Raiders of the Lost Ark, 01 August 2020, streamed via Netflix
- Oh man, these movies are gonna be hella racist, aren’t they?
- I honestly think it’s freaky how much Han Solo and Indiana Jones look like completely different people.
- OH MY GOD SPIDERS we’re five minutes in and I’m going to have nightmares already.
- Okay, FINE, I guess getting tenure as an archaeology professor is harder than in my own field. Then again, I would totally be willing to trample the bodies of my rivals if I didn’t also have to publish about it.
- Marion has whiskey instead of blood in her veins and will throw down with anybody who has wronged her. She is my hero.
- So you think Marion has been kidnapped and exploded. Do you report the incident to the American embassy? Or do you go talk trash at a gun-toting Nazi archaeologist?
- Sending a bunch of kids to rescue Indy from a crew of gun-toting Nazi archaeologists is pretty ballsy, John Rhys-Davies.
- Uh, are we supposed to believe John Rhys-Davies is extremely NOT an Egyptian dude?
- Wait, you’re leaving Marion with the Nazi archaeologists? Indy, YOU MONSTER.
- Boys! You never fist fight next to active propellers! That’s just bad plane safety.
- ”I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.” That is the most sullenly-delivered hero statement I have ever heard.
- Good lord, somebody give Marion a pair of pants already.
- The pirates who threatened to sell Marion into slavery also cheer for Indy as he breaks into a submarine, because why not?
- Seeing French Nazi archaeologist wearing priestly clothing was, somehow, the most offensive part of the movie. (Fundamentalist childhood, friends. It hits you in weird ways sometimes.)
- Why is there a banshee (bean sidhe) in the ark? Oh, Nazis. You dumbass fascists.
- Remember when action movies were less than two and a half hours long? Those were the days.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 02 August 2020, streamed via Netflix
- We open up with…Flower Drum Song? What is happening? Oh god, we’re in Shanghai. Already I am prepared to be horrified.
- Uh, I think Indy just kidnapped a pop star?
- What the hell? Why are these folks treating Indy like Daenerys Targaryen?
- These poor tiny elephants, guys.
- Are we supposed to like Willie? The diva who cosied up to gangsters, carries perfume to torture elephants, and considers marrying a stranger sight unseen because she thinks he’s rich? What’s going on? What the hell? WHERE IS MARION YOU MONSTERS.
- Snake, giant beetles, eyeballs, and monkey brains for dinner, while Indiana Jones, extremely white man, lectures the locals about the history of their country. (On the other hand, if this meal of horrors was served solely to fuck with the British inspector, I would begrudgingly allow it.)
- I would have been so down for The Adventures of Short Round and the Tiny Maharajah instead of this pile of orientalist, misogynistic BS.
- ”I could have been your greatest adventure.” I was all posed to like Indiana and Willie’s sex stand-off, but now I can’t, guys. I just can’t.
- Oh great, human sacrifice and child slavery.
- The choral score when Indy is messing with the sacred stones in that statue is pretty great.
- NGL, I was kind of disappointed when Indy didn’t get through sacrificing Willie. That would have been interesting. But then he hit Short Round, and I was like, THIS WILL NOT STAND.
- Seeing all those kids reunited with their families was pretty lovely.
Short Round, the true and only hero of Temple of Doom.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 03 August 2020, streamed via Netflix
- Ah, flashback to a young Indy! But...why are they in Utah? That’s dinosaur land, isn’t it? Anyway, why are the “bad” archaeologists dressed like they’re in the Civil War? These movies have a shaky hold on history.
- Whoever Young Indy’s troop leader is, dude is a crappy guardian of young adventurers.
- Why doesn’t my dude have a TA or two to grade term papers? Like, he’s on trips of unspecified lengths often enough that there’s no way he can maintain a consistent course load. ALSO, how is his ENTIRE class showing up for office hours and yelling for help? Indy, I hate to tell you this, but you might be a bad teacher.
