The Watching Thread #5

[Gary]

It could be since his sidekick is an Indian.

I didn't even know that part.

Meanwhile, I watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

I'm just going to order the DVD, so I'll be able to complete my collection.

Overall, it's better than the previous movie but was nowhere near as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark. I get really tired of movie writers introducing strife between characters who married or got together at the end of the previous iteration. This movie also had the "whacky kid sidekick" that's a tiring trope as well.

From what I saw and read, she was just another Mutt, which is a shame. I would have been happy for Indy to pass the torch to another generation if done right. And speaking of Mutt, even worse than the marital troubles was Mutt being killed in Vietnam. I disliked the character, but that was a terrible thing to do to Indy.

The female is not the whacky sidekick kid. I don't want to ruin it for you, so I will leave it at that. Mutt was probably one of the worst characters ever.

[RJDiogenes]

Hmm, now I'm intrigued. Totally agreed about Mutt, though.

[Gary]

Jules

Jules follows Milton (Kingsley) who lives a quiet life of routine in a small western Pennsylvania town, but finds his day upended when a UFO and its extra-terrestrial passenger crash land in his backyard. Before long, Milton develops a close relationship with the extra-terrestrial he calls "Jules." Things become complicated when two neighbors (Harris and Curtin) discover Jules and the government quickly closes in. What follows is a funny, wildly inventive ride as the three neighbors find meaning and connection later in life - thanks to this unlikely stranger.

This was an enjoyable movie I think everyone would like.

[RJDiogenes]

Kinda like My Favorite Martian.

[Gary]

I am currently watching Goliath on FreeVee. I have almost finished Season 1.

I have to say, the Amazon Original series are very good (Bosch is another Amazon Original I watched on FreeVee).

I am also current with Marvel's: What If... Season 2.

[RJDiogenes]

Okay, I finally got around to watching Dial of Destiny. It wasn't as bad as I feared, but it was worse than it could have been. I agree that it was better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, mainly because that movie disappointed me so much with its weird extradimensional aliens rather than using classic 1950s Area 51 type greenies. I certainly enjoyed watching DOD, despite its shortcomings, and it's a decent place to end the Indy Saga.

The movie is a bit less than two-and-a-half hours long and about a half hour of it is set in the closing days of WWII. I can't help but think that if they had just expended this part of the story to ninety minutes they would have been better off. But whatcha gonna do?

I think the main problem that it shares with Crystal Skulls is that most of the action sequences are way too long. These guys need to figure out that action gets boring when it goes on too long, especially if there's no variety-- like the car chase in Tangiers. In contrast, the horse chase was great. A couple of minutes dodging through the parade, a couple of minutes in the subway, and that was it. Very good.

The goddaughter was pretty much Mutt 2, except for the virtue of being a trained archaeologist. There was no indication of how she went off the rails to become a black marketeer and compulsive gambler, aside from some vague whiny accusation against Indy for not being a father figure. She was generally not very endearing, although she of course went through the standard redemptive arc to become a more heroic figure. Her best moment was the look on her face when Indy said that nobody memorizes their father's notebooks for money. But she didn't exactly leave me with a burning desire to see Wombat Shaw meets Hitler's Brain or whatever.

The kid sidekick did not add a lot. The idea that he could fly the plane through the time warp was absolutely ridiculous. They at least had that guy wake up in the back to help him out, but they should have established that he was a child drug smuggler with prior flight experience or something.

It was great to see Sallah again, but I hope he borrowed or stole that taxi-- I do not want Sallah to be a New York cabbie in his old age.

I did not like the Mutt character (or actor) from the last movie at all, but making him a casualty of the war in Vietnam was extremely harsh and a big blow to Indy. Nevertheless, it gave Indy one of his best scenes in the film, when Helena asked him what in the past he would change. That was truly heartbreaking.

I may have spotted an anachronism. Did New York cops use those shoulder walkie-talkies in 1969? I'm not sure.

The choice of the Antikythera mechanism as a plot device was cool, but opens up a whole can of worms. Unlike other artifacts in the Indy movies, it's not unique. If Archimedes could discover the math of time travel and build such a relatively simple device two thousand years ago, then any number of modern mathematicians with access to even a 60s-era IBM could do the same.

One of my favorite sequences was the recovery of the disk in the Aegean. The underwater action managed to add something new to the Indy movies that we've never seen before. The skeleton crew of the Roman wreck was appropriately horrific and I got a kick out of Indy being attacked by eels. Why'd it have to be eels?

The Tomb of Archimedes was classic Indy, complete with puzzles and archaeological delights and grisly human remains. It looked great. And this was the real turning point for Helena, when she realized that she couldn't leave Indy behind.

