Godzilla (1998) | Roland Emmerich

February 7, 2023 ~ Vince Leo

A series of nuclear explosions in the South Pacific creates a titanic lizard monster that’s born pregnant and destroys Manhattan. With over 200 eggs laid, the human race faces extinction if a biologist (Matthew Broderick), a couple of reporters, the French CIA, and the military can’t kill them all before they all lay eggs of their own.

Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) | Colin Trevorrow

January 2, 2023 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Activist Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard_ is still leading the Dinosaur Protection Group to break up illegal breeding operations. Claire’s partner, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), captures and relocates stray dinos before they’re slaughtered by poachers. They live in a cabin in the Sierra Nevadas with 14-year-old experimental human clone Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), raised as their surrogate daughter in secret to protect her from exploitation. The velociraptor raised by Owen, Blue, lives in the nearby woods with her asexually created younger hatchling, dubbed Beta by Maisie. Maisie is unhappy in isolation and occasionally strays beyond her parents’ border, ultimately getting captured by mercenaries, who also kidnap Beta.

Meanwhile, genetically modified locusts begin consuming and destroying farm crops in America’s heartland and will soon be a global threat. Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) discovers that crops from Biosyn seeds remain unaffected, suspecting foul play to monopolize the world’s food market. She consults former paleontologist colleague and romantic partner Alan Grant (Sam Neill) for help. They discover that the locusts have been genetically modified using Cretaceous period DNA. Their detective work finds them joining forces with Claire and Owen to infiltrate Biosyn, where Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is currently employed, to expose the greedy corporation’s plans to the world.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) | J.A. Bayona

November 6, 2022 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This 5th entry in the Jurassic franchise sets the story following the closure of Jurassic World, where its dormant volcano, Mt. Sibo, has become active, threatening all life on Isla Nublar. Humankind debates whether the clone dinosaurs should be saved or return to extinction. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) has become a conservationist advocate for the Dinosaur Protection Group, feeling an overwhelming responsibility to save the dinos she once considered merely a commodity. After John Hammond’s billionaire associate Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) is on his deathbed, his assistant, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), pitches a plan to Claire to fund the relocation of the dinosaurs from Isla Nublar to a sanctuary island. Claire gathers a team including velociraptor whisperer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), super-hacker Franklin Webb (Justice Smith), and paleo-veterinarian Zia Rodriguez (Daniela Pineda). The team is stunned to discover find mercenaries on the island gathering dinosaurs to bring to the mainland for greedy, nefarious purposes.

Jurassic World (2015) | Colin Trevorrow

July 16, 2022 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Siblings Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) are sent on vacation to visit their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is the manager of operations at the Costa Rica island resort known as Jurassic World, a tourist attraction funded by mega-billionaire named Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) that takes its basic idea from the original Jurassic Park but seeks to do the formula right (i.e., more profitably). In addition to the assortment of dinosaurs, the corporation is looking into creating their own hybrid dinos through experiments in genetic engineering that are sure to draw in even more interested visitors year after year. Their biggest creation is the Indominus Rex, a creation that splices the T. Rex DNA with a hodge-podge of other predators of various strengths, that just might be the most deadly creature that has ever roamed the Earth. (I suppose it’s not a good sign that ‘indominus’ is Latin for ‘untamable’.)

Navy vet Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) is a behavioral research consultant and talent trainer at the facility, looking into the ability of these dinosaurs to learn from human instruction, and he’s especially made progress at whispering to velociraptors, which may prove to be a much-needed thing now that Indominus Rex has gotten out of its cage and is prepared to hunt and kill whatever it can on the island, which ultimately could mean the slaughter of 20,000 visitors trapped in the theme park. Colin Trevorrow directs.

