Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Man, I love you guys... if anyone wants to understand why I would never sever my ties with AICN and all of you readers, this should go a long way towards explaining it.
I mentioned the film JADE CLAW in my KILL BILL review last week as a movie that I hadn’t been able to track down since my first viewing of it, and I got almost 100 immediate responses telling me exactly where I could find a copy, motivating me to poke around. Sure enough, I picked it up at Amoeba for under $10. Thanks to every one of you who steered me in the right direction.
In the meantime, I’m sorry. My week of vacation translated to a full week of rushing to catch up on work. As a result, that meant two weeks of no column.
And I’ve been watching a lot of DVDs in that time, meaning there are several columns worth of stuff ready to go for this week. My featured review today is for THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES, the week’s biggest release, but before we dig into the pros and cons (and, yeah, there are some cons), let’s dive in and do some browsing to see what I’ve missed in the last two weeks as far as news goes...
BROWSING
I don’t know about any of you, but I like to keep a current, running list of upcoming releases. Just makes things easier. And I don’t mean some all-inclusive obsessive-compulsive list of every title from every distributor, either. I don’t honestly give a shit about two-thirds of what gets put out. The whole reason I compile my own list is to narrow it down very specifically to the things I want to keep my eyes open for. The last two weeks have seen enough announcements to mean that my list has grown considerably.
Over at DVDFile, there are all sorts of announcements. Can’t wait for the new ALICE IN WONDERLAND that Disney is putting together. Even if I don’t like some of their films, they sure do put together great discs, and for something I actually want to own, I’m sure it’ll be worth picking up. That PLANET OF THE APES special edition sounds excellent, and the ANGEL SEASON THREE specs released the same day are encouraging. Fox is really racing through that show and BUFFY at this point. Now if they’d only pick up the pace on SIMPSONS and FUTURAMA. January’s releases of A PIECE OF THE ACTION, UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT, LET’S DO IT AGAIN, and SUPERFLY are all reasons to celebrate here at the Labs, and I’m sure many of you feel the same way at the notion that FREDDY VS. JASON will hit disc on January 13th.
Over on The Digital Bits, they ran a story on Oct. 10th that suggested we can expect a 2004 release for SCHINDLER’S LIST. Man, I hope that’s true. They also mentioned the oft-repeated rumor that STAR WARS is going to make its debut around this time next year. I’ve been hearing that same thing... a box set, all three SPECIAL EDITIONS... but until we hear the Lucasfilm announcement, don’t hold your breath. For now, the coolest confirmed Lucasfilm rumor is that they’re working on a YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES box set. I remember when Frank Darabont first told me about YOUNG INDY, way back in the early ‘90s, and the eventual plans for home video. What he described then... an interactive educational archive of TV episodes... seemed far-fetched. DVD technology has definitely caught up, though, and I’ll be curious to see if Lucas holds true to his original dream of what YOUNG INDY could be. That same rumor column mentions some upcoming Paramount special editions like SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT and THE UNTOUCHABLES and TITANIC. Hopefully we’ll see those sooner rather than later.
If you just want to read some good reviews, you can stop by over at The DVD Journal and check out some quickies by our own Mr. Beaks for titles like BLACK SUNDAY, THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS, Del Toro’s CRONOS, or AFTERGLOW. Beaks sees as weird a mix of movies as I do, looks like. Can’t wait to see his reaction to his birthday present this year. As film geeks, we are obligated to gift each other with films. First time I ever met him face to face was at my 32nd birthday party, where he gave me a DVD copy of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. And, yes, the sex afterwards was fantas... er, I mean, we’re just friends. Seriously.
Over on DVD Answers, they’ve got the artwork for the cover of the upcoming Region One release of AVALON. About freakin’ time, Miramax. Thank you so much for giving this gem your prompt attention.
Oh... wait... looks like I missed one of the cooler rumors on The Digital Bits. I’m not much of a STAR TREK fan, but if I were to buy any of the TV stuff, it’d be box sets of the original series. As much as STAR TREK fans have ruined any and all enjoyment of the show for me (seriously... people... has there ever been a group more rabidly devoted to something who seem to have so little fun?!), I can admire the writing of the original series and the way the characterization grew sharper as the series wore on. Given room to grow, this might well have turned into something great. Unfortunately, it got cut short, and as a result, I know I won’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get all of it when this finally happens. 2004 would be just fine, Paramount, but if you have to push it until 2005 to get the sets right, please... take the time and give us something really nice.
