The Indiana Jones Franchise (Steven Spielberg/James Mangold, 1981-2023)

[John Cope]

They should. His review of Sex and the City this week was terrific.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

They should. His review of Sex and the City this week was terrific.

That's the most bitter film review I'd read in awhile. It was fun in a misanthropic way, but I think that tone really obscured some of his better observations.

[domino harvey]

Armond White's still a tool but what a great article title

[Mr Sausage]

They should. His review of Sex and the City this week was terrific.

That's the most bitter film review I'd read in awhile. It was fun in a misanthropic way, but I think that tone really obscured some of his better observations.

Not to mention the fact that the guy is perpetually tin-eared. Someone actually thought the phrase "chick-flick gimmick" was good writing. Ugh. The review is pages of this kind of rattling verbiage.

[domino harvey]

OMG Did you guys get to the part where he praises that horrible HBO Kudrow series as picking up the torch from Gone With the Wind?

[Murdoch]

They should. His review of Sex and the City this week was terrific.

As much as I hate Armond White, I hate Sex and the City even more, so this review made me laugh. One line I really liked:

the real drive behind Sex and the City is to replace romance with laissez faire economic ideology

[colinr0380]

As much as I hate Armond White, I hate Sex and the City even more, so this review made me laugh. One line I really liked:

the real drive behind Sex and the City is to replace romance with laissez faire economic ideology

It seems like the only way to get through that particular film is to imagine it as a female remake of American Psycho with embossed business cards, sharp suits and immaculate hair replaced by product placement, god-awful fashions and waxing. Of course Carrie needs a big closet - she needs somewhere to put all the bodies!

[s.j. bagley]

even putting aside the speilberg/lucas hard on for colonialism and cutlural whitewashing (and the fact that they're both convinced that they're somehow somewhere to the 'left' rather points to the common disconnect of americans when it comes to politics) and any other sociological and political problems i have with the franchise... this movie was just awful.
clumsily directed, poorly acted, poorly photographed and just... well... really fucking stupid.
i'm utterly appalled that this was considered worth releasing, and more appalled that it's been such a success.

[Roger_Thornhill]

They should. His review of Sex and the City this week was terrific.

As much as I hate Armond White, I hate Sex and the City even more, so this review made me laugh. One line I really liked:

the real drive behind Sex and the City is to replace romance with laissez faire economic ideology

All this talk of Sex and the City makes me want to watch Masculin/Féminin again. Maybe Godard was right with the thinly-veiled misogyny in that picture?

[Slothrop]

"My last point is to ask as I continually ask my students and friends why this film and why now? The Indy films in the 1980s spoke to the policies of Reagan and his white conservatism. Again, like Iron Man we have another film that sells the notion that the US is the greatest power on the planet and that it is because of one man's efforts to thwart all threats. This film will make millions but what is the larger cost of films like these?"

The discouragement of of non status quo political thought. It is not simply impossible to make a commerical feature about the U.S. and its crimes against humanity, it is literally unthinkable.

I'll wait for the screams of "Conservative" outrage before continuing.

Sigh. There is no conspiracy to make conversative pictures to drum up nationalistic pride or quell dissent. There just as many left wing movies (admittedly, usually not summer blockbusters) about the evils of Americans but guess what? They tank at the box office (cueing Barmy to thread).

Why do movies like Iron Man and Indiana Jones XXIV get made? Because people like stuff to be blowed up real good and Lucas likes taking home bags of money every day after work.

They don't always "tank" at the box office. Fahrenheit 911 made over $100 million. Which also goes to show that critiques of America's political crimes are hardly "unthinkable", as Ehrenstein asserts. Although I suppose we could pull a Zizek and talk about how Moore's films are actually crypto-endorsements of U.S. imperialism. After all, we wouldn't want our radical credentials to be sullied by embracing a popular film, right Dave?

The truth is that if Viacom could make money from a movie about U.S. soldiers eating Iraqi fetuses they would.

[Slothrop]

In short, a bunch of chin stroking, leftist, film enthusiasts getting conspiracy minded about Lucas/Spielberg's True Intentions with this film has all the political relevance of putting a bumper sticker on your car. Let's not kid ourselves that po-mo film deconstruction on summer blockbuster film is some kind of political act of any degree of importance.

IOW "Just lay back and throw your legs up over your head."

The Neocons are absolutely terrified of the criterionforum.org militants. The militants need to be careful though--any more criticism of Lucas Inc. and it's off to Gitmo.

