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Enjoy the list - What are your favorite movies from the last 10 years?

A few weeks ago, I saw Frost/Nixon. I was excited for this movie, as I always love good political dramas, the acting was getting great reviews and it was about a period in history I wasn't that familiar with but seemed riveting. And as I left the theater I felt...disappointed. Not because it was a bad movie--it was not--but because it could and should have been so much better. As Oscar season approaches, Frost/Nixon had made many Top 10 lists and seems a lock for numerous Oscar nominations. Now, if Frost/Nixon gets nominated for Best Picture and/or Best Director over The Dark Knight and Christopher Nolan, there's something seriously wrong with the industry. Frost/Nixon never becomes as good as it should be, whereas The Dark Knight lived up to the massive hype and then some, becoming one of the most exciting, if not provocative movies of the year (if not decade). The Oscars have always had it in a bit for the unabashed blockbuster. Even when films like Gladiator and Braveheart won (both of which I loved) there was an excuse of them being historical dramas, blood-stained period pieces. 

This is not to pick on Frost/Nixon, which is still one of the better movies of the year, but to say that if this movie, which was not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, gets an Oscar nod over The Dark Knight (which, in my opinion, was), it's simple bias towards comic book films and money. Here are my thoughts on Frost/Nixon (SPOILERS ABOUND):

--The directing was workmanlike at best. There was never a sense of Ron Howard making his material better, rather it was simple point and shoot. There is intrigue and passion, but it comes from the performances and the real life historical drama. Compare any scene in Frost/Nixon to the armored car chase in TDK (for my money, one of the top 5 action scenes ever), the bank robbery, the Joker's escape from prison, the Joker's home movies...TDK is just filled with scenes where Christopher Nolan makes what could have been a routine action movie come alive. The five seconds after his escape when the Joker is leaning out of the cop car, lights flashing in the distance, chilled me more than any of the verbal fireworks in F/N.

--Frost/Nixon is filled with fight analogies. As David Frost prepares for his final interviews, the dialogue practically sounds like it comes from Rocky. But here's the problem: Frost never seems to give a damn. Sure at the end he seems to care, and spends all of one night cramming, but in the weeks and months leading up to the interviews it's all about ratings, all about money. You don't care as much if Frost gets Nixon to admit his guilt, because for Frost it feels like the interview itself is the victory. And once Nixon does (sort of) own up, the movie basically ends. There's no sense of how the moment affected history, and Frost doesn't really relish the victory. Other than a brief epilogue, there's no closure, and you get the feeling that it didn't really change all that much. Do you think Rocky would have been nearly as dramatic if the Italian Stallion fought Apollo Creed just for the payday? Instead Frost comes off like a student who stayed up all night studying for a class he slept through the whole semester, and miraculously got a B+. 

--I'm a big fan of Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt, but they're just out of place in this movie. They come off as too silly, undercutting the seriousness of the film's tone and setting and its impact on history. Rockwell is supposed to have a dramatic role, but I just never bought him in it. Platt is funny as always, but one thing this movie did not need was comic relief. Trade Rockwell for, say Mark Ruffalo, and I think the role would have been better suited.

--The acting, especially between the two leads, is terrific. Though I actually felt Michael Sheen did a more convincing job with Frost than Langella with Nixon. Yes the accent and mannerisms are great, but I never felt like I was watching Richard M. Nixon, I felt I was watching Frank Langella's impersonation of Nixon. Still, Hollywood seems to love good impersonations, and Langella will undoubtedly get an Oscar nod.

In the end, Frost/Nixon is a good movie, not a great one, yet it looks to become one of the most decorated only for the reasons that it seems like it should be. Yet two of the most commercial films of the year--Wall-E and The Dark Knight--were also two of the best, easily, and far better that F/N. Yet it seems F/N will get more Oscar nods simply because it has the pedigree to. It is less than the sum of its parts, and the only reason I've thought about it sense seeing it was because I'm depressed at the seeming inevitability of the awards it will reap. If Hollywood wants to reward true creative genius, it should do so regardless of whether or not its characters wear a costume and face paint. Passion and emotion are so difficult to provoke in a film, and the two films I was most passionate about were a film where the lead character wears a cape, and an animated film about a little hunk of junk who barely speaks. But ask me what movies I'll be talking about in 10 years, and I'll show you my well-worn Wall-E and The Dark Knight DVDs.

Saw "The Wrestler" this weekend with my dad. Terrific movie, the kind that sits in the pit of your stomach once it end and keeps you thinking about it. Plus I've listened to that Bruce Springsteen song about 150,000 times the past two days (Bruce wrote the title track specifically for the film, and if he loses the "Best Original Song" Oscar to Randy Newman or something silly I might set fire to the Academy). Anyway, a few thoughts:

SPOILERS ABOUND. REPEAT: SPOILERS. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.

