The Young Victoria

Written at the time of the film's release...

 "Her Serene Highness"

 

William Jefferson Clinton famously called The White House the crown jewel of the U.S. prison system. Young Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt) says early on in The Young Victoria, "Even a palace can be a prison." As the only heir to England's throne in the Royal House of Hanover, the young princess is managed and controlled, ostensibly for her safety, but also for the power that an unprepared and naive queen can offer her advisers. The last image we see before the title of the film is a gate swinging towards us and slamming shut with a bang.

Go to black. Title up.

There are a lot of shuddering doors in The Young Victoria, as the upstart princess, well aware of the red carpet ahead, defies her manipulaters and her mother (Miranda Richardson), who is cowed by their presence, especially that of Lord John Conroy (Mark Strong—his second villain role this year after Sherlock Holmes—risking typecasting, he'll be playing Sir Godfrey in the upcoming Robin Hood) who viciously seeks to be made regent in case of the death of King William (Jim Broadbent). Ambition is on everyone's mind, except the one who will be getting the power. And ambition is what the young queen must learn, if only to be used as a weapon.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée (and his script-author Julian Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park and a little something called "Downton Abbey") spend a lot of time concentrating on Victoria's noggin. It is focussed on, framed and discussed. "Look at that demure little head," says Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) at her coronation. "And all of us wondering what's inside it." He, like the rest of the court, really couldn't care less. If her mind can be changed, then it doesn't matter. But there is enough rebellion, and enough fighting the gold shackles binding her, that can be used to sway her.

It should be noted at this point that one of the producers of The Young Victoria is none other than Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who endured her own time of constraints while married to Prince Andrew. "Fergie" was known to be quite feisty, herself, and one looks at the movie and wonders how much of its editorial stance originated with her, as it is pretty sly in its view of the monarchy as being both a blessing and a curse. Whatever animosities Ferguson has incurred with the current Royal family, there seems to be an understanding of just what is asked of a monarch, and with The Queen, it shares a similar visual touch—the Royal de-focussing of the eyes that appear to see nothing, but are merely providing a non-commital mask for the public to see, the eyes looking, instead, inward.*

Given that, enter Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) of the Belgians. Groomed as a suitor by his father King Leopold (Thomas Kretschmann), the young Prince also resents being kept in a can, and upon meeting Victoria goes off-script, showing himself to be of equal mind. During a supervised chess game, they compare notes on their similar circumstances. "I know what it means to live inside your own head," he offers. "You must learn the rules of the game, so you can play it better than they can," and as if we don't get the point, he takes her Queen and sweeps it off the board, captured.

Vallée keeps things properly ornate and unfussy in his direction, save for some odd little rack-focuses interrupting the continual focus on Emily Blunt's head of restrained expression. At one point, though, he does indulge. At the Queen's entrance to a Royal Ball, upon seeing Albert, he keeps Blunt locked in position and then yanks her away from her party, as if pulled, floating to her paramour. A neat little trick that, and very dependent on Blunt keeping her muted expression while having her transport taken completely away. It's indicative of Vallée knowing that his best weapon in the movie is Blunt's subtle whisps of expression; one is drawn to her face to see how she'll react, even if, until the last frame, it is reluctant to reveal.

* At the end, there is a title stating that Victoria was the longest reigning British monarch (that would be be 63 years and 216 days). And as if to tweak the ex-mother-in-law a bit, with a wink, a new title emerges below it—"To date." 

Elizabeth II surpassed her great-great-grandmother's reign on September 09, 2015.  She went on to serve 70 years and 250 days. Only the reign of Louis XIV of France was longer.

The Damned United

Written at the time of the film's release.

I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one." — Brian Clough

There are apparently two major industries in Britain that have created rabid fans: football and Peter Morgan-Michael Sheen movies. Football we know all about. What we colonists call "soccer" is an obsession carried in the hearts and minds and livers throughout the entire rest of the world (as a matter of fact, you could probably make a connection between loving this injury-inducing sport and embracing universal health-care!).

