Recently in Film Category
Mel Blanc would change his vocal characterization of Marvin over time. In my mind's ear, he will always sound the way he does in "Mad as a Mars Hare" (1963), the episode in which he utters his classic remark (after getting hit by a rocket from Earth), "I'm not angry. Just terribly, terribly hurt."
As "Mars Hare" opens, we find Marvin looking through a telescope: "Hmm, yes. Very curious. Very interesting. I do so enjoy observing the flora and fauna of that tiny planet. I think Man is the most interesting insect on earth, don't you?" He adjusts the telescope and then says: "There is a growing tendency to think of man as a rational thinking being, which is absurd. There is simply no evidence of any intelligence on the earth."
I find myself thinking something similar every morning when I open The New York Times. This morning, for example, we find an article on the front page of the business section entitled "Oil Survey Says Artic Has Riches." Here we learn that, with the melting of the ice caps brought about by global warming, areas that "were once considered too harsh to explore" are now accessible, and "a race has begun among Arctic nations, including the United States, Russia, and Canada, for control of these resources." The survey suggests that "the Arctic may hold as much as 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This would amount to 13 percent of the world's total undiscovered oil and about 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas."
Hmmm: burning oil produces carbon and leads to global warming; global warming makes Arctic oil more available, which will lead to more burning of oil -- and more global warming. Oh well, let's hope the energy companies will be more interested in the natural gas than in the oil. (Well, one can hope, right?)
You can find "Haredevil Hare" on disc 3 of The Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume One. Unfortunately, "Mad as a Mars Hare" doesn't seem to be available on DVD at the moment, though it was released as part of a VHS collection entitled "Marvin the Martian: 50 Years on Earth." You can also find it on YouTube:
A transcript of "Mad as a March Hare" is available at http://www.theclassictoons.com.
The crystal skull that serves as the MacGuffin in the new Indiana Jones film is a "highly magnetized object" that attracts all kinds of metal.
This morning, I discovered that The Crystal Skull has similar properties. Leaving my building, I had every intention of turning right and heading to the gym. But, like the film's Professor Oxley (played by John Hurt), I could hear the Skull beckoning: "Return!" I found myself turning left and heading to the 11:30 showing at the AMC Loew's 19th Street, returning there a mere nine hours after I'd left. (This is the quickest I've ever been back to see a movie a second time.)
Was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull worth watching a second time? For me, the answer was an emphatic, Yes! Indeed, I found myself fonder of the movie after the second time through.
In the recently released volume The Complete Making of Indiana Jones by Laurent Bouzereau and J. W. Rinzler (Ballantine Books), Steven Spielberg is quoted as saying: "I want people to come to this movie and say, 'Oh, my old friends are back. And one of their friends will be the style in which we shot the previous films. I want audiences to come to this movie and make new friends, but rediscover that their old friends haven't changed all that much."
That's exactly how I feel about this movie.
I've just returned from a 12:01 a.m. showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I wanted to make sure that I saw it before I had a chance to read any of the reviews.
I'll admit I spent most of the day worried that the movie was going to be a disappointment, because I couldn't avoid hearing about some pre-release negative commentary on the internet and a lukewarm response when the film was shown on Sunday at Cannes.
I wasn't disappointed.
Like the other Indiana Jones films, it's a rollercoaster ride, though it's a rollercoaster whose twists and turns we've been taught to anticipate by the previous three Indy rides. The film doesn't have the wonder of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the over-the-top kineticism of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or the wonderful character development of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And it doesn't need to. It's like a reunion, in which old friends get together to remember good times and have a few new adventures that are fun even if they don't quite match the thrills of yesteryear.
Where the three previous films paid homage to 1930s-style serials, the Crystal Skull pays homage to the sci-fi films of the 1950s -- and to the three films that preceded it. Indy's older now, a little thicker around the middle, as is his old flame, Marion Ravenwood, but it's still great to see them back in action. Especially Karen Allen as Marion. (I had the same crush on her back in the day that David A. Kaplan describes in this column from Newsweek.) Part of the pleasure of the film is the way in which it refers back to moments from the earlier films (and to moments in Steven Spielberg's pre-Indiana Jones films). The earlier sequels had some of the same referentiality (remember Indy and the two swordsmen in Temple of Doom), but the new film is chock full of them. Some made find it a little too nostalgic, but it reminded me of the way in which I felt back in 1981 when I first saw Raiders. It didn't produce the same feeling, but the reminder was enough.
