Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: June 2022

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Lightyear plus Short Takes on Shadows and, as always, some other cinematic topics for your ongoing enjoyment

Unanticipated Ways of Finishing the Mission

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.

“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

Lightyear (Angus MacLane) rated PG 105 min.

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): I’m continuing to wait a week after an E-Ticket movie (reference for those old enough to know this term; otherwise, look it up related to Disneyland) opens so I can then attend an early afternoon screening with a greatly-reduced-collection of fellow patrons, hoping to reduce my exposure to the latest variant of COVID-19 which I’d prefer to keep away from my 74-year-old-body for my benefit and to help protect my precious-but-immunocompromised-wife, Nina (our 32^nd wedding anniversary coincides with this posting, although she’s pleasantly asleep as it goes live). So, next week I’ll get to Elvis (Baz Luhrmann) while this week I catch up with Lightyear, a sort of prequel to the Toy Story franchise as it’s about a movie character who was the basis for the toy that little Andy got in the first installment of that long-running, long-beloved tale of toys who come to life as long as they’re not in the presence of humans. I’m sure this will be on Disney+ at some future point, but for now you’ll need to watch it in a theater, which millions worldwide've already done.

Next, in the Short Takes section Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark (well, still just Ken at this point as Pat Craig’s off in Nebraska panning for gold—please don’t tell him he could have done better by staying in California but sometimes he gets a bit confused as to which state’s more likely to have shiny yellow treasures [maybe he could consider panning for corn?]) occasionally has requests to review independent films you’re more likely to see via streaming than in a theater which is the situation with Michael Matteo Rossi’s Shadows. (If you search for it through any other means than I note in my review just don’t accidently get the wrong one, as there are at least 260 movie titles containing “Shadows,” with probably the most-well-known-other-one also just called Shadows by another independent filmmaker, John Cassavettes [1959]—which somehow shows up on this list a few separate times.) Also, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you'd like to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, then go here.

Just before we get to the reviews, though, I wanted to quickly call your attention to an update on the latest hit song from the re-organized Supremes, “Where Did Our Rights Go,” which will now only be able to be heard when performed live in Washington, D.C. after they realized they couldn’t record it because audio technology wasn’t yet invented in 1868. (For clarity, this is a quintet because Chief Justice John Roberts joined them only in upholding Mississippi’s new law which outlaws abortions beyond 15 weeks after conception [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization] but not in the unneeded-added-on-part of that verdict nullifying the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision allowing abortions nationwide so that [horrid] historic change was decided 5-4, not 6-3.) OK, Red State readers, if you’re still with me, it's back to glorious-escape-from-reality offered to us by those cinematic wizards.

Here’s the trailer for Lightyear:

(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate

that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Opening graphics tell us that in 1995 young Andy Davis saw what became his favorite movie, Lightyear, with his joy enhanced in receiving a birthday present of a Buzz Lightyear action figure based on the hero of that story, which we’re now going to watch as well. In this animated feature, Buzz (voiced by Chris Evans) is a human Space Ranger in Star Command on a mission with his close friend/commander, Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba)—along with a new recruit, Featheringhamstan (Bill Hader), and a large group in suspended animation—to the distant planet T’Kani Prime. In prowling around this planet, the 3 who are conscious find it holds several dangerous lifeforms, including a plant-like being that also resembles a giant octopus, so they hasten for a departure which forces a risky takeoff. Buzz insists he can pilot their huge spaceship up fast enough to avoid crashing into a mountainside, which he almost does, but small contact shears off their necessary hyperspace module stranding all of them on the planet. Buzz and Alisha revive the rest of their crew who then set about building a habitat for themselves as well as trying to concoct new hyperspace fuel needed to leave their marooned state. After a year, Buzz (who forlornly takes responsibility for their mutually-imposed-situation) gets into a jet plane intended to take a speedy ride for 4 minutes, but his fuel mixture fails to push him up to the required level of faster-than-light-speed.

However, when he lands he finds his short exposure to the enormous rate which he briefly traveled invoked Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity so his 4 minutes corresponded to 4 years into the future for everyone on T’Kani Prime, a startling realization for Buzz but not enough to keep him from doing more test flights attempting to hit the needed speed, even though each attempt resulted in him moving another 4 years into his future upon his return to the planet (that's becoming an acceptable home for the others even as he insists on singularly achieving the original mission of getting this crew safely back to Earth). Along the way in these time-jumps, Buzz is given a companion of a lovable robot cat, Sox (Peter Sohn); Alisha marries a woman (!; they’re shown having 1 brief kiss!!), gets pregnant (!!!), has a son; yet, when enough years have passed Alisha dies with the mission leadership position passing on to Commander Burnside (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who’s comfortable enough with the entrenched colony (even as they have to keep chopping off the lengthy tentacles of those local beasts who keep grabbing the various human inhabitants) that he cancels Buzz’s project.

