Monthly Archives: June 2023

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Welcome back, Dr. Jones! 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny checks all the boxes. Everything you want from an Indy adventure, you get. And more. Grab the jumbo size popcorn and settle in for two-and-a-half hours of thrills, chills and chuckles.

The film’s first twenty minutes set the tone with action that includes our hero about to be lynched by Nazis in Poland, then wriggling away when a bomb hits, stealing a vehicle, jumping onto a moving train and engaging in a face-off atop a fast moving train. Oh, and that segment wraps with Jones jumping off a high trestle as the train crashes. 

That opening segment is set at the end of WWII and features a de-aged version of Jones. Kinda like they did with some of the stars of The Irishman a few years ago.

Then, in 1969, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) jumps into a new adventure with Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), the daughter of archeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones). Her dad was obsessed with a strange dial, supposedly developed by Archimedes, that can supposedly control, among other things, time.

Jones has one half of the dial but where oh where is the other half that’ll make the magical thing work? Well, that’s what the story’s about.

Of the many chase scenes in IJATDOD, the best may be the one in Manhattan where Jones is pursued through a parade honoring the Apollo 11 astronauts. (By the way: Remember when Harrison Ford was chased through a parade in Chicago in The Fugitive?) The chase features Jones riding a horse in the NYC subway. Love it!

The bad guy in the movie is Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), a former Nazi, who wants to employ the dial to go back to 1939 and reset history. He encounters Jones back in that opening segment. Then in 1969, he is aided by a gang of henchmen (and one henchwoman) who follow Helena and Jones on their travels from New York to Tangiers, Casablanca, Greece and Sicily. 

Voller’s character, who works for NASA and takes credit for the moon landing, brings to mind Wernher von Braun the real-life German who came to America to design and build rockets in Huntsville AL.

I’ve always considered time travel to be a storyteller’s crutch. But there are so many other fantastical things happening in this movie, why not go back a few centuries? However as Mr. Peabody and Sherman taught us, you have to be careful that you go back exactly where (when?) you want to be in the space/time continuum. 

Maybe the most fantastical thing about IJATDOD is that Helena, despite partaking of derring-do alongside Indy, always looks great. She is a pretty woman.

Also in the film is Antonio Banderas as a sponge diver who leads Indy and Helena into the deep and when they surface, guess who shows up? Voller and his crew.

This is a film to see on a big screen in a theater with big sound—the better to enjoy John Williams’ exciting soundtrack (which reprises the Indy theme throughout.)

Indiana Jone and the Dial of Destiny is directed by James Mangold. Rated PG-13.

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No Hard Feelings

No Hard Feelings is a fun movie. The best thing it has going for it is Jennifer Lawrence. She’s a great actress. She has charisma. And she’s funny.

Maddie (Lawrence) is a bartender who is also an Uber driver in Montauk, Long Island. She gets her car towed for failing to pay her rapidly growing property taxes. Hard to be an Uber driver without a car. 

A friend shows her a Craigslist ad posted by a wealthy couple who want to hire someone to initiate their sheltered teenage son into the ways of sex before he heads off to college. The couple (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) offer Maddie an old Buick if she’ll introduce Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) to her womanly charms. But she, of course, cannot let him know that she is working for mom and dad.

Even though she’s a bit older than what the parents are looking for, she agrees to give it a shot. There’s some irony in the fact that the influx of rich folks (like Percy’s folks) has pushed up the property taxes for longtime locals like Maddie who is trying to hang on to the home her mother left her.

Not only is Lawrence terrific in the movie, so is Feldman as the nerdy neophyte. She first encounters him at the pet rescue place where he works. Her pretense is that she wants to adopt a dog. As he takes down her information, she flirts shamelessly. When they meet at a bar, he’s super nervous and surprised that Long Island Ice Tea is a boozy blend.

Among the film’s key scenes is a nocturnal trip to a closed beach for skinny dipping. When a trio of locals tries to make off with their clothes, Maddie rushes out of the water to fight them off and reclaim her and Percy’s duds. Yes, there’s graphic nudity. But it’s more funny than sexy. (It appears that the naked hardbody is Lawrence’s and not a body double but in these days of amazing post production technique, who knows?) In any case, the scene has already generated significant conversation.

Another key scene has Maddie chasing down Percy a party full of recent high grads at a mansion.  She’s stunned when she opens upstairs bedroom doors in the home only to find the teens… looking at their phones.

So do Maddie and Percy ever actually hook up? Well… Let’s just say the film has a happy ending for pretty much all concerned.

