We Can Take in an Old Steve Reeves Movie

Giant of Marathon
Film Crew Version
M'House
DVD
1/26/08

This is probably the probably the best of the four Film Crew movies, which isn't saying a whole lot. I've always liked the sword-and-sandals movies that they did on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the Rifftrax of 300 is the best one I've heard so far, so it's not too much of a surprise that this one's good.

And they make a reference to The Joker, so I can link it to Ledger without having to go the obvious straight-man-as-gay icon route.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Plan 9 From Outer Space
with Rifftrax Commentary
M'House
DVD
1/25/08

As has no doubt been driving Jamee crazy, I've been obsessing a bit over Heath Ledger's death this week. (DC killed off the Earth 2 Joker last week and this week the actor who plays the Joker in the new Batman movie dies! Coincidence? Of course it is.) So after we watched Plan 9 (and struggled to stay awake through the last twenty minutes) I realized that we were watching a movie that was famous partly because the star died during filming and was replaced with another actor.

Which is apparently what Terry Gilliam might be doing with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Possibly. So the question is, was I drawn to watch Plan 9 subconsciously because of the extremely tenuous Ledger connection?

(And which actor is rumored to be his replacement in the Gilliam movie? [there's no way I'm typing out The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus again. Wait. Aw crap.] Johnny Depp, who played Ed Wood in, um, Ed Wood, that's who?)

Of course not. The Rifftrax commentary was released this week. Does it help the movie? Not so much. Plan 9 is pretty much crap any way you look at it. I don't think I've actually watched it all the way through since college and I know I haven't seen it since meeting Conrad Brooks, who I think, with Vampira's recent death, may be the last living cast member. I was surprised that Conrad's really only in one scene. Ed Wood (and Conrad himself) will lead you to believe he's in it a whole lot more.

There are a few good jokes in the riff, though some of the Lugosi heroin references may be needlessly cruel and a few stretches were screwed up by my mistiming the ipod with the DVD.

But what's an Ed Wood movie without a little incompetence?

Tonight: A Steve Reeves movie. Oh goody. Can't wait to see how I link that with Ledger.

Why So Serious?



Here's why.

OK. I was all prepared to come in and write something about how the Oscars are absurd because Norbit got a nomination and Zodiac got nothing. But then I saw this as a flash on MSN and thought "That can't be right," but it was.

I think that what disturbs me the most is that he had a daughter, also Matilda, who was only a few months younger than mine. Whenever Jamee tells me that she wakes up and I'm not home she asks "Where's Daddy," and it breaks my heart. So I think about his little girl asking where's daddy and it bothers me.

And my mom liked him. A lot. Batman Begins was the last movie my immediate family saw together before my mom died and I wish she could have seen the new one, knowing he was in it. We have the above poster hanging at the bottom of our stairs and it initially really bothered Mathilda. But she's gotten better. Now she'll look up at it and say "Hi, Joker."

Which is nice.

Goodbye, Heath.

Ghost Story

El Orfanato
Regal Countryside 16
Frederick, MD
35mm

When I tried to see this two weeks ago I had no idea it would be expanding wide and no idea that it would be playing in Frederick. It's in Spanish and, well, it's in Spanish, so it's nice to see it get a fairly wide release. We've come a long way from when The Devil's Backbone came out and only played on one screen in DC in a theater the size of my living room.

I've said before that I'll pretty much watch anything with Guillermo Del Toro's name on it, and I may have to just expand that to say that I'll watch any ghost story with a Spanish speaking director. The Devil's Backbone is probably my favorite ghost move (Yep, I like it even more than The Shining. And I like The Shining a lot.) and I'm very fond of The Others and, now, The Orphanage.

I don't want to go into to much detail about the story, but the basic gist of it goes something like this: A woman and her husband move into the orphanage where she spend some time as a child. Their son goes missing. There may or may not be ghosts. It's a very tense movie and like the very best ghost stories it relies on mood and tension rather that things jumping out and going "boo," although there is a fairly gruesome "boo" moment that comes bout midway. But it's earned.