Now then. Time travel. Was time travel going over the line for what's appropriate in the Indy universe? Maybe. Aside from the can-of-worms element, it did seem to bring things to an entirely different level. But I did like it. The whole sequence had a strange, surreal, almost dreamlike quality to it, and I think they were wise to keep it so short. I loved Indy's reaction to seeing his beloved ancient history come to life-- it reminded me of the paleontologist in Jurassic Park being brought to tears by the sight of a brontosaurus-- and I was glad that the writer and director had that much of a grasp of Indy's character. I could completely understand his passion to stay in the past. And his and Helena's meeting Archimedes face to face was pretty far out. I'm still not completely sold on whether the time travel thing was a good idea, but I did like it-- I guess I'm just glad that the movies end here so that they're not tempted to carry it any further.

The ending was low key, with another visit from Sallah, and a cameo of Marion, with a nice reenactment of the "where doesn't it hurt" scene from Raiders. It probably would have worked better if Marion had been seen a bit at the beginning, but at least we know that they will be together in their retirement. All in all, a good and entertaining movie, even though it doesn't come anywhere near the original trilogy.

[RJDiogenes]

Yesterday I watched Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and it wasn't all that. Haha. See what I did there?

It was actually okay, but just not what I expected. First of all, it was another one of those long movies that take way too long to get started. Secondly, the alternate universes were mostly pretty mundane-- just alternate life choices of the main character-- and the ones that weren't were totally off the wall-- like the universes of the talking rocks or the talking pinatas. There were some flashes of potentially more interesting universes toward the end, but you'd need to use freeze frame to get a look at them and I wasn't that interested.

There was an action-plot MacGuffin about a quantum Black Hole or something called the Everything Bagel, but the real plot was about Michelle Yeoh growing up to be just like her father blah blah blah and needing to become a better person blah blah blah. So underneath all the special effects, it was basically a Hallmark movie.

The cast was good. Michelle Yeoh is still cool and Short Round sure has changed a lot. I didn't even recognize Jamie Lee Curtis until I looked at the Wiki page afterwards. While watching the film, I had the impression that the actors were the wrong ages for their characters-- which they are, although I suppose it can be fudged. I still found it distracting, though.

Underneath the justification for the Everything Bagel was some interesting philosophizing about nihilism-- more or less a variation of Niven's "All The Myriad Ways"-- but it mostly got buried in all the ramped-up action and visual effects. Maybe it will get some of the mainstream audience interested enough to look into it more.

That's about it. It was well done and entertaining enough, but I was expecting more.

[Gary]

Okay, I finally got around to watching Dial of Destiny. It wasn't as bad as I feared, but it was worse than it could have been. I agree that it was better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, mainly because that movie disappointed me so much with its weird extradimensional aliens rather than using classic 1950s Area 51 type greenies. I certainly enjoyed watching DOD, despite its shortcomings, and it's a decent place to end the Indy Saga.

The movie is a bit less than two-and-a-half hours long and about a half hour of it is set in the closing days of WWII. I can't help but think that if they had just expended this part of the story to ninety minutes they would have been better off. But whatcha gonna do?

I think the main problem that it shares with Crystal Skulls is that most of the action sequences are way too long. These guys need to figure out that action gets boring when it goes on too long, especially if there's no variety-- like the car chase in Tangiers. In contrast, the horse chase was great. A couple of minutes dodging through the parade, a couple of minutes in the subway, and that was it. Very good.

The goddaughter was pretty much Mutt 2, except for the virtue of being a trained archaeologist. There was no indication of how she went off the rails to become a black marketeer and compulsive gambler, aside from some vague whiny accusation against Indy for not being a father figure. She was generally not very endearing, although she of course went through the standard redemptive arc to become a more heroic figure. Her best moment was the look on her face when Indy said that nobody memorizes their father's notebooks for money. But she didn't exactly leave me with a burning desire to see Wombat Shaw meets Hitler's Brain or whatever.

The kid sidekick did not add a lot. The idea that he could fly the plane through the time warp was absolutely ridiculous. They at least had that guy wake up in the back to help him out, but they should have established that he was a child drug smuggler with prior flight experience or something.

It was great to see Sallah again, but I hope he borrowed or stole that taxi-- I do not want Sallah to be a New York cabbie in his old age.

I did not like the Mutt character (or actor) from the last movie at all, but making him a casualty of the war in Vietnam was extremely harsh and a big blow to Indy. Nevertheless, it gave Indy one of his best scenes in the film, when Helena asked him what in the past he would change. That was truly heartbreaking.

I may have spotted an anachronism. Did New York cops use those shoulder walkie-talkies in 1969? I'm not sure.

The choice of the Antikythera mechanism as a plot device was cool, but opens up a whole can of worms. Unlike other artifacts in the Indy movies, it's not unique. If Archimedes could discover the math of time travel and build such a relatively simple device two thousand years ago, then any number of modern mathematicians with access to even a 60s-era IBM could do the same.

