So they caught and/or killed both suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, but let's get to the more important stuff: Indiana Jones. This past weekend some cable station ran an Indian Jones marathon, and S and I got caught up watching a little Raiders of the Lost Ark Saturday night. We came in right about the time Marion gets tossed into the snake pit with Indy, and then we watched the rest of the movie. S got tired and wanted to bail with a few minutes left, but I made her watch until the end with me. Actually, I didn't make her, I just told her that a big scene at the end contains a groundbreaking moment in cinema history, but then refused to give any more details. Needless to say, she was quite disappointed when we actually watched the scene ("stupid" was the word she used, I believe). Apparently a guy's face melting in a super dated fakey-looking manner only qualifies as "a groundbreaking moment in cinema history" if you first watched it as a prepubescent male in 1982, not a 34-year old female in 2013. Huh? Go figure.
Raiders is up there as far as my favorite movies of all-time go. It's probably my pick for best action / adventure movie ever. Certainly part of the reason I like it now is that I loved it as a kid, but that's not the entire explanation. There are plenty of movies I thought were cool as a kid that are virtually unwatchable now. (Have you ever tried to sit through The Dark Crystal as an adult?) Raiders just holds up. The opening scene obviously is a classic, but the scene in Marion's bar in Nepal might be even better. You're introduced to the sassy, sexy Marion Ravenwood, and the creepiest villain ever, that sniveling, pale-faced Nazi with the bowler hat and the John Lennon glasses. (A great bit in that scene is when, in the middle of the shootout, Marion takes a quick hit off the leaking whiskey cask, before getting back into the action.) The famous scene at the end with the giant warehouse is also great, although the TV station botched it. They ran a promo over the main theme song kicking in one last time just before the credits roll -- totally weak.
In watching Raiders for the approximately 35th time, however, I noticed a few shortcomings. The biggest one is that the plot is pretty uncreative at a macro level. For instance, Indiana goes through these trials and tribulations to find and excavate the arc before Belloq and the Nazis get it, but then they see him doing it, and they just take it for themselves. That's how they get the arc. It's basically just somebody saying, "Hey, look over there!", and then they go over there and take it. Then, Indy, on nothing more than horseback, regains possession of the arc by infiltrating an armed convoy and hijacking a truck (and by the way, the scene where he's being dragged under the truck is less believable than the scene in which the arc wipes out a brigade of Nazis with magical light beams). He takes it on a boat, and then Belloq and the Nazis somehow just show up on a u-boat without explanation and take it again. Also, in the big arc-opening scene, Indy and Marion are able to completely avoid the wrath of the arc spirits just by closing their eyes. Really? That's it? Like I said, lacking a bit in creativity.
Another thing about the film is that in the next-to-final scene Indy and Marion don't seem sufficiently impressed by their adventure. They recently witnessed dozens of people dying, some of whom they killed themselves, some of whom were completely eradicated by an awesome ancient holy power, and the last we see of them they're casually going to get a cocktail. The appropriate response when Marion offers to buy Indiana a drink is, "A drink? Are you crazy, woman? We need to see a priest and a therapist, ASAP!" Then again, maybe they worked through their emotional and psychological issues on the way back from the island. It was a pretty long trip from the middle of the Aegean Sea to Washington, D.C. back in 1936. (And how did they get back, anyway?)
After Raiders, I watched a little Temple of Doom. It's not nearly as good, but I wanted to watch it anyway, for old time's sake, and because I'd actually forgotten most of it. There's some good actor trivia in Temple Of Doom. For one thing, Dan Akroyd makes a completely random cameo, and then the Asian kid who plays Short Round is the same Asian kid who plays Data in The Goonies (How did I not know this before?). Also, I immediately placed the actor playing the Chinese mob boss in the club as the guy who played Jean-Claude Van Damme's mentor in Bloodsport. It was my second greatest actor connection of all-time.*
I was too tired to stay up for all of Temple of Doom, so I just watched to the scene where the guy pulls the other guy's heart out with his bare hand. It was one of the few scenes I remembered seeing as a kid. Another is the scene in which they're served all the disgusting things. I saw this one again, as well, and I thought to myself while watching it that you could never get away with doing it today. For one thing, PETA would be up your ass, and then the scene is set in Indian, so you'd probably have some sort of Indian defamation league up your ass, as well. Also, with an Indian restaurant on every other street corner in the U.S. now, the scene wouldn't make any sense. People would be thinking, "What? Eyeball soup? Where's the mattar paneer and aloo gobi?"
Alright, that's all I have today. If you made it this far, you either skimmed to the end, you love Indiana Jones as much as I do, or it's a really, really slow day at work.
Until next time...
*My greatest connection ever is placing the guy who played the abusive dad in the movie Towelhead as the weird art teacher in Six Feet Under.
**According to Wikipedia, some Indians, particularly Indian Hindus, were, in fact, unhappy with the way the movie portrayed their culture.
Raiders is up there as far as my favorite movies of all-time go. It's probably my pick for best action / adventure movie ever. Certainly part of the reason I like it now is that I loved it as a kid, but that's not the entire explanation. There are plenty of movies I thought were cool as a kid that are virtually unwatchable now. (Have you ever tried to sit through The Dark Crystal as an adult?) Raiders just holds up. The opening scene obviously is a classic, but the scene in Marion's bar in Nepal might be even better. You're introduced to the sassy, sexy Marion Ravenwood, and the creepiest villain ever, that sniveling, pale-faced Nazi with the bowler hat and the John Lennon glasses. (A great bit in that scene is when, in the middle of the shootout, Marion takes a quick hit off the leaking whiskey cask, before getting back into the action.) The famous scene at the end with the giant warehouse is also great, although the TV station botched it. They ran a promo over the main theme song kicking in one last time just before the credits roll -- totally weak.