I think that’s it for browsing, so let’s see what I’ve been watching lately...
FROM THE SHELF
Holy crap, do I love THE OFFICE.
I know that viewers of BBC America have been aware of this show for a while, but thanks to some brain-damaged quirk of my DirecTV package, I can’t get the channel. As a result, I’m late to the table on this one. If this is all old news to you, you can probably skip this part, but if you’re unfamiliar with the show like I was, then read on, ‘cause I plan to gush to an embarrassing degree.
For many years, I’ve been quite firm in my belief that THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW was the best-written TV comedy. Ever. There was an emotional bravado to that series that still surprises me when I see old episodes. In particular, the character of Hank Kingsley struck me as a sort of milestone in bad behavior, the gold standard of schmucks. Part of it was that amazing performance by Jeffrey Tambor, who deserved an Emmy every single year that show was on. A lot of it, though, was the way the writers never flinched from the unsympathetic, the real, the ugly and sad that makes up so much of life but so little of television. Finding the humor in that is remarkable, and it’s the reason SANDERS still holds up for me.
THE OFFICE, in its first series of six episodes, manages to create not one but two classic characters along the same lines, David Brent and Gareth Keenan. David is played by Ricky Gervais, who co-writes and co-directs the series with Stephen Merchant. Mackenzie Cook plays Gareth, and he’s so great that as soon as you recover from the immediate sight gag of your first exposure to him, the remarkable depth of his work becomes obvious. Both actors seem to be pushing comedy to brave and strange new places with their work, and if that’s all THE OFFICE had going for it, I’d still tell you to pick it up immediately.
But wait! There’s more! A lot more, actually. See, unlike most situation comedies, THE OFFICE isn’t about wacky people in wacky situations doing wacky things and dropping just the right one-liners at just the right moments.
Think of something like JUST SHOOT ME, for example, an office sitcom where everybody falls into some easy category that defines them completely for every single episode, like the drunk slut or the sarcastic nerd or the dim-witted boss or the fiery feminist. Everyone parades through each scene, all their pre-packaged eccentricities all turned up to high, and your tolerance for it all depends on how entertained you are by hearing David Spade find a clever way to call Wendy Malick a whore for the four-hundredth time.
THE OFFICE, on the other hand, is about observation. It’s about the little details that make up the daily lives of a bunch of characters who strike me as 100% authentic. David Brent is the Regional Manager for the Slough branch of Wernham-Hogg, a paper company. He’s one of those guys who obviously failed his way up the corporate ladder, just personable enough to make it to middle management, and too much of a knob to ever make it any further. He is, as Stephen Merchant says in the documentary on disc two, “a tit.” He thinks he’s everyone’s friend, but no one likes him. He thinks his constant joking is hilarious, but no one is laughing. He’s in a constant state of emotional freefall, and he’s only ever partially successful at concealing it.
The people working under David cope with him and each other as best as they can. Tim Canterbury (Martin Freeman, the English answer to Topher Grace) is the most likeable one there, but even he’s got some issues to sort out. He’s 30, still living with his parents, and he’s just starting to realize that he really, really hates his job. In particular, he resents being stuck with Gareth, a fairly original comic creation. Gareth talks incessantly about kung-fu, sniper secrets, and his time in the Army. Tim, in response, tortures Gareth constantly. He has to. It’s all that keeps him sane. One particular prank call from Tim to Gareth made me laugh so hard I had to pause the show to keep from missing the next scene. The interplay between these two is priceless, always evolving as the first series wears on. They remind me of Rimmer and Lister from RED DWARF, but toned down and played much more real. There are all sorts of subtle jokes that play out over an arc of episodes, ongoing tortures that come back, and the effect does indeed appear to be cumulative, not just shaken off at the end of each week’s show.
