Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[Reinhold]

South Park Rape Episode:

http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/1208/The-China-Probrem.html

[john]

South Park Rape Episode

It's a one-note joke. But I like the joke.

It's just too bad they're so sporadic with new episodes.... would have been even more enjoyable last May.

[pete]

I just saw the opening action scene last night.  it's kinda like die hard 4, where all the wit in the chase is gone.  dropping a machine gun and firing it is not very witty.  indiana jones also seems more superhuman this time around - more impervious to pain and gravity.  the only thing remains is his grin, but the action set pieces are kinda shit, too effortless and unimaginative.

[Stefen]

It wasn't that bad for the first 45 minutes. Then Shia shows up and it's the worst movie I've ever seen ever.

George Lucas has the worst sense of humor ever. Spielberg, too, but Lucas sense of humor is all over this flick. I don't know how to explain it, but you guys know what I mean about his sense of humor.

[matt35mm]

So I saw this movie because it was something to watch on Blu-Ray that would look pretty good.  And it did look pretty good.

I thought the film was pretty bad, and that's kinda what I expected, though I decided it would be worth watching anyway because the Spielberg/Kaminski team still remains one of the best at that kind of dynamic camerawork that they do.  I still have respect for Spielberg for pushing and experimenting with the look of his films, and his sensibilities regarding where to put the camera and when.  It's this strange mix of classical, over-the-top, and sometimes edgy visual style that I find fun to watch.  Nobody else really does it like Spielberg does.

That doesn't make up for the nearly everything else that's lousy about this film though.  The whole storyline was also pretty boring and uncreative.  I think the device of "Oh, at first I thought this character meant THIS, but in Mayan it has a double-meaning so it actually means THIS!" was used at least 4 times.  Anyway, blah.

[pete]

I know what you're saying about their collaboration in general, but this one just felt greasy and pretty ordinary in terms of the camera work.

[matt35mm]

Actually I agree with you.  This film was a disappointment on even that level.

[MacGuffin]

Cannes 2010: Shia LaBeouf: We botched the last Indiana Jones
Source: Los Angeles Times

The last time Shia LaBeouf came to Cannes, in 2008, it was to promote "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the revival of the swashbuckling adventure franchise that went on to earn a whopping $787 million around the world. LaBeouf is back on the Croisette this weekend to flog "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," another revival of a classic from several decades ago. But he's not willing to forget about what he says were rampant problems with Indy 4 -- and he doesn't expect fans to, either.

"I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished," LaBeouf said, explaining that this upped the ante for him before he began shooting the "Wall Street" sequel. "If I was going to do it twice, my career was over. So this was fight-or-flight for me."

Meeting with reporters Saturday on a terrace at the Hotel du Cap, he had some strong, confessional words about his acting in the film, which he said he felt didn't convince anyone that he was the action hero the movie claimed him to be. "You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg, who directed]. But the actor's job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn't do it. So that's my fault. Simple."

LaBeouf said that he could have kept quiet, especially given the movie's blockbuster status, but didn't think the film had fooled anyone. "I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you've made (slop). And I think if you don't acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you're promoting a movie." LaBeouf went on to say he wasn't the only star on the film who felt that way. "We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn't happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn't universally accepted."

LaBeouf added, "We need to be able to satiate the appetite," he said. "I think we just misinterpreted what we were trying to satiate."

Asked whether this was difficult to say, given his deep relationship with Spielberg, LaBeouf continued with the directness.

"I'll probably get a call. But he needs to hear this. I love him. I love Steven. I have a relationship with Steven that supersedes our business work. And believe me, I talk to him often enough to know that I'm not out of line. And I would never disrespect the man. I think he's a genius, and he's given me my whole life. He's done so much great work that there's no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball you drop the ball."