Although not directed by Del Toro, The Orphanage revisits the questions of his two best films. The central question of The Devil's Backbone, "What is a ghost," is actually spoken by one character here and Pan's Labyrinth's question of whether or not the fantasy elements are all in the protagonists head can also be applied. I think you can probably watch the film from both perspectives and have it work equally well, though I think I would like it more if the ghosts are real.

Still, it's beautiful, scary, and heartbreaking. Just what I like it my ghost stories. And like the very best ghost stories, it's haunting.

Debt & Death Double Feature

Maxed Out
M'House
DVD
1/16/08

3:10 to Yuma
M'House
DVD
1/17/08

In Debt We Trust (most of it)
M'House
DVD
1/19/08

So this guy I work with was quoting the Louis CK bit that shows up in Maxed Out, this documentary about credit card debt, so we moved it up on our Netflix queue and watched it this week. It starts out with this real estate agent in Las Vegas, driving past planned community after planned community, talking about how there's a famous place in Italy called Seven Hills and how one community is called "Seven Hills" after it and all of the streets have Italian names.

She's right. There is a famous place in Italy with seven hills. It's called Rome.

So initially I though that this was going to be like The Office. Wince-inducing, but funny.

And then we get to the first suicide story. And then the second and third. Maxed Out may be the most depressing thing I've ever seen that I can think of at the moment. I am no longer in credit card debt, and when I was, it wasn't anywhere near the levels that the people in here got to, but it still wasn't a good thing. Sure, this doc is biased and there is a certain aspect of personal responsibility involved with racking up thousands of dollars of debt, but the insidious nature of a business that refuses to do away with high-risk customers because "that's where our money comes from" has to be accountable for something.

It's a very-off putting film and once we get about fifteen minutes into it the shadow of death hangs over the rest of of the picture and doesn't go away even when it gets into the closing credits. I think anyone with a credit card should watch it, but I wouldn't recommend watching it on a weekend.

The strange thing is, if I had not watched Maxed Out on Wednesday, I probably would have had a completely different take on 3:10 to Yuma when I watched it on Thursday. It's also about debt and the desperate actions that someone will resort to in order to pay it off. Granted, it's set in the 1800s and nobody had credit cards at the time. Not even Diner's Club.

The story is simple, Dan Evans (Christian Bale) takes on the job to escort captured outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a prison train. It's basically a suicide mission, because Wade's gang is out to spring him, and will kill anybody who gets in the way, or even just for the hell of it.

I want to make note of Ben Foster, who plays Wade's second-in command. The guy plays good crazy and I spent most of the movie trying to figure out where I'd seen him before. Turns out it was on My Name is Earl, and he was good scary-crazy on that too.

I was going to see 3:10 to Yuma in the theater, but I was only going to go to a show that started at 3:10. Not a single theater in the DC area had a 3:10 show. There were 3:00s, 3:15s, even a 3:05, but not a single freakin' theater was clever enough to schedule a 3:10 show. So I waited til video because I am a snot.

It's actually a pretty good movie. I've never really liked anything I've seen that was directed by James Mangold. I thought Cop Land and Walk the Line were average and I actively hated Identity. Haven't seen any others. But 3:10 to Yuma's good. It's a classically generic story and well-cast and a decently entertaining two hours. I don't know if it's the best western since Unforgiven, but I can't really remember any since Unforgiven, so it may well be. Unless you count No Country for Old Men as a western, which it is.

Now if they actually do justice to Blood Meridian, that will be something to see.

-Post Script-

We tried to watch In Debt we Trust last night, another credit card documentary. Don't waste your time. It's sloppy and amateurish and annoying to the point where we just couldn't take it anymore and ejected the disc before it was even over.

Down in the Mall

Dawn of the Dead: US Theatrical Cut
Nightcrawlers Meetup
DVD
1/12/08

"Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead"
in 20th Century Ghosts
by Joe Hill

I went to the first Meetup last night, a Zombiethon of Dawn of the Dead, and the first two versions of Night of the Living Dead. Due to the playoffs, I was only able to stay for the first movie, which turned out to be Dawn. I think I've only actually seen it twice. Once of VHS waaay back in high school (I don't recall liking it) and the "Director's Cut" at least five years ago. I remember thinking it was great then. But I think I prefer the shorter Theatrical Cut.

I like movies like this and Blade Runner, where there's a number of different versions out there and everybody has one they like better. It's not like the Zach Snyder Dawn of the Dead, where there's two versions, but one is clearly superior, mainly because the R-Rated cut of Snyder's Dawn drops a scene that make a big chunk of the movie make sense. I like Snyder's movie and I seem to like it more each time I see it, but I think the remake factor knocks it down a notch (The Fly and The Thing just tapped me on the shoulder and coughed. Wait, that was Tilda). And there's more going on in Romero's film, subtext-wise, even though Snyder's does not have anybody stupid enough to take a blood-pressure test in the midst of a zombie attack.

When did I get into a which-is-better argument with myself? I like them both.

One thing I did notice this time around was that the blood did not look as Crayola-red as I remembered. I've since found out that for the DVD release they actually went through and recolored the blood. It fixes one of the things that severely dates the picture, though there's not much that can be done about the clothes, hair, or carpet on the walls. I'm fine with going back and changing that aspect of the movie. Everybody should get a do-over.

Speaking of which...

Just before bed last night, I read "Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead," in Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts collection. It's a nice story about second chances and zombie love. Though it's not really about zombies, in that it's a love story between two zombie extras on the set of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. It's good, though not as brilliant as Hill's "Pop Art" or "20th Century Ghost," and he seems to get Romero and Tom Savini just right. Like most of what I've read by Hill (and dammit, I keep wanting to call him "King") I feel like all I really should say about it is that it's good, and you should read it.
-
I'm going to try to do this with each movie now:

Still image alert: Peter and Steven go to the bank.

Friday Double-Shot of Awful

Wild Women of Wongo
Film Crew Version
M'House
DVD
1/11/08

Flight of the Living Dead
M'House
DVD
1/11/08

I'm not sure why we decided to do this to ourselves. We've been going through the four Film Crew DVDs, which frankly haven't been as enjoyable as Mystery Science Theater 3000, but still manage to get a couple of funny bits in here and there. And in Hollywood After Dark we at least got to see Rue McLanahan as a stripper. Wait, that's not right...

Wild Women of Wongo is supposedly about some experiment by mother nature to have two tribes of people in different villages or something. In one, the women are beautiful and the men are trolls. In the other, the men are beautiful and the women are less so. Or something. Things happen and the whole thing looks like it was made by a retarded Terrence Malick, with lots of random shots of forests and jungles and parrots. It's even got a crocodile, like The Thin Red Line. Or maybe it's an alligator. Who cares? It sucks and kept putting me to sleep.

So I decided to watch another movie afterwards. Kelly loaned us Flight of the Living Dead, and now I am mad at her. I don't care if Kevin is the one who actually did the loaning. Imagine Snakes on a Plane with zombies. You know how most movies would be improved by the presence of zombies? This one isn't.

It does have Kevin J O'Conner again being good in crap. And, uh, other things. I suppose. Anyway, didn't like it and I have a headache so I don't want to think about it anymore. At least everyone involved got a paycheck so that they could eat. Hopefully.

See that was something nice.

Best Customer Service

So I won a copy of Toy Story at work this week. Since I already had it, I took it to the Best Buy in Reston to exchange it for Zodiac. I think it's a fair trade. They're both great movies. At their customer service desk, on top of the register, was a Happy Bunny figurine. Printed on its stand , facing the customer, was the slogan, "It's Cute How Stupid You Are."

I would have complained, but I thought it was brilliant.