The team of Morgan and Sheen, which started with "The Deal" and The Queen, continued with the play and film Frost/Nixon (and will continue with Sheen again playing Tony Blair in Clint Eastwood's forthcoming Hereafter*), here takes on the insular world of FC football and the storied career of Brian Clough, who took the second division Derby County Club into the first division and then the championship, and in a fit of hubris, took on the management of Leeds Utd, the club of his arch-rival Coach Don Rievie and was fired after 44 days. Here, though, the focus is not on the playing field, but the kicking and gouging going on in the mind of Clough.

The feats Clough accomplished were done with aplomb, ego, a big mouth and a vindictive drive to show up the other teams in the leagues, especially Leeds. But, that drive also gave him a tunnel vision when it came time to manage Leeds, which was done with a "new broom" approach, angering the players, the club's board and the fans who saw the team fall to its worst season in ten years after only six games. Consequently, he got the sack. As fast as his success was acquired, he fell ten times faster.

Morgan as screenwriter lets the mighty fall gently, depending on the grace that is shown, and whether the eyes are open during the trip. Idi Amin and Nixon, locked in their delusions, get no sympathy. Queen Elizabeth and Tony Blair are allowed insight as they're falling. Clough gets that insight after he hits rock-bottom, and Morgan's frequent collaborator Sheen registers every triumph in flashing teeth and every hurt in darkening bags under his eyes. Sheen, as a performer who's made a living playing performers, knows the degrees to which the face can display a false-front and genuine pain.

During an introductory press interview before taking over for Rievey, it's a cocky Clough who, with no prior knowledge, already thinks he has the team licked, with secret winks, flashing tongue and a smarmy way of laughing at his own jokes. After a dressing down from the Leeds captain, he'll maintain the same confident smirk on his face, but his eyes will dull with fear as soon as the player turns his back. If Sheen felt any disappointment in not playing the "Nixon" part of Frost/Nixon, he's compensated here for playing a personality of similar insecurities, but with an antic theatricality that the former President was never capable of. It's Sheen's show, but he's given ample opposition and support from Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, and Colm Meaney, who plays Coach Rievie with an irascible sense of entitlement.

Director Tom Hooper keeps things low-key in a BBC vid kind of way (thankfully dropping the peculiar framing that marked "John Adams"), but it isn't too long before one notices that, more and more, he's placing his Clough in ever tightening offices, hotel rooms, and locker-room corridors—an outsider trapped in his own prison of obsession and focus. One sequence is brilliantly twisted in its scope, or lack of it: as a much-needed match goes on outside, Clough stews and twitches inside his dennish office behind the stands, listening to the crowd reactions, not daring to emerge into the light to watch. Perversely, whenever a Derby goal is scored, the crowd leaps to its feet blocking out the only outside light to his office, casting him in darkness. You know that whatever Clough wins, he's lost.

* Although it would have been logical as one of the plot-points involved a London bombing, Sheen (and the character of Blair) subsequently did not appear in Hereafter.

 

**Tom Hooper has subsequently directed The King's Speech, The Danish Girl, Les Miserables and Cats. Evidently, he's still working!

The Duke

"Not That Sodding Painting Again!"

"Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious." 

The Duke of Wellington

Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) is an embarrassment. A retiree, he never seems to be able to keep a job, much to the consternation of his beleaguered wife, Dorothy (Helen Mirren) who is a house-cleaner for the ministerial Gowlings. No, instead Kempton keeps writing plays for the BBC to produce and they're always rejected. Perhaps in revolt or retribution, he's removed the coil from his telly so he doesn't have to pay the tax imposed to get the government station, which he has to pay whether he receives it or not. It's a tax revolt, he says. Pensioners and veterans shouldn't have to pay a bloody tax to get the National News. And he doesn't give a fig who knows and, in fact, instead of getting a job, he'd rather sit in the street to get petitions signed for free BBC. On top of that, son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead) is spending less time at home, wanting to become a shipbuilder, while other son Kenny (Jack Bandeira) supposedly works construction in Leeds, but might actually be doing some things unlawful in his free time. Dorothy, with so much on her shoulders is fit to bust, with her taking most of the load and him off on his do-gooder campaigns, compensating.

Compensating?  Well, it isn't discussed in the house, but there was another Bunton—Marion—dead at 18 from a bicycle accident and it was Kempton gave her the bike. He blames himself, and doesn't tell Dorothy about the visits to her grave, as she won't discuss it in her house, and Marion's portrait is itself buried...in a desk drawer. Dorothy is the bread-winner and she's the wife and that is respected, even if things happen that she doesn't need to know about.