Interviewing LaBeouf is a unique experience. It's nearly impossible not to like the 23-year-old, who carries an honesty and a winning sincerity that endears him to you despite, or because of, his mispronunciation of words such as "schoolastic" and "hyperboil" (as though the word for exaggeration connotes a manic skin blemish). He's refreshingly honest, apparently engaged with subjects far beyond movies and willing to throw out whatever playbook his publicists no doubt beg him to use.

He's also relentlessly intense and unfailingly earnest, taking every question hyper-seriously. When asked whether shooting "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" gave him some insight on what was wrong with our financial system, he said this, with exactly no interruptions:

"You can make the marketplace more transparent. If people had known who was paying for the mortgages instead of having to rely on Moody's triple-A (bull) rating -- transparency would have helped. The triple A rating thing is ridiculous. That's like Oliver [Stone] paying you for a review. The people who were bundling this toxic crap were paying Moody's for the review of their crap. That's ridiculous. You can't have bank holding companies acting as hedge funds. You can't have them taking a million-dollar pension plan for Joe Schmo the bus driver and treat it with the same risk appetite that you treat George Soros' pocket money. It's fundamentally ridiculous. And it hasn't gotten better very recently, actually. They went from bundling mortgages that were crap to bundling life insurance policies and betting on people's deaths. And you can't blame it all on the Street.... People's mentality needs to change. If the Greece contagion thing takes off and it goes from Spain to Ireland to Portugal things are going to change drastically for the world. Soup kitchens, it won't be that type of change. You won't get a depression that way. But it'll be very difficult. I think, my generation, it's hard to have hope when you got a $700-trillion derivatives debt to pay and a bubble about to explode and $500 trillion worth of GDP. You took all the money in  the world and put it in a pot, you're $200 trillion short. It's scary, man. You know the average person born today owes $8,000? The average person getting out of college owes $75,000 with no job. I mean it's scary. My generation, it's a scary situation."

If only some of that energy had come through in the last Indiana Jones.

[polkablues]

He's been saying the same thing about Transformers 2 lately. If he dies under mysterious circumstances anytime soon, I would have the police go to Spielberg first and Michael Bay second. Unless he dies in an explosion. In that case, switch it.

[Gold Trumpet]

I actually like him. He's very honest in interviews and seems very sincere about what he is trying to do. Whether he transitions to becoming a better actor with more dramatic roles is another question.

[diggler]

where was this honesty two years ago? it's easy to call your film shit after the box office returns are through. the man starred in two transformers movies. two of them. he sucks.

[Pubrick]

are you guys reading this shit? what does sincere have to do with it, he's a fucking DUNCE.

the 23-year-old, who carries an honesty and a winning sincerity that endears him to you despite, or because of, his mispronunciation of words such as "schoolastic" and "hyperboil"

when ppl try to use big words to try to sound smart and completely butcher them it's NOT like a typo, which is invalidating on its own, it is indicative of a real lack of understanding and being insulated somehow from a world where someone will actually tell him his ideas are SHIT. the following is bullshit too:

"You can make the marketplace more transparent. If people had known who was paying for the mortgages instead of having to rely on Moody's triple-A (bull) rating -- transparency would have helped. The triple A rating thing is ridiculous. That's like Oliver [Stone] paying you for a review. The people who were bundling this toxic crap were paying Moody's for the review of their crap. That's ridiculous. You can't have bank holding companies acting as hedge funds. You can't have them taking a million-dollar pension plan for Joe Schmo the bus driver and treat it with the same risk appetite that you treat George Soros' pocket money. It's fundamentally ridiculous. And it hasn't gotten better very recently, actually. They went from bundling mortgages that were crap to bundling life insurance policies and betting on people's deaths. And you can't blame it all on the Street.... People's mentality needs to change. If the Greece contagion thing takes off and it goes from Spain to Ireland to Portugal things are going to change drastically for the world. Soup kitchens, it won't be that type of change. You won't get a depression that way. But it'll be very difficult. I think, my generation, it's hard to have hope when you got a $700-trillion derivatives debt to pay and a bubble about to explode and $500 trillion worth of GDP. You took all the money in  the world and put it in a pot, you're $200 trillion short. It's scary, man. You know the average person born today owes $8,000? The average person getting out of college owes $75,000 with no job. I mean it's scary. My generation, it's a scary situation."