Jurassic Park III (2001) | Joe Johnston

May 2, 2022May 2, 2022 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Jurassic Park III starts off with a man and a young boy that go paragliding only to have a forced crash landing on the island of Isla Sorna, the infamous second Jurassic Park island. The boy’s parents, played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni, travel to the island in hopes of rescuing their son, dragging along Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill, from the first film), who is none too happy about being thrown among the ruthless predators again. Golly gee, you don’t think their plane might crash causing them to have to deal with dino-angst for 90 minutes, do you? Joe Johnston directs.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) | Steven Spielberg

March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

It’s four years later, and the chief creator of Jurassic Park sends an expedition of four people to check on “Site B”, a secret place where the dinosaurs were developed and which now sports dinosaurs roaming free. The quartet is supposed to document the goings-on, but soon discover they will not be alone on the island, as the creator’s nephew envisions Jurassic Parks across America and wants to capture some dinos to exploit for profit. Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, and Vince Vaughn star. Directed by Steven Spielberg.

Jurassic Park (1993) | Steven Spielberg

February 7, 2022February 7, 2022 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Vince goes in-depth on all of the history, trivia, and behind-the-scenes action of 1993’s JURASSIC PARK, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the best-selling book by Michael Crichton. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough star in this thrilling adventure of an eccentric billionaire who builds a theme park attraction full of cloned dinosaurs that doesn’t go according to plan.

Super Mario Bros. (1993) | Rocky Morton & Annabel Jankel

November 4, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Super Mario Bros. features the emergence of an alternate dimension caused by (what is now known as) Brooklyn being struck by a meteorite millions of years ago. In this alternate dimension, humans evolved from lizards, rather than monkeys, as believed in our own realm. There is also only one city, Dinohattan, surrounded by endless desert, and currently presided over by the evil Koopa (Hopper, Red Rock West). President Koopa (Dennis Hopper) is out to get a powerful rock crystal, a fragment of the original meteorite, that he needs to merge the two dimensions, giving him more realms to conquer. Here is where we meet our heroes, a couple of plumbers named Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo), who, in pursuit of a kidnapped new friend in a paleontology student named Daisy (Samantha Mathis), who happens to have the rock in the form of a necklace, find a portal into the Dinohattan dimension. Dangers lurk all around, as the brave brothers must battle the mighty Koopa and his lizard horde to rescue Daisy and thwart Koopa’s evil plans to destroy their world.

Double Dragon (1994) | James Yukich

September 29, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Set in the futuristic year of 2007, in a city dubbed New Angeles, after having been reconstructed after a giant earthquake that happened a decade before in Southern California, where gangs and criminals mostly have their run of the city streets at night. Outside of the ineffective New Angeles Police Department, a vigilante group called the Power Corps, with direction from a teenage girl named Marian (Alyssa Milano), is the only organized force willing to take on the evil forces around the town. She knows talent when she sees it, so when she stumbles across a couple of martial-artist orphaned brothers named Jimmy (Mark Dacascos) and Billy (Scott Wolf) Lee, she recruits them for the cause of good. Their top adversary is a megalomaniac tycoon named Koga Shuko (Robert Patrick), aka ‘The Shadow Master’, who has become quite powerful in all but taking completely over the streets, utilizing his ability to change into shadow form and take over the bodies of others. The Lee brothers and their guardian Satori (Julia Nickson) have half of a powerful, mystical ancient Chinese medallion, while Koga has the other, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get his avaricious hands on it.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)

September 5, 2021 ~ Vince Leo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this animated adventure expanded from the video game, M. Bison is a megalomaniacal warlord from Thailand with dreams of world domination. Bison runs a super-secret organization of drug smugglers, weapons runners, and an international terror and crime syndicate called “Shadowlaw”. Fueling Shadowlaw is a massive drug-running operation and a diabolical plan to become the most military force in the world through the use of ultra-powerful street fighters. Bison has his tech team devise a squad of cyborgs to do reconnaissance to find the best fighters in the world to recruit into his organization as part of a super army better than any individual nation’s.

Because the Japanese Shotokan karate master named Ryu has bested Sagat in the Street Fighter Tournament, it marks him as perhaps the world’s best, and someone from which Bison can build an army of super-street fighters. Ryu’s best friend from San Francisco, Ken Masters, another street fighter who studied the same master (making him the closest fighter to being Ryu’s equal) is kidnapped by Bison for brainwashing experiments to convert street fighters to his political assassins, starting with his effort to try to take down the world-wandering Ryu. Vengeful Chun Li and her colleagues at Interpol are trying to take down the operation, as does US Air Force Captain Guile, who is out to take down Bison for killing a friend.