Knee-jerk review: "Jurassic World Rebirth"

1. So look, this movie knew what it needed to do and it delivered it exceedingly well.  Polished, competent, efficient.
2. We weren't really looking forward to seeing this, but the family decided watching dinosaurs eat people was the perfect way to spend July 4th.
3. All in all, a pleasant surprise.  It's pretty dang good, people.
4. We weren't huge fans of the last three Chris Pratt/Bryce Dallas Howard Jurassic movies and can't even remember the storylines, but this one introduces a whole new (if familiar) set of characters and quickly strands them on a dinosaur island.  Back to basics.
5. Jonathan Bailey looks like Guy Pearce's younger brother.  Seems like he could be a real movie star.
6. No self-respecting Jurassic movie would ever miss the chance to put a tween character in harm's way.
7. Most of the movie is a string of exciting impossibly-close-call, escape-the-hungry-dinosaur set pieces.  Good enough!
8. Shout out to the guy sitting next to us who had to keep explaining everything to his daughter.  You made our experience so much better as a result.  
9. Mahershala Ali is probably slumming here, but that's okay.  He brings welcome gravitas.  And he likely got a good paycheck.
10. We should talk about the sailboat family.  It's good that the movie took time to develop their characters before the dinosaurs attack so we feel more of an investment in their safety, but their little cruise seems incredibly reckless given the exposition audiences were provided about the world of the movie.  We also noted that without the family's side adventure, the movie would probably only run 90 minutes.
11. When it comes to concocting a reason to undertake yet another dangerous mission to an off-limits dinosaur island, the one the movie comes up with (gathering samples from three live dinosaurs) is pretty good.
12. The D-Rex is a little much perhaps.
13. Even after all of that, we're still skeptical of Xavier.
14. Sci-fi research facilities always have huge vent systems to allow for convenient hero escapes, don't they?  They must all use the same architectural firm.
15. Scarlett Johannson, pony-tailed action hero?  More please.
16. We appreciated the Jaws homage.
17. Ending is probably a little long, but the plot pieces all come together nicely.  Ticking clocks are always welcome.
18. Honestly, it may be the best one since Spielberg's 1993 original.

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Twenty "Howard Stern Show" Characters, Ranked

The dysfunctional collection of people on SiriusXM's "Howard Stern Show" are not exactly fictional characters, but they're not really regular civilians either.  They're eccentric personalities (cast members?) that are either on the show payroll as staff members or calling in for free as infamous members of the Wack Pack, manipulated and managed by Stern to create the distinctive fabric of the show.  Here's our current ranking of these folks from #1 (always instant entertainment) to #20 (hope to never hear from that person again). 

1. Ronnie the Limo Driver, obviously
2. Richard
3. Sal
4. Sour Shoes
5. J.D.
6. Benjy
7. Chris
8. Pearlman
9. Wolfie
10. Jon
11. Samantha
12. Nowicki
13. King of All Blacks
14. Mariann
15. Jason
16. High Pitch
20(tie). Memet, Bobo, Blitt, A.N. Ed

**This list does not include the Fab Four of Howard, Robin, Gary, and Fred.

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Six months of books

The Cheese Fry has been doing a lot a reading since January 1, possibly because we've been doing more traveling than usual and nothing goes better with plane rides and quiet hotel rooms than a book.  Here's some one-line reviews.

Challenger, Adam Higginbotham - Top-notch exploration of the 1986 shuttle explosion (they knew about the O-ring problems for years but bureaucratic paralysis kept them from ever addressing it) from the same author who wrote the similarly powerful Midnight in Chernobyl.

Eruption, Steve Olson - A detailed, if brief, account of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption that apparently needed to add in long-winded history of the American logging industry to bulk up the page count.

Live from New York, James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales - An excruciatingly thorough - and ultimately repetitive - oral history of "Saturday Night Live" that eventually wore us out with unending praise for the genius of Lorne Michaels.

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick - It took us a while to realize that, rather than a high concept sci-fi spy thriller like the Amazon series adaptation, this is more of a moody relationship drama that just happens to take place in a world where the United State lost World War II.

60 Songs to Explain the 90s, Rob Harvilla - A deliciously nostalgic andquirky trip down 1990s pop culture through the lens of popular music.

The Song Is You, Megan Abbott - While it's got an interesting seedy noir premise - 1950s Hollywood fixer gets wrapped up in the case of a missing actress - it's one of the few books that has gone right into our giveaway stack rather than on our shelf.

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel - A memorable mix of poetic literary style (although we didn't fully understand the comic book subplot) and post-apocalyptic suspense that ends on a supremely satisfying note as multiple plotlines converge in unexpected ways.

Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins - The entertaining prequel story of the Hunger Games experience of Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson in the movies), a much more deserving protagonist than Collins' last novel that weirdly spent 300 pages telling us how President Snow turned heel.

Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, Ian Mortimer - A dense, engrossing textbook-style look at the minutia (food, law and order, household chores, clothing) of life in 1300s England.  For example, the water was so so dirty that, unless you captured rainwater in a cistern, you mostly drank ale all day every day.

Wake Me After the Apocalypse, Jordan Rivet - There's a whole lot of post-apocalyptic YA fiction out there that incongruously layers teen romance onto tragic end-of-the-world stories and, if done right like this one, we are there for it.

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