quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Ok, I saw the movie tonight.
Lyr had it exactly correct: "Batsh**"
I just saw it. I agree, it is "batsh**". Considering a bat's guano is an excellent fertilizer that sustains all sorts of biodiversity in many caves throughout the world, I think it's a very good analogy for this movie.
I'm willing to forgive the stupidest parts (Tarzan, motorcycle only BARELY escaping cars in big city chase, driving confidently off a cliff to get caught by a tree) because the whole thing was just so much fun. Ford is simply a brilliant actor, and LaBoeuf is pretty good too (though I don't want him to replace Indy in any sequels). The fight/chase scenes are all woven together so cleverly, albeit unrealistically, that I was laughing out loud half the time. The whole thing captures the '50s, except for a lack of grease in Mutt's hair. I'm very glad I saw this movie, and you bet I'm getting the DVD.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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Glenn, you are aware that they actually DID find the Ark of the Covenant again--except no one noticed. It was visible through a hole ripped in one of the crates in the foreground, while the brawl continued in the background.
And I loved the "51" on the inside of the warehouse doors.
And I too was delighted with the "I like Ike" reference.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yes, I saw the Ark, and it reminded me of one of the other movies: "What's this?" "Ark of the Covenant" "You sure?" "Pretty Sure."
My family has an "I like Ike" button that we put on the Christmas tree. And a MacArthur button that we put on the BACK of the Christmas tree.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Who buys DVD's anymore? I haven't in years.
When it comes to Netflix, my family focuses more on second-raters and classics, whereas we buy anything that needs to be collected or watched at a whim. It's nice to be able to pick a DVD to watch as soon as the realization comes, at the last minute, that everything that needs to be done for the day is done, and there is ample time to watch a family favorite.
Unless you're talking about HD-format discs, in which case we have nothing to talk about.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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We saw it yesterday. My three favorite parts:
-Indy uses societal influences to escape the KGB creeps by having Mutt punch a college boy and starting a fight between the preps and the greasers
-Indy gives advice on source reading to a student who took the opportunity of Indy and Mutt crashing into him on a motorcycle to ask Indy a reference question
-Marion looks back as Mutt is SWORD FIGHTING ON A MOVING VEHICLE and CORRECTS HIS STANCE Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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All right, I just saw it, and now I shall add my thoughts. I loved the first half... I loved the clever way it twisted itself into the history, the way all the films have tried to do -- but then, for me, it became tedious as, becoming more and more absurd. I didn't hate it. It didn't make me question everything I thought I knew about what society would accept from a film, the way Transformers did last summer -- but it definitely induced some sighs.
I dug the interaction between the characters, loved Cate Blanchette. A lot of great things. The fencing, the motorcycle chase, "you're going to finish school!" ....
But ultimately what I take away from this movie is that Speilberg continues to....be...less than spectacular... and that David Koepp is a stupid man.
Okay, that's harsh. He might not be -stupid- . I'll say he seems to have a very poor understanding of what is possible.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Oh, yes, the "you're going to finish school" was funny. As was the scene when the guard gags Marion because he's sick of the arguing-- and they ignore him and keep right on arguing!
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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If you read the "Infinities" Star Wars Tales issue, you know that Indiana Jones met Chewbacca and discovered the ruins of a certain Star Wars spaceship back around 1935 or so. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Yeah, but it's Indiana Jones. There's never been a high level of scientific accuracy in Indiana Jones. (Historical, either.)
Completely agreed. I wouldn't split hairs over the psychic powers, you know -- I'm happy to let the magic be the magic. I don't mind the jumping from one car to another, all that. It's delightful. But I don't find horribly unintelligent gaffes about the common workings of our everyday world to be quite as delightful.
I'm not even mentioning a lot of things -- the big things -- in the movie that we all know made absolutely no sense, in any context, even in an Indiana Jones-world.
It was better than Temple of Doom. Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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It had some wonderfully fun stuff. I don't mean to just naysay. I really think the first hour of the film had everything I could hope to find in a great movie.... But then.... it just all started to seem less and less fun, for me.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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There was something about the way the second act bled into the third act that especially bothered me. Maybe it was that the second act was too thin, it didn't ever provide a sense of purpose for Indy- he just discovers the skull, and then gets captured by the Russians, but the second act is neither exciting, nor does it pay off the tension built up while the guys are in the tomb. There is also a lot of time spent with Mutt getting to know Indy, but it bumped me to see them having that "getting to know you" conversation RIGHT after they had just flown 5,000 miles together in tiny aircraft.
