A Tale Of Two Kringles..."Miracle On 34th Street"

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Not Rated

Starring Edmund Gwynn, Maureen O'Hara, Natalie Wood, John Payne

Directed by

Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

Rated PG

Starring Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, Mara Wilson, Dylan McDermott, J. T. Walsh,

The Story:

Mrs. Walker runs the Thanksgiving Day parade for New York's biggest department store. When her Santa turns up drunk, a kindly gentlemen named Kris steps in and becomes Santa Claus. However, Mr. Kringle insists that he is the one and only Kris Kringle, and winds up in court defended by a lawyer who believes in Kris as much as he believes that he loves Mrs. Walker and her daughter, Susan.

Will he be able to pull off the biggest courtroom shocker of all-time?

That pretty much sums up both movies, though for some reason, they insisted on changing Fred Gailey (Payne) to Bryan Bedford (McDermott). Who knows, maybe someone complained that you can't use the name Gailey without offending people?

:)

So naturally, I'm a big fan of the original. I'd say I've seen it at least 20 times or so, it's one that gets played usually every other year or so at the house.

The remake?

I saw it yesterday for the first time.

Nowhere near as bad as I had feared.

Like Macy's, I really wanted nothing to do with this remake whatsoever.

But, it's streaming on Netflix, and Tis the Season and all that. :)

So I watched it, and I smiled at some of the jokes.

The best parts were those that were lifted nearly intact from the first film.

While Kris (Gwynn) doesn't sing in Dutch, Kris (Attenborough) does know sign language and communicates with a deaf girl.

Both are sentimental heart-string moments in their respective versions.

It seems like the updated version very much wanted to make it clear that Darcy (Perkins) and Bryan would date, fall in love, and get married.

Exploring their relationship more was a nice updated touch, but when she spurns him at the end of their date...

That's just a level of spite that makes Mrs. Walker seem utterly cold, and actually rather unlikable.

It seemed too much like this film had to get to the happy ending, and they were determined to make it happen, no matter what came in front of it.

There is no crisis of conscience like in the original when Mrs. Walker (O'Hara) thinks Santa is insane, then realizes her mistake and wants to do anything she can to help.

It's at that point that she truly begins to believe, and I don't feel it in the remake.

Likewise, with Susan (Wood / Wilson) you see her change of heart as the film moves on, until the end when she is heartbroken that Kris isn't Santa, and then elated when she realizes it's him.

The remake, Susan waffles in her emotion in nearly every scene, either looking depressed or elated, with very little range in between.

With both versions of the film, my favorite parts are the courtroom scenes. Both versions contain some great interplay among the characters, and both believable and fun ways in which, yes indeed, the law could very much confirm that Kringle is the real deal.

That said, it seems like they shorten up the newer courtroom scene and just confirm that Santa exists, and Kringle is him.

Oops.

Spoilers.

:)

The original did it in a much more inspired way, but it's hard to beat the original sometimes, so steering clear and trying something new isn't a bad option.

But this is one case where I'll stick with the original, every time.

Final Grades:

1947 - A

1994 - C+

So Nice, We Went There Thrice! "The Jurassic Park Trilogy"

Jurassic Park (1993)

Rated PG-13

Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazello, Ariana Richards, Samuel L. Jackson, BD Wong, Wayne Knight

Directed by Steven Spielberg

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Rated PG-13

Starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postelthwaite, Arliss Howard, Vanessa Lee Chester, Vince Vaughn, Richard Schiff, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazello, Ariana Richards

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Rated PG-13

Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter, Laura Dern

Directed by Joe Johnston

The Story:

Part 1:

Billionaire John Hammond (Attenborough) has created a theme park, Jurassic Park, where he's recreated dinosaurs using questionable scientific methods. He needs some validation by scientific experts that the park is safe and sound and ready for tourists. So he enlists paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Neill), paleobotanist, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Dern) and mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) come to the park. However, when corporate sabotage and a hurricane collide at the same time, things don't go so well, and it's a fight to avoid extinction!

Part 2:

Dr. Malcolm (Goldblum) returns to travel to Isla Sorna, the 2nd island that Hammond (Attenborough) had created his dinosaurs at. He had no intentions of going, except that Hammond enlisted his girlfriend (Moore) and she was already at the island. The team goes to the island and winds up capturing a Tyrannosaurus Rex and taking it back to San Diego to headline the abandoned Jurassic Park that had begun development there. Bad idea.

Part 3:

The return to Isla Sorna, and this time Dr. Grant (Neill) returns by being tricked into coming so that his dig would continue to receive funding. This time it's the Kirby's (Macy & Leoni) whose son (Morgan) had vanished weeks earlier. In the chance he's managed to survive the wilds of Jurassic Park for this long, they want to bring him home alive. However, there are some new dinosaurs waiting to join the party, in addition to the threats we've already seen in the previous two installments.

So, I don't think that anyone hasn't seen at least the first part of this trilogy, and if you stop there, that's fine.

It is head and shoulders above the others in terms of story, characterization and just sheer awesomeness of seeing those dinosaurs for the first time.

I actually saw this in theaters when it came out, and the scene where Alan and Ellie see the dinosaurs for the first time... well, it gave me goosebumps then.

20 years later, I still get goosebumps with that scene.

The elements of the actors, the great special effects on the dinosaurs themselves, and John Williams score create the perfect moment where you soak in the fact that you're seeing dinosaurs, and it's very cool.

There are similar scenes in each of the sequels, but it never quite matches the very first time you see Jurassic Park.

The cast is great, especially the cynical Dr. Malcolm, effortlessly deadpanning his way as the snarky voice of reason.

He's fun in the second installment as well, but when he has to be snarky and the hero at the same time, it just doesn't have the same oomph as the character was able to enjoy in the first film.

Which leaves the third film, which isn't nearly as bad as everyone probably remembers it to be. While not as good as the first, most film trilogies or series all suffer through that. The blame also shouldn't be foisted upon poor Joe Johnston, who gets saddled following Spielberg yet still directs a perfectly fine thriller.

All three have been added to Netflix as of last month, so feel free to revisit, or if you've never seen one (or all) of them, get ready for a pretty wild ride.

Final Grades:

Jurassic Park: A
The Lost World: B
Jurassic Park III: B-