--Just a wonderful, sad, lived-in performance by Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, the kind of performance that's so convincing it doesn't feel like he's acting. And as a washed up 80's has-been trying to make a comeback playing a washed-up 80's has been trying to make a comeback, maybe he isn't. After The Ram's speech before the final match, about his missed opportunities and wasted life, my dad said, "That speech sounded like it could have been about Mickey Rourke." 

--The performances other than Rourke--Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood--feel authentic because there's no extraneous dialogue, no needless exposition. These characters have lived their lives and don't need to explain anything. Even though Evan Rachel Wood (as Rourke's alienated daughter) spends relatively little time with him, the anguish in her eyes, even more wrenching in their final scene together lets you know just what a kind of father Rourke's Randy was. And Tomei's Cassidey--like Rourke's Robinson--does what she does simply because she doesn't know anything else. 

--As someone who became a bit of a wrestling fan late in life (I was a pretty ardent follower from about 2001 until the awful Chris Benoit double murder/suicide last year), I was impressed with how authentic the wrestling scenes were. From the crowd chants to the moves to the weapons, this was an authentic a "sport" movie as I've ever seen. Nice to know Darren Aronofsky went the extra mile to get the details right.

--Definitely a tough movie to watch at times, both physically and emotionally. The violence in some of the matches is hard to bear, even more so knowing that these guys put their bodies through this in real life. Wrestlers do cut their foreheads with razor blades to draw blood. They do end some matches with dozens of thumbtacks sticking out of their bodies. They are mangled by barbed wire and they do fall off of ladders through tables. As hard as those scenes are to watch, the emotional ones are just as difficult. Deep down we seem to know that Randy "The Ram" will never redeem himself, so in some way we feel like his daughter when he comes to her in the middle of the night. We're sad, we might shed tears for him, but we've also moved on. This is the man he is, and thinking he could be anything different would be lying to him and to ourselves.

--The ending is staged beautifully, and as it sinks in as to what Randy is planning to do we watch not in horror, but with some sense of relief, because it feels like things are going to end the way they should.

I could write endlessly about wrestling and how authentically this movie deals with the sad reality of broken down wrestlers who end up penniless, incapacitated and alienated from society, but instead I'll direct you to this terrific piece by ESPN's Bill Simmons. Chris Benoit was legitimately my favorite wrestler while I followed the 'sport', and it hit me pretty hard when news broke of his death. Since then I have not been able to look at wrestling the same way, and though the WWE (basically the only mainstream wrestling organization) has instituted more stringent drug testing, the list of wrestlers who die before their time grows every year. 

While "The Wrestler" is a harrowing portrait of what happens when the only thing you're good at in your life is taken away from you, it is also a frighteningly realistic portrait of what the cameras don't show. These men, once blessed with seven figure incomes, bodies like Greek Gods and hordes of admiring (and often lustful) fans, are often reduced to taking Polaroids for $8 a pop, scars covering their bodies that have been ravaged from far too many painkillers, enhancers, and injuries that the adrenaline masks until it's too late. This movie shows what happens once the fireworks die down, what happens once the curtains close behind you for the final time. For many of these men (and some women), once the applause dies down, silence is the only crowd that waits.

Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up. To celebrate Halloween, here are a few clips from the greatest and most quotable horror series of all time: Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" trilogy. Will there ever be a fourth Evil Dead, now that Raimi has made a bajillion dollars directing the Spider-Man films? We can only hope. But whatever happens just remember...good, bad...I'm the guy with the gun.

I was excited for this movie. I even wrote a post about it. And now after seeing it this afternoon, I have to say that I'm really disappointed. Not because the movie is terrible. It is not a good movie, but nor is it terrible. I'm disappointed because it should have been good. Many of the elements of a good movie are there, but they're all jumbled about and mismatched and in the end the whole is nowhere near the sum of its parts.

Max Payne is a terrific video game. Not just for the gameplay itself, but for the story, the atmosphere, the noir, the feeling that Max Payne is carrying the burdens of hell on his shoulders. I still believe Sam Lake, who wrote the game (and whom the original Max was modeled on), could write a flat out awesome novel (hint hint, editors). Part of the problem with the movie has been pointed out by the designers, in that we don't know the full scope of Max's past until halfway through the film. Interestingly, that's when the movie hits its stride. In the game, part of what keeps the pace is that Max is wanted for murder, on the run from cops who believe he killed one of their own, while at the same time unraveling the mystery of who killed his family. Max is burning the candle from both ends. In the first half of the movie he's an outcast, more a nuisance that vigilante. The first half is a C-/D+. The second half is a solid B/B+ (terribly anticlimactic ending notwithstanding). As a whole I give it a C, but the kind of C where I'm even more disappointed because it has so many ingredients to be a really good action/noir movie.