But, a 13 day stretch in Durham prison for not paying the television tax is her last straw. Now, he's a felon and bringing dishonor to the household.

Kempton, to keep the peace, asks for one last indulgence: he wants to go to London to talk to "the Beeb" about his plays and take his tax initiative before the Parliament—after all, they just paid £140,000 for a ruddy Spanish portrait of the Duke of Wellington, it's the least they can do to hear him out. And after that, he'll get a proper job...and keep it. No more quixotic campaigns, no more lying. He'll do his bit and Helen is relieved.

The trip to London, however, does not go well. No one at the BBC will see him, and at Parliament, the guards do see him...out...onto the street. Maybe it was the bullhorn. Anyway, when he returns, there's a new resident under the roof—that portrait of the Duke of Wellington that Kempton's been grousing about. To keep Dorothy from finding out, he hides it making a false back for the bureau in Kenny's room. Nobody'll find it there.

Certainly not the authorities, who think it's commando's or super-sophisticated art thieves behind the theft and haven't a clue as to who's behind it. Certainly not the cheerfully cantankerous old duffer who is protesting in plain sight and is outspoken enough that it gets him fired from every job he's lucky enough to land.

It's "based on a true story" which means nobody could make this stuff up. Not the circumstances, not the psychological underpinnings, and certainly not the quixotic nature of its main protagonist, who, for all his bluster, is at heart a good soul. In a film full of fine performances—Mirren and Goode are especially winning—it is Jim Broadbent's fusty performance that anchors the movie even while trying so hard to rock the boat. This is one of those movies that charm "the blue-hairs" but is so winning without pushing the twee factor that one respects it for all the chuckles it induces.

Credit the excellent script—which throws in an added mystery and motivation that adds depth rather than obfuscation—and the direction of Roger Michell, who didn't live long enough to see the film released. Michell's use of split-screen might seem like a concession to 1960's period-style, but it does produce one essential grace note that moves the heart, while also locking in the notion that everyone has their own framing, whether self-induced or imposed, that we reside in, that keeps us at arm's length.

The Goya's "not all that good, is it?"  But The Duke is something of a masterpiece.

"The Duke" makes a cameo.

 

The Iron Lady

I recently was pulled into a "Meryl Streep Draft" where, like sports brackets, the participants picked what they thought would be the best collection of movies featuring Meryl Streep to win the competition. Weird what film enthusiasts do.

If you want to listen to the podcast where they were selected, it is here.

If you want to vote for me, the ballot is here. If I lose, voting machines will be seized.

Curiously, I did not pick The Iron Lady—I don't think any of us did—although it is Streep's usual competent display (and she won an Oscar—that counts for...something).

Written at the time of the film's release.

 

Keeping Up Appearances

or

"Don't Want to Dig Around Too Much, M'. You Don't Know What You Might Find."

The Weinstein's last bid in 2011 to win an audience of Anglophiles seems a trifle desperate and might be a bit too early to give the subject proper justice, like Oliver Stone's Nixon or W.—we're still too close to the Thatcher years to have any sort of perspective, other than a cursory glance at the events that shaped the Conservative years of the '80's. What damage was done, what was gained, is still unknowable, especially given the subsequent Blair years and how British-American relationships changed and coalesced. We get highlights and lowlights, but no illumination, and, instead, we get a look-back, not unlike Nixon's drunken reverie, but this time filtered through Maggie's Alzheimic reflections, with the dementia-figure of her dead husband Denis' presence as a Iago-like devil's advocate (played by Jim Broadbent, in just the way you think he would, a little dotty, but with a puckish edge). Really, both of them deserve a little better, no matter what one thinks of the politics.

But, the Alzheimer's is a good tool if someone wants to do a hatchet-job.  The disease brings the past into crystal clarity (for the afflicted, not for the story-teller), while also undercutting the reliability of the narrator in the present day.  Hardly seems fair, as the two women who wrote and directed The Iron Lady (Abi Morgan and Phyllida Lloyd) do seem sincere about presenting the hurdles that Thatcher had to overcome in her ambition to seek change, achieve office, and, in becoming a political animal, save her party and become PM. The role could have easily gone into caricature, were it not for Thatcher's best supporter in the film, Meryl Streep.

