Every month we pick a movie we think you'll dig from the hits,
classics, underground, grind house, and utterly obscure.
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
Steven
Spielberg
The Temple of
Doom |
|||||||
Last month in an attempt to rekindle my love for the series, I popped in my VHS copy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (I don't have the DVD box set yet, sue me) and I was suddenly reminded why I worship at the throne of Spielberg and why Indiana Jones has my top slot for the most anticipated of the year. A composite of serial heroes from the childhood of Spielberg and Lucas whose own desires to revive the pulp heroes they held so dear resulted in Indiana Jones, a variety of ideas that eventually molded into "Raiders of the Lost Ark." It was only called "Raiders of the Lost Ark," a first installment in a potential series that was ambitious from the get go and inspired a bevy of imitators through the eighties that even George Romero tried to emulate in his original script for "Day of the Dead." "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a subtle and still incredible adventure film featuring a (then) inconspicuous man with a brown Fedora who accidentally sets off a stone temple and is chased by a massive round boulder which almost squashes him. He then jumps a pit, almost falls into it, and faces off against local villagers. All in the first fifteen minutes! Yes, Spielberg and Lucas pool their skills with a seasoned cast of true talented actors and writers to bring us our first adventure with Indiana Jones who is out to stop his rival from claiming and opening the Ark of the Covenant. Along the way he battles muscle bound thugs, and even nearly dies more than four times. But as we learn, you can't keep Jones down. Not even snakes. He hates snakes, by the way. Hates them. Even at the ripe age of 27, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is still a brilliant and incredible throwback to the age of serials with a hero built on the concept of being just a man who is wounded, beaten, complains, and almost never gets the girl, in the end. What sets Jones apart from everyone else is that at the end of the day, he's beaten and he just can't catch a break, no matter where he goes in the world. But his love for history, and his profession keeps him a constant dashing anti-hero and living contradiction who may not always get respect, or nookie, but is satisfied just the same knowing that a historic and potentially dangerous artifact is in the right hands. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is the start of a dynasty and an eighties gem that needs to be spoken of again, and again, and again... and again... Hat's off to you, Indie. "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," here I come!
|
||||||||
|
Trivia you may
not (but probably do) know: Tom Selleck was originally going to play Indiana Jones. |
||||||||
Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Paul Freeman
George Lucas,
George Marshall
|
|