- How are these folks just carrying these antiquities wrapped in handkerchiefs? I feel like that’s bad archival work. And then they touch an illuminated manuscript WITH THEIR BARE HANDS.
- What do you think Indy’s dissertation was on? His current research has a disturbing lack of focus.
- Whoever was in charge of animal handling must have wept every time they got a script.
- NGL, y’all, I am kind of upset there’s no Short Round in this one.
- Sean Connery being Indy’s dad explains a lot of things.
- I feel like we’re supposed to feel sympathetic towards Nazi seductress/archaeologist Elsa, but I do not. Ya gotta do more than look sad about burning books, lady.
- Jones Sr using seagulls as assault weapons was pretty neat.
- Sallah, Jones Sr, and Marcus looking devastated down the canyon while Indy staggers up behind them is pretty hilarious.
- Honestly, given the experience he had with the Ark, I feel like Indy probably could have just been like, Sure, Nazis, you go ahead and drink from the chalice and been done with it. Too bad his dad got caught up in everything?
- The three riddles to get through the booby traps are pretty neato. Though that first one about the penitent man is needlessly abstract. And the bridge’s optical illusion was pretty cruel.
- Aw, that knight should totally get a movie of his own. 700 years!
- Waiiiiiit is Indy immortal now?
- What, you’re telling me Indy couldn’t have retrieved the grail using his bullwhip? C’mon, guys.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 04 August 2020, streamed via Netflix
I remember reading one review that pointed out Crystal Skull mimicked the alien science adventures that were popular during that time. It’s the Indy version of War of the Worlds.
- Cate Blanchett does an excellent cosplay of Natasha Fatale.
- Y’all, I have a hard time believing Indy spied on communist Russia for the sake of his country. Fighting the Nazis during WWII? Sure. But not so much the lead-up to the Cold War.
- The mannequin testing village is way more detailed than I would have expected. Who bought brand name detergent just to explode it? And the TV playing a kids’ show is a nice creepy detail.
- Escaping a nuclear explosion is the ONLY reason to get into a refrigerator, kids. But even then, your best option is a slow death by suffocation instead of becoming an instant radiation shadow.
- I kind of dig that the Americans who interrogate Indy are Janitor from Scrubs, the mean grandfather from The OC, and Enoch the Chronicom from Agents of SHIELD.
- Indy, you get to do whatever research you want and still get paid your full salary! Dude, you hate talking to students. Your tenure package has finally paid off!
- Hey, Shia LaBeouf cosplaying as the Fonz! (I wonder, if the Fonz wasn’t so embedded in popular culture, if LaBeouf would seem less like a cartoon.)
- I want to make friends with the kid who, upon being confronted with Indy and a kid on a motorcycle sliding through the library, simply asks Indy about the assigned reading.
- Oh man, I guess we’re still running with the racist depictions of indigenous peoples.
- The crystal skull looks pretty dang cool.
- You only give us two seconds of prisyadka? MONSTERS.
- Psychic warfare? Eh, at least it’s not another wholly religious thing?
- MARION. I am so thrilled to see you, but also, why wouldn’t you tell him about his kid? Also, INDY, did you not know your fiance was pregnant? (Also, damn girl, you’re still in love with him even after he jilted you? That must have been decades of self-recrimination.)
- It was supremely cheesy, but I really liked the car chase fencing match. And the monkey bit also felt a lot like a pulp adventure.
- You guys, death by ant swarm is one of my nightmares. THEY GOT ME AGAIN.
- Kind of interesting: Irina’s lust for knowledge was equivalent to Elsa’s lust for glory was equivalent to the Nazi archaeologist’s lust for power. (Note: The dangerous ladies never wanted the money, really.)
- THEY MADE HIM ASSOCIATE DEAN ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
It’s hard to critique Crystal Skull when I watched Temple of Doom two days ago. Anyway, I want a series that’s completely focused on Indy’s administrative assistant at the college. She must be frickin’ magical.
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