The plot is silly in a kind of 1950s sci-fi film way and not nearly as muddled as the critics are suggesting. Sure there's a Maguffin that ostensibly drives the plot like the ark, the Sankara stone, and the Holy Grail in the earlier film, but like it's predecesors the film is really about something ese. Let's just say that like Raiders it's about rediscovering old feelings; like the Last Crusade it's about sons getting to know fathers.
Of all the reviews that I've sped through before I sat down to write this post, this one from Salon comes the closest to capturing what I felt about the film.
Oddly enough, I managed to marry a woman who has never seen an Indiana Jones film, but she knows how much I love them and has agreed to watch them with me. I think I'll show her Raiders and Last Crusade and take her to Crystal Skull. They make a nice trilogy.
Yesterday, I went with a group of students from the NYU residence hall in which I live up to the IMAX Theater on Broadway and 68th Street to see Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert documentary, Shine a Light. The film was shot two years ago up Broadway at the Beacon Theater by an all-star team of cameramen, and it's more than just a filmed concert: it's a concert reimagined through the cinematic imagination of a filmmaker who happens to be a life-long Stones fan.
The craggy faces, hands, and instruments of the Stones fill the screen in extreme close-up, and they look great, wrinkles and all. The cameras hug Jagger as he careens about the stage, struggling to keep up with him. Every now and then, the camera lingers for a moment on Keith's or Ronnie's fingers and guitar, and the riff that's being played jumps out of the soundtrack for an added shot of presence. The film's editing is kinetic, and Scorsese manages to capture the pure joy of being the Stones on stage. The film isn't about trying to understand who the Stones are; it's about representing the larger-than-life selves into which they transform themselves when they're playing live. And in IMAX, they're larger-than-larger-than life.
The film shows us the late-model Stones at their best: they've gotten tighter on stage with age, and I've often entertained the heretical notion that the Stones sound better with Darryl Jones on bass than they did with Bill Wyman. And there are three terrific guest appearancs: a worshipful Jack White III singing "Lovin' Cup" with Mick; Buddy Guy inspiring worship from none other than Keith on "Champagne and Reefer"; and Christina Aguilera injecting a growling jolt of sexual energy into her duet with Mick on "Live With Me."
The Stones no longer "matter" in the way that they did back in the day, when they seemed to be dangerous countercultural voices, and their last album, A Bigger Bang, was entertaining but not nearly as significant as, say, The Rising by Bruce Springsteen. The Stones are an oldies band these days, but for my money they're still "the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the
world."
Scorsese caught the band during two marvelous shows in an intimate venue, but if you'd been there you wouldn't have gotten to see what you see in Shine a Light. You need the light that Scorsese's cameras shine on the band for that.
If you're a Stones fan, a Scorsese fan, or a fan of concert films, make sure to get uptown and see it in IMAX. It may only be rock 'n' roll, but chances are you'll like it.
[Click here to see a brief clip of Mick and Christina doing their thing.]
Sarah Silverman is right: the first half-hour of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) doesn't suck. After reading the article in Wired magazine that I discuss below, I decided to watch the beginning of the film again. The first half-hour is a frothy, kinetic homage to Busby Berkeley, 1930s comedy, and Republic Pictures serials. It features features Kate Capshaw singing "Anything Goes" in Mandarin in a Berkeley-style production number set at the Club Obi-Wan, followed by a wildly choreographed brawl, a car chase through the streets of 1935 Shanghai, and a sequence in which an escape raft is launched from a crashing plane just in the nick of time, careening down Himalayan slopes and finally hurtling down rapids.
That's actually the first twenty minutes; the next ten take us to the brink of Pankot Palace, where the story really begins. I had meant to stop watching there, but I just couldn't.
The new Ultimate Collector’s Edition of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) arrived at my mail room yesterday, the day that it was released (thank you, amazon.com). Packaged in a “Rick Decard briefcase” (a replica of the case in which Deckard carries his Voigt-Kampff equipment), the set includes five discs. Disc one is a new and improved director’s cut that Scott calls his “favorite version of the film.” Disc two is a new documentary called “Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner,” while the third disc offers three “archival versions” of the film: the U.S. theatrical cut and the International Theatrical cut, both released in 1982, and the director’s cut released ten years later.The fourth disc is a potpourri of ancillary materials about the making and marketing of the film.
Most unusual, and available only in this edition, is the fifth disc, which features the so-called “Workprint” version of the film that was shown to preview audiences in Denver and Dallas. It was the mixed reactions to the "Workprint" at those sneak previews that led the producers to make two controversial additions to the theatrical releases: a voice-over by Harrison Ford, who plays the film's protagonist, and a happy ending featuring an escape to the green north.
