Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Warning: Mild spoilers to follow. If you haven't seen it yet, stop reading now. Otherwise, you've been warned.

So, like the mindless fangirl zombie that I am, I accepted my company's social committee's invitation and snapped up a stack of tix for "that movie with the old guy in the hat with the wip" for my friends and I. Thing is, I really wasn't that excited about it. I had done my best to avoid reading spoilers, promotional interviews, advanced reviews or anything else that would rouse my interest beyond, "Yeah, I should probably try to see it before everybody else tells me about it." What I did absorb prior to last night was a) The plot had something to do with aliens and b) The critical mass was largely positive.

And I guess it was these low to no expectations that informed my enjoyment of the film because I was the only one out of the six of us who seemed to genuinely enjoyed the movie. Is it perfect? No. Are there moments of staggering, eye-rolling stupidity that I'm going to blame on Lucas? Yes. Is the climax kind of abrupt and not very satisfying? Yes, but that's okay because the climax isn't the end and the ending is just fine, thank you very much.

Also, and I really hate to admit this in public, but I think I'm getting over my irrational hatred of Shia LaBeouf. At least until the next Transformers movie comes out, anyways.

I won't bother rehashing the plot because everybody knows that that's not what's important about an Indiana Jones movie. What I am going to try to do is identify what it is I liked about this movie and why.

First off, it's short and well paced. I have to say that one of my biggest pet peeves with the current crop of genre/action movies is that they are all WAY TOO FRAKKING LONG. I'm pretty sure Peter Jackson is to blame for this one, but Michael Bay took it to new, redonculous levels with last year's noisy time-waster, Transformers. Everyone has forgotten that "less is more". I don't care if you can stretch the movie out to 3 hours to fit in more explosions and guys jumping around on unconvincing CG sets. Just give me a beginning, a middle and an end and get to the end before I start wondering where it is. Making your movie longer, does not make it more interesting or important. You are not making The Godfather, you are making a B-movie with a decent budget. And that's a-okay.

The other thing that struck me about Crystal Skull, and it's related to my first point, is that it was kind of old fashioned in it's storytelling. This, I think, is one of the strength's of the Indy franchise. It wears it's B-movie origins on its sleeve without veering (too often, anyway) into high camp. It's exciting and playful, and the humour is warm and gentle. No crass cynicism, no irony trying to cramp its way down. And it's cut more old-fashioned too. The camera is allowed to sweep majestically across the landscape (bonus points to those who spotted the Touch of Evil Reference near the beginning) and the cuts are organic and preserve the integrity of the action. You can tell who is who in a fight. This is all instantly attributable to Spielberg and what makes him stand out from those who would assume his place as blockbuster movie king. No one, and I mean no one, is able to blend artistry and action the way that Spielberg can and that is why he is and will always be king. His true reverence for the origins of American genre film making are obvious and reassuring to me in a way. His is a respect that is all but dead, and it makes me very sad to think of what we are losing the American film cannon becomes newer and newer.

I liked seeing Harrison Ford and Karen Allen together again. I liked that it had a sentimental ending. I liked that it was set during the cold war. I liked that the big bad was a girl and that she was played by Cate Blanchett with a Natasha Fatale accent. I liked that Mutt was a greaser, even if those first shots of him in the hat made me giggle like a grade-schooler. I liked that it was set in the Amazon. I liked that it had a sword fight. And I even liked the aliens, so sue me.

And now what I didn't like. The prairie dogs were too plentiful and cutesy. Ditto for the monkeys. And the less I say about the repeated shots of Shia grabbing his junk, the better we'll all sleep at night. That said, I think a lot of the current backlash really has to do with people my age having inappropriate expectations. Imagine if you were a 12 year old watching Indy 4 in a theater. You would freaking LOVE it. Or maybe you wouldn't. Maybe today's 12 year old would find the elegant pacing and old fashioned charms too quaint. Without a boyhood admiration for Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, would their reunion mean as much? Who was this movie really made for? The 12 year olds, now grown, who grew up on the Indy movies? Or the 12 year olds of today, whose fanboy dads (and moms) dressed them in Indy drag and trundled them to the theaters? Honestly, considering these dueling target markets, I think the film did a very good job of appealing to both simultaneously. Was it high art? No, but neither were the first three. Was it silly? Yes, but it was also a lot of fun and dammit sometimes that's good enough.

