Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008): Has Indiana Jones Lost His Magic?
In the 4th and final film of our Fortune & Glory retrospective, we wrap things up with 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'. Our featured guest is returning champion, RI producer/director Anthony Ambrosino, who was a member of the crew on this production and shares some great behind-the-scenes stories.
Find Anthony Ambrosino on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2805568/
01:39 Welcoming back Anthony Ambrosino
04:01 Storage Wars: Kingdom of the Crystal Edition
08:22 Anthony's On-Set Stories
20:19 Movie Facts
27:46 Bee's review
31:13 Anthony's review
38:05 Sam's review
50:25 Nathan's review
01:10:19 Vault Decision: Save or PURGE!!!
01:12:16 Wrap-up
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100th Episode Spectacular Promo
Transcript
In the dying embers of human existence.
Narrator:As the asteroid abohemet the sides of Texas hurdles relentlessly toward earth, the world braces for an apocalyptic end.
Narrator:Deep beneath the bunker, a refuge plunges into the bowels of the earth.
Narrator:Here, the chosen gather their purpose clear to preserve the very soul of our civilization.
Narrator:The 35 and 70 millimeter prints that encapsulate the magic, the emotion, and the dream dreams of generations past.
Narrator:These masterpieces, each frame a testament to the human spirit, are carefully catalogued and cradled in the cavernous confines of the bunker.
Narrator:Perhaps there was room for more, for friends and family yearning for salvation, but sacrifices must be made.
Narrator:The moving earth stand united, the keepers of a flame, promising a future where the art of storytelling endures, transcending the boundaries of time and space.
Narrator:God help us all.
Host:Welcome to back to the framerate, part of the Westin Media podcast Network.
Host:Join us as we watch and discuss films on vod and streaming platforms, deliberating on whether each one is worthy of salvation or destined for destruction in the face of the impending asteroid apocalypse.
Host:You can find more episodes of this podcast on backtotheframerate.com, where you can subscribe and share our show and find us on our socials at back to the framerate.
Host:I am Nathan Schur, and accompanying me are the extraordinary movie mavens, Breonna Butterworth, Sam Cole, and returning once again, you may remember him from our temple of Doom episode just a couple weeks ago.
Host:Anthony Ambrosino.
Host:He is Anthony, and I lost it all here.
Host:Anthony is.
Host:He is back on his own free will and not under the spell of the college blood.
Host:We promise you that.
Host:His films have premiered at top festivals like Toronto in Los Angeles, film festivals, earning several awards and worldwide distribution through companies such as IFC, Showtime Networks, and HBO.
Host:Welcome back, Anthony.
Anthony:Thank you for having me.
Host:Happy to have you back.
Host:So how is everybody doing tonight?
Sam:So far so good.
Sam:How are you?
Host:All right.
Host:I'm feeling good.
Host:Doing good.
Host:We are someone who's loose.
Sam:I don't know.
Host:We have a good episode tonight.
Host:It's going to be kind of a simple, quick show.
Host:We are basically just going to be doing our review of this film tonight.
Host:No recommendations, but I think we're having a great discussion here because Anthony is back here for more than just the reason of being a guest.
Host:He's here because you have some personal connection with this film, as I understand.
Host:Yes.
Anthony:Yes, I do.
Anthony:Very close to my heart.
Anthony:Yes.
Anthony:Very early in my career, I was lucky enough to be a production assistant on the new Haven unit.
Host:Should I mention.
Host:Should I mention that the film we are reviewing, discussing tonight is Indiana Jones in the kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
Host:I have not mentioned it yet, but maybe it should.
Host:I don't know.
Host:That might turn off people.
Host:Unfortunately or fortunately, it is in the title and in the show notes of this.
Host:We're going to get to a few of your experiences on this film in a few moments, but I do have a question I want to ask each of you.
Host:You weren't around a couple of weeks ago when.
Host:Well, you were around a few weeks ago, but I didn't have an opportunity to ask something that I ask usually all the hosts here, but it was a really truncated intro, so.
Host:Welcome to storage wars, kingdom of the Christmas edition.
Host:This is the scenario that I really want to ask all of you, all right?
Host:You stumble upon a massive, heavily chained crate deep in the warehouse.
Host:It's glowing, faintly vibrating, and you hear eerie whispers in an ancient language.
Host:The auctioneer hints that this crate may contain something far more powerful than the crystal skull itself.
Host:Maybe a lost artifact or a cursed relic or something beyond our world.
Host:The bidding starts now.
Host:What is your opening bid?
Host:And more importantly, what wild and over the top item do you think is hidden inside?
Anthony:How many bidders are in the room?
Host:Well, there's the three of you.
Anthony:Oh, that's just us.
Anthony:I'm in trouble.
Anthony:Sam's got a lot of money.
Breonna:Well, I'm skeptical.
Breonna:I don't know what's in.
Breonna:I don't know what's in there.
Breonna:I mean, I don't want to.
Breonna:If I bid something and it's just like, some hokey ghost voice, you know, if it's.
Breonna:If it's the crystal skull itself, I suppose the.
Breonna:It's not.
Breonna:But if it's related to it in any way, and it has those manipulative mind powers, that's worth, you know, $500, maybe.
Host:Give me.
Host:Give me bid.
Host:Let's not waste time here.
Host:B.
Host:I'm going to go to you first.
Sam:Yeah, so I'm thinking.
Sam:I'm thinking the artifact that's in there is the ark, because I saw this movie.
Sam:And do you guys remember the bank of Zamunda from coming to America?
Sam:I'm very wealthy in the bank of Zamunda, so I'm going 5 million Zemunden bucks for what I assume is the ark.
Host:Okay.
Host:All right, then go.
Anthony:5,000,001 Zamunda bucks.
Host:5,000,001.
Sam:It's a famous tax haven.
Sam:I don't know if you knew that.
Host:And you can.
Host:You can guess that there's different objects in this crate, so.
Host:But.
Breonna:Okay, Sam, 5,000,002 is Zemunden book.
Sam:I don't know if there comes a Zamundin book.
Sam:We knew it was the richness.
Host:All right, so you all believe that the Ark of the covenant is in this crate, but inside the crate, you uncover the invisibility.
Host:Tofu.
Host:This unassuming block of tofu is said to have been blessed by a mischievous spirit, granting anyone who eats it the power of invisibility, but only while doing mundane tasks like grocery shopping or folding laundry.
Sam:It's amazing.
Sam:I would give 5,000,003.
Anthony:I do make a meat toasted parmesan.
Anthony:Can I do that with this tofu?
Host:You could.
Host:It's very expensive.
Host:But legend has it that the original owner used to sneak into forbidden feasts, but the power only activates when you yell tofu power.
Sam:Is this a studio Ghibli movie?
Sam:Should be.
Sam:Should be one of the rides.
Host:You can see why the government wants us locked away.
Sam:Sure.
Anthony:Anyway, feels like a mad libs script, Sam.
Sam:Well, Sam, you're the official owner.
Host:You're the high bidder of this.
Sam:Hey, Sam, can I borrow some tofu?
Breonna:I don't think I've ever had tofu.
Breonna:I hope it's good.
Breonna:I don't know.
Breonna:But what is.
Breonna:What is tofu?
Breonna:It's like.
Sam:It's just soy.
Sam:It's just like a soy?
Sam:Yeah.
Sam:Bland, but it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with.
Sam:It's nice.
Sam:Cool.
Sam:Yeah, you might like it.
Sam:I have some for lunch.
Anthony:So what am I.
Anthony:Yeah.
Breonna:So I'm supposed to bid more like.
Host:No, you won.
Sam:I was just trying to mooch off you.
Breonna:Yeah, go do my laundry.
Breonna:Well, no one can see it.
Host:As you can tell, we watched, and we're going to discuss Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull.
Host:And let's get back to Anthony after our little segue here.
Host:Anthony, you.
Host:As you mentioned before, you have some experience working on the set of this film.
Host:I don't know if you wanted to tell us a little bit more about your experiences on this, or as we discussed this, but what was your involvement?
Anthony:I was a production assistant.
Anthony:Glorified, you know, crowd wrangler, extra wrangler.
Host:You've all been there?
Anthony:I was one of 44 pas on the first unit alone.
Anthony:Crazy.
Anthony:We were there for almost two weeks in New Haven.
Host:May I ask, how did you get the gig?
Anthony:They were just searching for people.
Anthony:I heard from other pas that they were looking for people, and then I got.
Anthony:Subsequently, I got people on as well.
Anthony:It's like Christmas time.
Anthony:You get to call.
Anthony:I felt Ebenezer Scrooge giving out money and ducks and stuff at Christmas because I could call friends and be like, do you want to work on the new Indiana Jones?
