It's just an ordinary day - Recent Entries

Somewhat belated, but then, I've had a pretty complicated and distracting weekend... but hey, there's little that a good dose of Indy can't help. ;)

This is the blow by blow spoiler post for Indy IV, people. If you haven't seen this movie yet, for the love of God, don't look behind the cut!

( Spoilers still damn well hanging onto the Hat.... )

Still musing about how I feel this movie holds up against Temple of Doom and Last Crusade. I am pretty sure I'm going to have to go see it again to formulate a real and proper opinion!

First and foremost, folks: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DOES NOT SUCK.

It's not in the league of Raiders of the Lost Ark--but then, expecting it to be is just crazytalk. ;) However, it does hold up pretty well against Temple of Doom and Last Crusade; how well, I'm still debating. It is pretty much Big Silly Fun, which is about what I was expecting.

There are a couple of "oh for fuck's sake, no" moments that are too silly. But there are also some genuinely LOL-worthy moments, the chase sequences are good, Shia LeBeouf is decent, Cate Blanchett is quite cool (although not quite as cool as she should have been), there are some nice nods to not only the events of the previous movies but also the years between, and most of all... it was ZOMG so cool to see Indy and Marion in the same movie again. Karen Allen in particular seems to share the glee, as she spends a good chunk of the movie with this giddy grin on her face, as if she's thinking, "YAY I GET TO BE MARION AGAIN!"

They went a little overboard trying to prove to the audience that Indy is still perfectly physically capable despite his age--he has a couple of things happen to him that should have damn well killed a younger man, much less a 65-year-old. ;) However, they also do acknowledge his age nicely in other ways. And I gotta admit... from a few camera angles, in certain scenes... yeah. Harrison's still hot. Even for an old dude. ;)

mamishka, casirafics, and I had a bitchin' good time last night having dinner and then linecamping for the midnight showing of the movie. We had excellent Mexican food (for those of you who are local, we went to the Mexican place on the top floor of Pacific Place, downtown) and tasty drinkies (during which I learned that yeah, two margaritas do make me rather loopy, but it wears off fairly quickly), and after that was done joined the already lengthy line at the Cinerama.

There were already about 75 people in the line ahead of us--some of them had TENTS. And lawn chairs. And blankets. They had clearly been there for a while! But once we spotted the group in costume, we knew we were among our Tribe.

We had a delightful conversation with the people in line just behind us, as we all hung out amusing ourselves watching the DVD of bonus materials out of the original DVD box set of the first three movies. It was very noisy there on the street, so Mimi, clever panda that she is, turned on the English subtitles in her DVD program and we watched stuff that way.

It is worth noting that much amusement was expressed over the juxtaposition of the Indy IV poster against the one for the forthcoming animated Clone Wars flick. Double deja vu, that. Sadly, I cannot muster up nearly the same enthusiasm for the Clone Wars flick as I did for this one... but it was still pretty neat to see the posters side by side.

They let us in fairly early, which was nice of them, and while we were waiting the costumed group's fully costumed Indy guy kept coming down in front and showing off his whip skills. Which were, I must note, pretty impressive! Dude even had a whip made by the guy who makes the official Indy whips--who turns out to be local! Very, very cool.

Lots of high spirits in the crowd, which is of course why one goes to these things. And happily, they didn't inflict any commercials on us while we were waiting--or during the previews. We got a Dark Knight trailer, which triggered a big wave of cheers. And I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved that we did NOT get an X-Files trailer.

This post will remain spoiler-free; I'm going to do another one with a full blow-by-blow breakdown. So feel free to comment right now on this one if you haven't seen the movie yet--and when you do, look for my next post!

This came in over my RSS subscription to indianajones.com last night: Trailer #2 for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!

( Spoilers! )

Oh yeah. This is starting to feel like a proper Jones film. Even with this old Indy running around in it. ;) I am eying the 22nd now with great enthusiasm--and thoughts of attending a midnight showing! 'Cause who am I kidding, I know I'm going to be there!

