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Reviews
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Saturday Serial the way I like 'em
I still recall attending a sneak preview of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The flavor was distinctly that of the old "Saturday Serials," which actually preceded my long years of movie-going, but I had seen on videotape and in art houses. They featured a cliffhanger ending to each 10-minute (one reel of film) episode and then continued the next week with an escape and then, ten minutes later, another inescapable predicament. The end-of-the-episode cliffhanger tradition was "homaged" in the "Batman" TV series to the great glee of my generation.
Ennnnny-hhhooooo, the rhythm of "Crystal Skull" was basically that of the old serials, except for the quick turnaround between the first escape from the Russians and the lead-lined escape from the nuclear blast.
Another treat for my generation was the iconic image of Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" as "Mutt(no, that's what we called the dog) Williams" first appeared.
I was glad that the references to previous Indiana Jones material was spare and incisive. The Ark of the Covenant, Karen Allen, and Indy's ophidiophobia are reprised from "Raiders" and Pancho Villa is mentioned from the excellent "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles."
Myself, I try to avoid having any expectations when I see a film, but I did expect the "Saturday Serial" experience for my Saturday matinée, and I got just what I expected, with better special effects.
Cracking Up (1977)
Chaos
What do you get when you combine Ace Trucking Company, half of Firesign Theatre, The Credibility Gap, The Tubes, film and video cameras, and presumably, a lot of drugs? Chaos. The film is a revue of troupe comedy sketches, some of which are brilliant, very loosely strung to the plot of a massive earthquake. My guess is that a large amount of cocaine convinced people that making the film was a good idea.
Fred Willard and Harry Shearer are already at the top of their form. Michael McKean and David Lander (Lenny and Squiggy) make their (addled by something) film debuts.
It was painful for me to sit though the main story and the many off-key sketches, waiting for the great pieces, although Bergman and Proctor's goofy Walter Concrete and Barbara Halter's characters were occasionally politically relevant enough to be hilarious; and I was not offended by the generous serving of gratuitous nudity.
The film is a scavenger hunt for diamonds in the rough.