Hype Movie Club

[Spider-Fan]

Shia swinging on the vines and being able to catch up to moving vehicles is the only part of Crystal Skull that truly makes me cringe.

I dont even cringe at the nuked fridge, but I cringe during I would say....almost all of the jungle chase. Then during the magic tree branch that lands their car like a pillow. Then during the awful CG alien, oh I'm sorry...."interdimensional beings" finale. Then my head explodes during Mac's 50 betrayals.

I don't like the movie, lol

 

[Spider-Fan]

I’m watching the D+ version with the new color grading tonight, since I’ll be seeing Dial of Destiny tomorrow. Actually looking forward to it. One thing I’ve realized about myself is how much color grading actually affects my enjoyment of a film.

I watched on D+, and still looked like crap to me

 

[flickchick85]

I never had a problem with the aliens as a concept tbh. That was the mythology of the era, so it fit, imo. The CGI-heavy finale with them, however…yeah.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I never had a problem with the aliens as a concept tbh. That was the mythology of the era, so it fit, imo. The CGI-heavy finale with them, however…yeah.

I never had an issue with the concept, either. They just look terrible and the CG finale is ugly. If they did this in the 80s or early 90s and had done practical effects work, I think it would have probably been awesome.

 

[Drizzle]

I dont even cringe at the nuked fridge, but I cringe during I would say....almost all of the jungle chase. Then during the magic tree branch that lands their car like a pillow. Then during the awful CG alien, oh I'm sorry...."interdimensional beings" finale. Then my head explodes during Mac's 50 betrayals.

I don't like the movie, lol

That chase feels like a precursor to all the insane CGI car chases in the later Fast and Furious movies.

 

[ComicChick]

So I just got home from work and started The Last Crusade. I’m now thinking that I’ve never seen it in its entirety before. Like the young Indy scene just ended and I have never seen that before.

I paused to type this so I don’t miss anything lol.

But random CC thought when they showed the rhino in the train “it’s going to be weird when they go extinct and seeing one on screen” what? Lol

maybe I should’ve went to bed instead. Don’t know
if I’m going to watch the whole thing tonight

edit: 12:50 am. Got an hour left but I’m not paying attention like I should be. Mostly cuz I’m tired. So I’ll finish it later. They’re about to board the zeppelin

 

[Kane52630]

Just finished The Last Crusade which I never saw before aside from the clip of Ford and Connery being tied up. It definitely feels like the most fully realized version of what an Inandia Jones movie could be where the globetrotting adventure actually feels like globetrotting and it helps they shot most of the movie on location instead of an obvious set or in California. That could also be because they got Connery and they probably wanted to emulate the feeling that you're watching a Bond movie.

Watching this series closely one after the next, this feels like a reactionary movie to Temple of Doom where it does go back to what people loved about Raiders and center it back to being about finding a Judeo-Christian relic and Nazis being the big bad. And it seems like Dial of Destiny is gonna do the same thing in reaction to how people didn't like Crystal Skull. I will say I thought the opening action set piece with River Phoenix was entertaining... but the whole hat and bullwhip origins felt so forced and that's probably because we've seen that fan service moment happen a million times in other big ip franchises.

The Last Crusade kinda gets the best parts of the previous two films and balances them really well. There's slapstick humor like getting an autograph from Hitler himself (something that I highly doubt anyone could pull off today lol) but then there's the father-son drama that you do buy into.

With Spielberg, it's interesting seeing these three movies because they all tell a tale of how blockbusters used to look like in the 80s. Raiders is a rough and gritty post-70s blockbuster where they were still figuring out action/story and visual mechanics of what the 80s would become, Temple of Doom felt way more what the 80s were where it's very high camp and extra and The Last Crusade felt more in line with what blockbusters would look like in the 90s and so on.

Overall, pretty good and I see why some people put this over all the other Indy films.

Also what a cool effect.

 

[flickchick85]

So I just got home from work and started The Last Crusade. I’m now thinking that I’ve never seen it in its entirety before. Like the young Indy scene just ended and I have never seen that before.

I paused to type this so I don’t miss anything lol.

But random CC thought when they showed the rhino in the train “it’s going to be weird when they go extinct and seeing one on screen” what? Lol

maybe I should’ve went to bed instead. Don’t know
if I’m going to watch the whole thing tonight

edit: 12:50 am. Got an hour left but I’m not paying attention like I should be. Mostly cuz I’m tired. So I’ll finish it later. They’re about to board the zeppelin

I didn't even know rhino's were going extinct 'til just now!

Watching Kingdom now. This color grading IS a huge improvement. It at least looks like an Indy flick now. Still lots of shots that look way too soundstage-y, though.

 

[Kane52630]

I checked out the beginning scene of Crystal Skull and I agree @flickchick85 , the color grading looks really good. I don't remember it looking that good even though I only saw it that one time when it came out. You could also mistake it for a movie shot in the 80s.

 

[flickchick85]

The psychic angle is far more off-putting to me than the aliens. It feels so unnecessarily tacked onto Blanchett's character, imo. And introducing that in the opening scene was...a mistake, I feel. It just gets things off on the wrong foot.