"What have you done with my Nazi, George?!"

solarbird and spazzkat informed me this morning, you see, that the little figure of a German soldier that comes with the LEGO Indy set mamishka gave me has vanished. So has one of the little LEGO crates that came with the set. Indy and Professor Jones Sr. are accounted for, as are both motorcycles, the flag, and the little gatehouse thingie.

But of poor Heinrich, alas, there is no sign! All I found upon searching the media room were his tiny LEGO goggles.

I expect that from this can be derived the moral that if one is a LEGO German soldier trying to mess with the LEGO Jones boys, one can expect to be apprehended by a giant cat.

I got a very late birthday gift package from the fabulous mamishka, which proved to contain two old Elvis LPs (King Creole and the 2-LP Elvis Christmas Album, both of which I already own, but hey!), a nifty Elvis calendar which is now hanging up in my workstation area at work, and, most importantly, a LEGO Indiana Jones set! The one from Last Crusade, which comes with a teeny LEGO Indy and a teeny LEGO Professor Jones Sr. and a teeny LEGO German guy and teeny LEGO motorbikes!

I am utterly, utterly charmed. Between stumbling home from work last night and knocking myself out with Nyquil to try to continue to recover from the Martian Death Plague that has afflicted me for a week and a half, I had to put the set together. Because teeny LEGO Indy! I mean, damn, he's got a TEENY FEDORA! <3

spazzkat came in when I was putting them together last night, picked up the LEGO Connery, and squeaked, waving it around, "You call this archaeology?!" *beam* I love my house. And the Meems, who understands the soul of my fangirlishness.

Thank you, Mimi! <3 <3

The trailer is out! Go! Watch! And join me in hoping this won't suck!

( Trailer reactions back here, to hide the spoilers... )

Winnowill has been flinging me a lot of my Indy screencaps as backgrounds in my random desktop rotation lately. I think this machine is trying to tell me something: possibly that it is expecting me to jump up to indianajones.com tomorrow and check out the shiny new trailer that is about to be released. I'm finally starting to believe this movie is about to happen--but I think I won't quite completely buy it until I lay eyes on this trailer. ;)

Please, gods of cinema, don't let this suck.

I yoinked this link from casirafics, and feel that it must be passed on swiftly--because word is in that Karen Allen has been confirmed as joining the cast of Indy 4.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, they are bringing back Marion.

The chances of this not sucking just improved significantly. :D

Also, I see that they've updated indianajones.com significantly, gearing up for the movie and stuff; the Karen Allen news is there, too. Looks like I'll have to be keeping a sharp eye out on that site now!

Back from another globetrotting adventure, Indiana Jones checks his mail and discovers that his application for tenure has been denied. This is, in a word, hysterical. Thanks to kaseido for the link! ^_^

Had to take Polly in to the vet today for a followup, since she's had issues lately with her thyroid levels and just being an old lady kitty in general. That went only marginally well, since they were only able to get the blood sample they wanted and couldn't weigh her at all or get a sample for urinalysis--since Polly still isn't too old a kitty to pitch a fit at the vet's. The more interesting vet stuff today actually had to do with a billing problem--it turned out that on that last big appointment she had back in June, I wound up getting somebody else's bill and paid about thirty dollars more than I should have. They didn't figure it out until NOW, when they were going through the computer to send out bills and found that my charge hadn't been paid. So I called them up to ask them WTF, and once I actually got down there with the invoice for what I'd paid and the invoice on the bill they'd sent me (since I was going down there anyway for Polly's appointment, I figured I'd bring the invoices with me), we realized that my paid invoice had somebody else's name on it.

Oops.

So they credited the difference to my account and now will have to contact the other client and explain that that charge hadn't actually gotten paid.

It's been a week for screwups of this nature, too. I realized that the rent check I thought I was missing from one tenant for last month's rent actually was missing from a different tenant entirely, which necessitated me going through the rent books with a fine-toothed comb. We sent apologetic email to the guy who'd actually paid his rent, and asked the other one if he'd please check his records and see if he sent us a check. Here's hoping we can get that straightened out.