Trailer Park: Diary of the Dead

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Keeping "Up" with the Joneses

Shoot 'Em Up
M'House
DVD
1/4/08

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
M'House
DVD
1/5/08

If you can't figure out by the second shot that Shoot 'Em Up is a joke, then you're wasting your time. It's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. It's kind of like taking an entire season of 24 and squeezing it into 86 minutes. Yep, it's that silly.

It's fun though, and though it's a one-joke premise (every scene turns into a gunfight) it doesn't outlast it's welcome. That is, of course, if you get that it's a joke from the first twenty seconds.

Last Saturday we watched the last two Indiana Jones movies. Haven't done a double-feature in a while. Haven't watched the Indiana Jones movies in a while, either.

Tilda has recently become obsessed with Indy. We have the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull poster up in the TV room and she'll wave at it and say "Hi, Jones." And when I went to DC last weekend she asked Jamee if she could watch a "Jones movie." But the only one that I know she's been awake the whole time for was Temple of Doom, and she didn't seem to be paying much attention to it.

The last time I saw Temple of Doom was as part of my midnight movie series for Hampton 24. It was when I realized that Temple of Doom really wasn't very good. I loved it when I was a kid, but seeing it again for the first time in maybe ten years I realized I didn't like it. So now it's been almost another ten years and it's not as bad as I remembered. Willie Scott is still one of the most irritating characters in film, up there with Franklin in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the addition of the kid seems a bit off, but by the time it was over I felt like it really wasn't all that bad.

Last Crusade, on the other hand, is just fun. I can't remember when I last saw it (I don't think we got it as one of the midnight shows), so I probably haven't actually seen it since college. I don't really have a whole lot to say about it, and I have a feeling that with Tilda, we'll be watching them a lot in the future, but there was one bit I noticed this time around, and it's not the fact that the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword guy looks like Borat. I thought it was a nice bit to have the guy who played a Bond villain be the one who shoots Sean Connery, even if he was the villain in a Roger Moore one.

People Ain't No Good

There Will be Blood
Landmark E Street Theater
35mm
1/6/08

I did not intend to see There Will Be Blood today. I went into DC to see The Orphanage, but church traffic on 16th Street delayed me and by the time I got to the Metro the trip would have gotten me there too late . So I went to this instead. There was a problem with the theater's house lights, so it wasn't an ideal screening. (Daytime scenes look fine, anything in the dark had a glare on the screen. There are a lot of scenes in the dark.) But I got a free pass out of it, so I'll probably go back and see The Orphanage in a couple of weeks.

I'm already three movies behind this year, but I wanted to get this one out as soon as possible, without the benefit of reflection.

Imagine if It's a Wonderful Life had been about Mr. Potter. That's my initial reaction. Daniel Day Lewis' Daniel Plainview is a monster, plain and simple. Almost every second he's on screen his eyes are locked in a glare of murderous hate and you get the impression that he could erupt into violence at any moment and for any reason. It happens, infrequently, but it does happen. He is a bitter misanthrope and spends the better half of the movie swindling rubes out of their land for the sweet, sweet oil underneath.

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

I don't buy the notion that movies have to be about likable people. There's a lot of interest to be had in scum. Hell, Satan is essentially the hero of Paradise Lost and that's pretty much what we have here. Plainview is basically the devil and he's fascinating, but at close to three hours of watching him sit around and hate people it begins to drag a bit and it does feel like the sort of movie that in ten years will only be watched by film students. You know the ones. They're the people you know who have actually watched Citizen Kane.

(Full disclosure - I have seen Citizen Kane at least three times.)

This is not to say that I didn't like it. It's all jumbled up in my head right now and I'm sure that once I've had time to reflect there will be things in it that stick with me.

-and now we have two days pass between the writing of the previous sentence and what follows-

I do not think that There Will be Blood is a great movie. It has moments of greatness. Lots of them. But I'm not quite sure they cohere. Time, and repeated viewings will tell. Maybe it was the lights being on that affected my feeling, because I really don't feel like I got the complete experience.