The role ultimately won LaStreep another Oscar (and, say what you will about the "unfairness of it all," she does deserve it—this is an amazing performance) and it contains her hallmark studied approach with the same intricate nuances she brings to every role—the rock-solid accent, the filigreed gestures, the interesting way she fills up the pauses and held-shots with interesting choices that are unexpected, but deeply felt. In the elderly sections, she doesn't quite have the "thousand-yard-stare" I've seen in Alzheimer's patients, but the frailties are there, right down to the quaking-arms-under-pressure and the processing pauses that flash through without making a big deal of them. Streep's always good, good enough that one might take her for granted, but this one's practically a one-woman show and certainly the best thing in a film that's "too little-too soon."

The Avengers (1998)

The Avengers (Jeremiah Chechik, 1998) "Mrs. Peel, we're needed..." and in a much better movie.

I know, not what you expected (this isn't Marvel's The Avengers (created for the comics in 1963, but the British TV series created in 1961), but, then, neither was this movie to me. "The Avengers" were a proven property, a memory (fond) of my youth, especially when it was on American television, during the height of the "Bond craze" of the 1960's. It started out in its early "video" days as a fairly straight-ahead detective procedural with Patrick Macnee as John Steed, who worked with Dr. David Keel (Ian Hendry), then Venus Smith (Julie Stevens), then Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman). The shows became increasingly bolder, cheekier and more in the spy realm, reaching its zenith during the "Emma Peel" years, when Diana Rigg played Steed's partner. By that time, the show was practically a comedy, with odd off-kilter conspiracies, sci-fi and fantasy elements. Most folks tuned in for the repartee, as the plots became fairly disposable; Steed and Emma became the focus of the show, he of the fusty suits and bowler hat, she of the catsuits and judo fights. It was fun, disposable, and a joy to watch.

The movie version gets only one out of the three. After years in development hell with a script by Batman scribe Sam Hamm with Mel Gibson as the proposed lead, the original ideas were scrapped and a new revised attempt was made. The blunders begin by miscasting Ralph Fiennes as Steed and Uma Thurman as Peel. Fiennes fares slightly better, but he plays Steed as withdrawn and a bit docile, whereas the Steed of the series was a proud peacock of an extrovert. Ms. Thurman's Mrs. Peel is everything the series' Rigg wasn't—pale, inexpressive and...American. As if to overcompensate for the lack of joie de vivre in the leads, the movie goes overboard with elements of goofiness in a plot about robotic clones, Teddy bear conspiracists, mechanical bees, and a plot to—dare I say it?—rule the world...by controlling...the weather?

Sean Connery had been saying for years that he'd wanted to play a Bond villain, but knew those producers would never go for it—or pay the salary he wanted. This is the movie where he gets to, and his August DeWynter, is played hammily and with much brio. He gets the best lines and looks like he's having fun(certainly more than the audience). Fiennes looks miserable most of the time, and Thurman is mostly unreadable. There's also an interesting supporting cast, largely wasted, featuring Jim Broadbent, Fiona Shaw, John Wood, Eddie Izzard, Eileen Atkins, and a cameo by MacNee...who plays a character who's invisible. He's the lucky one in the cast.

The script—by Don McPherson—is a mess, and Jeremiah Chechik (who made National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Benny & Joon) tries to bring some style to it at the sacrifice of pace and, after the film was slashed from two hours to 90 minutes following a disastrous preview, a certain level of coherence.  It's one of the few movies where I walked out with a feeling of contempt for the whole rotten show.

"No, really, have you read this script?"
MacNee and Rigg as "The Avengers"

Against the Wind: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I was cleaning up some dead links on the blog and doing some random editing and corrections, when I noticed there were a couple of things that never made their way onto this blog, even though I mentioned them in some posts). That irritated me, probably more than the casual accidental blog-tourist who might have discovered nothing there. So, in that spirit, some corrections...and a new (semi-)feature, where I'm in a different frame of mind than the Wisdom of the Tribe. The Tribe isn't going to change it's opinion (too many of you--it'd be like herding cats), but, I'm not changing my mind, either. So, I make a case for it, and leave it to settle on its own. I'll post these on Saturday's (which is usually "Take Out the Trash" day here) under the collective title "Against the Wind."

