Recent Viewing Part IV

To commemorate the premier of Raiders Of The Lost Ark 35 years ago there was a special one-off showing of the Indiana Jones Trilogy (yeah, they left off Crystal Skull, which I think was an excellent touch!) yesterday evening.

Knowing the films so well, I dreaded the 6.5 hour sit a bit in advance, but I found myself as sucked in every time as I had been 35, 32 and 27 years ago, and the time just flew by. What a testament to absolute skills involved that it works time and again, and even in a massive batch like this!

Watching Raiders was positively nostalgic.
All the actors looking SO young!
And I myself was only twelve when I saw it last on the big screen.

It easily remains the best of the batch, with an excellent mix of suspense, action and awe, and Jones having to face up to challenge after challenge without it getting straight-out ridiculous.
I'm just very, very sorry the cinema didn't get a better print. The quality was quite grainy and the colours slightly washed out. It detracted. It really did.

I greatly enjoyed Last Crusade again as well. Oddly that one sticks most in my memory: I felt I'd only seen it quite recently, so -with the exception of the brief Petra scenes (I managed to visit Jordan in the meantime, so I've BEEN there! Which was fantastic!)- there was little to enhance the experience.

What really surprised me was how much I enjoyed Temple Of Doom!
It's been lodged in my mind that I find this one the least of the trilogy, but apparently I've started to define that (in my mind) as much more negative than it really was!
It's been the one haven't seen for the longest time (I honestly think the last time was twenty years ago or so, on TV, of course).

I still have some issues with it: I do NOT like the precocious and loud Short Round character and its clearly intentional 'Robin The Boy Wonder' kid appeal. He's too saccharine ("You my best fwend, Dokta Jones!") and too incredible (knocking out six thugees with his "karate" moves...yeah, you're right: I'll accept a dive with a rubber dinghy out of a crashing airplane, but not a 30 kilo karate champion. Go figure.)
I honestly think it'd have been a better movie without that character.

But all the rest...and I mean ALL the rest!
SO good!
The action sets are brilliant! The photography and lighting easily the best of the series. The music is SO creative and is spotted SO well! I was even amazed to find I found an unexpecxted new appreciation for Kate Capshaw doing a fantastic job as the hysterical Willie. The script really flows beautifully, and the 'saving the children' end game is one of the most emotional in the whole of the Indy saga.

Yeah, (Very, very welcome) surprise of the evening.

Tired as sin now, though...to do these things on a school night DOES make me FEEL those 35 years gone by...
Wouldn't have missed it for the world, though.

So true.

I honestly want to unmake that 4th film. I would love Spielberg & Lucas to destroy all copies of Crystal Skull, call it the Indiana Jones trilogy and leave it at that. We don't need any more sequels, spin-offs, reboots, remakes, modern Hollywood multi-million dollar crap. Let these movies become legendary (which they already are of course) and the kind of fun old-school adventure flicks that we grew up with, without any sort of contemporary CGI-filled spin on things that would tarnish their legacy.

I have spoken.

Captain America: Civil War

A mess. I don't know how all these superheroes work in the comics, but on film it's absurd. Marvel is so concerned about introducing new superheroes, the film forgets to give them any motivations. It's also can't seem to settle on one tone: it goes from dark espionage thriller, to soap-opera, to sit-com, to camp superhero film. These mixed elements don't necessarily make for a bad film, but when the story and its characters have absolutely no reason to exist, it all falls apart very quickly.

Scarlett Johansson as Arrogant Redhead with no Super Powers Lady still manages to be the most useless character in a film full of them.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the Avengers in Star Wars Ep. 8.

Scarlett Johansson in any universe is completely useless and annoying.

She'd be much more useful as a hooker. She's awful in films, especially as Black Widow (or whatever her name is).

Love Scarlet


Here's some great superheroes... Righteousness

Or, or a pornstar. There you go, much more useful.

Like this?

I liked the first Captain America, liked the second one a lot less despite the glowing reviews (it's a fine film, but curiously uninvolving and considerably soured, for me, by its score). But this one's got Iron Man in and he's always worth a watch.

I do find the whole endless Marvel universe thing a bit taxing, but just when I'm in danger of getting sick of it they throw a curveball (Guardians of the Galaxy and, to a lesser extent, Ant-Man) that helps refresh it for me. I keep thinking surely the whole enterprise will collapse under its own weight at some point, but it's held on a lot longer than I would have thought, and even the less satisfying ones (Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron) are a reasonably good time at the movies. I can't think of any other long-running movie series that's this consistent, and that's something to be admired I'd say.

No need for look-alikes, since, you know, the fappening

Inside Out

Lovely little film.

I didn't care for it. But then I saw it with Norwegian dubbing at the press screening, so maybe that accounts for some of my dislike.

Mad Max: Fury Road

It's extremely disappointing that a man like George Miller, a veteran director who has made films with absolutely great scores in them, decided to go with a third-rate creator of obnoxious sounds and what is supposed to pass for music like Junkie XL. For me it's the one terrible decision about this production. The action is stunningly shot, the visual design is fantastic, the acting is more than decent, and last but not least it has real live stunts and only CGI to enhance certain scenes.

I have a weird feeling when I finish watching it (my third time now). I want to love it for everything that's good about it, however that horrendous score absolutely ruins it for me. I can only imagine how much of a better movie we would've have gotten if Miller had decided to go with some real musical talent.