In watching Raiders for the approximately 35th time, however, I noticed a few shortcomings. The biggest one is that the plot is pretty uncreative at a macro level. For instance, Indiana goes through these trials and tribulations to find and excavate the arc before Belloq and the Nazis get it, but then they see him doing it, and they just take it for themselves. That's how they get the arc. It's basically just somebody saying, "Hey, look over there!", and then they go over there and take it. Then, Indy, on nothing more than horseback, regains possession of the arc by infiltrating an armed convoy and hijacking a truck (and by the way, the scene where he's being dragged under the truck is less believable than the scene in which the arc wipes out a brigade of Nazis with magical light beams). He takes it on a boat, and then Belloq and the Nazis somehow just show up on a u-boat without explanation and take it again. Also, in the big arc-opening scene, Indy and Marion are able to completely avoid the wrath of the arc spirits just by closing their eyes. Really? That's it? Like I said, lacking a bit in creativity.
[A bit of editing in this clip. The person who posted it removed the scene between Marion and Indiana I discuss below.]
Another thing about the film is that in the next-to-final scene Indy and Marion don't seem sufficiently impressed by their adventure. They recently witnessed dozens of people dying, some of whom they killed themselves, some of whom were completely eradicated by an awesome ancient holy power, and the last we see of them they're casually going to get a cocktail. The appropriate response when Marion offers to buy Indiana a drink is, "A drink? Are you crazy, woman? We need to see a priest and a therapist, ASAP!" Then again, maybe they worked through their emotional and psychological issues on the way back from the island. It was a pretty long trip from the middle of the Aegean Sea to Washington, D.C. back in 1936. (And how did they get back, anyway?)
After Raiders, I watched a little Temple of Doom. It's not nearly as good, but I wanted to watch it anyway, for old time's sake, and because I'd actually forgotten most of it. There's some good actor trivia in Temple Of Doom. For one thing, Dan Akroyd makes a completely random cameo, and then the Asian kid who plays Short Round is the same Asian kid who plays Data in The Goonies (How did I not know this before?). Also, I immediately placed the actor playing the Chinese mob boss in the club as the guy who played Jean-Claude Van Damme's mentor in Bloodsport. It was my second greatest actor connection of all-time.*
[Roy Chiao is the name of the actor playing the old guy in the scene. He died in Seattle in 1999, apparently.]
I was too tired to stay up for all of Temple of Doom, so I just watched to the scene where the guy pulls the other guy's heart out with his bare hand. It was one of the few scenes I remembered seeing as a kid. Another is the scene in which they're served all the disgusting things. I saw this one again, as well, and I thought to myself while watching it that you could never get away with doing it today. For one thing, PETA would be up your ass, and then the scene is set in Indian, so you'd probably have some sort of Indian defamation league up your ass, as well. Also, with an Indian restaurant on every other street corner in the U.S. now, the scene wouldn't make any sense. People would be thinking, "What? Eyeball soup? Where's the mattar paneer and aloo gobi?"
[I like how everybody gets their own individual monkey head. You can't serve a delicacy like chilled monkey brains this family style.]
Alright, that's all I have today. If you made it this far, you either skimmed to the end, you love Indiana Jones as much as I do, or it's a really, really slow day at work.
Until next time...
*My greatest connection ever is placing the guy who played the abusive dad in the movie Towelhead as the weird art teacher in Six Feet Under.
**According to Wikipedia, some Indians, particularly Indian Hindus, were, in fact, unhappy with the way the movie portrayed their culture.
So my comment disappeared again. Instead of being lazy, this time I googled. That's the beauty of widespread internet access, somebody somewhere at sometime is bound to have the same issue as you. Turns out my new laptop was blocking third party cookies. I enabled and voila here's my comment. Assuming I can read and interpret the thing.
ReplyDeleteRaiders is on my top 5 best movies ever list. Depending on the day and my mood sometimes it is #1. Indy is sexy, sexy, sexy and when I saw it as a young girl, Marion was the perfect combo of feminine and kick ass. Yes, she needs to be saved a few times, but she always tries to do it herself first and Indy is portrayed far from perfect himself. And I say not only is it a perfect action/adventure, but it's a damn fine comedy too.
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate some of the plot holes you picked out, but it wouldn't be the movie it is if it was grounded in the real world or drew a straight line to every plot point, right? I'm reading some Greek myths to the boys right now and am reminded sometimes the best stories are just outlines so you can write the rest with your imagination.
So I've got two other Indiana Jones connections for you:
ReplyDelete1.) In the opening scene of Raiders, the guy with Indy (who has all the spiders on his back and tries to steal the idol) was played by Alfred Molina, a pretty famous actor in his own right. (Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2, Frida, Boogie Nights, etc.)
2.) The stuntman/actor Pat Roach plays the bald German mechanic who fights Indy in Raiders and meets his doom in the propeller AND the Indian guard who fights Indy in Temple of Doom and meets his doom in the rock crusher. Two pretty sweet roles and death scenes!
K, yeah, S also mentioned how good looking Harrison Ford is in Raiders, more than once, in fact.
ReplyDeleteFuj, I knew about Alfred Molina (who, incidentally, also played a big role in the movie S and I saw on our first date, "Hoax"), but I didn't know about the stunt man. Good stuff.