Anthony:Was like, yelling out the window, you, boy, come down to the set.
Anthony:Great.
Anthony:So, um, I brought a lot of, uh.
Anthony:Uh.
Anthony:It was great having, like, friends on, like, looking across the street.
Anthony:They were like, actors that I, like, pretended that they had done this stuff before just so they could be a pa on this.
Anthony:So the new Haven.
Host:Sorry, go ahead.
Anthony:No, no good.
Host:Was this, like, I don't know if this was like the New York locations in the film.
Anthony:Yeah.
Anthony:All the college, all the Jones stuff, the high speed chase with the Russians, which I came this close to having to stop, personally yell over the radio, and that was a nightmare.
Anthony:So, actually, I'll tell you that story right away.
Anthony:We're doing a lockup for this chase.
Anthony:It was down blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks, as far as you could see.
Anthony:And I was responsible for my own corner, and I had.
Anthony:It was unfortunately for the production and unfortunately for the students.
Anthony:It was the tour week when the parents show up and everyone tours the university.
Anthony:So these large, large groups of families waiting to get around the college campus.
Anthony:And so they're held up, and, you know, you talk to them, you try and be jovial with them so that they don't get too annoyed.
Anthony:And, you know, they get to see this high speed chase happening with the bus and all that.
Anthony:So it's.
Anthony:But the cars are moving at quite a speed, you know, it is dangerous.
Anthony:So all of a sudden, I see someone making their way through my crowd, coming to the front, and I'm like, oh, no, no.
Anthony:And this guy starts yelling at me that he doesn't care what's going on.
Anthony:He's gonna cross the street.
Anthony:It doesn't matter.
Anthony:He's the groom in a wedding that's happening in the church across the street.
Sam:Oh, God.
Host:Oh, wow.
Anthony:And so I'm telling him, like, unsafe.
Anthony:You can't, blah, blah, blah.
Anthony:And he's telling me he's gonna do it.
Anthony:There's this whole, like, kind of stand up, just trying to be friendly.
Anthony:And I came this close to having to call into the.
Anthony:Over the radio to call off the shot, because this guy was going to be in the road, and thank God he is.
Anthony:Something prevailed in his head, and he decided that he would wait for the shot.
Anthony:I was freaking out, like, you know, because I can't let the guy die.
Anthony:But, you know.
Anthony:But you don't want to be the lowest on the totem pole telling Steven Spielberg, well, not, you know, he's his ad anyway.
Host:You should have just yelled cut over the radio.
Breonna:Was it your story, Anthony, that I don't know if it was you or someone else where there was another situation like that, where there was not you, but there was something happening on the perimeter that was like, where the lockdown was in question, and Spielberg himself walked right up to you guys and was like, are we good?
Breonna:Was that.
Anthony:Did you tell me that story?
Anthony:Ok.
Breonna:I don't know who that was then.
Anthony:But, yeah, I got my Spielberg moment was he came up to a guardrail and said hi to us, and that was.
Anthony:I was pretty excited that he said hi.
Anthony:And there were all these girls very giddy, and I'm like, oh, you guys must be pretty excited about Harrison Ford.
Anthony:And they're like, oh, no, we're here for Shia.
Anthony:I was like, uh oh, forgetting.
Anthony:But I would say that this movie is the closest I've ever come to a time travel.
Anthony:There was one moment, that same chase scene where I just happened to be the very last crew member to step off before we rolled.
Anthony:And I just stopped and looked around, and just everywhere I looked was the fifties between the cars and the women with the baby characters and all the storefronts.
Anthony:And just no matter where I looked, it was the fifties.
Anthony:And it was so cool.
Anthony:And I feel like that's what time travel must somewhat feel like.
Anthony:And that was.
Anthony:That was very cool.
Anthony:But I was there when Shia LaBeouf's stunt double chopped his finger off when they.
Anthony:They pitched the motorcycle through the library and they slid under the table, which was actually filmed in a cafeteria, but they slid under the tables.
Anthony:But the stunt looks great.
Sam:I love that scene.
Anthony:It was great.
Anthony:It's practical effects, you know, when they do practice.
Host:And the stuntman lost his finger on that.
Anthony:Yeah, his pinky got chopped off when they pitched the bike under the tables and they had it in a cup.
Anthony:Like, they ran him out the door, then someone carrying a couple behind them, and then they.
Sam:This is gonna sound sarcastic, but I genuinely had this thought while I was writing some notes for this movie today that I see so many parallels between this series and our Mad Max series.
Sam:And now, I mean, come on.
Sam:Guy chopped his finger off doing a motorcycle stunt.
Sam:It's all coming together.
Anthony:The Teamsters accidentally locked the keys in the van with it running.
Anthony:That was going to take him to the hospital.
Anthony:So they called for another van to come behind that.
Anthony:And then, so the last two things I'll tell you, is, like, a really exciting moment for me is they had all of us under a big tent on our last day outside.
Anthony:And like I said, there was 44 of us on the first unit.
Anthony:They were keeping 14 of us to go inside to work with the actors and can continue on.
Anthony:And just holding my breath, like, waiting, like, hoping they call my name, and they did, and it was awesome.
Anthony:And that was really fun inside, except for I went to swap some batteries out, and I walked behind just a frame, and Harrison Ford's back there, and he's, like, icing both of his knees.
Anthony:I was like, oh, it's my childhood hero.
Anthony:He's looking real old.
Anthony:It's like, just seeing him, like, with ice on his knees.
Anthony:I was just like, you just see, you know, aging, never meet your heroes.
Host:They say, you know?
Anthony:But, no.
Anthony:Spielberg was super friendly to everyone, and the set was one of the best run I've ever been on.
Anthony:Harrison Ford was cool, just very, like, aloof.
Anthony:He just kind of did his own thing, and George Lucas just kind of walked around.
Anthony:He didn't really talk to any of us.
Anthony:And then the last story I'll tell is it's the biggest career mistake I ever made.
Anthony:Washington, we're wrapping up new Haven, and my boss, Matty, came over, and he's like, hey, we're going to Hawaii next.
Anthony:Obviously, we can't, you know, travel you out there or anything, but if you can get yourself there, we'd love to hire you as a local.
Anthony:And this was very early in my career, and I thought these opportunities were going to come around all the time.
Anthony:So I went home, and I kind of did the math, and I'm like, oh, geez, I'll barely break even.
Anthony:And I didn't do it.
Anthony:And it's the biggest of my life is I could have gone because these, this crew, like, worked.
Anthony:They all work together on all these different shows, and to have gotten in with all of them would have been really exciting.
Anthony:I remember they were all going to see transformers that was coming out because they had all worked on transformers together, but, yeah, but it was a great set to work on, lots of fun and just watching the masters at work and how even on a set that size, how smooth it ran and how happy everyone was to be there.
Anthony:And it was, like, a lot different than a lot of the other big sets I had been on.
Anthony:Everyone's that was so cool, happy, and kind.
Host:Did you have firsthand experience seeing cinematographer Kaminsky work.
Host:Cause I'm a big fan of his work.
Anthony:Yeah, but nothing that I could, like, really.
Anthony:You know, he blows out his windows and all that.
Anthony:But nothing that I really.
Anthony:It was a strong.
Anthony:That was a strong takeaway.
Anthony:The only thing that I took from this set to any of my sets were sometimes people complain when a shot is done and you want to do, like, wild lines.
Anthony:It's like people hem and haw about it.
Anthony:It's a big deal.
Anthony:And I'm watching there, they film this shot, and then all of a sudden, Harrison Ford sits down, the sound guys come over, and they're doing wild lines with Harrison Ford.
Anthony:So from that moment on, on any set I was on, I'm like, listen, if Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford can take the two minutes after this shot to get wild lines to save them from doing ADR later, then we can.
Anthony:On this low budget, you know, small film here, if they can.
Anthony:So that was like a big takeaway that I took to my sets after that.
Anthony:Interesting, wild lines.
Breonna:I'll simply say that I completely understand the regret of not going to Hawaii.
Breonna:However, I think you have a very impressive career, and it's ongoing.
Breonna:It's.
Breonna:You're in where there's more to your story, and it continues.
Breonna:So I just see that as a bump in the road, but not a big.
Breonna:Not, you know, not a huge, like, pitfall.
Breonna:It's just a live and learn experience.
Breonna:And if I was in your situation, I probably would have done the same thing.
Anthony:So thank you, Sam.
Anthony:I appreciate that.
Host:I agree.
Host:We've all made choices like that, and I had many opportunities.
Host:I lived in LA for three years, and the things that I said no to because just didn't seem to make sense at the time.
Host:And I've kicked myself countless times of the career that I could have had.
