Sane Inside Insanity: INDY DIDN'T GROW OLD, EVERYBODY ELSE DID

sabato, maggio 24, 2008

INDY DIDN'T GROW OLD, EVERYBODY ELSE DID

(no spoilers)

I enjoyed the movie, much as I enjoyed Iron Man, but none of them stayed with me too long. I'll be getting the Iron Man figure if I can, but Optimus still looms too large in my mind.

However, IM had the freshness of novelty, and a terrific, young, re-discovered actor. Indy 4 felt to me like the youngest of the "classic" crew was Ford himself. He didn't always seem convinced of what he was doing, but he always managed to slip in the classic sideways grin or shocked stare. The newcomers were terrific too - Shia LaBeouf, John Hurt and the unrecognizable Cate Blanchett - and the female lead (trying to avoid spoilers here!) was a true gift.

So what was missing? Kit pointed out the lack of a memorable soundtrack: John Williams might be losing inspiration. Spielberg as director (and Lucas as co-writer) was not at the heights of his previous works. I know it's unfair to compare this to "Raiders" but they spoiled us: we expected an uninterrupted series of fireworks and we got good action scenes but too many and too long exposition scenes, without those little twists that occurred in "Raiders", poignant moments were uninspired, and the goofiness (the fridge!) was not enough to heighten the rhythm.

But especially... hell, *I*'m older. This might be as brilliant as "Raiders" and still I'd go "meh". I can't put my finger on it, I'd still watch it another couple of times, I got the mug at BurgerKing, and I'm just glad that Indy is still around, but what I felt especially was a change in me, not so much the movie people: I'm much harder to astonish and surprise and delight lately. This movie didn't surprise me so much - same problem I had with the last 2 Harry Potter books (beside the massacre, of course, grr). Harry Potter 1-5, Robin Hobb, the movie "The Fountain", LOST and some Marvel stuff are the pieces of pop art that lately gave me more emotion.

And Transformers too, for other reasons.

QUOTES

Heart shall be bolder,
harder be purpose,
more proud the spirit
as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter
nor mood waver,
though doom shall come
and dark conquer.
(The Battle of Maeldon, translated by Tolkien)

He who has a treasure, or a demon in his heart, cannot hide it. (King Theodoric the Great)

I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.
(Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio)

The lambs will stop for now. But, Clarice, you judge yourself with all the mercy of the dungeon scales at Threave; you'll have to earn it again and again, the blessed silence. Because it's the plight that drives you, seeing the plight, and the plight will not end, ever. (Hannibal Lecter)

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai 'Ngaje Ngai', the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude. (Ernest Hemingway)

Would I embarrass you? Yes, it is possible. You see, I... I am crazy. I take the newer medications, but I still see things that are not here. I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites. Like my appetite for patterns. Perhaps my appetite to imagine and to dream. (A Beautiful Mind)

Night gathers, and now my watch begins.
It shall not end until my death.
I shall take no wife, hold no lands,
father no children.
I shall wear no crowns and win no glory.
I shall live and die at my post.
I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the fire that burns against the cold,
the light that brings the dawn,
the horn that wakes the sleepers,
the shield that guards the realms of men.
I pledge my life and honor to the Night Watch
for this night and all the nights to come.
(GRRM)

Never criticize a person until you walk a mile in their shoes (Atticus Finch)

A warrior for peace is no less a warrior (General Korrd, unwittingly reminding of Yitzhak Rabin)

What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter. (Sirius Black)

Whatever makes a soldier sad will make a killer smile (Leonard Cohen)

I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't. (John Coffey)

Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, - as wild, untutored things are forced to feel - Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! (Starbuck)

I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. (Charlotte Bronte)

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? (Karen Blixen)

Do not you recognize me, Dumas? I am the rearguard of the Grande Armee. I have stood at Kovno, and thrown the last muskets in the Niemen. I am Marshal Ney. Give me a bowl of soup. (Attributed to Michel Ney).