The first half of the movie is grim. Not just grim, but dull. It's a police procedural without the snap, Sin City without the wit. The cinematography is terrific throughout, but there's only so much sluggish dialogue we take take through neat shots of snow and rain. In the game, Max Payne is a tormented soul, a man on a suicide mission from the very beginning. In the movie, Max is more glum and depressed than tormented. He frowns his way through the opening scenes. When cops tell the new guy to stay away from Max Payne, we assume it's simply because he's not a very good conversationalist. It's only halfway through--when we see what happened to Max's family and he sets out to get revenge--that the movie develops a pulse.

The performances are a shame. Wahlberg is fine, but he needed more Dignam. Max should be a coiled snake, ready to strike at any moment. The other actors are fine in their roles, but are not given much. In the game, Mona Sax is mysterious, dangerous, elusive. In the movie she's merely ornery (though the scene where she confronts Max with a baton is pretty good). Beau Bridges brings some needed gravity to his scenes, but loses all momentum with a needless plot twist. Ludacris (brilliant in "Crash") is wasted as the kind of generic cop Harvey Keitel has been playing for the last ten years who walks around saying things like, "Who authorized this?" And club Ragnarok--pulsing with satanic menace in the game-- is simply a generic drug warehouse. And while I actually did like how they gave Jack Lupino more of a background that makes sense within the film and game mythology, the big fight was a big letdown. The movie ends quite abruptly, with half a dozen or more loose ends that simply were not tied up. Not in the "get ready for the sequel" sense, but more, "we wanted this to clock in at under an hour and forty minutes and just didn't have time" sense.

In the second half, when Max invades Ragnarok and Aesir, it livens up considerably. There's some great camerawork (the scene with Max and the sniper is really cool), and when Max finally goes gung ho and just wreaks havoc in Aesir we finally get a sense of what the entire game was like. That's what "Max Payne" should have been. Max should be tortured, relentless, merciless, soulful. It's a weird comparison, but it should have had more "Gladiator" in it. The movie does have this in drips and drabs, and that's why this C is that much more disappointing.

A few random comments (Spoiler Alert):

--The ending of the game is terrific, and would have fit here perfectly. For whatever reason they scratched it. 

--If Lena Horne isn't going to matter at the end, why introduce her in the first place? They should have either let Max go after her, or kept B.B. as the main villain.

--What the hell happened to Mona? At least in the game there's a sense of mystery (is she alive or dead?). Once the elevator door closes in the film, it just seems like they forgot about her.

--I did think they did a pretty good job keeping the fight scenes relatively realistic. No fancy wire stunts, and the bad guys do shoot straight. I liked that Max took some major damage, and the "Not Yet" moments with his wife were surprisingly effective.

--Why was the best line from the trailer "When a man loses the people he cares about the most..." not in the movie?

--Why cast Marlo from "The Wire" (Jamie Hector) as a bad guy and give him nothing to do?

--Where has Chris O'Donnell been? (actually he was one of the most effective characters)

--I understand they couldn't get all the secondary characters from the game into the movie, so I'm glad they added a few nice touches for fans (i.e. Gognitti's self-storage).

--Did Max really not notice the Valkyrie wings until he saw the letterhead? They were on the wall in the Aesir building, I mean, he's not blind...

--The end of the game works so well because Max has spent the entire game in slums and creaky mansions, so when he makes his assault on the soulless steel Aesir building it really does feel like a different world. Yet in the movie he spends two or three scenes in Aesir before the final showdown. Just a bit anticlimactic, and I would have loved to see that helicopter come down in a fiery bal, Max standing at the edge looking at the wreckage, knowing it was all over. Maybe they ran out of movie, but that would have been a killer scene.

So I was thinking about "The Dark Knight," and firmly believe that Heath Ledger's Joker is one of the greatest movie villains of all time. So I was wondering who people think are the greatest movie villains ever. Here are a few of my picks:

Who do you think are the greatest movie villains ever?

Ok, this movie looks better than it has any right to. Not that the source material isn't there, but let's just say that the track record of adapting video games into movies isn't exactly stellar (Super Mario Bros., Doom, Double Dragon, anything directed by Uwe Boll). But this looks like it could be different. 

