So last weekend I watched the three great (okay two great and one okay) Indiana Jones movies and I made a smart aleck remark about the fourth film not really existing.  Of course, we know that the infamous fourth film of this franchise did indeed exist and it was also on NetFlix.  So, in spirit of completion and in second chances, I decided to give Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a second look.

It was absolutely as bad as I remembered.

Now, I told myself at the beginning that I would specifically look for parts that I liked, because there had to be some, and, in fact, I did find some parts of the movie that was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by George Lucas that I liked.

What I liked:

• Harrison Ford is always fun, even if he was way too old for this.
• The early part of the film’s motorcycle chase.
• During that chase scene, there was a moment where Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) looked at Indy with a “look what I did” look and Indy looked back with an unimpressed glare that was taken directly from The Last Crusade.  It was meant to hearken back to the relationship between Indy and his father (Sean Connery).  That was cute.
• There were some classic Indy lines and banter
• Cate Blanchett.  You’ve got to respect her as she always throws herself into the role, even with a terrible Russian accent.

Unfortunately, that is where the “What I liked” ended.

What I did not like/hated:

• Mutt.  He was really forced, and yet, in the third act, he disappeared.
• Almost everything in the jungle chase.
• The “Call it a rope, not a snake” gag.
• Marion Ravenwood did not fit in this film and forcing her in just did not work.
• All the peripheral characters (Oxley, Mac, Dean Stanford) took away from what should have been the focus of the film, the relationship between Indy and Mutt.
• Mac, in particular… the “triple agent”?
• The sci-fi ending was just stupid.
• Why can’t Russians hit anything with a machine gun?
• The monkeys.
• Oh… I nearly forgot… “Nuking the Fridge.”  All of that. And groundhogs.
• The FBI hating on Indy only to drop out of the story completely after the first act.
• Most of the comedy was over-the-top and missed badly.
• The story was confusing and you could not connect to any of it.

In the end, this was one of the most disappointing film going experiences I had had.  I remember walking out of the film with my friends in shock.  We turned to each other and we all just admitted that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sucked.  Nothing about the rewatch or second chance made me change that opinion.

The third and final film of the Indiana Jones trilogy (yeah, there is a fourth one, but I try not to think about that one much) is one of my favorites.  Honestly, I am never sure if I prefer Raiders of the Lost Ark or this one, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The Last Crusade went back to Indiana Jones basics as they sent Indy on a quest for the Holy Grail and they kept the mystical stuff to the ending.  The film followed the pattern of the original film but this one had some extra special.

Sean Connery.

Sean Connery played Dr. Henry Jones, the estranged father of Indiana Jones and the connection between Connery and Harrison Ford is magic.

Magic I tell you.

The film was great from the beginning with young Indiana Jones (River Phoenix) through the set-up, but the movie truly caught on fire when Indy crashed through the window and gets smashed in the head with a vase… thankfully a fake one.

The constant dialogue and bickering between Henry Jones and “Junior” was just tremendous.

These characters were so deeply rooted in love despite the fact that they had barely been talking that you can feel it through the screen. The scene where Indy was believed to have been killed in the tank that went over the cliff was some of the best, most subtle acting from Connery that we have ever seen.

There was great action as in any Indiana Jones movie and the humor is a perfect fit and hit nearly every time.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a wonderful movie and a great way to end the series…

The second film in the Indiana Jones series was quite a step down from the brilliance of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it was still a good time.  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom took the archaeologist into a prequel and made it a much more pulpy type serial than we got in the first one.

Indy starts out in Singapore trying to make a deal for a diamond, but that deal falls through.  The opening bit of the film is not very effective as it depends too much on slapstick and silly coincidences.  It also introduces us to the singer and this film’s love interest Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and Indy’s sidekick Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan, who later stars as Data in The Goonies).

There is just no denying that Temple of Doom is several steps down from the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that the film suffers from the portrayal of the Indian villains of the movie as bloodthirsty cultists and that this would be considered seriously racist these days.  Some people include Short Round in this mix, but I do not.  The young boy is one of the highlights of the film here, filling the young sidekick trope that these types of serials would have.  Short Round is shown as capable and heroic and I take nothing from the broken English.  I am sure that is how the actor spoke.  There are plenty of racist parts to Temple of Doom without adding Short round into the discussion.

And the relationship between Indy and Short Round feels real and sweet.  It feels as if they have been together for years and have grown into a close knit pair.  This, of course, begs the question of exactly what has happened to Short Round after this movie as there is no mention of him in Raiders of the Lost Ark or the remaining films.  Did Short Round meet with a terrible fate on an adventure?

