Jurassic Park 3
Fucking Dipshit Suzanne. If my life were a big ass, which is a pretty accurate description what with the valleys stinking and all, Dipshit Suzanne would be the festering hemorrhoid on it. Every time I sit on the ass of my life, there she is, a royal pain, swelling, bleeding and oozing her particularly cheesy pus.
And just when I think my Dipshit Suzanne problem's in the past, I sit down and wham, I've got a pain in the ass. Last week, I found another of Mrs. Filthy's secret cash stashes (in the vegetable cooler) and celebrated by challenging myself to see how many bacon cheeseburgers I could eat at Wendy's. Who should I see there stuffing her greasy face with cold fries? My hemorrhoid. And when I went to see Jurassic Park III at the Olde Town Arvada Mann Theaters, who was sitting two rows head of me, talking too loud and cackling like a corn-fed hen? My hemorrhoid.
Who the fuck goes to the Mann? I thought it was my little secret. I thought everyone else went to the fancy new AMC where Hitler, Jr. works. The Mann's a filthy theater, new but already run down and known mostly for the indifference and acne of its mullet-headed staff. The frightening metalhead who takes tickets and has that sort of slow, quiet attitude of a man who lives at home, goes through other people's drawers and punches a lot of shit when he's alone. The popcorn tastes funny there, like burnt skin, and the soda's always too syrupy. But I guess it's good enough for Dipshit Suzanne, not that she's paying attention to anything but her fucking cell phone.
I was lucky this week. I was able to get out of the Wendy's before she saw me, and at the movie I was able to hide in the dark and throw candy I found on the floor at her before she could catch me. But, now I live in constant fear that Dipshit Suzanne and I will cross paths, and she'll say something nasty and so will I, and then we'll fucking duke it out in public. And I'll get my ass kicked. Every day, I am aware of the very real possibility of being caught and beaten to within an inch of my life in public by that skank-bait. Or worse, she'll try to kiss me or shove her bony hand down my pants and grab my crank. It's enough to keep me in the apartment, drunk and passed out on the shag carpet a lot more than usual.
As far as I can tell, Dipshit Suzanne really liked Jurassic Park III. She must have because she finally shut off her fucking cell phone half the way through, and she loudly repeated her favorite lines of dialog. She makes me want to fucking puke, but I think she might be right about Jurassic Park. I liked this the best of any of these God damn dinosaur movies. That's not to say it's a fucking masterpiece, just that it's efficient about giving people what they want.
In this era of two-hours-plus epics about race cars and teenagers, it's pretty damn nice to get in and out of the theater in 90 minutes, and without the movie trying to convince us their movies are profound. There ain't nothing profound about Jurassic Park 3.
Isla Sorno is an island off Costa Rica overrun by dinosaurs. Nobody is allowed to visit because every time someone does it ends up in carnage and bad movies. But, an enterprising Costa Rican sells parasailing trips dangerously close. And when one goes awry, a young, annoying boy is stranded on the island. His parents, William H. Macy and Tea Leoni, con paleontologist Sam Neill into helping them rescue him. They get stranded on the island and face a shitload of dinosaurs who eat periphery characters like popcorn, but just barely keep missing the stars. The big fucking deal, I guess, is that the moviemakers have been holding out on us, and only now have flying dinosaurs and a Spinosaur , which is bigger and badder than a Tyrannosaurus Rex the way the Arvada Tavern Harelip is bigger and badder than a motorcycle mama.
I won't try to tell you this movie is good, mainly because I'm not a good liar. Mrs. Filthy says so every time I swear to her I've been in the bathroom for a half-hour because of her meatloaf and not the latest issue of Juggs. But Jurassic Park 3 sort of works because it doesn't fuck around. It knows its strengths, and unlike most Hollywood turds who think we give a rat's ass about the annoying characters they create and the prefabricated story, this sucker just sort of steamrolls over that shit. Sure, the story about rescuing the kid and the parents reconciling along the way is less interesting than fat Trekkies in love, but director Joe Johnston and the actors know it. And they treat it like the aforementioned Trekkies: from a safe distance and with much disgust.
The draw here is monsters eating people and smashing shit. It's a simple formula, but it's rarely done as right as here. The monsters are scary; the shit is spectacular.
I'd say three dinosaur movies is just about enough computer-generated nonsense for me, though. The gimmick in this one is that there are pterodactyls and spinosaurs, but big fucking deal. The studio wants us to cream all over ourselves because we get to see these. But the only reason we get to see them is because the studio held them back as an excuse for making a third picture. It's not like they are really anything new because the monsters all do the same thing: pop out of the dark and bite.
The acting is uniformly non-existent. No time for them to do much but run away. Macy is workman-like. Leoni makes it perfectly clear that she has joined millions of other American women in their thirties by making a smooth transition from hot chick to annoying, whining soccer mom. She's a fucking drag. Sam Neill just grimaces a bunch.
Three Fingers for Jurassic Park 3. If you're looking for cheap summer thrills, you could do worse. Now I need to go see whose lurking around in the bushes outside.