Nick Rogers reviews "Jurassic World"

By Nick Rogers

In an era of omniscient distraction and digression, what does it take to truly wow someone? Do marvels still exist that stop us cold and make time slow to let us behold their majesty a moment longer? The more our days revolve around refreshed pages, the more infinitesimal our incubation period for big ideas becomes; our haste to establish expectations and levy judgment makes even New York minutes quaint.

By inserting those ideas into a damn fine dinosaurs-eating-people scenario, “Jurassic World” straddles a line between an unexpectedly quizzical commentary and an undeniably slick, quick-moving crowd-pleaser. And in considering a need for reverent wonder in a world where it’s scarce, the pants-wetting fear of indifference that gets you killed plays better than “Tomorrowland’s” navel-gazing nostalgia.

In the series’ sole sequel of worth, late InGen founder John Hammond’s dream of welcoming the public to Jurassic Park has been a reality for years. (It’s been rebranded, though, as Jurassic World to avoid the whole unpleasant association with dying on vacation). Jimmy Fallon is its prerecorded tour guide. Crowds cheer an underwater Mosasaurus feeding on sharks as Rome’s hordes once did gladiators, albeit with a premium for splash-zone seats. Tykes ride tiny Triceratops as if they were carnival ponies. Teen staffers’ disaffected entreaties to “Enjoy the ride” have become as automated as the rides themselves.

That’s right: Even with dinosaurs walking beside you, Jurassic World has become just like any other moldy amusement park, to the point where it’s an outdoor mall with predators on its perimeter. Vacationers still come. But it’s not the destination anymore, prompting an (unwise) creation of multimillion-dollar, genetically modified, hybrid creatures such as the Indominus Rex — that, as the InGen company memos demand, turn out “bigger, scarier, cooler … with more teeth.”

Such memos could easily come from any studio in reference to plans for their summer seasons, where expectations for escalated thrills double not every year but every week. Twenty-two summers have passed since “Jurassic Park,” and at least twice as many movies have offered us increasingly realistic beasts battling each other onscreen since then. 1993’s anomaly is now 2015’s very affordable ante.

Case in point: The preview audience members who cackled loudly at the setup to “Jurassic World’s” first kill after the Indominus Rex, bred in such extreme solitary confinement as to become a smart, sociopathic killing machine, escapes. We’re a long way from nervous hushes and rippling water. Director Colin Trevorrow — who co-wrote the script with Derek Connolly, as well as rebooted-“Apes” franchise architects Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver — knows that and quickly silences those hecklers with unexpectedly fluid, but fun, aggression. This isn’t an annoyingly self-reflexive shredding of its forefather. It’s very much its own smart, sleek endeavor with momentum, confidence … and minor drawbacks.

As much a response to “Jurassic Park” as it is a sequel, what “Jurassic World” says about the modern us, as the “dominant” species, doesn’t, and shouldn’t, put us in the best light. It replaces the original’s inspiring “Life finds a way” mantra with a more resigned, weary and, sadly, relatable one: “Progress always wins.” Trevorrow wants us to groan as John Williams’ regal theme crescendos at the sight of charmless, churning commerce that’s crowding out corporate-sponsored dinosaurs. However genially, it’s nice to see a blockbuster flick the ears of its promotional bedfellows rather than just whisper sweet nothings into them. As critical of the machine as it can be while being a well-funded cog to make it run, this is one of several ways “Jurassic World” twists and tweaks the original’s majesty into mordant satire.

It’s just angry enough without losing its sense of adventure … or such brain-checking delights as muscular dinosaur expert Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) trying to train the perpetually deadly Velociraptors. Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo, as they’re known, may prove useful in tracking, and taking down, the Indominus Rex. Himself a hybrid of Ian Malcolm’s swagger and Alan Grant’s sensible side, Owen assumes he’s the Alpha, and Pratt keys into a magnetic, straightforward groove that sells this silly subplot. But “Jurassic World” wisely never extends sentimental exceptions to these dinos’ basic instinct. They may not eat Owen, but they will eat. (“Are they safe?” one character asks. “No, they’re not,” Owen barks back.)