Host:Yeah, you know, but you never know.
Host:You never know.
Anthony:I could have fell in a vulgar wouldn't be here right now.
Host:Exactly.
Breonna:Exactly.
Anthony:Yeah.
Host:And now you're on this podcast, you know, the pinnacle of success.
Host:So let's get to our discussion of this film.
Host:I have a plot synopsis I will read here, and then we'll get to the trailer.
Host:And once I find it here, oil machine.
Host:Here he is.
Host:It is the height of the cold war, and famous archaeologist Indiana Jones, returning from his latest adventure, finds out his job at Marshall College is in jeopardy.
Host:He meets Mutt, a young man who wants Indy to help him find the legend of the crystal skull of acator and a pair.
Host:And the pair set out for Peru.
Host:However, deadly agent Irina Spelko is searching for the powerful artifact, too, because the Soviets believe it can help them conquer the world.
Host:Here is a clip from the trailer.
Anthony:Legend says that a crystal skull was stolen from a mythical lost city in the Amazon.
Anthony:Whoever returns the skull to the city temple will be given control over its power.
Host:You will help us find it.
Narrator:Put your hands down, Will.
Narrator:You're embarrassing us.
Breonna:Rebel.
Breonna:Go do something else.
Breonna:Grab the snake.
Anthony:Damn, I thought that was closer.
Breonna:Get on.
Narrator:Come on, genius.
Breonna:Go, go, go.
Sam:What's he gonna do now?
Sam:I don't think he plans that far ahead.
Breonna:I think I'd cover my ears if I were you.
Anthony:You're a teacher?
Breonna:Part time.
Host:All right, a little bit of the trailer from this film.
Host:Let's get into some movie facts.
Host:Sam, what have you got for us?
Breonna: dom of the Crystal Skull is a: Breonna:Did he write Jurassic park?
Breonna:I'm actually asking that question.
Host:Yes, yes, yes.
Host:And he has a laundry list of things I think did the second one, too.
Breonna:So this is based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson.
Breonna: and the Last Crusade, set in: Breonna:We just heard the plot synopsis, so this was produced by Frank Marshall.
Breonna:The stars Harrison Ford, Kate Blanchett, Karen Allen returning Ray Winstone in the most irritating role of all time.
Breonna:But I'll get to that later.
Breonna:Keep my opinion to myself.
Breonna:John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, who I'm a huge fan of.
Breonna:I shout out to Jim Broadbent in Harry Potter and the Half Blood prince.
Breonna:I just.
Breonna:He's amazing in those films.
Breonna:Shia labeouf.
Breonna:Cinematography by Janis Kaminsky, who.
Breonna:Fun fact.
Breonna:Spielberg and Kaminsky sat down and they watched raiders, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade to try to capture the look of Douglas Slocombe cinematography, because Spielberg wanted this film to be a blood brother to the other films as opposed to, you know, looking and feeling very different.
Breonna:Edited by Michael Kahn.
Breonna:Music, of course, by John Williams.
Breonna:This actually, I believe so.
Breonna:The budget on this is, you know, time has passed.
Breonna: million in: Breonna:But the box office, I think the box office is 786.6 million worldwide.
Breonna:I believe this was the most financially, the largest.
Breonna:Inflation included, obviously, but the largest financial success of all the Indiana Jones films, if you take into account.
Breonna:There's so many factors.
Breonna:I'm just talking about standalone numbers.
Breonna:Interestingly enough, Jeb Stewart, Jeffrey Bohm, who wrote a the Last Crusade, and Frank Darabont all had a crack at the script before Keps script satisfied the producers.
Breonna:This film, Lucas idea was to accounting for the age appropriateness of Harrison Ford.
Breonna: along of the sort of paranoid: Breonna:So that's what they did there.
Breonna:This was the last Indiana Jones film to be distributed by Paramount.
Breonna:They shot in Connecticut, where Anthony was, Hawaii and New Mexico.
Breonna:And then they actually, they didn't go to stages in London this time.
Breonna:I think they shot on sound stages in LA for a lot of the sets and that.
Breonna:Feel free to add anything, guys.
Breonna:That's kind of the, the.
Breonna:What I got here at the moment.
Host:Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to mention.
Host:Well, you already mentioned it, but this budget and box office return, it is impressive, the box office.
Host:But I think if you kind of look at the return on investment for that budget, I don't know if it's the most successful.
Host:When you consider how much they spent on this.
Host:I mean, like Raiders had was like 18 or 20 million.
Host:Look at how much that made it.
Host:Including the, the three original movies had a really close.
Breonna:It's just, it's just in terms of the highest grossing Indiana Jones film, accounting for inflation.
Breonna:But in terms of success, probably not at all, I'm guessing.
Host:And again, this came out Memorial Day weekend.
Host:I think Raiders is the only one of all the movies in this franchise that did not come out on Memorial Day weekend.
Host:It was late June.
Host:Yeah, late June.
Host:I like to do this.
Host:I like to look at the box office in this week.
Host:And this, this came out the opening weekend, 126.9 million.
Host:Debuted at number one.
Host: at was, that's huge, even for: Host:Numbers second place this week, May.
Host:In its second week, 29.8 million.
Host:The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, the second one in that franchise, which I actually like.
Breonna:The second one too.
Breonna:Yeah, I like it too.
Host:I do this franchise and always kind of made me sad that this did not continue, but yeah, ran out of steam.
Sam:Well, we're getting the Greta one, right?
Sam:Isn't Greta Gerwig doing Narnia?
Sam:Isn't that her next project?
Breonna:She might have been in like the silver chair or the Silver Fox or some other silver chair.
Host:Is one of the books in the franchise, like the fourth or fifth one.
Host:I forget but I don't know.
Host:Are they continuing this or is this being rebooted?
Sam:Because I think it's a reboot.
Host:Well, the silver chair is like the fourth or fifth book.
Sam:Yeah, that would be a new one.
Sam:I don't know.
Host:Anyways, third coming in third place, 26.9 million.
Host:His fourth week was iron man in fourth in his third week, earning 11.3 million.
Host:What happens in Vegas in fifth place, 5.2 million.
Host:Third week of release is speed racer number six, 4.2 million.
Host:Made of honor number seven, 4.2 million.
Host:Baby mama never saw.
Sam:Man, I remember these.
Host:And number eight, I actually did see this one.
Host:Probably a week on either side of this, 2.2 million.
Host:Forgetting Sarah Marshall number nine, in his fifth week, 1.1 million.
Host:Harold and Kumar escaped from Guantanamo Bay.
Host:Number ten.
Host:When we get to it, no doubt all three of them will be number ten was the visitor with 940,000, which was a good film.
Host:This is the only movie, I think, in the entire franchise not to get nominated for any Academy awards.
Host:But it did get.
Host:It did win a golden raspberry for worst prequel, remake, ripoff, or sequel.
Host:I hate talking about Razzies.
Host:I think it's the worst thing ever.
Host:I don't have any other real notes here.
Host:I'm sorry.
Host:Notes.
Host:I don't have any other trivia.
Host:I saw that the, one of the titles they.
Host:They thought for this was Indiana Jones and the Atomic Ants was an early title for this movie.
Host:Yeah.
Host:And Spielberg had reservations about making light about Nazis after directing Schindler's list, which is one of the reasons why Russians were written as the enemy in this film.
Host:So.
Host:All right.
Host:I don't really have much else, but let's begin.
Host:B, what did you think of Indiana Jones in the kingdom of the crystal skull?
Sam:My first time watching this one, and I dial, I dialed into destiny right after.
Sam:So comparatively, this movie rocks, I thought.
Sam:So now I've officially seen all of the Indiana Jones movies.
Sam:I'm done.
Sam:It's been a great adventure.
Host:You have to go into the young Indiana Jones chronicles or whatever it's called next.
Sam:Okay, so I'm of two minds with this movie.
Sam:I think there's juice here that totally recaptures the magic.
Sam:And I like a lot of the goofy action stuff.
Sam:I like the femme fatales.
Sam:I like the man eating ants.
Sam:I love the quicksand.
Sam:I like, you know, even when Marian's back, I find that there's a lot of the action sequences, especially in the first half, where I really feel like they're just in the pocket and it's super fun.
Sam:But then there's some stuff that feels really divorced from the original franchise, and I don't just, we'll get into the aliens and stuff like that, but this isn't a franchise that, to me, that really feels beholden to either its previous iterations or realism.
Sam:So it going mystical for me wasn't a problem that I think it was for some other people.
Sam:It's kind of done that.
Sam:So I thought that was all right.
Sam:But it's more just that we seem to kind of lose who I thought Indy was as a character a couple of times.