Making Mountains Out of Mole-Hills

I've heard this film being called "critic-proof", and I'm not even sure what that means, but it implies that whatever the reviews say, people are still going to line up to see it, as if it's a critic's job to discourage people from going to see something they want to see, like it's part of the job description to trash something on your "Must-See List." And that if something truly acidic and toxic is written about it (and a Big Tall Wish is made) nobody'll see it (And they call this movie unrealistic!) Even Ford, Lucas and Spielberg were all talking (before the film's premiere at Cannes) that it was going to get savaged, and, since these guys are pros who know their stuff, it has been in some circles, mostly by mouth-breathing fan sites where "sux" dominates the descriptors.

So, despite the lowering of the bar of expectations by the film-makers, does it suck?

No. No, it doesn't.

In fact, I have to say I haven't been this delighted with a film in a long time. I will even go so far as to say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fulfills the promises made by the very fine, original Raiders of the Lost Ark, something that its two sequels, however enjoyable they are in parts and particulars, never did.***

Before we go further, let us go back and recap what happened in the previous chapters...

This series (like I shouldn't have to tell you) is based on pulp serials in the B-movie tradition--episodic, cheesy, toying with History and making it up as it goes along. This one, being set in the late 50's, has to have more of a sci-fi bent than the religious-themed stories of the past set in the 30's and the 40's. It is, after all, the first adventure we've seen of Indiana Jones in a post-nuclear world. Think on that for a moment. Crystal Skull fits the period, at least cinematically, however much it messes with folks' expectations of what the film "should be" about (and let's face it, the biggest obstacle Lucas' films have are people's expectations for the "next" installment, and whether it compares to the film they already have in their head—in that case, you can't compete with what they have in mind*). Indiana Jones' timeline has finally caught up with the memories of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

The filmmakers can't escape the fact that it's been 19 years since the last installment (and they've set it nearly twenty since the events of Last Crusade), and Harrison Ford's appearance is the nearly-constant reminder of it--he's broader, shlumpfier, more doughy in the face. But something magical happens a couple times in the film (once at a malt shop, once at a Mayan burial ground). Whether it's some CGI-gauze trick, or Ford's sense-memory playing the character kicking in, but once the dialogue turns to ancient civilizations and archaeology, the lines seem to disappear from Ford's face, and he slots back into the old/ young Indiana Jones the same way the camera "slotted" into the Bogart-drinking-his-sorrows Casablanca-shot in Raiders after Jones has seen Marion supposedly killed in a truck explosion. It's eerie, but like the occasional forays into the transcendent in the series, it's a good kind of eerie.

We've mentioned Marion, and, as the posters tell you, Marion Williams nee Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is back, and she's terrific--a breath of fresh air after Kate Capshaw's and Allison Doody's ingenues (the one too high-pitched, and the other tamped-down into irrelevance). The years have treated her far better than Ford, and she still has that incandescent smile and has been given a lot of "Dr. Jones-take-down" dialogue that suddenly snaps Ford's performance into a higher level of energy. Allen has remained well-versed in what Spielberg informed her during the first film was the "Sam Peckinpah School of Acting," something that Cate Blanchett is equally fine at--she's looser and more fun than she's been in years, and just the sight of her Commie commandant standing in a careening jeep during a bumper-cars jeep chase through the Amazon jungle is one of those things you think you'll never see.

So, Shia LaBoeuf. Is he "Short-Round"-irritating, or made too much a thing of? Neither, though he has a prominent role throughout. For some reason, whether it's the magnitude of the project, or Spielberg directing, LaBoeuf's not as energetic or inventive as he's been--maybe we should call his character "Short-Leash"--but, he's a good foil for Ford and their interaction, especially in one pause in a motorcycle chase deliberately recalls the Ford-Sean Connery relationship in Last Crusade.** One is never sure if he'll be pulling out a comb or a switch-blade when he reaches into his motorcycle jacket (his aping of Marlon Brando's gear in The Wild One is a clever 50's variation of Indy's gear), and there is a great visual joke when he confronts an Amazonian resident with the same hair-cut.

