If you saw the 1993 movie, Jurassic Park, or read the 1990 novel of
the same name, you remember that birds of today descended from the dinosaurs
roaming our planet hundreds of millions of years ago. The geese nibbling at the pond’s edge, the
hawks hunting field mice and the chickens pecking away in the yard all have
distant cousins in their family trees a lot bigger and just as hungry, all
looking up one day, saying, “Hey, check out that asteroid!”
We’re reminded of this fact moments
into the newest installment in the Jurassic
Park film franchise as what looks like a giant T-Rex foot stomps on the
ground until the camera pans back to show a harmless sparrow looking for lunch. If only it had been a bloodthirsty carnivore hungry
for the family we meet in the opening minutes, we could have avoided this
entire mess. It’s not that Jurassic World is terrible– it’s just
not very good.
This movie, the fourth in the
series, has the ingredients of a
winner – the dinosaurs are fun to watch, the action sequences are exciting, the
mysterious tropical island holds intrigue and the characters are not completely
uninteresting. But just like mixing heaps
of buttered popcorn, a pound of Milk Duds and a wastebasket-sized orange soda
seems like a winning plan, Jurassic World’s celluloid recipe left me gassy,
sad and wishing I’d napped instead.
Jurassic
World’s plot includes the key elements in a disappointing summer
blockbuster – genetically modified beasts on the loose, career-minded single
women learning how to love while sprinting through the jungle in high heels, and
former military men who are both sensitive and smart or off-kilter lunatics hell-bent
on turning dinosaurs into SEAL Team 7. Along the way we see nitwit nephews escape from
certain death, Jimmy Fallon appears and the requisite IT nerd with facial hair
saves the day. We’re taught
important lessons, like “Don’t be greedy,” “Don’t be overweight,” and “Always
buy vacation insurance.” Based on the
park’s security procedures on display in the film’s second half, the next
installment should be, Jurassic Park 5 –
The Lawsuits. Apparently creating a
theme park where ferocious pterodactyls might escape and attack from the sky
created zero concern for duck and cover drills.
Over the course of two hours, good people
live, bad people die, and we gird ourselves for the inevitable bloated semi-avian
carcass of another sequel in three summers.
In far
fewer theaters the same week Jurassic
World deposited its steaming pile of brontosaurus turds on the world was
another bird movie of sorts. I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story
is a documentary chronicling the life and work of famed puppeteer Caroll
Spinney, the man who created the characters Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for the
PBS series Sesame Street, growing
both into worldwide loveable icons. Released
in a handful of theaters for a short time, I
Am Big Bird shares moments from Spinney’s entire career and tells us, in
his own words, how he came to shape an 8-foot yellow feathered puppet into an
international symbol of a happy childhood, recognized from Bangor to Beijing
and parts in between.
Spinney is a fascinating
character. Bullied by his domineering
father and cruel classmates, he found his calling in puppetry, the film taking
us through his start in the ‘60s, from Big Bird’s rise to global recognition and
a trip with Bob Hope to the Great Wall of China for a first-of-its-kind TV
special. We learn about Spinney’s
love-filled marriage, his professional challenges and see how Big Bird became
an unwitting prompt in the 2012 Presidential election. Spinney tells us how he and his Big Bird
costume were invited to join the 1986 Challenger
space shuttle crew on its fateful flight as a way to get kids excited about the
space program. A last-minute change
grounded the large, flightless bird and his puppet master, saving Spinney from
that disaster. One can only imagine.
Other
than the creepy interlude of clips from The
Bozo Show in the early ‘60s where Spinney got his start, the film is
everything that Jurassic World isn’t
– honest, simple and endearing. Spinney, in Big Bird’s character, singing a
tribute to his friend and mentor Jim Henson at Henson’s funeral is sweet and
touching, making me weep like a man who’s afraid of clowns. In contrast, I shed no tears during Jurassic World, although I did get choked
up realizing I spent $11 on this when I could have waited eighteen months for
it to flutter onto my cable TV screen for a lot less.
As Jurassic World’s box office take reaches
into the hundreds of millions, I Am Big
Bird might bring in a few million dollars when all’s said and done. Both films teach lessons about the pursuit of
perfection, whether it be building the perfect dinosaur or puppet, both rely on
healthy doses of suspended disbelief and both place imaginary bird-like
creatures at their center, except one wants to hug you and the other wants to
eat you. I prefer hugs any day.
(Jurassic World is
rated PG-13 for dino-on-dino violence, dino-on-human violence and questionable
decision making by most characters; in theaters in wide distribution for the
foreseeable future.)