Sam:He's not someone who I would have thought of was not a fan of the Moon landing.
Sam:That was kind of.
Sam:I was like, oh, I totally thought he would have been all about that.
Sam:And some of the performances just ring a little.
Sam:I'm not sure what Kate's doing, but I love her, so I'm glad to see her, but I'm not really sure what's going on with that performance.
Sam:And the John hurt character, they just felt a little flatly written.
Sam:It's not even so much their performances.
Sam:I mean, these are amazing actors.
Sam:They're not not bringing stuff.
Sam:They just sort of feel like there's threads that are started and then they get lost once they get to Peru.
Sam:I think the first half of this movie is really strong, but I thought the triple cross or the.
Sam:It was never a double cross, which was a way more eloquent way to put it, than I had in my mind, which was Triple Cross was superfluous.
Sam:I didn't think we needed it.
Sam:But more than anything, being bad, it just felt a little hollow.
Sam:I thought some of the set pieces like that, for me, that's what makes these movies so special.
Sam:Some of it just looked a little plasticky and a little CGI.
Sam:I didn't love all of that, but really, and even Shia LaBeouf, it's not that he was bad, it's not that he didn't have a lot to do.
Sam:You know, there just wasn't a lot to that.
Sam:And it could have been, and I hate to talk about a movie for what it could have been or should have been, but there's the emotional spine of that movie where it's now Indy's the dad and he's tagging along his son.
Sam:Now the sun's kind of the Everyman character is such an interesting through line from last Crusade that just isn't given as much integrity as it is in the other 100%.
Sam:I had a great time watching this, especially the first half, but it started to fall a little flat as the movie went on for me.
Sam:But I like that these are movies that take risks.
Sam:I like that these are movies that go big.
Sam:And I would 100% watch it again.
Sam:For me, it's probably like a three, three and a half.
Sam:I don't know.
Sam:Like that.
Host:All right.
Host:Out of five?
Sam:Out of five.
Sam:Not a ten.
Sam:No.
Sam:I liked it way more than that.
Host:Okay, Anthony, I cannot wait, because the work done this, I know you can be impartial about this, but I'd love to know after you worked, put all those hours of hard work into this, the fruits of your labor.
Anthony:Yeah.
Anthony:On the highway and all that stuff.
Anthony:Yeah.
Anthony:A little bit of sleep each night.
Host:Were you rewarded?
Anthony:I was very disappointed.
Anthony:Oh, I was very.
Anthony:I remember I went with all my family and friends, and we all went to the theater when it came out.
Host:And you took your name off the movie after.
Anthony:Yeah, I just.
Anthony:This.
Anthony:A number of things took me out, and it's taken me, like, through the years to figure out exactly what it was.
Anthony:I did go in with extremely high expectations.
Anthony:I mean, because when I was working on it, it felt like an Indiana Jones movie, and it felt like, oh, my God, this is gonna be great.
Anthony:It really felt good.
Anthony:And, you know, we didn't get off to a great start with the friggin Groundhog mountain.
Sam:The CGI groundhog.
Sam:Yeah.
Anthony:Yeah.
Anthony:And I feel like that was, like, the first indication.
Anthony:This movie, it sometimes feels like a parody of an Indiana Jones movie, almost tongue in cheek, making fun of itself, starting with that.
Anthony:And so I feel like, oh, no, I I really enjoyed it.
Anthony:And I was like, I remember just edging my seat, like, all right, let's just keep this going, because the fridge bothered me, which we don't even have to really get into.
Anthony:But that.
Anthony:That fridge.
Anthony:Everything in Indiana Jones is completely believable.
Anthony:That just, you know, that just seems a little.
Anthony:The whole movie, the biggest phrase.
Host:What was it?
Host:Nuke the fridge.
Host:This movie?
Anthony:Yeah, we've.
Host:We replayed jump the shark.
Host:We nuked the fridge because of this fridge.
Sam:It's just, I didn't think the fridge was any worse than the.
Sam:The plane jumping out of the plane.
Sam:And, I mean, jumping out of the plane was.
Breonna:Was absolutely great.
Anthony:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Breonna:CGI either.
Breonna:Yeah, CGI.
Breonna:Yeah.
Anthony:This movie went into, like, cartoon World.
Anthony:It lost its magic for me.
Sam:Yeah.
Anthony:So once we go to Hawaii, that's where the majority of problems are for me.
Anthony:And as we go through the scenes and whatnot we can talk about that, but it's almost like two different movies, and the plot is almost like five different movies.
Anthony:And I know they took different stuff from different scripts.
Anthony:And then my other issues are, like, I didn't really never feel like there were stakes.
Anthony:I never felt, oh, my God, please don't let the Russians get the skull.
Anthony:It never felt like that was gonna be some, like, terrible moment.
Anthony:There was just no stakes in this because it's tough to follow up.
Anthony:Nazis, what are you gonna get that's, like, worse as far as, like, a historical sort of group of villains, you know?
Anthony:So I think.
Anthony:And the movie just weighed it down in some politics at different points and really wasn't sure what it was trying to say.
Anthony:So it just was, like, convoluted in some different ways.
Anthony:And so, you know, I have a lot more, but I'm not going to go on and on and on about hating it.
Anthony:It was okay.
Anthony:Now, one thing I do want to bring up is my kids loved it when we went through and did what you guys are doing here.
Anthony:Loved it, and you seem to like it more.
Anthony:So I'm wondering if there's a generational thing where this younger generation has a little more stomach for some of the cartoony stuff or maybe isn't as, because they didn't grow up with the, like, more grittier celluloid versions.
Anthony:All practical effects that it's.
Anthony:It doesn't sting them.
Sam:The effects are not.
Sam:The effects are not what's winning me over in this movie.
Anthony:Maybe they don't bother.
Sam:Um, maybe.
Sam:I mean, I.
Sam:I'm giving it the same rating I gave Temple, so.
Sam:I don't know.
Sam:I don't know.
Sam:Just for different reasons.
Sam:But it's just for different reasons.
Sam:But it's just for different reasons, right?
Sam:Like, I prefer temple to this movie.
Sam:It's not that.
Sam:It's that.
Sam:I don't know.
Sam:I just thought that.
Sam:I just think they're cartoony in different ways.
Sam:Like, I thought Temple pushed so far into what it put its characters through, and it just wouldn't stop.
Sam:It was kind of relentless with that.
Sam:And I feel like this is pushing so far into the Disney vacation kind of humor.
Sam:Like, it's got a very Disney sense of humor to me, which I don't really love that part of it.
Sam:But I thought some of the action y stuff felt old indie, especially the first half, which I liked.
Anthony:The monkeys, the waterfalls.
Anthony:I was like.
Anthony:I was like, watching someone murder my friend when I was watching this.
Anthony:What are they doing?
Anthony:I liked your point.
Anthony:About Shia, I thought he was really good in this movie, even again, like, watching him.
Anthony:But I don't know that they didn't have anything to do with this character.
Anthony:I think it's had too many characters at the end to give stuff to do, and I think I know washed away in that.
Anthony:And I would have liked to have seen more of him and Harrison interacting then every.
Anthony:Everyone else in their brother along on the ride for this, that you're kind of like, oh, who are they again?
Anthony:What are they doing?
Anthony:So.
Anthony:But, yeah, no, he was good.
Anthony:Also nice at the craft service table.
Sam:All right, good.
Anthony:Nice to the crew.
Anthony:But, you know, I think the.
Anthony:So I understand.
Anthony:So one thing, like any interview you watch, any making of anything, you see Steven Spielberg reiterate a million times how he didn't want to do this movie.
Breonna:Yes.
Anthony:And he obviously, in even one thing he said, he just strung Lucas along and was like, yeah, yeah, we're gonna do it, thinking it would never get made.
Anthony:And it was, like, very apparent because I feel like he, you know, kind of mailed it in a little bit.
Anthony:And I think, yeah, we asked Lucas too much.
Host: says, this has to get done by: Host:This is also pressure that he was putting on.
Host:This whole thing.
Sam:Feels a little prequelly to me.
Anthony:Yes.
Host:Anthony, if you were to give this a rating, one to five or zero to five, what would you give it?
Anthony:So, again, you're comparing it to other Indiana Jones movies, which is the only reason temple of Doom didn't make your mini vault argument, which I wish I could take back.
Anthony:This film versus other films still has some redeeming qualities, but I guess I'd give it a six of ten.
Sam:Out of five.
Anthony:Of ten.
Host:So basically three out of five.
Sam:So then we have the same stomach for it.
Sam:It's the same for me, a two.
Sam:And my.
Sam:My line is like, a two and a half is.
Sam:I would rewatch it.
Sam:That's average.
