Mud Songs

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a fun movie if you don’t take it seriously. The first and third Indian Jones movies have stories that are fun and characters you can care about. The second movie doesn’t. This, the fourth in the series, has one interesting character (Indiana Jones), and a story that just barely pulls the action forward. But it does manage to make it over the finish line without thoroughly disappointing. There is some CGI, but it’s not distracting. There are no scary or super evil villains, but there is plenty of entertaining action. I had fun watching Harrison Ford play Indiana Jones one last time. Every other aspect of movie is forgettable.

The holy grail of production design and cinematography, Blade Runner is magnificent, brilliant and spectacular — to look at. The most compelling scenes are the moments when you can see the replicants thinking about their humanity and their existence. If more of the film had lived up to the potential in those scenes, Blade Runner would be a great film, not just a great-looking film. Still, if you haven’t seen it for a while, it’s worth revisiting. It’s never looked better than it does now.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is a documentary about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Coppola fired his lead actor after several weeks of shooting, his replacement lead actor had a heart attack half way through the 238-day shoot, hurricanes destroyed his sets, army helicopters were called away in the middle of hugely expensive shots, and he didn’t have an ending. Good times!