Category Archives: Entertainment

TV, Movies, etc

July 24, 2012 · 9:10 am

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy reaches its stunning conclusion in The Dark Knight Rises. Batman has been MIA for eight years and Gotham City needs a hero. A new villain named Bain wants to destroy Gotham and Batman can have none of that nonsense. The Dark Knight must rise to the occasion. Christian Bale returns as Batman/Bruce Wayne, and Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman reprise their characters. Joining the cast is Anne Hathaway as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Tom Hardy as Bane, Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake.

The movie begins 8 years after the events of the second movie. Batman has been retired and Bruce Wayne is a recluse. A terrorist with a terrifying mask and a shady past is bent on terrorizing Gotham with acts of terror to terrify the citizens. Tom Hardy plays Bane and he is a badass. He is evil personified. He is super strong and super smart and super evil. And he’s got a grudge against Batman.

Bruce Wayne has neglected Wayne Enterprises and himself. Everything in his life is in shambles, he’s lost track of who he is. One day he stumbles across a cat burglar (Anne Hathaway) stealing his mother’s pearls and copies of his fingerprints for some reason. The cat burglar’s real name is Selina Kyle and she sells Bruce’s fingerprints to a shady businessman named Dagget.

Meanwhile a young cop named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) recognizes the deceased body of a young orphan found in the sewers. He goes to visit the orphanage and finds out that there are rumors of employment in the sewers. It turns out Bane and his terrorist army have established a nice little base in the pipes beneath the city. Commissioner Gordon ends up down in Bane’s lair and escapes but nearly dies in the process. The only person who believes his story of a masked lunatic in the sewers is John Blake.

Blake and Gordon want Bruce Wayne to don the cape and come back. He’s reluctant at first, but a visit to Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and a showcase of all the new toys and technology start to make him change his mind. Alfred (Michael Caine) doesn’t want Bruce to be Batman again. He is afraid that Bruce wants to fail.

Bane launches an attack on the stock exchange and that’s enough incentive to bring Batman back out of the shadows. There’s an awesome chase scene involving bad guys on motorcycles with hostages, Batman on his Batpod, and hundreds of police vehicles trying to capture the Bat. Of course he escapes in spectacular fashion, he’s the goddamn Batman.

Dagget used Bruce’s fingerprints as part of a scheme that bankrupts Bruce and makes him lost control of Wayne Enterprises. Bruce is able to have Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) take over the company. Dagget is pissed that his plot backfired and has a little hissy fit and bitches at Bane. Bane reveals that he doesn’t work for Dagget, and that Dagget is just a pawn in his game. And then he kills Dagget for good measure.

Batman confronts Bane in the sewers and they have a fight. Batman gets the shit beat out of him. Bane breaks his back and dumps him in a foreign prison. Bane starts to implement his terrorist plans on Gotham. I don’t want to get into specifics, but it’s an epic takeover and it looks pretty bleak for Gotham and Batman.

The Dark Knight must rise from his prison and return to Gotham, but he will need help. Luckily he’s not alone. Commissioner Gordon, John Blake, and Selina Kyle also rise to the occasion. Hopefully good will triumph over evil.

This is one of the best comic book movies to date. I don’t think it’s quite as good as The Dark Knight. In fact, I don’t think it’s even the best superhero movie this summer. The Amazing Spider-Man and The Avengers are both great candidates for that title. They are more fun. Christopher Nolan’s world is really dark and gloomy. There’s no joy, there’s no humor. They closest thing to a joke is when Batman is talking to Catwoman and she suddenly disappears and he quips “So that’s what that feels like.” Nolan spends so much time trying to make a realistic Batman that it’s disappointing when you see stupid Hollywood clichés, like when Gordon drops the signal jammer and it’s slightly out of reach or how Selina Kyle can ride the Batpod just as good as Batman without any practice. Maybe she’s a great driver, maybe Bruce just sucks.

The hardest part of the movie for me to watch was the attack on the stadium. Prior to the attack there’s a young boy singing the National Anthem. It was the first time that I’ve heard it since the Aurora Twelve massacre. The movie theater is supposed to be a sanctuary from the world, a place of escape, a place to be safe from reality. And from now on there will always be a little bit of hesitation in the back of your mind about going to the cinema. But I felt like I had to see this movie. It’s important to live your life and not be afraid. That’s one of the themes of the film.

Quick spoiler: at the end Batman takes the nuclear bomb away from Gotham and it explodes over the ocean. Disaster averted, Gotham wasn’t blown up. But now everyone will get radiation poisoning and die of cancer. That’s not a happy ending.

The reappearance of Batman is awesome. There’s no big flashy entrance, there’s no lame montage of putting on the suit… he just suddenly shows up in the suit in the middle of a pursuit and Joel Schumacher should take notes.

Bane is a terrifying villain. He is Batman’s equal but leans toward the evil side. Tom Hardy does a great job and I predict several years of typecasting for him. I’m looking forward to it.

The Dark Knight Rises is a great film and it’s worth seeing. You might feel awkward about it; you might feel guilty about it. The Aurora Twelve incident with always be associated with this movie and you don’t want to talk about it, but you have to acknowledge it. Seeing this movie is a way to honor their memories and to move forward. Movies are an escape, we can’t be afraid to enjoy them. Seeing this movie is a way to say that you won’t be afraid.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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July 23, 2012 · 10:10 am

Glory

Glory is based on the true story of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first formal US Army unit made up of black soldiers. And Hollywood is racist, so Matthew Broderick plays the main character. Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai) directs and Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Cary Elwes costar in one of the better movies set during the US Civil War.

Captain Robert Gould Shaw (Ferris Bueller) is the son of abolitionists and is currently fighting in the Civil War for the Union Army. He gets injured in a battle and goes home to Boston where he gets promoted to Colonel and assumes control over the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He recruits his friend Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes) to be his second-in-command. He’s also white. The first black guy who joins them is Thomas (Andre Braugher), a childhood friend of Cabot and Shaw’s.

A bunch of men join the unit for a chance to fight, to prove themselves both honorable and equal. Denzel Washington plays Trip, an escaped slave with a chip on his shoulder for understandable reasons. Jihmi Kennedy plays Jupiter Sharts, a free black man who seems naïve and innocent compared to Trip. Morgan Freeman plays Rawlins, who plays the wise old mentor figure who can still kick some ass.