Could anything have lived up to 20 years of hype and speculation? I will say this, though, and I think it's important to keep in mind: warts and all, it was still a hundred times better than even the best bits of the Star Wars prequels. And yeah, I went there.

Sidenote

I just got notification that a photograph I took when I was in California three years ago was chosen to be used on a Schmap Map of L.A. You can view the map and the picture here.

Also, French Slang Saturday will be late again this week. Sorry.

Weekend Round Up: Movies, Indian Food, Tam-Tam

Friday: After a busy week where L and I both entertained guests from out of town we opted to make it a quiet night in. After scarfing some leftovers from my lunch at Elio's I tried to make a few calls out west and L went to pick us up some DVDs. Sadly, they didn't have Wendigo or Paris, Texis and Henry Fool was only available on VHS so we ended up going with The Wicker Man (73), Un crabe dans la tête and Altered States. Popped on Wicker Man only to discover it was the US theatrical cut, not the UK Director's cut, but that was okay by me since I really didn't like it as much as L. But it was definitely worth it if only to see Christopher Lee in a kilt. Oh, and he sings too.

Saturday: L was busy at a course during the day so I chilled at home by myself and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. When L came home we went for a walk towards the Plateau and had some excellent and very reasonably priced Indian food at Maison de Cari Golden. After dinner we walked back through Mile End and accidentally ended up in a Hasidic neighborhood. It was strange being so close to home and yet feeling like we had trespassed into another country, but very cool and comforting in another way. When we got home we watched Un crabe dans la tête which was directed by André Turpin, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors. After the movie we called it a night since L had to be at his course again Sunday.

Sunday: With L at his course again I met up with Alain and Marie-Claude at the Jean Talon market. They were there with some friends from Ottawa and were gathering supplies for a picnic on Mont-Royal park. Every Sunday when the weather is nice enough hundreds of drummers gather in Mont-Royal park for a huge drum circle known as "Le Tam-Tam". After a delightful lunch of sausage, cheese, bread and pesto we wandered into the woods a little bit to witness the other bit of lunacy in Mont-Royal park on Sundays: dozens of boys and men whacking each other with duct-taped swords. Some of them were in full armor, some only had chain mail or leathers, but the majority were in basic jeans and a t-shirt. After a couple of rounds of that we ventured back to the front of the park to paruse the hippie wares for sale on blankets, but being that it had cooled down considerable since we'd arrived we decided to call it a day and I walked home through Mile End so I could check out a used book store I'd spotted a couple weeks ago.

After purchasing a book on Herbal Magick and some body lotion I got home in time to record a French Slang video and work a bit in the little garden in the front. When L got home I cooked a nice pork loin in the oven and we watched Altered States which was both awesome and pure Ken Russell.

French Slang Sunday: Char

Char [n]: Short for "chariot", literally: carriage, wagon or truck. Used in France to describe a tank or chariot. In Quebec the shortened form is a slang term for car.

Weekend Round Up: Super-Lazy Weekend of Nothingness

Friday: Being that I never properly recovered from a late night talking UFC with my brother on Monday, we opted not to go out and instead just grabbed a bunch of DVDs. Sadly we only got through the first one, Chaos, which was confusing even for a Japanese film, before both L and I passed out.

Saturday: Despite the crap weather, I still wanted to go to Mile End to spend more money on organic cosmetics so we called up Annie and Mel and invited them out for breakfast with us. Went back to our new favourite Mile End spot, Zorba, and I got fluffy pancakes and super yummy sausages.

After breakfast I got around to making my purchases and $50 in deodorant, hand cream, face cream and toothpaste later (I am a sap...) we headed back home. The afternoon was spent cleaning the house and working on my French Slang Saturday video before Marie-Claude and Mark came over to watch the hockey game.

After the crushing, depressing defeat of the Habs, which incidentally also crushed the hopes of all Canadians of seeing a cup in Canada for the fifteenth straight year, we all trundled down to the old forum to catch our friend Andrea do her stand-up thing. Alain, who had been at the Habs game, met us there. The evening went pretty good, and Andrea was particularly in form. However, we've been going to enough comedy night recently that the host and the headliner were the only comics we had not already seen before and most of the material was kind of old news. After the show it was back home to bed.

