I finally saw this movie last night and reviewed it here. Enjoy!

Piss off Shia Lebouf, piss off Spielberg and your fucking martian obsession and fuck off action sequences that defy the suspension of disbelief, IJATKOTCS is barely worthy of the time I just spent typing it’s wretched acronym.

Thanks to the sweet Gods of cinemavillemoviefilmvillelandho we get word thanks to the genius of George Lucas that Mutt Williams will not be the main even in Indy 5.  And we get this scoop thanks to the spinach poppers over at the movieweb:

MTV Movie Blogs recently caught up with George Lucas at the press day for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and they of course asked him about the proposed Indiana Jones 5 sequel, which was originally supposed to center around Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams character.

As of this moment, the famed director is thinking in another direction. It seems that Mutt won’t be the central focus of a fifth film at all, and he might not even return for a cameo in the proposed film. Lucas told MTV Movie Blogs, “Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford IS Indiana Jones. If it was Mutt Williams it would be ‘Mutt Williams and the Search for Elvis’ or something.”

About the next installment, Lucas would only say, “We ARE looking for something for him to go after. They are very hard to find. It’s like archeology. It takes a huge amount of research to come up with something that will fit.”

At this time, Indiana Jones Part 5 is merely an idea swimming around inside George Lucas’ head. There is no telling if it will ever come to fruition.

I was really disappointed with Indy 4 with all the alien mamajama and roswell thing, it really took me out of the whole Indy universe and his concentration on religious artifacts.  But again, that’s just me!  Add to that, the whole Mutt thing was a little lame for me.  He reminded me of that little chinese kid from the Temple Of Doom and goonies.  The ending of Indy 4 really made it seem like Idiana Jones 5 would be a Mutt event.  But, we all know Georgie Lucas will not disappoint and give Indy fans what they want.  Indiana FN Jones!

Head over to Movie-Moron to see a new comic that was made before my computer buggered up.

Also, Sheridan tells me that even MTV liked that one! Which is good. Except it didn’t impact my hit counter in any way…

Indiana Jones 4 sucked, and Get Smart doesn’t look half bad.

Rogue and The Prestige mini-reviews coming soon, as well as a review of the classic 1974 noir, Chinatown.

Una de los principales problemas que se le achacaron a “Indiana Jones y el Reino de la Calavera de Cristal“, por parte de crítica y público, es su guión. Previamente al estreno, fue muy conocida la disputa entre Frank Darabont y George Lucas, pues el productor de Star Wars rechazo el guión de este ultimo Indy, sustituyendo a Darabont por David Koepp

Como seria ese guión original de Darabont? Mejor que el actual?

Gracias a los chicos de TCM y por mediación de uno de mis blogs favoritos, KTARSIS, os traigo el guion original de Darabont (en ingles y via torrent) y una descripcion pormenorizada (en castellano) de las principales diferencias. Vosotros direis que habria sido mas interesante, el guión de Koepp o el de Darabont

Indy 4
Gestern hab ich mir den auch so gescholtenen schlechten Indiana Jones 4 angeguckt und hey:

Was soll das gejammer der Presse?
Indy überlebt eine Atombombe im (Blei)-Kühlschrank? Na und, das hat Homer Simpson auch schon gemacht.
Kristallschädel sind kacke, aber Gott bzw die Bundeslade aus Teil1 real oder was?
Mecker mecker… aber dann Star-Wars oder Herr der Ringe gut/realistisch finden.

Fazit: Ich fand den Film gut. Aus. Punkt!
(Die Bundeslade aus Teil 1 war auch kurz zu sehen für Leute die genauer hingucken..)

Iphone 3G
Was wird gerade rumgemeckert dass das iphone2 nicht gut ist. Nix neues, zu wenig Bussiness, zu teuer blabla. Käufer des 1er haben viel mehr zahlen müssen und wurde nun beschissen.
Ich bin kein Applefan, aber: Schon mal eins benutzt? Schon mal bei nem zB Nokia nach einem Jahr geguckt was das dann kostet? Kann ein Nokia eine komplette Webseite darstellen?
Das iphone muss man nicht haben aber alle! profitieren von den neuen Bedienungskonzepten. Punkt!
Mecker mecker… aber neidisch sein wenns der Kollege hat.