If you were going to adapt a game into a movie, there isn't a better one than Max Payne. The game itself is brilliant, but the story is what made the game work. It's literally video game noir, dark, intense and disturbed. What set it apart was the use of graphic novel panels and the lead character's voice over to further the story line. You'll need help counting all the references to film and pulp noir. And the story line itself? A broken cop, whose wife and daughter were brutally murdered, turns vigilante to seek vengeance on those responsible. Fairly cut and dry, but in the game Max is an incredibly sympathetic character whose rage has his psychosis at a pitch that rivals his victims. 

The visuals have two levels: bleak and bleaker. So what this trailer does, aside from provide action that looks pretty cool, is give you a hint of the despair Max feels. He has more in common with the original Batman/Bruce Wayne than your typical detective or cop. And between Max Payne, Metal Gear and Resident Evil, video gaming went from something children did to pass the time to a wholly interactive experience with storylines as gripping as many films (and some novels).

Mark Wahlberg is great when he has roles that are a mixture of internal sadness and external rage or pure id (Boogie Nights, The Departed) and Mila Kunis seems perfectly cast as Mona, the mysterious woman who helps (or does she?) Max track down and eliminate his enemies. The supporting cast is solid too: Ludacris (who was robbed of an oscar nom for "Crash"), Beau Bridges, Donal Logue, Chris (does Christopher Nolan have my phone number?) O'Donnell and Jamie Hector (Marlo from "The Wire). Plus that Marilyn Manson song ("If I was Your Vampire") fits perfectly. Anyway, here we go:

And one of the game's terrific cut scenes:

Like many across the country, I stayed up until the wee hours last night to see one of the very first showings of "The Dark Knight." My friends and I arrived at the theater a little before 11:00 for the 12:30 show. The theater was packed, many in full-on Joker garb. (there was one Two-Face, oddly no Batmen)

So how was the movie? In one word...wow.

This was an epic film on every level, taking the seeds planted in "Batman Begins" and expanding and improving on every possible level. The performances are better. The fight scenes and effects are better. The story is better. I literally felt giddy the entire two and a half hours we sat in that theater, leaving thinking the film could have easily gone on another half hour. 

"The Dark Knight" presents a superhero movie that exists within our own world. Batman has limits, and it is established early on that being Batman is taking its toll on Bruce Wayne. The stunts he performs are only possible with the help of technology. Like in the comics, Batman is merely an ordinary man wearing a cape. He cannot swing across webs, he cannot absorb knives and gunfire without being wounded, he cannot leap from tall building and make miraculous landings without a scratch. This creates a tension not present in, really, any superhero movie, since one wrong step and Bruce Wayne/Batman is done for. 

So let's run down what was great about this movie:

--Christian Bale owns this role, and is really the anchor of this movie. His Bruce Wayne is conflicted, weary, yet resourceful and persistent. Batman also begins to use his actual detective skills, complementing his brawn with brains. But more importantly, we know immediately that unlike other superheroes, Bruce Wayne is the character's alter-ego. The man's true self only emerges when donning the cowl.

--The story is as much a multi-layered crime drama as a superhero story. And it works, beautifully.

--The script is much, much tighter. It is "The Departed" in Gotham City. No less tense, often more thrilling, and much, much scarier.

--The supporting characters matter. Everyone has their piece in this puzzle, and every character plays a part in developing the story. Gary Oldman and Michael Caine have more to do. Even Eric Roberts (it wasn't so long ago he was eaten by cannibals on an episode of South Park) does a terrific job as Salvatore Moroni, heir to the vacated mafia throne.

--Maggie Gyllenhaal is light years better than Katie Holmes. Her Rachel Dawes is not merely a message from the casting director ("Make her cute but tough"), Gyllenhaal makes Rachel a real person we care about.

--I've always been unsure of Aaron Eckhart. He seems to me like an actor who's not gifted with enormous talent, but he's someone who feels like he's always giving a role his absolute all. Unlike many with similar gifts, Eckhart is more an actor than celebrity. This is a big compliment. As Harvey Dent, Eckhart gives the performance of his career, portraying Dent as a man who knows he's Gotham's potential savior, and isn't sure whether to embrace it, loathe it, or just go along for the ride. And what happens to the character (come on, you know) is all the more tragic because of what he represents.

