Chasequarius

Love this movie, love the podcast! I DO disagree with the idea that Spielberg only plays with a handful of themes in his films, such as "daddy issues." It's why I think he's a more interesting filmmaker than James Cameron. Even though I love James Cameron, he still mostly sticks to science fiction and adventure stories (with a notable exception of "Titanic). Whereas Spielberg has made a variety of films from many different genres including horror, science fiction, fantasy, and adventure films, a David Lean-esque historical epic, a war film, a legislative thriller, a disaster film, animation, a terrorism thriller, a dialogue-heavy spy thriller, and a melancholy retro caper. His films involve ideas of empathy, scientific responsibility, whether revenge corrupts the soul, the search for a family, what true freedom means, how the democratic system can be used to awesome effect, and how a single person, choosing to do the right thing, can dramatically alter the lives for the better of a miniscule amount of people in his own little corner of the world. Again, this isn't a diss on Cameron, or anyone else plays in the sandbox of genre. I love James Cameron just like I love Joe Dante and John Carpenter and Sam Raimi. It's just an affirmation of Spielberg's range as a director (especially in the 2000's), and the fact that, like Hitchcock, we often take him for granted because he's been so omnipresent and so popular for so long. But, the dude's pushing 72! How much longer are we going to get to see new films from one of the great cinematic artists of 20th century? Let's all enjoy it while we still can.

After recasting "The Island of Dr. Moreau," I feel like I should cast the rest of the Shaw family too. I'm thinking Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell as Ma and Pa Shaw. They can be the sort of matriarch and patriarch of this crime family, all the while moonlighting as these Cambridge-educated pillars of the community (sort of like Gus Fring in "Breaking Bad). Meanwhile, as far as younger ass-kicking British women, we can only really go with the very ass-kicking leading lady of "Edge of Tomorrow," Emily Blunt as Maggie Shaw, avenging sister of Owen and Deckard. Or, if she's unavailable, we can always poach Rebecca Ferguson from any future "Mission Impossible" films, because God knows she should be in basically everything from now on.

Something that wasn't mentioned was the fact that several characters have names that directly reference "Jaws." At the military base, Fin visits with a "General Gottlieb." That refers to Carl Gottlieb, the screenwriter who is credited as co-writer of "Jaws" with the book's author, Peter Benchley. Speaking of Benchley, while I couldn't find this in the IMDb credits, I could have sworn I heard a character mention another character named "Benchley," I believe during the scene in the Capitol. Also, Chris Jericho's character is listed in the IMDb credits as "Bruce the Ride Attendant." "Bruce" was name that Steven Spielberg gave to the mechanical shark in "Jaws," after his lawyer (when he wasn't also calling it "the Great White Turd," of course--the shark was the bane of his existence because it kept sinking into the waters off of Martha's Vineyard).

First of all, I'm surprised everyone on the podcast seemed to enjoy this film! Maybe it was the late hour that I was watching it, but this film felt like a slog to get through. Anyway, earlier in the film, Ramsay's son (most annoying performance by a child actor EVER, by the way) asked his father if Lois would ever go crazy and try to hurt them. Ramsay said something to the effect of, "No, Lois would never hurt us." Did anyone else think that Luther would sneak one of those chips into Lois and get HER to try to kill Ramsay's kid? It seemed like that's what Crichton was setting up. But, surprise surprise, she never does. By the way, this is now the 2nd Michael Crichton film you all have done. If you all do "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" in San Diego, it would make it a trilogy. Just sayin'...

Fuck: C-3PO. Fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, which could make for some HOT dirty talk. Marry: Iron Giant. I don't remember enough of the movie, but he didn't talk a lot, right? Kill: Bishop. It won't work though, because the guy's pretty unkillable. I just know I don't want to fuck him and don't want to marry him, but I can probably "kill" him with a clear conscience. Okay, Fuck, Marry, Kill: Rosie from the Jetsons Kevin Spacey in Moon HAL [/quote Fuck Kevin Spacey: Haven't seen the movie, but it's Kevin Spacey, so of course Marry Rosie the Robot, because she seems like she keeps a clean and orderly house Kill HAL, because he won't open the pod bay doors when I tell him to Fuck, Marry, Kill EVE from "WALL-E" Jude Law's pleasure-bot from "AI: Artificial Intelligence" Baymax from "Big Hero 6"