Leute: Nicht meckern, Vorschläge machen!
Die Welt verändern!
Du bist Deutschland!

Und der Schmid Willi hat einen neuen Film gmacht:
 

I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night.

I had already seen the film thanks to a “screener” I had been provided. Many Bothans died for that screener . . .

The movie really plays much better in a Digital theatre with a crowd. What can I tell you, some flicks just are meant to be seen this way.

The fridge is still stupid, but bigger and the monkey scene . . . well the monkeys actually suck MORE on a bigger screen.

ONE more thing about the movie – I don’t know how I missed it before but in the end, when all hell is breaking loose – Indy says , ” i have a bad feeling about this . . .” Classic right? NO! Indy never says this! Han Solo says this!

It’s as if Spielberg and Lucas read my work . . .

Oh well -

I came across footage shot for the original Raiders that was replaced. I had always heard that the Cairo Swordsman scene ends the way it does because Harrison Ford was sick that day.

Apparently that may not be the case.

I’m sorry I cannot forget about the Indiana Jones movie. It’s like something you have been waiting all your life and it comes right up and crushes your spirit with something disappointing from the beginning of the movie itself. Since I wrote its ridiculous to escape from a nuclear explosion by staying in a lead covered fridge, I am gonna prove why its so. These are the two ridiculously non scientific things i noticed at the beginning of the movie.

NUKE THE FRIDGE aka Escaping from a nuclear blast using a lead lined fridge:

Friends of mine are “dissing” me because they think the fact that Indy Jones escaped from a nuclear blast in a lead lined fridge is totally possible because its “Lead lined”.

Lets lay out the facts right, the simulated town near the nuclear blast was around 500m from the epicenter of the blast. Since we know that at the epicenter of a nuclear blast (fission for argument’s sake for all skeptics) becomes millions of degrees hot lets assume the temperature around the fridge was at least tens of thousand degrees. Lead protects you from radiation but not high temperature because its simple melts at 600 C and the steel around it melts around 1400 C. Indy along with the lead and steel of the fridge would have been vaporised. For funs sake , this is what he would look like if the lead had melted with him inside(courtesy empire strikes back….)

USING GUNPOWDER TO FIND THE ALIEN ATRIFACT:

Remember the scene where Indy was throwing gun powder high into the air (not the shotgun pellets) and they were being attracted to alien coffin because it was so highly magnetic. Science 101,gunpowder is a mixture of charcoal,sulfur and salt petre(KNO3) none of them remotely being magnetic. It was ridiculous how he was using them as a magnetic field detector.

I grew up watching Indy movies over and over again on tv, especially “Temple of Doom”. So when Indy 4 was announced, well, you could hear me squealing with glee from over there…in China. Then I heard rumors of the plot, of how they were aging Indy and pushing it from pre-WWII to the 50’s. Okay, I’m fine with that. Han Solo’s gotten a little older looking; it’s understandable. Then I heard about the crystal skulls n’ aliens. Um…hrm. Okay…starting to not be so sure.

Anyways, there I was sitting in the theater hoping for the best, all excited for a new Indy movie but nesting some reservations. My fears were not unfounded. What I got was not an Indy movie. It was okay as a movie but it just was not Indy.

Lucas had a heavy hand as the over-the-top cheesy scenes were rampant, especially one particular scene where Shia LaBouf channeled his inner Tarzan. And they really stressed the fact the movie was taking place in the 50’s by throwing in every possible 50’s-esque element into it. Atomic bomb testings, greasers vs. jocks, McCarthyism… I don’t mind them depicting a 50’s setting but they were really shoving the point home…with a pointy stick.

The script and plot were a little disjointed (apparently, they joined several scripts together to make everyone happy). They hinted at Cate Blanchett’s character having psychic powers but they never went anywhere with it. And she really didn’t feel like she was a vital part of the story, just more like a villain for the sake of having a villain. I would have loved to have seen more screen time between Indy n’ Marion, especially since their snarky exchanges were one of the few things that made me remember this was an “Indy” movie. And the ending…*sigh* Not really feeling it.