There’s more in play, perhaps a tad too much for one film. Vic Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio, hitting slimy notes you expect) wants to militarize raptors as the next evolution of super-soldier. Jurassic World’s career-minded operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) contends with the fallout of the Indominus Rex’s escape. Hollywood’s perpetual third choice for everything (and maybe fourth now that Jessica Chastain is on the scene), Howard commendably sweats her way through a horribly written role — hardened harridan going soft — that she, and we, have seen 1,000 times. Save a hilariously dumb scene in which, it’s emphasized, women can run in heels, the part gives us nothing new.

Also, Claire’s two visiting nephews, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins), are trapped somewhere inside. The idea of distraction is essential to their story; they’ve been shipped off for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation as their divorcing parents plan to rip that life asunder while they’re gone. And when the fit really hits the shan, a passel of control-room lackeys (including comedians Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus) try to balance I-told-you-so scolding with doing whatever they can to save more lives.

You might wonder what, if anything, remains here of the Trevorrow and Connolly that intimately pondered the beauty, and danger, of love, trust, friendship and chance in 2012’s terrific “Safety Not Guaranteed.” To a sanded-down degree, you find it in Zach and Gray, especially as Zach rediscovers how to be a reassuring teenaged big brother and realizes Gray won’t soon find the freedom from family strife that he will. It’s enough to look past the unlikely amount of trouble in which these siblings find themselves, especially a scene in which the ’saurs swat their wayward tourists’ gyrosphere like a cricket ball. Emergency shutdown before an off-limits area seems like something on which insurers would insist.

That bit is one of several big thrills doled out at a regular clip by Trevorrow, who brings a crisp confidence to his inaugural action film. He’s hardly Steven Spielberg, but he has at least inherited the right ideas from the maestro: restraint, patience and a certain nervous giddiness. John Schwartzman’s swooping, thrilling camera movements help, stutter-stopping at shoulder level with characters to establish the dinosaurs’ scope, scale and speed. So do the sterling visual effects, a combo of motion-capture CGI and practical animatronics that affords these beasts more expressive traits than ever.

A nasty pterodactyl attack on the main campus unfolds in enough of a blur to protect the PG-13 rating while still ending on such horror that you’re happily tricked into thinking you’ve seen more carnage than you have. And its homage-riddled final act starts off embracing the combat of “Aliens,” edges right up to the relentless nastiness of “Deep Blue Sea,” then shifts into “The Raid” with dinosaurs. (And yes, the last bit is as awesomely realized as you’d hope due to the tactile weight and whomp of the visual effects.)

Infused with the right sense of danger, intimacy, intelligence and humor, “Jurassic World” is, like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” before it, pulpy summer fun with more on its mind than you’d think. To borrow a line from that film, this is a man-wasn’t-meant-to-meddle medley you won’t mind hearing.

Review: "Slow West"

“In a short time, this will be a long time ago.”

“Slow West” is a paean to the Old West: its limitless opportunities and blood-soaked reality. It’s a story of hope and true love… except many people go to early graves along with their hopes. And love takes many forms, but not always the one desired.

Written and directed by John Maclean in his feature film debut, the film was shot in New Zealand and features Brits, Germans, South Africans and Aussies in the main roles. It’s a vision of the American West as seen through the dream of foreigners, and ambles between sharp verisimilitude and a trance-like wonder.

This is the sort of movie in which a Scottish boy riding through 1870s Colorado comes across three Congolese men sitting by the side of the trail singing in their native tongue, and none of them seem out of place.

At a taut 84 minutes, it’s minimalist storytelling where the actors sketch out their characters from just a few lines of dialogue and how they act – usually under deadly duress. Maclean sets up main characters and antagonists chasing each other on the plains, but wanders freely between their camps. He seems as interested in the greybeard bandit as the winsome young hero.

Kodi Smit-McPhee is pensive and naïve as the boy, Jay Cavendish, a minor nobleman who left Scotland to chase his lady love, a commoner named Rose. She’s played by Caren Pistorius, who commands our attention in her few scenes. Rose and her father (Rory McCann) fled their home a year ago because of some unnamed trouble; now Jay is following, riding a horse all alone across the land with death at every turn.