Dawn Tinsley (played perfectly by Lucy Davis) is the receptionist, which gives her a whole lot of nothing to do all day except flirt with Tim, who makes her laugh all the time. She detests David and Gareth as much as Tim does, and they seem content to make each other laugh as a way of handling the stress. Tim obviously fancies Dawn as much as he fears her boyfriend Lee (Joel Beckett), who works in the warehouse. There’s big quiet Keith (Ewan MacIntosh) from Accounts, a sometimes DJ who loves his scotch eggs and PEAK PRACTICE. There’s Malcolm (Robin Hooper), one of the few people in the office who can’t even feign patience with David’s bizarre antics, especially when they involve slapping Malcolm on the head a la BENNY HILL. There’s Ricky (Oliver Chris) and Donna (Sally Bretton), a temp and an intern who may be having an office affair, and there’s Sheila (Jane Lucas), who almost seems invisible at times, and they all have moments to shine over the course of the six episodes. They all do solid work in the background until Gervais and Merchant push them to center stage, and everyone rises to each of the occasions presented. Having an ensemble you can trust that’s as large as this provides you with unlimited ability to push and bend and twist your basic premise.
Oh... and a stylistic note. The whole thing is handled like it’s a documentary, sort of like the Christopher Guest films from the last few years or like RENO 911, the new Comedy Central take-off on COPS. Characters look into the camera, there are talking head interviews interspersed through each episode, and nothing happens in the show that probably wouldn’t happen in front of a real documentary camera. David in particular is a big fat phoney, and the moment anything real happens that makes him look bad or that makes the office look complex, he does his best to gloss it over, shake it off, make a joke and run for cover. I’ve had a few bosses like David over the years, and they just end up making you miserable. They’re miserable. That’s why they want everyone else to be the same way. David describes himself as “a boss second, a friend first, and probably an entertainer third.” I think “idiot” should be first, and watching the supplemental disc’s documentary on the making of the show, I’m not sure how much is an act and how much is simply Ricky Gervais giving free reign to his own inner git. Sometimes, the best performances are by non-actors who are cast close to their own personality, and that may be the case here.
Stephen Merchant tells the story of how he ended up working at the BBC under Gervais, who was Director of Speech for the network, and it sounds like the short film that served as a sort of demo for THE OFFICE grew out of Merchant’s own real-life frustrations with Gervais, who had no interest in actually working. “If you’ll do my work, I’ll let you get away with murder,” he told Merchant early on. Watching the two of them together, it’s obvious that much of David’s particular energy came out of Gervais and the way he really is with people. He’s like a hyperactive six year old who desperately wants your attention, and he doesn’t care how he gets it. I think my favorite episode on the disc has to do with a special seminar day and David’s constant efforts to steer all attention back to himself, or perhaps the quiz episode. Overall, the episodes don’t really have big stories. They’re more like random collections of loosely related incidents. This is great stuff, I can’t wait for the second series collection, and curse DirecTV for denying me my BBC America and keeping me from this show for so long.
Another very English disc that I just picked up is the outstanding new DVD release of THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, the Jeff Stein documentary about The Who. From the opening clip from the SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR appearance to the version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” that marks Keith Moon’s last live appearance with the band, this is a film that is definitely meant for fans of the band only. There’s no concession to a wider audience, no attempt to woo the uninitiated. It’s crammed full of amazing footage, great interviews, and wonderful performances, and I’ve just barely begun to dig into the package as a whole. All I know is, I spent a full Sunday afternoon with this thing cranked up, annoying the neighbors and making my co-writer deaf, and I loved every second of it. If you’re at all interested, the sound and picture is worth every penny, and I’ll let you know later if the second disc is as good as the first.
Another very loud disc was 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS, a film I watched out of idle curiosity. Eva Mendes is in this film, and I used to say I could watch Eva Mendes do anything. Well, thanks to John Simpleton, I now know that’s not true. Of course, it’s not like she’s given anything to actually do in the movie except stand around and model nice slacks. And it’s not like this film is aimed at giving her a real role to play. This is car porn, and nothing but.