--The characters in this movie act like us. They are as surprised by a man in clown makeup or a man in a batsuit as we would be. This is not a world in which supervillains are treated like common menaces (you could almost hear the citizens in Spider-Man 3 going, "Oh look, another radioactive mutant is here to wreak havoc.") When the Joker first enters a room, the reaction is exactly as ours would be: "Who the hell is this skinny freak wearing pancake makeup? Let's kick his ass!" (of course they soon learn)

--Christopher Nolan has improved as a director by leaps and bounds, and he was already damn good to start. The action is crisper (no more battle scenes that feel like you're watching the Tasmanian Devil fight from inside the whirlwind), the acting scenes more on the money, the emotion and stakes much, much higher. There are at least four or five scenes in this movie that gave me chills, and surprisingly only about half of them were action. This movie is firing on all cylinders, both on the superhero and human levels.

--The Joker. Ah, The Joker. Walking out of this movie makes Heath Ledger's death even more tragic, because he's truly created one of the iconic characters in film history. Ledger's Joker is completely sadistic, masochistic, unpredictable, hilarious, and brutal. When he dares Batman to kill him, they aren't just words; he's really daring Batman to kill him. He is an agent of chaos in every way, and that he exists on the other side of a very thin line from Batman makes his existence all the more poignant. He literally terrorizes this film like nothing I've seen. Every time we think the Joker is finally cornered, he shows just how ahead of the game he is and how he's been playing us for fools all along. He turns mayhem into poetry. The Joker would not exist without Batman (you almost get the feeling that he was waiting in the shadows for for Batman to appear, as the caped crusader gives his life meaning). Ledger gives a performance that works, like Johnny Depp's in the "Pirates of the Caribbean," because it's all about nuance. The way his body moves, the inflections of his voice, eye ticks and quirks. It's all in the little things, how he can go from amusement to rage in less time than it takes for him to grab a pencil and...you'll have to see the movie. If Javier Bardem can win an Oscar for a relatively one-note performance as a bad guy, Ledger's Joker should be given his own wing. Mainly so he could then melt the statue and laugh while the the wing burns down.

"The Dark Knight" is easily one of the two best films of the year so far, and if some washed-out, self-important period drama gets nominated over this film it'll just reinforce how out of touch Hollywood is. I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to take such a massive canvas with so many working pieces, and have them all work in total precision. Two of the five Best Picture nominees have already been released: "The Dark Knight" and "Wall-E." If you see them back to back you might explode (like hot metal being exposed to freezing cold), but you'll also see the best popular entertainment produced in the last decade.

When I go to the gym or go for a jog, I tend to listen to loud, angry music. Metallica, Motorhead, Nine Inch Nails. Songs that get my blood pumping, give me an extra charge. Last weekend, I saw Wall-E, the new Pixar movie. I've loved every Pixar film, and was excited for this new one despite knowing little about it. I saw it with my wife and my sister, and as my sister said before the film started she really didn't know much about it. The previews didn't say much. All we knew was that it was about a lonely little robot who has an adventure in space. But since it was Pixar, I didn't need to be convinced.

The morning after I saw "Wall-E," I went for a jog. Yet when I went through my iPod to my playlist, I realized I couldn't listen to any of the angry songs that typically played over my workouts. Not that day. All the anger and negative emotion was gone. Wall-E, this simple movie starring this simple little robot, was one of the most touching, emotional, and wondrous pieces of art I've ever experienced. I couldn't listen to angry music that day. 

If you have not seen the movie, please do yourself a favor and skip all the Hollywood smash-n-bash films this holiday weekend and go see it. Actually, this summer has been pretty good for action. "Iron Man" was fantastic. "Hulk" was better than I expected. And "The Dark Knight" is being called the "Godfather Part 2" of comic book films. But "Wall-E" transcends film. I left the theater feeling overwhelmed. The lump that rose in my throat during the end scene has not left in nearly a week. I bought little posable action figures of Wall-E and his love and savior, Eve. I have not bought a toy in almost twenty years.

It is a film that manages to be topical without being preachy, smart without being snarky, funny without being crass, and beautiful despite depicting a world almost devoid of beauty. The love story at the center of "Wall-E" is as simple as they come, yet poetic and devastating and sublime. These two robots broke my heart more than any flesh and blood actors have maybe ever done. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to stop reading about snark and gossip and vitriol, stop spending hours on end staring at screens, because as stated in the song "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" (which plays over the opening credits), there's a whole world out there. It's far easier to destroy than to create. It's easier to tear down than to build up. But as this little robot shows us, the most important things in life are the simplest. And the most incredible things in life aren't things. And if this movie isn't at least nominated for "Best Picture," than the phrase "Best Picture" is completely irrelevant.

I'm not recommending this movie. That's something I do for films like "Iron Man." Those are words reserved for good entertainment. As far as I'm concerned, "Wall-E" is a painting, a song. Something that inspires you and stirs up emotions you might have forgotten. Andrew Stanton and the team at Pixar have created something beyond all of their past triumphs, and that's saying something. They've transcended the art of moviemaking, and have made a movie that's truly work of art.

