Indianapolis thirty

I caught an interview (hat tip to Gruber, IIRC) of Spielberg a while ago, talking about the blu-ray release of the original three (which is to say, good) Indiana Jones movies.  In it, they also talked about the limited IMAX release of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I looked ahead, and saw that I could probably make it (thanks to the warning).

So I got my dad and a good friend, and we caught an afternoon showing the day it opened.  It had been a good twenty years (at least) since I had seen it (though I had seen it 20+ times before that).

My friend commented, most of the way through it, that he was happy it had been so long since he'd seen it; he didn't remember all the specifics.  That, unfortunately, was not the case for me, but I still found it a lot of fun to watch.

One minor detail I'd never caught (at least not right) was the name of the pilot's snake at the beginning.  I remember seeing it originally, and just thinking "Yankees cap, therefore Reggie = Reggie Jackson".  It hadn't occurred to me that the movie was taking place before that Reggie was even born (not by much, now that I look it up).  Which leaves me wondering who Reggie was named after.

One other thing I hadn't known (and that my friend pointed out to me) was that the big German bruiser Ford fought over, under, and around the plane was a famous wrestler.  Makes sense; I just hadn't heard of him (the couple of years in which I followed wrestling were 5-10 years later).

It definitely says something about the movie that I still enjoyed it, despite remembering almost everything that happened in it.  I haven't bought that blu-ray set yet, but I will.  Watching that was a good way to spend an afternoon.

My eyes have seen the Morning Glory...

I, somewhat randomly, picked up Morning Glory recently (it was a lot cheaper than it is now), and decided to watch it last night.

It's a (kind of) romantic comedy about an obsessively workaholic young TV producer (Rachel McAdams) working on a local, NJ morning show who, after losing her job unexpectedly, manages to talk her way into taking over as the executive producer of a national morning show. They hire her because the show is in the dumps, of course, but they give her a chance (Jeff Goldblum does an excellent job in the slightly-more-than-bit part as her new boss).

Finder herself needing a new anchor, she manages to finagle getting an older anchor (Harrison Ford) with a huge reputation (and, she soon finds out, an even bigger ego) to take the position.

Although it's nominally a romantic comedy, I think that's somewhat of a mischaracterization. The film is actually almost all about her relationship with Ford, and the "romance" part between her and Patrick Wilson is kind of bolted on. There's one or two good scenes between the two, but largely ancillary to the plot.

Ford's co-anchor is Diane Keaton, who does a very good job of playing a very unpleasant person. The ego clash between Keaton and Ford is fairly amusing, but also fairly ancillary.

The development of the show from bad to really bad to pretty good is the meat of the corpus, and there are some hilarious scenes in there.

There are also some very painful scenes (to watch) in there, as McAdams' character can't shut her mouth, which gets her into trouble quite a few times.

I must admit that I'm left wondering, for much of the movie, why anyone would ever want to date her. She just doesn't have anything going on in her life outside of work. So her ability to get things done is pretty impressive, but she wouldn't be someone you could talk to. Plus, she works miserable hours (both for length and what part of the day they cover). So, can she become someone that another person would want to be around? Does she want to?

I ended up mostly liking the movie. I think it could have been more focused, but it generally was funny. And McAdams and Ford put in very good performances. Keaton was also quite funny, and Wilson did a good enough job with his part. I'll watch it again sometime, I'm sure.