What a ‘World’
“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” continues the dino-series.
PG-13 2:08
Like a wounded stegosaurus lumbering off to fight another day, the sequel “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” labors mightily to justify its existence, while mostly existing to set up another installment in the long-running film franchise.
Still, “Fallen Kingdom” is an evolutionary upgrade from its 2015 predecessor, the blockbuster reboot “Jurassic World,” with superior direction by J.A. Bayona, who proved with his 2012 fact-based natural-disaster film “The Impossible” that he can balance emotional and epic storytelling.
The screenplay by “Jurassic World” director Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly layers the circumstances and contrivances on thicker than an ankylosaurus’ armor to get where they’re clearly trying to go, but Bayona keeps the unwieldy story trudging along fairly efficiently with relatively few stumbles.
Set three years after the events of “Jurassic World,” the long-dormant volcano on Isla Nublar comes bubbling back to life, threatening the genetically engineered dinosaurs now running wild on the island and setting up an ethical dilemma. Now that man has brought back dinosaurs, do we owe the once-extinct and often-destructive creatures the same protection as other endangered species?
With all the shiny laboratories we’ve seen in these movies, it seems like some scientist would have the recipe and ingredients to cook up more dinosaurs tucked away somewhere, but they’re at least trying to give a passably logical motivation for embarking on a magma-dodging dino rescue mission.
On the testimony of mathematician Ian Malcolm (an underused but always welcome Jeff Goldblum), Congress opts not to intercede but let nature take its course. The news is devastating to former Jurassic World director Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard, who at least has sensible boots this time but still gets less of an arc than a velociraptor), who has become a “save the dinosaurs” activist.
She finds an ally for her 11th-hour attempt to save the thunder lizards in Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), a representative of California billionaire Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), a former partner of the late Jurassic Park founder John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). Mills and Lockwood offer to dispatch Claire with a highly trained team so the dinosaurs can be moved to an animal preserve, but they also want her to recruit her old boyfriend, animal behaviorist Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), to track down Blue, the last of the velociraptors.
Claire, Owen, strongwilled paleoveterinarian Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) and stereotypical computer nerd Franklin Webb (Justice Smith) join the mercenaries, led by Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine), that Mills has hired for the rescue mission on the increasingly unstable ground of the island. But it doesn’t take long to learn that Mills is less motivated by ethical concerns than by old-fashioned greed − which Lockwood’s clever granddaughter Maisie (newcomer Isabella Sermon) could have told them — and soon they’re running from their lives from flying lava, lethal carnivores and trigger-happy mercs.
The sequences of our heroes fleeing a stampede of panicked dinosaurs while molten fireballs and clouds of ash bear down on them are among the most exhilarating since 1993’s “Jurassic Park,” and Bayona adds several fun callbacks to the first film in honor of its 25th anniversary. The director, to his credit, works hard and mostly succeeds in making the audience care about the fate of the often-deadly dinos.
Naturally, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” features some of the now-standard prehistoric pleasures: The T-Rex shrieking in from out of nowhere, the fearsome hybrid terrorizing everyone in its path, Pratt charming his way through any obstacle. For the target audience, like my 11-year-old son, Gabe, the sequel is sure to delight, while the rest of us hold out hope that the next installment grows stronger legs under its story.
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, James Cromwell, Jeff Goldblum (intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril). − Brandy McDonnell, The Oklahoman
‘WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?’
PG-13 1:34
This year marks both the 50th anniversary of the debut of the seminal children’s television program “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and the 15th anniversary of the death of its legendary creator, writer and star, Fred Rogers.
And if the dual anniversaries aren’t occasion enough to pay tribute to the beloved TV personality’s mission of teaching children to know their inherent worth, treat other people with compassion and work through their emotions, then perhaps these tumultuous times are adequate motivation to revisit Rogers’ philosophy of radical caring.
Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville’s (“Twenty Feet from Stardom”) “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is one of the best celebrations of Rogers’ legacy I’ve seen to date. Through archival clips, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Rogers and his family, friends and colleagues, the surprisingly tear-jerking and wistful biography depicts the cardigan-wearing TV icon as a what-you-see-is-what-you-get child advocate who also happened to be a singular revolutionary for kindness and optimism that we didn’t really recognize until he was gone.
Starting with the launch of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Neville’s documentary shifts back and forth in time, sometimes getting a bit scattered along the way and giving some interesting aspects of Rogers’ life, especially his childhood and his Christian faith, short shrift.
But it’s hard to argue with the filmmaker’s choice to focus on the puppeteer, writer and ordained Presbyterian minister’s pioneering work with youngsters, on the Pittsburgh public TV show “Children’s Corner” and eventually on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Rogers’ desire to use the new medium of television to help children through some of the difficulties of life, rather than as a loud and violent conduit for mindless kiddie entertainment, often bumped against the irony, as one of his sons notes, that “for someone who was in television, he hated television.”
Through the recollections of cast members David Newell (who played Mr. McFeely), Joe Negri (Handyman Negri) and especially Francois Clemmons (Officer Clemmons), we are reminded of how Rogers used his seemingly mildmannered show to guide youngsters through the horrors of Robert Kennedy’s assassination and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, to promote love and harmony among people of different races and abilities, and normalize emotions like anger, fear and insecurity.
Perhaps taking a cue from his subject, Neville takes his time, letting the accompanying clips from the TV show spool out and denizens of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe sing their songs and talk through their issues. Sure, there’s a definite nostalgia factor, but when the change-averse King Friday XIII surprises his citizens by building a wall around the kingdom, it’s clear that Mister Rogers took on some still-timely issues with his now-famous hand-puppets.