Sam:It's a movie I would rewatch.
Host:All right, Sam, you're up.
Breonna:I just wanted to say on a humorous note, Anthony, if you guys have seen the social network listening to your.
Sam:Review, since you watched that.
Breonna:I know exactly like listening to your review, Anthony, I felt like you were Justin Timberlake and I was Jesse Eisenberg.
Breonna:Yes, yes.
Breonna:Exactly.
Breonna:Exactly.
Breonna:Yes, yes, yes.
Breonna:Facebook is cool.
Breonna:And that's.
Breonna:And so let me just get into my notes right away.
Breonna:So I am really glad that I watched this movie again recently because I was not going to.
Breonna:I was going to cheat and just go off my memory because I've seen it sometimes, but I knew I had to just have it very fresh.
Breonna:And the freshness helped because it helped me specifically identify my problems with it.
Breonna:I will say right off the bat and go for the jugular.
Breonna:This is my least favorite Indiana Jones film.
Breonna:I do not like Dial of Destiny that much, but what Dial of Destiny has that's admirable, even if not perfect, is it's a character piece about Indy's elderly days, and it's like his kind of final character moment, and it sort of puts that character to rest, in a sense.
Breonna:I find Dial of Destiny's action very repetitive, dull.
Sam:I hated dial.
Breonna:Yeah.
Breonna:No, and I completely.
Breonna:I sympathize with you because I'm never going to defend Dial.
Breonna:And when I say dial up, Destiny is better, I'm talking about not really by that much, but maybe it's because I love Steven Spielberg so much that the disappointment of this movie hurts more.
Breonna:Whereas dial, I just saw, and I was like, oh, hey, there's a train in it.
Breonna:Cool.
Breonna:You know?
Breonna:So here's the thing with this movie.
Breonna:It's, what's interesting about it is Raiders and Temple and last Crusade.
Breonna:Even though the formula got more familiar of their era, they were more cutting edge action movies of the time.
Breonna: is the film that comes out in: Sam:And it looks worse.
Breonna:It looks worse.
Anthony:And so I'm not the biggest fan of Harrison.
Breonna:Exactly.
Breonna:I'm not the biggest fan of Dead man's chest.
Breonna:But other action movies at that time were doing things that were more cutting edge for the aught with stunts and physical things, even things like national treasure.
Breonna:And I hate to admit it, but national treasure, Book of shadows, they're not great films, but they're.
Breonna:They're somehow more timely.
Breonna:This movie is a very awkward hybrid between the grit of the past and modern CGI.
Breonna:And what we get is this muddy middle look.
Breonna:And I actually think that Janusz Kaminsky's cinematography in this movie is incredibly bland because he's going against his gut and he's trying to make it look like the other indie movies.
Breonna:There was one review that said, this has a very.
Breonna:This picture has a very studio feel to it, where it's kind of hokey and there are moments that are not terrible, but I feel that they're kind of off.
Breonna:I do agree.
Breonna:B.
Breonna:I think the first half is better than the second half, but I think another thing that I noticed on this viewing that I would have forgotten to mention had I skipped the film.
Breonna:I'm really glad I didn't because I don't want to do a disservice to the audience, but David Kep's script has so much awkward, clunky, expository dialogue laced all over the place.
Breonna:Anthony, you talk about five different plots going on at once.
Breonna:Raiders.
Breonna:I watched as a kid, I fully understood the plot of Raiders.
Breonna:Temple of Doom.
Breonna:There's more jokes.
Breonna:It's so clear.
Breonna:Last Crusade, incredibly clear.
Breonna:This movie is so.
Breonna:And I'm just going to overdo it for the sake of making my point a little bit.
Breonna:But it's like, okay, so we're going to Area 51.
Breonna:Why?
Breonna:Well, because, Indy, you are at Roswell, New Mexico.
Breonna:Because there was something there, and there's a thing there.
Breonna:And then, okay, so the Russians.
Breonna:Okay, so Iran.
Breonna:Espalca wants is looking for artifacts all over the world.
Breonna:For the Russian, for the Soviet Union.
Breonna:Okay, Shia LaBeouf shows up out of nowhere when India is getting on a train.
Breonna:Hey, you're the guy to talk to because my mom is friends with Ox Huxley, who knows you.
Breonna:And I need your help because there's a crystal skull that he went to the jungle to find.
Breonna:But now the skull is back in Peru, and we have to go find the skull.
Breonna:And I am 43 years old.
Breonna:I watched this movie completely alert, and I literally had trouble following what the motivation was for certain set pieces.
Breonna:They go here, they go there, and it's like, what?
Breonna:And there's so many ideas.
Breonna:They're not bad, but even the dialogue.
Breonna:And be like you were saying, all these great actors, they read these lines, and it doesn't sound natural coming out of their mouths.
Breonna:Indiana Jones has a line where he's trying to decipher ox, and he's, well, wavy lines means the water, of course, and tears mean waterfall.
Breonna:And you're like, oh, my God, I'm exhausted.
Sam:Can I just, like, hop on this for a quick second?
Sam:Because I want to.
Sam:You're talking about something that I wanted to say here.
Sam:This one thing that we all praised in Temple and we've all talked about over the first three movies, is that how great it is to have a movie that doesn't treat you like you're dumb, that drops you off in the middle of a story and just says, here's the middle of a story.
Sam:And you know that you're with this character who's been living a whole life before you showed up.
Sam:And this movie and dial.
Sam:Both treat you like a stupid cash grab.
Breonna:Exactly.
Breonna:But ironically, in treating you stupidly and trying to explain everything, it actually makes me more confused as to what's going on.
Breonna:I will say one scene that I've always kind of liked that a lot of people really don't.
Breonna:It's not when they first show up in Peru, because that prison and that set looks very, very cheap to me.
Breonna:I do like when they go to the graveyard at night and those guys are coming out and because they go in and they look for the skulls, I kind of let that scene breeds a little bit for me, which I enjoy.
Breonna:And I think that the car chase scene in.
Breonna:In.
Breonna:In Connecticut, in New Haven, is probably the best set piece in the movie because it's all real.
Breonna:I mean, there's a scene when, like, Harrison Ford or stuntmen comes out of the window of one car and gets on the motorcycle in camera, and you're like, oh, my God, that looks incredibly dangerous.
Host:The only stunt that really reminiscent of the stunts that we had in the first three movies, like the motorcycle chase from Crusade or the truck chase and raiders, it brings us back that tactile, tangible, real stunt work.
Host:That's why I'm sure.
Host:I'm sure there was a lot of CGI in that as well, but it felt like we were in that world.
Breonna:Exactly.
Breonna:And so I really like that.
Breonna:And I think I really like these guys.
Breonna:Red letter media.
Breonna:They're on YouTube that their stuff has, like, millions views.
Breonna:They review this movie and they're kind of all on the same page where they like the first half better than the second.
Breonna:They find the first half tolerable.
Breonna:When it gets to the jungle, I feel there's an opportunity for, you know, it's.
Breonna:The pacing of this movie is so weird because in Indiana Jones, you hear about where the Grail's resting site is or where they're going to find the ark.
Breonna:And you watch these movies and you get excited to go to these places, and everything is so perfunctory.
Breonna:Once we get to the jungle, there's the vehicle chase with that incredibly bad cgI, like, vine cutting giant truck.
Breonna:Compare that chase to the tank chase in last Crusade, the truck chase in Raiders.
Breonna:I find the chase through the jungle so incoherent.
Breonna:Not in a fun way, but in a bad way.
Breonna:I don't know who's on what vehicle, who's driving where.
Breonna:This is the one movie where the action and the way it's motivated is characters actually aggressively make decisions that I don't quite understand even as early on in the warehouse, the second Indiana Jones escaped, the bad guys, Cate Blanchett gets in her truck and starts driving in the opposite direction.
Breonna:And I know she's trying to cut them off, but on screen, it looks like they're just trying to space people out to elongate the scene.
Breonna:And there's these weird moments where Ray Winstone and Indy, their two cars, are going to crash inside the warehouse, and he's like, you don't know him.
Breonna:You don't know him.
Breonna:And they, like, says that line, and he hammers that line, and you're like, well, whether you know him or not, like, the car is coming.
Breonna:What is that?
Breonna:There's so many moments in this movie, and a perfect example of the way this movie feels to me.
Breonna:The third waterfall, they go off it.
Breonna:This huge shot where they fall out of the vehicle.
Breonna:The next shot, they are conveniently just chilling by water's edge, and they just rise out of the thing.
Breonna:There isn't even a shot of them, like, tumbling around in the water.
Breonna:Like, I literally have, like, continuity issues with it.
Host:And Marian's, like, holding the steering wheel, giggling.
