Oh no, Indy! Don’t go into that temple! That’s not a regular temple, that’s a temple of doom!
I practice religious tolerance, so if those guys want to eat monkey brains and bugs and what not, I’m not gonna judge. But in my opinion they should not be having child slaves and pulling a guy’s heart out of his chest and stuff. Not unless it’s consensual. I don’t care what their Bible of Doom says about it, you don’t go around doing that stuff, you guys. Or don’t rub our faces in it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM has an amazing opening that scores big by being absolutely not at all what anybody thought would be the opening of the sequel (well, technically prequel) to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Instead of rugged Indy wearing leather, in some jungle or desert, covered in sweat and sand, maybe carrying a torch, cutting through cobwebs in an ancient burial chamber, it opens with a musical number in a glamorous Shanghai restaurant. Dr. Jones has no hat, and is wearing a white tux, as he conducts a tense merchandise exchange with nefarious gangsters willing to resort to poisoning and hitmen disguised as waiters to get what they want out of him. But for his part Indy is willing to resort to taking a showgirl (Kate Capshaw) hostage at knifepoint and fleeing with an orphan boy named Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan) as his getaway driver. (read the rest of this shit…)
Have you guys seen this RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK movie yet? I was always under the impression that it was pretty well known, but then they changed the title to INDIANA JONES ANDTHE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK so I guess it must’ve been one of those BY THE BOOK/RENAISSANCE MAN or EDGE OF TOMORROW/LIVE DIE REPEAT type of situations where it didn’t do well enough so they changed the title. The last resort of the marketing scoundrel. Anyway, this is the movie that Steven Spielberg made because he was sad they wouldn’t let him do James Bond and he wanted to make the fuckers pay dearly. He and George Lucas were kickin it V.I.P. style on the beach in Hawaii right after STAR WARS came out. They were probly like wearing cool shades, just hanging out pumpin some jams on the boombox, it was alot like this song is how I picture it, and it is said that the volleyball scene from TOP GUN was based on them. So George is spotting while Steven is doing some bench presses in my opinion and George starts talking about this old script he wrote with Philip Kaufman before STAR WARS, a thing called THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA SMITH that’s kinda in the style of the old cliffhanger adventure serials. After they got home they ended up reworking the whole thing and having this guy Lawrence Kasdan (who was writing STAR WARS’S EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) do a new script.
So they got the ideas and production of Lucas plus the supreme directing chops of Spielberg, and they made a great movie. I love that the opening shot is the Paramount logo dissolving into an actual mountain. It’s a signal that they’re taking extra special care from the first frame on to make every detail great. I know there are exceptions to this rule (DOOM), but usually when the filmatists even put thought into how to make the studio logo cool that means there’s gonna be some serious elbow grease in this movie. No laziness. (read the rest of this shit…)
1977 saw the release of George Lucas’s third film, STAR WARS. It did well. But the experience of making it was troubling enough to make Lucas rethink his dream of directing films. He decided to redirect his energy toward producing for other directors, and in fact he didn’t direct again for 22 years. But in 1979, as an executive producer, he brought back the characters from his second film.
I’m not gonna try to convince you that it was a good idea to make a sequel to AMERICAN GRAFFITI six years after the first one, but this is a much better sequel than I was figuring on. Definitely more interesting and ambitious than you would guess. I bet what happened was they wanted to do MORE THX-1138 but when the first one wasn’t a hit they rewrote the script for these characters.
While REGULAR AMOUNT OF AMERICAN GRAFFITI dealt with the cultural shifts of the ’60s by nostalgifying the times right before the a changin’, this one actually dives straight into the muck. The first thing you see is army helicopters over Vietnam, and there are more hippies and protests in this one than cars cruising the strip. It still doesn’t deal directly with the civil rights movement, but there are hints.
The impressive part is the structure. We find the gang back together on New Year’s Eve, 1964. Laurie (Cindy Williams) is now pregnant with twins, married to Steve (“special appearance by Ron Howard,” but it seems like a genuine role to me, not a cameo). Debbie (Candy Clark) and Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith) are still together, but he’s shipping out to ‘Nam tomorrow to “Kick ass, take names and eat Cong for breakfast.” They all come visit their cool drag racer friend John Milner (Paul Le Mat) at the track, where he’s trying to win races, attract a sponsorship and build a legit driving career. So it seems like it will be another day-in-the-life with this group of friends as they’re all on the verge of major life changes. (read the rest of this shit…)
The traditional action hero is a loner. He might have friends, but he lives and travels by himself. He drifts into town on a motorcycle or on foot, or he lives alone in a filthy apartment, loft, car, or trailer. Maybe he has a kid, usually a daughter, but if so she’s likely been kidnapped and he’s trying to get her back. He might’ve had a family before, might be seeking revenge for their deaths. More likely he just screwed it up. He was too obsessed with his job, or with a specific case or vendetta. She wanted him to quit. Couldn’t take all the worrying anymore. He meant well but he knows it was all his fault. Now he drinks.