The main reason this didn’t feel like an Indy movie…it was too easy. All the answers kinda just fell into their lap. I’m used to seeing Indy having to bust his butt to get the key or figure out the answer or escape some sticky situation. This movie didn’t quite have that. There were some messes he had to get out of and things he had to figure out but it didn’t feel as difficult or “adventurous” as it did in previous movies.

Overall, I probably could have waited for this to come out on dvd to watch it.

Back in the ’70s, National Lampoon magazine ran a classic mock ad showing a VW floating in a pond with the caption, “If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he’d be president today.” (If you don’t know the dark humor of this, do your homework and get back to me.) Similarly, and somewhat conversely, if Arnold Schwarzenegger had not been elected governor of California, we’d most likely be wincing through movies with Ah-nuld flexing his aging muscles as a 60-plus-year-old action hero. As it is, he’s too busy being the governator to make much monotonous mayhem in the movies — and that’s a relief.

But he could have been. After all, Harrison Ford, 65, has just done it in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And even before that, Sylvester Stallone, 61, did it in Rambo, which is new to DVD and comes to us 20 years after Rambo III. (For all us nostalgia hounds, it’s also available in Rambo: The Complete Collectors Set, a handsome tin featuring all four of the vengeful soldier’s movies.)

Now, I’m no age-ist. In fact, I’m the opposite. I believe people get better in many ways as they get older. But I’m not so sure that being a movie action hero is one of those ways. I mean, Ford looked downright grandfatherly in Indy 4, but the movie made a big deal of how, instead, he was merely fatherly. You’d think he was 45, not 65. 

And, as so often happens in such cases, oldsters tend to overcompensate.

Ford has never been more masculine, virile, strong and indomitable than in Indy 4, disregarding the facts that (1) he’s much older and (2) Indy’s charm, in his ’80s heyday, sprang in large part from his regular-guy vulnerability. And Stallone’s John Rambo reportedly kills 236 opponents in Rambo, the most in any film of the series. Over the hill? Not when you overcompensate, I guess.

I also guess this means if Ah-nuld wasn’t governator, he’d be slaughtering at an almost genocidal rate in Terminator 4 or somesuch — and we wouldn’t be enjoying it. So before you bemoan the runaway production he’s prompted (you know what I’m talking about, industry types), let’s be thankful for small favors. Between Rambo and Indy 4, at least there was no Commando 6.

Sometimes you’re not sure if the movie was bad, or if the problem comes from you.

As always with new Spielberg movies, I was full of expectations. Indy 4 was going to be an thrilling adventure that would use modern 3-D techniques to give us a classic adrenaline shot, but from an interesting angle.

The best idea is to set the movie in a 50s cold war/witch hunt atmosphere, with the nuclear threat in the background. The introduction has the best scene of the whole movie in the Nevada desert, when Indy visits a very peculiar little town. As always with the Spielberg machine, the costumes and sets are excellent work and Janusz Kaminski offers nice cinematography. But that’s the least we expect from them.

Giving Indy a son was not bad idea, but it was written and executed poorly: their relationship is close to inexistant, especially if compared to the one between Indiana Jones and his father in the third episode. One would like to believe that Karen Allen has a bad memory thought only by mistake that the character played by Shia Labeuf could be Indy’s son. This guy is simply empty and dull.

The movie looks like a minimum service, as if everybody wanted to do as little as possible. The scenes seems to come one after another as if the movie was an addition of action clips, with no backbone. Every single cliché and foreseeable reference is there: a shot on the lost ark, a snake, the hat, the whip…The only thing that is completely missing is the magic of the previous films. Indy’s old and tired and nothing in this movie was worth to come back for him.

To be fair, I must admit it might come from me too: I’m not 8 anymore, and I will never see Indiana Jones with 8-year-old eyes ever again. Sniff.

I should really say that we are lucky now days to see movies like Rocky,Star Wars and Indiana Jones on the big screen. Indiana Jones returns on the big screen after almost two decades with the latest movie “Kingdom of the crystal skulls”.

Movie synopsis:

Movie starts with Russian soldiers taking over area 51 to get hold of a alien body from the remains of the Roswell crash in 1947. This is followed by a Hydrogen Bomb explosion that Indy mysteriously survives by staying in a fridge. The FBI thinks he is working for the Russians and he loses his position in the university where he taught.