Breonna:You know, it's exactly.
Anthony:It's dumbed her down, Marion's character.
Anthony:Yeah, dumb her down.
Breonna:And when that scene, my least favorite is when she drives off the cliff onto the tree, and the tree, like, flies up and hits the Russians on.
Host:The cliff, I'm like, that was your intention to do this Disney violence.
Breonna:Such Disney violence.
Sam:Cartoon.
Breonna:I know that Indiana Jones movies, like, they're never realistic.
Breonna:It's about suspending disbelief.
Breonna:But this movie doesn't even try to.
Breonna:It doesn't even.
Breonna:It's like Anthony was saying.
Breonna:It feels like a.
Breonna:Like a parody somehow.
Breonna:I'll say kind of like, you know, when they.
Breonna:I like the idea of Akator.
Breonna:I like when they get to the bottom of the waterfall and they look up and they see, like, a skull face in the cliffside.
Breonna:But that's just a bland shot.
Breonna:And the CGI setup, there's no.
Breonna:There's no reveal.
Breonna:I mean, I felt such a feeling when I was going into the.
Breonna:Into the temple at the end of last Crusade, or even that shot in Temple of Doom, when they come around the corner and they see this spectacular, fiery set with the lava for the first time, there's this kind of, like, wall, this awe to it.
Breonna:This movie doesn't have that.
Breonna:I will.
Breonna:I'm gonna stop talking.
Breonna:I will just say, all great actors, not given a lot to do.
Breonna:I.
Breonna:Ray Winstone is a great actor, but his character all the double crossing is so tedious.
Breonna:I didn't even care whether he was a good guy or bad guy.
Breonna:I was like, take your gold, take your stuff, get the hell out of here.
Breonna:And then at the end, when he's indie, I'll be all right.
Breonna:And he winks.
Breonna:It's like, what do you mean?
Breonna:You're about to get sucked into that.
Breonna:What do you.
Breonna:None of his lines.
Breonna:They don't make sense to me.
Breonna:And so I'll say this.
Breonna:I understand from a story point of view, George Lucas's original concept of trying to take this franchise into fifties b Sci-Fi is interesting.
Breonna:I think if they.
Breonna:This feels like a second draft of a script.
Breonna:I think if they'd stripped it down and focused it and streamline it and introduce the jungle earlier and gone with more practical effects, I think it could.
Sam:Have been stronger given it Spielberg's emotional spine.
Breonna:Exactly.
Breonna:I could feel like Spielberg did it as allegiance to his lifelong friend, but you could tell he's kind of not into it.
Breonna:I will end by saying, I'm going to give.
Breonna:I'll say that.
Breonna:The one compliment.
Breonna:Spielberg always has good camera angles.
Breonna:And there's a lot of Spielberg move, camera moves in this film that are missing from Dial of Destiny.
Breonna:But my final rating would be a two and a half, and I'd give the extra half a star just for the fact that it reminds me of better Indiana Jones films.
Breonna:But I.
Breonna:That's.
Breonna:That's my.
Breonna:That's my review.
Anthony:Yeah.
Host:Wow.
Host:Two and a half.
Host:Sam, I seems generous.
Breonna:Honestly, I'm really.
Breonna:I'm.
Breonna:You know what?
Breonna:Two.
Breonna:Two.
Breonna:I, too.
Breonna:I'm going to take the half a star off.
Breonna:It's a two star film for me.
Breonna:It really is.
Breonna:Yeah.
Host:Wow.
Host:Okay.
Anthony:It literally makes you angry.
Breonna:It makes me upset, you know, not upset.
Breonna:I watched it last night and I got through it, and then I, like, read Tolkien for 45 minutes afterwards.
Breonna:I got to get this taste out of my mouth, you know?
Breonna:I need to read something that's good.
Breonna:Yeah.
Host:I read something amusing earlier today, and it's not a real secret about shy Shayla Labouf.
Host:He was really.
Host:So you say it.
Host:Labouf.
Host:Labouf.
Host:I don't know, whatever.
Host:He was very critic.
Host:He was very critical of both himself, Spielberg, and the film after its release.
Host:And there's a great Harrison Ford.
Host:He was quoted saying this, and I want to read it here because this is just beautiful.
Host:I think he was a fucking idiot as an actor.
Host:I think it's my obligation to support the film without making a complete as of myself.
Host:I love that.
Sam:I love that.
Host:Yeah.
Host:So as a die hard fan of Raiders and Crusade, you know, I, going into this, I was ready to love this movie.
Host:And you know what?
Host:The first time I watched this, I thought it was pretty decent.
Host:But it may have been because I was so thirsty for a new indie adventure from this franchise.
Host:It may have been the same feeling I got after watching Phantom Menace.
Host:It's where you walk out, Mike.
Host:That was.
Host:That was good, right?
Host:It was great, right?
Host:And that's how you felt walking out.
Sam:Of phantom menace, huh?
Host:It was, yeah.
Host:Because I remember a lot of people walked out.
Host:Then 72 hours later, it's like, really?
Host:No, that wasn't good, was it?
Host:But we walked out wanting to love it so much.
Host:I got that feeling.
Host:And I had that feeling for several years, actually, because I was.
Host:I was primed to have a good time no matter what.
Host:However, until I rewatch this, I think a year ago, because I was prepping for Dial of Destiny, I.
Host:But the thing is, I had absolutely no urge to go back to this movie.
Host:And that probably speaks volumes because I rewatched the first three movies many, many times.
Host:But I'll start with a couple good things.
Host:I.
Host:It's been mentioned before already.
Host:I think the opening, actually, the first 40 minutes or so of this film are really good.
Host:Really great.
Host:I love everything that's happening in the desert, the New York locations.
Host:I think it's really strong stuff.
Host:I have no problems with the.
Host:I never had a problem with the.
Host:The fridge or any of that.
Host:I thought I was having a great time with everything up to that point.
Host:Here's the thing.
Breonna:I.
Host:And I don't think this.
Sam:You're probably not used to the grit of the older movies, you know, I don't know.
Host:I mean, I don't think this is a bad film.
Host:It's doing so many things that we expect from an Indiana Jones adventure, but it almost feels, you know, Lucas and Spielberg got together and really tried hard to take the idea of what an Indiana Jones adventure film was and distill it down to its core, like iconography.
Host:And that's what we got to Crystal skull lacks.
Host:We've talked about the tactile feeling of those first three films.
Host:Other than the opening scene out in the desert, nearly this entire film in New York scenes, everything feels like, was shot on the soundstage.
Host:Thus, we don't really feel like we go anywhere.
Host:And that's a problem.
Host:The characters.
Host:And the other thing is the characters in this film, I think, are a combination of both really thinly written, but also making some poor choices.
Host:Labouf character, he swings in like he's auditioning for rebel without a cause or the wild one.
Breonna:Right?
Host:But there are so many missed opportunities with fleshing out his backstory.
Host:And we're coming off this wonderful father son story with Sean Connery, Harrison Ford.
Host:And this is doing nothing even close to creating that father son bonding story, which it could have done if it wanted to, but it has no interest in that.
Sam:I felt like that was just there to get Marion back.
Host:Yes, and she has.
Host:Does nothing in this movie.
Host:Ray Winstone, we've already talked about that.
Host:You know, again, a character who could have been a really complex, conflicted character, you know, about his.
Host:Where his allegiances are.
Host:But this movie, again, has no interest in that and treats him like a buffoon, not just a turncoat, but just a buffoon after he backstabs indy.
Host:So.
Host:And you remember how in Raiders and Glass Crusade, you know, the Nazis were terrifying but also kind of fun villains in Cate Blanchett's character.
Host:I don't know what her motivation is.
Host:It's like, well, you're angry all the time and you have a sword.
Host:I don't know what else there was to her, honestly.
Sam:That's usually enough for me with Kate, but she's not working for me in this movie.
Host:And I'll keep this really short because we've gone along with a lot of what else here.
Host:The worst part is the music.
Host:John Williams score in the original trilogy was so iconic, it's like they forgot to invite him to the party until the closing credits.
Host:I don't think I heard the classic Indiana, like, sweeping score until the credits rolled.
Host:I don't remember it at all.
Breonna:Are you kidding me?
Breonna:That music during the car sort fight was incredible.
Breonna:And to humming.
Breonna:Wow.
Breonna:No, it sucked.
Host:Yeah, I I'm negative on a lot of things, but I still don't think this is a really terrible film.
Host:I don't mind the plot at all, which has been a dumping ground for the last 16 years, by the way.
Host:These are not aliens.
Host:These are interdimensional beings.
Host:Let's get that on the record right now.
Anthony:That's true.