Shaw’s tasked with getting the 54th into fighting shape, something that’s not easy to do. The men train and bond and establish their characters and relationships. They have to fight for boots, rifles, and uniforms. The men work hard and improve, but it becomes clear that they aren’t likely to see any action on account of all the racism.

Shaw blackmails his commanding officers and gets his men to the front lines. They win a small skirmish in South Carolina. And Shaw volunteers the 54th to lead a suicide assault on Fort Wagner. Not to ruin anything, but they pretty much all die. It was a suicide assault after all.

Robert Shaw was a real guy. He really did command the 54th infantry. The movie has to include him. But Shaw is a shitty main character. He is kind of racist but not really. He’s kind of a coward but not really. He just kind of stands around and occasionally does something to advance the plot, but he seems to just be plodding along. All of the good scenes are about Trip, Rawlins, Thomas, and Jupiter. They are the heart of the movie. A movie about a black army unit should focus on the black army unit.

Morgan Freeman is always good, and this movie is no exception. But Denzel Washington steals the show. Trip is a great character. The scene where he gets whipped for desertion is hard to watch, but you can’t turn away. You feel his pain.

The battle scenes are explosive, violent, bloody, and realistic. Edward Zwick knows how to balance out riveting action sequences with quieter and more reflective scenes. This is a great movie, it’s a classic. You watch it and you want to learn more about the 54th. Those brave soldiers fought with courage and honor and deserve to be remembered. They should be the focus of the film, not their white leader.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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July 22, 2012 · 10:15 am

Watching Movies on TV

Most people like movies. It’s pretty cool to sit on your ass and be transported to a different world and to live vicariously through the people on the screen. The best way to watch a movie is to go to the movie theater. Some people prefer watching a movie at home on Blu-ray/DVD or stream it from Netflix or Hulu. Some people rely on premium movie channels like HBO. HBO is ok because they don’t cut out anything or have commercials. For the most part, watching movies on TV is the worst way to go. You should avoid movies on basic cable channels. A movie’s pacing is important, and it gets destroyed with the constant commercial breaks. Movies need momentum, and each time Andy Dufresne does something uplifting and it cuts to some bitch pitching dog food you can’t care about the character as much. Sometimes they have to cut out violent scenes and vulgar dialog. They replace cool lines, no matter how essential to the movie it is. If John McClane doesn’t say “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker,” then you aren’t watching Die Hard.

Critically Rated at 4/17

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July 21, 2012 · 9:03 am

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

You can’t stop the end of the word from happening. Just ask John Connor. You also can’t stop a studio from making unnecessary sequels. Just ask anyone who saw this movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back for another installment, but James Cameron is missing. Linda Hamilton is missing. Edward Furlong is missing. It seems like a very empty class reunion with a bunch of imposters standing in for your friends.

T3 starts off with John Connor (played by Nick Stahl this time) recapping his life story. Judgment Day didn’t happen when they said it would happen, Sarah Connor is dead, and now he lives off-the-grid, doing construction work and dropping beer bottles off bridges.

Skynet sends back a T-X model terminator (Kristanna Loken) to track down John Connor’s future lieutenants because they can’t find John Connor. It pays to live off-the-grid. The human fighters send back another Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to protect the lieutenants and John. One of the lieutenants is Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), who works at an animal hospital. John crashes his motorcycle and breaks into the animal hospital for some animal medication, and he has a reunion with Kate. It turns out that John and Kate shared a kiss the day before the events of the second movie. John was just too busy running around avoiding death to mention that he got some loving the night before.

The T-X crashes the party and tries to kill them. But then the Terminator shows up and saves them. And then there’s a huge chase scene with driverless cop cars and fire trucks and a big ass cranemobile and utter destruction.

John and Kate plus the Terminator escape and go to visit Sarah Connor’s gravesite. But it’s not a gravesite. It’s a weapons cache. The cops show up and the T-X shows up and there’s a huge gun battle in the middle of the cemetery. Our trynamic trio escapes in a hearse. Its really impressive symbolism, staging an explosive firefight in a place associated with death is an affirmation of life (that’s meant to be sarcasm, not to be profound).

The Terminator spews out a bunch of facts he was withholding until now, because now it’s time to advance the plot. John and Kate get married in the future and they have a couple of kids. And John got killed in the future by the same Terminator that is protecting him now. Oh, and today is Judgment Day.

Kate’s dad is in the military, and he’s in charge of a bunch of computer programs and projects, one of which is Skynet. Skynet has already become self-aware and is now slowly taking over. John, Kate, and Arnie show up to warn him about Skynet but the T-X shows up and shoots him. He tells John and Kate to go to an old military base to stop the inevitable.

The Terminator gets corrupted by the T-X and almost kills John, but he doesn’t cause that would end the movie and any chance for a sequel. Instead he shuts himself down and lets John and Kate escape. They get to the military base and there’s one last robot fight before John and Kate realize that they are in a fallout shelter. Kate’s dad sent them there to save them from the nuclear attacks. Judgment Day was unavoidable after all.

It’s kind of weird that the third movie is all about Judgment Day and that was the name of the second movie. It’s like if they spent a bunch of time talking about the Empire striking back in Return of the Jedi. What’s really weird is that the first three movies in the franchise are built around an actor who doesn’t play the main character or even the same character. Terminator is about Sarah Connor. T2 is about John and Sarah Connor. T3 is about John Connor. Arnie doesn’t even play the same robot in all three. He plays the same model robot, but each one is a new character.

The movie makes a lot of references to the first two movies. There are a few inside jokes and recreated shots. But they also ignore a lot of the rules that the first movies established. Important rules too, like not being able to send back explosive weapons. The T-X has built-in blaster guns. She can also control machines and change her appearance. She is so technologically advanced she is magic.

This is not a bad movie. It’s just a bad idea to make another sequel without the majority of the cast from the earlier installments returning. And excluding key characters like Sarah Connor. Sarah Connor is the heart of the Terminator franchise. The general plot is good, but it’s missing the characters that you care about and the cast that you care about. You can’t make a Terminator movie without Arnold, but you can’t make one with just him either. And he looks old as fuck in this one.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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July 20, 2012 · 9:38 am

Getting a Shitty Song Stuck in Your Head

Pop songs are catchy. They are scientifically engineered to have a catchy hook that gets in your head and refuses to leave. It can drive you crazy. It’s not so bad when you have a song by the Beatles or the Beastie Boys stuck in your head, but getting a shitty song stuck in your head is the main cause of suicide. I don’t have the stats to back up that statement, but I feel like everyone should be aware of the dangers of being driven to death by meaningless lyrics set to three simple chords.