There are performances and images in here that are great, though. Kevin J O'Connor, who I've liked in things like The Mummy and Deep Rising is especially good. I don't think he's ever been better, and I don't feel that because he's usually in stuff like Flight of the Living Dead (which is sitting on top of my tv, waiting to be watched). He really is very good here, playing a man who has gotten in way over his head and waits just too long to get the hell out of of Dodge.

There's one image in particular that has stuck with me the past few days. It's in a fairly simple scene. Plainview is on the phone and someone is in the same room speaking with him. I don't remember the details exactly, but Plainview is standing in the center of the frame, wearing a hat. It's broad daylight, but the shadow cast by the hat brim swallows his face in a black hole, so that we're really seeing the very essence of the man. It doesn't matter what's being said. What we're seeing is what's important.

It really is Day-Lewis' movie, though and the whole thing is set up in the opening moments. Plainview, down in a hole, beneath the earth, in the dark, alone. How much better would things have been for everyone if this thing had not crawled out of its pit?

I want a milkshake.

2007 Roundup

Well, Maria made this a tag, so here we go with a rundown of what I liked and didn't last year entertainment-wise.

Things that made me happy last year.

1. No Country for Old Men - Though I suppose "happy" isn't the right word for it.

2. Hellboy: Blood & Iron - Really impressive. It tells two parallel stories, with one being told in reverse, and they both dovetail in the end. And it's got Hellboy fighting monsters. The only thing wrong with it is that it apparently did not make enough money to make a third animated Hellboy movie, even though there's a teaser for one at the end of the credits.

3. Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts - I'm only about four stories in, and frankly I'm not very fond of the one I'm currently reading, but this is here for no other reason than the story "20th Century Ghost." It's the best haunted movie theater story I have ever read and it's just beautiful.

4. Blade Runner at the Uptown and on DVD - Blade Runner is always good on the big screen and The Uptown is as good as they come. And the DVD set is pretty much everything you could want (although the originally advertised Ridley Scott signature is pre-printed). I've only made it through a disc and a half and still haven't watched any version of the actual movie yet.

5. The end of the third season of Lost - So that's why I didn't give up on the show yet.

6. Hot Fuzz - Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright make me happy. I love Spaced, and Shaun of the Dead, and this, which just left me with a big, goofy grin (Even though it made me want to actually watch Bad Boys II).

7. A Date with John Waters - The follow up to A John Waters Christmas and worth it just for "Johnny are you Queer," which was featured in the ball pit scene in Jackass Number 2. I went up to a promotional appearance in Towson to get John to sign my Cry-Baby one sheet for Tilda, so it now says "To a Future Juvenile Delinquent - John Waters."

8. Murder Party - Probably the most enjoyable surprise of the year. I went in knowing nothing and loved pretty much every minute of it. And it has the best DVD extra of the year, with the possible exception of the episode of Everybody Loved Hypnotoad on Futurama: Bender's Big Score.

9. Indiana Jones Legos - Happy Happy. Joy Joy. I am a five year old. Wait, that's too young according to the boxes. I am a seven year old.

10. Planet Terror and the Grindhouse trailers - I'm glad we got to see Grindhouse in the theater. At least up to the point where I realized that I was not enjoying Death Proof and that there was still about an hour of movie left. I'm looking forward to the second trailer for Thanksgiving that supposed to be on Eli Roth's Trailer Trash later this year.

11. The Baltimore Comic-Con - This was a lot of fun. I went up with my friend Charlie and afterwards went to a beer fest in Frederick where Mathilda was not allowed in so we had to take turns waiting outside with her and her cousins while rotating groups of grownups got their drink on. But the con was fun and the highlight was probably meeting Mike Mignola and actually getting to talk to him this time. He signed my Hellboy II poster and it's hanging by our stairs.

12. Ratatouille - It's so good that I didn't care when the five year old in the front row got bored and started running around the theater for the last fifteen minutes of the movie.

13. The return of Futurama - Bender's Big Score, the first of four direct-to-DVD movies was everything I could have hoped it would be. I found it to considerably more enjoyable than The Simpsons Movie, which I'd watch again, but no time soon. I could watch Bender's Big Score again right now, but ~'s watching The Incredibles.

