious.

1:58:36Adam Kempenaar:The machine looks beautiful in my kitchen, but it's also incredibly simple to use. A quick espresso before heading out the door, or a cappuccino on a slower morning, it turns an everyday moment into something worth savoring. Dare I say, a damn fine cup of coffee? Right now, you can save 10 % off your purchase at DeLonghi.com with code KYLE at checkout. After all, if it's not Italian, is it even espresso? To learn more, visit DeLonghi.com.