Sunday: Weather was still crap so we stayed in and watched the rest of our movies, namely Hannah and Her Sisters and Phantom of the Paradise which I really want to learn more about. L put some more plywood and pressboard out for garbage pick-up. We had burgers for dinner and L went and got us some more movies. We got through The Mist and called it a weekend.

French Slang Saturdays: Écoeurant

Écoeurant [adj]: Another word that has different meanings in France and in Quebec. "Coeur" is the word for "heart" and "avoir mal au coeur" means "heartburn" or the pain you get before vomiting, so écoeurant in France is used to describe something disgusting or that induces vomiting.

In Quebec it can be bad or good, used in an exaggerated,almost ironic fashion: "so good that I almost puked..." Most often it is used in the same way "awesome" is used in English. When speaking, the "é" is sometimes dropped, giving you "'coeurant".

Like a lot of slang words in Quebec, variations can used as a verb or a noun. Ex: mon écoeurant, écoeurer, etc...

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Iron Man

The boy and I caught a preview screening of Iron Man yesterday, and I have to say that even with my high expectations, I left the theater pretty damn satisfied. Despite some initial reservations after learning that it was rated G, I've got to hand it to director Jon Favreau. He managed to make an entertaining superhero flick that was adult enough for me to enjoy, but tame enough to deliver the wide audience the studio wanted. It's pretty violent without being exploitive and Favreau is able to imply quite a bit without really showing anything.

While the plot is pretty standard and simplistic, the true strength of the film is the performances. Robert Downie Jr. is perfectly cast as the narcissistic scientist bad-boy come superdude Tony Stark. His dry wit and luminous charisma create a character the audience wants to root for, regardless of your familiarity with the original comic book. Jeff Bridges is predictably good and makes for a smooth and compelling villain, easily matching wits with Downie but never outshining him as often happens in these types of films. Terrence Howard is serviceable as Jim Rhodes and Favreau even gives himself a bit part as Stark's driver, Hogan.

Most surprising of all is Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Stark's long suffering assistant. Often the female lead becomes a super-hero film's greatest weakness (see Halle Berry, Kirstin Dunst, Katie Holmes, etc...), but Paltrow is one of those few actresses who "gets it". She does not resort to camp, although her portrayal of Pepper is delightfully flighty, and she is able to participate as a close equal to Stark. She is at turns on the ball and out of her depths, a sidekick but never second banana. The chemistry between Paltrow and Downie is also very strong and I would even say it is one of the film's great strengths.

The film clips along at a decent pace, lacking the bloat of many recent superhero movies being just over two hours long. The effects are impressive and fluid, never hijacking the story and the designs for the Iron Man and Iron Monger suits are beautiful to look at. If you like action movies, R.D. Jr. or superheros, see this movie. Also, stay until the very end of the credits for a special treat...

Weekend Round Up: BBQ, Demolition, Maple Syrup

Friday: Started the weekend a little early with a 5 a 7 on Thursday at work. Finally got a chance to talk to some co-workers not in my department and alternated between playing Rock Band and watching the first two periods of the Habs game projected on the wall on the cafeteria.

On Friday my teammate Susie invited the rest of the English team to join her for lunch, although only Fred and I were able to. We ended up at a cute little Chinese/Thai place on Beaubien, not far from my house. After work I met L at Club Video Beaubien to pick out some flicks for the weekend, but limited ourselves to two because Mark and Andrea had invited us over for BBQ. Being that we had a little time to kill we wandered up to Plaza St-Hubert and I bought my first ever bikini. It's brown with blue flower accents, and it was on clearance so it was very cheap.

After snagging beer and burgers at IGA we wandered over to Mark and Andrea's place in St-Henri. After dinner we amused ourselves watching Flight of the Concords videos on YouTube and I laughed like a maniac. Being that I hadn't actually slept that well Thurday night, I was dead tired by about midnight so we took a cab home and I crashed out hard.

Saturday: Being that I knew we were going to be eating a big-ass breakfast on Sunday, we opted not to go out in the morning and I did some pilates. Then we got ready and headed out to run errands. The shredder we'd gotten less than a month ago never worked so we went to Bureau en Gros to return it, and as I'd suspected we weren't the only ones having trouble with that model. Afterwards we headed up to Zellers to pick up some more stuff for our backyard project with the Gift Card my brother had gotten me for Christmas. As we were lugging all our goodies back with us on the Metro a girl actually approached us to ask if we were moving (apparently she had something to sell us if we were). We told her no and continued on our way.