What Jay doesn’t know is that there’s a $2,000 reward for the pair, and that attracts the attention of some fearful types – men like Silas, a bounty hunter when he needs to be and an outlaw otherwise. He’s played by Michael Fassbender, who wears the cowboy rig like he was born to it.

Silas is an amoral “brute,” in Jay’s words, but he agrees to chaperone the greenhorn for money. It soon becomes clear that Silas is hoping Jay will lead him right to his quarry, but he takes a shine to the earnest lad.

He’s a man of few words, rarely responding to Jay’s jabbering with more than “Sure, kid” or “Let’s drift.” He’s been around and seen things in his rambling life; there are dark deeds in his past -- and probably in his future, too.

“Survival ain't just how to skin a jackrabbit. It's knowing when to bluster and when to hush. When to take a beating, and when to strike,” Silas says.

Others are on parallel journeys, such as an enigmatic man in black who wears a white collar and carries a curiously long suitcase. Then there’s Payne (Ben Mendelsohn), an outlaw legend who leads a large gang of throw-offs. They track Silas and the boy, patiently, waiting.

It’s a feast for the senses. The cinematography by Robbie Ryan has a bleak beauty to it, and Jed Kurzel’s musical score trips easily between jaunty and mournful.

“Slow West” may be puzzling to some people, with its mix of worship and irony for the Western genre. I found it a haunting vision, darkness and light sliding across the far horizon in equal measure.

Reeling Backward: "Capturing the Friedmans" (2003)

I don’t review a lot of documentaries here in this space — and by “not many,” I mean I believe this is the very first one. Like silent films, they're so different from the modern conception of narrative fiction movies as to almost represent a distinct art form.

Done right, documentary films are closer to journalism than "storytelling." And obviously given my background, I take journalism very seriously.

I've grown to appreciate documentary films more and more as I've gotten older. I make no bones about preferring the old-school method of objectively exploring a subject rather than just making personal screeds a la Michael Moore. "Capturing the Friedmans" definitely falls into the former category. It was nominated for an Oscar and won the grand jury prize at Sundance.

A word on objectivity: No, it's not entirely possible, at least in the purest sense. All of us bring our biases and conceptions into every endeavor. But being objective is more an ethos than a state of mind. It's almost like the scientific method, where we're allowed to go in with a thesis, but we must rigorously test it against the actual information produced.

Being objective doesn't mean we're blank slates who explore a topic with robot-like catatonia of the conscious. It does mean we are capable of allowing for the possibility to be proved wrong or change our minds.

Director Andrew Jarecki performs the ultimate exercise in objectivity with "Friedmans," because the real subject turns out to be his own ambivalence.

The movie explores a famous child molestation case from the late 1980s, in which a father and son were both convicted of sodomizing and abusing young boys while taking computer classes at the Friedman family home in Great Neck, an upper-middle-class Long Island suburb.

Jarecki pretty clearly went into this project because he felt an injustice had been done. But he painstakingly presents all sides of the story, highlighting gaping holes in both the cases of the prosecution and defense, and leaves it up to the audience to form their own take.

At the end, we're still uncertain if Arthur and Jesse Friedman were monstrous sexual abusers or merely eccentric men who got caught up in a wave of hysteria and shoddy investigative tactics. Not only does Jarecki not try to force the issue by imposing his viewpoint, he lets the ambiguity become the aesthetic.

The real soul of "Capturing the Friedmans" is an exploration of the concept of reality versus perception, the knowable and the confounding.

The way Jarecki launched the project is the stuff of legends. He was making a short film about David Friedman, who was the top birthday clown in all of New York City. Donning big floppy shoes, suspender pants and oversize glasses, he entertains the offspring of the city's well-to-do.

But David was also the son of Arthur, a high school science teacher and former band leader, and older brother to Seth and Jesse. A theatrical personality, David shared his family story with the filmmaker, and the focus quickly shifted to darker strains.

