Hot Tub Time Machine & a Thought About Reviews in General

We watched it the other night, & Joel asked for a quick review, so here it goes.

It is a lot better than I expected. The plot has a few holes that would teach Goatsee a new meaning of the word "gaping," but for once, I didn't really care. The references to 80s films & time-travel films were fantastic... & more subtle than in most movies like this. Plus, Crispin Glover plays the 1 armed bell-hop. As a general rule, 80s time-travel movies are never complete until he makes an appearance. i say, "See it."

In other movie review news, At the Movies aired its last episode last week. Roger Ebert presents At the Movies will supposedly replace it, but the original show has ended. I must say, I loved that show. Film fans said they were dumbing down criticism by reducing it to such basic terms ("Thumbs up" / "Thumbs down") & others complained that they were too intellectual & that reviews "destroy the movie-going experience, but I liked to watch them about over the films. I still remember the 1st episode I saw; they reviewed Raider of the Lost Arc & I knew I HAD to see it. I think it was the same episode on which they reviewed some comedy that featured a scene where couple met @ a mattress store & humped on the show-room floor. I have no idea what film it is, but i might be an Alan Alda film. I also remember, a few years later, their review of Blame it on Rio. I never actually saw the movie until just a few years ago (in the height of my Michael Caine period), but the review always stuck w/ me. It was a long run, & like it or not, their impact on the movie-going experience can never be overlooked. Here's a little clip from your favorite 90s animated review show, The Critic, which features some fun references to The Twilight Zone, An Affair to Remember, &, oddly, Family Ties.

Indiana Jones Post #3: I want to see an animal kiss a girl

That was Solstice's rationale for wanting to see Nim's Island rather than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yesterday. At which point I suggested a couple web-sites I knew of... that didn't go over too well. Solstice's feat that a PG-13 Indy film might scare her led Stephanie to take her to the other film while my parents & I took Aiden to Indiana Jones. Before hand, I talked to Jeanny who saw it the other day and suggested it was a lot better than The Phantom Menace, but no where nears as good as the original 3. This is about what I figured, but I didn't figure in the joy of watching Aiden watch it. He was @ the edge of his seat the whole time. My love for this film is definitely filtered through this Aiden experience. He wore his Indy hat & hung on every single moment. Then again, I hung on every moment too.

Overall, Lucas & Spielberg did a great job w/ the homage to '50s B Sci/Fi films. The Cold War stuff was great w/ a nice little comment on current political issues & the importance of academia in terms of our ability to speak up about the problems w/ the government... something the '50s films had to keep rather veiled under the watchful eye of Joe McCarthy. As bad as things might be under GWB, @ least Spielberg & Lucas won't be getting blacklisted.

Of course, there are a few holes in the plot, but having seen more than my fair share of the '50s B movies, I'm willing to accept the problems as part of the genre. My only real complaint is about the use of CGI ants. The snakes, the bugs, & the rats were all real in the 1st 3 films... I suppose it would have been tough to find the millions of real ants they would have needed though. Overall, there were many stand-out scenes like the sword fight, car chase through campus, the nuclear test site, the waterfalls, etc, & as Jean claimed, Marcus Brody was used to great effect. Stand out performances by Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Jim Broadbent, & Kate Blanchett are all noteworthy. I was a little underwhelmed by Shia LeBeauf though. He's a lot better than Sean Patrick Flannery, but he's no River Phoenix. Overall, I'll definitely be seeing this one again soon. (As for the animal kissing the girl, apparently Nim is kissed by her friend, a seal.) Thanks to The Etch-a-Sketch Artist

Indiana Jones Post #2: Leonard Nimoy

The release of the new Indiana Jones film has created a sort of mass hysteria surrounding these crystal skulls. Even Archeology Today, the pop-archeology mag has jumped on the band wagon, so I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised by The Sci/Fi Channel's absurd documentary the other night. For 2 hours, I let myself get suckered into this crap. I was hoping for some historical info, yet the fact as presented by some Archaeologist (to whom we will refer as Dr. ___), were only given about 2 minutes towards the end. The rest was dedicated to this asshat who had married the 80 year old daughter of the dude who led the expedition during which the 1st skull was supposedly found. In fact, the daughter was the person who supposedly found it. (Dr. ___ made it pretty clear that the whole thing was nonsense, but with only a few minutes for her to speak, she was easily forgotten.) Asshat (who also runs a Karate school in Indiana) believes he can sense the presence of the skulls so he's searching the world for the remaining few. It was basically an episode of In Search Of w/o the star power of Leonard Nimoy. Some people believe that some Mayan prophecy suggests the world will in in April of 2012 & that the 13 skulls need to be brought together in order to save us. (In which case, I think we could have used more than 4 years notice to get looking for the rest.) Others believe that they were made by aliens, going so far as to suggest the Moon was an ancient outpost & one of the skulls in on the Moon (& can be seen in a NASA photo.) All of these people (save Dr. ____) agree that the skulls "could be, possibly, up to 75,000 years old." I can't believe I watched this shit. But, I guess w/ the new film opening today, I shouldn't be too surprised.

Indiana Jones Post #1: A Very Indy B-Day

Along w/ the other new links on the side-bar, you may have noticed the counter to the new Indiana Jones movie. Tis marks the 1st of what will obviously be a slew of Indiana Jones posts this summer. Aiden had his b-day party yesterday after their soccer game & a great time was had by all. Before the kids showed up, Elizabeth called from Japan. It was only the third time I've talked w/ her since they moved... so that was pretty awesome. She chatted w/ the Solstice & Aiden for a while & then the kids started showing up. Stephanie made a sweet sweet Indiana Jones Snake Cake (not a cake out of snakes, but a cake with a snake pit in the middle into which Indy & Sulla had to avoid falling. In keeping w/ the Indiana Jones theme, he got tons of cool Indy toys (I may even finish playing w/ them some time while he is still a child). We put together his multitude of Indy Lego sets yesterday evening while watching The Parent Trap (the Hayley Mills version from 1961 not the 1998 version w/ Lindsey Lohan... only the original... only the best). Speaking of Indy, if you're as excited as certain members of my household about the impending release of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, I have a few links for you to check out: McSweeneys Indiana Jones Tenure Rejection Letter
Indiana Jones Lego Movie
The Mystery of The Crystal Skulls
Trailer for The Kingdon of the Crystal Skulls
After The Parent Trap, we'd planned to watch Planet of the Apes (again, not that shit-ass remake, the shit-ass original), but my DVR wasn't working properly which meant I couldn't get the audio to work so we settles on Soylent Green, a different, equally problematic Charlton Heston sci/fi film. I hadn't seen it in about 15 years, The last time I watched it was w/ Stephanie's dad when we 1st started dating which is ironic because the last time I saw The Parent Trap was w/ him about the same time. SG is a much better film than I remembered it being.... and of course, it's people. Speaking of people, w/o further ado, here are photos of people from the party yesterday: