Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

First off, let's imagine what a GOOD sequel to this franchise, made in 2008, might have looked like. Yeah? Pretty difficult. In the era of Tomb Raider, the Da Vinci Code, National Treasure, and the Mummy, making a movie in this genre *at all* seems like a dubious proposition.

Oh but wait, the man who brought us The Phantom Menace wrote the story? And a 66-year-old man will star? Now we're cooking.

But let me come at this another way. At some point in the movie, 5 or so people are in a boat on the Amazon, which is about to hurtle over several towering waterfalls. "Oh no!"--you are supposed to think. But I thought, "Who *are* these people?" It's hard in this movie to 1) remember if a character was in the earlier films (Karen Allen) 2) is a new, annoying addition meant to seem like he is from the universe of the earlier films (Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent [the dean]) or 3) an entirely new character meant to draw in specific audiences (Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett). So, when I should be worrying about whether they are going to survive this waterfall-jump (ripped off from the Fugitive, let's be honest), instead I am thinking--"maybe these characters are from the Temple of Doom movie," which I've not seen.

So the film has what wikipedia would call "Extended Universe" issues. The largest of these is the plot device itself, which was made into a theme-park ride during the decade of development on the script. The crystal skull is bound to annoy and disappoint everyone. The theater audience I saw this movie with were a real bunch of dolts, but I think a more sophisticated crowd might find certain skull-related scenes risible.

Basically, if you know what the word "risible" means, you might have a chance to use it describing this film.

Are there people-eating ants? Yes. Is Shia LaBeouf less annoying than we suspsected? Yes. Have we not always wanted to drive a motorcycle through an Ivy League library? Yes.

On the other hand, Cate Blanchett's much-touted role might have been played just as well by virtually anyone, the movie is about 15 (specific) minutes too long, some scenes are a bit "Sky Captain"-ish, and it ends badly.

The main question you are asking is, does it COUNT as an Indiana Jones movie? Or is it like the Velvet Underground album without Lou Reed? The crappy part is, yeah, it counts. It looks (about) right, that famous score is there, Harrison Ford is good, people with accents continue to be evil, and you kind of get into a lot of the scenes. But that's about all. To put it in my terms, you stop hating on Harrison Ford's pants as a 2008-abomination about 40 minutes in, and from that point on, the movie is Spielberg's to lose.

Duchess of Langeais

Adapted from a novella by Balzac, this new film by Jacques Rivette (of Celine and Julie Go Boating fame) has been playing around the city for a while, and even if you know little about it, you probably know that it is not your typical French trash that makes it over here. This is a real film. It never ever feels like its Hollywood version, the gaudy and over-populated "period piece" that Keira Knightley has made a career of. More surprisingly, the movie does not feel at all enchanted by Balzac's milieu, the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and thankfully spares us the kind of immersion and knowingness we saw in Scorcese's Age of Innocence.

The film is very long. It moves slowly and follows a very Stendhalian logic of advance and retreat, from the first scene to the last. Balzac's easily-imitable style has the last word, of course, but the movie is primarily an exercise in frustration, interior scenes, and uncomfortable dialogue where the game is to say the unpleasant thing that has to be said, without being so clumsy that one can be held account for one's real motives (though they are known).

Jeanne Balibar is a strange beauty, and yet so French that I just had to take it on faith that "this must be what it's like over there," while Guillaume Depardieu is a lumbering, almost canine hunk--he could almost be in the Pirates of the Caribbean, except his sullen, sullen, sullen attitude is completely without charm. He is dull and very passionate all at once; it is a great performance.

I can't recommend this movie for entertainment. The audience I saw it with seemed to miss the point, and I got a bit anxious about whether it would ever end. But, if you like movies, this one is extremely well-made, somewhat memorable, and obviously the work of a master, though this is no masterpiece.