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Getting a shitty song stuck in your head is bad, but it gets worse. Singing that shitty song out loud is pretty terrible. Especially if you’re as tone-deaf as I am. It’s just as embarrassing to be singing Justin Bieber. Then you have to defend yourself and simultaneously explain how you knew that song in the first place, “I don’t even know who Justice Beaver is, I swear!”

Critically Rated at 5/17

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July 19, 2012 · 7:00 am

Your Team

If you are a fan of a team, you share in each victory and each loss. You are a part of the team. If they won, you won and we won. If they lost, you lost and we lost.  That’s why you wear jerseys when you go to the stadium. You are one with the players, you are one with the team.

When you wear your team colors, you are responsible for knowing what is happening with your team. If you’re wearing a Saints jersey, be prepared to talk about the Drew Brees contract. If you are wearing a Yankees hat and it’s game day, you better know who is pitching. You don’t wear a team’s colors for fashion: you wear it for pride. You wear it to show off your team’s winning record, you wear it to piss off your rivals, and you wear it to show faith when they are losing.

Your local team’s logo is like your family crest, you can’t always choose which one you ended up with, but you will represent it with all your heart and soul. Your team defines you, it shapes who you are. You can talk shit about your team, your fellow fans can talk shit about them, but no one else is allowed to say talk shit about them (at least not to your face). Your team is your team, not their team. Be proud.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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July 17, 2012 · 9:43 am

Pelada (documentary)

There’s no denying that football/soccer is a global game. They play it almost every country on the map. There are numerous professional leagues and a little event called the World Cup where the best players in the world have their chance to represent their countries and compete for national pride. There are billions of fans and millions of players… and most of those players didn’t have what it takes to play professionally. The passion for the game doesn’t just go away and so they play any way that they can. Pelada is a documentary about pickup soccer games around the world.

The documentary follows Luke and Gwendolyn, two former college stars who didn’t quite make it professionally. Their whole life, their identity was soccer/football. And when you realize you can’t achieve your dreams you have to redefine yourself somehow. They embarked on a six month long trip across 25 countries, finding games and joining in. Football/soccer is a unifier and they meet people with interesting stories and finding out what the game means to them, how it defines them.

They meet a young Brazilian called Ronaldinha, nicknamed after her idol Ronaldinho because she has his talent. They meet a bunch of old timers who meet once a week to play games. Very old, decrepit, and slow-paced games, but games nonetheless. They go into the San Pedro Prison in Bolivia and play some intense 5 on 5 games with the inmates. The inmates are crazy good at soccer/football because that’s all they have to look forward to.

In Kenya, they go to a small village dirt lot known as Austin’s Field, named for a guy who lost his family and found solace in soccer. He is always at the field, maintaining it and organizing games for the children. On Saturdays he arranges a tournament and teams compete for a meager cash prize. The whole village comes out to watch and the sideline becomes a wall of bodies. Football is their escape from the drudgery of life.

They go to China and meet a group of players with a whole different style of soccer. They like to freestyle, putting more emphasis of tricks involving juggling and fancy footwork. It’s like breakdancing with a soccer ball. They also play small 2v2 games, usually in public parks with lots of passersby. Their goal is to spread awareness of street soccer and freestyling. I noticed that in most countries, the players were all really passionate and would get angry and get frustrated. The Chinese players were also passionate, but the only emotion they showed was pure joy. They found happiness in the game that sets them free. Most players they showed around the world were poor and soccer was their escape. In China, the main player AK gave up his high paying and stressful job to kick a ball in the street. Soccer is his sanctuary.

Luke and Gwendolyn also go to Jerusalem, home of three major religions and a shit ton of tension. And they play soccer with each other. They are never on the same team, they play against each other. But they are playing on the same field and that is worth something. They openly say that they hate each other, but if they still kick a ball around instead of fighting with fists or bullets.

They go to Tehran, Iran where women are second-class citizens and the government forbids women from playing with men. Luke and Gwendolyn jump into a pickup game and someone reported them to the government. Gwendolyn finds a few women who play. They have a quick game, playing in hijabs and looking uncomfortable. Luckily the government doesn’t confiscate their video and this documentary is the result.

Soccer/football is the world’s sport for a reason. This movie takes you all over and shows you why. I just wish that Luke and Gwendolyn wouldn’t spend all their time bitching about how they didn’t make it. They try to make the movie about themselves, when it should be about soccer. If you say your movie is about pickup soccer games around the world, keep it about pickup soccer games. No one wants to see a glorified home movie about 2 white Americans travelling the world.

This is a good documentary overall, especially when it’s about soccer games and not a couple with failed dreams. It’s worth seeing and I watched it for free on Hulu, so if you have an hour and half to kill, this is a decent way to spend it.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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July 13, 2012 · 9:01 am

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Terminator 2 is a perfect sequel. It takes everything cool about the first one and ups the ante and becomes a better movie than its predecessor. Not only is it a perfect sequel, but also it’s one of the best action movies of all time. James Cameron doesn’t just make movies, he makes blockbusters. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays another T-800 Terminator sent back in time, Linda Hamilton reprises her role as Sarah Connor, and Edward Furlong plays a 10-year-old John Connor.

The move takes place eleven years after the first one. Sarah Connor is in a nuthouse, because that’s where you go when you tell everyone about killer robots from the future. Her son John is the future leader of mankind and our only hope of survival against the killer robots, but for now he’s stuck living with foster parents. It kind of sucks when your mom’s insane and your dad hasn’t been born yet, and so John acts out and is a preteen rebel.

Skynet sends back a T-1000 model robot (Robert Patrick) to track down and kill John Connor. The future John Connor sends back an older model T-800 (Schwarzenegger) to protect kid John Connor. The T-800 is the same model as the killbot in the first movie and the T-1000 is liquid metal and can shapeshift and make stabbing weapons. When this movie came out, it was a big twist that Arnie was a good robot and that the other guy was a bad robot.

The T-800 rescues John from the T-1000. John realizes that his mom isn’t crazy and he and his new robot bodyguard go to free her from the nuthouse. Sarah Connor is in the middle of her own escape, and they have a happy little reunion. Sarah gets over her trust issues with the T-800 pretty quickly and they go on a road trip to Mexico.