Jennifer Lawrence is not exactly America’s Sweetheart like Julia Roberts was for a few years there, but she has a likability and good looks and talent that have made her a favorite. At age 32 she has compiled a resumé that includes Hunger Games and X-Men films plus three excellent performances for director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle and Joy). So almost any Jennifer Lawrence movie is one that you should take notice of. The fact that No Hard Feelings is a solid, entertaining production makes it even more worthy of your attention.

Rated R. Directed by Gene Stupnitsky.

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Asteroid City

Asteroid City has all the trademark Wes Anderson elements:

Bright colors, maybe his brightest palette yet. Big cast of notable stars, though no Bill Murray this time. Lateral camera moves, not pans but sideways dollies (trucking is the film school term). And quirkiness galore. 

It is, however, a tedious slog. Have I ever checked my watch more during a movie screening than I did as Asteroid City was unspooling? Not that I can remember.

Unless you are a hardcore loyalist Anderson fan, you might NOT want to head to the movie house to see Asteroid City. Maybe check it out on cable or streaming in a few weeks and see what I mean. Or maybe watch some of those Youtube parody videos of trailers for classic movies if they were directed by Wes.

The framing device for Asteroid City, a black-and-white TV show hosted by a severe Bryan Cranston, appears to have been something Anderson and his co-writer Roman Coppola tacked on to add to the film’s run time. It DOES help cement the story’s setting in 1955 and it DOES give Anderson favorite Edward Norton an easy way to be part of the movie. But clever? Nope, not really. 

The story, set in a tiny town in the Southwest, not far from Monument Valley and not far from A-bomb test sites, centers around a celebration of the anniversary of an asteroid landing nearby which resulted in a giant hole in the ground. 

Among the actors who portray folks who come for the event or are already there are Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johanssen, Tom Hanks, Steve Carrell, Liev Schreiber, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Matt Dillon and more.

Along with the absence of Bill Murray, there’s a lack of cool and/or obscure tunes added to the soundtrack. The two train songs that run at the beginning and end of the film are fun but that’s about it for music (which has been a part of most Wes movies.)

Anderson’s movies generally have many disparate episodes which don’t necessarily fit neatly together but somehow coalesce to add to an underlying narrative. The happenings in Asteroid City and the characters seem more disconnected than usual and the framing device (the TV show) doesn’t help.

As I have enjoyed some but not all of Anderson’s prior efforts, I had high hopes for this one. But Asteroid City is, for me, a big disappointment. Rated PG-13. 

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The Flash

We need to talk about Ezra. Is Ezra Miller a big enough star to open and carry a big budget movie? Obviously, the answer is no. Because the makers of The Flash have brought along Michael Keaton as Batman to do a significant amount of the film’s heavy lifting.

Regarding Miller: Despite the creepiness of some of his prior movie roles and despite his real life misbehaviors, his talent is undeniable and his charm and humor shine through in his portrayal of Barry Allen AKA The Flash.

(I will, in this review of the new movie The Flash, refer to Ezra Miller as “he/him” because using a plural pronoun for one single person is confusing to me and to others. If you have a problem with that, just hit delete and move along.)

The film itself has, despite its flaws, enough story and special effects to attract fans who may be suffering from the widely-reported superhero fatigue among the movie-going public. It’s a fun ride! A bit too long—another movie with a climactic battle scene that goes on and on. And then on some more.

Time travel is a key element of The Flash. But what happens when The Flash goes back in time and encounters his younger self? They exist together in that time/space. It makes for some complications, of course. And some funny business. And some useful teamwork.

The opening episode of The Flash may generate a sickening 9/11 flashback for some folks with the image of newborn babies and a nurse falling from a collapsing building. (Spoiler: they don’t die, thanks to The Flash.) Yes, it’s a fantasy movie and, yes, that horrible day was nearly twenty-two years ago, but still…

There’s a decent amount of fan service with references to other DC superheroes. And a Shawshank reference, intentional or not, when a character walks through a wall decorated with a poster of a female movie star. 

The initial encounter by the two Barrys of the gone-to-seed version of Bruce Wayne is among the film’s highlights. Some of Keaton’s finest acting in a well-written scene.

Along with Miller and Keaton, The Flash features Michael Shannon as General Zod who comes to earth from Krypton with evil intents. Sasha Calle is Kara Zor-El AKA Supergirl. And Kiersey Clemons charms as Iris West, Barry’s sort-of girlfriend. 

The big question this movie asks—and the box office will answer—is this: Are The Flash and the film’s star Ezra Miller strong enough to anchor a franchise within the DC Extended Universe? Or will The Flash be relegated to occasional appearances in Justice League ensemble movies? To be determined. 

The Flash is rated PG-13. Directed by Andy Muschietti.

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