Chocolat (2000)

Chocolat - 2000

Our next film is 2000's "Chocolat", in which a woman and her daughter arrive in a quiet French town and totally transform its populace with her different way of living.

The film's cast includes Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Leslie Caron, Lena Olin, Peter Stormare, Carrie-Anne Moss, Aurelien Parent Koenig, Victoire Thivisol, and Hugh O'Conor.

In a small town in the French countryside, the town population goes about their day to day lives as they always have.

The winds of change arrive and bring Vianne Rocher to the town along with her daughter, Anouk.

She rents out the town patisserie and plans a surprise for the town when she opens up.

The uptight mayor of the town visits her and is very displeased to discover that she's an unwed mother who has moved into their very conservative town.  Another shocking discovery is that she doesn't attend church, a compulsory activity for the town's residents.

Instead of a patisserie, Vianne opens a chocolaterie and all of the townspeople are tempted by the delectable delights on display in the window.  They are afraid to partake as they are in the middle of Lent.

Vianne's chocolate shop begins to transform the lives of the citizens right away.  Monsieur Blerot begins to be bold and approach the object of his affections, Madame Audel.  When he confesses his passion for her to the priest, the cleric is shocked.  "At her age?  At your age?" asks Pere Henri.  "Yes, and yes," comes the timid reply of Monsieur Blerot.

Vianne also starts a friendship with her landlady, Armande.  Cranky and stubborn when they first meet, Armande's defenses come down once she gets a taste of Vianne's special hot chocolate, and a friendship is struck.

And Vianne also helps a battered woman escape a horrible marriage (much to the disgust of the mayor, who believes that the woman should return to her husband).

When a band of itinerant "gypsies" comes to town, Vianne ignites the ire of the mayor by becoming very friendly with their leader, Roux.

She spends a lot of time trying to figure out just what exactly is Roux's favorite kind of chocolate.  He tells her that everything she's offered him is delicious, but none are his favorite.

When Vianne's shop is ransacked and most of the things she's made for an upcoming chocolate festival are destroyed, she is ready to pack it all in and hit the road again.  On her way out, she stops into the kitchen and finds many of her friends recreating what was lost and extending true friendship to her.

And at her chocolate festival, even the mayor comes around and fully accepts Vianne into the community.

She even discovers Roux's favorite kind of chocolate: hot chocolate.

Cast rundown:

   Juliette Binoche................................Vianne Rocher

   Johnny Depp....................................Roux

   Judi Dench.......................................Armande Voizin

   Alfred Molina....................................Comte de Reynaud

   Leslie Caron.....................................Madame Audel

   Lena Olin.........................................Josephine Muscat

   Peter Storemare...............................Serge Muscat

   Carrie-Anne Moss..............................Caroline Clairmont

   Aurelien Parent Koenig.......................Luc Clairmont

   Victoire Thivisol.................................Anouk Rocher

   Hugh O'Conor...................................Pere Henri

And that's it for Chocolat.  Juliette Binoche actually learned how to make chocolate in Paris as part of her training for the film.  Some of the chocolates she made were used in the festival scene.  The film was shot at the village of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain in France.  About 250 of the townspeople were used as extras in the movie.

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - 1997

Our next film is the second installment in the Jurassic Park series.  1997's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" finds us on a second island filled with dinosaurs that exhibit behaviors no one thought they were capable of.

The film's cast includes Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Attenborough, Vince Vaughn, Arliss Howard, Vanessa Lee Chester, Peter Storemare, Richard Schiff, Joseph Mazzello, and Ariana Richards.

Dr. Ian Malcolm is summoned to the home of John Hammond, creator of the dinosaurs that wrecked havoc on him in the first film.  He's unsure of why he's been asked to the Hammond residence.

It soon becomes clear to Dr. Malcolm.  There is a second island used to create dinosaurs in Costa Rica.  Hammond wants Ian to go there and lead a team that will document these creatures and allow them to stay in a biological preserve setting.  Ian is dead set against it.  When Hammond tells him that his girlfriend Sarah is already there, Ian agrees to go so he can extract Sarah from a potentially deadly situation.

As Ian prepares to leave, his daughter stows away on board some of the field equipment they will be using.

When they get to the island, Ian's crew can't help but feel overwhelmed when they see dinosaurs for the first time.  A herd of stegosaurus walks right by them.  Ian says, "Oh, yeah, ooh...ahh...that's how it always starts.  Then later there's running and screaming."

They succeed in locating Ian's girlfriend Sarah, who is busy documenting the stegosaurus herd and their habits.  Ian tells her that coming to the island was not a smart thing to do.  "I'll be back in five or six days," Sarah tells him.  "No, you'll be back in five or six pieces," Ian responds.

She ignores him and goes back to taking pictures of a baby stegosaurus.  While she's taking pictures, she inadvertently causes a stegosaurus stampede that they all barely escape from.

When Ian discovers his daughter on the island, he wants to get her off of it.  He tries to flag down some passing helicopters.  They aren't stopping, and members of the team notice a familiar logo on them.

It seems that Hammond's nephew is interested in more than a biological preserve.  He wants to capture dinosaurs and send them back to a sort of zoo in San Diego.

Sarah, Ian and the team free the captured dinosaurs and bring an injured baby T-Rex back to their camp to treat a broken leg.  Things go all right until Mommy T-Rex is knocking on the door and wants her baby back.

After she gets her baby back, the mother T-Rex destroys the camp and eats one of the team members.  Ian, Sarah, and the rest of their team join up with the other people on the island in an effort to find a way to get off of it alive.  In the process, the mother T-Rex and her baby are captured and put on a ship bound for San Diego.

All hell breaks loose once the ship docks in San Diego.  It turns out that the adult T-Rex ate the crew, which sends the ship careening into the dockside.  Then, she escapes and runs freely on the streets of the unsuspecting city.

She terrorizes one family and eats their pet dog.  No one seems to have any ideas on how to capture her.

Sarah and Ian decide to get the baby T-Rex and use it to lure the mother back to the ship.  The plan seems to work, and they have to move fast to outrun the angry mommy dinosaur.

Once they are safely aboard, Sarah uses a dart gun to tranquilize the mother.  Then the armor plated doors are sealed and the boat can return to Isla Sorna.

After everything is over, Hammond comes on TV and tells how these creatures need our absence not our help.  The T-Rex family is shown reunited on the island along with other species of dinosaurs.

Cast rundown:

   Jeff Goldblum.................................Dr. Ian Malcolm

   Julianne Moore...............................Dr. Sarah Harding

   Pete Postlethwaite...........................Roland Tembo

   Richard Attenborough......................Dr. John Hammond

   Vince Vaughn..................................Nick Van Owen

   Arliss Howard..................................Peter Ludlow

   Vanessa Lee Chester........................Kelly Curtis Malcolm

   Peter Storemare..............................Dieter Stark

   Richard Schiff..................................Eddie Carr

   Joseph Mazzello...............................Tim Murphy

   Ariana Richards...............................Lex Murphy

And that's all for The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  It's a bit darker in subject matter than its predecessor.  A dinosaur that was featured heavily in the film was the stegosaurus.  Steven Spielberg made sure to put it in as it was a "popular demand" inclusion.  The baby stegosaurus was eight feet long and weighed 400 pounds.

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