This falls into the category of white savior films as the white man arrives and saves the day for the Indian people, who apparently cannot do it for themselves.  And the mysticism of the film adds another component to the question of race relations.

That mysticism angle just does not work as well for Indiana Jones as does the adventure and swashbuckling action, which is why the action picks up drastically when the film gets away from the mystics and the mind controlling blood and features on a mineshaft chase scenes and a final confrontation on a rope bridge.  These moments feel like classic Indiana Jones and help elevate the remainder of this.

I was not a fan of Kate Capshaw and her role as Willie.  She was more annoying than anything else as the helpless, dumb blonde.  She was nowhere near Indy’s equal as Marion had been, and, had we seen Willie first, maybe we would have liked her more.

In the end, Temple of Doom is a good, but not great Indiana Jones movie.  They took away the parts that worked best for Indiana Jones and tried to add in a different kind of pulp story that was not as effective.  Still, Harrison Ford is always entertaining and Short Round was a fun and interesting addition (and way more than just a racial stereotype).

Next Up:  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

As I was going to Netflix to watch the new season of A Series of Unfortunate Events, I spotted that Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Indiana Jones movies that followed it were now on Netflix and I immediately thought….triple feature!

Of course, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest movies of all time and its rating was never going to be in doubt.  It is absolutely the highest rating I can give which makes it a…

I can remember watching this movie at a special event at school while I was at our junior high.  We watched the film on reels in the gym and I was completely mesmerized. Indiana Jones, played by the amazing Harrison Ford, was everything you could have wanted from a hero. He was brave, adventurous, and determined.  He brought this adventurer to life like few others could have possibly done.

This is perhaps the ultimate collaboration between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.  Throw in an iconic score form John Williams that makes every scene more epic and fills you with that feeling deep down inside.

The chemistry between Harrison Ford and Karen Allen was off the charts and, despite being kind of whiny at times, the character if Marion Ravenwood was the perfect pairing with Indiana Jones. The lack of Marion in future films was a drawback.

The Nazis make awesome villains as they did in the old serial adventures that this was based on and you can find such a wonderful mixture of exciting action, laugh out loud humor and a cleverness that you can rarely find.

There are scenes here that are some of the greatest ever put to film.  The moment Indiana Jones shot the swordsman was as perfect as you were going to get (and the idea that this was an improv moment from Harrison Ford that everyone went with is even more epic).  The fight on the airplane is one that I will always remember.  Harrison Ford adds so much to each scene with a simple facial expression that does a brilliant job of informing about this character.

Raiders of the Lost Ark and the character of Indiana Jones are members of the EYG Hall of Fame and it is well deserved.  It is one of my personal favorite movies of all time and those people who complain about Indiana Jones not really affecting the plot are just looking for something to complain about.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is near perfect.

Next up:  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

I have to say… this has been the biggest surprise of the 2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon so far.  A Fish Called Wanda was pretty boring.

I know, right? I didn’t see that coming.

I could not get into the film at all.  Sure they have a great cast and I thought that, when I saw the movie years ago I liked it, but watching it today, I just could not wait to get it over.

I know that I am distinctly on the minority side of this, but I just did not enjoy A Fish Called Wanda.  Just a glance had the score at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.  EYG Hall of Famer Roger Ebert had given the film 4/4 stars.  The audience number on Rotten Tomatoes is 84%. Google users had it at 81%.  These are all very high numbers.

And yet, it goes to show that movies are subjective and it falls into the idea that everyone has their own opinions.  I did not like this movie, I found it mean-spirited and nowhere near as funny as I thought it would be.  Maybe it did not age well for me since my memory was that I liked it originally.

In the end, this will not be a film that I want to revisit again.

Happy New Year!  The first movie I watched in 2019, and the next film in the 2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon is Russell Crowe’s starring vessel, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

I will admit, there was a chunk of this movie that I was not sure exactly what was going on.  I feel that is as much my fault, if not more, than that of the movie.  This feels as if Master and Commander is a movie that demands 100% attention right from the start and I was a little bit sleepy yet when I started it.

Nevertheless, I got more into the film as it progressed.  I found it to be a strong film with a lot of great sea faring action.

Russell Crowe was great as Captain Jack Aubrey but my favorite character was easily Doctor Stephen Maturin, played by the awesome Paul Bettany.  The scene where he operates on himself is just stunning.  I found the relationship between Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin to be strong and compelling.  The relationship was the focus of the novels that this movie was based on, specifically two Napoleonic War-era adventure novels by author Patrick O’Brian.