Back home L got to work demolishing the faux deck thing in our backyard, but it turns out most of the work had been done for him. The whole thing was so rotted and poorly constructed in the first place that he was able to pull most of it apart with his hands. Luckily the soil underneath looks like it's in pretty good condition so it shouldn't take too much more work to prep everything in time for L's dad's arrival to build our garden. Meanwhile L has thoughts of paving stones and patio sets dancing through his head.

Later, Alain and Marie-Claude came over to watch the game. After a disappointing loss we opted to watch Living in Oblivion to boost our spirits. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before, especially since it has my boy, Peter Dinklage. I doubt Dermot Mulroney has been better in a movie.

Sunday: Sadly we hadn't gotten as much sleep on Saturday as we would have liked, but we still made it to the parking lot of my office in time to catch our ride to the Au Pied Des Erables cabane a sucre. The social committee at work had organized a last minute sugar shack outing and I had jumped at the chance to enjoy the tail end of the season.

I had never been to a sugar shack before and had not really known what to expect, but I have it on good authority that the one that we went to was quite good. Basically, a sugar shack outing usually involves a meal around a large communal table, followed by tire on snow. The food is generally homey old-fashioned fare: potatoes, fluffy omelet, pancakes, baked beans and ham, all with liberal dousings of maple syrup. After gorging ourselves, the group went for a little nature walk where we found a grass snack and a tiny black froggie.

After the ride back I had a little nap and L continued to work on the back deck, then we had some burgers and watched The Kiss of the Vampire, which while not one of the best Hammer horror's, does boast one of the most amazing endings to a vampire film I have ever seen. If you're a Hammer fan and you haven't seen it yet, it is worth checking out for that alone.

French Slang Saturday: Niais, Niaiser, Niaiserie, Niaiseux

Sorry this didn't get posted yesterday. I'd done a really good job of editing it too, except iMovie crashed and my files were locked in trash-limbo and then Alain and his computer skills had to save them, but I still couldn't edit anything, so we had to import it all into Final Cut...

But it's done. So here you go:

This one's a four parter, all four words having a common root.

niais[e] [n]: Originally it was used to describe a bird that had not yet left the nest, but it is now used to describe someone who is naive or thick.

niaiser [v]: To joke, annoy or lie. To behave like an ass.

niaiserie [n]: Something not to be taken seriously. Something frivolous or silly.

niaiseux [n]: One who is obnoxious or undesirable. A simpleton or ass. Commonly used as an insult.

Movies I Watched Instead of Writing: Apocalypse Edition

Last weekend we watched three movies with apocalyptic overtones, but luckily it is sunny and warm and the Habs are winning so my outlook is still pretty positive.

First up, Right at Your Door (2006): This one screened at Fantasia last year as part of a series on Urban Apocalypses that included Mulberry Street (see below) and the excellent The Signal. The premise is straight forward enough: after seeing his wife, Lexi (Mary McCormack) off to work, Brad (Rory Cochrane, best known as Slater from Dazed and Confused) is shaken from his lazy morning routine by a series of explosions in downtown L.A. Being the good husband he is, his first instinct is to hit the road and rescue his wife who is stuck in traffic with a dead cell phone, but panicking cops and fellow motorists mean that he can't get past the L.A. suburb where there new house is located. He returns home to plot his next move and is startled to find the gardener from next door in his house. The gardener convinces Brad to seal up his house from the inside as the radio instructs as it now seems the explosions were "dirty" in nature and toxic ash is showering down on most of the Los Angeles area.

The real drama starts when Lexi returns, having walked home after abandoning her car on the freeway. Being that Brad isn't the only one in the house now, he makes the agonizing decision to leave Lexi outside since she is covered in ash and therefore "contaminated". Will she survive long enough for help to find them, and when help does arrive, will it be enough?

While certainly far from perfect, Right At Your Door does an excellent job of ratcheting up the tension with limited funds and locations. Writer/Director Chris Gorak wisely puts the focus on the actors, making the film more about Brad and Lexi's relationship than about the citywide meltdown happening around them. The result is a film that is instantly relevant to the viewer, unlike other overblown apocalyptic films like Deep Impact, for example. The film is as much about whether Lexi will survive her toxic exposure as whether Lexi and Brad's relationship will survive this incredible strain on their relationship.

