"Indiana Jones" Movie Review

(Caution, this post contains lots of spoilers.)

Well, the long wait is finally over, and at last we get to see Indy in action again after a long, long time. Supposedly, the film was delayed years until Lucas and Spielberg settled on the right script...and while the script they settled on is good, it's not as great as one might have hoped.

Never the less, seeing Harrison Ford put the jacket and fedora on and swing into action cannot be a bad thing, not even if Ford was 75 and not 65 years old, as he is here. Indy, regardless of age, is a fun guy to hang out with.

Nazis have been replaced with Commies, this being set in 1957, and director Spielberg gets all sorts of nineteen-fifties touchstones to play with, the best being Indy finding himself in an all-American suburban neighborhood, built to be destroyed by an atomic bomb test. Lucas, who gets story credit, reverts back to his "American Graffiti" days with an opening homage to daredevil hotrodders in (what else?) a '32 Ford. (Damn, I forgot to look at the license plate; I wonder if the letters THX and 138 appear as they do on the '32 Ford in "Graffiti".)

Our baddest of the baddies this time is a tall, boot jacked female Russian who looks one part dominatrix and one part Natasha from "Rocky and Bullwinkle". We wonder if they're saving Boris for the sequel.

Yes, sequel. Or sequels. This whole movie seems to exist to build a new franchise around (surprise) the son Indy didn't know he had, a Marlon-Brando-In-The-Wild-One clone named "Mutt". Indy fans will get the joke; Indiana was the name of the family dog, so here comes another mutt to follow him. This idea of expanding the franchise was tried before; anyone remember the TV series based on Indy's youth?

Not only have they built the movie around future sequels, they've written-in the theme for a revised Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. It's time to rip out those Jeeps from the original and replace them with amphibious "Ducks". Everybody at Disneyland loves waterfalls, don't you know?

I guess I should mention the plot. The Ruskies force our hero to help them find a crystal skull which will lead them, supposedly, to incredible power. Indy should just have pointed out the Ark of the Covenant while in the warehouse and been done with it.

Which leads me to another observation/complaint. Spielberg (gasp!) screws up repeatedly by letting us know too much ahead of time. Far before we need to realize that, by God, the baddies have overtaken not just any desert military installation, but Area 51, we get the punch line: Aliens will be involved. But Spielberg confuses his audience by having the Russians search the warehouse for an item Indy found 10 years before. "But wait," I'm thinking, "We know what's in this warehouse; this is where the Feds stashed the Lost Ark; and it's been more than 10 years since Indy found it, so shouldn't they be looking for flying saucers and not some box, since this is Area 51?" and by that time I've become hopelessly confused.

Cut to the chase. And they do. Lots of times. Long, long chases filled with obvious CGI, followed by lots and lots of exposition as to why everyone is doing whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. Can't Indiana Jones be Indiana Jones, and, to quote a famous line from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", make it up as (he) goes along?

Indy must share action time with Mutt, played by somebody I've never heard of and who does not look particularly memorable. When Lucas/Spielberg have Mutt swing through the trees, Tarzan style, I uttered something out loud that I thought I'd never say in any of their movies: "Oh, please..." Yes, this is "Indiana Jones", but my suspension of disbelief well, shall we say, vapor locked, right then and there.

I take back that line about never before having disbelieved. I remember the first time Darth Vader walked onto the screen and I had to stop myself from giggling. Maybe if they'd have had Indy in his younger days do the Tarzan trick? Yes, it is a tribute to Tarzan, one of the greatest movie serials of all time... but, pleeease!

This is not to say I don't like the movie, I do. I haven't even mentioned some of the best parts; the best of the best being Karen Allen reprising her role as Marion Ravenwood. I would have traded a bunch of fist fights and gun battles to have had more Indy and Marion on screen together, doing what they do best -- argue.

You've got to love the reference to Indy's fear of snakes, or the several to his father, played with such comic perfection by Sean Connery in the third film. And don't forget the gophers, for gosh sake. I loved the gophers.

So...pretending to be my long lost hero and movie critic, Gene Siskel, I give the movie a "thumbs up" but only 3 stars out of 5. It's third on my list of the four Indiana Jones adventures, behind the original, and the terrific third movie, with Connery. But, it's certainly the best Indy we've had in, what 18 years, so who cares?

Liner Notes: Funky (Blank) Goin' Down In The City

OK... so I'm listening to one of the area's "classic rock" stations the other day, and that old Steve Miller standard, "Jet Airliner" comes on the air. I'm no Steve Miller fan, but having grown up in the era of AM rock and roll, followed by a few decades of FM, I've heard this song on the radio about a million times whether I wanted to or not.

I'm sure you know the lyrics:

Leavin' home, out on the road I've been down before Ridin' along in this big ol' jet plane I've been thinkin' about my home But my love light seems so far away And I feel like it's all been done Somebody's tryin' to make me stay You know I've got to be movin' on Oh, Oh big ol' jet airliner Don't carry me too far away Oh, Oh big ol' jet airliner Cause it's here that I've got to stay Goodbye to all my friends at home Goodbye to people I've trusted I've got to go out and make my way I might get rich you know I might get busted But my heart keeps calling me backwards As I get on the 707 Ridin' high I got tears in my eyes You know you got to go through hell Before you get to heaven Big ol' jet airliner Don't carry me too far away Oh, Oh big ol' jet airliner Cause it's here that I've got to stay Touchin' down in New England town Feel the heat comin' down I've got to keep on keepin' on You know the big wheel keeps on spinnin' around And I'm goin' with some hesitation You know that I can surely see That I don't want to get caught up in any of that Funky shit goin' down in the city....