14. Zodiac - Probably the best movie that came out last year that I've seen. It's essentially three hours of people talking and it's incredibly intense. The director's cut is out on the 8th and hopefully the price will drop soon so I can justify picking it up.

15. Chocolate Donut Stout - Got it a beer festival in Virginia. And kept going back for more. A brewery in Alexandria makes it and it's one of the best things I've ever tasted. Mmmm, donuts.

16. 2001 and Barry Lyndon at the AFI Silver - The AFI Silver is the best theater in the DC area, nudging out The Uptown because they have DLP projection capability and show non-current release films. They did a Kubrick fest last winter and my friends Brad and Sara came down to see these two. I'd never seen 2001 in 70mm before and I'd never seen Barry Lyndon in a theater. This was probably the best moviegoing experience I had last year.

17. The Mist - Possibly the most unpleasant two hours I spent in a theater last year. I loved it. Jamee is still mad about the spiders and probably madder now that I've reminded her.

18. Seeing Terry Pratchett for probably the last time - I've been to a number of Pratchett book signings. He's funny and personable in person, even with a ridiculously long line of people in front of him waiting to get things scribbled on. He was at the National Book Festival this year, promoting Making Money. I went with my sister and met my friend Charlie and his now-fiancee and her family there. We saw Pratchett talk and waited in line. Got things signed. He seemed tired. A few weeks ago he announced that he has early-onset Alzheimers and though it's a long way from being bad at this point, I would be very surprised if he came around again. But he's good at surprises. I wish him well.

Big old piles of disappointment:

1. Almost every movie that I saw that came out last summer - Disappointing to varying degrees, and mainly because I can't remember most of what happened in any of them: Transformers, Pirates, 1408, Harry Potter, Superbad, Fido, Die Hard, and Spider-Man 3. Although I think Spider-Man 3 had the best posters of the year:



Now, they look just like most of the other posterss for the Spider-Man movies, but if you look closely at the real ones, the rain and the glass have been embossed. It's a nice effect that you really can't seen unless you get up close. Too bad the movie was a huge heap of dull.

2. The White Stripes at the Patriot Center - Jamee nearly fell asleep. Really. Standing up and everything. Could have been a number of factors other than the band (I listened to a bootleg of the show later and it was pretty good, although they didn't play a bunch of stuff that I like). The crowd was terrible. The sound was bad. But a lot of it was probably the fact that my Grandfather had died that morning and I probably was not in the best state of mind to see a show.

3. Costco decided to not make Ratatouille wine - Apparently there's some rule that says that you can't use a cartoon character to promote alcoholic beverages. They did briefly make Ratatouille cheese, whi ch I only saw once and did not get, which makes me sad.


4. The Decemberists cancel The Long and Short of It Tour - I had tickets. Got my sister tickets for her birthday. Band member gets sick. Hopefully they'll reschedule.

5. Season 2 of Heroes - I'm not even going to go into it.

6. The fact that this costs $500:

7. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier - I have a feeling that when LoEG is complete and this finds its proper place as a bridge between Volumes 2 and 3, it will feel a lot more satisfying. As it is, there's no way that it could possibly live up to expectations, and though enjoying self-indulgence comes with the territory when you're an Alan Moore fan, sometimes it's a little too much. I do feel, however, that my liking of The Black Dossier will grow with time.

December 2007 Movie total

Thirteen total movies.

3 in the theater
10 on DVD

Unless, of course, I can't count.

Whipped

Raiders of the Lost Ark
with Rifftrax Commentary
M'House
DVD
12/31/07

It's been a while since I last saw Raiders. I think the last time was when we showed it as a midnight movie back when I worked at AMC. The print looked like shit. That's all I remember. What I do remember is the first time I saw it. My dad took me to see it at AMC Colisuem 4, where I later worked, back in 1982 when it first came out. The theater now stands vacant. I remember being scared by all the skeletons. Maddy didn't seem to have the same reaction, though she did seemed concerned about "BIG BALL!"