I think what catapulted "Capturing the Friedmans" out of the ranks of standard documentary movies is that the Friedman men were videophiles who seemingly recorded every aspect of their lives. Even as the family was breaking down into pieces at the prospect of their patriarch and youngest child spending the rest of their lives in prison, David kept his cameras rolling. We get to see them in their most desperate hours -- including David's "video journal" in which he warns at the outset no one is permitted to view it except himself.

Arthur was caught receiving child pornography, which prompted police to start interviewing the dozens of boys who had enrolled in computer classes in the Friedman home over the years. A few testified to the most outlandish acts -- such as Jesse and his father "leapfrogging" a line of squatting boys to sodomize them one at a time -- and it soon snowballed into a major investigation.

The film talks to the actual detectives, prosecutors and judge in the case, and without overtly condemning them elicits how they essentially fed testimony to their young, pliable witnesses. Some only confirmed the abuse after being pressured by their parents or the cops, or even revealed it during highly dubious hypnosis sessions.

There are even interviews with a couple of alleged victims, now adults, who seem generally credible -- whether or not anything happened, they certainly believe it did. And Jarecki talks to other students of Arthur's classes who vehemently avow to never experiencing or witnessing anything out of the ordinary aside from tinkering on computers.

Eventually, the two Friedmans were confronted with such a mountain of evidence and charges -- more than 100 acts of abuse apiece -- that they felt bullied by their attorneys and the family matriarch, Elaine, into entering guilty pleas. Arthur ended up killing himself with an overdose while in prison. (Mostly, it's suggested, to secure an insurance settlement for his youngest son.) Jesse finished his sentence about a dozen years ago and continues to try to prove his innocence to this day.

All of the Friedmans -- except Seth, who declined to participate -- come across as seemingly normal people with interiors that are opaque, possibly even to themselves.

Interviews with people Arthur confided in, including his gay brother Howard, confirm that he suffered in a cloistered, closeted existence and harbored a vile attraction to young boys. He even admitted to molesting one boy -- but years earlier, long before the alleged crimes that sent him to prison.

Elaine is the most sphinx-like, a woman who seems to mostly resent all the trouble and frustration the criminal case brought into her quiet family life. She harbored her suspicions about Arthur's inclinations, but was apparently willing to ignore them if it kept stability in the household.

Her relationship with her sons, especially David, are seen to be permanently damaged during the course of filmmaking. For her part, Elaine feels ganged up on by the close relationship between the Friedman men, with some justification. For instance, she's mortified by having these intimate family arguments videotaped, which under the circumstances would seem to be the most normal reaction a person could have.

Was Arthur Friedman a pedophile? Jarecki's film patiently lays out the evidence that seems to conclude that he did feel attracted to boys, and acted upon that feeling at some point in his life. But it seems unlikely that his computer glasses were the den of parading sodomy and abuse that the criminal against him alleges.

As for Jesse? We're left feeling uncertain. His tendency to joke and banter in the videotapes -- even on the courthouse steps while awaiting sentencing -- make him undeniably less sympathetic. But no more guilty.

Video review: "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

A bit of charm and a lot of smash-mouth, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” was one of 2015’s earliest, and best, surprises.

This super-spy thriller/comedy operates as both a send-up and celebration of the 007 genre. Colin Firth plays Harry Hart, aka Galahad, a member of the sophisticated and ultra-secret spy agency knows as the Kingsmen. They prefer to do their bidding beneath the veil of anonymity, using all sorts of cool gadget hidden inside their signature dapper suits and eyeglasses.

Harry recruits rough-and-tumble street scamp Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) to be his protégé, and the story is framed around the familiar training and initial missions of the new guy. It seems some nefarious force is taking out the Kingsmen one by one, so graduation will have to come early.

The bad guy is a Steve Jobs techie type, deliciously played by Samuel L. Jackson – a combination of computer nerd, gangster and maniacal villain. His henchwoman has two prosthetic legs outfitted with swords to dice up her victims.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn, “Kingsman” has got terrific action scenes and also terribly funny ones. It’s a smart and energetic flick that evinces a tone somewhere between a smirk and a gasp. This is a movie that makes fun of spy movies, but loves them, too.