Except that the last line had been censored for airplay. There apparently is no funky shit goin' down in the city anymore, only funky "kicks".

Way, way back in the day, this wasn't unheard of, and I'm sure the edited line was recorded contemporaneously with the correct lyric. Remember Ed Sullivan telling the Rolling Stones they couldn't sing the line "Let's spend the night together" in 1967?

But we all, well, grew up and got over it. What once was titillating was now classical music.

That was until recently, when the stations I don't listen to began playing c(rap), or "hip hop" if you prefer. Rap has been around long enough, we actually have classic rap stations now. Egads.

The Brothers filled their "songs" or "music" or whatever people in polite society refer to it, with foul language we couldn't even imagine back in our hippy-dippy 1960's radio world.

The Mad Mothers of America or some other organization popped an artery over this, and the record labels featuring such trash were ordered to put warning labels on the records to scare off buyers, which had exactly the opposite effect in the urban market. Of course. Which only gave the rappers more incentive to use the invective.

And then there was Howard Stern doing his shock-jock gig. And who can forget Janet Jackson's so-called wardrobe malfunction on national TV?

The Feds came down hard and threatened anyone with access to the public airwaves that uttering any one of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words meant stiff fines and a close look at their broadcast license.

And so, here we are again, back in the sixties, with Steve Miller singing about funky kicks when every lyric website in the world will tell you differently.

To borrow a line from Bob Dylan, "It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

And so it goes.

Let's Run It Up The Flagpole...er, Maybe Not

Yesterday I spent a dozen hours hanging around the 1928 penthouse of one of LA's most successful haberdashers. Looking out over the city from the thirteenth floor (built when that was as tall as you could build in town) I started thinking about the flagpoles that were scattered about the rooftops.

Now, new buildings don't seem to have flagpoles, perhaps because many are so tall, nobody could see a flag at that altitude, or that the rooftop has been given over to the CEO's helicopter landing pad. So, no flagpoles on skyscrapers. Windsocks, yes; flagpoles, no.

Older buildings built back at the turn of the last century, and for a few years more, seemed to embrace the pole and its flag; adornment for the architect's urban visions. The poles still stand today, leaning out over the street or jutting prominently upward from a select corner of the roof.

But hoisting a flag seems to be a forgotten task. From my penthouse vantage point, I counted 25 poles; four had flags; and one of those was of some corporate logo and not Old Glory. And of the three American flags, none was taken down at dusk, nor illuminated after dark as proper etiquette deems necessary.

Perhaps the maintenance men who were assigned this task to do each dawn and dusk died off, and their replacements never were told it was part of their job. Maybe it's just too big a hassle to climb up on the roof in all sorts of weather. Maybe the flags wore out and nobody bothered to buy new ones. Maybe nobody gives a rat's ass. Maybe a little of all of the above.

I'm no super-patriot; I don't think symbols and slogans and sound bites and bumper stickers replace fully realized thoughts. But, if you're gonna have a flagpole, you might as well fly the freaking flag.

Dave Barry Nails The Newspaper Industry

They say in every joke there is a kernel of truth. Barry's column is the whole bag of Jiffy Pop. God bless ya, Dave.

Get me rewrite! - 04/20/2008 - MiamiHerald.com

The Mean Green Journalism Machine

Back in the day, your average "beat" as they called it, at the newspaper was either a) the action down at the court house, b) City hall, c) the cop shop, or lesser pursuits like "society" stuff or sports.

Today's J-schoolers must now all be trained in finding and reporting the most arcane trivia regarding the environment. The media, on a daily basis, must find at least one new angle relating to global warming, saving energy, or our water supply, or our reducing waste, less it be viewed as not doing it's God-given mandate to inform the public.

Let's not forget that many of these stories are written by "stringers," people who aren't in the employ of the publications they write for. They are free-lancers, paid by the column-inch. So, like any good business man or woman, they supply what the market wants. And the media wants anything environmental right now.

In today's Sunday paper, for example, we have important tips on how to make that next party you hold "green". To which I reply with my standard issue "WTF"?

I didn't read the article; I can guess what suggestions our earnest journalist has to offer: make sure all the paper goods came from recycled sources. Have the guests car-pool. Use low-wattage bulbs (great for adding atmosphere!) to illuminate your shin-dig; Be sure and take your empty vodka bottles back to the glass recycler, and use "natural" products the next morning to clean up the puke in the carpet.

Anyone can do this. Pick a topic, any topic, and put the word "green" in front of it. You've just created a story of instant public relevance. Use a real person's narrative in the first paragraph to make it feel "real". Give a little "before and after" history of the issue. Find some obscure specialist, doctor, engineer, or spokesperson for a couple of quotes. If you really want to look professional, find somebody in the field to say the idea is full of crap. Sum it all up in the last graph with: "Time will tell if XYZ will make a difference."

Then file the story, and place a copy in your tickler file to do a follow-up in a couple of years.

Feel free to thank me; I just saved you four years of journalism school. Start writing now; half of the media is currently tied up covering the wars or the election, and sooner or later they'll be looking for new (greener?) ground to cover.