Biggest problem: I just don’t care. I thought the first film was a lame POINT BREAK remake, and considering how little I thought of POINT BREAK, it seemed like an exercise in futility. This time out, Paul Walker steps up to take the full weight of the franchise on his shoulders, and that’s not a good thing. Walker’s a blank onscreen, a sort of vortex of charisma. Sure, he’s a good-looking guy, but there’s nothing going on behind those eyes. He gets blown offscreen by his lover in the movie, Tyrese. Just like in the first film, the two male leads circle each other and deal with all their manly feelings towards each other by grappling and getting all sweaty and driving really, really fast. Nothing like the hum of the motor and the stick in your hand, eh? It’s all blatant looks of longing and barely repressed energy, and even the presence of cutie-pie Benihana heiress Devon Aoki and the forementioned Eva Mendes can’t disguise the main agenda here. Paul Walker and Tyrese are hurt, but they want to love again, and eventually, they find solace in each other’s... cars. The one bright spot in terms of performance is by Cole Hauser, who seems to be channeling his dad, b-movie scumbag Wings Hauser. Cole has learned his lessons well, and even though his part is ridiculous, he manages to convince the viewer that he just might be crazy, and something truly awful might be just around the corner at every moment. If he wants it, he’s probably got a career ahead of him doing the exact sorts of things his father did, and if he chooses to, he’ll be great at it.
Is John Singleton done yet? Maybe it’s a cheap shot altering his last name like I did above, but when was the last time this guy mattered? Talk about pissing away a promising start. I’ve talked to many people who have worked with him, and no one seems to have much good to say. Overall, he just doesn’t seem too interested in filmmaking. His movies are flabby, lazy, unfocused. The CGI car racing stuff here is absurd and becomes boring almost as soon as it begins. I’ll say this... if you liked this film and you want to pick it up on disc, Universal’s put together a very nice overall package, and the sound and picture is top-notch. But when I look at how many films they dump into the marketplace without a single extra, and then I look at how overproduced this 2-disc set is, it just chaps my ass all over again. Priorities, Universal. Set some fucking priorities, please.
In addition to 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS, I caught up on a couple of other summer titles that I missed completely, and I was surprised by what I saw to varying degrees. THE ITALIAN JOB always seemed like a strange choice for an American remake. It’s not like the original was ever the hit here that it was overseas. In fact, I don’t think many people even knew the title here before the remake. To Paramount’s credit, they did a decent job of putting this new film together. The cast is good, if not spectacular, and Mos Def, Jason Statham, and Seth Green establish a nice comic rhythm early on in supporting roles. Mark Wahlberg is one of those guys I like in the right role, and he’s not as miscast here as he was in THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE, but he’s also not exactly the guy I’d put in the role of a mastermind who plots elaborate schemes. There’s just such a big lug quality to him that I don’t buy that he’s the guy pulling all the strings. Donald Sutherland? Sure. Absolutely. Unfortunately, he’s out of the film early on, and we’re left with the young guys. Wahlberg squares off against Ed Norton, who basically sleepwalks through his scenes. Charlize Theron tries to bring a little heat to things, but she remains frustratingly distant, as in all of her films so far. I can’t tell if she’s a good actress in search of a strong director or a bad actress who’s just hot enough to hide her weaknesses. At any rate, she barely registers here. A lot of people told me this was one of their favorite films this summer, and I can see how it would be an agreeable two hours in a theater. The stunts are fun at times, the set-up painless. But it’s a Teflon film. Two hours after you see it, it’s gone. No stick. It just doesn’t have any weight to it, and even the charm of the film’s opening seems to give way to a sort of thudding inevitability by the end.
The exact opposite is true of HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, which wasn’t what I expected at all. Ron Shelton’s comedy is actually funny, and Harrison Ford appears to be actually awake for the full running time. The result is something that entertained me in a number of ways. I like the premise about cops who moonlight in other jobs on the side, and the way their second lives end up intangled with their lives as officers. There’s some rich material there, and Shelton finds some of it. The script is schizo, though, and doesn’t always work, and Josh Hartnett just doesn’t seem to have the gravitas to pull this off.
With both HOMICIDE and ITALIAN JOB, the discs are good transfers with excellent sound mixes, and they seem to fall into that category that so many major studio releases do these days: entirely professional. All I ask regarding my DVDs is that I get the best transfer possible, and the standards are set pretty high. These aren’t amazing films, films you’re going to want to keep and revisit time and again, but they’re treated well enough by their respective studios that if you are a fan, you’re going to get something worth keeping. The bare minimum of respect is all I ask, and it’s nice to see that for some companies, that’s a matter of course.