Sox, however, has found a new formula for the fuel so Buzz breaks protocol by jumping into a jet for another (unauthorized) test (shades of Tom Cruise’s similar tactic at the start of Top Gun Maverick [Joseph Kosinski; review in our June 9, 2022 posting]); Sox’ formula works, but this time when Buzz returns 22 years have passed, the planet’s been invaded by Zyclops robots commanded by huge Zurg (James Brolin) in a massive spaceship (looks somewhat like the Empire’s Star Destroyers from the Star Wars movies) hovering far above, with a small defensive squad consisting of Alicia’s grown-granddaughter, Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), naïve recruit Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi), and elderly-convict-on-parole Darby Steel (Dale Soules) ready for action. Buzz joins forces in an attempt to take out Zurg’s ship—thereby deactivating the combat-robots (like a similar plan in Independence Day [Roland Emmerich, 1996]). There are lots of battles as the story moves along, with one encounter resulting in Izzy accidently smashing the crucial hyperspace crystal so they find a replacement part in Zurg’s ship, but when they confront him they find that inside his large robotic armor suit is an older version of Buzz who used the hyperspace fuel to go far into the future where he took over this abandoned ship, its robots, and the Zurg suit, then traveled back to what counts as present time for our Buzz and his gang in search of more fuel so he could go further into the past, prevent the initial landing on T’Kani Prime, get everyone back to Earth. ⇒Our Buzz objects, though, fearful such a drastic-timeline-alternation will eliminate all that happened on the planet over the years, probably deleting Izzy from existence. The Buzzes battle individually resulting in the hyperspace fuel being destroyed, the elder Buzz seemingly killed, younger Buzz now willing to stay on T’Kani Prime as well as work together with others rather than needing to do everything himself so Burnside allows him (and his motley crew) to revive the Space Ranger Corps to protect this planet from outside invaders. In a brief post-credits-scene Zurg-Buzz revives, implying a sequel could be in future Pixar plans.⇐

So What? Well, we’re certainly in meta-territory here if we’re watching a movie (supposedly from 1995, so its visuals are intended to look somewhat out-of-date relative to what we expect in 2022 animation) that inspired a character in another 1995 movie, Toy Story (John Lasseter), thereby resolving any confusion about how the Buzz Lightyear toy in our known-timeframe could have been based on a character from our distant future (who keeps experiencing his own future as he puts Einstein’s masterfully-complex-theory into action by making time- rather than space-jumps) by letting us know immediately Buzz Lightyear has never been more than an animated movie character, either in human or toy form. Further, if this is Andy’s favorite movie, leading him to be overjoyed to get a Buzz Lightyear doll action figure, then it must be within Pixar's Toy Story universe, as well as seemingly existing prior to the events of the original Toy Story—the first feature-length movie created entirely by Computer Graphic Imagery (CGI), which, of course, contradicts Lightyear’s seeming-prior-existence, but we’re not here for philosophical debates, now are we? What clearly complicates this scenario a bit further is the inclusion of both the lesbian wedding of Alisha and a kiss (quick as it was) with her spouse, a “controversial” few seconds resulting in the entire movie being banned in many Arab-dominant-countries or at least led to protests from distributors in other nations, so if it’s generating this much hostility in China, Singapore, and the extensive Muslim world in 2022 you can imagine how unlikely it would have been for this shot to have been included in an actual 1995 Pixar movie (it almost didn’t make it into this one either as Disney originally cut, then restored, it after all the brouhaha in Florida about Disney’s belated-opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, resulting in this harmless-kiss-reinstatement). Also, there are many primary characters who are People of Color, another nice upgrade from many movies of 1995 (and beyond), including the entire Toy Story cluster.

As with most Pixar movies, especially those in the Toy Story collection (… 2 [Lassiter, 1999], … 3 [Lee Unkrich, 2010], … 4 [Josh Cooley, 2019; review in our June 26, 2019 posting]), in Lightyear we continue with some touching, human-interest aspects as we see the easy camaraderie between Buzz and Alisha (with the foundational “to infinity and beyond” verification of their mutual decisions) carried over to Buzz and Izzy, as well as Izzy’s eventual-ability to rise above various failures in her actions which she initially feels makes her unworthy of her grandmother’s name, then comes to embrace it again just as Buzz finally realizes he has great abilities but doesn’t need to assume every challenge must be met/overcome by him alone. However, for me, there’s an aspect of this movie which holds back my rating (unlike the 4 stars I gave to Toy Story 4 and would surly have given to the other Toys had I been posting reviews back when they were released), and it’s the same complaint I’ve had recently with Top Gun Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion (Colin Trevorrow; review in our June 23, 2022 posting), which you find laid out in clarity in the 2^nd item with this current movie in Related Links farther below: so much of what we see in those just-mentioned-sequels and (oddly enough) this current prequel is an obsessive decision to link what’s happening in the present story to a wealth of references in what’s come before on screen (well, technically, after, in the case of Lightyear); this may be great fun for those who revel in such Easter Eggs, yet for me it’s less about intra-series-continuity, more about creative laziness in just recalling what’s already been established in previous plots. Such references may be embraced by those who pride themselves on recognizing older elements snuck back in again; however, I’d prefer reduction of clever-cross-connections, expansion in a fuller sense of an original story vision (as I yell at the Pixar kids to get off of my lawn).