are you kidding me? does he know what a TRILLLION dollars is? the global gross product does not even reach 100trillion. ok so he's just "mispronouncing" words again and he's just "mispronouncing" figures too, SO ADORABLE according to whoever wrote that article.. it seems like that person is just responding to his "intensity" which is worth absolutely nothing at all if it's behind idiotic statements with no substance whatsoever. it's like praising a raving lunatic on the street. his intensity or sincerity is irrelevant.

his comments on Indiana Jones are equally vapid. he comes out and confesses this bullshit statement about how HE dropped the ball, as in Shia himself takes the blame for the failure of the film, that it's his job to make the story come alive -- and then goes on to say that he and ford were talking about the film's problems and that in the end spielberg has to hear the harsh truth that apparently HE dropped the ball too. what the hell? if it's just shia who made the mistake and is taking the blame then spielberg should be fine with hearing that he hired a shit actor.

whatever, i won't even try to make sense of his logic. i'm sure he just "mispronounced" his entire life.

[Alexandro]

I'd like to listen to that Spielberg call.

Anyway, nice to hear someone trashing his own movies, for a change. He is right about Indiana Jones sucking and is cool that he says Spielberg dropped the ball too, even if initially like 2 seconds before he was saying it was his fault as an actor, because well, Spielberg fucked it up too with that one. His worst film probably. no small feat.

[Pas]

You know how courage and folly can be hard to distinguish? Well I think that same can be said for honesty and stupidity.

I don't know if Shia is really a dumbass, but he kinda sounds like one. It's fine that he says Indiana Jones was shit and really he can't be wrong there, but it's obvious that this statement just slipped out of his mouth. It's not like he won't play the game because he's too real or anything, he's just too stupid to shut up.

"Schoolastic" and "hyperboil" do a great job of proving that. Also, his lack of understanding of the value of 1 trillion dollars. 500 trillions is like 10 times the global GDP. I hope his 700T value for the debt is as crooked but I don't know the data.

[MacGuffin]

Steven Spielberg Proud of Fourth 'Indiana Jones' Movie Criticisms
The director reveals he was never a big fan of the aliens in "Crystal Skull" but is happy "nuked the fridge" has become a pop culture phrase.
Source: THR

Steven Spielberg says he's proud that the phrase "nuked the fridge" has replaced "jumped the shark" as the shorthand for saying a film series has taken a turn for the worse.

Talking to Empire magazine about his career, the director of the upcoming Adventures of Tintin and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull says even though people blame producer George Lucas for the scene where Indy hides in a refrigerator to avoid a nuclear explosion, the idea was really his.

"Blame me. Don't blame George. That was my silly idea. People stopped saying 'jump the shark'. They now say, 'nuked the fridge'. I'm proud of that. I'm glad I was able to bring that into popular culture."

However, Spielberg is not as proud of the aliens that appear at the end of the film.

"I sympathize with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin. George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn't want these things to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to my best friend. When he writes a story he believes in -- even if I don't believe in it -- I'm going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it. I'll add my own touches, I'll bring my own cast in, I'll shoot the way I want to shoot it, but I will always defer to George as the storyteller of the Indy series. I will never fight him on that."
Spielberg says he doesn't know the status of a possible fifth Indiana Jones movie. He's waiting to hear from Lucas, who has long had the task of figuring out the story before he approaches Spielberg.

"George is in charge of breaking the stories. He's done it on all four movies. Whether I like the stories or not, George has broken all the stories. He is working on Indy V. We haven't gone to screenplay yet, but he's working on the story. I'll leave it to George to come up with a good story."