Day 156: Into the Night

Ed (Jeff Goldblum) can’t sleep and after he catches his wife cheating on him, he can’t be in the house either. He heads off to the airport in the middle of the night and his dreary life is changed forever. Diane (Michelle Pfieffer) comes crashing onto the hood of his car and the two try to escape the men chasing her.

According to the BBC, we spend half our waking hours daydreaming. I thought it was more than that but perhaps the rest of you have interesting jobs and whatnot so you don’t have to be daydreaming quite so much. Anyway, a very common feature of my daydreams is a spontaneous adventure. Along the same lines of the film, I’d love for a stranger to come into my life and for us to have to do something exciting and perhaps even a bit dangerous. Maybe this opportunity has shown itself before but I missed it. I want an adventure.

The film was alright but nothing special. I wouldn’t watch it again but that’s not to say I didn’t like it. I did laugh a couple of times and some scenes were good. On the whole I'd say you're not missing anything if you never watch this film.

6/10

Day 41: Jurassic Park

You know how sometimes you just need to watch something with dinosaurs? And by ‘sometimes’ I mean, ‘all the time’? To the friend that picked this film, I thank you for giving me an excuse to watch this beauty.

Rich man who puts the least amount of thought into anything (unless it’s making sure he spares no expense!), John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), brings dinosaurs back from extinction and sets up a wee park for people to come along and see them. Who better to test the highly dangerous and completely unready park on but your own grandchildren? As is expected, it all goes from bad to worse for the people. For the dinosaurs they’re probably happier out of their cages. Swings and roundabouts, I guess?

Alan (Sam Neill) and Ellie (Laura Dern) are the cutest. We first see them as they are digging up a raptor skeleton and Alan puts the fear into a kid who dared to compare the raptor to a turkey. I like how she knows what he's like and that he was going to go off on a dramatic story and that he just doesn’t like children. That obviously doesn’t last though because he becomes a total hero throughout the film, constantly protecting and looking after Tim and Lex. He gets Lex to trust him despite her being terrified, he shields Tim when the car falls on them, and he looks after them while they’re sleeping in the tree. To quote my notes, “Alan, you’re my hero.” And you can see the effect it has on Ellie when they’re in the helicopter at the end and she’s looking at him with the kids. Children might be on the cards after all! Except it’s not because I’ve seen the sequels and it makes me sad. Ellie and Alan are for life in my heart. I mean, they way he looks at her when she says “Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.” is the best. He looks smitten, I just love that look.

While I love the idea of dinosaurs existing again, it would just be mental. Why breed carnivores? You’re just asking for trouble. If I was Hammond here I’d have just ended up with a park full of Triceratops (favourite dinosaur) and Brachiosaurus. How amazing would that be! I’ve always loved Triceratops the most after seeing this film. You only see one and she’s sick but god, I just loved her right away. They are brilliant. And they remind me of rhino, which are my favourite animals, so I guess I couldn’t help but love them. It would be totally safe to have an island of those, definitely.

Absolutely love the film.

9/10