Breonna:No, because George really wanted Steven to do aliens, and Steven didn't want to do aliens.
Breonna:And George said, well, steven, what if there were interdimensional beings?
Breonna:And then Steven was like, kind of like aliens.
Anthony:Fine, George.
Sam:I want to circle back to.
Sam:I want to circle back to the interdimensional beings when you're done, Nathan.
Host:I don't have anything else.
Host:It's not great, it's not terrible, but I'm just.
Host:I'm just giving it a two and a half.
Host:And I'll get into more later.
Host:But that's all I have to say for that.
Breonna:I need to trust.
Breonna:Oh, I'll say really quick.
Breonna:I just.
Breonna:To trust my gut.
Breonna:And I was trying to be a hard ass, but I have to go back to my original two and a half because that's what I first thought in my mind.
Breonna:And also, I always like aliens.
Breonna:I want to like aliens.
Breonna:I'm fascinated by those mysteries.
Breonna:So for me, there's that.
Breonna:And it's.
Breonna:Spielberg still has.
Breonna:Has some camera work that I will always love.
Breonna:So I just got to go back to my initial two and a half because it's a little better than two stars, just a smidgen, but I'm on the same page.
Breonna:Anyway.
Sam:I don't think it's the worst movie ever made.
Sam:It is interesting to me, like one of my favorite Spielberg movies.
Sam:And I don't know if this is like a wildly crazy opinion, but I love Aih.
Sam:And it's crazy that this movie comes out after AI, like seven years after AI, because I think AI does artificial intelligence and roas so well and does all that, and it's so interesting.
Sam:And I don't feel like this captures any of that magic because that was.
Anthony:A Stanley Kubrick project that Spielberg almost had permission, and I think he'd done it on his own.
Anthony:He might not have gone so dark, but because he was doing as a favor to a friend, there he went.
Anthony:He went dark.
Anthony:But I don't know.
Anthony:Every time I want to like this movie, I think of the.
Anthony:The quicksand scene that could have been shot in Spielberg's backyard and that big rubber.
Host:It's such an eighties or nineties trope as well.
Host:Like, quicksand is such low hanging fruit.
Host:Also for this kind of film, it's like.
Host:It's like something that, like Steven Spielberg as a teenager would think that's kind of a cool thing to put in a movie.
Host:Like.
Anthony:So it felt and looked so cheap and low budget, and it's like they picked that up and once they.
Host:Ride the set felt like it had no depth to it, really.
Host:You're absolutely right, Anthony.
Host:It looks like it's small.
Host:It looks small.
Host:It doesn't look like there's any scale to anything that's in these scenes.
Breonna:I would rather watch Steven Summers the mummy returns than this film, like, with its high octane CGI craziness it's more fun for me.
Breonna:I like Sam.
Sam:Tell me your opinions on Scorpion King.
Breonna:He looked terrible, but that whole buildup, I had a lot of fun watching it.
Breonna:But the cheapness of this one.
Breonna:Did anyone notice that shot when they're like.
Breonna:There's the truck chasing the jungle and there's literally a row of trees and five people with machine guns are shooting at Harrison Ford.
Breonna:He's 5ft from them and he jumps onto the truck.
Breonna:Right when they run out of bullets.
Anthony:It's just too.
Breonna:I know Indiana Jones is not, like, realistic, but it's just even in raiders, you know, he takes a bullet in the shoulder and the truck chase.
Breonna:This movie, he has five machines, guns shooting.
Breonna:It's just like, airless.
Breonna:Yeah.
Anthony:It's not that they're unrealistic, they're just realistic enough.
Anthony:The other films.
Anthony:Yeah, it doesn't ask you to take a bridge that far.
Breonna:It's just.
Anthony:All right.
Anthony:Yes, that's probably implausible, but it's.
Anthony:They only go this far.
Anthony:I feel like this movie makes you go this far.
Anthony:And you said earlier about acme.
Anthony:It is like an acme cartoon.
Anthony:Roadrunner and Wile E.
Anthony:Coyote, you know, from Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Anthony:I can see where George wanted to take this and pop this down into fifties b Sci-Fi but it's not a mystical.
Anthony:The mystical side.
Anthony:That's so cool.
Anthony:The historic mystery of Indiana Jones is the cool part that brings you in.
Anthony:There's a little bit of truth to these stories.
Anthony:The holy grail, the ark and even that.
Host:I don't mind the fantastical part.
Host:The aliens or interventional beings don't bother me at all.
Host:I don't.
Host:I could have indie go any.
Host:I don't mind.
Host:And he could go to space.
Host:I would not care.
Host:The writing of this is.
Host:And the ideas that just go nowhere are, I think, the real problem with this.
Host:Like these aliens, like these skulls.
Host:Sam, you mentioned this before where we have.
Host:We have aliens, we have the Roswell crash, we have these ant.
Host:This alien that's in this warehouse.
Host:We have aliens that crashed in Russia.
Host:We had these aliens in the Amazon.
Host:And there's no, like, how do these all relate to each other?
Host:Why do the Russians want this?
Host:The crystal skull?
Host:Are they in every single alien magnetic properties?
Host:They're not concealed throughout this movie.
Host:And it's.
Host:Is that.
Host:Are the aliens on the Amazon?
Breonna:That's the problem, because the movie tries to explain it in these expository dialogue chunks where they spew out this data and you're like, all right, let me pause and rewind and see if I can catch all of that.
Breonna:There's so much.
Sam:I'd argue that situationally, a lot of Indiana Jones movies do try to make you go that far.
Sam:Like, they are almost this unrealistic a lot of the time.
Sam:But the characters are really grounded in reality, and the characters in this movie just felt totally two dimensional.
Sam:And then there's no stakes, like you talked about, Anthony.
Sam:Then there's nothing that brings you back down to a real conversation or real people in these wild situations.
Sam:It's just like, unbelievable people in unbelievable situations doing unbelievable things, and it loses the plot.
Breonna:No, totally.
Breonna:And the physics are just too nuts in this movie.
Breonna:They're riding along the side of a cliff way above the Amazon.
Breonna:The whole cliff is cg.
Breonna:None of them are there.
Breonna:And I'm like, oh, can I please go to the desert with raiders?
Breonna:Where there's, like, real trucks and they're driving and he gets shot in the shoulder and there's, like, blood.
Breonna:Or, or last Crusade, when a real stuntman rides a horse above the tank and the guy jumps off and land.
Breonna:There's.
Breonna:There's a physicality to it where in this, it's like we're gonna drive off a cliff and Marion is, like, gonna laugh.
Anthony:The only moment that I felt mild, physical.
Host:They used more models.
Host:They used more models in the earlier movies, too, so they could.
Host:It was real practical, you know, things that you were seeing on screen, like the tank going toward the cliff, you know, it felt more real, you know, versus that jeep going along the side of a cliff in this movie, because I'm guessing that was not, I don't know if that was a real, real cliff in crusade or not, but I felt like that was something that they were approaching was really happening.
Anthony:Yeah.
Host:And why is it different here?
Sam:Here's a dumb point of content.
Sam:Everybody was so dry in this movie.
Sam:Everybody's so sweaty in the first three movies, and I really like that.
Sam:And then we come into the aughts, and everybody's very demure.
Breonna:I would even go as far as say that Harrison Ford in this film feels kind of taciturn, and he's kind of like Indy, but he's more like, when I saw Force Awakens, he was more.
Breonna:I felt that like Harrison Ford and Force Awakens, I felt Han Solo, and that film felt more like Han Solo than Indiana Jones in this film.
Breonna:Like, they're two totally different franchises.
Breonna:We talk about, you know, a Star wars movie coming out years later.
Breonna:Force Awakens feels like, the next chapter, this just felt kind of like.
Host:And just another example of where it went wrong is like, we always have that gross out moment in these previous films.
Host:Again, I don't know.
Host:We keep comparing these movies, but you have to raiders, we had the infamous snakes scene, and, you know, and Temple of Doom, we have rats.
Host:And Crusade.
Host:And this movie, we have a little scene where CGI scorpions are running up mutt's arm and it looks really bad.
Host:And there's nothing like that in that it compares to those first three movies in this movie.
Host:So it doesn't, it just, I think.
Breonna:There'S a real case to be made, and I really understand why Harrison Ford wanted to make another one if I was him.
Breonna:And I loved that role, I would love to do more Indian Jones.
Breonna:I think there's a real case to be made for Indiana Jones and the last Crusade ending the trilogy.
Breonna:And that being it, after that point, these two movies years later, it just, they, it's like, ugh.
Breonna:I just feel like last Crusade, the characters literally ride off into the sunset and he's reunited with his father, and it's the perfect ending.
Breonna:And then it's, you have these two more films.
