The other night, Justine and I watched the fantastic Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (for the nerds amongst the crowd, it was actually Justine’s decision).

Fast forward to a day or two later, and I was browsing IMDB (I forget why) when one of the people-related entries I was viewing had a credit for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull“.

Huh?

Thinking it must have been a documentary, or video game, or cartoon series, or similar I clicked and viewed the entry. Nope, it’s a fully-fledged, brand-spanking-new Indiana Jones movie! Coming in May!

Since The Last Crusade came out in 1989 (yes, it was really that long ago), there have been numerous reports of a new Indy movie coming. One I remember reading in the mid 90s (possibly 1996 or 1997) was supposedly written by Jeffrey Boam, who wrote the screenplay for The Last Crusade. His script surrounded Indy’s “son” that he’d never met as well as Marion (from Raiders). The group ended up tracking down Noah’s Ark somewhere, I forget where.

A few years later and there were many reports of the movie being back in production resurfaced. A couple more after that and M. Night Shyamalan was attached and writing a script. Later, Frank Darabont — who wrote a number of Young Indiana Jones episodes — had written a supposedly fantastic script that was also rejected.

Given all these false starts, I ignored the latest report I heard on the radio a year or two ago. Obviously this one was finally the real deal.

Not much is known about the story, but apparently there is a “son” character and the actress who played Marion has returned so it seems they’ve used some bits and pieces from lots of scripts for the final version. Apparently the final version was heavily “influenced” by the Darabont script. It’s also set in the late 50s and has the Russians as the villians, instead of the Germans.

Given the title, it’s obviously related to those crystal skulls which supposedly have magical powers. A quick Google later and it seems that some people believe that when “the” 13 crystal skulls are brought together a new era is ushered in for man, or something equally as outlandish. I expect that is the most likely scenario for the film. Obviously with some sort of madman in charge.

I can’t believe this movie has managed to keep itself hidden from me until now!

As I had been given Gold Class tickets through work, and these tickets expire at the end of this month, Justine and I decided to use the tickets to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.  We chose the Jam Factory Gold Class as this is the one that has been most newly refurbished so we figured it would be a good time to check it out.

The most significant differences between this Gold Class and the ones we’ve previously visited is that the staff come to you and take your order, as well as having a “call” button between each seat pair to, well, call a waiter. As it’s been a while since we visited any Gold Class, this may be common in the others now.  The screen and sound system at the Jam Factory are much bigger and louder than other ones, the screen is almost a regular size screen. The seats are also different; similar but just as comfortable.

On to the movie: Throughout, I had trouble determining who was the focus of the film. It certainly didn’t seem to be the Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) character, as he was absent for many scenes. So then who? It seems as though the writers were unsure who should be the main protagonist so avoided giving anyone too much screen time.

Too much screen time is a nice segue into my next point: there was too much screen time. The movie ran for a good two-hours-and-forty-five minutes (which, in hindsight, is good value for a Gold Class visit) but I’d say it ran forty-five to sixty minutes long.

Of course, I had to slum it and order popcorn and a Coke, while other patrons ordered beers, cakes, pastries and other fancy things. To be honest I hadn’t even considered ordering fancy food so we had dinner beforehand. Plus I just felt like movie popcorn.

It was one of the more popular indie films at the Sundance Film Festival this year, and also apparently one of the most expensive. It’s also been getting great reviews left, right and centre so last night Justine and I decided we’d go see Little Miss Sunshine. Since it was Tight Arse Tuesday (making the cinema prices almost reasonable), we also opted to eat out for dinner and we had great burgers at Grill’d (I had a lamb one and Justine’s was a vegan vegie pattie).

The movie centres around a semi-functional family who travel cross-country to get their young daughter to a beauty pageant. The central story is interesting and I found myself really wanting to find out what happened to the characters. However, I saw very little character development on the less-important characters, and though they had side stories they never seemed to be focused on except to fill in what would have otherwise been slower scenes. It would have been nice to see the side stories fleshed out a little more (perhaps they were and had been cut).

Right at the end of the film, during the talent portion of the beauty pageant the young girl — Olive — performs her act which is probably the funniest part of the entire film. In fact, it almost seems as though the first 90 minutes are a lead up to that pay off.

Unless of course you asked the people to the left and behind us. They were laughing and pretty much every second line, whether it was funny or not. In addition, their laughs would always end with a little sigh, which became incredibly easy to predict. The lady behind us also seemed to think she was in a recording booth to record a commentary track for the DVD release of the film. Really, when you’re in a cinema, why comment on each and every scene to the person with you (unless they’re blind I suppose, which they weren’t)? They’re in the cinema too! Single worst reason to go to the cinemas: the other people.

The experience was less than satisying but overall I’m still happy since the film itself was so good. We don’t see many “indie” films (the last few that immediately come to mind were Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite and Sideways), but they’re usually very good.

One of my favourite movies in my DVD collection is Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong film surrounding triads, police and a very interesting plot. There are also two sequels which Justine and I saw a couple of years back as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
A year or so ago I heard about a Hollywood remake of the film, supposedly starring Brad Pitt. For the longest time I’d forgotten about the movie until Justine told me it was coming out this week! I wonder how this managed to sneak up so quickly.

Though the film — The Departed — no longer stars Brad Pitt, it does feature a lot of “big names”, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg. It’s also directed by Martin Scorsese. Normally I’d advise to steer clear of a Hollywood remake (the most recent disappointment that comes to mind was Taxi, which was an excellent French film but awful Hollywood film). but surprisingly it’s been getting really good reviews.

