Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I regret, dear readers, that I in fact have little at all to say about this movie. It was assuredly as epic as one could hope from an Indiana Jones movie (at least in terms of fight scenes), but the film was precariously lite fare when it came to actual fact and legend. I've always found that the premise of Indiana Jones movies were appealing because they were based on legends and facts that people already knew about. There was a sense of mystery, of solving a case along with the Jones' which made the discovery of some ancient artifact so enthralling.

This movie poster suffers from a case of the RANDOM.
A little less Shia LaBoeuf, a little more Harrison Ford naked, please.
This is not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

I have my doubts that anyone would consider a giant magnetic crystal skull to be part of anyone's local mythology. I won't spoil the plot for you, but there's alternate dimensions involved. I think alternate dimensions are better left for Star Trek plots to grapple with than dear Dr. Jones.

I present to you now, a list of ridiculous things some of which may be included in this movie. See if you can pick out which are actually plot points, and which are not in the movie at all. Then go see for yourself. Because a strange movie is best shared with friends afterall.

What the hell is all THAT doing in my movie?!
Jeez, do I at least get to make out with a hottie??
She's 50?!? What did I ever do to you, Mr. Lucas? Go throw yourself to the ants.

Do try to determine which of these are ACTUALLY IN IJatKotCS (that is one messed up title):

Man-eating ants, capoeira, improbably-hidden Mayans, book-learning, motorcycles, submarines, the invention of the computer, annoying prodigies, the KGB, Psychics, Psychos, magnetic gunpowder, interdimensional portals, combinatorics, death-waterfalls, crazy old men, crazy old women, color-coded sea anemones, swarms of killer bees, Bea Arthur being killed, non-quick sand/lightning sand?, a Sicilian when death is on the line, public humiliation of the educational system, Roswell, Yale, Maui, poetry no one's ever heard of, ponchos, fencing, tarzan-like tree-swinging, monkey connections, atomic bombs, Harrison Ford . . . nekkid, fierce enjoyment of sexual relations with a woman.

(Note: I'll give you a sad truth here which partially answers the above question. The truth of the matter is that the film does not imply any sort of current sexual relation between Indy and any other character. I suppose in his old age, Indy just stopped gettin' it on.)

You Go Girl! Lauren Wolfe

I was pleased to read in my alumnae newsletter from my alma mater that the woman who was my 'big sib' in college is now one of Michigan's 28 superdelegates. And at 25, she's one of the youngest in the country.

While in college, she made a name for herself, heading up the Democrats club (with a campus membership of over 500 students), and becoming more and more involved in the politics of both our college town's community and that of her hometown. Once she graduated from college, she became a strong voice for the democratic party and a leader for students throughout the nation. In 2005, she was elected the president of College Democrats of Massachusetts. Now, she holds a position as the president of College Democrats of America.

AND she's studying law. AND she has a blog with the Huffington Post which allows her to air her views.

Congratulations, Lauren Wolfe! You've worked hard and you earned it! For Lauren's take on politics and the current presidential candidates check out her blog at The Huffington Post

Tetris for Winners

I have a lot of friends who LOVE Tetris. And even "love" is not quite expressive enough for how much they adore the game. As a member of the generation who were in their prime shape-identification years when Tetris came out (I still refer to certain phone numbers on keypad phones as tetris shapes), I have a certain love-affair with the game myself. I even made myself a rarely-seen Tetris choker out of shrinky-dinks (a post on shrinky-dink jewelry sometime in the future).

And who isn't always up for a great arm-wrestle? So when I saw this video on Youtube about arm-wrestling controlled Tetris, I thought this was just about the best thing ever.



Sweet!

5 Scientific Reasons Why the Zombie Apocolypse Could Actually Happen.

This link helpfully gleaned from my friend E. Please read the link before continuing onward in this post.

5 Reasons on 5 consecutive pages.

I have some arguments concerning these. Particularly number five which suggests that toxoplasmosa would turn us into zombies. It only makes rats into 'zombies' because the organism is trying to get into a cat. What would be eating us that the toxoplasmosa would want to be inside?

And the article has a whole bunch of this "...Yet." stuff in it.

Also, because it's apparently innevitable, you'll want to send a card to all your loved ones before they turn and you can't say you care anymore.
If you were a zombie...

Iron Man, Redux!

So I saw the 8pm west coast release of Iron Man, and I have little to say except, "GO SEE IT, NOW" and "MAKE SURE YOU SEE IT IN A THEATER WITH FANTASTIC SOUND!" That's really about all there is to it. Robert Downey Jr. was even better than I'd expected, the villains were truly villainous, and it's just a great plot that although it's fairly obvious, does not fail to deliver in clever puns, visual fireworks, and subtle humor. The cast does a tremendous job keeping their performances grounded in reality.

One thing though. Rhodes? Is he in the army AND the airforce AND the special forces AND the marines? Throughout the movie, he's constantly changing uniforms, and he's apparently superior to EVERY other officer. Where did he find the time?

Five stars for this one folks. Go see it, ASAP.

Misti's Link of the Month: GoodReads.com

One of my coworkers today introduced me to the site GoodReads.com which I've found to be a great site to share and learn about new books that you find interesting. With my voraciousness of the written word greatly increasing weekly, this site has become an unexpected boon for my dwindling list of interesting reads.

In addition to reviewing and keeping track of your current obsession, you can also keep a running tally of all the great books you want to read in the future, see what your friends are up to (you can even link up via facebook), and recommend books to others.

You can add me as a friend there and learn more about what I'm reading, my profile is www.goodreads.com/profile/misti