Daily Archives: February 18, 2025

Jurassic Park

From the Chicago Reader (June 1, 1993). — J.R.

Cloned prehistoric animals run riot in a contemporary theme park in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 fantasy adventure, which is less scary than Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark but still has its tense moments. Within the first ten minutes you can tell that the characters who’ll be eaten are the ones who exhibit greed — not that this makes them anything like the director, who positioned the movie as the central unit in a line of merchandise and even integrated its own advertising logo into the plot. The film’s ersatz moral, about the dangers of tampering with nature, harks back to The Lost World (1925) routed through King Kong (1933) and Island of Lost Souls (1932), though there’s more soul to be found in any Kong close-up than in this film’s overplayed reactions. Adapted from the Michael Crichton novel by Crichton and David Koepp; with Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough. 126 min. (JR)

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Escape From L.a.

John Carpenter’s long-awaited follow-up to his SF movie Escape From New York brings Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken to Los Angeles in the year 2013after an earthquake has turned the city into a postapocalyptic island of warring gangs and outcastswhere he kicks some serious ass. This time around, Russell seems uncomfortable in the parta cartoon of a cartoonbut the production design by Blade Runner’s Lawrence G. Paull is so attractive and inventive that this is probably Carpenter’s most visually impressive feature. And though the plot at times seems almost as mechanical as Russell’s performance, there are many delightful parodic episodes and details along the way. With Stacy Keach, Steve Buscemi, Valeria Golino, Bruce Campbell, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, and Cliff Robertson. Russell and Debra Hill wrote and produced. (JR) Read more

Baby Doll

From the Chicago Reader (January 17, 2007). — J.R.

One of Elia Kazan’s most underrated movies is his only pure comedy, scripted by Tennessee Williams and shot on location in rural Mississippi. Carroll Baker stars (in her debut) as a virgin child bride hitched up to Karl Malden at his most unsavory; Eli Wallach (in another debut) is brilliant as Malden’s business rival who manipulates both of them. Though this film was roundly condemned for salaciousness by the Legion of Decency when it came out (1956), its plot actually pivots around the ambiguous matter of whether sex actually takes place or not, and it’s the seediness of the southern milieu — Baker’s dirty neck rather than her dirty mind or morals — that seemed to have the censors up in arms. But it’s largely Kazan’s authentic feeling for the locale, aided by Boris Kaufman’s superb black-and-white cinematography, that makes this movie so special, combined with first-rate ensemble work. With Mildred Dunnock. 114 min. (JR)

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