Summer Movie Calvacade

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (B-) The good, the bad, and the ugly...

The good: Instead of foisting off the direction duties to someone else, Spielberg grabs the reins yet again. (Don't snort- I can seriously see them doing that.) The script's smart enough to acknowledge Jones' age, without Jones whinging about being a dinosaur. The action sequences all work, in the context of the film. That is, if you had Jones doing some of the more energetic stunts, you'd roll your eyes in disbelief. Spielberg wisely hands off the running, sword-fighting, and bike-riding duties to Shia Laboeuf. The family subplot is handled about as well as they can, with a minimum of hand-wringing and soul searching. (Introspection's never been a part of the Indiana Jones series.) Matter of fact, that entire subplot is summed up in the end, where LeBoeuf is about to put Jones' fallen fedora on his own head, only to have Jones deftly snatch it from him. To his credit, Spielberg knows just how far to bend something just before it breaks.

The bad: This is a personal prejudice, but no matter how much CGI you put in a film, when you put 'em next to practical effects, the CGI's suckitude just stands out more. The prime culprits: the monkeys. Oh, God, the monkeys! Also, the plot point with Indy's sidekick with the wonky accent. In retrospect, he's just slowing the movie down, and if you cut him out altogether, I doubt anybody would notice.

The ugly: "I got a bad feeling about this..." Jesus, George Lucas.



National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (C) O.K, if somewhat listless adventure yarn. The Walmart to Indiana Jones' Target, if you will. I'd hate to be the historians that the Bruckheimer people contacted for reference, though. America's real history, laid out in a million books written by a million people, is far more interesting than this movie could ever hope to be.



Cloverfield (D) Giant monster movie, told from the p.o.v. of a schlub holding the most energy-efficient video camera ever invented. The premise is kinda interesting, but the people involved decide to make it a teen soap-opera involving a young schmo living in an improbably roomy loft in New York fighting through the rubble to reconcile with his ex-girlfriend. The story's so thin, you find yourself nitpicking the movie. For instance, besides the amazing video camera, we have a forty-foot monster can sneak quietly above the camera schmo, who seems to have the professional training to wield the camera. In this movie's case, geeking out over the discrepancies is the only entertainment you'll get.



The Bucket List (C) - Rob Reiner directs, Morgan Freeman does his noble working-class hero thingy, Jack Nicholson does his lovable curmudgeon thingy, we laugh, we cry, Nicholson's put-upon servant buries the two guys' ashes on top of Mount Everest, the end. Meathead's basically become a journeyman film director. A journeyman film director is someone like for example, John Badham - (Wargames, Stakeout, The Hard Way) or Herbert Ross. (Steel Magnolias, The Goodbye Girl)

I bring this up since they fall into the category of directors who make their mark early on with a really good film, like This is Spinal Tap or Pennies From Heaven, or Saturday Night Fever... and then their career ends up consisting of solid, enjoyable movies that you see on t.v. when you've got an afternoon to kill and then you forget all about 'em until the next time you're watching them - ("Didn't I already see?... Oh, right, right. Hm, what else is on?) I think that these guys are so worried about losing what little opportunities for directing that come their way, they're terrified of taking risks. For instance:

"A script about a young priest who falls in love with a young widow which causes him to question his faith in God? Oh, too much for me! I'll direct that comedy about three middle-aged guys who go on a cross-country road trip in a 1970 Buick in an attempt to recapture their youth, instead!" They've plotted out their careers so painstakingly I'm convinced there's some graph in Hollywood that they all refer to so's they can select their next project.

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Aaand just a quick note on season 3 of 'The Venture Brothers'. It looks like Jackson Public and Doc Hammer are falling victim to what Patton Oswalt called, "Jon Voight's Nutsack syndrome". I'll explain. Oswalt compared the story in the last three star wars movies, that is, showing us nerds how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, and how Boba Fett became Boba Fett, and where C3P0 came from, and what Yoda did before he lived in a swamp that probably smelled like an outhouse, and what happened to Luke and Leia's mom. (Didn't Leia said she remembered her mom being 'lovely, but kind of sad'? Didn't her mom die in childbirth? How could she have-? Nnngh.)

Anyways, what the movies gave us was stories we didn't really need to see. Oswalt's line of reasoning being that if we like Angelina Jolie so much, it would do us all a world of good to see where she came from, namely, Jon Voight's pink, hairy, wrinkly nutsack that she swam out of.

So that's what we've got going on with the Venture Brothers. Turns out Dr. Girlfriend wasn't pregnant, she was ordered by the Guild of Calamitous Intent to get her husband to stop 'arching' Dr. Venture. And we get to see how the Monarch became...he. And how Brock got to be Dr. Venture's bodyguard. And how Master Billy Quizboy lost his arm and eye. And how Phantom Limb...

The thing is, we really don't need to see these origin stories. I realize 'The Venture Brother's' stock-in-trade is putting a twist on classic sci-fi superhero-adventure stories, which includes the old chestnut 'humble beginnings' but since these origin stories are told with a totally straight face, any satirical twist is going to fall flat.