'Jurassic World' eating up box office record
Technically Incorrect: You thought dinosaur movies were done? Not quite, as the latest Jurassic movie heads for an enormous weekend of money-grabbing, said to be the biggest June hit of all time.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
I would no more see a dinosaur movie than I would chortle in church while playing a ukelele.
I fear, though, that this makes me desperately un-American.
It seems that since it first saw the light of night on Thursday, "Jurassic World" is chewing up the US box office and spitting it out like so much unseasoned Jeep.
Reuters reports that Thursday and Friday's take was looking like $65 million. Forbes declares that the number was actually $82.8 million.
Given that people have nothing better to do on Saturday (no, there's no Golden State Warriors game), it's estimated that the weekend earnings for this movie might be at least $155 million, in Reuters' counting. (Forbes estimates $200 million).
This would make it the biggest June launch of a movie ever. Which will excite many but make some wonder whether the world has made any progress since the last Jurassic movie came out in 2001.
It's worth wondering why people would suddenly lurch toward a movie that offers, well, monsters, but no stars whom you'd necessarily pant to see.
One movie reviewer whom I enjoy, trust (and, thankfully, don't always agree with), the San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle, said: "Jurassic World" matches the wit and pace of a 1990s monster movie with the attitudes and anxieties of 2015, and the result is a film that's as smart as it is exciting."
And there might be the root of it. We're a peculiarly anxious people right now, wondering if the Googlies want to spy on us before turning us into robots, scared that machines will become monsters and monsters might come out of machines.
Few of us seem to enjoy security, so most of us want to be scared out of our wits a little, just to prepare us for the next battle we must face.
And the lovely thing about going to a movie like this is that you know there will be a happy ending. (No, that's not a spoiler. This is Hollywood, right?)