Bottom Line Final Comments: The CCAL generally agrees with me as Lightyear’s gotten a cluster of 75% positive reviews from those surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes, a 60% average score from the usually-more-reserved-folks at Metacritic (more details on each of these critics-accumulation-sites below in Related Links, as with anything I review) whereas the RT reviews for the 4 Toy Story movies averaged 99% positive (100% for the first 2) and the MC ones averaged 90% (which is an astounding set of scores for them ranging from 84% for … 4 up to 95% for the original). Perhaps The New York Times’ A.O. Scott gets better to the point of what I’m saying with this: “[…] the origin story not of a hero but of a piece of merchandise […] The Buzz Lightyear toy was meant to stick around after the movie had been forgotten, and to populate a richer, more varied imaginative landscape. [¶ … It] aims to please by pandering, to be good-enough entertainment. As such, it succeeds in a manner more in line with second-tier Disney animation than with top-shelf Pixar. [¶ …] Its purpose is to extend brand awareness, and to close a loop between the stuff we see and the stuff we buy.” Such considerations haven’t prevented audiences from buying tickets, though, as after just over a week when it opened in 4,255 theaters it’s already taken in $91.9 million domestically, $156 million worldwide. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an enjoyable trip to a cool theater during increasingly-hot-weather as well as conjuring up welcome connections to a related-story-cluster that was always heartwarming. So, as long as COVID’s not cramping your away-from-home-choices too much, I’d certainly encourage a screening of Lightyear; it’s just that there’s a lot of action-for-action’s-sake to pad out the running time, although the little Sox character is quite a delight (reminding me a bit of my own scrawny 2-year-old-kitty, Layla, who’s comfortably taking over our condo by one room at a time).

With nothing more of value to say (Oh, was there value before?), I’ll conclude with my usual finale of a Musical Metaphor, this one an unexpected choice as I was struggling to come up with something so helpful Nina decided to simply do a Google search for a “Lightyear music video,” which led her easily to “Infinity and Beyond” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiadoxxQsj0, a YouTube creation by NerdOut that well-captures the attitudes, imagery, sense of emotions in Lightyear so I hope you think it’s as relevant for this movie as I did. (Thanks again, Sweetie; maybe next week you should do the whole posting—which would be about a 20^th of the ramblings I subject readers to each week, but, global-audience, don’t get your hopes up, because she has other things on her agenda.)

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

Shadows (Michael Matteo Rossi)

rated TV 16+ 101 min.

This is an independent feature heavy on aspects of crime gone wrong as a young L.A. dope dealer comes across some high-octane meth, not realizing it was mistakenly sold to him by a worker for a vicious kingpin who not only wants his product back but is easy with anyone connected with the problem being killed (except his hitman’s secretly the boy’s uncle, so constant complications ensue).

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.

As noted earlier, director/screenwriter Rossi contacted me directly to inquire about a review of his latest work (earlier ones include a short, The Last Wish [2011], and features Misogynist [2013], Chase [2019], The Handler [2021], which collectively have won some awards but you won’t find much about them on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic although each—including Shadows—are noted on IMDb [along with his bio]), so with the infrequent opportunity to see something from a hardworking independent filmmaker I watched his latest (he feels it’s his best so far), am happy to call your attention to it if you’d like to see a well-acted-crime-story that’s always clear in its intentions but with lots of cold-blooded-deaths if that’s a limiting factor for you. What we have here is the tale of 18-year-old Cody (Rahart Adams) getting by as a small-time-drug dealer in L.A., frequently hanging out with a couple of buddies, proud to show them a bag of high-powered-meth he’s just scored, interested in a local prostitute, Michelle (Rachel Alig), a friend of his Mom, Jewel (Krista Allen), who’s told her fellow-working girls to stay away from Cody just as he has little use for her, angry that as a younger junkie (she’s sober now) she was a “shitty Mom,” let him grow up in foster homes which he resented bitterly. He pursues Michelle anyway, yet his life’s about to become more miserable than he’d ever imagined because his new drug comes from the gang headed by Nicky (David Labrava), furious one of his underlings sold off some residue of this new product, fearful that if its components are analyzed he’ll lose his monopoly on what he knows will be a lucrative product.

Nicky sends trusted hitman Dean (Eric Etebari) to clean up this mess, not knowing (nor do we at first) Dean’s actually Cody’s uncle with a long history of trying to protect his sister, Jewel, and now his nephew. Dean finds Cody and Michelle at a party where some local thugs are hassling him until Dean makes short work of them, then whisks the youngsters away, not letting anyone know he’s got a lower-torso-wound from the encounter. Away from L.A., Nicky’s wannabe second-in-command (who certainly acts as if he’s won the role, at least when Nicky’s not around), Axel (Francis Capra), tells Nicky of Dean’s family relations, then takes some thugs to the City of Angels to kill everyone even tangentially-involved with the meth, which, of course, results in even more bloodshed (not directly connected to this is a subplot about a guy, Cliff [Vernon Wells], who does business with Jewel and her friends [despite his need for a hot shower to keep them from gagging from the stench while in the room with him], then finds himself the victim of a spiked heel to the chest as he gets a lot more than he bargained for from Amber [Eve Mauro] and Ruby [Cathy Baron]). ⇒Ultimately, Axel and his goons catch up with Cody, his 2 close friends, Michelle, and Dean with Michelle and friend Mark (Adam Carbone) surprisingly biting the dust, even as Dean's seemingly seriously wounded.⇐