Fuck: C-3PO. Fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, which could make for some HOT dirty talk. Marry: Iron Giant. I don't remember enough of the movie, but he didn't talk a lot, right? Kill: Bishop. It won't work though, because the guy's pretty unkillable. I just know I don't want to fuck him and don't want to marry him, but I can probably "kill" him with a clear conscience. Okay, Fuck, Marry, Kill: Rosie from the Jetsons Kevin Spacey in Moon HAL [/quote Fuck Kevin Spacey: Haven't seen the movie, but it's Kevin Spacey, so of course Marry Rosie the Robot, because she seems like she keeps a clean and orderly house Kill HAL, because he won't open the pod bay doors when I tell him to Fuck, Marry, Kill EVE from "WALL-E" Jude Law's pleasure-bot from "AI: Artificial Intelligence" Baymax from "Big Hero 6"

Like Cameron H., I got to this podcast around a year ago, and I've tried to follow along with the movies since "Glitter". Out of those movies, this is the one that has just made me angry--angry that I wasted time watching this thing. Damn you HDTGM for making me watch this!!!! At least "Ninja Turtles" had the Henson Workshop's wonderful puppets. In this, the robots didn't even look good. Nothing was suspenseful. This movie was completely devoid of interest. I'd rather watch "Glitter" again. A movie has never made me feel this way before! I hope Jason is on this episode and feels the same way. P.S.: If I WERE to recommend some HDTGM movies, they would definitely be "Deep Blue Sea," "Zardoz," "Birdemic," "The Room," "Sleepaway Camp," and the "Sharknado" movies.

I just finished this movie. I don't know if this is because it's 2:30 in the morning or not, but this movie is like, AGGRESSIVELY not good. Usually, I can find SOMETHING interesting in these bad movies, but I felt like this one was just stupid boring. This is the first time that I've fast forwarded through quite a few sections, because WHO CARES. It's like they didn't even TRY to make it futuristic. All the robots look like they were purchased at Radio Shack the morning before shooting began. Mind you, all 3 "Star Wars" movies and "Blade Runner" had been released at this time, and the first "Terminator" movie was released the same year. So it's not like the technology wasn't there. They KNEW how to do robots in movies, dammit! I can't wait to hear how the HDTGM crew try to make this interesting. It'll be a challenge...

Maybe those pteranodons were nearsighted and confused her for a fish? Ha ha, jk. I don't know. I had a great time watching the movie. I thought the characters probably could have used some more depth, and if I went back and watched it again I'm sure I could find plenty of weird plot things. But, as with any movie, I have to ask myself: despite any problems it may have had, did the movie ultimately win me over in the end? In the case of "Jurassic World," I'd have to say "Yes." If a film can win me over, I'll forgive a lot. As I did with "Furious 7." BUT--if a film's problems and inconsistencies overwhelm the picture, and I'm just left with a bad taste in my mouth at the end, I won't forgive those flaws. I try to look at the whole package I guess. Of course, what worked for me I'm sure won't work for others, and that's fine. I had a blast at "Jurassic World." Hopefully you don't look down on my film tastes too much! I promise I like good films! **cowers in corner**

Speaking on the idea of the British nanny dying in "Jurassic World"--Empire magazine actually interviewed director Colin Trevorrow on the Empire Film Podcast about that death: "We knew that it was the first time that a woman was going to die in a 'Jurassic Park' movie, that had never happened before. And we feel like we're an equal opportunity bunch of murderers on this movie, and so we felt like, all right, if we're gonna to do it, let's make it the most spectacular death that we could possibly imagine and it involve multiple animals from sea and air...You know, I like that moment so much, it really is a moment that articulates very clearly the kind of action and surprise that I loved and tried to do with this movie as much as, which is playing on the audience's expectation and jadedness even to storytelling. You drop her in the water and immediately everybody says, 'Ah, I know what's gonna happen!' But you don't! And the birds start coming in, and you get distracted by that, and suddenly what you THOUGHT was gonna happen happens [the mosasaur attacking]...We definitely struggled with how much to allow her to earn her death...But it the end, you know, I feel that the 'earned death' in these movies is something that's become a bit standard, and another thing that I wanted to subvert. And [we asked ourselves] 'How can we surprise people?' Well, let's have somebody die that just doesn't deserve to die at all. That happens in horror films all the time. It shocks me at times and I know it's coming!" The conversation about this happens at about 4:13 into the Empire Film Podcast's Jurassic World Spoiler Podcast.

Did anyone else think it was weird that not only the Turtles, but also the Foot ninjas were able to just waltz into a lab containing highly potent mutant ooze without running into any security? It's possible Shredder's team dispatched some because we weren't following them, but we were with the Turtles the whole time, and they didn't dispatch shit.

