News Archive - May 2008
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5-22-2008
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Have you ever seen a film and afterwards you weren't quite sure if you liked it or not? Unfortunately I'm kind of in that state over the new Indiana Jones film.
I caught the midnight showing last night as this is one of the films I was most looking forward to this summer. It's been 19 years since the last Indiana Jones film, The Last Crusade, and it's taken that long for Spielberg, Lucas and Ford to come together on a new adventure. Maybe they should have taken another year?
Here's the lowdown on the Crystal Skull; it's 1957 and the Russians have replaced the Nazis as the bad guy. Led by Cate Blanchett's Irina Spalko, the Russians are after artifacts that can help them win the Cold War and rule the world. In this case, she's after the film title's Crystal Skull.
The movie reunites us with old friends and also introduces new characters; Shia LaBeouf's Mutt Williams, John Hurt's Professor Oxley, an expert on Crystal Skulls, and Ray Winstone's spy, Mac McHale. Karen Allen is back as Marion Ravenwood and, of course, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Marcus Brody was there in spirit, as a portrait outside of Indy's office and a statue on the college grounds, and Dr. Henry Jones Sr. was remembered in a scene at Indy's house.
Here there be spoilers
Some of the mythology behind the Crystal Skulls, and that used in the film, centers around ancient extraterrestrial origins and, in one scene, even ties to the supposed Roswell crash in the 1940's. Some reviews that I've read take the movie to task for this storyline but I'm actually fine with it. After all, it's not like the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail or the ability to pull a dudes heart out are all common occurrences in the world. So, aliens. Why not?
There are bright spots to the film; classic Indy humor is on display, although not in huge supply, whip-cracking escapes, hidden tombs, booby traps and plenty of loot are at hand. There are other nods to the previous Indy films beyond the mentioning of Marcus and Dr. Jones. The Ark makes a cameo, there are car and motorcycle chases and riddles that have to be solved in order to find the ultimate treasure.
What takes away from those bright spots, however, is the overabundance of CGI. There are also a couple of scenes that seem wedged in and don't need to be there to advance the story. The worst includes a trip to the Nevada Proving Grounds. There also seems to be a lot less character development in this film than in the previous movies. Granted, we know Indy and Marion, but the interaction with Belloq in Raiders and Elsa in Crusade seemed to give us fuller characters to love or hate. Mutt gets the most development in Crystal Skull but I never made much of a connection with Spalko or Mac.
The chase sequences, especially a jungle chase late in the game, are very drawn out and would be funny if, afterwards, we didn't realize that they took away from more substantive parts of the character and story development. I hate it when films throw CGI crap at you just because the director can, and this film seems to have plenty of that. Also, ants? Really? Indy films have their share of snakes, bugs and rats but huge herds of CGI killer ants? Come on, is that all they could come up with?
I tried to stay spoiler free for this film, more so than others, but I still knew about the two biggest secrets the film had to reveal and even though I said there would be spoilers here, I'm not going to mention either.
The heart of the film, the Skulls, the adventures and puzzles getting to them, were classic Indy and I can't help but wish more of the 2 hour running time were dedicated to them rather than chase sequences. Blanchett made a decent villain although she wasn't as suave as Belloq or hot as Elsa. Mac was an unnecessary addition, in my opinion, and I can't help but wish John Rhys-Davies' Sallah had shown up to help his old pal Indy one more time.
It was awesome to see Marion back in the mix and while I want to dislike LaBeouf just a little (mainly because Hollywood has declared that I will like him), the kid continues to do solid work and I can't help but like his character, Mutt.
Of the four Indiana Jones films I still like The Temple of Doom the least. While this film has its issues, it fits better with the Raiders and Last Crusade movies than Temple does and for that I'm glad. I do think that fans of Indiana Jones should go see this film in theaters. I'll use my own whip to snap off three wheels of cheddar out of five for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
5-13-2008
Upfronts
May is that time of year when all sorts of good things happen; Summer movie blockbusters start dropping, we can get drunk on Cinco de Mayo, honor our mom for Mother's Day and our veterans on Memorial Day. Even a certain blogger gets a birthday in May.