⇒But when Axel sends Amber and Ruby to finish off Dean they learn he’s just playing possum, kills them along with Axel and all of his henchmen, plus Nicky who came to make sure everything went his way (it didn’t). As morning comes to this gruesome night, we find Cody reconciled with Jewel, Dean seemingly now staying with Jewel.⇐ While Shadows resembles Jurassic World Dominion—to which I also gave 3 stars—a bit in that in the latter you’re soon wondering what sort of dinosaur will show up next to terrorize our protagonists while in Shadows you have to wonder who’ll be the next to die, especially when some we don’t expect to expire suddenly are gunned down, it’s engaging to watch . (Nina gives it her highest compliment: “I didn’t think once about what I’m planning for dinner tomorrow night.”) I think you’d find Shadows quite intriguing, especially the acting of Adams, Etebari, and Labrava, so if you want to explore it I know you can find it on Amazon Prime Video for a $4.99 rental (also seems to be available for the same price on Apple TV+ and VUDU, according to different websites) although you’ll find little critical analysis of it—RT has only 1 (positive) review, MC has none—but in IMDb’s External Reviews there are 9 of them (before mine added on), largely positive.

For my Musical Metaphor, I turned to Nina again as I was having trouble coming up with anything so she did another Google search, accidently left the “s” off, thereby landing on the song “Shadow” (by the Chromatics on the Adult Swim Singles 2015 album), used at the end of the “Part 2” episode of TV's revived Twin Peaks: The Return, also called Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series (Showtime, 2017, following the original ABC series, 1990-’91; song also on the 2017 Twin Peaks: Music from the Limited Event Series album), which I decided to use at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGUbo LZx3Tk for several reasons: (1) Although not as strange as any of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, Shadows does have a disturbing vibe to it that at best reminds me of aspects of Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) so lyrics like “We’re watching all the street lights fade / And now you’re just a stranger’s dream / I took your picture from the frame / And now you’re nothing like you seem” evoke a similar mood as you’ll find in Shadows; (2) The song's produced and mixed by Johnny Jewel; (3) It comes from Italians Do It Better Music, this movie’s from Italian Cowboy Productions; (4) The whole thing’s just too serendipitous to pass up, which I hope Rossi will accept (but if he doesn’t, I’ll call my uncle).

Other Cinema-Related Stuff: In quick fashion, here are some extra items you might like: (1) 10 Best Films of 2022 (so far, according to Variety); (2) Natalie Portman wants a Thor-Captain Marvel crossover-movie; (3) Why movie theater owners are finally feeling optimistic.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts.* Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

Here’s more information about Lightyear:

https://movies.disney.com/lightyear and especially https://www.pixar.com/lightyear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2zbjJC5iS0 (15:00 25 things you missed in the movie [ads interrupt at about 5:18, 10:20])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lightyear

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/lightyear-2022

Here’s more information about Shadows:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9854058/?ref_=nm_knf_i3

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/shadows_2022

Please note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post. You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow connect

with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews-academic-articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20^th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check-out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile (quite an eternal while, in fact, but maybe while there you’ll get a chance to meet Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, RIP). Ken

P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker (although, as you know, with bar songs there are plenty about people broken down by various tragic circumstances, with maybe the best of the bunch—calls itself “perfect”—being "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" written by Steve Goodman, sung by David Allen Coe). But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion/lover/

wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes/wanes over the months/years to come. But, just as we can be raunchy at times (in private of course) Neil and his backing band, Promise of the Real, on that same night also did a lengthy, fantastic version of "Cowgirl in the Sand" (19:06) which I’d also like to commit to this blog’s always-ending-tunes; I never get tired of listening to it, then and now (one of my idle dreams is to play guitar even half this well). But, while I’m at it, I’ll also include another of my top favorites, from the night before at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song “just a shot away” in my memory (along with my memory of their great drummer, Charlie Watts, RIP). To finish this cluster of all-time-great-songs I’d like to have played at my wake (as far away from now as possible) here’s one Dylan didn’t play at Desert Trip but it’s great, much beloved by me and Nina: "Visions of Johanna." However, if the day does come when Nina has to present these above thoughts (beginning with “If we did talk”) and this music after my demise I might as well make this into a somewhat-Top 10 of songs that mattered to me by adding The Beatles’ "A Day in the Life," because that chaotic-orchestral-finale sounds like what the death experience may be like, and the Beach Boys’ "Fun Fun Fun," because this gathering may have gotten morbid so I’d like to sign off with something upbeat to remember me (the Galveston non-surfer) by.

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 17,895 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Thursday, June 23, 2022

Jurassic World Dominion plus Short Takes on Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and some other cinematic topic

Adjustments: To Giant Beasts, To One’s Self

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)

Jurassic World Dominion (Colin Trevorrow)

rated PG-13 146 min.

Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Once again I’m using the wait-a-week-strategy for the big-opening-movie to calm down a bit, allowing me to attend an early-afternoon-matinee later with considerably-fewer-fellow-patrons to allow for better indoor social distancing while the latest COVID-19 variants continue surging here in my San Francisco area (thus, Pixar/Disney’s debuting Lightyear [Angus MacLane] will next get the week-delayed-review-treatment [although the bean-counters aren’t happy with its opening-week-take of “only” $50.6 million {globally $84.2 million}], so maybe my local theaters weren’t all that full for it anyway) while I catch up on Jurassic World Dominion, which should have no complaints after the huge stash of cash it took in over the previous few days (more on that below). As you likely already know, this is officially the end of the Jurassic World trilogy, actually a continuation of the previous Jurassic Park trilogy beginning late last century (more on that below as well), although the 6 movies in this series are a bit hard to tell apart in that they mostly consist of terrified humans running for their lives from rampaging dinosaurs who refuse to remain in whatever enclosures where we attempt to confine them. As usual with these stories there’s a lot of sound and fury, but whether it signifies nothing will be up to your investment in the latest version of these “creature features” about huge beasts making life miserable for us puny humans (a tradition that includes many variations on King Kong, Godzilla, and less-involving-creatures that at times have included gigantic ants, rabbits, or various residents of the deep bringing huge chaos to the surface).

In Short Takes you’ll find a review of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, an intimate, well-acted story about an older woman (Emma Thompson) nervously trying to upgrade her so-far-dismal-sex-life by hiring a charming, easy-to-look-at young stud to help her work through her mildly-erotic-bucket-list. For your further cinematic explorations, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site, offering a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you want to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, you can go here.

Before we get down to cinematic business, though, I’ll briefly follow up my basketball-based-comments from my previous posting, leading into the review of the National Basketball Association-based-Hustle (Jeremiah Zagar; review in our June 16, 2022 posting) with notations about my local Golden State Warriors battling the Boston Celtics for this year’s NBA title. Last Thursday the Warriors prevailed, taking their 4^th championship in 8 years (2 of those not really counting too much given injuries to their star players so that they didn’t reach the Finals in 2019-’20, 2020-’21 [even as they dropped the 2018-’19 Finals, likely due to losing the skills of Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson in Games 5 and 6 also to injuries]) and fabulous superstar Stephen Curry (holding the trophy in the photo just above) finally winning the honor of NBA Finals Most Valuable Player. Very satisfying (except to all of my New England in-laws, I’m sure, but they shouldn’t forget the Celtics have 17 previous NBA titles whereas Golden State has just 7, so we’ve still got a long way to go to catch up).

Here’s the trailer for Jurassic World Dominion:

(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate

that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: As a brief opening TV news story explains, Earth's become overrun with a huge variety of cloned-dinosaurs that escaped from the Lockwood Estate (animals first developed decades ago by International Genetics Technologies, Inc.—InGen) which are slowly being captured by the Biosyn Corporation—Biosyn—run by Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), then sent to Biosyn’s sanctuary in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains where, supposedly, they’re being studied to find cures for human diseases, yet paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is concerned huge prehistoric locusts are decimating crops except those grown with Biosyn seed setting up a situation where this corp. could control Earth’s food supply so she tracks down former colleague (more than that if their connection in Jurassic Park [Steven Spielberg, 1993] was any indication, although she’s now divorced) paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill)—who never married, apparently hasn’t seen Ellie for years—for help in getting locust DNA from Biosyn to prove her theory, with access to this secure company offered by another former-colleague, now working at Biosyn, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), likewise suspicious about what’s happening at Biosyn. Meanwhile, at a remote location in the Sierra Nevada mountains former Jurassic World operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and former Jurassic World Velociraptor trainer/now-stray dinosaur-captor Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) are trying as hard as they can to be surrogate parents for rebellious teenager Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), an invaluable-scientific-entity because she seems to have been cloned from her mother, Charlotte, with bounty-hunters for Biosyn looking to capture both Maisie and Beta, a little Raptor child of Blue, also in this area, who's still responsive to Owen’s previous training.

One day the bounty hunters are successful, capturing Maisie and Beta, with Owen and Claire in desperate pursuit, which, through a clandestine tip, takes them to Malta where they infiltrate a dinosaur black market, learn the captives are being taken to the Italian Biosyn compound, then convince dubious pilot Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise), ultimately-receptive to Maisie's plight, to fly them there too. Ellie and Alan are welcomed at the Italian Biosyn HQ where, with Malcolm’s help, they sneak into the locust lab, get the needed DNA sample, hurriedly leave where they encounter also-escaping Maisie and Beta. They all get out of the compound’s main building as Dodgson sets the locust lab on fire to destroy evidence, but as the fiery bugs swarm out of the enclosure they set the neighboring forest on fire even as they die. Parallel to all of this (keeping up with this plot while watching it isn’t the easiest task you’d ever have; I’ve left out a good bit) Kayla’s plane’s attacked by flying Quetzalcoatluses, forcing her to crash after ejecting Claire whose goal is to find Maisie, but first Claire has to dodge a huge, feathered Therizinosaurus in the jungle even as Kayla and Owen escape both a lake’s thin ice and an equally-feathered, dangerous Pyroraptor. Alan, Ellie, and Maisie have to produce their own escape from Dimetrodons in a tunnel, then meet up with escaping Malcolm and secret-helper-Ramsay Cole (Mamoudou Athie)—both fired by a furious Dodgson—as well as Owen, Claire, and Kayla (plus a now-subdued Beta). ⇒As chaos overtakes the complex, Dodgson tries to escape until a power-shutdown allows him to be killed by some Dilophosaurus, even as our protagonist-group confronts a huge Giganotosaurus, eventually killed by the teamwork of the Therizinosaurus and ever-present-champion-dino of these movies, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, allowing our humans to fly away by helicopter. Ellie and Alan reconnect, testify against Biosyn along with Malcolm and Cole; Owen, Claire, and Maisie return home, reunite Blue with Beta; Wu develops a pathogen to eradicate the locusts; the United Nations declares the Biosyn property as a dinosaur sanctuary; overall, in final scenes roaming dinos in the wild learn to coexist with modern animals.⇐