There are exceptions to this, but how many? Off the top of my head I can only think of Billy Jack, who is married, Charli Baltimore, who already has a family when she remembers she’s an assassin, and Riggs, who goes and gets married after a couple of sequels. So it happens, but not that often.
That’s one reason why ex-CIA-analyst Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) feels different from other action heroes, and why this type of movie could be considered Adult Contemporary Action. Not only is he a family man before he’s an asskicker, but the movie heavily deals with his family life. He’s got a very successful surgeon wife (Anne Archer), who is pregnant, and a young daughter (Thora Birch), who has pinups of Jason Priestley. They go on a trip to London. They live in a big town house out in the country near DC. He works as a history professor and lecturer (arguably not a badass juxtaposition, since he’s teaching about historical conflicts and strategies, things meant to be applicable to his CIA agentry). (read the rest of this shit…)
THE EXPENDABLES 3 is another Expendables movie, like any other. It’s got a cast that indicates it should be the ultimate action movie, but ends up being penultimate at best. It’s a weird mix of satisfying appearance of favorite faces and tropes and disappointing execution of these elements. I call that feeling satisppointment, or expendablation. Just like the others I enjoyed it, but with a nagging feeling that this should be something actually great.
But the first stretch had me thinking it might blow the other ones out of the water. It opens mid-mission as our old Expendapals Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture) are in a chopper chasing after a Russian prison transfer train to bust out an original team member who’s been locked up for 8 years. That prisoner is none other than Wesley The Daywalker Snipes as “Doctor Death,” and it’s an excellent welcome home party for the man. He’s got a crazy beard and hair and a spaced out look in his eye, and instead of going with the rescue party he runs across the train, does a slide and a bunch of acrobatics, kills a bunch of his captors and causes the train to crash into the bastard in charge. (read the rest of this shit…)
Man, I don’t want them to make a chump out of me and do STAR WARS: A NEW BEGINNING or GEORGE LUCAS’S NEW STAR WARS, but let me just say that this part 6 really seems like the end to the whole saga. SPOILERS: Anakin is unmasked and apologetic, he finally gets the sense to throw fuckin Ted Palpatine into a bottomless pit, he dies, Yoda dies, Luke becomes a Jedi, the Empire is defeated, the people celebrate on multiple planets, they knock over a statue, they even blow up the Death Star again just to be sure. Or to pump up the crowd.
I feel like they’ve wrapped up pretty much all of the loose threads, other than the thing in part 5 where Yoda says “No. There is another hope.” I thought he meant Leia, but then it never became relevant. So either there could be some other potential Jedi out there for a part 7 or it would just be about Leia carrying Luke around in a backpack and doing flips. Either way it would be a terrible idea. Don’t do it, Mr. Lucas! (read the rest of this shit…)
STAR WARS PART 5… okay, admittedly you’re stretching it by the time you get to a part 5 that doesn’t have a “FAST” in the title. Even a prestigious series like DEATH WISH is gonna be a little goofy in part 5, it’s gonna have a part with a remote controlled exploding soccer ball. FRIDAY THE 13TH had to be “A New Beginning” because they claimed they were gonna stop at 4. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET had to get a baby involved, but STAR WARS sorta already did that in part 4. It had Luke “A New Hope” Skywalker using The Force and the lessons of Ben O.W. Kenobi to blow up the Death Star and defeat Darth Vader and the Empire, a great ending.
Oh, thank the Maker’s, there’s a new one! I don’t know what the fuck 20th Century Fox were thinking ending part 3 with all our space heroes dead or running away to hide under a rock. Not everything has to be a Hollywood ending, but that was a little grim there, fellas.
PART 4: A NEW HOPE is like a new beginning after a final chapter. It’s all kinda stripped down, rawer, lower budget, 15 minutes shorter, minimal CGI and slower-moving, and refreshingly optimistic in comparison. I mean, a young man does find the burning corpses of the aunt and uncle who raised him, but no children are murdered and nobody gets more than one limb severed, so it’s pretty light-hearted compared to the last one.