As for director Spielberg, he reportedly re-studied his earlier "Indy" films to recall the way "kid-Spielberg" shot films and there are plenty of his early "headlights-into-the-camera" adrenaline shots (and even one of his Sugarland Express pans), but the takes are a bit longer-held, he's not quite so anxious to cut away, and his cinematographer Janusz Kaminski brings a new visual beauty that supplants the grit-in-the-lens of the earlier films. The elder Spielberg is also incessantly filling the film with visual ironies--grace-notes--that the younger Spielberg would save for a separate shot. There's an awful lot of stuff going on under the surface of the fire-fights, the explosions--some big ones--that betray the more mature film-maker, and man, Spielberg has become. And unlike the last two, which were short on background, and long on chase sequences, this film is over-stuffed with references, languages and the accustomed meta-recall of the past films.*** 

Not to say there isn't a lot of action. There is. That Amazon-chase between the particulars (the film is structured like a race--like Raiders and Last Crusade--with the good-guys and bad-guys all after the same thing and never too-far away from each other) is an invigorating combination of possibilities like a puzzle with every combination of inhabitant in vehicle and opponent in combat possible. It's dizzily constructed. And just when you start to think, "Wait a minute, where's..." your questions are answered.

A lot of the action is outlandish, but, surprise! It always has been. How can you complain about verisimilitude when you've had melting Nazi's from the vampire-angels and God's death-ray of the Ark of the Covenant, or Thuggee priests pulling out sacrificial victim's flaming hearts, and how some victims in a lava pit burn, but the heroine-in-diaphenous pants doesn't, or 700-year old Knights Templar still guarding the Holy Grail. Get real, people. Because the movies aren't. Like Indy in The Last Crusade film-goers have to make a leap of faith, and it needs to be done with an open heart. Or at least an uncynical one. Or one open to the possibility of enjoying oneself.****

Okay now, go out there and have fun.

Wilhelm Alert: the book-carrying nerd in the library during the motorcycle chase.

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* Somewhere along the way I've talked about "Mom's Apple Pie Syndrome"--where our memory of a cherished movie runs counter to the actual quality of the work, ie. "Nothing tastes as good as mom's apple pie," but only because that was your first run-in with the concept, and your impression of what "good" apple pie should be like may include a runny interior and scorched crust (I was blessed with a mother--God love her--who was a lousy cook, so I tend to be immune). So, too, the cherished movies of your youth may actually be crap, though we may delude ourselves otherwise, with our 'gee-whiz" innocent first impressions. The phenomenon became real for a few incredulously chagrined "Man from U.N.C.L.E." fans who, seeing the series for the first time in years on DVD last year, endearingly wondered why MGM chose to run the shows through a "crap filter" making the sets look like back-lot sound-stages with cheap "foreign" localization, lousy effects, obvious writing and some horrible performances. Ah, deluded youth. Nothing is so sweet as a young man's fancy for a film of their childhood. And nothing is so rancid as the bitterness that follows a fan-boy's crush.

But it's not the film's fault. Ever. Beauty is in the mind of the beholder.

** And if you haven't figured our the "Indiana" Jones-"Mutt" Williams relationship yet, what can I say? You're either a) five years old, b) this is your first movie or c) "denial ain't just a river in Egypt, honey." Look at their names, kids, and remember where Dr. Henry Jones, jr. came up with the name "Indiana." These films are all about clues.

*** Sometime, when Summer is over and there are no more surprises, I'm going to do a big-old analysis of this movie and why it is the natural sequel to Raiders. (Hint: It involves the clockwork-intricacies of ancient civilizations as well as the conflicts when a Man of Science is confronted with the "hard rain" of spiritual mythology) It's roots go pretty deep--which is refreshing after the previous two--and bear a full airing of the secrets buried within it. To do so now would give away far too much and contain too many spoilers of large and small varieties.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

**** Do I have ANY complaints? Yes, the frankly extraneous character of "Mac" McHale played by Ray Winstone. McHale is designed as an untrustworthy character, but he is so untrustworthy that one wonders why he's not just shot by either party at any time during the proceedings. He's so greedy he's a bit reminiscent of Daffy Duck in a hall of treasures: "Mine, Mine, Mine!" The character is such an unnecessary plot contrivance that he might have earned the name "Aringarosa" if the name hadn't already been taken.

