An American science fiction comedy directed by Joe Johnston, starring Rick Moranis.
A scientist's machine accidentally shrinks his 2 children and the neighbors' 2 children as well. He sweeps them up and leaves them in a trash bag across the yard.
Late '80s classic. I have no idea why I'm writing about these obvious movies. They are mostly made around the same time and all get decent to good reviews. I've seen a "making of" about this and lots of physical effects were used. Large props and sets look way better than CG to me. Another interesting note is that Matt Frewer (neighbor Russell) also played trash can man in The Stand (1994). The first time I watched this after finding out about these roles, I couldn't help thinking about neighbor Russell saying "bumpty bumpty bump, thumpty thumpty thump". I rate this good. You really should watch it.
A fantasy directed by Joe Johnston, starring Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst.A boy finds a magic board game and plays it with a girl he knows. The game causes jungle things to pop into existence in the area that it is played in. The boy gets sucked into the board game and the girl runs away. 26 years later, a brother and sister pick up the same game and start to play. They release the boy (now a man) from the game and retrieve the girl (now a woman) who played it with him in order to finish the game.Robin Williams is cool. It's a fact. The plot and characters were good. The style had a little too much CG for my tastes, but the pacing was right. I remember watching this film when it came out and liking it. I'm rating it good.
A science fiction directed by Steven Spielberg and Joe Johnston, starring Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum.An old man decides that real live dinosaurs would make a neat theme park attraction, so he fills a few islands with them. He invites a few people to test the park and one of his co-workers breaks the park. From there on, it's just a pre-historic digital and animatronic zoo.The first film was great. The characters and plot were good and the dinosaurs were cool to watch. The sequels lost a star each time and seemed forced, like they were just trying to make money. I was going to make a "moron move" list of all the mistakes the characters made in the films, but it would fill 2 pages. I have a dissertation on character behavior in disaster situations hidden somewhere in this blog. I'm rating the first film good and the other 2 adequate.