I also have to give credit to Paramount for releasing the original THE ITALIAN JOB on DVD at the same time as the remake, encouraging the comparison. It’s especially big of them considering how completely the original outclasses the remake. Noel Coward’s performance as Mr. Bridger, his last appearance in a film, is great stuff, and the whole cast is filled with colorful characters, great faces. So much of what Guy Ritchie did for his first few films comes from THE ITALIAN JOB. The group of guys. The nicknames. The way the humor is mixed in with the action. The very British sense of character. And the ending... if this film’s final moments didn’t in some way inspire the conclusion of LOCK, STOCK, & TWO SMOKING BARRELS, I’ll eat my DVD. I mentioned Benny Hill earlier, and it’s great to see him in this movie in a supporting role. He made me laugh every time he showed up and did something to remind us of his love for “big women. BIIIIIIIG.” Michael Caine, front and center here, is stone-cold charming in the whole thing, and there’s a casual amorality to his character that makes the whole film fun. I can see why this was huge in England but had trouble traveling to other countries. It’s all about national pride and putting one over on Italy, and any chance they get to remind the viewer of how great England is, they take it. I think it gives the film character to spare, and I’d say you owe it to yourself to see the original if you never have, or to check it out again if it’s an old fave. The transfer is spectacular, and it perfectly preserves the inventive cinematography and action shooting of Douglas Slocombe, the same gent who shot all three INDIANA JONES films... which we’ll talk about in just a moment.
A few more quick impressions first, though. Like I said, I’ve got a lot of discs to get through.
NAQOYQATSI closes out Godfrey Reggio’s haunting and hypnotic trilogy of meditations on the state of life on our planet, a trilogy he’s been working on since the late ‘70s. I bought both KOYAANISQATSI and POWAQAATSI last year when they came out, and then promptly missed this one in the theater. In some ways, I’m glad I saw it at home. It’s a very personal experience, one of Reggio’s films. These aren’t crowd-pleasers, and they’re not narratives, and what may look like random montage to one person’s eye might be emotionally devastation to another. I found this to be a very difficult viewing experience. Like POWAQAATSI, this film feels angry, like something’s been torn loose inside Reggio. The world isn’t what he wants it to be, and his one outlet, the one thing he knows he can do in order to impose some sense of control, is make these movies. These are prayers, meditations on where we are right now, how we got here, and where we might be going. Technology has changed radically since Reggio started making these films, and it’s crept into the filmmaking and into his thoughts and fears. There’s computer animation in this film, and a level of sophisticated editing that would indicate Reggio has finally embraced the power of the Avid. Yet the title of the film, another Hopi Indian word, means “Life At War.” Every day, we face a struggle for our soul between the secular and the technological and the emotional and the divine. And every day, we are faced with battles we never chose, attacks we never provoked, and our fair share of lumps and bruises and scrapes and swipes. And every day, we get back up and face it all again, because that’s just what we do. We keep going. The ones who don’t get swallowed up or crushed or just plain lost, and some days, it feels like all that keeps us moving is forward momentum. I was hypnotized and transported by this film, just as I was with the first two, and I give this a very strong recommendation. If you’re at all adventurous, give this one a try. The sound and picture is fantastic, one of the better transfers and mixes I’ve seen from Miramax lately. I haven’t gotten into the extras yet, but there are a number of special features on the disc, an unexpected pleasure. I would have been content with just the film here, but knowing I have Reggio on disc actually talking about his films makes me giddy, and I’ll finish up with all the extras in the days ahead.
And finally, there’s a title that many of you told me to get. And like I said, I listen...
So now I am pleased to report that I have seen CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL with the “drunken commentary” track, and it is indeed more fun than it has any right being. The film itself is a fairly awful student film that found its way into the hands of Troma. The fact that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were involved guaranteed it would get a release once SOUTH PARK hit, but this isn’t a forgotten gem. A few nice moments are overshadowed by a lot of terrible writing and terrible directing. Doesn’t matter, though. Once you see the film with that audio commentary playing, it’s the funniest film ever made, and you’re just hanging out with the guys, listening to them roast each other and the movie and themselves, and it’s so entertaining that you don’t care how the film plays. All the things that seem lousy when you’re just watching the film are suddenly hilarious when you hear the context in which it was filmed or the backstory on a name or the reason Parker wrote the film in the first place. As the commentary was recorded, everyone was drinking, a lot, and you get a real sense of that. At one point, the commentary audio vanishes for eight minutes or so, and they explain that they were all too drunk to be working the tape recorder. And now that this stack is out of the way, let’s get to it... today’s main event...