Video extras are pretty decent. There’s a gallery of photos of sets, props and behind-the-scenes peeks. There are also six making-of documentary featurettes: “Panel to Screen: The Education Of A 21st Century Super-Spy,” “Heroes And Rogues,” “Style All His Own,” “Tools Of The Trade,” “Breathtakingly Brutal” and “Culture Clash: The Comic Book Origins Of The Secret Service.”

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Review: "Spy"

"Spy" is a one-joke movie, but it's a pretty decent joke. Schlubby, timid Susan is a CIA drone who finally gets a chance to go out in the field, and to the surprise of everyone she's a total badass -- if a frequently clumsy one.

Because this is a comedy, so thar be pratfalls galore.

Given that description, you know Melissa McCarthy is the star. She's come on like a tornado in just a few short years to become one of Hollywood's most consistently popular stars. Even last year's limp "Tammy" made bank.

McCarthy just has that natural ability to make audiences like her, even when her character is behaving over the top. We sense a vulnerability beneath the bombast. She's an everygal who projects intelligence and the endearing awkwardness of someone who didn't get any of the big breaks in life.

The woman is a pip.

Here she's reunited with writer/director Paul Feig, who made her a star in "Bridesmaids" and followed it up by pairing McCarthy up with Sandra Bullock in "The Heat." This time she's got a couple of suave, macho male co-stars, though they're supporting parts and she's clearly the main show.

Jude Law plays Bradley Fine, a classic debonair 007 type who can mow through a whole building of bad guys on his own. Of course, he's got Susan in his head to help -- literally. She monitors him from base, sees and hears what he does, and uses a bunch of impressive spy gizmos to give Fine a leg up.

But when Fine goes missing in the field, presumed dead, Susan steps forward to keep up the pursuit of their quarry: Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), an icy Bulgarian who has stolen a small nuclear device and is looking to sell it to terrorists. Susan's job is to track Rayna and report back, but of course she soon jumps into the muck.

There's pushback, of course, from the agency. The boss (Allison Janney) isn't sure Susan has the right stuff. And Jason Statham turns up, essentially playing Jason Statham. He's a brash agent who keeps warning Susan that she's in danger of screwing up the mission -- usually right before he screws up the mission.

The movie is fitfully entertaining. There are several terrific laugh-out-loud moments. One bit, where Susan makes her first kill and then... overreacts to it is a great rolling joke that just keeps building.

And there are a number of good throwaway gags. Statham's character wants to know why he can't just jump into "the 'Face/Off' machine" to change his identity, and has to be reminded it's not a real thing. And Susan keeps getting stuck with lame secret identities, divorced cat ladies and such, which is mostly an excuse for McCarthy to dress up in fright wigs and goofy outfits.

I was also glad to see that, unlike "Tammy," there isn't a raft of fat jokes. Though the movie certainly uses McCarthy's size to comic effect, it's more about a dowdy woman discovering she can move like a ninja when her dander is up.

It's a fun movie, but there are too many dull stretches, especially in the second half. There are even some fairly pulse-pounding action sequences, and for awhile it seems like "Spy" forgets that it's a spoof.

Review: "Barely Lethal"

There are a lot of young and charismatic performers in “Barely Lethal,” and I wanted to hug each of them, tell them how talented they are, and comfort them with the knowledge that appearing in this movie won’t ruin their careers.

This teen action/comedy is the sort of forgettable film that you make when you’re breaking into Hollywood and just want to get some credits under your belt. You get a paycheck, learn from the experience, and try to choose better projects from then on.

The strange thing is that many of the people involved are already bona fide names in showbiz.

Hailee Steinfeld, an Oscar nominee for her terrific turn in “True Grit” and part of the “Pitch Perfect” crew, is the lead. Sophie Turner, best known as Sansa Stark on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” is the bitchy adversary. Toby Sebastian also was in “Game of Thrones” in a smaller role. Gabriel Basso was in “Super 8” and “The Kings of Sumer.” Plus Samuel L. Jackson, Jaime King and Jessica Alba turn up.

