Comments on: Dr. Jones is back, painfully

By: js

js — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:37:18 +0000

The movie cost $185 million to make. Paramount is spending $150 on marketing it.

from today’s NY Times:

LOS ANGELES — The hard sell worked. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” pushed by one of the biggest marketing campaigns in Hollywood history, sold an estimated $151.1 million in tickets in North American theaters over the five-day holiday weekend.

The box office gross, generated between Thursday and Monday, put to rest questions about whether one of moviedom’s most popular characters could strike a cultural chord after a 19-year hiatus from the big screen. Overseas the movie, which generated mixed reviews from critics, sold an estimated $143 million in tickets between Thursday and Sunday; Monday estimates were unavailable.

By: Bones

Bones — Mon, 26 May 2008 22:39:28 +0000

While the typical opening action scene of Crystal Skull lived up to those of it’s predecessors, the movie went downhill quick after that. Spielberg’s eye was as good as ever throughout, but unfortunately Skull will be remembered for proving for the fourth time in 10 years that George Lucas can no longer write.

By: dswift

dswift — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:03:15 +0000

It’s not bad if you seldom go to movies or are under 12. Ideally, be both. The audience at my showing lumbered out mumbling things like “Hm, it’s raining again.” Considering the hype and expectations, such indifference was awesome.

George “Story By” Lucas ridiculously piles on cuteness from of a laundry list of Fifties iconography — UFOs, the Red Scare, Brando, brainwashing, A-bombs, McCarthyism — yet no one can muster the authenticity of, say, The Fonz.

If only that was the worst of the nostalgia. Sadly, “Indiana Jones and the Repository of Kitsch” is desperately nostalgic for the original Indiana Jones movie. At least Harrison has aged wonderfully if the franchise has not.

If you’re looking for a movie treat like Spielberg at his best, that would be “Iron Man.”

By: js

js — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:01:14 +0000

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

That seemed to be Indy’s secret code to us, like a Peruvian pictograph that when deciphered says this movie is a horrible exercise beyond his control.

It was a cinema goer’s nightmare, seeing one of your heroes stumble through a bad acid trip. The movie failed on so many levels, lurching between eras with one-dimensional characters and a plot that was incredulous even for Indiana Jones fans. For an action film, it had a heavily sedated quality to it, owing mostly to the writing; lines hung around the actors’ necks like a medallion of cinder blocks.

And I won’t even reveal the worst of the Lucas mythology that elicited groans, save to say there’s another annoying kid who shows up wielding a knife like a light saber.

The audience staggered out of the theater like a boxer after a 15-round bout.

Lucas and Spielberg appeared to have been suffering from 1980s flashbacks. Back then, Harrison Ford made every kid want to be a hero. It’s time for us to come up with new ones.