The Movie Marathon crew - Me, Sean, Meg, and Tyrone - got together the weekend of April 15-16 for our second installment, the Indiana Jones series (click HERE to read about the first installment, Star Wars.)
I look forward to the Movie Marathon all month. I feel like a kid waiting for the ultimate slumber party/Christmas/Easter. In fact, it was Easter! - although I totally forgot until Sunday was almost over. Basically, Sean and I bring our overnight bags over to Meg and Tyrone's in Ridgewood Queens, and we watch all the movies of a series in a row and eat everything in sight. The ultimate 30-something nostalgia fantasy weekend.
There are four Indiana Jones movies, all directed by Steven Spielberg with George Lucas as a producer: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade, and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (I know, I too somehow missed this fourth and somewhat recent addition.)
I'll use some mixed cake metaphors to discuss my experience with these movies, since one of the many things we ate was cake. Specifically this one --> -->
Whereas Star Wars - even with its faults - was like a sturdy homemade good ole fashioned cake portion of a cake, Indiana Jones was like the artificial sugar frosting. It tasted pleasant enough in the moment, but deep down my soul and taste buds were not truly satisfied, and slightly repelled. In the end, the stories did not penetrate the surface of my heart. Once I had consumed them I moved on, satisfied but unchanged philosophically.
Now instead of you reading (and me writing) everything we said about the movies, listen to our two-minute-post-movie discussions here!
Yet we must speak of Feminism:
As generally happens with movies from the '80's, there were some feminist 'eeek' moments. TWO women appeared in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in total. I'm not exaggerating. First the ingenue (the relentlessly interesting Karen Allen) and then an extra at the end, whose appearance completely shocked the popcorn out of our mouths. What, did women not exist in Egypt in the 1930's?
Perhaps in apology for this, there are many Indian women featured in The Temple of Doom, but the lead ingenue is as far from a strong female character as you can imagine. Even actress Kate Capshaw said of her character, "she was not much more than a dumb screaming blond."
Things do improve as time marches on. Elsa in Last Crusade is a bad-ass genius doctor double crossing everyone to get what she wants (could have done without the constant jokes about her sleeping with both Indy and his dad). In Crystal Skull we at first thought Cate Blanchett would be the love interest, but she turned out to be the VILLAIN! Villain/ingenue = feminism = women can be evil too.
And...drumroll please...here are the final rankings!
Meg
Tie: 1. Last Crusade and 2. Temple of Doom.
Tie: 3. Raiders of the Lost Ark and 4. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Sean
1. The Last Crusade.
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark.
3. The Temple of Doom.
4. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Tyrone
1. The Temple of Doom.
2. The Last Crusade.
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark.
4. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Ariel
1. The Last Crusade.
2. The Temple of Doom.
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark.
4. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
In conclusion: Temple was the most entertaining movie, but Crusade was fun and DEEP, and slightly more feminist. Crystal Skull was fine but did not have the heart of the other movies. And Raiders...well we gave it points for being the first one.
Do you agree? What points did we miss? Comment below!