Where the film starts to break down is after the introduction of new characters and locations. Lexi strays multiple times from the back porch, sneaking through neighbors yards and even rescues a young boy she finds wandering around. The introduction of the child does add a nice moment where Brad ponders about the children they never had, but the forays ultimately slow down the momentum that has been building and dilutes the feeling or claustrophobia that drives much of the tension in the film.

However, these nitpicks are minor in light of the excellent performances provided by both Cochrane and McCormack. The chemistry between the two actors is very good and it is easy to believe that they are a married couple in their 30's full of love and frustrations. Where the film really breaks down is the Twilight Zone-ish twist ending, but everything else up to that point is good enough to still recommend the film highly as a well written, intelligent and nuanced portrait of urban paranoia.

Later that same day we indulged our curiosity and rented Southland Tales (2006), Richard Kelly's long shelved follow up to Donnie Darko. Remember how I was talking about overblown crap? This is pretty much the definition. While I'm sure Kelly and his buddies in the movie (including Kevin Smith) will get a kick out of watching the movie together and reminiscing about the fun they had shooting it, I cannot figure out for the life of me how it got made in the first place. It is confusing, poorly constructed, wildly self-indulgent and ultimately, largely boring.

Somehow, there is still a certain charm to it that I can't quite place my finger on. Maybe it's the fact that it's so clearly the bizarre vision of one person, even if that vision isn't really that interesting. Maybe it's the fact that the best performances in the thing come from Seann William Scott and Sarah Michelle Geller. Maybe it's to do with the rampant stunt casting: Christopher Lambert as an underground militant, Wallace Shawn in lipstick, Kevin Smith in old-man make-up... Maybe it has to do with Kelly's choice to cast the comedians in the dramatic roles (Cheri Oteri, Will Sasso, Jon Lovitz, Amy Poeler, etc.) with mixed results. However, whatever it is it is not enough to recommend the film. It is just too long and too weird and too all over the place to justify sacrificing 2 and a half hours of your life to watch it. Oh, did I mention it's narrated by Justin Timberlake?

Normally I revel in the "so bad it's good", but Southland Tales feels more misguided than anything else. It clearly wants to be funny and wacky, but is instead tacky and forced. The script feels mainly like an excuse to get famous people to say really dirty things. The construction of this post-apocalyptic world wants to be nuanced and political, but is instead juvenile and half-baked. I can't call it a disappointment because my expectations going in were very low, but it will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest miscalculations a major studio has ever made. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: it's also a musical. Drugs might have helped, but I kinda doubt it.

Luckily, the third film of the day washed away the stale taste. Mulberry Street is similar to Right at Your Door in that they are both low budget, limited location horror flicks with a very simple premise. This time the setting is New York and the premise is this: the rats have started attacking people who then turn into ferocious, man-eating "rat people". Sounds pretty stupid, right? Well it isn't. It's actually really, really good and the perfect antidote to overblown crap.

Like Right at Your Door, Mulberry Street focuses on characters to make the outlandish events accessible to the viewer. The setting is a tenement on Mulberry Street which has recently been purchased for development with the tenants facing imminent eviction. The first character we are introduced to is Clutch (Nick Damici), a retired boxer awaiting the return of his daughter, Casey (Kim Blair), who has just been released from the veteran's hospital after a stint in Iraq. Clutch is a good guy, shy when it comes to women (specifically his neighbor Kay (Bo Corre)), and always willing to help out the elderly or less fortunate. Damici, who also co-wrote the script, gives an excellent and nuanced performance, really adding to the film's effectiveness.

The rest of the plot is fairly formulaic: rats attack people, people attack people, everybody freaks out, citizens of tenement fight back; but what makes it work is what director Jim Mickle left out. First off, there are no guns & no clever kills. Clutch and Casey fight back with what they've got: fists and heavy things. Second, there are no clever one liners. which isn't to say there aren't moments of humour, but it's the kind of dark, deadpan humour that suits the story and the characters. And most importantly, the film is not a cliche laden, movie referencing comedy. Everything is played deadly straight, resulting in real empathy, real tension and real suspense.

Shot for about $30,000 in the director's apartment, Mulberry Street is the kind of serious, thoughtful indie horror that deserves to be celebrated. Highly recommended.