My One Movie Crush

Jurassic Park III! Sam Neill! My first paleontologist love! I will forever find it funny that I fell in love with Alan Grant in 1993, and am marrying an honest-to-god paleontologist in 2009. Not that I set out to find a paleontologist—purely luck of the draw and he does not work on dinosaurs—but it does give me a good chuckle. Unfortunately, even though the movie was starting when I was on the elliptical at the gym, I was about to finish my workout. Sigh. No Alan Grant love for me.

But yes, similar to our Titanic obsession, my little sister and I shared a Jurassic Park obsession. We saw the movie in the theater many, many times (though I don’t remember the exact number), pre-ordered the VHS tape so that we could watch it endlessly when it was released in late 1994 (more than a year after the theatrical release), purchased the soundtrack and listened to the John Williams-composed instrumentals ceaselessly, actually bought the action figures, and just generally annoyed the crap out of our family. We also made the mistake of 1) seeing Jurassic Park II in the theater and b) ignoring Jurassic Park III when it was released. Jurassic Park III is pure campy gold. While Jurassic Park took itself a bit seriously, Jurassic Park III did less so, as evidenced by Grant’s dream about a raptor saying his name (excuse the not-so-great quality):

But with Jurassic Park came my love for Sam Neill in general. After watching that movie, I proceeded to get my hands on as many Sam Neill movies as I could. I stayed up until 2am one day to watch Attack Force Z (co-starring a young and probably just as crazy Mel Gibson); I rented A Cry in the Dark, the Omen III (Sam Neill as one sexy Anti-Christ), and Dead Calm. I saw In the Mouth of Madness (a truly fucked up movie if there ever was one) a couple of times in the theater and actually wouldn’t mind seeing it again. I also sat through Wimbledon on Hulu not too long ago (to my eternal shame; I mean, Kirsten Dunst? Yech!). And seriously, “Homer the Vigilante”? One of my favorite Simpsons episodes thanks to Neill’s droll portrayal of Malloy (what can I say; I even love him in retirement-home-resident cartoon form). I haven’t been interested enough to check out Neill as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in The Tudors, though; y’all know how I feel about misrepresentations of Tudor history (apparently Wolsey commits suicide in the show which is so inaccurate, especially as Catholic cardinal,  I could scream) and Anne Boleyn in particular.

Sam Neill has a tremendous body of work and I haven’t seen close to half of it. But I do know I’ll have to see Jurassic Park soon, and that I’ll have to get my hands on Jurassic Park III at some point. I’ll also have to make IP see Jurassic Park—he’s a paleontologist and hasn’t seen it. I know, crazy!