Our former hero Anakin has turned into “Darth Vader” (David Prowse from FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL), stomping around in the black helmet, unrecognizable as he storms that ship that the robot droids R. D2 and C. 3PO live on now, accusing the humans of being part of a “rebel alliance.” And the guy’s got a pretty good case because when he and his soldiers (in white armor similar to the clones) board the ship a bunch of uniformed soldiers shoot back at them. They’re obviously some type of organized militia. (read the rest of this shit…)
COWBOYS AND/OR ALIENS starts out great. Daniel Craig wakes up with an apparent gunshot wound and a weird metal device locked to his wrist. He doesn’t remember who he is or what the fuck happened. He does remember how to fight, though, so when some guys try to rob him he kicks their asses, steals their clothes TERMINATOR style and heads into town. (And all this without talking.)
Other than that metal thing it plays as a straight western for a while. Paul Dano is a crazy asshole who terrorizes the town, shooting his guns off and demeaning innocent people because his dad (Harrison Ford) is the cattle baron and he thinks he can get away with anything. But when he picks out Craig, a random bystander, to flip some shit at, he finds himself crashing nose-first against a wall of badass. This stranger doesn’t know who the little shit is and can’t pretend to be scared of him, so he knocks him on his ass. In the scuffle the kid accidentally shoots a deputy, a crime the sheriff can’t overlook despite who his daddy is, so they both get arrested, to be transferred to federal custody the next day. (read the rest of this shit…)
Well, I was stupid to write off K-19 all these years. I don’t know why I did. I didn’t even know what it’s about. I think I knew K-19 wasn’t a mountain, it’s a submarine. I knew it had kind of an audacious name but was directed by this year’s #1 Oscar snub, Kathryn Bigelow. That should’ve been enough, but I never heard anything too good about it and didn’t feel the need to see it.
Maybe it’s the submarine thing. I know this is blasphemy to alot of people, but I never even got into that one submarine movie that everybody loves that’s by the director of DIE HARD and PREDATOR. I’ve tried and it’s fine and everything but I just can’t get myself excited about it like everybody else. Maybe I’m subconsciously rebelling against my old man, who worked on subs. I never went that way. I’m a proud surface dweller. Strictly a land man. Vote no on Atlantis. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
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Oh no, Indy! Don’t go into that temple! That’s not a regular temple, that’s a temple of doom!
The traditional action hero is a loner. He might have friends, but he lives and travels by himself. He drifts into town on a motorcycle or on foot, or he lives alone in a filthy apartment, loft, car, or trailer. Maybe he has a kid, usually a daughter, but if so she’s likely been kidnapped and he’s trying to get her back. He might’ve had a family before, might be seeking revenge for their deaths. More likely he just screwed it up. He was too obsessed with his job, or with a specific case or vendetta. She wanted him to quit. Couldn’t take all the worrying anymore. He meant well but he knows it was all his fault. Now he drinks.
THE EXPENDABLES 3 is another Expendables movie, like any other. It’s got a cast that indicates it should be the ultimate action movie, but ends up being penultimate at best. It’s a weird mix of satisfying appearance of favorite faces and tropes and disappointing execution of these elements. I call that feeling satisppointment, or expendablation. Just like the others I enjoyed it, but with a nagging feeling that this should be something actually great.
Man, I don’t want them to make a chump out of me and do STAR WARS: A NEW BEGINNING or GEORGE LUCAS’S NEW STAR WARS, but let me just say that this part 6 really seems like the end to the whole saga. SPOILERS: Anakin is unmasked and apologetic, he finally gets the sense to throw fuckin Ted Palpatine into a bottomless pit, he dies, Yoda dies, Luke becomes a Jedi, the Empire is defeated, the people celebrate on multiple planets, they knock over a statue, they even blow up the Death Star again just to be sure. Or to pump up the crowd.
Oh, thank the Maker’s, there’s a new one! I don’t know what the fuck 20th Century Fox were thinking ending part 3 with all our space heroes dead or running away to hide under a rock. Not everything has to be a Hollywood ending, but that was a little grim there, fellas.
Well, I was stupid to write off K-19 all these years. I don’t know why I did. I didn’t even know what it’s about. I think I knew K-19 wasn’t a mountain, it’s a submarine. I knew it had kind of an audacious name but was directed by this year’s #1 Oscar snub, Kathryn Bigelow. That should’ve been enough, but I never heard anything too good about it and didn’t feel the need to see it.
