The Bearded Trio

Reviewed by Patrick & Paul Gibbs   Out of Four 2015's   Jurassic World is a movie that has very much fallen victim to the "if it's so good, how come everybody liked it?" mentality, starting out as a literal monster hit that breathed life back into the franchise (even if it was heavily based on nostalgia) that received better reviews than either of the previous sequels to Steven Spielberg's classic. But the haters quickly took control of the narrative, and there was a major backlash against director Colin Trevorrow as he was branded the personification of white male privilege in Hollywood (and he made one incredibly stupid statement which helped fuel that, but otherwise it's really not fair to aim so much of the brunt of the anger at this very legitimate problem at him, any more than it would be to single out Paul Feig or Gary Ross for being white men hired to direct all female cast reboots.)   Jurassic World,  which was unabashedly silly (not the...

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Final Trailer Hits The Web Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment have released the final trailer for J.A. Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom , the fifth installment of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park franchise. What's It All about? It’s been four years since theme park and luxury resort Jurassic World was destroyed by dinosaurs out of containment. Isla Nublar now sits abandoned by humans while the surviving dinosaurs fend for themselves in the jungles. When the island’s dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event. Owen is driven to find Blue, his lead raptor who’s still missing in the wild, and Claire has grown a respect for these creatures she now makes her mission. Arriving on the unstable island as lava begins raining down, their expedition uncovers a conspiracy that could return our entire...

2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of one of Amblin Entertainment's biggest 1990's blockbusters,   Twister. In some ways Twister can be seen as the younger sibling of Jurassic Park, though it hasn't inspired the same fondness or enthusiasm over the years. This is to a large degree justified: simply put, Jurassic Park is a much better movie, and Twister has some serious story problems. Yet for its admitted faults, the story of a group of intrepid stormchasers also has its virtues. I saw it in the theater five times in the summer of 1996, and recently decided to revisit the film and see how it held up. While its faults are even more obvious in retrospect, I  believe that as an example of blockbuster action thriller filmmaking, on some levels it deserves more respect than it usually gets. of the 1990's, Twister 's biggest weakeness is its story, which lacks a strong structure and sense of high enough stakes.   We're given nothing more than a "re...