Y'know at Heart Raiders of the Lost Ark wouldn't be too out of place here.

[daveblackeye15]

Since it's nearly summer, well it feels a lot like Summer where I'm at and I'm loving the warmer temperature and longer days. When it get's like this that means it's time to re-watch Indiana Jones movies.

*spoilers*



(Raiders) One of my favorites, what a great adventure flick. At heart it truely is a B-movie (bless it) but on the outside it's very well done. It has the best blending of action and story out of the three. I have yet to see a gunfight that can top off the one in Marion's bar. It has the best grouping of villians with Belloq as Indy's Yin to his Yang, the ever so slimey Major Toht, Colonel Dietrich adds a bit of force, oh yeah and Pat Roach (R.I.P) got two changes to beat Indy but he failed, maybe in Temple of Doom? This one even has a Nazi monkey! And on one last note this was one of Alfred Molina's  earliest roles, and yeah he goes on to play Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2 (kinda ironic!)

5/5

Temple of Doom seems to have more of the original feeling than does Last Crusade. It certainly has excellent action but not quite so much story, I mean Indy didn't really have to do much investigating to find the three stones. But it certainly starts off with a bang! First one helluva weird fight inside Club Obi-wan (complete with balloons!) then a gun fight between two cars that are going at crazy speeds! And the actual adventure hasn't even begun yet! Willie was quite pretty but quite annoying, possibly my least favorite but she toughened up in the end. And it's a fact that Shortround is the greatest kid sidekick ever! Sadly Indy defeated Pat Roach yet again! The last action bit is great with Indy cutting a rope bridge in half, sending nearly all of it's occupants (evil ones) to their doom! Really how could you top off Raiders? You can't! But you can sure as hell try!

4/5

I think I'll get to Crusade tommorow.

[peter johnson]

     Y'know, I wanted to like these pictures -- I really did -- And I gotta admit that I did get some laughs out of the one with Sean Connery as his Dad . . . but generally speaking, these things have always left me a bit cold.
     Now, I like bang-bang/cliffhang as much as anyone else, but these pictures just ain't cuttin' it for me.
     In the first one, I disliked the fact that they were so specific about it being the 1930s, and then didn't bother to get the clothing and uniforms right for the 1930s.  I mean, c'mon people, it ain't that difficult!  That disappointed me because I think it shows some condescention toward/contempt for your audience.  An example:  All the Nazi Afrika Corps uniforms and insignia.   The Afrika Corps was 10 years later -- 1940's, not 1930's -- so it's like having a World War One movie with metal monoplanes, or a World War Two movie with Korean Sabre Jets.
     There are other errors of history in the picture, but here's something that bothers me even more:
     When "Indy" sneaks on board the submarine, where the blue jeezis is he hiding for the very long ocean voyage?   This is never explained, and the damn sub sure didn't ride on the surface all the way to the Holy Land.  We see him get on board, we go to the map of dotted lines, and poof!  we're there and Hey!  Look!  There's Indy again!!!  Wow . . .
     Yeah, okay, the ghosts and demons were really cool, ditto the melting Nazis, but I really didn't give a rat's behind about Jones or his story or if he lived or died after a bit.  I just felt it could have been done so much better.
     In the second one -- How come people get so bent out of shape over Jar-Jar Binks, and yet apparently nobody but me found that cutesy wootsy lil' chinky boy, oh he's so adorable and racially cute!, just vomit inducing?
     Maybe there's something wrong with me -- but, dang it, I love Jackie Chan movies, Shaw Brothers, Bourne Identity -- hell, I can even get past Tom Cruise for the Mission Impossible remakes -- I just didn't then and don't now "get" the whole Indiana Jones thing . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[trekgeezer]

I think Lucas was trying to recreate something from his childhood (movie serials) and historical accuracy was not big on the agenda.

My Dad, who turned 70 the year Raiders was released hated it. Now this guy is the reason I know who all the old cowboy actors are and introduced me to the big adventure movies from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. He disliked because it would be physically impossible for someone to survive so unscathed after all the crap Indy goes through in about a 3 day period in that movie.

Of course, I could always overlook this type of thing for the sake of the movie being so entertaining.

Frankly, I find the second one to be too dark (it is the movie responsible for the PG-13 rating) and not as rousing a good time as the other two.

[peter johnson]

I guess the overlap/comingling of genres is too much for me in all these --
Conversely, I liked Buckaroo Banzai and Sky Captain -- Sky Captain I like very much -- because I think they remained true to their absurd premises.  They have an internal illogic that they don't violate -- I don't think this is so with the Indy pictures.
peter johnson/denny crane

[daveblackeye15]

Oh I liked Sky Captain also! The only serial I've seen was Radar Men from the Moon but that alone gave me a pretty good idea on what serials are.