One of my favorite sequences was the recovery of the disk in the Aegean. The underwater action managed to add something new to the Indy movies that we've never seen before. The skeleton crew of the Roman wreck was appropriately horrific and I got a kick out of Indy being attacked by eels. Why'd it have to be eels?

The Tomb of Archimedes was classic Indy, complete with puzzles and archaeological delights and grisly human remains. It looked great. And this was the real turning point for Helena, when she realized that she couldn't leave Indy behind.

Now then. Time travel. Was time travel going over the line for what's appropriate in the Indy universe? Maybe. Aside from the can-of-worms element, it did seem to bring things to an entirely different level. But I did like it. The whole sequence had a strange, surreal, almost dreamlike quality to it, and I think they were wise to keep it so short. I loved Indy's reaction to seeing his beloved ancient history come to life-- it reminded me of the paleontologist in Jurassic Park being brought to tears by the sight of a brontosaurus-- and I was glad that the writer and director had that much of a grasp of Indy's character. I could completely understand his passion to stay in the past. And his and Helena's meeting Archimedes face to face was pretty far out. I'm still not completely sold on whether the time travel thing was a good idea, but I did like it-- I guess I'm just glad that the movies end here so that they're not tempted to carry it any further.

The ending was low key, with another visit from Sallah, and a cameo of Marion, with a nice reenactment of the "where doesn't it hurt" scene from Raiders. It probably would have worked better if Marion had been seen a bit at the beginning, but at least we know that they will be together in their retirement. All in all, a good and entertaining movie, even though it doesn't come anywhere near the original trilogy.

Were you and I in a room then we could discuss everything bad or badly executed with this movie. I am not the type who can efficiently or effectively write all of my thoughts like you did. That being said, you hit the nail on the head with many of my grievances with this movie. One problem with the folks writing these movies is they're too focused on replicating the action from Raiders of the Lost Ark, such as the truck scene in the desert. That was a long, well executed sequence that combined both live stunts and also models. The problems with DoD's train sequence were: 1) being drawn out, and 2) unrealistic stunts atop the rail cars which are obviously being performed in front of green screen.

Everyone LOVES The Last Crusade, yet I was grumbling (in the theater) that there is no way in hell a knight would know how to speak modern English.

[Gary]

I have finished watching the series Goliath. It wrapped up well and is yet another example why shows on broadcast TV are crap. The folks writing the shows for Amazon generate good, tight storylines.

Disney now has the new Marvel series Echo which I burned through in two evenings while trying to stay warm. It wasn't bad, but I'm disappointed the story takes place in eastern Oklahoma and was filmed in Georgia. It was nice to see DareDevil return along with a nice setup for the Kingpin in future storylines.

I checked out Hulu's offerings and decided to add all five seasons of the series Fargo to my list. I will start on that tonight.

[RJDiogenes]

The problems with DoD's train sequence were: 1) being drawn out, and 2) unrealistic stunts atop the rail cars which are obviously being performed in front of green screen.

Yeah, they're always trying to one up themselves by extending the sequences and defying physics and making the close calls closer. But the best way to do it is add variety-- like the underwater scenes in this movie or the beach scene in Last Crusade and stuff like that.

Everyone LOVES The Last Crusade, yet I was grumbling (in the theater) that there is no way in hell a knight would know how to speak modern English.

That's true. He'd sound like he was speaking German or something to the modern-day people, although it's possible that Indy's dad could recognize it and speak it-- although even he wouldn't get the accent right. Maybe there was a spell on the cave that allowed people to communicate.

[Gary]

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is now on Paramount+, and I watched it last night.

Ethan Hunt and the IMF team must track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity if it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than the mission -- not even the lives of those he cares about most.

Great storyline, good action, and a trilling movie to watch.

[RJDiogenes]

Between Tom Cruise and the treatment of Mr Phelps in the original film, I have never seen a Mission Impossible movie.

[Gary]

Between Tom Cruise and the treatment of Mr Phelps in the original film, I have never seen a Mission Impossible movie.

Say what you want about Tom Cruise, but he gives it his all to ensure the audience gets its money's worth. One of his best movies was Collateral.

[RJDiogenes]

Sadly, I'd probably enjoy the Bondian adventure aspects of the movies, but I just can't take Cruise seriously at all.

[RJDiogenes]

Today I watched Monster on the Campus from 1958, which was a fairly standard 50s B-Movie, although it had a couple of unusually gruesome moments. It was a Universal movie, so technically the monster was a Universal Monster, but it's not surprising that he never got any sequels. Basically, the college professor got bitten by a dead Coelecanth, which made him regress to an earlier state of evolution-- a premise that could have been thought through a little better. Also, he didn't even have a Monster name. You can't have a Monster franchise if your Monster doesn't have a name. I think he was supposed to be a Neanderthal or something. It was definitely fun, though, with a good cast, including a young Whit Bissell.