The characters were all just way too thin- you never get a sense of who mutt is, and the film relies much too much on our knowledge of Indy from the other films. And for all the special effects at the end, the level of excitement that their discovery of the room evokes doesn't even touch that of "The Last Crusade." There is no moment like the one where Indy must step off onto an invisible bridge- you just never get a sense that anything in the story really matters.
Also, the immense lameness of Indy throwing his partner the whip, while he sprawls at the foot of a set of stairs 5 feet away, and is somehow unable to scramble to his feet in 10 seconds, is baffling.
As the makers of Die Hard said, the film stands on those small details that add up to a convincing whole. If you fudge all those details and forget about them, you have an unconvincing film, no matter how good it looks.
Or maybe it was the editing that was sluggish. It struck me from the first scene, in which the car race is just a beat too long, the finding of the crate is just a beat too long to maintain interest, and just about every action is shown for just a bit longer than it should be. As an editor, I would probably have cut the opening down and made the events much closer together, maybe opening not with the squirrels, but with the cars going past the "atomic cafe." I think by the time we see Indy, we are a little distressed that he has not already appeared- in a bad waym (hauling him out of a trunk was a bad intro too, imo).
The whole opening just goes on too long- remember the opening of raiders? The scene is easily half as long, and the situation is one Indy creates, and it doesn't have to do with the plot. Here, we were thrown into the plot with absolutely zero establishment of the characters.
quote:The guy I went to see the movie with and I were the only ones who laughed at the "I Like Ike" bit. Which only made it more amusing for us.
You're assuming they didn't get it, whereas I'm assuming they didn't laugh because it wasn't funny. Lead balloon, that one.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Wonder what those ants would be like with chocolate on them? Maybe a little bit meatier than their normal counterparts?
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Nathan Fillion is a half inch taller than Harrison Ford, according to IMDB.
I would never have guessed that-- and that tells me that Fillion, much as I love him, couldn't be Indy. Harrison Ford has so much presence he SEEMS taller.
I think Ford also tends to be shot from slightly below more so than Fillion. The angle of the shot (head-on, slightly canted, or canted) makes a big difference.
Other aspects could go concurrent with that, of course.
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Oh, like the camera angle they used in the first season of Star Trek: TNG, where the viewer is invited to get to know Picard's nostrils.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: I hope a species like that NEVER evolves...
I watch a lot of nature shows and have seen similar ants to that. Does anyone know if that was an actual ant species or a made up one? Just curious.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ford is also older, and the fashion for portraying actors on camera seems to have changed to become more realistic, or maybe more, as CT says, angles tend to me more straight on. I doubt you'd see many shots of Ford straight on in his movies.
But interestingly enough, Harrison Ford is listed as having the same height as Leonardo DiCaprio, at around 6 feet. You don't get a sense of DiCaprio being very tall until some of his recent movies, like The Departed. There isn't a movie I can think of in which Ford looks shorter than he is, and he usually looks taller. He also started his career much later in life than DiCaprio, not starring in a major movie until he was already 35. Age might be a factor.
There are lots of surprising heights for actors. from one website:
quote: Angelina Jolie 5'7" Tom Cruise 5'7" Robert Downey Jr. 5'7" Demi Moore 5'5" Jon Stewart 5'7" Sarah Jessica Parker 5'4" (this one is very surprising) Natalie Portman 5'3"
quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: I hope a species like that NEVER evolves...
I watch a lot of nature shows and have seen similar ants to that. Does anyone know if that was an actual ant species or a made up one? Just curious.
It's hard for me to believe that there is an ant species that is THAT aggressive. There are certainly ants that big, and there are ants that will eat humans, but drag a thrashing human body into a giant ant-hole? I just don't see that number of ants actually supporting the weight.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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My favorite part of the movie was Cate Blanchett. I've always been a big fan of hers and she did not disappoint again. I usually cringe when non-Russian actors make lame attempts at speaking Russian in movies. Cate Blanchett blew me away with her command of the language and the accent. Of course, I should have expected nothing less of her.
Posts: 155 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Originally posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer: I hope a species like that NEVER evolves...
I watch a lot of nature shows and have seen similar ants to that. Does anyone know if that was an actual ant species or a made up one? Just curious.
It's hard for me to believe that there is an ant species that is THAT aggressive. There are certainly ants that big, and there are ants that will eat humans, but drag a thrashing human body into a giant ant-hole? I just don't see that number of ants actually supporting the weight.