Let's start by saying this: IJ4 is not a terribly good movie, though it is not a terribly bad one either. I left the theater feeling an odd mix of disappointment that it was not on par with "Raiders," and possibly not even on par with its two sequels, but also a sense of satisfaction because, on the whole, I certainly had fun and got my money's worth. And it's the kind of movie where upon a second viewing you might actually enjoy it more because you can willfully tune out the bad stuff.

The problem with the film, to me, is that the filmmakers have too much money. Whereas "Raiders" had a joyful sense of guerilla filmmaking, with real stuntment and no CGI, this new Indy is overrun with soundstages, CGI, and moments that not only stretch believability but drive it off the cliff. The Indy films are action movies. We know that what happens in them most likely doesn't happen to anyone in real life (except maybe Hillary Clinton). But the first three films worked because the characters never did anything superhuman. They all existed within our world. Indy punched, he kicked, he used his whip. When he took a beating, he got hurt. When he got shot, he bled.

I find it especially interesting having read several interviews with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg about Lucas's desire to make Indy an all digtial affair (like the recent Star Wars movies), and Spielberg's desire to keep Indy grounded in real world stunts. In the end we get an awkward mishmash of stuntwork, wire work, and CGI that totally takes the film out of the realm of plausibility and ruins any sense of danger or suspense. Is does not, however, take away the excitement. At least for the most part.

Things that worked:

--Harrison Ford looks better than any 65-year old (or 55-year old) has any right to look.

--Shia LaBeouf gets off to a rickety start as Mutt Williams, but in the end his character perhaps is the most fully-realized of all of them. His scene with Indy in the soda shop is laughable in its attempts to paint Mutt as a James Dean-esque tough guy, but there are little quirks here and there (combing his hair when he's nervous, his sudden emotion when he realizes Ox has gone insane) that add depth to a character that probably didn't have it on paper. Even though Mutt and Ox have little screen time together, Mutt's scene in the sanitarium shows you how close these men were.

--Karen Allen is still a sparkplug. The film picks up tremendously when Marion Ravenwood (sorry, Williams) appears. And even though the ending feels a little too saccharine, part of you feels like they were meant to end up together.

--The supporting roles, notably Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone and John Hurt, are well-cast and do their best in thankless roles. I'm still on the fence about Cate Blanchett. The accent doesn't quite work, but she does exactly what Paul Freeman did well as Belloq in "Raiders," specifically that you feel her desire for the artifact is as much a personal obsession as professional one. It does make me wonder had Sean Connery come back (Spielberg says they'd written him a part) whether Henry Jones, Sr. would have played the Ox part. The possibility of seeing the elder Jones wandering around babbling like an idiot makes me glad Connery stayed out.

--The truck chase through the jungle is for the most part terrific.

--Mac yelling, "You don't know him!"over and over during the opening scene was a wonderful bit because Mac knows, like we do, that every time you think you have Indy cornered he pulls something spectacular out of his hat.

--The ending scene with the rocks crumbling and the saucer flying away is truly breathtaking, and perhaps the best (and only necessary) use of CGI in the film.

--The ant scene is pretty cool, and the final shot of the Russian being carried away into the anthill is icky in a good way.

--The fistfight between Indy and the Russian henchman is a throwback to the old Indy movies, especially the first one where he fights the massive bald German around the plane. As much as I liked "Batman Begins," I can't stand fight scenes that are so tightly shot and so quickly cut that you can't tell what the hell is going on. This fight was a refreshing reminder that good old-fashioned fisticuffs can work in 2008. Give me two guys standing toe-to-toe duking it out over a blurry melee any day of the week (and twice on Sunday).

--The quicksand scene, though unnecessary, was a ton of fun. ("Grab the snake!" "Stop calling it that!" "What the hell else should I call it, it's a snake!")

What doesn't work:

--Too many Bugs Bunny-esque stunts that had me rolling my eyes. Specifically the scenes where Indy becomes a Frigidaire repairman, Mutt channels his inner Tarzan, Marion drives the car off a cliff onto a tree limb that conveniently lowers them into the river then springs back to thwack the Russians off the ledge, Mutt getting nailed in the crotch by various vegetation while straddled across two jeeps, the game of Hot Potato with the skull during the jeep chase, and the triple waterfall where all the characters somehow manage to stay in the car. I have no idea if George Lucas was behind these scenes, but they were laughable in all the bad ways and totally shattered the image of Indy as a tough but human adventurer.

