SpoutBlog on spout.com

Under discussion:

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice  (1969)

Baghead  (2007)

• Ain’t It Cool has pictures from the Morocco set of The Green Zone, a Paul Greengrass film about the war in Iraq starring Matt Damon. AICN’s tipster says the U.S. military has refused to provide props for the film because of the script’s critical stance towards the war. I don’t know that it’s exactly standard practice for the military to lend equipment to Hollywood productions anyway, but LIBERTAS says this is just one more sign that filmmakers who question the war are “enablers of evil willing to squander tens-of-millions in the hope of watching untold numbers of abandoned Iraqis fed into the meat grinder of death squads and terrorists.”
• Eugene at indieWIRE notices the similarities between the new poster for Baghead, and the poster for 60s sex farce Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (starring young Elliott Gould….drool). I think the Baghead poster is kind of awesome––I love it that it downplays the totally (and I’m sure somewhat intentionally) unconvincing horror aspect of the film.
• Vulture counts down budding filmmaker Madonna’s five worst in front of the camera contributions to the music video canon. The big loser is the partially-animated “Dear Jessie”, which is truly awful, but also enough of an oddity that it’s a shame it’s already been removed from YouTube.
• To close the day on the most prurient note possible: the tabloids say Lindsay Lohan’s drinking again, but Radar says she’s just an avid Facebook updater who takes both her sobriety and alleged lesbian lover Samantha Ronson very seriously.

Under discussion:

Indiana Jones [Film Series]  Production Year

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  (2008)

With each Indiana Jones film comes the obligatory discussion of the title character’s merits relative to his field. So, in anticipation of the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there’s a story from NPR’s All Things Considered program that calls into question Indy’s heroic deeds. Is he a true archaeologist or is he nothing more than an adventuring thief, no better than the baddies he means to thwart? Real-life archaeologist Winifred Creamer appears to think the latter:

“You could say Indiana Jones is the worst thing to happen to archeology, because Indiana Jones has no respect for anybody and anything. Indiana Jones walks a fine line between what’s an archaeologist and what’s a professional looter.”

The story somewhat follows Indy’s fluctuating view on the matter, which is evidenced by his inconsistent words and actions throughout the first three films. Of course, as the story mentions, archaeologists and treasure hunters of the past were often considered heroes in their time only to be later labeled thieves by the nations or civilizations whose artifacts were taken. One of Creamer’s team, 17-year-old Dylan Breternitz, for whom archeology is the family business, comes more to the defense of Indiana Jones’ conduct:

“(Indy) does everything that all archaeologists would like to do,” says Bredernitz. “Go on crazy adventures, fight bad people, not steal stuff but save it from being destroyed by the bad guys.”

It isn’t like Indy keeps the artifacts for himself or tries to sell them to dealers, right? He secures them for view in a museum or, in the case of the Ark of the Covenant, to be stored away, either outcome being better than in Hitler’s hands.

NPR’s story also touches on the issue of Indy’s influence on young people (like Bredernitz) to become archaeologists, a good and bad thing for the actual profession. Certainly there are more people turned onto the field because of the films, but a number of people also apparently get the wrong idea of what the job is actually like.

Frustrating, sure, but helpful, too. When I took a class called Art & Architecture of Egypt, the professor constantly put things into perspective for students who’d seen the Indiana Jones trilogy, especially when describing her own archaeological endeavors. For me, a movie dork who relates nearly everything in real life to reel life, it made sense. But I also think such comparisons downplay the worth of the real-life profession.

Then again, I downplay the worth of film criticism to everyone who thinks this job is all fun and glamor, too.

Under discussion:

Splash  (1984)

Enchanted  (2007)

Yes, it’s about time we heard news about a sequel to Enchanted. But not because I am actually looking forward to Enchanted 2. In case you weren’t aware or have forgotten, I’ve been writing contemptuously about the original since my very first day posting on SpoutBlog. Rather, it’s about time only because I was beginning to think Disney had lost its marbles, business-wise. Clint at Moviehole has the unofficial scoop:

A foxy little birdie cheeped in my ear – the good one, the other one’s clogged with wax - this morning that Disney is developing a sequel to its staggeringly-successful “Enchanted” – and the production has inched forward significantly in the past month or two, as a direct result of those smashing DVD sales.

How does she knoooooooow?….

This one probably doesn’t need its source fingerprinted or lie-detected, let’s leave it at that.
But really, did anyone expect the House of Mouse not to forge ahead with a follow-up to one of its biggest hits of 2007?
Nah, me either – if a cow is there to be milked, it need look into some teat cream, it’s bound to be tugged a few more times.

I still haven’t gotten over how well-received this movie was with critics, regardless of whether or not they included their daughters’ responses. I still find the thing offensively backwards in terms of both its female characters and its storytelling — not to mention its too-sunny, pre-’70s sort of touristy depiction of New York City. I often feel out of touch with both the moviegoing public and, to some degree, my fellow critics, but this was one movie that I felt almost completely on my own against. Thank goodness it didn’t actually win any Oscars.

Hopefully the sequel will be really, really great yet receive terrible reviews and perform badly at the box office. Of course, that would never happen. An Enchanted sequel wouldn’t go totally ignored unless Disney continued with the movie’s similarities to Splash and made Enchanted Too with a completely different cast. Of course, that would never happen either. So, I guess I’ll just leave it to be just as bad as the first, and just as well-received and popular. And I’ll try not to let it bother me as much the second time around.