Arnie tells Sarah and John all about Skynet and the end of the world. Sarah thinks the only way to avoid Judgment Day is to murder Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), the engineer most directly responsible for creating Skynet. She tries to kill him but can’t. When he learns about Judgment Day he decides to join the team and help Sarah prevent the end of the world. He takes the Connors and the T-800 to Cyberdyne to destroy everything related to Skynet, included the microchip and robot arm from the first movie.

The T-1000 shows up and there’s and epic battle. And the two robots fight and punch each other and you understand what it going on, unlike Transformers. Spoiler alert: they beat the T-1000. The T-800 learns human emotion and sacrifices himself to avoid Judgment Day.

Having a 10-year-old John Connor as one of the main characters could have been disastrous without the right casting. Kids are annoying and stupid and don’t belong in action blockbusters. Edward Furlong pulls it off though. He has a cocky street kid attitude that suits the role perfectly. Compare his performance to Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. When you leave the theater you want to punch Anakin in the face and you want John Connor to save you when the robots come.

This is a great action movie. Every scene leads into the next one, they all are relevant and they all advance the plot. There’s a great flow and pacing and the action scenes are awesome. This was made in the glorious time where when you see a helicopter chasing a truck, you know that it’s a real fucking helicopter chasing a real fucking truck. The CG effects were cutting edge at the time, and even though they look cheesy now, the story makes up for it. It was a great action flick when it came out, and it still is over 20 years later.

Critically Rated at 16/17

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July 12, 2012 · 10:23 am

What Dreams May Come (film)

Vincent Ward directs Robin Williams in one of his more dramatic roles. This is not a comedy. This is a depressing movie about death and the afterlife. It’s about the lengths a guy will go through to be reunited with his soul mate. It’s based on a book that I never read and probably never will because I’ve seen the movie.

Robin Williams plays Dr. Chris Nielsen, and when he was young, he met an artist named Annie (Annabella Sciorra). They fell in love and had a couple of kids and life was good. Then life wasn’t so good when their kids died in a car accident. Annie goes a little crazy with grief and tries to kill herself, but Chris pulls her through. He is her strength, her rock. And then he dies too, and Annie is all alone.

Chris is dead, but he’s not gone. A part of him still exists and he stays around for a while. A blurry Cuba Gooding, Jr. appears and acts as his guide to the afterlife. They watch Annie grieving at his funeral and at his gravesite. He has to move on and so he goes to his own personal Heaven.

You create your own Heaven and Chris goes into his wife’s paintings. His old Dalmatian is there and so is Cuba Gooding, Jr. and he’s no longer blurry. Cuba identifies himself as Albert Lewis, Chris’s old mentor. He teaches Chris the basics of Heaven, what you can and can’t do, free your mind, all that hoopla. Chris and Albert see a tree that wasn’t in the painting before. Annie just painted it, and they are able to reach each other through her art. Because they are soul mates. And that’s how it works.

Chris mentions that he hasn’t seen his kids. Albert says he will see them when he wants to see them. Even though he saw his dog right away. I guess we know his priorities. Chris continues touring Heaven and meets a hot Asian chick. She ends up being his daughter. I saw this movie in theaters and I was really confused at this point, because I thought he had two sons that died in a car accident. I didn’t know that the younger kid was a girl. Girls should have long hair. I thought he just had an effeminate son. Anyway, the hot Asian chick is his daughter. His daughter assumed the form of a sexy Asian because her dad said that Asians were sexy. So she wanted to look attractive for her daddy. That’s kinda gross. And I guess that even though Chris loves Annie he still has a case of yellow fever.

So after this awkward father-daughter reunion, Albert tells Chris that Annie committed suicide and is now in Hell. She was suffering and she ended her suffering and ended up in Hell. When the dog was suffering and they ended his suffering, it ended up in Heaven. Why did she end up down there and the dog end up in Heaven? Did they murder the dog? Is that the difference?

Anyway, Chris decides he wants to go to Hell to rescue Annie. Albert takes him to a Tracker (Max von Sydow). They all go to Hell, and Chris remembers telling his son that he wouldn’t walk through Hell with anyone other than him. And he realizes that Albert is actually his son. So the first two people he meets in the afterlife were actually his kids and they were lying to his face. Everyone lies in Heaven. Maybe his dog is really his old cat.

So Albert/Actually-his-son stays behind and Chris and the Tracker go through Hell to find Annie. And the Tracker reveals that he is actually the real Albert Lewis, the same guy who his son was pretending to be. Small world or lazy writing?

Chris finds Annie trapped in her own personal Hell. She doesn’t recognize him. He chooses to stay in Hell with her and they end up back in Heaven. Because they are soul mates and that’s how it works. They are reunited in Heaven with their two kids and it seems like the perfect ending. But Chris and Annie decide to get reincarnated and get sent back to Earth to start a new life together. The two kids get to stay in Heaven and not live full lives, while their parents get to go back and start a new family and forget about their two kids they already had. That’s a terrible ending. It’s child neglect from beyond the grave.

This is not a comedy. Just because you see Robin Williams on the cover doesn’t mean it’s a good time. This movie is sad. It tries to be uplifting but it fails. There are great depictions of Heaven and Hell, and the plot seems original at first, but it becomes mundane. It’s a decent movie, but I wouldn’t say it is essential viewing.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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July 11, 2012 · 9:57 am

Super Troopers

Super Troopers is a cult comedy classic about a group of highway patrolmen who pass the time terrorizing innocent civilians and abusing their power. They are the high school teacher who confiscates your stash and smokes in in the teacher’s lounge. It was written by and stars the Broken Lizard comedy group: Jay Chandrasekhar (who also directs), Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske.

The movie’s opening scene is one of the funniest scenes in cinema. Two of the Vermont State Troopers, Thorn and Rabbit (Chandrasekhar and Stolhanske) pull over three stoners and fuck with their heads. It’s the perfect introduction to the Super Troopers and how they run their stretch of highway.

If there’s anything that the troopers hate more than crime, it’s the local Spurbury Police Department. The troopers are facing budget cuts, while the SPD gets all the glory and job security. The troopers stumble into a potential drug smuggling operation and soon after a body turns up that could possible be connected.

The troopers must uncover the mystery before the SPD does. But it turns out that the SPD are in on the operation and provide protection for the smugglers. Can the Super Troopers get their shit together and expose the corrupt cops? You’ll just have to watch and find out.

