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How’d You Spend the 99 Days of Summer 2023 – (Part 1)
I read at lot and watched a lot of movies. There. End of post. See ya. What did I see and read? I’ll recap the reading next week. Here’s what I watched…and hopefully you did, too. Summer 2023 Movies Were Great When was the last time we had a summer movie season like this? I think many of us earmarked certain dates on the calendar to get ourselves to the movie theater. I did that nearly every weekend this year. The end result was that, with the exception of the Pixar film, Elemental, I saw every movie I wanted to see this summer. And I enjoyed just about every one…
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Is It Really That Bad? A Reevaluation of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
Let’s not bury the lead: given the five Indiana Jones films, Crystal Skulls still ranks last. But a “bad” Indiana Jones movie is still better than a lot of other films. And you know what? It’s not as bad as you remember. The Connection With the Dial of Destiny When it came time to write the final Indy film, the screenwriters could go one of two ways: acknowledge the events of Crystal Skull or retcon them. Thankfully for all of us, they took the former route. And the end results in the new movie are ultimately quite moving. In fact, there is one scene in the new movie that reminds…
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A Brooding, Darker Hero: A Review of Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone
Leading up to the final Indiana Jones movie, The Dial of Destiny, I knew I would be in an Indiana Jones mood. As a result, I reached back to the 1990s and the novels written by a trio of writers: Rob MacGregor, Martin Caidin, and Max McCoy. I had read the first novel, The Peril at Delphi, back when it was released in 1991. But that Indy was younger and, for whatever reason, I kept buying the books but not reading them. After a cursory bit of research in 2023, I discovered that McCoy was hired to write stories more like the Indy we meet in the original trilogy and…
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Growing Up and Older With Indiana Jones: A Dial of Destiny Review
Indiana Jones and the Dial of destiny is a chance to reconnect with an old friend for one last adventure before we have to say good-bye. In that framework, the new film works quite well.