FILM VAULT TUESDAY (Week 4)

I had my next edition of Film Vault Tuesdaywritten and ready to go when fate intervened… During the Super Bowl the NFL had a commercial featuring Harrison Ford and I casually mentioned that there was a new Indian Jones being made… To which my sister Jessica replied: “I’ve never seen any of those movies.”

That changed everything. Starting with my Film Vault Tuesday plans… The FVT that I had already written will be set back a week as I make the Indiana Jones trilogy the focus of this installment… And of course before this week is over Jessica and I will have watched all three movies.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was last night. Tonight we’ve got Temple of Doom, and if we're felling really ambitious maybe even The Last Crusade. But if we run out of time we tonight we'll have to watch it later in the week... But it will get done.

As we were watching Raiders last night, I began thinking about the trilogy as a whole and I decided to come up with 10 basic Indiana Jones Rules for the beginner. Here's what I came up with:

THE INDIANA JONES RULES

1. Indiana can sense a booby-trap coming… If you’re ever in a dark cave with him and he holds you back and says “Don’t move,” he means it. Don’t move.

2. Indiana can do some crazy shit with a whip… If you’re a hot chick and somebody is about to shoot you, don’t worry, Indiana will appear and knock the gun from the bad guy's hand with his trusty whip… you can also stop worrying about bottomless pits. That's right, if you need to jump across a bottomless pit, Indiana can use the whip to swing himself across the hole as you clutch his manly chest… but only if you’re a hot chick. If you’re a dude, he’ll swing across first and then let you go second. There will be no Dude-on-Indiana chest clutching… Indiana Jones will not be appearing in the Brokeback Mountain sequel.

3. Speaking of hot chicks- Indiana bangs hot chicks… No matter what side you’re on- Good or Evil, Indiana will bang the bejesus out of you if you’re hot. Don’t even try to resist his powers.

4. When Indiana discovers a room or vault that hasn’t been opened for Two-Thousand Years, there will always be 800 snakes just hanging around guarding the rooms contents… Forget the fact that most snakes like to be alone- Indiana Jones' movie snakes love to hang out in large groups and protect hidden archaeological treasures.

*note- sometimes snakes can be replaced by tarantulas or rats.

5. Indiana can figure out how to operate anything on the fly... a big truck, a speed boat, a small engine airplane, a horse, a camel, a motorcycle, anything!

6. When a large group of angry blood thirsty Muslims charges Indiana, they must charge one at a time. Sure they could probably take him easily if the whole group jumped on him at once, but that wouldn’t be fair…

7. Never, EVER, fight Indiana Jones near a moving plane or boat propeller thing that can chop you to bits… it won’t go well for you, just take my word for it.

8. If you're a Nazi, Indiana will kick your ass!

*note- if you're a sexy female Nazi, please refer to rule #3.

9. At some point during the movie, Indiana’s shirt needs to be torn, exposing his bare chest.
(Man crush alert)

10. And finally, if and when the villain has captured Indiana he can never, EVER, just shoot him in the head… He is contractually obligated to leave Indy for dead in some locked room, vault, or whole and pray to god that he won’t figure out how to escape.

So there you have it… Ten Rules for watching an Indiana Jones movie!

Remote Stopper Scene: Each of the three movies has it’s scenes, but to me, the best Indiana Jones scene of all time is in the Last Crusade when he’s going through the temple trying to reach the Holy Grail. He's got to remember all these goofy lessons his dad taught him about Grail Legend when he was a kid... for whatever reason, I always fear for Indiana's life as if he's NOT going to make it through!

Goosebump Factor: Every time the Indiana Jones theme music comes on!

Overall Rating:

Raiders of the Lost Arc - 8.0

(1981)

Harrison Ford, Karen Allen





Temple of Doom - 7.0

(1984)

Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan




Last Crusade - 8.5

(1989)

Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, and River Pheonix




I haven’t heard anything confirmable about the upcoming sequel (not from a lack of searching), but I’m excited… and worried. As CincySunDevil has pointed out, Harrison Ford is really looking rough. I’m a little worried about seeing my hero limping around with a bad hip and stiff back… We’ll see.

Regardless of whether or not Harrison Ford looks like my grandfather and can no longer perform his own stunts, I know I’ll be there opening night... I’ll probably be in a line full of nerds waiting to buy tickets on opening night, arguing over whether or not Indiana and his Father are actually Immortal based on the ending to Last Crusade (They’re not by the way).

As I type this, Jessica has only seen 1 of the 3 movies, but I’m going to go out on the limb and say that she’ll be standing right next to me in the line of nerds.