Let me quote Adorno (I have problems with him in that I think he falls prey to some of the traps that he exposes but his brilliance is undeniable): "But what makes the content of cultural criticism inappropriate is not so much lack of respect for that which is criticized as the dazzled and arrogant recognition that criticism surepptitiously confers on culture. The cultural critic can hardly avoid the imputation that he has the culture that culture lacks. His vanity aids that of culture: even in the accusing gesture, the critic clings to the notion of culture, isolated, unqestioned, dogmatic...Even the implacable rigor with which criticism speaks the truth of an untrue consciousness remains imprisoned within the orbit of that against which it struggles, fixated on its surface manifestations. To flaunt one's superiority is, at the same time, to feel in on the job."

Culture is not innocent. The cultural critic even less so. Nothing could be less radical or more bourgeois than thinking that you've "unmasked" something terribly important in the latest Britney Spears song or the latest Lucas Inc. production.

As Antoine said, pick your battles wisely.

[Joe Buck]

I just saw Indy IV. The film started at 8:30. I got to the mall at 7:45. I drank 4 Jack and Cokes and insulted the bartender all within 25 minutes. I staggered up to the back row of the theater and prepared to be disappointed.

Then something amazing happened. I was digging it. The film was just fine, all the things I heard online were lies! Lies! Lies! Here was Indy Jones in the flesh, doing his thing, crawling around, cutting open mummies. I thought maybe it was going to turn out alright after all.

Then came the jungle chase sequence, which was so absurd it took me out of the movie and I never fully recovered. All my bad mouthing of Lucas over the years has been a tad over the top. Sure, I despise the prequels and his alterations to the original Star Wars films, but deep down, I think he is a nice guy really trying his best to make special movies people will enjoy. But now, I must decide who is responsible for Shia the jungle boy swinging from tree to tree on vines while an army of CGI monkeys follow along. Do I throw the book at Lucas again? This was the moment it all came crashing down for me, and from there, it was just more and more video game mentality when it came to the action. It just gets more and more ridiculous until I just became numb by it all. Things were happening on screen and I didn't really care or comprehend it. It was just a bunch of pixels and flashing lights and it was all meaningless. The ending was sappy, perhaps, but I thought it was the right way to go out, and I did manage to recover enough to smile, but then Lucas made sure that this fanchise could live on well beyond his and Spielberg's and Harrison's life spans. Maybe that's okay, the world needs an Indiana Jones, but if the future of film is more and more reliance on these technologies which do not stimulate the viewer, any future film in the franchise will be a hollow shell of a thing, just a trademark to help Paramount bring its annual revenues up to snuff.

I'm glad I saw it, and it wasn't as bad as I feared, but it was the CGI fest that I expected.

I have another thing to say, and I'm going to be careful not to drop any spoilers. But for those who saw it, am I the only one who sees a potential Star Wars/Indy crossover? The door was kicked open, no? C'mon, Lucas will stoop that low. You know he will. Give him time.

[David Ehrenstein]

"There is no conspiracy to make conversative pictures to drum up nationalistic pride or quell dissent. "

There's no need to when you can rely on the soft fascism of "It's just entertainment."

[HerrSchreck]

The Neocons are absolutely terrified of the criterionforum.org militants. The militants need to be careful though--any more criticism of Lucas Inc. and it's off to Gitmo.

Let me quote Adorno (I have problems with him in that I think he falls prey to some of the traps that he exposes but his brilliance is undeniable): "But what makes the content of cultural criticism inappropriate is not so much lack of respect for that which is criticized as the dazzled and arrogant recognition that criticism surepptitiously confers on culture. The cultural critic can hardly avoid the imputation that he has the culture that culture lacks. His vanity aids that of culture: even in the accusing gesture, the critic clings to the notion of culture, isolated, unqestioned, dogmatic...Even the implacable rigor with which criticism speaks the truth of an untrue consciousness remains imprisoned within the orbit of that against which it struggles, fixated on its surface manifestations. To flaunt one's superiority is, at the same time, to feel in on the job."

Culture is not innocent. The cultural critic even less so. Nothing could be less radical or more bourgeois than thinking that you've "unmasked" something terribly important in the latest Britney Spears song or the latest Lucas Inc. production.

As Antoine said, pick your battles wisely.

This is rampant bullshit.. nothing more than ratcheting an extra ring outward in your choice of targets because you suppose a "traditional" target too fucking tiresome.

What is a person to do? Move to Tangier and pile boxes of Eukodal against the wall with water and light turned off for the nonpayment because you're so alone in your insight theres just No Point To Raising A Toe or tying a lace? Being publicly too cool for the Cultural Critics is nothing more than a film critic being too cool for Britney: you've identified the Cultural Vacuum, and stated your distance from it.

"Pick Your Battles Wisely.." (on a film bbs!) is one of the dumbest things I've heard. Nobody's throwing kevlar on and looking to recruit soldiers. No one is hooking up rallies and throwing down watts lines for boiler room fundraising. We're talking about film, exchanging ideas, trying to have a reasonably substantive conversation about the ideas & hamper whiffs behind a piece of megaslop, a specimen of which rarely comes around a few times every ten years. Mentioning the vapidity of Britney Spears may be predictable, tracing the imperialist tendency behind Indiana Jones pics may be only slightly less so, but invoking Adorno re the Futility of It All (and exaggerating the size of the enterprise-- for the sake of your conversational position-- into a "battle") is dumbest of all.