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"Indiana Jones and the Terrible Age of Wonders"

Last year's fourth entry in the "Indiana Jones" saga was met with derision while it raided a diamond mine at the box-office (making it to the top of many lists of 2009's more successful films—including a conservative publication that used its Commie villains to claim that it heralded a surge by the public to right-minded films, despite the fact that the rest of the films mentioned on the list flopped...and flopped badly; Indy 4 alone raised all boats). There were complaints that it wasn't as good as the first three (a clear case of "Mom's Apple Pie" syndrome* among the fandom in fedoras—I felt it wasn't as good as the first one, but that's it): there was too much "Mutt" (Shia LaBeouf) and CGI, the familial complications too obvious, some characterizations a bit spurious,** and that it "nuked the 'fridge"—which briefly supplanted "jumped the shark" for hitting a false note in the national media (they always chortle when the fan-base eats its own) before they went back to not reporting the news. 

That last one stuck in my craw; it showed that the fan-base didn't "get" what the movies are—a post-modern, hi-tech take on the past and the low-ditch movies' past, in particular. It didn't have to adhere to "reality"—it never did. Look at Raiders of the Lost Ark, admittedly the best of the bunch—a 30's film filled with flying flap-jacks, Nazi's (Nazi's everywhere, even melting ones), Hitler myths, and tales of apocalyptic power. Nobody questioned "who" would put the rolling rock back after it crushes an intruder. Nobody asked why a tomb unopened after centuries would still have live snakes in it. One or two might have asked how Indy rode the back of a sub all the way to Nazi Island (It didn't submerge? At all? Then, why'd they take a SUB?!). Nobody questioned the ark.  It didn't have anything to do with reality, but rather with a mythic age of B-movies and wishful thinking that never existed, a cross-roads ("'X' marks the spot") between gritty, slithering reality and far-fetched fantasy, and the other films in the first trilogy followed that same map of fictional territory. 

But not as well.  Where the other two films, The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade, failed to engage me were their wholesale abandonment of the what made the first film a Boy's Adventureland, and became a series of drawn-out chases, and half-hearted attempts at Mythos. The Temple of Doom—a favorite among some film-critics, as it challenged Indy's hero-concepts and went to darker psychological places than mere musty caves—bugged me not so much for its inaccuracies (the long fall from a plane on a life-raft, the ripping out of a sacrificial victim's flaming beating heart to the SV's—and the audience's—disbelief), but it's insistence to present a Disneyland-like "mine-shaft ride" that looked for all the world that it was populated by puppetoons. Then, there's the small detail of it being a prequel in which Jones "learns" that there's more to his mythic quests than robbing graves for fun and profit—which is intrinsic to the character, and is part of the make-up of the somewhat less-than-honorable "Indiana" Jones we first meet in the chronologically later Raiders. That lesson must not have "stuck."

But, what they do have in common—what they all do—is slap the stubbornly reality-based Jones into a sense of wonder: Raiders... confronts "Indy" with a full-on-Wrathful presentation of something that he dismissed with a casual "if you believe that sort of thing."  ...The Last Crusade makes him take a literal "leap of faith" to save both his life and his father's, and also smashes his long-held preconceptions about his Dad. "...Temple of Doom" has that previously mentioned quick-dissolving lesson of the Sankara stones and re-defines what "Fortune and Glory" can be to the doctor. "Indiana" Jones is a teacher, but in his movies, he must learn things. His character must start with a cherished "truism" and he must learn that although he may have all the answers, there are more questions that he hasn't even considered.  At one point in ...The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, "Mutt" asks "Indiana:" "You're a teacher?"  And Spielberg weights the reply down, as it's an important one: "Part-time."