FEATURED REVIEW
THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES is a solid release by Paramount Home Video that is not quite the slam-dunk that many geeks wanted. The bonus materials, produced by Laurent Bouzereau, disappointed me overall. There is some good material here, but not a lot of it, and all told, I was able to whip through the whole disc in less time than it took to watch any of the three films. Considering how well documented the shoots for the INDY films were, there’s no excuse for what we get here. Having said that, I ultimately don’t care about the bonus materials. The transfers of the three films are so amazing, so beautiful, that if you are any sort of fan at all of this trilogy, then stop reading, run to the store, and add this to your collection. Right. Freaking. Now.
I saw Steven Spielberg’s personal show print of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK projected a few years ago. And the DVD version looks better. Significantly better. Credit Lowry Digital Images for their painstaking restoration, a stunning example of what can be done now.
In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that INDIANA JONES & THE LAST CRUSADE looks better here than it did in the theater, and so does TEMPLE OF DOOM. These films have a visual pop to them now that is almost surreal for those of us who have seen our videotapes and our laserdiscs over and over. For one thing, there are the digital fixes in RAIDERS, just two of them that I spotted. They removed the bars on either side of the boulder in the opening scene and they took out the snake’s reflection on the glass. But before you start freaking out, that’s it. That’s all they touched that I’ve been able to spot. And I’ve seen RAIDERS probably 200 times since its release in 1981. Everything else is exactly the same, right down to the title the way it is shown on the screen at the start of the film. “RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK” is all you see. Don’t worry about the packaging... the film is intact.
Over the years, my fondness for the films has shifted, depending on who I was when I saw them. I hated TEMPLE OF DOOM on its first release because I saw it as a betrayal of the sense of fun from RAIDERS. It was too dark, too hung up on the evil side of things, and Willie Scott was the single most unpleasant female lead I could ever remember seeing up to that point. Now, I look at the film with totally different eyes, and I think the craftsmanship on TEMPLE OF DOOM is amazing. Both Spielberg and Lucas sort of badmouth the film in the documentary on the bonus disc, something I find amazing. I wish there was more of that here, moments where they talk about the development of these films and how ideas evolved. “I was going through a bad divorce” is the most Lucas says about the origins of TEMPLE OF DOOM, and the film certainly seems to reflect a foul mood. There are some great set-pieces in it, though, and Short Round is so cool as a sidekick that he almost makes up for how profoundly lame Willie Scott still is, even after all these years. TEMPLE OF DOOM stands alone in the INDY series as a rather dour experience, but if you set the other two films aside, it works pretty damn well on its own.
On the other hand, LAST CRUSADE seems worse now than it did when it came out. I like Ford. I like Connery. I like Connery with Ford. But on the whole, the film is a mess, disjointed and poorly plotted, and there’s only one set piece here that even comes close to being on the same level as the earlier films.
Watching River Phoenix as Young Indiana Jones makes me ache. This guy could do it all. He was poised to become the biggest movie star on the planet if he wanted to be. Yes, he’s doing an impression of Harrison Ford in the film’s opening sequence, but that’s not all he does. He brings Indy to life. We can picture him aging into the Indiana Jones of the previous films with no effort whatsoever. He gets every detail of his performance right, just like Spielberg gets every beat of the sequence right, and just like John Williams contributes one of his best pieces of chase music for the sequence. It’s one of those things that just comes together perfectly, and I’ve actually watched just that sequence three times since I got the box set last Friday. Watching the rest of the movie, though, I’m reminded of why it has never really worked for me. First and foremost, the characterizations are crap. They just discard everything we’ve learned about these characters from the previous films. Poor Denholm Elliott seems to get the worst of it. The Marcus Brody of RAIDERS strikes me as a former adventurer, someone who’s been where Indy is on many occasions, and although age has slowed him down, it hasn’t tamed him. Sallah, played so beautifully by John Rhys-Davies in the first film, was a cultured man, a family man, a digger who was well known, a good friend to Indy. The Sallah of LAST CRUSADE is a cartoon, a fat greedy Arab stereotype who is more concerned with stealing some camels than he is with helping his old friend. Watching these characters return, only to be totally misused, actually stops my enjoyment in its tracks every time.
