A weekend of Indiana Jones

4/9/16 Raiders of the Lost Ark, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, 1981, #66 AFI, National Film Registry, #82 BBC

4/10/16 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Best Visual Effects, 1984

4/11/16 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Best Sound Editing, 1989

I re-watched the first three Indiana Jones movies just in time to learn there will be a fifth coming to a theater near you. I intentionally skipped the fourth one, because it's not on any list and probably not relevant to this discussion. When I mentioned to a co-worker that I watched these movies last weekend, he cautiously asked if this was the first time. Unlike Dirty Dancing or Flashdance, I saw the first two Indiana Jones movies in the theater at the time of release. I'm not always late to the party. 

Indiana Jones, played so iconically by Harrison Ford, is an archeologist in the 1930s and 1940s, whose travels take him to the Middle East, Turkey and India in search of antiquities. He is often joined by a beautiful woman, they may be adventurers or not, and that determines the amount of screaming they do. In my opinion, the first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Ford, Karen Allen as Marian Ravenwood, Paul Freeman as the suave bad guy, Rene Belloq and John Rhys-Davies as Sallah, is the best and it's my favorite (probably a redundant statement). I watched this thinking about the other movies I've watched recently, thinking about how they are too long and full of 'bloat', and that there is no bloat in Raiders. There is very little extraneous conversation, either it's moving the story forward - trying to locate the Ark, or witty repartee as some fight scene or crazy action scene. There is a lot of action, and Harrison Ford reminds us why we love him so much as Jones and Han Solo, he doesn't miss a beat. Steven Spielberg directed all of the movies in the series, and infuses them with energy and humor and action; the same characteristics that made me really enjoy Jaws, once I got done being a fraidy cat. George Lucas developed the stories, while a variety of writers worked on the different films. John Williams contributed another of his famous and integral musical scores. The Temple of Doom had some great action scenes as well, but I thought there was too much talking. I really wanted action, the back story about whatever was not that interesting to me (normally I'm not that mentally lazy, but I just wanted swinging and fighting and all that stuff). I watched and reviewed the Last Crusade about two years ago, but watched it again since my friends were kind enough to lend me the whole series. I liked it when I reviewed it before, and I still liked it. Sean Connery was a good fit with Ford. All in all, I think the movies have held up well 25-30 years later, and for the most part, the whole family can watch them (those scenes at the end are where you have to be careful with young kids - the Nazis getting their just desserts as the open the Ark, Dr. Schneider taking an awful turn after she doesn't listen to the Knight about the Holy Grail).

Next up this weekend: Heaven's Gate, which somehow made it onto the BBC's 100 Best American Films list. I will let you know my thoughts, although one thought you can take to the bank, I will bitch about it being 5 hours long (if the library gave me the director's cut edition).