Shia Le beouf introduces himself in this point as a Fonzie  like character who is looking for  his  professor  who happens to be the friend of Indy’s. Her mother turns out to be Indy’s gf from the first movie. It will turn out later that Shia is Indy’s son.

The adventure shifts to South America where they discover the kingdom of the crystal skull. The skull turns out to be belonging to an alien who as soon as it gets the skull takes off in a space ship.

Things I liked about the movie:

• Watching a very long larger than life adventure movie whose long length makes paying for the ticket satisfactory
• Its an Indy movie which brings back nostalgia specially with the theme music and the fedora hat and the whip. There are tons of references to the previous movies like pictures of Sean Connery on the desk, Indy’s gf from the first movie, the Arc stored in area 51.
• Cate Blanchett is convincing as a Russian agent and her saying” Ull find it for me”. I liked her cold looks and her hair.
• Aliens, ruins,spaceships,pyramids,airplanes,motorbikes,Area 51,Nuclear explosions,car chases, sword fights.

Things I did not like:

• Indy movies are always larger than life but surviving a nuclear explosion in a fridge, swinging from tree to tree with monkeys,Shia Le Beouf as an unconvincing tough guy.
• Unnecessary things like the space ship taking off and cheesy stuff like the treasure they were looking for was “knowledge “
• A very very old and stiff  Indy. He seemed stiffer than any other  old men present there.  He ain’t  swashbuckling anymore.
• An unconvincing  Shia Le beouf as  a successor for Indy.

Overall I did not like the movie. Found it uninteresting and wouldn’t think much of it.

After some discussion with people who either liked Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull more, or less, than I did, I began to realize what the screenplay was lacking. The overall premise of the story shouldn’t really matter, be it the search of crystal skulls, magical stones, or holy cups, rather it’s what lies underneath it. The subtext, if you will. I know, the Indiana Jones series isn’t meant to be taken seriously, they’re just fun throwbacks to the old-school adventure serials of the 30’s and 40’s, and I can totally appreciate them for that. The thing is, a sequel needs to be at least as good as the movie that came before it, or else fans of the predecessor will get upset. I think Star Wars, as a series, solidified itself in the pantheon of great films because of The Empire Strikes Back, a film considered to be, story-wise, superior to the original. It was like Lucas was saying, “We know they’re expecting better visuals, but what if we gave them a grander and more personal story, too?”

The Indiana Jones series, I think, faltered a bit with Temple of Doom. While the movie itself was fine, it felt like more of the same, just with a new sidekick (Short Round instead of Sallah), new woman (Mrs. Spielberg…I mean Kate Capshaw replacing Karen Allen), and new location (India instead of the Middle East). While Temple of Doom was darker, I felt it added some real threat to Indy and made him feel less invincible. To this day, I still cringe when he’s tied to that rack and lowered into the pit. I just felt that the movie didn’t advance anything. I personally didn’t feel I learned anything new about Jones.

The redeeming film, for me, was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. On the outside, it was more of the same. Indy’s globe-trotting with Sallah again, and he’s got a beautiful blond German girl along for the ride, in search of the legendary Holy Grail. What made this one stand out was that when they added in Sean Connery as Dr. Jones, Sr., Steven Spielberg really went with it. The last scene where they’re in the Grail’s resting place is pivotal, not just from a plot standpoint, but from a character standpoint. Indy, and in turn the audience, learns a lot about the internal workings of the character not because of the Holy Grail, but through the interactions between him and his father. The filmmakers made us really buy into this relationship.

Now, with Crystal Skull, we’re supposed to buy into these new plot points introduced throughout the movie. I personally don’t have a problem with Mutt being Indy’s son, but it’s not what I wanted the movie’s subtext to focus on. The difference between Crystal Skull and Last Crusade is that more time went by between those two movies, as opposed to just five years with Temple of Doom and Last Crusade. Indy’s older, and though Spielberg and Co. acknowledge this within the first few moments of re-introducing Indy, I don’t think they play it up enough. I want to see a slightly more cautious Indiana Jones, a more reflective one. Again, I understand that these movies are really meant for pure entertainment, but I think that this latest one could have achieved something on the same level that Last Crusade hit: it showed us something about the characters.

