I liked that series.I’m enjoying “He Kills Coppers” tonight which is available on the STV catch up app which seems to be available outside of Scotland too. Good cast including the wonderful Paul Ritter
Written by billy wilder with emeric pressburger. The Disney version is good as well.Emil und die Detektive (1931). Probably the earliest film I've ever seen and well worth watching. Apparently it's superior to the remakes and book it was based on which lack the subtleties contained herein.
Written by billy wilder with emeric pressburger. The Disney version is good as well.
Probably , I just didn’t care enough.Isn’t it Short Round not Short Run?
After watching a lot of new films which I found disappointing, I decided to revisit the Indiana Jones films. I needed some cinematic comfort food and I had not watched these in a while.
Re-watching the first three, the first one still is the best of course, but I was always a bit of a Temple of Doom apologist and never cared much for The Last Crusade. That changed this time round. I saw Temple of Doom when it came out at the Empire Leicester Square, soon after I'd moved to London. I'd never been in a cinema this big and the reaction of the audience, whooping and hollering with delight at the outlandish action scenes (especially the mine car chase) made watching this a hugely fun experience. The Last Crusade I saw at the small Screen on the Green in Islington and it lacked the type of big set pieces of the two earlier films and I remember being disappointed at the time.
Temple of Doom still has the best individual set pieces of the series (the opening musical number followed by the jewel/antidote brawl, the spike trap with the giant insects, the deep dive into heart ripping horror, the mine chase) but tonally it's a mess and Willie Scott and Short Run are the most annoying sidekicks till Chris Tucker ruined The Fifth Element. I even was a Willie apologist at the time, but to make a character like that more appealing, it would have needed better writing and a better actor than the future Mrs Spielberg. Despite this being a prequel, after Marion it seems inconceivable than Indie would be attracted to her, she has no redeeming qualities. Short Run isn't quite as bad, but the one liners are groaners and the kid actor tries way too hard. Tonally the film is a mess, lurching from unfunny knockabout comedy to horror scenes far too gruesome and intense for the intended audience, though as a horror movie fan I still enjoy the garishness of those. And of course there is the racism which caused a minor diplomatic rift with India at the time.
The set pieces in The Last Crusade still feel underpowered, making this an oddly low key Indiana Jones movie. There are scenes which try to recreate moments from the earlier films (the rats, the tank race, the invisible bridge) which don't recapture the excitement of its predecessors and the plot is an unimaginative retreat of Raiders. What works here is the character work, something Spielberg clearly became more interested in than thrills and action, as his work shifted towards awards bait drama at this point of his career. The interplay between Jones dad and son of course works thanks to the chemistry between Connery and Ford, but I especially liked Alison Doody's conflicted Nazi femme fatale this time round. Revealing herself to be a bad girl, she's of course not as likeable a character as the plucky Marion Ravenwood but she's the most interesting female character in the series. It says a lot about how awful a character Willie Scott is, that I had more sympathy for the opportunist Nazi temptress here.
Still got to rewatch Crystal Skull which I didn't hate as much as others but which I have only watched that once.
It's really old! Came out in 2000...Almost famous, on sky cinema where did this come from, one of the best
films I have seen this year, cool baby.
It's really old! Came out in 2000...
Yep. The dinner scene in Temple of Doom hasn’t really aged that well, has it… But then again a number of other themes in the film haven’t either.After watching a lot of new films which I found disappointing, I decided to revisit the Indiana Jones films. I needed some cinematic comfort food and I had not watched these in a while.
Re-watching the first three, the first one still is the best of course, but I was always a bit of a Temple of Doom apologist and never cared much for The Last Crusade. That changed this time round. I saw Temple of Doom when it came out at the Empire Leicester Square, soon after I'd moved to London. I'd never been in a cinema this big and the reaction of the audience, whooping and hollering with delight at the outlandish action scenes (especially the mine car chase) made watching this a hugely fun experience. The Last Crusade I saw at the small Screen on the Green in Islington and it lacked the type of big set pieces of the two earlier films and I remember being disappointed at the time.
Temple of Doom still has the best individual set pieces of the series (the opening musical number followed by the jewel/antidote brawl, the spike trap with the giant insects, the deep dive into heart ripping horror, the mine chase) but tonally it's a mess and Willie Scott and Short Run are the most annoying sidekicks till Chris Tucker ruined The Fifth Element. I even was a Willie apologist at the time, but to make a character like that more appealing, it would have needed better writing and a better actor than the future Mrs Spielberg. Despite this being a prequel, after Marion it seems inconceivable than Indie would be attracted to her, she has no redeeming qualities. Short Run isn't quite as bad, but the one liners are groaners and the kid actor tries way too hard. Tonally the film is a mess, lurching from unfunny knockabout comedy to horror scenes far too gruesome and intense for the intended audience, though as a horror movie fan I still enjoy the garishness of those. And of course there is the racism which caused a minor diplomatic rift with India at the time.
The set pieces in The Last Crusade still feel underpowered, making this an oddly low key Indiana Jones movie. There are scenes which try to recreate moments from the earlier films (the rats, the tank race, the invisible bridge) which don't recapture the excitement of its predecessors and the plot is an unimaginative retreat of Raiders. What works here is the character work, something Spielberg clearly became more interested in than thrills and action, as his work shifted towards awards bait drama at this point of his career. The interplay between Jones dad and son of course works thanks to the chemistry between Connery and Ford, but I especially liked Alison Doody's conflicted Nazi femme fatale this time round. Revealing herself to be a bad girl, she's of course not as likeable a character as the plucky Marion Ravenwood but she's the most interesting female character in the series. It says a lot about how awful a character Willie Scott is, that I had more sympathy for the opportunist Nazi temptress here.
Still got to rewatch Crystal Skull which I didn't hate as much as others but which I have only watched that once.
For the first two thirds of the film she screams or whines at everything all the time. She just comes across as dumb and selfish and when she and Indie get together it’s not clear why they would be attracted to each other at this point in the film. She gets a little better in the last third, but the film doesn’t show much interest in her from then on, she just tags along.All I can remember about Willie from Temple Of Doom is her being beset by various threats and screaming a lot in response. Classic matineee herione fare, which was probably what Spielberg/Lucas were aiming for. Not that that excuses their attitudes towards female characters
Don’t you actually remember the dinner scene at a local Indian prince’s palace in which Indi and all the other attendants are served a meal that included eyes floating in soup, monkey brains eaten out of their open skulls, and baby snakes freshly cut out of their mother’s belly? And this was supposed to be the local refined high society rulers of the land, rather than, say, Indi being invited to dinner by a a family of weirdos…All I can remember about Willie from Temple Of Doom is her being beset by various threats and screaming a lot in response. Classic matineee herione fare, which was probably what Spielberg/Lucas were aiming for. Not that that excuses their attitudes towards female characters
yes of course. but though Willie is in that scene, it’s more memorable for the food being servedDon’t you actually remember the dinner scene at a local Indian prince’s palace in which Indi and all the other attendants are served a meal that included eyes floating in soup, monkey brains eaten out of their open skulls, and baby snakes freshly cut out of their mother’s belly? And this was supposed to be the local refined high society rulers of the land, rather than, say, Indi being invited to dinner by a a family of weirdos…
I thought they were. What are those mean to be otherwise? Go to the 3 minute markthough they were not baby snakes being cut out their mother’s body. You need to retake Biology 101!
I thought they were. What are those mean to be otherwise? Go to the 3 minute mark
Look like eels.other snakes
Credit where it’s due though. Thanks to them we’re both learned a new fact about snakesit’s almost as if they completely made it up