"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Daniella Pineda’

Plane

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

PLANE is the new Gerard Butler movie that had the brilliant idea of using a title so goofy that everybody talked about it and it seemed to end up with more awareness than his last three movies combined. Butler (GODS OF EGYPT) plays Brodie Torrance, an airline pilot who’s sent through a storm, his plane gets struck by lightning and loses its power, but he makes a daring emergency landing on an island near the Philippines. Just like SULLY or FLIGHT! Except then it turns into a survival movie (it’s very hot with no air conditioning on the plane, their phones don’t work [but they still make videos for social media], they have no radio to contact anyone) and also this is some kind of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK type island where there are no ordinary people, only heavily armed terrorist/druglord/warlord/kidnapper militias, who soon arrive to take them hostage.

A movie like this needs some background and set up to get you interested, and PLANE does okay at that. It’s New Year’s Eve, that’s why there aren’t many people on the flight. Brodie is a single father planning to meet up with his daughter (Haleigh Hekking) after the flight. He seems nice, co-pilot Dele (Yoson An, MORTAL ENGINES) is honored to be working with him, and he makes a friendly little let’s-go-get-‘em speech to the flight crew before they begin boarding. One unusual thing about the flight is that prisoner Louis Gaspare (Mike Colter, MILLION DOLLAR BABY, CARTER) is being transported by mountie Officer Knight (Otis Winston, “Street Man,” VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE). He sits in the back and they try to keep everyone from making eye contact. (read the rest of this shit…)

Jurassic World Dominion

Tuesday, June 14th, 2022

JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION* is not exactly the “dinosaurs running loose in the world” story I expected from the ending of JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – it ends up centering on yet another dinosaur park – but it does indeed take place at a time when dinosaurs have been running loose in the world long enough to proliferate, and for humans to respond with new governmental agencies, black market industries, etc. Which is an interesting world to spend time in.

Maybe that’s why some of the best stuff is before the plot really gets going – that part of a sequel that’s a loose set of scenes catching us up with the old characters and their new situations. First we get a nice web video about the state of things, featuring fun clips like a wedding where the bride and groom release doves and a pterodactyl swoops down and eats them. It’s in a joyful Dinosaurs Attack! spirit (though admittedly the cards themselves had an even better dinosaur wedding crasher – see right). Then we join JURASSIC WORLD co-lead Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard, HEREAFTER) and her FALLEN KINGDOM dinosaur rights associates Franklin (Justice Smith, The Get Down) and Zia (Daniella Pineda, MERCY BLACK) raiding an illegal breeding facility and rescuing a caged baby triceratops. The chaotic shots of adult triceratopses ramming Jeeps as they escape are a total joy.

*I dig the lack of a colon!

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Monday, August 6th, 2018

This is weird, there’s a JURASSIC PARK sequel that came out 2 1/2 months ago and I didn’t get around to seeing it until this weekend, when it’s down to two showings a day. I think I saw all the other ones opening day or weekend. But maybe it was a smart move on this one because it benefits from the lowered expectations of everyone telling me it was trash.

In JURASSIC WORLD, you remember, they reopened the dinosaur park and the dinosaurs reattacked the new park and there was a new guy named Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, WEINERS) who was real macho and always trying to show off the size of his forearms. And he trains raptors and has a contentious bickery love with an uptight lady who works at the park named Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard, TERMINATOR SALVATION).

In FALLEN KINGDOM, the dinos are still loose on abandoned Isla Nubar, where a volcano is about to erupt. Claire is now a dinosaur rights activist trying to convince the government to act to save these endangered dinosaurs. She’s contacted by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS), who runs the estate of John Hammond’s dying partner Lockwood (James Cromwell, SPECIES II; also played Howard’s father in SPIDER-MAN 3) and wants to fund the rescue mission. But he especially wants to find Blue, the most intelligent raptor, and knows that Owen is the only person who could track her. (read the rest of this shit…)