Super Troopers starts out as a great comedy. The opening scene is hilarious, but it all goes downhill from there. It stops being funny about halfway through the movie when they have to actually advance the plot. There are quite a few funny scenes and moments, but 85% of them happen in the first forty-five minutes. A good comedy should be consistently funny and that’s where this movie fails. It loses steam and momentum and you stop paying attention after a while.

Super Troopers Pic

Kevin Heffernan steals the film as Farva. His exchange with the cashier at the Dimpus Burger where he demands a liter of cola is another highlight of the film. All of the cast members have their moments, but Farva is the stereotypical asshole cop, and it’s fun to hate him.

Broken Lizard has made a few other movies, like Club Dread, Beer Fest, and The Slammin’ Salmon. Super Troopers is their best and most well known flick. Beer Fest is pretty funny. Club Dread was terrible but had it’s moments, and the Slammin’ Salmon was a disappointment but better than Club Dread. Broken Lizard will never be Monty Python. If they aren’t careful, advertising their films with their name will be a deterrent to moviegoers (the M. Night Shyamalan effect).

Super Troopers is a cult classic comedy because of the first forty-five minutes or so. Then it starts to suck. There are a lot of great bits and quotable lines, and it’s got a lot of memorable parts… but it’s not a complete movie. It becomes tired and predictable and it doesn’t deserve to be listed as one of the best comedies of all time. Because it’s not. The first half is great, the second half is mediocre. I don’t know how many times I have to stress that.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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July 10, 2012 · 10:03 am

Baseball

Baseball is the best sport ever. Hands down. There is no debate. Baseball is America’s pastime for a reason. It is timeless. It means something. The love and passion that you have for your team is something that you can share with family, with friends, with complete strangers. If you’re in a strange new place and you see someone wearing your team’s hat, you have something to talk about. If you’re in a strange new place and you see someone wearing your rival team’s hat, you have something to talk about.

Cincinnati Reds Ken Griffey Jr

Baseball is an easy game to comprehend, but it takes a lifetime to master. People who have never seen baseball in person know that three strikes and you’re out at the old ball game. There is beauty in its simplicity. You can be a casual viewer and just be aware of the situation and what’s at stake. And you can also be a diehard fanatic and follow every single pitch, every play. How can such a simple game get so complex?

Baseball is all scenarios and statistics. It’s all about who is pitching and who is at the plate and who is on base and how many outs there are. Every single detail is accounted for and every single player is rated. This gives baseball a continuous feel. You know that Ty Cobb could play today. You know that Ichiro Suzuki could play back then. When you cheer for a team you can celebrate the accomplishments of the current roster and you also honor the past. I am a Giants fan, born in 1985. I never saw Willie Mays play, but I am proud that he was on my team. I can claim him as my own. You can’t do that with basketball, or football, or soccer. A baseball team has a legacy, a history, and if you are a fan of a team you celebrate the past, the future, the present.

Football has lost its way. You used to cheer for a team. Now everyone plays Fantasy Football and you cheer for individual players. You hope the Saints will lose but that Brees has a good game. That’s not what competition is. It’s about having pride for the team that represents you. It’s about each player having their moment to shine, but it’s the team that gets the win, not the individual.

The Chicago Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908. And they still have some of the most loyal fans in professional sports. You love your team, win or lose. And if they lose and you still root for them, each victory means more. That MLB: The Show commercial where the Cubs win the Series tugs at the heartstrings of every fan that knows what it’s like to lose. With the start of each new season, you hope that this is the year.

Like I said, I’m a Giants fan. I was brought up being a Giants fan. I heard stories of Willie Mays and Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal from my grandma. I grew up watching Barry Bonds (steroids or not, he was still the best player of that era). I experienced the joy of making it to the World Series and felt the despair of losing in spectacular fashion in 2002. And somehow we made it back and won in 2010. I went to the parade to celebrate. I felt that I helped contribute to the win just by watching and believing and hoping. My aunt thanked me for going to the parade and representing our family. It meant something to them that I was even there participating. I thought about all the Giants games that my grandma watched and how she never got to experience the thrill of a championship in her city. The game is more than a game; it’s a link between generations. A win for the Giants is a win for all the Giants fans across the ages.

Baseball has no time limit. It can go on forever, and sometimes it seems like it does. And it’s never over until you make the final out. Take the 2011 World Series for example. The Texas Rangers were a strike away from winning it all. And the Cardinals came back to tie it. And then the Rangers were a strike away from winning it all again. I remember commenting to my friend, “How many times are the Rangers going to have to win this game?”… And then the Cardinals came back again and won the game. And won again the next night. And they won the series even though logic and common sense said they should have lost.

The defense has the ball. That is different from most other sports. It adds drama, it adds tension. It’s a game of skill. The best players only hit the ball slightly more than three out of ten times. If you fail 70% of the time you are still considered good.

Baseball is a marathon not a sprint. The regular season lasts 162 games over 6 months. More games mean less tension. Each game is still important, but it’s not a matter of life or death. So you’ll see less fighting on the field and in the stands. You’ll still see rivalries and trash talking and the occasional fights, but you don’t see riots and brawls like with soccer. This helps to make it more of a family game. You go with your parents and grandparents when you’re young, and you go with your kids and grandkids when you’re old. And you talk about who’s on first, and what’s on second, and you laugh and joke and sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game.

Baseball is a great game. It is casual and complex and fun and frustrating. Sometimes it is all you have to talk about, all you have to live for. It’s more than a game. It’s a way of life. At least for 6 months out of the year.

Critically Rated at 17/17

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July 9, 2012 · 7:04 am

The Terminator

What if a killer machine from the future was sent back in time to kill the mother of mankind’s only hope? And what if he had an Austrian accent for some reason? Well, we find out in James Cameron’s The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular Austrian killbot, Linda Hamilton as the unlucky mother of mankind’s only hope, and Michael Biehn as the time-travelling protector/impregnator or the mother of mankind’s only hope.

The Terminator is a less of a sci-fi flick and more of a chase movie that involves robots and time travel. In the future, machines have taken over the world and a guy named John Connor leads mankind in a war against them. The machines send a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to John Connor, with the goal of wiping out their main enemy before he’s even a fetus. Future John Connor takes offense to this attempt at preemptive abortion attempt and so he sends back a soldier named Kyle Reese to protect his mom. The Terminator and Kyle both arrive in 1984 Los Angeles and both try to find Sarah Connor before the other one. Kyle finds Sarah just in time and saves her from the Terminator, and he tells her about the future and that the Austrian that tried to kill her is actually a robot assassin.