[peter johnson]

Our local library has all episodes of  the first "Dick Tracy" serial from the 1930's -- How horrible it must've been for kids in those days -- adults too -- to have to wait a week or more to find out how a given story arc was resolved!!
Definitely rent or borrow that or "Perils of Pauline" or "Magnet Men From The Moon" or "Rustlers of Graveyard Gulch" -- etc. etc. ad infinum --
Many of these things have moments of high enjoyment -- however, sometiimes the production values are lower than "Dr. Who", eg.  "Monsters" that are nothing more than a guy with a sheet over him, sort of like a 1st-grader's Halloween --
What does stand out, though, is how much more literate our recent forebears were than we are.  
By that I mean that the hack writers that churned this spew out were well-versed in Latin and Greek mythologies, as well as the know historic and anthropolgical theories of the day.  
I do not think this is the case today.
peter johnson/denny crane

[daveblackeye15]

I kind of like the idea of weekly episodes. I mean for a while there was a weekly comic book that had a bunch of Japanese comics and at the end of the issue I would go "Oooh, I can't wait for the next issue!"

Actually isn't it like that with any t.v. show? I mean like 24 or the Shield? (two shows I've been wanting to watch for the last few years)

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

When I was young, I used to be able to see the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials on rerun on British TV.  I was absolutely entranced.  You don't notice the poor production values.  I remember giving equal wieght to Star Wars, Buck Rogers (the 1980's version), Space 1999, Star Trek reruns, Battlestar Glalactica, Godzilla, all kinds of stuff of different quality.  It all got into my little imagination and I didn't really "see" a qualitative difference.  Except "Lost in Space" that never ever worked for me.  

But the production values were poor, no doubt about it... Check these out:
http://flashgordon.ws/aliens.htm

I was hoping to find some styill from the Buck Rogers...I remember "Mind Control Devices" that were obviously trash cans on the guy's head, and aliens smeared with shaving cream or latex foam.
-Ed.  

[daveblackeye15]

Whoa that was Flash Gordon?

I remember seeing on t.v. a long time ago the one where he fought those three monkey men, I thought it was awesome!

[peter johnson]

Tune in next week!!  
At this theatre in 2 weeks!!
How will Dale possibly escape the trecherous plans of Ming the Merciless??!!
peter crane/denny johnson

[Neville]

daveblackeye15, you are right about "Raiders" belonging here. The only things that separate it from an awful lot of (awful) movies is that George Lucas spend enough money on production values and a decent cast, that Steven Spielberg is one of the best film directors of the XXth century, and that both of them took the material seriously enough to make it work but not seriously enough to forget it was created for pure escapist entertainment.

[daveblackeye15]

I watched Last Crusade Sunday....

*spoilers*

There is a debate going on right now that if they were to film a new Indiana movie that they should get a younger guy to play Indy. (I'm on the side that say's they should keep Ford) However I really liked River Phoneix's portray of the younger Indy, and it's cool seeing where his fear of snakes comes from. This one doesn't seem to have such a pulp feel to it as the first two, it trades in a bit of action for mystery solving and I like that latter part. I sort of miss the serious feel of the other two, however a lot of the humor comes from the father and son trying to work together and that's well done. The entire tank sequence is a worthy rival to Raider's truck chase and Indy's challenge of the Grail's traps is very well done.

4/6

[dean]

To me, Last Crusade is one of those rare 'perfect films.'  It seems odd saying it because it is by no means a perfect film, but it's one of the few that for me at least, does it's job with a very high standard of excellence.

It is, in essence, the perfect 3rd movie in a trilogy: It ties up some questions [like why he's afraid of snakes, his hat and his name for examples] it has great casting, with Sean Connery absolutely eating up his role as the religion-loving Grail-scholar.  In terms of nice one liners and general nods to the previous two films it also does a great job, and the structure is done with enough humour and good fortune that just sits really well with me.  Like I said, it's not without it's flaws, but on a purely cinematic level, it excels in almost every category I can think of.

This is partly why I don't really want there to be a new one, since how can you top Last Crusade!  But if they do, it should definitely have Ford in it somehow, though who knows what capacity he'd have...

[daveblackeye15]

I think seeing an old Indian could be cool, if done with a great script.

Have you ever read "Batman, the Dark Knight Returns" If you have and like it then you could see where I'm coming from.

And if this fourth movie sucks then we can still say "Indian Jones is one of those rare great triliogies"

[dean]

daveblackeye15 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think seeing an old Indian could be cool, if
> done with a great script.
>
> Have you ever read "Batman, the Dark Knight
> Returns" If you have and like it then you could
> see where I'm coming from.
>

Once again, it's that key phrase 'with a great script' which more often than not doesn't happen.  But I'm up for a new Indiana film, I was just saying that since Last Crusade is so good, for me at least, the fourth one will probably leave me saying 'Last Crusade was better' rather than blowing me out of the water, no matter how good it actually turns out to be.

And yes I've read both Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Back and they're both fantastic reads.  Though just imagine the headache involved in trying to adapt that story to the big screen!!  As cool as it would be it is obviously going to be impossible [damn film rights!!!]