Dinosaurs!

I had a hard time remembering what it's like back in Michigan but I don't think there are as many billboards there as there are here. Here in Los Angeles there are billboards everywhere. Digital, regular, moving (buses and cabs), et cetera. And so, when a movie's going to come out in say, three or four months, by two weeks into the ad campaign I'm usually sick of the billboards and ready not to ever see those actors or that tag line again (I'm looking at you Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis who are everywhere in my neighborhood and have been since I moved here five years ago). But, a month or so a new, giant billboard on Highland Avenue (the street with all the palm trees that everyone thinks is representative of all of Hollywood, it is not). And I did a double take. Jurassic Park. Yes. Jurassic Park. Not number four or five or whatever is next. Not for a ride at Universal's theme park just up the road. Not for a new fragrance (come on, you know they pitched it). But for the movie. The original. The anniversary release.

And not just any anniversary. The twentieth anniversary.

I did some mental math. Could it be true? Could I have been in high school when it originally came out? Yes. And did I want to see a movie that was twenty years old in the theater, now, two decades past? Yes. Yes. Yes.

I'm not a huge scary movie buff (though, I have been turned into a Walking Dead fan but it's true, I hide my eyes when I hear walkers coming). But I love a good thriller. And I love a good adventure tale. And back in the early nineties, I was a huge Michael Crichton fan. I read all his novels. I was in love with ER from that very first minute of the pilot. And I remember reading Jurassic Park the summer it came out in paperback and being scared to death. Yep. I had nightmares. I dreamed that baby raptors were eating human babies in their cribs (you're welcome for that image - it's haunted me for over TWENTY YEARS). And I remember waking up in my bed, in my old room, in the heat of the summer, and feeling my heart race and being terrified because the dinosaurs were killing us. That's some good writing.

However, I also remember finishing the last page of the book, closing it, and smiling to myself thinking, okay, it's over. They can't get me. (And if you read the book, you'll know why.) That's quite a book. That's quite a writer.

So Saturday Angela and I headed to Burbank to catch an early morning (10am) screening of Jurassic Park 3-D on IMAX. I was so excited. I haven't seen the movie in years but I knew I'd love it. And? I did. It was like hearing a song you haven't heard in forever but still knowing all the words and loving the melody and being able to jump right in and keep up with the beat without any problem whatsoever. Though I didn't remember salient plot points or key supporting characters, I knew the story. And what was great was being surprised all over again. How cool is that? That a twenty year old film can surprise and delight and scare us so much?

The theater was packed, there were audible gasps and utterances of surprise throughout the movie, and at the end? Applause. Wild applause. I love that. I love that an author created this world that does not exist and that filmmakers were able to create it. And that the movie still holds up so well. I love that.