So what are they doing in this silly flick about a teen super-spy who decides she’d rather experience high school instead? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

It’s essentially “21 Jump Street” except instead of being a cop, Steinfeld is Agent 83 of the Prescott School for Girls, a place where orphans are raised to be deadly assassins. Jackson is the stern taskmaster. But 83 yearns for something more, and after dousing herself in a raft of teen movies like “The Breakfast Club,” she decides to fake her death and do the John Hughes thing.

Dubbing herself Megan, she poses as a foreign exchange student – from Canada! – and embeds herself with a family in wholesome Newtown. Soon she’s navigating the familiar obstacles of mean girls, clueless teachers and romantic angst.

Dove Cameron plays Liz, the acerbic daughter of her foster family, who wants nothing to do with her. Sebastian plays Cash, the dreamy wannabe rock star of the school whom all the girls swoon over, including, soon enough, Megan. Thomas Mann is Roger, the geeky-but-nice guy who develops a crush on her. Basso is the Gooch, local athlete-meathead.

Director Kyle Newman and screenwriter John D’Arco put all these actors through the familiar paces without much flair or originality. You know it’s just a matter of time before Megan’s spy life invades her high school one, with Alba playing the evil renegade agent who wants revenge on the Prescotts. The comedy is broad and the storylines worthy of cable TV.

I think “Barely Lethal” is trying to be a parody of dumb teen movies, but ends up turning into one itself. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then becoming that which you mocked must be the cruelest insult.

"Game of Thrones" has been freed from the books -- and it's better than ever

When I watched the first season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" I found it absolutely thrilling, in large part because I was wholly innocent of the books by George R.R. Martin. Everything was new and vibrant. 

A dense, personality-driven mythological world in which the traditional heroic-and-true "main" character gets killed off at the end of the first book/season? That's brash, innovative storytelling, and I loved to see someone(s) bring a new approach to my beloved sword-n-sorcery genre.

By the time season two debuted, though, I'd torn through all five published books of Martin's series, which as fans know is actually called "A Song of Fire and Ice." GoT, as it's come to be universally known and hashtagged, is simply the title of the first novel in a planned seven-book series. 

But it's a killer title, and it aptly describes Martin's world -- various noble families vying for power and crushing those beneath them -- better than anything else.

(If you're tempted to be impressed by my speed reading, don't. When a "season" of television only lasts nine weeks, that means you have nearly 10 months of downtime in between. Even given the formidable lengths of Martin's books -- the man laughs at the 1,000-page threshold -- and my own itinerant reading schedule due to work/other work/family, it's quite doable.)

The difference between experiencing a cinematic work with or without having read the source material is wider than the Narrow Sea. I can only imagine what it must have been like to encounter the Red Wedding without knowing what will happen beforehand. Even just the ink-and-dead-trees version was an emotionally wrenching event.

So I'd be lying if I said the succeeding seasons of GoT haven't held somewhat less of a thrill for me. 

Oh, they were marvelously made and acted. But while a work of art or craftsmanship can please you an infinite number of times, it can only surprise you once. And a great deal of the appeal of Martin's world-building is his willingness to introduce sudden, head-snapping twists in the plot -- most notably, the death of characters you might otherwise have surmised were indispensable.

As things went on through seasons two through four, the show began to diverge more and more from the books. Some of this was out of simple necessity -- Martin has literally hundreds of named characters and innumerable side plots. Even with 20 shows per season, things would still have to be culled.

At the first the differences were mild -- shortening a journey or condensing eight secondary characters into three.

(Editors' note: Many, many spoilers ahead.)

But as time has gone on the show has made increasingly substantial changes from the books. And I'll admit many of these have bothered me. Even as I acknowledged the narrative reasoning behind them, I hated seeing some of my favorite parts of Martin's novels excised. 

That taint of disappointment has attached itself to my feelings about the show, knowing I'll never get to see the dark enigma of Coldhands brought to the screen, or the steely resolve of Lady Stoneheart and her increasingly less-than-merry band of outlaws.