--The script is pretty lackluster. The human interactions seem to serve merely as timeouts between action scenes, and there's no real human drama. Marion's return and Mutt's revelation as Indy's son seem more like ploys to keep the plot moving than to offer any real introspection. Some of the best scenes in "Last Crusade" were Indy and his father talking, bantering. Ditto goes for "Raiders" with Indy and Marion. There's no real witty repartee, and Karen Allen is sorely underutilized. 

--The plot is pretty convoluted and makes little sense, even when all is "explained." If I can use one of my favorite Roger Ebert lines, the story surrounding the skull was told "with greater detail than clarity."

--Indy does not seem as fiery or feisty as in previous movies. He seems more weary, more grumpy, without the real sense of wonder or enjoyment as in the previous films. One of my favorite moments in "Raiders" is Indy's smirk right before he steers the truck into the trees. He's having as good a time as we are, and his enthusiasm was infectious. Indy rarely smiles, and his comebacks are relegated to yawners like "Drop Dead." What happened to, "Prepare to meet Khali...in hell!"

--Indy is way too passive. My favorite moment in "Last Crusade" is when Indy's satchel is stuck on the tank turret, and the German is about to drive him right into the wall. Right when we think Indy's about to get crushed, the tank changes directions and Indy is freed. He gives this awesome look that says, "Oh man, Indy is pissed. Prepare to meet your makers, Nazi scum!" Then the music swells, Jones beats the holy hell out of the goosestepping morons, and you're screaming "GET 'EM INDY!" like a lunatic. In ID4, Indy doesn't do a whole lot of fighting. In the jeep chase, he's driving the majority of the time while Mutt plays hero. I liked Indy smiling with pride at Mutt's success, but I would have preferred Jones himself to be kicking butt.

--This bothered me as much as anything...but nobody in the film actually calls him "Indy." Mac calls him Jonesy. Mutt calls him Professor. Ox calls him Henry. Irina calls him Dr. Jones. I don't want to think of Indy as a Professor or an old man or even a guy named Henry. He's INDIANA FREAKING JONES. Where's Sallah and Marcus and Short Round when you need them?

--Too much sound stage use. You can see the set decoration in nearly every scene, and the film seems shot almost like a sitcom instead of an action movie. There are no thrilling long shots like in "Last Crusade" of Indy chasing a tank on horseback, an actual desert surrounding them. The backgrounds are almost always patently fake, and the cutaways from Harrison Ford to the stuntmen are often jarring and obvious. 

--He only uses the whip once after the opening escape.

--I wanted to smack Indy upside the head for all the times he got trapped by the Russians. It seemed like every five minutes we'd have a thrilling action scene which ended with Indy and friends facing a squadron of rifles while Irina and Mac smiled triumphantly. And did Indy really buy Mac's "double agent" explanation? Was he really surprised when Mac turned on him for the 89th time at the end? (and what was with Mac's "noble" death? He was a greedy turncoat who sells his country and his soul for money, and then he basically lies on the floor like a slug before being sucked into the vortex. He could have easily made it out alive, but instead lies there like an idiot for 30 seconds before saying, "I'll be fine" like he'll be awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor. This might have just been bad timing on Spielberg's part, but seeing Mac lying there like a log with Indy pleading for him to get up was just silly and went against the character)

In the end, I would give Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a 'B'. Though I can't decide whether I'm pleasantly surprised by the B, or terribly disappointed.

My wife, upon realizing that Bruce Willis and his girlfriend were seated at the table next to us: 

In case you happen to be living on the moon, under a rock, with your fingers in your ears, you know that on May 22nd the long-awaited 4th Indiana Jones movie hits theaters. I've been a huge fan of the Indy series, and even though Harrison Ford is three years older than Helen Mirren, I have hopes that IV4 will rekindle the same feeling of joy and exilharation I had watching the first three films. And to give you an idea of how much time has passed, I saw the last installment, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," in theaters at my friend Jon's 9th birthday party.

But it got me thinking. The Indy films were a huge part of my childhood. I must have spent at least five straight Halloweens dressed as Indy, rubbing burnt cork on my face to simulate beard stubble. It got me thinking about what other movies had that kind of effect on me. So here's a list, far from comprehensive, of the movies that have, for whatever reason, stuck in my craw over the years. These are not the greatest films ever, just movies that for whatever reason "did it" for me. Here a few that popped into my head:

I watched this in grade school, and had to try my hardest not to cry at the ending. I still remember that feeling in my gut when the movie ended and the lights came on.

