At LOOONG Last!

Let's just cut to the chase.

INDIANA JONES BABY!



When the first Indiana Jones movie came out was during a gentler time when movie theaters didn't chase you out between movies. If you missed the beginning of the movie, you could stay through the opening of the next one and catch yourself up!

I remember one Saturday my mom told me she was going to be doing what I still refer to as THE BIG house clean. Not straightening up but starting at one end of the house and top to bottom clean, scrub, vacuum, etc. and do the entire house to the point that if you were lucky, you had enough energy to take your clothes off before bed that night. Anyway, THE BIG clean was about to happen and my mom, in her ever-so-gentle and loving way told me I had to GET OUT... and what would I like to do to pass the time? I had her take me to the Astro III cinema in Clemson (back when it was only one screen and a big one at that, now it's 3 screens. One new-ish large screen and 2 - 5x7 type screens you get when you chop a normal theater in two). I got there in time for the 11am show and stayed there until the 9pm show was over.

I watched Indy flip the sand bag, run from the boulder, yell "I HATE SNAKES", laugh rather sickly as he saw the German Hulk Hogan turn into a spinning plane propeller, get buried in the tomb, get smacked with the mirror as Karen Allen admired herself in the nightgown, yell "KEEP YOUR EYES SHUT!" and bitch about Washington DC bureaucracy over and over and over again.

And I'd do it again too...

I will admit (sorry Indy) the second movie sucked in my eyes. It's a wonder, but also a miracle, that there was a third. It's hard to say, but the third movie is probably my favorite of the three. While the chemistry between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford just made for an extremely enjoyable movie it lacked something that the first movie did for me. The first movie held the fascination and initial WOW factor that the others couldn't recreate. It is much like the fascination that the original Star Wars had for me that the following movies could not copy. Granted, much of that was the age I was when it was presented to me. Still, the original Star Wars is my favorite (that's the one WITHOUT all the touch ups that they re-released the movies with. They were OK, but just one step below Jar Jar Binks annoying)

Indy (or better yet, Harrison) KUDOS on continuing a sequel years after and making it work. If this movie has the class of the first three then you've hit it right. At least we know it will have more class than Rocky 31.