Breonna:It's like they just, it's like, why do they exist?
Breonna:You know?
Breonna:Well, I mean, they made a lot of, well, the dial of Destiny didn't do well, but Crystal Skull did, so I get it.
Host:Well, any other comments on Crystal Skull?
Sam:There's, there's some redeeming stuff in this movie.
Sam:I liked the first half.
Sam:I.
Sam:To the monkey.
Sam:No, it was a, even if these weren't great characters, I thought it was great.
Sam:It was great to see John hurt on screen.
Sam:And I don't, you know, like, seeing all of these actors that I love interacting with each other.
Sam:I I liked seeing indie just editing, you know, like, at the end of the day, what I rewatch is, yeah, just, I want to see Indiana Jones do cool shit, you know?
Sam:Sure, that's fine.
Sam:Especially the first half of this movie I thought was, was worth watching.
Breonna:I felt some emotion at the wedding scene.
Breonna:That was nice, you know, see, I.
Sam:Didn'T, I didn't like that I was like this.
Sam:But, and I've said this before, I think Indiana Jones has an endings problem.
Sam:I think last crusade's the only one to stick the landing on the ending.
Host:I didn't mind the wedding.
Host:I did like the fact that, you know, there's always, there's the moment where the doors open, the wind blows the hat in.
Host:You think that maybe the torch is being passed down to mud.
Host:But nope, not today, kidde.
Host:Indy grabs it from him.
Host:He puts it on.
Host:I think it's a fitting ending.
Breonna:I do think Raiders has an incredible.
Breonna:I mean, I love the ending of Raiders with the.
Breonna:When that, after all that goes into the vault.
Breonna:Like, for me, the ending, raiders, is, like, just perfection.
Breonna:Yeah.
Sam:I like the tent scene in this movie, the interrogation scene where he's there, and then Kate gets to show off a little bit of her psychic powers.
Sam:I thought that was fine.
Host:Were there psychic powers?
Host:I never again.
Host:I think it goes to show just the lack of, like, what other.
Host:What are the powers of this skull?
Host:I felt like it was not really fleshed out.
Host:Was it having an effect on indie?
Host:I don't know.
Host:You know, apparently it had an effect on ox.
Host:But did it.
Host:Did he do it to himself?
Host:Did.
Host:Did Irina have anything?
Host:I don't know.
Host:It's very muddy.
Breonna:I like the idea, conceptually, of the interdimensional beings in.
Breonna:In general, but they're so they're not fleshed out.
Breonna:And I like the idea of that last shot when they're up on the cliff and, like, the big spinning disks rises up into the sky.
Breonna:But what's hilarious about it is everyone is standing right there and, like, boulders are just spinning around.
Breonna:Any of these things could drop on them and crush them, and they're just standing there.
Breonna:Totally.
Breonna:We're not going to get hit.
Breonna:And it's.
Breonna:But the sky is filled with debris.
Breonna:If that was me, I'd be like, fuck.
Breonna:And I'd run.
Breonna:I'd watch from COVID But indies just gonna look at this.
Breonna:Yeah.
Sam:This is yet another reason why I didn't find a single satisfying death in this movie.
Sam:There's a lot of good kills throughout this franchise, and this movie had, like, none of them I didn't care about.
Host:I think.
Breonna:I think on red letter media, they said that Indiana Jones doesn't directly kill anyone in this movie.
Breonna:He punches people out and they fall into ants.
Breonna:But this is the least.
Sam:Fall into ants.
Breonna:Indy.
Host:I do like that death kills a.
Breonna:Lot of people in Temple of doom and Raiders and crusade.
Breonna:I think goes through ten nazis on a tank.
Breonna:Yeah.
Host:Crusade.
Host:He is a brawler.
Host:He kills a lot.
Host:I think he's got the highest kill.
Sam:Yeah.
Sam:This movie's not got any kills for any villains.
Sam:Like, when Kate died, I was like, fine.
Sam:That's fine.
Host:All right, well, shall we take a break and get back to our decisions on the vault?
Sam:Yeah, tough call.
Host:All right.
Host:Thanks to everyone joining us today, we really appreciate you.
Host:Don't let the theme of our show fool you.
Host:We are all about connecting with our listeners, and we'd love to hear your thoughts on the films we discuss.
Host:If you've seen Indiana Jones in the kingdom of the Crystal skull and want to share your opinion, send us an email at backtotheframe rate.com@gmail.com.
Host:we might even read on the podcast.
Host:You can also chime in on our social media.
Host:On our socials at back to the frame rate with your thoughts on the show and the movies we cover.
Host:We can be found on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok threads, YouTube, and Twitter.
Host:And, yeah, definitely word of mouth is the best way of helping us reach a larger audience, and we'd be really grateful if you could take a moment and tell people about our podcast.
Host:So we thank you all in advance.
Host:Okay, let's get to our big decision on whether Indiana Jones in the kingdom of the Crystal skull is going to be saved or purged into the fiery apocalypse.
Host:So, Beefe, what say you let it go?
Host:Just frozen.
Sam:Yeah.
Host:Yeah.
Sam:Another movie I didn't like.
Host:All right, you're gonna say purge it.
Sam:Mm hmm.
Anthony:Anthony, you wouldn't let me save.
Anthony:You wouldn't let me save temple of doom.
Anthony:I'm not letting you have.
Sam:You were just uploaded.
Anthony:You.
Anthony:You told me how small that vault was, and I let it go.
Sam:Anthony's gonna make his own vault with blackjack and hookers.
Breonna:I already have that.
Breonna:Anthony, are you.
Breonna:Are you sure that you and I aren't like brothers from another mother?
Breonna:Because I feel.
Breonna:I feel a brother to you.
Anthony:Yeah.
Breonna:In the words of Paul McCartney to this film, I would say, let it be.
Breonna:Let it be.
Breonna:Let it be.
Breonna:Let it be.
Breonna:Don't let it in the vault.
Breonna:Cause it's not good enough.
Sam:Nathan, your vote doesn't count.
Sam:But if it did, what would you vote?
Host:No, no.
Sam:This is.
Host:This is lower tier Indiana Jones, so not gonna let it in.
Host:No.
Host:That is unanimous.
Sam:Slam the door.
Host:Very satisfying.
Breonna:This was a very therapeutic recording.
Host:Yeah.
Host:You worked out some issues.
Breonna:I did, I did, I did.
Breonna:I.
Breonna:The temple of Doom recording definitely hurt me.
Breonna:So this is.
Breonna:Come back, feel more validated, you know, good times.
Host:And that is going to end our show today.
Host:No other.
Host:No other topics today.
Host:But, Anthony, thank you again for being our guest today.
Anthony:Thank you for having me again.
Anthony:Very fun.
Host:Yeah.
Host:Is there anywhere people can find you or your.
Host:I think IMDb, you said, is the best place for people to find you in your work, right?
Anthony:Yeah.
Host:I will put that in the show notes.
Breonna:Or you could just stand by Haven brothers in Providence, Rhode island, like 24 hours a day, and maybe he'll show up.
Sam:If one of you Rhode Islanders want to get me, like, a coffee Oreo milkshake, stat, it'd be fucking down for that.
Breonna:And Anthony, I apologize.
Breonna:That was a very dumb joke.
Breonna:I just came up with it because I went to Haven brothers with you once and I thought it would be funny, but it's just.
Breonna:It didn't land.
Breonna:So I apologize.
Sam:I mean, I put my order in, so.
Host:Nobody's going to get it.
Host:Don't worry.
Breonna:Yeah.
Anthony:So anyone's interested, my.
Anthony:The team I'm coaching, Coventry little league, ages seven and nine, will be in the playoffs next week.
Host:We're rooting them on.
Host:Well, that is the show this week.
Host:Back to the frame rate.
Host:As part of the Westin Media podcast network, we also wish to thank Brian Ellsworth for our show opening.
Host:On behalf of all of us, we bid you farewell from our fallout shelter.
Host:Your presence in our underground sanctuary is truly appreciated.
Host:We are truly sorry you cannot join us, but we want to express our gratitude for your company.
Host:If you are finding solace in our discussions, we kindly ask that you please subscribe and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever portal connects you to our broadcast.
Host:There you can find more episodes of this podcast and also on our website, backtotheframerate.com, and on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube threads, or any of those places at.
Host:Back to the frame rate.
Host:Your support is the beacon of light that brightens our confined space.
Host:Until we emerge from the fallout, stay with us.
Host:Keep hope alive, and keep those reviews coming.
Host:This is the end of our transmission.
Host:Back to the frame rate.
Host:Signing off.
Anthony:Want you to know it's over.
Anthony:Well.
Breonna:Bye.