Meanwhile, although lameness is keeping me from going to enjoy late-night Big Screen Raiders of the Lost Ark tonight, mamishka and I have mutually pledged to make up for it in two weeks when that theater runs Last Crusade. Which will be the last weekend before solarbird, spazzkat, and I take off for Worldcon and Disneyland, so that'll be a good time to go!

Wednesday miles: 3.2
Thursday miles: 3.6
Friday miles: 3.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1278.5
Miles out of Rivendell: 820.5
Miles out of Lothlórien: 358.5
Miles to Rauros Falls: 30.5

A helpful comment on my last post has informed me that the entire Indiana Jones trilogy is playing midnight showings at a theater in Ballard, starting this weekend with Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Now as I posted, I just watched this flick last night--so I've taken the edge off a bit. But the prospect of Big Screen Indy is extremely tempting, and if I could get others to join me, I just may have to do this.

Anybody interested? Let me know! :)

Because it occurred to me tonight that I am all by my lonesome in the living room with a big ol' TV and a DVD player and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

"Listen, Herr Mac, I don't know what kind of people you're used to dealing with, but nobody tells me what to do in my place!"

*sigh!* I love this movie so much.

And also, some quick numbers because I miscalculated yesterday's!

Missed Monday mileage: 0.5
Tuesday evening miles: 2.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1268.2
Miles out of Rivendell: 810.2
Miles out of Lothlórien: 348.2
Miles to Rauros Falls: 40.8

So my Raiders of the Lost Ark fangirling is still going strong, folks. A few spins through the Raiders soundtrack, and all I can think is "God-DAMN, I love this music! I love this movie!" *sighs happily* I love each and every note in this soundtrack, from the opening bars of "The Raiders March" to that high, sweet violin note held out in the End Credits track, as the orchestra segues from Marion's theme back into the main theme. This is the music that made me want to join the London Symphony Orchestra as a kid, and made me giddy every single time my middle school band teacher told us to get out our parts for the Raiders March.

This past weekend, spazzkat even helped matters along some by deciding he was in the mood to watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Which is certainly the least of the Indy movies, but which does at least have the fabulous Short Round as well as Indy's best pickup line ever: "Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." Which really, really needs to be an icon, and I may have to get on that. Still, after all the spins I've taken through Temple of Doom, I still want to strangle Willie every single time she shrieks. And when she coos to Indy that "you'll never have better". *snork* I keep wanting to pipe up "Oh yeah he will! Next year, when he crosses paths with that two-fisted, hard-drinking, smart-mouthed brunette!" ;) Yes, fangirls of my Friends list, I am a total Indy + Marion OTPer. 'Cause, well, how could you not be?

All of which brings me around to mentioning that I keep hearing rumors about Indy IV. This both thrills me and scares me. Thrills me, because there's still a corner of my fangirly brain that would slurp up a new Indy movie with great glee. Scares me, because the rational part of my fangirly brain does point out that Mr. Ford is sixty-four years old now, and really too old to be chasing after archaeological relics across the big screen. Plus, I can't exactly say I trust Lucas to cough up a good script anymore.

If Indy IV actually does make it to the theaters, I strongly suspect I will be holding my DVD copy of Raiders over one ear and my laserdisc copy over the other, going "LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T SEE YOU" until I see some reviews that assure me they won't fuck it up. Please oh please, Harry, don't fuck it up.

So tell me, people, what are your favorite moments in the Indy movies? Any one. Open call! :)

So last night, thanks to the birthday of Mr. Ford, I felt a great, grand, passionate need to screencap the hell out of Raiders of the Lost Ark and bolster Harry's presence in my icon set. Between this and the help of some very pretty color textures by colorfilter, I have accomplished tonight's icon. (And for extra giggles and grins, it could easily be mistaken for a Paul Nighman icon, at least to anybody familiar with my and mamishka's RP days from Star Wars MUSH!)

I also have the following ten bases, which I will be doing more fun things to as soon as I figure out what I want them all to look like. If you'd like to play with the bases yourself, have at--just please do not hotlink to the images. Copy them to your own server!