 

[Ninjablade]

Not sure how much it would improve, as the script would need some changes regardless, but a lot of the issues I have with Crystal Skull really come from it being made during the time it was. A lot of sequences feel too excessive for the sake of excessive like a lot of other blockbusters during the time period. The jungle chase is kind of the best example, as there's so much added nonsense that wouldn't have been there without the lack technological restrictions they had in the 80s.

 

[flickchick85]

Not sure how much it would improve, as the script would need some changes regardless, but a lot of the issues I have with Crystal Skull really come from it being made during the time it was. A lot of sequences feel too excessive for the sake of excessive like a lot of other blockbusters during the time period. The jungle chase is kind of the best example, as there's so much added nonsense that wouldn't have been there without the lack technological restrictions they had in the 80s.

Yeah the movie that immediately comes to mind for me to compare it to is Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which came out the year before. I enjoyed that one more, but its such an exercise in excess.

 

[flickchick85]

So yeah, I find this movie rather enjoyable up to the jungle chase. From there on, it kinda loses me. The incredibly fake car chase, the monkey swinging, the ants, the CGI climax...just a lot of choices they made there lol. Also, I miss when the villain met their end through some really gross make-up/stop-motion/practical fx!

 

[The Shape]

Speed 3 ft. Liam Neeson

 

[squeekness]

Speed 3 ft. Liam Neeson

Sooner or later Liam is going to age out, right? Lol....

 

[Snow Queen]

I may not care for Temple of Doom, but I do love this moment:

 

[CaptainWagner]

Nominations are now closed. Here are our nominees for July! Once again, you can vote for UP TO FIVE.


Beasts of the Southern Wild
Blade Runner 2049
Blindspotting
Blue Ruin
The Creep series
Death of Stalin
Drive
Edge of Tomorrow
Fighting With My Family
The Florida Project
Gone Girl
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Ladybird
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Master
Moonlight
The Mission: Impossible series
Nightcrawler
Parasite
The Phantasm series
The Place Beyond the Pines
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Predestination
Prisoners
Shadow
Song of the Sea
Tomb Raider
Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier)
Whiplash
Zero Dark Thirty

Voting will be open until Thursday night!​

- Death of Stalin
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Shadow (Didn't know about it before this thread but it looks cools and y'all have good taste)
- Song of the Sea

 

[squeekness]

Death of Stalin
Song of the sea

 

[CaptainWagner]

So - Temple of Doom

The definition of a mixed bag. The action-adventure and comedy here are some of the best in the franchise. Ford is amazing (and LOOKS amazing). He and Ke Huy Quan as Short Round make a terrific duo. But then of course, you have the racism (When making a movie about Colonial India, it's a bare minimum rule to NEVER HAVE THE BRITISH BE THE GOOD GUYS, and yet this can't even meet that bar) and whatever the heck Willie is here for (Which is a shame, because Capshaw plays the part amazingly - how she even had a voice left after all that screaming to say yes to Spielberg's proposal is beyond me - it's just a TERRIBLE part). And of course there's the nonsensical decision to make it a Prequel - Where is our mid-equal to show Indy hitting his head so hard he forgets the existence of the supernatural?

The great irony of this story is that out of all the films, this is the one movie where Indy is returning a stolen artifact to its rightful people, instead of stealing (or attempting to steal) it for his own research. And yet they take that premise and turn it into the most problematic movie in the series...

A few changes (make the British dude a villain, improve the representation of Indian culture, have it be a sequel, preferably w/Marion, etc...) and this could have been the best movie of the bunch. Shame how it all went down.

 

[MasterBoss]

The psychic angle is far more off-putting to me than the aliens. It feels so unnecessarily tacked onto Blanchett's character, imo. And introducing that in the opening scene was...a mistake, I feel. It just gets things off on the wrong foot.

It's a weird moment. The opening with Spalko implies she has psychic abilities, and then it's completely dropped.

 

[ComicChick]

Raging Bull - Fri 21 Jul 7:15 PM - Roxy Cinema New York

Roxy Cinema in New York is holding a showing of Raging Bull next month

 

[Drizzle]

Raging Bull - Fri 21 Jul 7:15 PM - Roxy Cinema New York

Roxy Cinema in New York is holding a showing of Raging Bull next month

 

[CaptainWagner]

I got two days left!

starting - The Last Crusade

Where are our legacy characters from this? Gimme the old man versions of Indy's Token Fat Best Friend and the weird grave-robbing kid who kept hooting and jumping like a freaking gibbon

 

[CaptainWagner]

Yeah, this is it. The best Indiana Jones. Time has confirmed this for me.

The globe-trotting, the action, the impeccable humor... It's the maximized combination of Spielberg and Lucas' sense of adventure and it works so freaking well. And amidst it all, the emotional beats hit so hard:

"I lost him, Marcus. And I never told him anything."

is such a powerful line, and Indy's re-emergence immediately afterward doesn't diminish it because the character's ARE changed. Senior doesn't tell Indy to let the grail go without that moment. Despite the gag, it still works because we see that it had real impact on the characters in the brief moment it was real to them.

A lot of today's writer/directors would do well to study this more closely.

 

[DKDetective]

I didn't even know rhino's were going extinct 'til just now!

Watching Kingdom now. This color grading IS a huge improvement. It at least looks like an Indy flick now. Still lots of shots that look way too soundstage-y, though.

Is this just for Disney Plus or also the recent 4K release? I'm watching them on my 4K discs and have never watched KOTCS on it before.