Questions I Have About "Jurassic World"

In Defense of the Jurassic Park Franchise's Most Reviled Entry

Jurassic Park III contains two talking dinosaurs.

The first is a velociraptor which Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) dreams is in a plane with him, as it approaches Isla Sorna, an island filled with very real and (as far as we know) mute raptors.

The second is Barney, of Barney & Friends, who appears on a TV screen and briefly distracts Ellie Sattler's (Laura Dern) 2-year-old son while he receives a desperate call for help from Grant, now stranded on Sorna.

For most viewers, one talking dinosaur was enough--two was unbearable. The Raptor On a Plane scene is mostly remembered as the self-parodying nadir of the once-mighty franchise which began with a movie that seemed like the Citizen Kane of summer blockbusters.

Well--everyone's wrong.

The Confounding Conundrum of the Condiment King!

Batman's silliest villain has a surprisingly interesting story.

Of all the throwaway side characters in "The Lego Batman Movie," he was A One to remember.

The Condiment King makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance--complete with ketchup and mustard guns that make a loud "splurt" sound--in "The Lego Batman Movie," as one of the Joker's minions.

It's a funny moment on its own, and it's even funnier for the Batman fans who know that this pest-o is an actual villain from the DC canon. At the time, I remember thinking it was a rare joke-on-a-joke that worked.

But the Condiment King is no mere joke-on-a-joke. The "Sultan of Sauce" is more like jokes cubed on jokes cubed, an intricate and seemingly infinite Russian nesting doll of knowing, self-referential winks, each layer gently elbowing those before and after it.

And when the jokes are all put together, the story of the "Prince of Pickles" forms an arc with an unexpected (and likely unintentional) air of tragedy--which is maybe the greatest joke of them all.

It turns out the Condiment King explains quite a bit about Gotham.

Universal Deconstruction

"Justice League," released last year, still doesn't seem to have the proper respect from either critics or audiences. I think this is because there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how it builds the DC Extended Universe mythology.

Therefore, I've decided to put together this Justice League/DCEU FAQ, which I hope is helpful.

So what's the deal with the Flash? How did he get his powers?

He was struck by lightning, and this gave him the ability to create a "layer of dimensional reality that seems to manipulate space-time." At least, that's the "abridged version." (These are real lines from the movie.)

Um, OK. And the suit?