I am not sure there is a real through-line for the story as the film felt like it was more a series of scenes on the open seas strung together.  The French ship they were chasing was really more of a white whale for most of the movie than a real enemy.  However, I did enjoy the scenes of sea battle.  I did have some trouble following it at times, but the spectacle is without doubt.

I admired this movie.  It was a good time, and it needs me to institute a new category.  The “Good Stuff” category is around the “Fun Time” category, but leans toward a more serious tone and film.

The  next film in the New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a Thon is the first movie that I have already seen.  It is the horror movie known as The Conjuring.

The Conjuring was one of the big screen films that led the Renaissance of horror that we have been enjoying the last several years.  Creative and original horror movies such as Get Out, A Quiet Place, Don’t Breathe etc owe their success, to some extent, to The Conjuring.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson star as Lorreinne and Ed Warren, a husband/wife combination of paranormal investigators.  The Warrens are real people and the story of The Conjuring is based on the Warrens’ case files.  It is a “true” story.

The movie is great.  It is nerve wracking and tense.  The Warrens make a fantastic protagonist pair and you find it very easy to root for them.  They are heroically putting themselves in the crossfire of the demons that are tormenting the family living in the house.  There is a creepy backstory involving a witch that was hanged and her vengeance which is downright frightening.  The imagery of the creature and the way it starts by messing with the family before escalating the terror and the violence.

Director James Wan creates a beautifully scary tone that sticks with you after the film finishes.  The story is well developed and complex.  It involves not only the family living in the house, but also the Warrens’ own daughter.

Vera Farmiga is an outstanding actor and she never fails to create a strong character in her films.  She provides Lorraine with a soul and emotions unlike many in horror movies.

The Conjuring has inspired not only its own direct sequel, but also spin off films The Nun and two Annabelle movies.  The creepy doll debuted in this movie.

The horror genre certainly received quite the jump scare jolt from this exceptional film.

The next film in the 2018/19 EYG New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon is an Academy Award nominated film from 1957 that featured 12 men and one small room and none of that changed for over 90 minutes.  12 Angry Men showed some powerful actors and what they can do to create tense atmosphere with dialogue and characterization.

In fact, we get some impressive characterization without even learning their names, so to speak, settling for “Juror#4” and “Juror #7.”

Henry Fonda was the lone dissenting vote on a trial that we had not seen.  11 votes for guilty against a defendant that we do not meet.  We learn more about the trial as the jury deliberates and, in that process, we learn more about each man.

Themes of racism, ageism, judgement by appearance all come up and are handled deftly and subtly as the group continued their contentious debate.

Henry Fonda was great in his role as Juror#8.  We got nuanced performances from Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley and Jack Warden.

We have seen this trope in dramas for years, but this is where that very trope began.  The performances were rock solid.  It is amazing that director Sydney Lumet could create such a tone in his film in one location without any changes at all.  The film is wonderful.

It is a simple film with nothing truly simple about it. If you look close, you can see the depth of character, story and dialogue.

So the third movie in the 2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon is a campy film from 1999 called Deep Blue Sea, starring Thomas Jane, LL Cool J, Samuel L. Jackson and Saffron Burrows among others.

Deep Blue Sea has the benefit of one of the most shocking, iconic and awesome scenes in movie history.  SPOILERS if you do not know the scene to which I refer.  Samuel L. Jackson getting surprised by a giant leaping shark that grabs him before he can say “mother f#$*er” and eats him up.  I haven’t seen this in a long time and that scene is the one that sticks out as all kind of awesomeness.  No one saw it coming.  Sam Jackson was a star and here he was getting devoured early in the film.  It was a great moment.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie happened.

Everything else was so ridiculous and filled with camp that Deep Blue Sea can only be called a Jaws-rip-off and a waste of time.

We will give the film a break on the CGI, which was horrible (even though other films of the time were doing much better work with the special effects), but you cannot give them a break on the script.   LL Cool J, to avoid the shark, climbed into the over, which gets turned on by the shark.  To avoid being asphyxiated by the gas, he uses his metal ax to chop through the top of the over, creating an escape path (not creating nay sparks at all).  Then, he gets out, swims to the other end of the room while the shark is still attacking the oven, pulls out a lighter, lights it, tosses it across the room (and does not put out the little flame on it) and blows the room up.  LL Cool J survives the blast of fire though.

Deep Blue Sea could be seen as some in the “So bad it is good” category and I would not argue that.  If you are in the mood for some stupid humans taking on some genetically altered brainiac sharks, then Deep Blue Sea may provide you with a  lot of fun.  It is a bad movie though.

The next movie in the 2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon is a direct to video DC Animation that is currently available on Netflix.  Batman: Bad Blood brings a group of the “Bat-Family” into the world of animation for the first time.