Connery and Ford are wonderful together. There’s no disputing that. Connery wasn’t happy with early drafts of the script, and he pushed to make sure that Henry Jones Sr. has quirks and eccentricities and a sense of life to him. Ford seems challenged by Connery’s impeccable timing and effortless cool, and he turns it all up any time he’s sharing the screen with Connery. That’s a good thing for the audience. It means those scenes are all electric, fun to watch every time. The eventual payoff comes for me at the moment where Indy is hanging, trying to reach the Grail, and his father says quietly, “Indiana. Let it go.” It manages to be moving, despite the fact that the script’s handling of their relationship arc is perfunctory at times, too easy and too glib. Ford and Connery make it deeper because of the skill they bring to their roles.
And then there’s RAIDERS. The best of the bunch. Maybe one of the most effortless bits of perfection in Spielberg’s career. This is a commercial monster, a tremendously entertaining adventure film that never seems to get dated or silly, no matter how much older I get, and no matter how many times I watch it. By now, I’ve internalized all the editing in this film, the rhythm of the truck chase or the continuity mistakes, and when I’m watching it, it’s like being home. It’s safe. It’s incredibly comforting. Karen Allen is easily my favorite of the three women from the three films, and in addition to the great work Denholm Elliott and Rhys-Davies did in this one, there are the performances of Paul Freeman and the great Ronald Lacey to consider as well. I think Belloq is one of the great screen villains, and a big part of what makes him special is the way Paul Freeman never takes him over the top. The scene where he meets Indiana Jones in a bar in Cairo after the “death” of Marion is one of my very favorites in the whole series. Ford’s great, Freeman’s great, and it’s almost like they’re provoking each other, spurring each other on to better work. Lacey is just one of those guys who was born to play a certain role. Think of how he looks... how else is Toht going to look? By casting like that and finding just the right people to play the parts, Spielberg used to really make his job easy. RAIDERS is much closer, stylistically, to the realistic fantasy approach of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS or JAWS than it is to anything being made or released right now. There are some great nuggets amidst the extras on disc four, including screen tests featuring Karen Allen, Tim Matheson, Tom Selleck, and Sean Young. It’s fascinating to see what Lucas and Spielberg saw when thinking about the first movie. The things we hear, the anecdotes and the memories, are good, but there’s so much material that isn’t covered that it may become frustrating to those of you who are already steeped in INDY lore. Lucasfilm and Paramount didn’t make this box set for the hardcore obsessive superfreak, although I’m sure they’ll be happy you buy the set. Instead, they seem to have made these discs for the casual fan, the one who hasn’t seen ‘em in a while, and who’s curious about what went into making the films, but no so curious he’s just going to sit through six hours of extras for each movie. A couple of featurettes? A few trailers? That’s the extent of what you’ll get. Each of the extras seems well-produced, but added up, they left me completely unimpressed.
And that’s it for today. It’s new release Tuesday, of course, so let me know what you pick up while you’re out there. I guess the TENACIOUS D thing got pushed back, and I didn’t find a couple of the titles I was looking for when I hit the Virgin Megastore on Sunset right at midnight, like DRAGONSLAYER or CAPTAIN KRONOS, VAMPIRE HUNTER, but there’s plenty to talk about anyway. I’m sure many of you are going to spend the day immersed in the INDY set, and I hope you enjoy. It’s great stuff if you’re primarily interested in the films. Me, I’ve got a meeting later this afternoon, and I need to do some work in the morning. I'll be back for Wednesday, with another stack of stuff I want to talk about.
Time to wrap it up. I’ll be back with more, but for now, though, I’ll leave you with Vroom Socko’s © ™ ® (2003) QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: should there have been an INDIANA JONES 4 teaser trailer included on these DVDs?
"Moriarty" out.