The show’s puppet characters were more than just handy storytelling tools; they were Rogers’ alter egos, especially the shy favorite Daniel Striped Tiger, who also appears in lively animated sequences. Although the documentary fervently pays homage to Rogers and his work, it doesn’t idolize the man, showing us that even the model Mr. Nice Guy had his prickly, self-doubting control freak side and struggled sometimes to do right by his friends.
It is a bit surprising that a documentary about everyone’s favorite child advocate isn’t more familyfriendly. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is actually rated PG-13 for language and adult themes. I took my 11-year-old son, Gabe, to see the film after he read a biography of Rogers for school and got the unwelcome experience of explaining the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church to him.
Still, it’s virtually impossible not to feel lifted up when Rogers’ heartfelt 1969 testimony prompts grumpy Sen. John O. Pastore, D.-R.I., to pledge $20 million in funding for the fledgling Corporation for Public Broadcasting; to hold back the tears when Rogers gets a surprise reunion with grown-up quadriplegic Jeff Erlanger, who made a memorable appearance as a boy on the show; or to get a warm smile on your face when the host swaps out his cardigan and shoes. But it’s hard not to be a little sad, too, that they don’t make shows like “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” anymore for our children to love and learn to be loved.
Starring: Fred Rogers (archival footage), Joanne Rogers, Francois Clemmons (some thematic elements and language).
− Brandy McDonnell,
The Oklahoman
‘AMERICAN ANIMALS’
R 1:56
There are a few intriguing questions raised by “American Animals,” a fact-based drama about the four college-age men who, in 2004, attempted a misguided heist of rare books — including John James Audubon’s “Birds of America,” said to be worth $12 million — from the library of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.
Why did they do it? What have they learned from it? And will anyone really want to watch a movie about such foolish people who, during one abortive attempt to make off with the oversize volume of ornithological prints, disguise themselves — badly — as elderly men?
The answer to the last question, at least, is yes. Written and directed by Bart Layton, “American Animals” is fascinating, funny and, in the end, deep.
The answers to the other two questions are more elusive.
“American Animals” is lightly fictionalized. The words “This not a true story” appear on-screen at the start, only to have the “not” disappear, indicating a relationship with the truth that acknowledges both its aspirational qualities and its unknowability.
“American Animals” is based on interviews with the perpetrators: in this case, Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk and Chas Allen, whose often contradictory accounts of their crime are peppered throughout the film, guiding us through the re-enactments, even as they call them into question. At times, the four men briefly appear alongside the actors who portray them (respectively, Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson and Blake Jenner), lending the film an additional patina of surrealism. They are not just tellers of the tall tale, Layton suggests, but participants in and witnesses to it.
At its core, “American Animals” is most interested in this question: What is it about these four examples of the American millennial — all products of Lexington’s elite high schools — that led to their sense of entitlement and impunity?
“American Animals,” while an entertaining version of a heist film at times, is no “Ocean’s 8.” Its signature moment occurs not during the re-enactment of the inept crime, or its planning and antic aftermath. Rather, it comes in the middle of one of Lipka’s interview scenes, when the ex-con, now in his 30s and out of jail, is stunned into tearful, inarticulate silence while reflecting on his own capacity for — and ultimately inability to explain away his rationale for — evil.
Starring: Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson and Blake Jenner (strong language throughout and some drug use).
— Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post
‘THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRE’
PG-13 1:34
“Fashion is fleeting, style remains.”
That is one of several arresting aperçus uttered by André Leon Talley, the charismatic subject of “The Gospel According to André.” At 6-foot-plus, his prodigious frame draped in a breathtaking collection of capes and caftans, the fashion journalist presents a literally larger-than-life figure throughout this admiring documentary portrait, which gives the his due not only as part of the New York vanguard that included artist Andy Warhol and fellow editors Diana Vreeland and Anna Wintour, but as an avatar for black excellence in post-Jim Crow America.
Following Talley from his stately White Plains home to Paris, Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and his birthplace of Durham, North Carolina, filmmaker Kate Novack creates a lively homage to the act of self-creation: Growing up with his grandmother in a modest home, Talley — now approaching 70 — received an early education in fabulousness simply by attending church, where African-American laborers and domestics shed their weekly uniforms and arrived decked out in fine dresses, hats, gloves and shoes. This is where Talley learned the core tenets of what has become known as “respectability politics” (wherein, as he says at one point, “it’s a moral code to dress well.”)
His pursuit of a master’s degree at Brown University, where he studied French literature, spun Talley into the orbit of a group of young avant-gardists at the Rhode Island School of Design across the street. Moving to New York in 1974, the smart, effortlessly sophisticated Talley began answering phones at Warhol’s Interview magazine and volunteered for Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Those gigs led to editorial positions at Women’s Wear Daily and Vogue, where he and editor Wintour developed the kind of mind-meld that results in truly groundbreaking creativity, in Talley’s case championing black designers and models and conceiving bold, provocative spreads that engaged the wider culture as much as couture. The musician Will.I.Am calls Talley “the Nelson Mandela of couture, the Kofi Annan of what you got on.”
At its best, “The Gospel According to Andre” gives viewers the rare chance to get to know someone who, until now, has mostly been known as that impeccably turned-out gentleman who seems to know everybody at the annual Costume Institute gala. Talley, it turns out, merits admiration not only for his intellect, work ethic and ability to contextualize fashion within history, literature, visual art and music, but for the exacting eye and determination with which he has created his own character.
The obstacles, clearly, were present from the start. Talley, notes one observer, “was so many things he wasn’t supposed to be.” In “The Gospel According to André,” a star isn’t born. He gives birth to himself, through sheer force of will.
The film shows at 5:30 and 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 and 5:30 p.m. Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive.
Starring: André Talley (some suggestive and mature thematic material.)