Back on the actual topic of movies!
Indy 4: Fun stuff. Not Raiders/Last Crusade level good, but what is? At times I wonder if the only thing making me not go "Wow, awesome" is me being twenty years older than I was when I saw the original movies (not to mention completely fucking jaded,) but...eh. It was a tad sillier than it had to be, and you can guess the villain deaths a loooong way off if you've seen one of these movies before (poetic justice what?) I don't have any major issues with the movie, though. It was entertaining, had some good nods to the previous installments (Denholm Elliot portrait in the school = classy), and Harrison Ford, shockingly, still kicks ass. Though I'd hope they don't try and press their luck to see how long that lasts (pretty sure Spielberg knows better, at least). All in all, I'd expected a lot worse from an attempt to resurrect a franchise after nineteen years. Good show, gentlemen.
And Shia Lebouf is, thankfully, not annoying. I wanted to hit him for being such a spaz in Transformers, but I think it's clear now that I can hold that against Michael Bay instead (since, y'know, everything about Transformers that wasn't giant robots hitting each other was painfully bad. Also, Michael Bay is a dick). Kid actually wound up being pretty affable, and I can't say I'd really object if they continued making Indy-style movies with him (which seems to be their intent).
Also, Cate Blanchett as a commie swordgirl = love.
Prince Caspian: Eye candy. Not a lot more to it, but it's a diverting couple hours of fluff. I will say, and not always to the movie's credit, that the emphasis on epic battles is even more lopsided than it was in the first movie. I realllly get the feeling they're making extra effort to ensure that the body count stacks up against the Lord of the Rings movies, which is kinda sad for being so obvious. Of course, people who actually remember the damn book (I don't; read it in elementary school) tell me this is pretty much what Prince Caspian the novel was about in the first place, but there was certainly a fair amount of filler in the film. How many examples did we really need of the title character endangering his entire cause by being an emo wanker? In the movie's defense, it does have the most badass rodents ever. So there's that.
Seems to lack momentum at the box office, which is vaguely sad just because it makes a Voyage of the Dawn Treader adaptation less likely and that's the one I'd really like to see a movie made of (it's the next book in the series). "Expedition to the edge of the world" is so much more my style than "Epic clash of good and evil."
Older stuff!
No Country for Old Men: People have talked about this already and I see little cause to disagree with them. So yeah, good movie.
Sunshine: The ostensible premise is that the sun is dying (for reasons never specified) and Earth's only hope is a handful of internationally representative astronauts sent to restart it with a gigantic nuclear bomb. This probably makes it sound really bad. Fortunately, what it's actually about is what happens when you cram eight strangers in an enclosed space and cast them adrift in the void for years on end. Because it's by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days/Weeks Later) and the man knows psychodrama, so when the crew inevitably starts to fall apart it's incremental and believable. Helps that the cast is generally excellent--Cilian Murphy not playing a creepy psychopath for once. Wow. (He's basically the main character--lack of big-name actors probably did a lot to sink Sunshine in the theaters). It's also worth noting that the movie has a pretty firm grasp on the mechanics of space travel as well its obstacles in spite of the basic setup being pretty crazy.
Movie threatens to turn into stock thriller material near the end, but damned if the culprit (who for the sake of spoilers I'll just call The Incredible Melting Man) isn't genuinely creepy, in part due to direction that never gives you a clear look at the bastard but suggests a whole helluva lot of ickiness. Good flick despite a couple hiccups, and it did not deserve the horrible fate it suffered at the box office. Go watch it, people. (I'll be very disappointed if I don't at least get Grefter to pick this up).
Even older stuff!
Flash Gordon: You know I had to watch this at some point just because of the Queen soundtrack. I regretted doing so immediately after the opening credits, of course, but I can't say I didn't know what I was in for. Phenomenally bad movie. I even had trouble laughing at it most of the time. It's just...the set design...oh god, my eyes! There is no possible way it could be more obviously a product of the late seventies (it came out in 1980, so close enough). All the concentrated bad taste of the disco era is poured into bringing the world of Mongo to a shambling, hideous, impossibly gaudy semblance of life: everything is draped in retina-searing primary colors or chintzy gold cloth and the costumes are so ludicrously outlandish that even a latter-day George Lucas would turn his nose up at them. It is, in short, the most aggressively ugly movie I've ever seen.
As for the cast, try imagining the bully from The Karate Kid saving the universe. Doesn't work, does it? Granted, the villain's crack troops are easily outwitted by a freaking travel agent, so it's not like he was up against much. Worst. Mooks. Ever. And I'm aware that there's a lot of competition for that title. Our hero also spends the first third of the movie running around in a t-shirt with his own name it. Maybe they were worried we'd forget who he was or something, I dunno. Special effects are bad even for the time and everything is coated in crimson and gold oh god my eyes. Fantastically awful from beginning to end. It wasn't trying to be serious and I didn't attempt to take it seriously, but it still hurt. Ming's daughter was unspeakably sexy, though, despite the movie's loathsome excuse for a wardrobe. I'll give the movie credit for that, at least.
In short, Snow needs to watch this immediately. "Camp overload" does not do it justice.