This was a great episode, partly because you guys touched on the idea of crazy ambitious, original projects failing commerically--which is something I've been thinking about a lot lately with the failure of both "Jupiter Ascending" and "Tomorrowland." Unlike a sizable number of critics, I actually really liked "Tomorrowland", but thought the plotting was a bit messy and they really kind of needed to rewrite that ending to make it work better. It's the kind of movie that I liked a lot as it is, but with another rewrite or two on the script, it could have been a classic. But even with the messiness of "Jupiter Ascending" (and to a lesser extent "Tomorrowland"), I'm glad these studios took a big swing at these ambitious, original ideas (or with "Tomorrowland," mostly original). It needs to happen more, and it breaks my heart when these cool ideas aren't embraced by the general public, either because they would rather embrace familiar ideas, or because the creators didn't quite know how to form those great, ambitious ideas into a simple, coherent plot. Basically, I'm a bit sad that the messy, but utterly charming and unique "Tomorrowland" isn't doing well at the box office.

I just wanted to link you guys to this Huffington Post article that was released in January of last year that included a little interview about the movie with the director of "Hercules in New York," Arthur Allan Seidelman. Interesting tidbits: The cab that Arnold lifts up is a real cab, but with all the insides taken out. Also--to quote Seidelman: the bear actually being a man in a bear suit was meant to be "intentionally obvious ...You’ve got to remember, this movie was intended as a spoof ... So I decided to do the bear sequence 'silly,' I’ll have to call it." Um, a spoof of what, exactly? Greek mythology? Bodybuilding? Did these guys think they were making a Mel Brooks movie? This ended up being closer to "Sharknado"--a movie that thinks it's winking at the camera, but is really just funny for all the wrong reasons: Anyway: here it is: http://www.huffingto..._n_4565069.html Thanks for another great show!

I think my dream cast (alive or dead) for this movie would be Philip Seymour Hoffman as Moreau (doing a version of Lancaster Dodd from "The Master"), Tom Hardy as Montgomery, Jake Gyllenhaal as Edward Douglas, and Zoe Saldana as Aissa (Panther Woman). And it would be directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Heck, Ron Perlman's already in it, so he wouldn't even have to create a character for him!

I was surprised you guys didn't talk about my favorite line in the movie, when Montgomery says to one of the manimals, "I want to go to dog heaven!", and promptly dies. Why on earth would he say that? I don't understand. But maybe I'm not meant to, since I assume it was one of Kilmer's improvs. Nevertheless, this may be one of the greatest last words of any character in cinematic history. I want it on a t-shirt, for reals.

Hello Paul, June, and Jason! I sent an email of this, but was told writing on the boards would be the best way to suggest a movie, so sorry if this is a bit repetitive! I wanted to recommend a movie to you all that I saw several years ago--the 2011 Amanda Seyfried-starring, Leonardo DiCaprio-produced classic "Red Riding Hood." It was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the first "Twilight" film, so it injects the Little Red Riding Hood with a teen romance vibe. But it also tries to have a little bit of a Angela Carter-ish vibe to it, all wrapped up in some laughable dialogue and over-the-top performances. I remember seeing it in a theater with my mom and sisters, and me and my sisters laughing a whole lot during the film. It received a paltry 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was named one of the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2011 by Time Magazine. Roger Ebert, who gave it a 1 star review, described it as "a movie that cross-pollinates the 'Twilight' formula with a werewolf and a girl who always wears a red-hooded cape, although I don't recall her doing any riding...it has the added inconvenience of being serious about a plot so preposterous, it demands to be filmed by Monty Python." Thanks for all the great episodes! Hope you "enjoy" the film, if you decide to watch it. I hope you'll consider it for the show!

Hey Paul! This is my first time commenting on the message boards. I'm a huge fan, and I look forward to hearing you guys discuss movies a few times a month! Just wanted to mention another of the many things in "Face/Off" that I found strange. It's been a couple weeks since I saw the film, but I remember pre-surgery Sean Archer saying that he wanted the face swap surgeons to not remove the scar that he got from the bullet that killed his son, because it was a physical reminder of his need to avenge his son's murder. After the scene where Travolta-cage appears before Joan Allen later in the film to convince her that he is actually her real husband, I'm wondering--instead of going through the rigamarole of comparing blood types, why didn't she just look for that scar on his chest? Since both Cagevolta and Travolta-cage kept their same bodies, basically, it would follow that Travolta-cage would still possess the gunshot scar in the scene with Joan Allen. She could have just checked for that unique scar that only Sean Archer possesses, concluded "Oh, maybe this IS my husband," and busted her fake husband Castor Troy. The film seemed to be pointing to that ending from the first moment Archer mentioned his scar. Hasn't John Woo ever heard of Chekhov's Gun?