colin trevorrow | the m0vie blog

315. Tomorrowland: A World Beyond – Bird Watching 2022 (#—)

Posted on December 3, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Graham Day, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re finishing up a season focusing on the work of one particular director: Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland: A World Beyond.

As a young boy, Frank Walker discovered a secret society of geniuses who lived apart from the rest of the world in the hopes of creating a better tomorrow. However, Frank was soon cast out, and found himself increasingly disillusioned with the future. At the same time, a young woman named Casey Newton finds herself drawn back into this web of secrets and possibilities. Can Frank and Casey save the world? And Tomorrowland?

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: athena, ayn rand, bird watching, Brad Bird, colin trevorrow, damon lindelof, deirdre molumby, disney, future, george clooney, graham day, hope, hugh laurie, intellectual property, jj abrams, nostalgia, objectivism, optimism, original, podcast, star wars, The 250, theme park, utopianism | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Colin Trevorrow’s “Duel of the Fates” and JJ Abrams’ “Rise of Skywalker”…

Posted on January 18, 2020 by Darren

I published an In the Frame piece at Escapist Magazine yesterday, looking at the leaks around director Colin Trevorrow’s plans for Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.

Of course, there are a lot of variables involved. Are the leaks authentic? Even if the leaks are authentic, how much faith do you place in the director of Jurassic World and Book of Henry to realise them? More than that, though, there’s a sense in which the proposed “Duel of the Fates” is so appealing precisely because it will never actually exist. It will never disappoint anybody, because their imagined version of the film will never brush up against harsh reality. It’s interesting in this age of “alternative facts” that we long so strongly for “alternative movies.”

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: alternate versions, book of henry, colin trevorrow, duel of the fates, jj abrams, rise of skywalker | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Jurassic World – Fallen Kingdom

Posted on June 5, 2018 by Darren

Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is an intriguing and compelling mess of a film. It is shrewd and clever, if never entirely human.

Director J.A. Bayona might be the first director since Spielberg to put his own unique slant on the Jurassic Park franchise, to move with just enough confidence and faith in his own stylistic sensibilities to escape the shadow of the legendary director who turned a pulpy novel into a beloved family classic. Bayona does that by allowing his own stylistic sensibilities to shine through, to embrace his own interest and to engage with the material on his own terms.

Dino escape.

Fallen Kindom walks a fine line. It is very much a creature grown in a laboratory to satisfy the demands of the larger franchise. There are elements here that exist purely because they are expected, because they are signifiers of what a “Jurassic Park movie” should look like, including both returning characters and new characters fashioned after familiar archetypes. At the same time, there is a coy and wry self-awareness to Fallen Kingdom that was sorely lacking from Jurassic World, a cynicism about its own nature that integrates rather neatly into its larger worldview.

Although it may be damning with faint praise, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is easily the best Jurassic Park movie since Jurassic Park: The Lost World, the film in the franchise with which it shares most of its DNA.