Lately, I’ve been thinking about reboots, and what makes them successful or disappointing. Planet of the Apes has managed to knock it out of the park decade after decade, while the recent Twisters left me yearning for literally any connection to my beloved Twister, beyond the basic existence of tornadoes in the Midwest (they couldn’t even throw in one flying cow or Tori Amos song???). It’s my opinion that Twisters struggles with the one thing this week’s Cinema Sips pick Jurassic World (Disc/Download) does so well: telling a new story on the bones of the old one.
If you know me at all, then you know I’m obsessed with the Jurassic movies. I even flew to Hawaii just to visit some of the filming locations of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World (well… also to drink Mai tai’s), and the giddy excitement I felt at seeing the claw marks in the Indominus Rex paddock was the same excitement I felt as a ten-year-old, watching a man in a port-a-potty get eaten alive by a T-Rex. Jurassic World doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel. It’s still a movie about a theme park where dinosaurs run amok, even with all the new safety precautions. There are a plethora of nods to the original, including the old logo, the old jeeps, the old night-vision goggles, and even the old T-Rex. It doesn’t have the entire original cast, but we get to see one familiar face in the form of BD Wong’s morally ambiguous scientist. Yet among all this old stuff, there’s still new family drama, new romance, and newly trained raptors. Nostalgia is powerful, but even more so when it interacts with the modern world.
One fantastic new addition to the cast is the late, great Jimmy Buffet, who runs screaming out of a Margaritaville when the pterodactyls get loose. Jimmy is of course double-fisting a couple frosty margs, which sounds like a great idea to me. Let’s kick it up a notch with some hatch peppers because this movie has a terrifically creepy title credits scene featuring a tiny dino hatching from its shell. While watching Jurassic World, I recommend drinking a Hatch Margarita.
Hatch Margarita
2 oz Hatch Chile-infused Reposado Tequila
1 oz Lime Juice
1 oz Orange Liqueur
Hatch pepper, lime slice (garnish)
To flavor the tequila, combine a cup of tequila with 1 TBSP chopped hatch chile peppers. Let sit for approximately 3-4 hours, then strain the peppers out. In a shaker with ice, shake together tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur. Strain into a glass filled with fresh ice, and garnish with a sliver of hatch pepper and lime slice.
When it comes to reboots, I am one hundred percent in favor of winks to the past. It reminds me of what it was like to marvel at these dinosaurs that looked so real, and of how loudly I screamed in a suburban Ohio mall cinema when Laura Dern experienced that raptor jump scare. Jurassic World gives me that same childhood thrill while raising the stakes now that I’m an adult. Life, and movies, still find a way. Cheers!
Cinema Sips 
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