As season five began we had a TV show and a series of books with the same bones of narrative structure, but much of the fleshly exterior has been altered completely, Qyburn-like. 

Minor, fleeting characters in the books have evolved into major enduring figures -- Bronn the mercenary and the fiend Ramsey Snow come to mind. Meanwhile, other people populating the pages have been diminished or eliminated in favor of others. 

It seems Jon Connington's storyline (greyscale infection and a quest for redemption) has been folded into Jorah Mormont's. A prince of Dorne's hapless diplomatic mission has been rendered into utter nothingness (which is probably where it belonged anyway).

Some important characters are on completely different journeys, both figuratively and geographically. 

When last we left the book versions of Jamie Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, they had evolved from adversaries into allies who had just embarked on some mysterious purpose. In the show, Jamie leads an ill-advised rescue mission to Dorne for his niece/daughter Myrcella, replacing another member of the Kingsguard. Brienne's TV counterpart has successfully tracked Sansa Stark to Winterfell and is biding her time.

Sansa was still in the Vale under the protection/tutelage of Petyr Baelish in book form, pretending to be his bastard daughter. Now she's married Ramsey Snow (now Bolton) in a long-game plan of Baelish's, replacing a commoner girl who instead suffered at the vile young lord's hands.

In the books, Jon Snow was leading a hot-headed mission southward to avenge his family against the Boltons, and suffering the pointed objections of his fellow men of the Night's Watch. Now, he's gone with wildling leader Tormund to Hardhone to convince his fellows to join the them behind the Wall, and encountered an army of zombies and white walkers for his troubles.

Sam Tarly traveled with Gilly and a baby (though not Gilly's) across the sea and then to Oldtown; his TV counterpart is still holding down the fort at Castle Black.

Also, an increasingly large number of people who are still alive in the books are already dead on the show -- Mance Rader, Catelyn Stark, Barristan Selmy, Jojen Reed, Grenn, Pyp. And some dead yet live -- Kevan Lannister, Pycelle.

Heck, Robb Stark married an entirely different woman in the books. I could keep going, but you get the idea.

The future is now

As season five is winding up, we've now moved completely past where Martin is with his books. Tyrion Lannister, on an interminable series of voyages to reach Daenerys Targaryen, has now met her as of last night's show. And it was all the crackling good encounter we'd hoped for. The existential threat of the dead army, which had more or less been shunted aside in the novels, was hauntingly crystallized in the big combat sequence.

We are now facing a situation that's unprecedented in the popular arts: a screen adaptation of an ongoing creative work that will conclude before the "source" material does.

Martin has committed to seven books, but the sixth won't be published this year. Given his notoriously slow writing process, it could well be the year 2022 before he winds things up. Meanwhile, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have hinted strongly at concluding after two more seasons.

This situation presents a tremendous set of opportunities and challenges for "Game of Thrones." But, I would argue, most of the benefits accrue to the show -- and at the expense of the novels.

Benioff and Weiss aren't just making things up. Martin has debriefed them on what will happen in the last two books, and they're using that as the basis for what we'll see. No doubt things will continue to be changed around from Martin's vision to fit that of the TV show. And Martin has already talked about how the show has altered his plans for the books going forward. 

Thus, for awhile watching GoT on TV after having read the books became an exercise in seeing how the show differed from the novels. Now, it'll be about how the books changed things up from the show.

I've read comments from people who are disappointed by the fifth season of "Game of Thrones," complaining that "nothing happens." (Though I don't doubt those voices are fewer and quieter after last night's pulse-racing episode.) For me, this year's run has started out very well and just gotten stronger. 

I'd argue it's the best season yet. I can't wait to see what the last two episodes hold.

If at times HBO's "Game of Thrones" has struggled in its quandary of whether to conform or rebel against the expectations of Martin's books, now the show has finally, definitively been freed of them. The TV version of GoT is now the primary one that will exist in the forefront of the popular consciousness.

The future is now. Winter has finally come to Westeros.