The Terminator comes back and there’s a car chase and they escape again. Kyle and Sarah get picked up by the LAPD. And then the Terminator comes back and Kyle rescues Sarah again and they go to a hotel. They make bombs and have sex and then the Terminator comes back again. And there’s another car chase. The Terminator gets caught up in an explosion and stops looking like an Austrian tourist and more like a shiny metal robotic skeleton. Sarah kills the Terminator and drives off to Mexico to begin the rest of her life as the mother of mankind’s last hope.

This is the start of the best franchise about time-travelling killer robots from the future. It wasn’t Arnold’s first movie, and it wasn’t James Cameron’s first movie, but it was the movie that made them household names. Arnold Schwarzenegger became a star, even though he hardly says anything and half the time his character is onscreen it’s a phony looking dummy or a robotic exoskeleton. The action scenes are still exciting, but the special effects are laughable. Stop-motion robots aren’t menacing. It makes the film seem very dated. The story makes up for it though. It’s a cheesy B-movie in a lot of ways, and that adds to the retro charm. James Cameron can make an exciting action movie without much of a budget. And when he has a budget, he makes some of the biggest films of all time. This guy knows how to manipulate an audience. I don’t know why a robot needs a laser site though.

This movie gave us James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Terminator 2. For that, we must always be grateful. It also gave us “I’ll be back”… one of the greatest movie lines ever. One way to tell the significance of a movie is how often people quote it. Even today, jerks across the world spout that line before they embark on a beer run. Cheesy special effects can’t deter an interesting story and a master storyteller with an Austrian puppet from creating a cinematic icon. The Terminator is a classic.

Critically Rated at 12/17

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July 8, 2012 · 10:08 am

Drive

I remember when Drive came out in theaters last year, a few people told me that I needed to see it, and I didn’t believe them. And now that I finally have seen it, I know that I was right. Drive is a pretty craptacular movie. It’s about a stuntman/mechanic who works as a getaway driver on the side, and he stumbles into a plot and gets in over his head and has to fight his way out. It sounds cool. It’s not.

I’ve never heard of the director, Nicolas Winding Refn, so I looked him up on Wikipedia and he hasn’t directed anything good and he looks like a doofus. I don’t like him. Ryan Gosling stars as the Driver. You never learn his name and you don’t care. He goes around wearing a stupid satin jacket with a giant scorpion on it. He works as a mechanic and as a Hollywood stunt driver, but his main thrill is driving getaway cars. The Driver works at a garage. His boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston) arranges his getaway jobs. The Driver has a few rules that he abides by: he never does a job for the same people twice, and they only have five minutes to do their shit before he drives off.

The Driver meets a girl in his apartment building named Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son Benicio. The Driver and Irene have some chemistry, and the Driver likes little Benicio and it seems like the love story will move along nicely, but then Irene’s husband Standard gets out of prison and comes home. Standard (Oscar Isaac) owes an Albanian Gangster named Cook some money, and Cook forces Standard to rob a pawnshop for him. The Driver decides to help Standard and offers his services as a getaway driver.

Standard, the Driver, and a random bitch rob the pawnshop, but things go wrong and Standard gets shot and dies. The Driver and the random bitch flee the scene with the money, but they are being chased by another car. So the Driver outdrives the other driver and they escape. And the Driver deduces that the random bitch set him up. And then some hitmen show up and kill the random bitch and the Driver kills them and escapes again.

The Driver tracks down the gangster Cook and he finds out that Nino (Ron Pearlman) is behind the heist. Ron Pearlman might be the ugliest guy in Hollywood. He looks like Eric Stoltz in Mask. Nino sends a hitman to kill the Driver. The Driver kills the hitman by repeatedly stomping his face into the ground, before looking at Irene with puppy dog eyes and wondering why she is so freaked out by him.

The Driver tracks down Nino and kills him and then goes after Nino’s partner Bernie (Albert Brooks). After he gives Bernie back the money in exchange for Irene and Benicio’s safety, Bernie stabs him. The Driver stabs him back and kills him. And then he doesn’t die, and he celebrates by driving off into the night without the girl.

This movie drags on and on. It was marketed as an action movie, but there’s not much action. There’s not even much dialog either. It just creeps along at a snail’s pace, pretending to be smarter than it really is. Compare this movie to Reservoir Dogs. Reservoir Dogs is an action movie without much action. But it’s riveting, it’s got a nice flow and pace, it never drags. Michael Madsen slices off a cop’s ear and it’s terrifying and you can’t look away even though you want to. In Drive, Albert Brooks kills a guy by stabbing him in the eye with a fork and hacking at him with a butcher’s knife. It was much more gruesome, but had no impact on the plot, and therefore is unnecessary and stupid. Tarantino’s Death Proof had much better driving scenes and stunts. This movie seems likes it’s trying to emulate Tarantino, but it fails miserably.

It’s false advertising to call a movie Drive when they don’t do much driving. They should call it Bore, because boring is a much more accurate description. This is not the worst movie ever, but I can’t respect you if this is your favorite movie.

Critically Rated at 10/17

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July 7, 2012 · 10:06 am

Firefly (tv show, not the bug)

Firefly is one of the best TV shows of all time. Never mind the fact that it didn’t escape its first season, that just means it never got the chance to jump the shark. Firefly is about nine different people looking out into the void of space and seeing nine different things. Creator Joss Whedon takes us to a universe where mankind has escaped to the skies to escape overcrowding, transforming and terraforming new planets for habitation. China and the US were the two superpowers, and the two cultures merged together. So Firefly is your basic space western with eastern flavor to spice it up. Nathan Fillion stars as Malcolm Reynolds, the captain of Firefly-class spaceship Serenity, who leads a loyal crew and a group of passengers of various adventures around the outskirts of space doing odd jobs, which may not be entirely legal.

At first glance, Firefly seems like your standard slice of sci-fi. There are spaceships, advanced technology, crazy weapons, new phrases… but then you start to realize that it’s very different from most science fiction shows. There are no aliens for starters. It as much a sci-fi show as it is a western. That might seem like two clashing ideas but Han Solo is a fucking cowboy. It is a human drama that relies on the chemistry between the characters and the cast.

A good cast will make or break a show. A show like Lost can go off the deep end and start involving time travel and purgatory, but if they have likeable and relatable characters people will come back each week.