So What? While the short news report at the beginning of … Dominion gives an audience enough information about what’s going on here (dinosaurs have escaped from the Lockwood estate in northern CA, spread all over the globe where they generally avoid human habitations but still disrupt our lives anyway) so that you can get what you need from just watching this movie without knowing any of its heritage, you might want to be better versed (or reminded) of what’s come before; therefore, I’ll offer a collection of suggestions for those who desire to dig in a bit deeper. If so, you can start with this detailed video (24:44 [ads interrupt at about 6:25, 11:20, 16:35]) which addresses the entire franchise, then maybe follow that up with another video (15:09 [ads interrupt at about 5:10, 10:55]) noting 25 things viewers probably missed upon an initial screening (this one has Spoilers about … Dominion, though). Now, if you want even more detail one option would be this link which explores the entire franchise (including novels and other aspects beyond just the 6 movies) in extensive detail overall but for fuller details on the movies themselves you’ll need to visit sites for Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)—these 2 were based on popular novels by Michael Crichton (1990, 1995)—Jurassic Park III (Joe Johnston, 2001), Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015), and (join me for) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (J.A. Bayona, 2018).*

*While I offered a 3½ stars review to Jurassic World I skipped … Fallen Kingdom, probably because I’d had enough of big-screen-dinosaurs at that time and was put off by the OCCU’s dismissals (Rotten Tomatoes 47% positive reviews, Metacritic 51% average score, although those numbers look good now given the notably-lower-current-ones given to … Dominion [more on that abyssmally-dismissive-situation in this review’s next section, just below]) so I needed the various info sources cited above to fully understand how the dinosaurs got from islands off Costa Rica to North America (then onward globally) and what was the full background of Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon then as well, who simply grew into her teenager-role in this nonstop-action-franchise-finale).

Admittedly, once you have all of this information you may feel as data-overwhelmed as I do about all of these recreated-dinosaurs and their constant fatal encounters with each other as well as humans who don’t move as fast as the stars of these movies (appropriate term in these cases) along with using those first couple of links above to see how intentionally-repetitious this latest-franchise-entry is, especially in connection with the original Jurassic Park, mirroring a complaint I explored in my review of Top Gun: Maverick about a current movie connecting itself too consciously, too frequently to aspects of its original. That problem (for me) held back my rating of … Maverick, has the same result here but even more so as this stuff’s been rambling on for 5 repetitions now, which look great on screen as action scenes, given their visual-virtuosity, but get tiresome as one primary human after another has to outsmart/outrun yet another (or more) of these dominating-ancient-animals (yet, I do appreciate the director's comments [3:21] about Howard’s close call with the Therizinosaurus, one of the quieter-encounters any human has with any of these beasts throughout the lengthy-franchise).

To cap off this section of comments, for the benefits of those who, like me, didn’t see … Fallen Kingdom, in that it flows directly into the events of … Dominion (with a 4-year-gap mirroring the release years of the 2 movies), Maisie is truly the granddaughter of Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell, in that previous episode)—original partner of the island-based-Jurassic Park, owned by John Hammon (Richard Attenborough)—because her mother, Charlotte Lockwood (Elva Trill), somehow brought her about as an “immaculate conception,” not as a clone of Charlotte as had been previously understood. While that reality was fascinating for Dr. Wu, his true interest in Maisie is to somehow understand how Charlotte had managed gene-manipulation in the girl to save her from the inherited-disease that killed Charlotte, all leading to his hopes of genetically-modifying those ancient-locusts to save the world from crop annihilation. Yet, there’s also a fierce interest in understanding how the female Velociraptor, Blue, could have asexually produced little Beta. Nevertheless, that sort of thing’s been going on since Jurassic Park due to how these manufactured-dinosaurs have been completed with frog or lizard DNA so I don’t quite follow why Beta was of such interest to Dr. Wu, given he was around in Jurassic Park where he’s the one responsible for creating the original generation of cloned-dinosaurs (further, there would seem to be a lot more dinos now inhabiting Earth than those escaped from the Lockwood compound so these female-only-births would seem to have been more of a norm than … Dominion cares to admit). Finally, if you’ve seen only Jurassic Park you might wonder why Dr. Dodgson has the false can of shaving cream, intended to hold dino embryos, that Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) lost in the mud back in the franchise’s original movie when he was on his way to deliver his stolen goods to Dodgson (played back then by Cameron Thor); from what I’ve read, Dodgson was able to find that can later, giving him further opportunities to work with Dr. Wu to keep producing new variations of these ancient beasts, as the years moved on.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Despite my rather blasé response to Jurassic World Dominion with its constant scenes of main characters having to somehow escape from dinosaurs (although I did appreciate seeing all of these stars from the 2 parts of this interconnected-trilogy finding opportunities to eventually work together to once again bring about some inter-species-harmony [or at least the option of ceasing the slaughter of homo sapiens-interlopers into the domains of the resurrected-“thunder lizards”]), I’m considerably more accepting of this Jurassic … finale than the OCCU where those at Rotten Tomatoes are only able to provide 30% positive reviews while their compatriots at Metacritic are surprisingly-more-supportive for a change (but not by much) with their 38% average score (more details in the links to these critics’-accumulation-sites, as I provide with anything I review, in Related Links much farther below), giving no one who reads their reviews much reason to even bother considering paying good money for tickets to this overblown mess as the OCCU sees it; for example, noted film explorer Leonard Maltin says: “This is not a story that begged to be told or a saga that demanded a finale. It’s another dispiriting example of how Hollywood never leaves money on the table. As long as moviegoers will pay to see people in peril from scary prehistoric creatures there are people who will provide them with what they want: more of the same. It’s just a shame that so much talent is wasted in the process.” So, my 3 of 5 stars (60%—or even higher with the understanding that I rarely go above 4 stars) is actually more supportive than the critical-norm, even though beyond the visceral experience of seeing these huge beasts in motion once again along with clever-human-strategies—or just dumb luck—in avoiding being eaten is just a satisfactory thrill ride, especially if you’re paying cheap-bargain-matinee-prices.

