Jurassic Park: Ah, Ah, Ahh.

When I was really young -- either in Kindergarten or First Grade -- we had a day in class devoted to dinosaurs. Everybody had their favorites. Mine was the big scary T. Rex. The tyrant lizard. King of the dinosaurs. Fearer of nothing. Devourer of everything. ROAR.

The guest speaker (or was it a video? Did we even have videos back then?) told us about the different kinds of dinosaurs and what they could do. Brontosauruses had longs necks and could eat the tops of trees. Triceratops ate plants lower to the ground. And the Tyrannosaurus... the TYRANNOSAURUS REX... well, that jerk was just a scavenger, eating up things that were already dead or dying.

This turned my world upside-down. The King, no more ferocious than a lazy vulture. How disappointing.

At the end of it all we were to name our favorite dinosaur and why. To my credit I stuck with the T. Rex. "Even though they were just scavengers?" the teacher asked, daring me to pick something nicer or, at the very least, something more dignified. "Yep," I said. Of course I couldn't give a clear reason why anymore. I guess he was still pretty mean looking. I may have mentioned his teeth. I probably mentioned his wussy forearms. I don't know. I stammered about until they moved on to somebody else.



Anyway, the point is that sometimes facts don't matter. Wait, no. Facts DO matter. They matter a lot. But sometimes we can suspend our beliefs to let ourselves be enamored with things we deem bigger than ourselves, either literally or figuratively. The Tyrannosaurus, MAYBE a scavenger. But still definitely an awesome-saurus.

So then, Jurassic Park, saturated with unbelievability, but still a tremendously fun romp-a-roo.

I won't get into velociraptors' magical door-opening abilities, Timmy's wild electric fence ride, or the Tyrannosaurus' ability to keep up with a Jeep. The liberal liberties taken with those parts of the film don't matter. Maybe I'm a too forgiving film watcher, but if you're nitpicking details of a movie that features a scene where spitting dinosaurs consume Newman, then you're watching the movie for the wrong reasons.

Then why DO you watch Jurassic Park? I'll tell you why I watch Jurassic Park. Because it's got motherf@#%ing dinosaurs -- and they EAT PEOPLE (off of toilets, no less). And those dinosaurs look real, scary, and real scary. This isn't the fourth sequel to Carnosaur. These are the best realistic special effects cashmoney can buy (and, in my opinion, these computer generated dinos have held up extremely well over time).

I watch Jurassic Park because I want to see the dinosaurs mess up your stupid theme park.

I watch Jurassic Park because I want to see the dinosaurs give the bad guys (and the expendable good guys) exactly what's coming to them.

I watch Jurassic Park because, at least until Deep Blue Sea, there finally came a beast Samuel "Hang on to your butts" L. Jackson could not handle.

I DON'T watch Jurassic Park to argue whether or not a dinosaur can see you if you remain perfectly still. (The definitive answer to that question, by the way, is "That's retarded, stop talking to me.")

Steven Spielberg had two great monster movies. Jaws was the first. Jurassic Park is the other. This is Steven Spielberg doing what he does best, which is stalking you with his marginally intelligent killing machines. This is Jaws with claws. And a dinosaur could totally eat a shark.

Freakin' dinosaurs. So perhaps they were genetically modified for film, but sometimes absolute reality is less than entertaining. My idealized dinosaur -- my ferocious f@#%ing Tyrannosaurus -- is way cooler than your text-book bird-descended slow-butt lizard thing. Jurassic Park knows what I'm talking about.

Jurassic Park gets me.

Even when I was in early elementary school, before Michael Crichton even published the original novel, me and Jurassic Park were on the same page.

Jurassic Park is my homie.

I'm giving my homie four clever girls... out of five.