Nathan Fillion stars as Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a former sergeant for a losing army in a civil war. He resents the Alliance, the current government for beating him in the fight for independence. He is honorable and has good intentions, but will fight dirty if he needs to.

Gina Torres plays Zoe, the first mate. She fought alongside Mal as a Browncoat and his been loyal to him ever since. She is fierce, ferocious, and a great fighter. She is married to Wash (Alan Tudyk), the pilot of Serenity. He is kind of a coward, and naturally serves as comic relief. Adam Baldwin plays Jayne Cobb. He is basically a mercenary that currently works for Mal, but he would sell him out if the price is right. Rounding out the main crew is Kaylee (Jewel Staite) the ship’s mechanic and the heart and soul of Serenity. She is sweet and innocent, and if she is in trouble than the ship is in trouble.

Malcolm Reynolds and his crew do random heists and various illegal activities to pay the bills and keep Serenity in the sky. Occasionally they pick up passengers for legitimacy. One passenger is Inara Serra (played by Morena Baccarin), who works as a companion. Companions are legal prostitutes, and in the future they are respectable. Inara and Malcolm have a little chemistry but they rarely act on it.

In the pilot episode, they pick up a few new additions to the passenger list. Ron Glass plays Book, a Shepherd (a priest or pastor), with a shady past who knows way more about crime and criminals than he should. Also jumping on board is Simon Tam (Sean Maher), a brilliant doctor whose main concern is his younger sister. Summer Glau plays River Tam, Simon’s sister and the main reason for Serenity to keep evading the Alliance. She has a much higher IQ than her genius brother, which he describes as making him seem idiotic. So she is really smart. She is also really crazy. The Alliance fucked with her head and turned her into a human weapon that’s way beyond Jason Bourne.

The crew stumbles their way around the galaxy, meeting new people and doing crazy things. They make enemies and become heroes more than once. The crew fights amongst each other, they bond, they become friends, and they become family. And you get to know each character and what they represent.

The best episode of the entire series is Out of Gas. They use a non-linear structure that flashes between the current perilous storyline of Mal with the history of the crew and how they all came to join Serenity. This one episode sums up the entire series.

I have a crazy theory that Malcolm dies in Out of Gas. The next episode, Ariel, they do an elaborate Hollywood style heist that seems out of place for the show. Shepherd Book is inexplicably absent, there’s no religious influence and we know that Mal is an atheist. They suddenly start to reuse characters that appeared once and suddenly come back, in this case the mysterious Two by Two, Hands of Blue guys. The episode after that, War Stories, brings back another character, the evil crime lord Niska, who comes back and captures Mal and tortures him to death before reviving him and telling him, “You died, Mr. Reynolds.”

The episode after that, Trash, brings back Saffron, another character from one episode. In a universe with countless worlds to explore, Malcolm keeps running into key figures from his past. Maybe he’s dead and is holding onto his memories, trying to keep from slipping into the void.

Firefly is a great show. I can geek out and talk about it for hours if someone would let me. Joss Whedon created a fully realized universe, oftentimes fantastic, but always relatable. You recognize the characters and their problems. They just happen to be living on a spaceship in the future.

Critically Rated at 16/17

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July 5, 2012 · 11:33 am

The Amazing Spider-Man (film)

Hollywood has a thing for unnecessary reboots and remakes of popular franchises. So I was more than a little doubtful about seeing a new Spider-Man movie with a new cast and director. I thought it would just be another origin story about Peter Parker’s transformation into Spider-Man. Marc Webb made an already established franchise seem new and fresh, and Andrew Garfield plays a great Peter Parker.

Garfield’s Parker is not a loser, he’s shy, kind of quiet, but he rocks a skateboard and wears contacts. He gets picked on by a bully named Flash Thompson, but Flash is an asshole and no one else bullies Peter. He’s a regular kid (smarter than average), and that’s what makes his transformation more exciting.

Peter gets bitten by a magic spider and he gets spider-like powers. One inevitable day, his beloved Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) tries to stop a robber and gets shot and dies on the street. Peter uses his new abilities to try to track down his uncle’s killer. He goes around dark alleys and streets, searching for his uncle’s killer and attacking anyone who matches his description.

He eventually starts wearing a mask, and later a spiffy spandex spidey suit. He also wears some artificial web shooters and he becomes an icon around the city. He gets more confident and asks out his crush, the beautiful and smart Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Her dad is the chief of police and thinks that Spider-Man is a dangerous vigilante who needs to be stopped.

While Peter is busy playing hero and fighting crime and saving people, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) is busy trying to regrow his stump of an arm and turns himself into a giant lizard and goes on a rampage. Peter is able to figure out that Connors is the Lizard, and that Connors wants to improve humanity by turning them all into lizard monsters. Peter has to stop him because he has the power to stop him.

Then there’s an exciting climax where Spidey fights the Lizard and things break and people die. Then they resolve some unresolved plot issues and drop some hints about the sequel and you leave the theater feeling content.

The movie is called The Amazing Spider-Man. It should really be called the Amazing Peter Parker. There is a lot of emphasis on the man under the mask. He takes off his mask to save a kid, when he’s fighting the lizard in the school, and when he pleads to Chief Stacy to let him stop the lizard. The Spider-Man suit is just a costume, it doesn’t make Peter a hero. Peter is already a hero. Before Peter even gets bitten, he stops a bully from picking on a kid, and gets his ass beat as a result. He was a hero way before the spandex.

When you watch this movie, you can’t help but compare it to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Raimi’s version is campy, it’s childish, it’s like the ‘60s Batman TV show. Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man is more realistic; it’s more like Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, just not as dark. Spider-Man is a fun character, he says witty things and wears a colorful suit and wants to be in the spotlight, not in the shadows.

Marc Webb is a great director. He creates genuinely emotional moments between the characters, and he is also able to create amazing and inspiring action sequences. When Uncle Ben dies, he pretty much just lies on the ground and is gone. There are no sentimental last words of advice, no “With great power comes great responsibility” hoopla.

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield have a great dynamic. They play off each other well. They have a lot of memorable moments, like when he asked her out with out asking her out, how he revealed he was Spider-Man to her, and how he gets her back in the end with a subtle whispered comment in class.

Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield Star in The Amazing Spider-Man

The movie does a lot to establish itself as the foundation for a new series. A large amount of the movie takes place at OsCorp. Dr. Connors is working for the mysterious Norman Osborn, who you never see but often hear about. Peter never catches his uncle’s killer. You find out that there’s more to the deaths of Peter’s parents than what was revealed.