[Via_Chicago]

This movie is bad. Dull, uninspired, and just flat out boring. You can't solely blame Lucas for this; Spielberg's direction is rote, the script totally one-note (you could piece the mythology together with a collection of Wikipedia entries), the performances flat, and the magic, gone. It has a moment every now and then, but it's hardly enough to make this worth watching. And I say this as a big defender of Raiders (although I've never thought much of the rest of them).

[domino harvey]

I got a free Indiana Jones "Adventure Spoon" in my cereal. It lights up.

[John Cope]

And it makes digging through your Kix an adventure.

[Joe Buck]

The only thing I'm looking for in my cereal is an apology.

[Michael Shetina]

I've only yelled obscenities twice in a theater: both times during a Spielberg film. The first time was at the end of War of the Worlds when the son is revealed to have survived an inferno roughly the size of Rhode Island and runs to daddy's arms just as the film plods to a close. What a typical chickensh*t Spielberg decision. The second was during this piece of crap when he survives a nuclear holocaust and the resulting shock waves in a refrigerator. In fact the second he wandered into that nuclear test city, I realized the screenplay was almost an afterthought to the CGI. And those damned gophers...

And I've heard some praise for Blanchett. All I can say is that the audience I saw the film with could barely suppress its laughter at the hamminess of Blanchett's performance. It's as if Bela Lugosi and Shelley Winters (both of whom I admire when they decided to give a performance and not munch on the scenery) had a love child. She makes that creepy German guy in the black coat from the first film look positively bland.

[Cde.]

The second was during this piece of crap when he survives a nuclear holocaust and the resulting shock waves in a refrigerator.

I thought that scene was great. Why would anyone expect something remotely plausible in a film called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

In this universe, lead lined fridges eject themselves from nuclear explosions. Fair enough.

[Awesome Welles]

The second was during this piece of crap when he survives a nuclear holocaust and the resulting shock waves in a refrigerator.

I thought that scene was great. Why would anyone expect something remotely plausible in a film called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

I don't think there was ever such a great suspension of disbelief on the earlier films (with the exception of Temple). I suppose I may be a bit biased here given I like the other two. But I generally found the film to be a great disappointment and I knew that was the case from the opening titles, those fucking gophers were awful and and even the title design I found to be just plain crap. Not to mention the awful lighting and set design. Blanchett was also pretty crap, an incredibly hammy performance and her dialogue coach didn't appear to do a great job. It isn't really a great surprise when a well respected college professor implores someone to put a jeep in reverse while flowing along a river. Th trailer didn't inspire much confidence at all, so at least my expectations weren't set too high.

[Cde.]

The second was during this piece of crap when he survives a nuclear holocaust and the resulting shock waves in a refrigerator.

I thought that scene was great. Why would anyone expect something remotely plausible in a film called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

I don't think there was ever such a great suspension of disbelief on the earlier films (with the exception of Temple). I suppose I may be a bit biased here given I like the other two. But I generally found the film to be a great disappointment and I knew that was the case from the opening titles, those fucking gophers were awful and and even the title design I found to be just plain crap. Not to mention the awful lighting and set design. Blanchett was also pretty crap, an incredibly hammy performance and her dialogue coach didn't appear to do a great job. It isn't really a great surprise when a well respected college professor implores someone to put a jeep in reverse while flowing along a river. Th trailer didn't inspire much confidence at all, so at least my expectations weren't set too high.

Yes, the gophers are awful, and I cannot believe anybody is praising Blanchett's performance. And the over-reliance on CGI is irritating and on several occasions comes close to ruining it.

I still found quite a bit to like in the new film. I find Temple of Doom thrilling in its out and out ludicrousness, which possibly explains my opinion on the aforementioned fridge scene and probably puts me in a minority. To me, its much more interesting than the dull retread of Last Crusade (which I also think the new film is superior to).

The title design is exactly the same as that from Raiders and Last Crusade.

[Roger_Thornhill]

So for those of us who haven't seen it, are we talking the sort of gargantuan disappointment that The Phantom Menace was in '99? If so, I really would rather spend ten bucks on a few mugs of brew at my local bar.

[Joe Buck]

I wasn't quite as disgusted as I was with the Phantom Menace, but it's kinda in that ball park. I was expecting Indy to take part in a Pod Race at any moment.

[Highway 61]

It's more disappointing than TPM because Star Wars always had crummy acting and already sucked it up with ROTJ. Indy had farther to fall, and it did. Go for the beer. I wish I had.