Jurassic World (2015) | Colin Trevorrow

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.

Halloween (2018)

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode in this sequel that ignores all others in the franchise after John Carpenter’s 1978 original HALLOWEEN.  Michael Myers breaks from his prison existence to return to where it all started, in Haddonfield, IL, during Halloween. Esteemed filmmaker David Gordon Green directs and co-scripts this intriguing return to look at trauma-survivor Strode and the inevitability that predator and prey will once again battle it out for survival, even forty years later.

Ant-Man and the Wasp – A Podcast Film Review

Ant-Man’s second foray in his own Marvel Cinematic Universe film isn’t quite a solo adventure, as now he has a partner in Hope, who dons a high-powered suit as The Wasp.  They’re out to save her mother from the Quantum Realm, where she’s been presumed missing for the last thirty years.  Unfortunately, Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is under house arrest and not quite able to get out and join in on the quest easily.  Meanwhile, a bevy of parties are out to steal the hi-tech suits before they can come into play.  Peyton Reed returns to direct Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas, along with newcomers in Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Pfeiffer.