From what I've read, it would appear that the weight thing is probably the most unbelievable part. There are ants that big, who are that aggressive, who have incredibly painful bites, and who even lock themselves together to climb, dangle or form bridges. I know ants can lift weights far more heavy than their own body weight, but I guess the human body would really be beyond the pale. Even the giant ant hills are familiar to me.
So fake species I guess, but not dramatically out of bounds.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I know that there are incredibly destructive ant species that consume pretty much everything in their path, including at least one in the Amazon. But I don't think they carry their food-- they just swarm it during the course of migrations. So they wouldn't carry a human into an ant hill because there wouldn't be a hill to carry it TO. Nor would they be that mindfully agressive to pursue a climbing human-- they just eat everything in their path during the course of their migrations, IIRC. (This was read about, I think, in Jr. High, so please excuse any misrememberances!)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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(But, I didn't find the mischaracterization of the ants that extreme-- rather like how piranhas are characterized in many films. And snakes, for that matter. And spiders, and...
The most unbelievable part of the ants, for me, the part that took me out of it, was the animation, particularly close-ups and the squishing. I found the splattering highly unbelievable, effect-wise, and that was the part of the scene that bothered me.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:There are ants that big, who are that aggressive, who have incredibly painful bites, and who even lock themselves together to climb, dangle or form bridges.
I was under the impression that while there are ants that fit these descriptions, they are mostly of different species.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that that was a single ant, I just meant that those are all characteristics of many different ants, and in this case all rolled into one.
That site is going to give me nightmares for the next two nights. And curse you, you warned me ahead of time and I still looked, so I can't blame you. Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: I suppose the closest living ant would be the Army ant. (#2 on list)
That page is most definitely not for the faint of heart, or people who dislike profanity.
I'm never going outside. Never again. I'll just have Pick Up Stix deliver to my apartment until I'm 80.
Posts: 368 | Registered: Aug 2007
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(Last week, I was in flip-flops outside my dad's house. In the sandy dirt by the sidewalk. Anyway. I felt something in my toe; I assumed it must be a sliver of glass. I said, "Ow!" and went to pick it out. About the time I noticed it wasn't clear, it was darker than glass, it MOVED. It was a fire ant! It had buried its pincers into my toe! For no earthly reason! Ow! It really felt like a really sharp, painful sliver of glass. But I took some Alavert-- I tend to hyper-react to insect bites and stings-- and got better.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I got bit by an ant once. I assume it was a fire ant. It didn't hurt that much, but I had a red mark on my arm for over a year. I was stung by a bee on the back of my leg. It got swollen enough to connect on the other side. It was terrible. When I was like five I was bitten by what we assumed was a spider when I was sleeping. The bite was super swollen for weeks. And now, thanks to that list, I have to live in fear of having a bot fly eating my brain.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I get bitten by spiders all the time. Our house has a lot of them, and I live upstairs where they seem to congregate. It's only really annoying when they bite me on the face. And the marks tend to last for a few weeks.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I used to have a bedroom in one house we rented that had used to be the garage. There were lots of spiders. I missed every single field trip that year because the day we were supposed to go, I'd wake up with spider bites and a swollen leg. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Just saw this tonight. Really liked it, laughed and clapped a lot. Appreciated all the Brody/Henry Jones Sr. references, and the Ark shout-out. My biggest issue with the whole movie: ALL THE ANIMALS!!
What the hey-ho? First shot of the film was a CG prairie dog, and from then on in it was like every creature in the general vicinity needed a piece of the Indy action. Monkeys, Scorpions, Snakes, Ants, you name it, they became integral parts of huge action sequences! So many people complained in this thread about the unbelievability of the VINES...what about the MONKEYS on the vines?!
That being said, I pretty much enjoyed everything else. Except the Mac character. He was just completely useless and non-interesting. Either he was worthy of Indy's time and respect, or he wasn't, and since he proved time and time again that he wasn't, even in just simple actions during the entire course of the film, I wonder why Indy ever trusted him in the first place? He is so completely not the kind of friend Indy would have ever had -- greedy and vocally so, unkind, and opportunistic. So at the end, with the wink? What was that? And why was he suddenly nice, wise, sagelike Mac, with a "don't worry Jonesy, I'll be all right"? That kind of a line can only be spoken by the dear friend about to die, or maybe in extreme circumstances the reformed villain turned helper, but not the still awful, still nasty, still evil triple agent guy!
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