I don’t know how many of the worldwide audiences who forked over cash for this Jurassic World … got a good deal on their ticket-purchases, but plenty of them have found their way to the huge onslaught of 4,676 domestic theaters on debut weekend, yielding $249.8 million in revenue from that base, with the global tally up to $623.3 million, likely already showing a profit despite the costly $185 million in production costs plus probably about that much again in huge marketing/distribution bucks.

(A nice trick of objects-placement: dino's closer to the camera, not really about to eat Chris Pratt.)

Well, that’s more than enough chatter about something that at best will please the Jurassic Park/ World fanboys (and girls) but add little to cinematic history except for its continuance of impressive computer-generated-imagery, so let’s wrap up with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor which stumped me for awhile in coming up with something that truly relates to this movie. Obviously, the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” title says what all of the human characters (and a few animal sacrifices) are desperate to achieve in all of these movies but the lyrics have no other connection (unless you want to argue that “The New York Times’ effect on man” relates to dinosaurs because newspapers are an example of “dinosaur media”) so I kept trying to come up with something else, finally settled on The Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” (a hit single in the U.K., on the U.S. 1966 Yesterday and Today album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyclqo_AV2M due to Dr. Malcolm’s beliefs that we humans don’t have dominion over other creatures on our planet (despite some religions’ texts saying otherwise), that nature has dominion over us so we need to live in harmony with our fellow beings (“Life is very short and there’s no time / For fussing and fighting, my friend / I have always thought that it’s a crime / So, I will ask you once again / Try to see it my way / Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong / While you see it your way / There’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long / We can work it out”) as shown in the movie’s final shots of various dinosaurs co-existing with our time’s sea and land creatures. (Oops, Spoiler! Sorry.) It’s an optimistic hope—especially given we don’t see any harmonious situations with the flesh-eaters—so at least this (successfully) monetarily-directed-story offers something useful about the needed sense of universal cooperation in just our own existence to keep human life functional without the need for introducing dinosaurs into the mix.

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde)

rated R 1:38 min.

An aging widow who’s had an almost-nonexistent-sex-life hires a hot young male sex worker to try to help her loosen up; however, she’s so nervous and hesitant they almost never begin even as he’s supportive, encouraging which helps her finally ease into what she’s paid for, although she almost ruins it by talking too much about herself plus trying to pry into his past, a move he angrily opposes.

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.

Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) is a widow in her early 60s who’s never had an orgasm (sex life with her former husband was of the boring rote variety; for his benefit, she faked) who’s hired a young, studly male sex worker, Leo Grande (Daryl McCormick), to help her get over her self-imposed body-shaming/reluctance to experience passion so they meet in an upscale-hotel-room where she’s nervous, second-guessing her plan while he’s calm, encouraging, determined to help her fulfill her fantasies (which she’s listed carefully, showing her former occupation as a secondary-level-schoolteacher—about religious education!). She admits she’s disappointed with her adult children whom she finds to be boring (they see her as cold) while he admits he lies to his mother about his profession, instead telling her he’s an oilrig worker. Nancy’s only true prior sensual experience was when she was a teenager on vacation with her parents in Greece, seduced for a bit in private by an older hotel worker who quickly scooted off when he heard someone talking nearby.

