Because the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been so criminally overlooked by the mainstream media, it’s been up to the blogosphere to pick up the slack. As Paul Clark tipped you in his revisitation of the Temple of Doom, Cerebral Mastication is the hub of Indy blogdom, so a tip of the well-worn fedora to Ali Arikan for the centralized linkage.
The House Next Door offers a three-fer, looking back at all three previous Indiana Jones movies. Matt Zoller Seitz emerges from semi-retirement to offer his own thoughts on Temple of Doom, which he says “has the series' simplest plot, most annoying love interest, most casually racist and imperialist attitudes and most grotesque imagery (Doom and its summer-of-'84 blockbuster cousin, the Spielberg-produced Gremlins, sparked the creation of a new MPAA rating, PG-13). At the same time, though, it's the most viscerally intense entry in the series and the most wide-ranging in its moods, spotlighting the imaginations of Spielberg and his co-producer, George Lucas, at their most freewheeling. It's a blast from the id—like Close Encounters, 1941, E.T. and A.I, a rare instance of the director appearing to construct images and situations for his own private reasons, rather than keeping his eyes and ears attuned for signs of viewer discontent.”
At Edward Copeland on Film, David Gaffen has narrowed his focus to a single scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark – the one “where Indiana Jones, realizing that the Ark of the Covenant is to be placed on a plane and flown out of Egypt, sets out to sabotage the plane.” Gaffen proceeds shot-by-shot to dissect the workings of a signature action sequence. “The escalation here is deliberate – slowly ratchet up the tension within a scene that is already filled with active movement, derivative of Hitchcock in its cleverness even if Spielberg still names the 1950s serials as his original inspiration. The elements added in are small, careful ones – a shot of the wing grazing a nearby fuel truck, which spills gasoline. Just as the large German was introduced as a potential opponent this is presented as a problem, the proverbial gun in Act I that has to be fired in Act II.”
At Cinema Styles, Jonathan Lapper is trying to get excited about this whole thing. “A lot can change in 27 years. That's how long it's been since the original Raiders of the Lost Ark and it's been nearly two decades since the last one, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Look at it this way: Two of the biggest adventure hits of 1954 were 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Naked Jungle. Now imagine Kirk Douglas and Charlton Heston making sequels to those movies in 1981, 27 years later. By 1981 the movie landscape was decidedly different than it was in 1954 and 2008 is decidedly different than 1981. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't sense the excitement about a new Indiana Jones film like I did in the eighties. When the other two sequels were released they, like the Star Wars sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, were the summer movies to see. Now Indiana Jones is practically lost in the shuffle.”
Cinematical has a week’s worth of Indy stuff on offer. They’ve got us covered for List-o-Mania this week with Seven Indiana Jones Knock-Offs. Number one is Tomb Raider: “It's like all the initial three Indiana Jones films wrapped up in one, with added sex appeal in casting Angelina Jolie in the Harrison Ford role. Yet Jolie as Croft is too serious to be the female counterpart to Ford's Indy. Also, while the Indiana Jones films deal with some level of magically religious fantasy, they're at least grounded by ‘real’ or familiar artifacts such as the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. And they tend to remain just realistic enough to avoid things like giant six-armed statues that come to life.”
Remember those kids who made the shot-for-shot remake of Raiders back in the 80s? Well, they’ve hit the big time – sort of. According to Underwire, “On May 14, eight days before the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, now-grown filmmakers Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb will showcase their movie at the landmark Mann's Chinese Theater. But the guys who made it won't see a dime. ‘Due to copyright issues, revenue from the screenings of our film must go to a nonprofit organization,’ said Strompolos…While Adaptation can't be screened for profit, the DIY back story has turned into a moneymaker for Strompolos, Zala and Lamb. Big-shot movie producer Scott Rudin (There Will Be Blood) purchased rights to their real-life filmmaking adventures and hired Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) to write the script for Paramount Pictures.”