These character receiving their debut here include Batwoman (Yvonne Strzechowski) and Batwing (Gaius Charles). joining Batman (Jason O’Mara), Nightwing (Sean Maher) and Damien Wayne’s version of Robin (Stuart Allan).

This story takes several story arcs from the Batman series of comic and kind of crams them together into a story where Batman disappears and is presumed dead and Nightwing steps into the cowl as a replacement.  Meanwhile, Talia al Ghul (Morena Baccarin) has assembled a group of B-list Bat-villains behind a character named The Heretic (Travis Willingham).

The DC Universe animated movies are always fairly entertaining and this one is no exception.  However, there are a lot of story beats here that are underdeveloped, cast aside, or just not worth the screen time.  It feels as if they tried to cram too much into this 72 minutes and the whole film suffered for it.

With the success of Into the Spider-verse, Warner Brothers should really consider taking some money and investing it into some of these DC animations because if this had better animation and a tighter story, there is no reason why they could not have the same kind of success Sony has found with Miles Morales.

However, I have seen much better DC Animation that Batman: Bad Blood.  It is an enjoyable watch, but fails to take anything to another level.  There are considerably more engaging and compelling Batman animated films out there (Sub Zero, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Mask of the Phantasm, etc).

Batman: Bad Blood is fine, just not remarkable.

We officially kick off the 2018-19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon with a movie that I have never seen from the horror/comedy genre that is considered a classic by many.  Shaun of the Dead  is Edgar Wright’s first part of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy featuring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.

I have never been much for this type of movie…or so I thought.  Shaun of the Dead was a rip-roaring good time with consistent moments where I laughed out loud.  It was fresh, clever and just a hoot.

Shaun (Simon Pegg) appears to be quite the loser.  His girlfriend (Kate Ashfield) has broken up with him, he constantly fights with his step-dad (Bill Nighy), and his best friend Ed is a slob and a lazy parasite (Nick Frost).  Meanwhile, zombies are appearing everywhere and his life goes from trying to get by to trying to survive.

I enjoyed this movie tremendously.  It was extremely funny and surprisingly emotional.  The scenes with Shaun and his Mum (Phyllis McMahon) were unexpectedly touching and poignant, as was his scenes with his step-dad Philip.

This is a comedy, but it was made and can be watched as a horror movie.  The zombies are not just a joke, they are a distinct danger and had many really anxiety-ridden shots in the film.  You feel the panic of the main characters, even if you are laughing at the execution of the story.  It blends the two genres beautifully.

The relationship between Shaun and Liz was good too and felt real despite the unreal circumstances in which we see it develop.  The strains on their relationship started well before the zombies and fit right into character traits of the two characters.

I was not a fan of At the World’s End, which is the third film in the Cornetto trilogy. but the first film is wonderful and I am a big fan of Shaun of the Dead.

Here in the Pre-2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon, I have begun a tad early.  Every year there are Christmas lists that have It’s A Wonderful Life on them, including the Top 10 Show’s Top 10 Christmas villains from last week) and I have honestly never been that interested in watching it.

I mean, I have seen a few scenes here and there and I have a knowledge of Frank Capra’s story that has become a cultural zeitgeist in our society.  I’ve seen parodies or homages to this movie over the years, everywhere from Moonlighting to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Mork and Mindy.  I just have never seen the actual movie.

That is until tonight.

I am here to say that I now understand.  I am a convert to this wonderful movie, starring James Stewart as George Bailey, a good man who finds himself down on his luck and in a near suicidal state when the angel Clarence (Henry Travers) arrives to show him what life was like had George never been born.

I had no idea how much of this movie was spent with the characters of George Bailey and the people of his life.  The whole “George wishes he was never born” is fully in the third act and It’s A Wonderful Life spends most of the movie showing us who George Bailey is and how he came to be on that bridge considering throwing himself into the raging river.

The fact that this movie takes its time to reach that moment really helps to build a connection with the character of George Bailey so that you are invested in the magic that comes in the third act.  I have to say that I was tearing up with the very end of the film and I had a huge smile on my face as it was developing.

Donna Reed does a fabulous job as George’s wife Mary, the woman who is completely dedicated to George despite many chances of finding more.  Of course, the idea that George is really the richest man comes from what he has in his life, not because of the money and Mary is a perfect example of that.

It really isn’t that much of a Christmas movie either.  Honestly, only the end scenes happen at Christmas.  Heck, Die Hard is more of a Christmas movie than this is.

I am pleased that I finally took the time to watch this classic of cinema and to see just what everybody else was talking about.  This is an iconic film of tremendous value and I enjoyed it totally.