After a successful-enough-encounter with Leo on their first meeting, she books another session, same place, a week later, but now she’s interrupted by phone calls from her needy daughter until she becomes aroused by Leo’s sincere admission he gets comfort from giving pleasure to his clients, finally gives him a blowjob. When he’s back again a week later she gets pushy, wants to continue seeing him as a friend, reveals she looked him up on the Internet (real name: Connor), wants him to be honest with Mom; he’s offended by the privacy-invasion, tells her never to contact him again, storms out, but comes back to get his forgotten cell phone, admits his mother disowned him at age 15, tells people he’s dead. Another week goes by, Nancy books Leo again, but they meet at the hotel restaurant so she can apologize, say a quieter goodbye, admits her real name is Susan Robinson (any assumption this is intended as an allusion to The Graduate [Mike Nichols, 1967] is yours to make if you wish), has recommended him to several of her friends whom she believes could benefit from his services; he admits his disownment was because his mother caught him having group sex with friends, although he’s now starting to make some contact with his estranged brother. Their waitress, Becky (Isabella Laughland), turns out to be one of Nancy/Susan’s former students, chastised as a “slut,” so the older woman offers further apologies, even recommends Leo to Becky. ⇒Soon “Nancy” and “Leo” are upstairs again for the rest of her list, although still no orgasm until she watches his nude presence, masturbates, then she finally comes. He leaves the next morning, their relationship pleasantly ended; she looks, not so disapprovingly, at her nude body in the mirror.⇐

Good Luck … is about as straightforward a story as you can imagine with no enhancements from flashbacks, subplots, or brief scenes away from the hotel to “open up” the narrative (as is often the case when plays are adapted to the big screen, although that’s not the situation here as Katy Brand’s screenplay is simply appropriate to COVID-imposed-production-restrictions where setting and cast needed to be as restrictive as possible). So, it all comes down to the exquisite acting ability of a 63-year-old-pro (long successful career including a Best Actress Oscar for Howard’s End [James Ivory, 1992] and a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Sense and Sensibility [Ang Lee, 1995]) and a emerging 29-year-old who’s been in a few films and TV productions, nothing I’ve seen (but I hope he’ll be cast again and again in the future), with both leads giving us reason to stay attuned to their dialogue, whether of comic or serious nature. The CCAL’s in solid agreement on the fine merits of this intimate experience, with RT reviews at 95% positive, the MC average score at 78% (one of their highest for 2022 releases both they and I have attended to). To see Good Luck to You, Leo Grande you’ll have to stream it on Hulu ($6.99 monthly, no extra charge for this film). As for a Musical Metaphor, I’m immediately reminded of the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited” (on their 1982 So Excited! Album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iwBM_YB1sE (their official music video for the song which begins with seeming-preparations for sex but actually’s about a wild night at a club [sexiness at least implied there, though]) with the song’s lyrics more blatant than what I suppose they wouldn’t show in that video: “Tonight’s the night we’re gonna make it happen / Tonight we’ll put all other things aside / Give in this time and show me some affection / We’re going for those pleasures in the night.” Nancy finally got her full dose of pleasures in the night, apparently now ready to fend for herself as she moves on, either with a future partner or, quite capably, by herself.

Other Cinema-Related Stuff: (1): What held Lightyear back from a bigger opening?

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys reviews for our past posts.* Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

Here’s more information about Jurassic World Dominion:

https://www.jurassicworld.com (click the 3 little bars in the upper-left-corner for options)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJXrCtQAYDs (19:08 paleontologist Mark Loewen of the U. of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah reviews dinosaur movie scenes from the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World series and others, noting numerous problems in most of the depictions

[ad interrupts at about 11:28])

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jurassic_world_dominion

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/jurassic-world-dominion

Here’s more information about Good Luck to You, Leo Grande:

https://www.hulu.com/movie/good-luck-to-you-leo-grande-b0243a6c-8add-4d53-a234-05a255c8989f?utm_source=Searchlight&utm_medium=Search&utm_campaign=LeoGrande&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1Yz_sNu6-AIVvMLCBB1WyATXEAAYASAAEgK5YfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds (despite this “grande” URL this isn’t much of an official website, more of a sign-in to watch on Hulu, so you might try https://www.leograndefilm.co.uk even if you’re not in the U.K. or Ireland because those 3 little upper-left-corner-bars seem to get you more info from wherever you might be viewing this blog)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DpG8CGkSrY (6:52 interview with actors Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/good_luck_to_you_leo_grande

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/good-luck-to-you-leo-grande

Please note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post. You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow connect

with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a bit of a mystery to us old farts).

P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker (although, as you know, with bar songs there are plenty about people broken down by various tragic circumstances, with maybe the best of the bunch—calls itself “perfect”—being "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" written by Steve Goodman, sung by David Allen Coe). But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion/lover/

wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes/wanes over the months/years to come. But, just as we can be raunchy at times (in private of course) Neil and his backing band, Promise of the Real, on that same night also did a lengthy, fantastic version of "Cowgirl in the Sand" (19:06) which I’d also like to commit to this blog’s always-ending-tunes; I never get tired of listening to it, then and now (one of my idle dreams is to play guitar even half this well). But, while I’m at it, I’ll also include another of my top favorites, from the night before at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song “just a shot away” in my memory (along with my memory of their great drummer, Charlie Watts, RIP). To finish this cluster of all-time-great-songs I’d like to have played at my wake (as far away from now as possible) here’s one Dylan didn’t play at Desert Trip but it’s great, much beloved by me and Nina: "Visions of Johanna" However, if the day does come when Nina has to present these above thoughts (beginning with “If we did talk”) and this music after my demise I might as well make this into a somewhat-Top 10 of songs that mattered to me by adding The Beatles’ "A Day in the Life," because that chaotic-orchestral-finale sounds like what the death experience may be like, and the Beach Boys’ "Fun Fun Fun," because this gathering may have gotten morbid so I’d like to sign off with something upbeat to remember me (the Galveston non-surfer) by.