The rest of the time, he's a student himself, still learning.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Dean Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent), says to Dr. Henry Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford): "We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away." They have both aged, lost colleagues and parents, and their jobs are on the line. And "Indy" has just ridden the crest of a nuclear shock-wave in the Nevada desert, where he has seen two amazing things, off and on the Earth: the corpse of an ancient astronaut, and the limit of Man's power in the form of the mushroom cloud of a hydrogen bomb. This is the extent of our knowledge on Earth and it is a fearsome one, one that could mean our destruction at the hands of our abilities and our arrogance to use it. Behold the power of knowledge and fear.

This is the first of two images (that Spielberg deliberately composed) of "Indiana" Jones in rapt observation of an unfathomable thing that buttress Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In both, he is dwarfed by the event, small and helpless—all he can do is watch. In the first, he is witness to the extent of Man's knowledge.  In the second, as he watches the launch of an alien race's*** craft to inter-dimensionally travel "the spaces between spaces," something far beyond his ken and catechism. The one represents all that we know, and the other opens up another Chamber of Secrets. "Indiana" Jones can travel the four corners of the Earth, and there is still so much more territory to explore, and, indeed, more than he can know for certain. 

The personal myth that Jones must resolve is that of age and the taking away (the bomb) and the giving (the new experience). For the loner Jones, that includes new worlds to conquer...and that is celebrated here...but he also, like The Outlaw Josey Wales, finds himself, in this one, acquiring a family he didn't know he had and never wanted, flying in the face of Stanforth's gloomy assessment of their lives as being "one foot in the grave" (like "Indy" hasn't been there before). In this terrible age of wonders, there is always more to learn...more "treasure," translated by the Incas to "knowledge" and prized more than gold. Life, no matter how old we get, never stops giving.  

Not if we're observant, anyway.

For me, ...The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull represented the best, most true, antecedent to the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, fully embracing the era it is set (the 50's) and the B-movie concepts being put out at the time, and it is the strongest presentation of the concept of the "learning teacher" since Raiders...  ...The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull represented, to me, the true sequel, while the others were just regurgitating concepts. This one, like Raiders, raised the stakes.

MY only disappointment with it was, that if it's set in a 50's B-movie world, where's the giant scorpion that the hydrogen bomb creates—there were all sorts of "nukular monsters" in the films of the time, their own metaphors of the costly nature of Knowledge. But Lucas and Spielberg's intentions were to turn that metaphor inside out. Knowledge isn't destructive. It inspires creation. And new worlds to explore.

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There is talk (and only talk) of a fifth Indiana Jones movie, and while it has moved some to despair, for me it has given me fits of giggling anticipation. Imagine Indiana Jones in the B-movie drive-in 60's, with the good doctor investigating SDS students planning a lysergic acid dump in a city reservoir, while a Beatle-browed Mutt has joined a Hell's Angels sect that practices Trascendental Meditation, and only an exploration of "The Silver Chord" can save Indy from the Ultimate Bad Trip. Meantime, there are rocket-packs, video-phones, IBM computer-rooms, and ESP experts, all figments of a 1960's that briefly sparked the imaginations of the time, but never seemed to catch on. We were too busy going to the Moon, at the time.

I think it would be groovy, man.

Call it "Indiana Jones and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

* "Mom's Apple Pie" syndrome is the one where fan-boys says that the movies they liked as kids were better than anything that had come before or since (like "Mom's Apple Pie"), a clear indication that they have a narrow focus and experience.  The corrollary is that expressed when a film-maker changes a movie for whatever reason and the fan can't come to grips with it—"They raped my childhood!"—a despicable sexually ignorant comment that indicates the person hasn't known anyone who has been (or might have been) raped or attacked.

** Admittedly so, with the characters of  "Mac" (Ray Winstone) and Oxley (John Hurt)—the latter a last-minute re-write when a "retired" Sean Connery decided not to reprise his role as Indy's father. He probably decided there weren't any golf courses near filming, or his dismal experience filming The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in Prague left such a mark it didn't compensate for his affection for Spielberg, Lucas and Ford.

*** Here's another instance of last-minute tinkering.  Lucas wanted aliens, and Spielberg with three E.T. movies under his belt didn't want to go there.  So, the ancient astronauts became "inter-dimensional" beings, rather than space-aliens.  It actually works better that way.  Aliens = space.  We know all about space.  But, other dimensions?  That's a concept that expands the mind and the territory we inhabit.  "There are more things in Heaven and Earth..."  And even, in between.