1939
2/4 Stars
Gunga Din is a racist 1930's adventure serial starring Cary Grant. The basic premise is that the murderous Thuggie Cult (this group should be familiar to Indiana Jones fans) has sprouted up in colonial India and it is up to a band of three soldiers- led by Grant- to stop the Thuggie plot to conquer first India, and then THE WORLD.
Pretty cheesy stuff. The action is swashbuckling and fun, with lots of low-budget effects and explosions. Hordes of Indians are killed along the way with impunity.
Enter the title character- Gunga Din- a "water carrier" and "low bred" Indian. Gunga Din dreams of one day becoming a real soldier like the (white) British. Throughout the film, he marches about and pretends to be a real soldier. Grant, and the other "real" soldiers, tend to humor him a bit, but clearly don't take him seriously.
In the end though, Gunga Din proves himself to be worthy of respect- EVEN from the whites. The film concludes with a Kipling poem, bearing Din's name, that has a final line that goes something like: "even though you were from a no-good race and we beat on you like a dog, you had some courage, and I respect that".*
Overall, if one can get past the racist portrayal of the Indians, this is a very standard action movie from this era. The humor is lame, but the overall experience is kind of fun. Be sure to watch for the "terrifying" snake pit, where the strings attached to the snakes are almost as big as the snakes themselves.
* The actual line is slightly less offensive: "Tho' I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"
Friday, April 24, 2009
Paris, Je T'Aime
2006
2/4 Stars
This is an uneven collection of vignettes that have little in common other than their themes of love, loss, and Paris. The directors assembled as well as the cast is star-studded. Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, and many others are featured in a series of five minute shorts.
The film is a touch sadder than one would anticipate. Juliette Binoche's storyline, revolving around a mother who has recently lost her young son is positively tragic. Another piece, depicting an African immigrant who is mortally stabbed is also difficult to watch. Other pieces, such as one featuring a pair of mimes are whimsical and strange.
All in all, this is an a film that has a wide variety of pieces that vary in quality. Chances are equal that the viewer will find a piece that s/he likes and one that s/he does not (or several of each). This makes for an uneven experience and for a mediocre film.
2/4 Stars
This is an uneven collection of vignettes that have little in common other than their themes of love, loss, and Paris. The directors assembled as well as the cast is star-studded. Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, and many others are featured in a series of five minute shorts.
The film is a touch sadder than one would anticipate. Juliette Binoche's storyline, revolving around a mother who has recently lost her young son is positively tragic. Another piece, depicting an African immigrant who is mortally stabbed is also difficult to watch. Other pieces, such as one featuring a pair of mimes are whimsical and strange.
All in all, this is an a film that has a wide variety of pieces that vary in quality. Chances are equal that the viewer will find a piece that s/he likes and one that s/he does not (or several of each). This makes for an uneven experience and for a mediocre film.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2008
2/4 Stars
The opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in many ways epitomizes the two directions that this movie seems to be pulling in. With Elvis blasting through the speaker, a 1950's hot rod rips across the screen at high speed. This is playing to George Lucas' strong points- his love of high velocity vehicles is shown in everything from the drag racing in American Graffiti to the TIE Fighters whipping across the screen in the original Star Wars film. There is another element in this sequence however- a pack of computer generated prairie dogs that are intended (I think) to provide some comic relief for the audience. This is pure cheese.
This is Indiana Jones IV- a movie that has some fun adventure elements combined with a lot of camp and bad jokes. On a personal level, I desperately wanted to love this movie. I have seen it 8 times now. I have come up with creative ways to justify certain things. Nevertheless, my conclusion is that this is a cheesy "B" adventure movie that has Indy, Russians, and aliens. This seems to be the point though. According to a featurette on the main disk of the DVD, an original title for the movie was going to be "Indiana Jones and the Saucermen"- another was "Indiana Jones and the Giant Ants"- and the goal was to make a 1950's B movie with Indy in the starring role. The logic was that the first three films were based on 1930's serials, so now that Indy had aged and the film was set in the 50's, they should make it like a 1950's aliens attack film. But does it work?
The results are mixed. The film is laced with a variety of bad jokes- including one too many "I'm getting too old for this" references. Not that there weren't bad jokes in the earlier films, but they just were not this campy. Also, any sort of "edge" that Indy had in the previous films is gone. The image of Indy drinking himself into a stupor after the "death" of Marion in a Cairo cafe seems a distant memory.
The supporting cast is not as strong as Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody), and John Rhys-Davies (Sallah). Instead we have the characters like "Mutt" (who is ok), Oxley (who is bizarre), and "Mac" (who sucks). The "mcguffin" of the film is also weaker than the Ark or the Holy Grail. The Crystal Skull is pretty lame in fact and I'm not sure if anyone believes Harrison Ford when he exclaims "It's BEAUTIFUL!" upon its discovery.