Indiana Jones has been through a lot, and at his age he should be more nostalgic. We get a sense of this back at Indy’s house before he and Mutt leave for their grand adventure. However, if the screenplay had just touched upon this a little more, I think it would have a greater impact on future scenes, like when he meets with Marion again, or when he realizes he’s Mutt’s father. When I was mulling this over, I kept thinking about Rocky Balboa the sixth and final film in the Rocky series. I really liked that movie, it was a great bookend to the series and brought everything full-circle. A lot of people make fun of Stallone because he’s old (about as old as Harrison Ford) and he’s still playing these muscle-bound action stars (one of my cousins said he looked like an over-cooked hot dog), but he wasn’t trying to play Rocky Balboa in the final film as an action star. He was very sentimental (somewhat too much), but it brought everything down to earth at a level many of us can relate to. Rocky’s lost his wife, he’s distant from his son, his career is over. He’s now an businessman who’s relegated to re-living his experiences by telling people about them. I think Indy could’ve used a bit of that. It’s not enough to show us pictures of Marcus Brody or Indy’s dad, make us feel sorry for Indy’s loss.

I think that the age should’ve played a factor in some of the action scenes. Maybe then I’d feel more of a threat to his well-being. I know this isn’t the kind of movie where the hero dies, but I didn’t get this sense that Indy was getting hurt. He got pretty banged up in the previous movies, and he was young then. Show him with a black eye, or with a limp, or something that makes me believe that all this violence is taking a toll on his body. He’s sixty years old! I’ll totally buy that a sixty-year-old man is running, punching, swinging, but what I won’t buy is that this old man isn’t going to feel it in the morning. Think of the tension they could’ve built if Indy had some trouble seeing (the character does wear glasses) when he was firing that rocket.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is this: I still enjoyed Crystal Skull. What I believe didn’t work of many people was the connection. Weird sci-fi stuff aside, this film didn’t have a personal connection with people. The audience watching this will be made up of, primarily, people who have seen and loved the originals. What they were looking for was an acknowledgment of that, something more than just a picture or a run-in with a past character. When Indy walked down the aisle with Marion at the end, it should have felt like Han seeing Leia after being freed from the carbonite, not just a happy storybook ending. Again, still enjoyed the movie and, overall, I liked it more than Temple of Doom. It just lost that connect that Last Crusade established, not just the connection between the characters, but the connection between Indy and the audience.

But, maybe it’s not the fault of the writers or the filmmakers. Roger Ebert said this about The Last Crusade:

“If there is just a shade of disappointment after seeing this movie, it has to be because we will never again have the shock of this material seeming new.”

What I take this to mean is that, even if there will be sequels, it won’t feel fresh anymore because an original is hard to follow and an audience’s expectations run just a little too high. Or maybe it’s because nothing can truly live up to our childhood memories.

(images from Yahoo!)

Ok … so i saw Indy 4 on the 22nd and i must say I came out of the cinema feeling both pleased and cheated!!

It was good to see Indy back and Harrison Ford brought back the character flawlessly. The whip cracking and banter and general Indy feel was there from the very beginning.

As far as the casting went Ray Winstone’s character had way more potential and was under used. There was also the character of Marion Ravenwood from Raiders (played by Karen Allen), she brought the same chemistry she had with Indy to the film but was sadly also under used.

Shia LeBouf’s character provided good sidekick action for Indy and raised a few laughs on occasion….. it’s even been insinuated that the Indy legacy be passed to him although if it does I’ll have to hunt down everyone responsible and mummify them alive!

My problem with Indy 4 was that the first 80% of the film was everything I expected of the newest installment and the last 20% went against the whole Indy concept.

Spielberg promised that he was going to make this one for the fans and was going to film it oldschool stylee with minimal special effects. This was done for 80% of the movie and then it seemed that they let George Lucas turn the “special effects handle”.

The last 20% – the whole origin of the crystal skull plus the end special effect sequence (people who have seen the film will know what i mean) completely ruined it for me… maybe it will grow on me… I feel i need to see it again as I was dumbfounded towards the end.. WHAT DID THEY DO!!!

I’ll check it out again… maybe it wasn’t that bad. I can’t bring myself to hate Indy! Hopefully on the DVD where there is an alternative ending on the DVD where Indy makes George Lucas eat the crystal skull and then whips him to death before dropping him in a lava pit.