Not so much because this was an enjoyable popcorn flick, which it was, but more because of the circumstances in which I saw it. ID4 came out while I was spending a summer at the UCLA campus studying television production. I managed to snag tickets to the opening day screening at the massive Los Angeles Theater. Every one of the two thousand-plus seats was filled, and everyone in attendance spent the entire 2.5 hours on their feet, cheering, laughing, and screaming as our heroes battled to save the world from an alien invasion. The most interactive film experience I've ever had (and not just because of the three ladies sitting behind me who turned into blabbering fools every time Will Smith came on screen).

Sam Raimi is the man. Period. Arguably the most over-the-top inventive, energetic, insane and awesome horror/comedy ever made. Coined the term "Splatstick." And if you can watch the scene where Bruce Campbell crawls out of the cellar and says, "Yo, she-bitch. Let's go" without getting chills of glee, your soul has already been swallowed.

A great movie, but more memorable because it's the movie my wife and I saw on our very first date.

If you ever wonder why Billy Bob Thornton still gets work, watch this movie. As mentally disabled Karl Childers, Thornton gives one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. As a man struggling to reenter a society that never wanted him in the first place, Karl shows how horrific violence and stunning kindness can inhabit the same man.

The only time I've ever walked out of a movie unable to speak. This is a harrowing, brilliantly acted and devastating portrait of four lives brimming with hope, which are systematically destroyed by drugs. Ellen Burstyn and Jennifer Connelly are known as brilliant actors, but it's Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans who steal the show as best friends who start out with visions of gold, but wind up on their own roads to hell. And it has one of the most haunting musical scores ever.

Before ID4, Jurassic Park, the new Star Wars trilogy, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix, this movie ushered in a new era in which worlds and characters could be manipulated digitally. T2 opened up infinite possibilities, and reinforced James Cameron as one of the most influential filmmakers of the last quarter century. The first time the T-1000 took a shotgun shell to the face and then turned around to show a gaping, silver hole where his eye used to be, you knew you were watching a revolutionary film.

Probably my favorite movie ever, one that stands the test of time, proving that good old fashioned special effects can trump their digital counterparts when there's enough heart and passion involved. Even though Bruce the shark was made entirely of metal and plaster, he's 1,000,000 times more effective than the cartoon fish in "Deep Blue Sea." Not only is Jaws one of the most electrifying thrillers ever, the dialogue is pitch perfect, and unlike most action/horror movies there are real characters. And Quint's speech about the sinking of the Indianapolis...just chilling.

Feel free to add to the list!

Now here's why the movie works. It's filmed "Blair Witch" style from the perspective of one of the survivors holding a camcorder, so whatever they see, you see. Nothing more, nothing less. You know whatever they know, and that's it. There are no scenes of government officials discussing strategy, no POV shots of dive bombers strafing the beast from the air, no scientists studying the monster. It has the feel of one of those King Kong or Jaws rides at Universal studios. One second you're lurching along, nothing to see here, then the car/camera turns and wham there's a huge monster poking its head between two skyscrapers, or you're right smack in the middle of a firefight between a dozen soldiers and a giant, um, thing that's half hidden by the smoke and artillery. Every time you think you're safe, something really bad will inevitably happen five seconds later. Even though there isn't much more to the script than the kids screaming and yelling "come on!" and "let's get the hell out of here!" it works because, come on, if you were being chased by a huge beast that was tearing up the city while your friends were dying around you, would you have much time for witty banter? 

That's another good thing. You never feel like the characters are braver than they should be. They never pick up a machine gun and fire away at the baddie, they never once try to hatch a plan to expose the beast's 'weak spot', and none of them are going to enter an F-15 and commence an air raid.  They're scared, and make decisions based on what seems to work at any any given moment, not because they've seen other monster movies and know how these things work.

The movie does conjure up some recollections of 9/11, some of them fairly uncomfortable, such as the beginning explosion in downtown Manhattan, and the cloud of dust that overtakes the survivors right after. It truly is a disaster film for 2008, like when the head of the Statue of Liberty comes rolling down the street and after a brief moment of terror, out come the cell phone cameras.

The kids know nothing more about the beast than they hear through news reports or overheard conversations, and even that ain't much. There are two set pieces in particular that work exceedingly well. The first happens while the kids attempt to navigate the subway tunnels to reach a trapped friend, and realize that this thing has brought little, um, things with it. The second is when the kids need to traverse the top of one building onto another that's been attacked, and is now propped up Pisa-like at an angle that suggests it won't be upright very long. 

Now the movie isn't all great. The kids definitely make some head-scratchingly dumb decisions, and the ending is pretty unsatisfying. But on the whole it's a terrific movie experience, and I use the word experience because this is one of the few movies where it feels like the events are happening around you rather than in front of you.