Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 19, 1993 TAG: 9306220055
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That's why it's unfair for director Steven Spielberg to get all the credit for the summer's big hit, "Jurassic Park." At every stage of the filmmaking process, he had a lot of help from many sources. Looking through the press kit, I noticed how many excellent movies the people who worked with him on "Jurassic Park" had already made. Many of them, of course, are available on tape.
Though Sir Richard Attenborough has done most of his work as a director in recent years, before that he was a busy actor. In the 1960s, he had a string of good roles.\ "Guns At Batasi" (CBSFox) is an oddly comic story about modern British colonialism and the military. In\ "10 Rillington Place" (Columbia Tristar), Attenborough played the famous murderer John Christie, and in\ "The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom" (Paramount), he was a brassiere magnate. But American audiences probably remember him best for the strong supporting work he provided in\ "The Great Escape" (CBSFox),\ "Flight of the Phoenix" (CBSFox) and\ "The Sand Pebbles" (CBSFox).
While his co-stars haven't been in the business nearly as long, they've done some good work, too. New Zealand's Sam Neill was a fine taciturn hero in the thriller\ "Dead Calm" (Warner). Laura Dern certainly deserved her Oscar nomination for last year's\ "Rambling Rose" (LIVE), and Jeff Goldblum has shown the range of his abilities in the memorable remake of\ "The Fly" (CBSFox); the unusual psychological thriller,\ "Mr. Frost" (Sony) and the sleeper comedy,\ "The Tall Guy" (Columbia Tristar).
Young Ariana Richards is already a veteran scene-stealer. In\ "Grand Tour: Disaster In Time" (Academy), she didn't give any ground to adult actors or the special effects.
Moving behind the camera, novelist and screenwriter Michael Crichton has proved his mettle in this kind of popular mass market science-fiction with his debut,\ "The Andromeda Strain" (MCA/Universal),\ "The Terminal Man" (Warner) and\ "Westworld" (MGM/UA), his first attempt at the idea of a theme-park gone bad.
Co-screenwriter David Koepp also worked on\ "Apartment Zero" (Academy), a first-rate thriller that's become a real cult favorite on tape.
Director Spielberg's string of box office hits hardly needs to be recounted here. But take another look at\ "Jaws" (MCA/Universal),\ "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (Columbia Tristar) or\ "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (Paramount), and you'll realize just how skillfully he can manipulate established formulas. Spielberg's feature debut, the made-for-television\ "Duel" (MCA/Universal), isn't bad either.
The special-effects people who created the various dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" brought a fair amount of experience to the project.
Virginia native Stan Winston was responsible for the live-action critters. He got his start with the underrated 1972 TV movie\ "Gargoyles" (still unavailable on tape, alas), and then hit his stride with the original\ "Terminator" (HBO); the sequel\ "T2" (LIVE) and the terrific title creature in\ "Predator" (CBSFox).
Dennis Muren, of George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic special-effects group, made the full-motion dinosaurs for "Jurassic Park." He has won seven Oscars for his special-effects work, but he got his start in\ "The Equinox" (UHV), an imaginative low-budget adventure. The stop-motion effects were created by Phil Tippett. In 1980, he made several memorable big lizards in\ "Dragonslayer" (Paramount). Though the story doesn't hold up as well as it might, his effects are just astonishing. They're the equal of Ray Harryhausen at his best, and that's as good as there is.
Michael Lantieri supervised the dinosaur effects. He, too, has worked on many films, but until now he may have been best known for\ "The Last Starfighter," (MCA/Universal) the s-f adventure that that emphasized heart over hardware. He also helped Francis Ford Coppola with\ "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (due later this month from Columbia Tristar). New releases this week:
Rampage:
Stars Michael Beihn, Alex McArthur. Written and directed by William Friedkin. Paramount. 92 min. Rated R for extremely strong violence, language.
This film has a checkered history. It sat on the shelf for several years before it received a limited theatrical release in 1992, and now arrives in video stores. It's a serious but flawed attempt to examine the complexities of crime, madness, responsibility and punishment. Biehn is a liberal D.A. whose values are questioned when he has to seek the death penalty against McArthur, a murderer who has killed women and children. The film's mixture of Catholic rituals and religious symbols with ritual murder is disturbing. The characters are unusually well developed and realistic, but the story slips when it attempts to turn certain psychiatrists into conventional, stereotyped villains.
by CNB