The Rifftrax commentary was a bit underwhelming, though the Shane MacGowan joke was pretty good. So I won't even mention it again. What I noticed this time were three fairly big holes in the story that I didn't really pick up on before.

1. If Indy is leading an expedition through Peru, complete with pack mules and two other guys, exactly what is Jock supposed to be flying out in his two-person biplane?

2. How does Indy ride the U-Boat all the way to secret Nazi island? This one's actually explained by history and a deleted scenes. World War II submarines were primarily designed as surface vessels and only submerged for attack and defense purposes. There's a deleted scene showing Indy clinging to the periscope for the trip and presumably the boat never submerges.

3. How does Indy know not to look at the Ark? Again, deleted scenes to the rescue. There's a bit cut out of the scene where Indy and Sallah visit the old man who tells them about the staff of Ra where the old man tells them not to look at or touch anything in the Ark. Which seems kind of important.

So two of these things are explained through deletions, but that doesn't really explain the first bit, unless Indy's plan was to leave Doc Ock and the other guy stranded in the jungle. Which really kind of fits with his character throughout the rest of the movie. Let's take a look at our hero:

1. This is a guy who when everyone is digging out the Well of Souls just kind of walks around not doing anything other than wearing a hat.

2. Goes into a fistfight with a kick to the groin (Hey, it worked for Butch Cassidy) and then throws sand in the guy's face. Take a look at the fight scene by the flying wing. The Nazi is the one who's actually fighting fairly. Granted, he is twice a big as Indy.

3. And our hero spend the climax of the adventure tied to a post, squeezing his eyes shut. Our hero spends the big climax not actually doing anything.

So, based on this, we have a lazy, cheating, passive hero who makes a living robbing the artifacts of other cultures. Don't forget, Indiana Jones actually is one of the titular Raiders of the Lost Ark (which makes the DVD cover title make no sense), and at the beginning Brody does mention that the museum will buy whatever he found, as usual, with no questions asked.

And yes, I am conveniently forgetting the truck chase and the bar fight and all of the other cool action-hero stuff that he does.

But none of this really matters, because thanks to this movie, and twenty-five years of nostalgia, we now have Lego Nazis:

It's How Long?

Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner
M'House
DVD
12/30/07 - 12/31/07

So it took a couple of days to get through the nearly four-hour long making-of documentary on Disc 2 of the super-huge box set of Blade Runner. It's fairly exhaustive, yet still doesn't cover everything, which is why there's even more stuff on Disc 4, including a feature on both John Alvin and Drew Struzan's poster artwork (I've got a reprint of Alvin's iconic one-sheet, but nowhere to put it up at the moment) and a feature on whether or not Deckard is a replicant. My favorite bit in that one is Ridley Scott calmly explaining why you're a moron if you can't tell that Deckard is a replicant followed by Frank Darabont effectively explaining why he isn't one.

Dangerous Days (named after one of the early titles for Blade Runner) covers just about everything about the making of the film, although there's one bit towards the end that bugs me. When discussing how they tacked on footage from The Shining at the end of the theatrical cut as part of the happy ending, one of the producers explains that he miraculously was able to get through to Stanley Kubrick to get permission to use the footage.

Which isn't the story that I heard.

A few years ago Jamee and I met Joe Turkel, who played Tyrell in Blade Runner and also appears in The Killing, Paths of Glory, and The Shining. He's a really great guy and had a ton of Kubrick stories. One of which involved Ridley Scott. Apparently while filming Blade Runner, Turkel introduced Scott to Kubrick, mainly because he was able to, because he knew the guy. They hit it off and that's how Scott was able to ask for the Shining footage.

I don't know which version is true. Maybe they both are. It doesn't really matter. But if you get the chance to hear Joe Turkel tell how Ridley Scott turned into a fanboy over meeting Stanley Kubrick, do it.

Anyway, one disc down. Four to go.