And it's also sweeps month for the TV industry followed by upfronts. This is the time of the year that we find out what the dumbasses in Hollywood have determined we'll get to watch come September-ish. With the recent writer's strike it left a lot of things in the lurch including the choices for next year. For good or for bad, some of the shows that might not have made it in other years made it this time around. Too bad some of our other favorites didn't.
Shows making it that I'm happy about; "Chuck," "Life," "Friday Night Lights," "Smallville," "Supernatural," and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
There's also still hope for a couple others such as "Moonlight" and "The Unit."
Shows that didn't get lucky, some of which I'm more pissed about than others, include "Journeyman," "October Road," "Jericho," and "New Amsterdam." I'm going to be bitter over "Jericho" for a while yet and I'm also disappointed in "October Road" because that show had some cool things going for it...not the least of which was Odette Yustman.
Of course there are perennial favorites returning like the "CSI" and "Law & Order" shows (plus most of the other procedurals on CBS and NBC) as well as "ER," "24," and a ton of reality shows that producers are still dealing souls to the Devil for.
Not to be outdone by the existing shows, new shows are also getting announced. These include such gems as the "Beverly Hills 90210" spinoff, something called "How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls" (more about that in a minute), and "Merlin" which is basically "The O.C." meets King Arthur...or something. Oh, and there are a whole bunch of new shows that sound suspiciously like a bunch of old shows that just got cancelled but were probably better to begin with.
There's a new show called "Eleventh Hour" which is about a government scientist stopping people from dying but, hey, that show brings Rufus Sewell to network TV. Heh...Rufus.
Getting back to "Filthy Rich Girls," that show brings back Lucy Hale who was the barely-legal-but-hotter-than-the-star little sister to the "Bionic Woman's" Michelle Ryan.
In a "haven't we been here before?" move, we will see the return of Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker to the small screen...unfortunately it's a sci-fi type show from Joss Whedon and it's on FOX...and we all know how that worked out the last time. Fuck you FOX.
There's some other stuff we probably won't care about either but feel free to head over to IMDB.com and read the full list of renewed, bubble, cancelled and new shows for yourself.
5-10-2008
Happy Birthday
To Odette Yustman who is 22 years old today!
While she's definitely not a household name you might recognize her from her starring role in Cloverfield or as Bryan Greenberg's girlfriend on "October Road." She's also popped up in cameos in Transformers and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
5-2-2008
Iron Man
Fantastic. Brilliant. Exceptional. Leslie Bibb continues to be fucking hot.
As superhero comic book movies go, this one ranks near the top. Iron Man is definitely not a household name like Spider-Man, Batman or, to a certain extent, the X-Men. Because of that the story needed a good introduction to the character and the movie pulled it off really well in my opinion. It didn't skip back story like Fantastic Four, waste the middle hour like The Punisher and never bogged down with the suck like Ghost Rider or the first Hulk.
The special effects were brilliant and believable, the characters were all well written and acted and the story moved along at a perfect pace. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was one of the more brilliant casting moves in a while. Not only does he look similar to how Stark has been drawn in the comics, he has the skills to pull off the playboy billionaire-cum-superhero.
Jeff Bridges, as Obadiah Stane, brings the big bad to the film while Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts is Stark's trusty assistant and love interest. Leslie Bibb, as reporter Christine Everhart, is half naked and Terrence Howard makes a perfect Jim Rhodes, Stark's best friend.
Normally I'd go through the film and pick things out but I'm not going to this time because I think everyone needs to go see this film for themselves. There are some cool little inside jokes that the comic book geeks will get but the film is very accessible for everyone. As I said, the pacing of the film is quite well done with plenty of action, humor and balanced character development.
One piece of advice; when you go, stay through the entire run of credits for the final scene of the film.
The producers are already talking sequel if this does well at the box office and unless the upcoming May competition *cough*Indiana Jones*cough* sweeps it out prematurely, I think we will be seeing more Iron Man in 2010.
I'll confidently give this film 4.5 wheels of cheddar. I'm only docking it a half wheel because there wasn't enough nude Leslie Bibb.
Ha! Who am I kidding, I'll throw the other half wheel in and make it a perfect five just for shits and giggles and because last week's Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay had enough gratuitous nudity to make up for it. Run, don't walk, to the theater and show some love for Iron Man.