Spider-Man 2 used to be one of my favorite comic book movies. The Amazing Spider-Man just usurped that spot I think. It’s the best Spider-Man movie, without a doubt. Go see it and agree with me.

Critically Rated at 16/17

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July 2, 2012 · 9:59 am

V for Vendetta (comic)

V for Vendetta is one of those comics that transcends comics and gets accepted as genuine literature. Alan Moore’s story is about a masked vigilante who rebels against the oppressive dictatorship that the UK has become. And he wears a Guy Fawkes mask because you have to look cool if you’re going to fight the government.

The story is set in the UK a few years after a nuclear war. Society collapsed and a group called the Norsefire takes advantage of the chaos and establishes itself as the new government in charge. If you are trying to assume total control, it’s only natural that you would eliminate your enemies or any threats against you, and so the Norsefire purged the UK of foreign immigrants, left-wing liberals, homosexuals and put them in concentration camps.

Only one prisoner managed to escape and he decides he wants a little revenge. He dons a cloak and a Guy Fawkes mask, and has an unnatural obsession with the letter V and the number five. In the beginning of the comic, our masked vigilante saves a young girl named Evey from a sticky situation. He takes her to his underground lair and begins teaching her how to become free, while showing off his bombing abilities and literary prowess.

It soon becomes clear to the Norsefire that they have a terrorist on their hands and they have to stop him. Eric Finch, the head of The Nose (the police force) , is assigned to track down V. We start to see how the party works. We meet the Leader, a shut-in named Adam Susan, who spends all day with his beloved computer system, Fate. There’s also The Finger (the secret police), The Eye (the visual surveillance branch), The Ear (the audio surveillance branch), and The Mouth (in charge of propaganda).

V starts killing a bunch of seemingly random people with ties to the party. Finch discovers a link between the victims – they all worked at a concentration camp. He finds a diary from one of V’s victims and learns about a mysterious prisoner known as the Man from Room Five because he was locked in a room with a roman numeral V on the door. The Man from Room Five escaped the camp using improvised explosives and vanished into the night. Finch deduces that this prisoner became the masked vigilante. He just has no idea who his true identity is.

V continues wreaking havoc on the Norsefire of the next few months and years, all the while continuing to teach Evey how to be free and what it means to be free. While V is terrorizing the party, the party is becoming divided and there’s a lot of bickering and backstabbing and attempts to seize power. V’s continued assaults on the party makes the oppressed masses start to stir and fight back. The party must try to deal with a potential political uprising in addition to warding off V’s victories.

Finch goes a little off the deep end and starts to think like V. He figures out where V’s hideout is and confronts him He wounds V mortally and V ends up dying in Evey’s arms. She doesn’t unmask him, she instead decides to don the cloak and the mask and assume his role. His ideas will live on through her, he lives on as a symbol.

V is one of the most unusual characters in comic history. You never see his face, you never learn his identity. And neither do any of the other characters. V could be a hero, he could be a villain. He could be sane, he could be totally crazy. He’s a little bit of everything, and he’s always an enigma.

Alan Moore’s depiction of dystopia is very reminiscent of Nineteen Eighty-Four. David Lloyd’s fantastic illustrations are perfect for this story. Although some events are over-the-top, the artwork keeps everything grounded in reality. It makes everything seem not just possible but inevitable. The art and the story are perfect compliments of each other.

If you liked Nineteen Eighty-Four or Fahrenheit 451 but wish there was more violence and nudity and a masked vigilante, you would probably like this comic. They made a film version that doesn’t really translate well, but it has Natalie Portman in it and she’s nice to look at. It’s not a terrible movie, but it sucks compared to the comic. This is a good comic, it’s a smart comic, and it’s an important comic.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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July 1, 2012 · 10:31 am

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Harrison Ford dons the famous fedora for the third time in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. This isn’t the best film in the franchise, but it’s the best sequel in the series for sure. Sean Connery joins the cast as Indy’s kidnapped father. Who better to play Indy’s dad than motherfucking James Bond?

This movie opens with River Phoenix portraying a 13-year-old Indiana Jones on a horseback ride in Utah. He comes across some thieves trying to steal a gold cross. He decides that the cross belongs in a museum so he steals it and tries to escape. It’s brief scene that seems like a precursor to the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and you find out how he got his trademark scar, whip, and fedora. It’s a great way to start the film, and it’s way more relevant than an extravagant musical number.

One day, Indiana Jones meets a guy named Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) who tells him that his dad has been kidnapped while looking for the Holy Grail. Indy doesn’t get along with his father, but he’s still his dad so he goes to rescue him, armed with his trusty whip and his father’s diary. Indy goes to Venice to pick up his dad’s trail and meets Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody), the love interest for the film.

Indy and Elsa have a little adventure exploring the catacombs and nearly getting killed by The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secret society that protects the Holy Grail. The Brotherhood decides that Indy is a swell guy and tells him that the Nazis have his father held hostage in a castle.

Indy goes to the castle and finds his dad, and then he finds out that both Elsa and Walter Donovan are working for the Nazis. Indy and his dad escape and overcome a bunch of obstacles like motorcycles and blimps and tanks, all while attempting to beat the Nazis to tracking down the Grail.

They reach the canyon where the Grail is, but the Nazis are already there. Donovan shoots Sean Connery, forcing Indy to have to navigate through a few crazy booby traps using the information in his dad’s diary. Indy gets to the Grail and is able to use its healing powers to save his dad. But then Elsa takes the Grail past the great seal (that’s like crossing the streams, it’s bad), and the whole canyon/temple thing starts to collapse. Sometimes I wish Indy stayed in that temple… if he died they couldn’t have made Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The father-son dynamic between Henry Jones, Sr. and Henry Jones, Jr. is what makes the film. Indy just wants his dad’s approval, but Henry makes him work for his affection. He loves his son, he just doesn’t know how to convey it. Indy uses his fists and violence to escape situations, and his dad tends to use his wits, best exemplified when he uses his umbrellas to scare the birds and bring down the Nazi plane.

It seems like they figured out who Indiana Jones is and what he represents. This movie is much more like the original than Temple of Doom. There are a lot of great moments in this movie. At one point Indy comes face to face with Adolf Hitler. Indiana Jones was hanging out with world leaders way before Forrest Gump made it cliché. This is a good movie and a great way to end the trilogy. Too bad it’s not a trilogy anymore.

Critically Rated at 14/17

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