The greatest moment in the picture was the portion that was filmed in New Haven. The motorcycle chase around Yale following the greaser/jock brawl is a true highlight. This chase is vastly superior to the seemingly never ending chase that is the second half of the film.
In this portion, Lucas and Spielberg went wild with CGI special effects as computer generated monkeys and ants team together to "add" to the adventure. There are a number of low points here, including Shia LeBeouf's Tarzan impersonation, the "crotch shot" as he performs a split while fencing, Marion's "tree jump" into the river, and the lamest fist fight in Indy's career against an over sized Russian. This is followed by Oxley's line: "Three times it drops" after which the audience is subjected to not one, but three increasingly impossible falls off of a waterfall by the group of protagonists.
If the audience wasn't aware of it already, this is about the point where the movie gets really stupid. Quotes like: "No more forever waiting", "Not space, but the space between spaces", and
"Knowledge- knowledge was their treasure" sum up the experience.
So why 2 stars? Well, if one can get past the sheer camp of the film, it is action driven and a pretty fun experience. It is not a great film by any stretch, but somehow quite watchable. It is a film that sought to capture a "B" movie experience, and for better or worse, it seems to have succeeded. Now who wants to watch Raiders or Last Crusade?
2/4 Stars
The opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in many ways epitomizes the two directions that this movie seems to be pulling in. With Elvis blasting through the speaker, a 1950's hot rod rips across the screen at high speed. This is playing to George Lucas' strong points- his love of high velocity vehicles is shown in everything from the drag racing in American Graffiti to the TIE Fighters whipping across the screen in the original Star Wars film. There is another element in this sequence however- a pack of computer generated prairie dogs that are intended (I think) to provide some comic relief for the audience. This is pure cheese.
This is Indiana Jones IV- a movie that has some fun adventure elements combined with a lot of camp and bad jokes. On a personal level, I desperately wanted to love this movie. I have seen it 8 times now. I have come up with creative ways to justify certain things. Nevertheless, my conclusion is that this is a cheesy "B" adventure movie that has Indy, Russians, and aliens. This seems to be the point though. According to a featurette on the main disk of the DVD, an original title for the movie was going to be "Indiana Jones and the Saucermen"- another was "Indiana Jones and the Giant Ants"- and the goal was to make a 1950's B movie with Indy in the starring role. The logic was that the first three films were based on 1930's serials, so now that Indy had aged and the film was set in the 50's, they should make it like a 1950's aliens attack film. But does it work?
The results are mixed. The film is laced with a variety of bad jokes- including one too many "I'm getting too old for this" references. Not that there weren't bad jokes in the earlier films, but they just were not this campy. Also, any sort of "edge" that Indy had in the previous films is gone. The image of Indy drinking himself into a stupor after the "death" of Marion in a Cairo cafe seems a distant memory.
The supporting cast is not as strong as Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody), and John Rhys-Davies (Sallah). Instead we have the characters like "Mutt" (who is ok), Oxley (who is bizarre), and "Mac" (who sucks). The "mcguffin" of the film is also weaker than the Ark or the Holy Grail. The Crystal Skull is pretty lame in fact and I'm not sure if anyone believes Harrison Ford when he exclaims "It's BEAUTIFUL!" upon its discovery.
The greatest moment in the picture was the portion that was filmed in New Haven. The motorcycle chase around Yale following the greaser/jock brawl is a true highlight. This chase is vastly superior to the seemingly never ending chase that is the second half of the film.
In this portion, Lucas and Spielberg went wild with CGI special effects as computer generated monkeys and ants team together to "add" to the adventure. There are a number of low points here, including Shia LeBeouf's Tarzan impersonation, the "crotch shot" as he performs a split while fencing, Marion's "tree jump" into the river, and the lamest fist fight in Indy's career against an over sized Russian. This is followed by Oxley's line: "Three times it drops" after which the audience is subjected to not one, but three increasingly impossible falls off of a waterfall by the group of protagonists.
If the audience wasn't aware of it already, this is about the point where the movie gets really stupid. Quotes like: "No more forever waiting", "Not space, but the space between spaces", and
"Knowledge- knowledge was their treasure" sum up the experience.
So why 2 stars? Well, if one can get past the sheer camp of the film, it is action driven and a pretty fun experience. It is not a great film by any stretch, but somehow quite watchable. It is a film that sought to capture a "B" movie experience, and for better or worse, it seems to have succeeded. Now who wants to watch Raiders or Last Crusade?
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