What I am going to suggest is that if you plan to see The Departed, that you make the time to see Infernal Affairs (preferably before because I still feel it will be the better film, but I’m probably biased at this juncture). If you watch many Hong Kong films, you’re sure to recognise that it also has some major stars, just not “Hollywood” stars.

Justine, Justine’s mum and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on Thursday and since I haven’t written much else here recently, I’ll write about that, and you can read it if you care.

I really loved the first film. Everything just seemed to work. It was funny, had enough action, didn’t get too bogged down in the lovey-dovey scenes, and was just plain fun to watch.

The second film has pretty much all of the same elements: evil pirates, explosions, people yelling “arrgh”, swordfights, ship-to-ship fights, and a lot more. But it doesn’t seem to mesh quite as well as the first.

I left the cinema not knowing if I really enjoyed the film enough to want to see it again, which is not really a good sign. It seems as though the shell of the film is there, but it doesn’t appear to have the same delicious gooey centre that the first had; it’s been drained or sucked out by some greedy suit.

It’s also really interesting that the guy who created the Monkey Island games saw a lot of parallels between the game and this movie — there are a lot of similarities: the Jamaican voodoo lady in the swamp, the pirate ghost ship (OK, so that was in the first too, in a different way) are the best two examples I can think of. I’m having trouble deciding who would be Guybrush, but I’d say it would have to be the Orlando Bloom character.

I’ll be there for the third, which comes out next year, but my expectations are not going to be as high this time around.

Last night, being the first night it was available to see, Justine and I went to Knox with a triumphant return to the gigantic VMAX cinema (and was charged extra for the privilege; bastards).

The session was due to start at 9:30; we arrived a couple of minutes before and picked up our pre-booked tickets. The girl behind the counter managed to guess which movie we were seeing — I wonder how she did that? Oh yeah, probably because the 600 or so seats were almost completely sold out. Proceeding to the cinema entrance we weren’t lined up like the others — I’m not sure how many people in the line, I couldn’t see the end of it — we were instead asked to just mill around the foyer. Erm, OK.

Once the cinema doors were opened, the people in the line were ushered in; and then everyone else standing around just entered too — why wait when we can all fit… mostly. Proceeding to our decent seats, I counted no less than twenty people wearing “S” shirts (i.e. the shirt with the Superman logo), but only three or four wearing the black and silver logo. Least I didn’t see any capes…

Shortly after, the familiar open credits and theme song were ringing in our ears. Singer’s Superman is, at the very least, a loving tribute to Donner’s Superman, and at best a good modern attempt at bringing Superman back onto the silver screen.

By the end of the film, I was surprised that I hadn’t actually seen the black and silver logo surface on-screen (that’s a spoiler for all the Super-nerds who haven’t yet seen the film), and was thankfully happy that I hadn’t had to sit and watch a Lex Luthor CIA agent who was an alien also from Krypton (before Bryan Singer got hold of the film, this was one of the possible plots).

Finally getting out of the cinema after midnight, we retreated back to our Fortress of Solitude (aka home) and I went straight to bed, with Williams’ theme still running through my head.

If you liked the X-Men movies (the third one doesn’t count) or the original Superman movies (the third and fourth one don’t count — this one is a sequel to the second which pretends 3/4 never existed) then you’ll enjoy this. It does run long though, which seems to be an annoying recent trend.

For what I think is the first time this year, Justine and I saw a movie at the cinemas! There’s not really been many films we’ve been interested enough to lay down $40 to see up until this point.

The movie we decided to see was Pixar’s latest, Cars. We caught a 6:55 session which, unfortunately, wasn’t in the great VMAX cinema. Instead, it was in the second-last cinema at the back, so most likely one of the smallest in the complex. I was surprised to see that Village are now charging adults an extra fifty cents to see a movie in VMAX; of course, there are no discounts for seeing films in this shit cinemas at the back, are there? The price of food has increased yet again, making me wonder if it’s really worth bothering with. For fifty cents less than before, I got a smaller drink and no chocolate bar.

The cinema was tiny, with about 10 rows. The screen was small but adequate, except that the right-side was blurry throughout the whole cinema. Justine didn’t notice it until I pointed it out during the end credits, so maybe I’m just overly picky.

As for the film: well, it’s a Pixar film, what do you want me to say? I could’ve watched the “outing” scene where the two lead… “actors” … “drove” (?) around the town’s outskirts for two hours straight and be satisfied. It really is that beautiful.

The story was a pretty generic DIsney/Pixar story, so no surprises, but it was still an enjoyable film with all the usual in-jokes and sly humour that make Pixar films stand head and shoulders over the rest.

After the film ended, we decided to check out the Krispy Kreme store at Fountain Gate, since today was the grand opening (well, yesterday now, since it’s after midnight and the firewall computer died and needed reinstallation).

My God, the people! When we eventually locateed the store, we saw the line of cars proceeding ever so slowly towards the store, so decided to park and walk over. Mulling around the store were fifty or sixty people outside, and almost no one inside. Two weedy guys were standing guard. “What’s the deal?” I asked. They explained that the store was no longer able to sell product with the exception of drive through. I suspect it was because of the time we arrived.

This wouldn’t usually be a problem, except that the wait for donuts was two hours in the drive through line. I kid you not. There must have been 150 cars in the line waiting, and more joining the line every second. There were even police around to keep the whole thing in check.

Madness! I’m surprised there wasn’t a riot, when some people could get no donuts but we saw others walking around with 16 boxes (containing a dozen donuts each) between two people.