INDIANA JONES: All Four Films

On Saturday, my posting was entitled, Here We Go Again, referring to Vietnam in 1975.  Today, NBC News reported:

• U.S. to send 1,000 more troops to Kabul in scramble to evacuate
• Video: Panicked crowds descend on Kabul airport after Taliban take city
• Afghan women fear 'dark' future, loss of rights as Taliban take over

• 'Blood on his hands': Republicans criticize Biden 

• Analysis: Afghans were promised the U.S. would not abandon them. Now they have. 

Man and nature can indeed be cruel.  Yesterday I reported in this blog that a 7.2 earthquake struck Haiti.  While this was twice as strong as the 7.0 that devastated the already poorest country in the Americas in 2010, killing 220,000, this time "only" 1200 or so died, although there surely will be more.  However, Grace makes landfall today.  Fortunately, she is now "only" a tropical depression, not the Category 5 Hurricane Matthew that creamed the nation in 2016.

Finally, been swimming lately?  7-year old David Pruitt of Red Bluff, California did, and was killed by PAM...primary amoebic meningoencephalitis.  Thankfully, this is relatively rare, and has happened here "only" ten times since 1971.  A parasite, Naegleria fowleri, enters the body through the nose, just like COVID-19.  However, this amoeba heads for the brain, not lungs.

On  that note, let me move on to something you will find more enjoyable, although you might lament the deaths.  There were four Indiana Jones films.  The chronology of the the series begins with the second one, The Temple of Doom.  We are now less than two weeks from the beginning of the NCAA football season, so if I don't binge watch these four I recorded, I might never get to them, for my recorder is nearing its capacity limit.

The Wikipedia coverage of Indiana Jones does not even mention Hiram Bingham III, the individual from Honolulu who certainly was well educated--Punahou, Yale, Cal Berkeley and Harvard, from where he earned a PhD in 1905--and is credited as the modern who discovered Machu Picchu.  Here is where I dropped off one of Pearl's ash capsules, in the crack of the sun dial at the top of the tourist attraction site.  To quote:

But staring at me was the guard.  He returned a few moments later with a long stick that was like a spear.  As I walked away he peered into the crack.  I hastily hiked down to the entrance as fast as I could.  I could imagine the headlines:

     Hawaii Professor Jailed for Defaming the Sacred Sun Dial of Machu Picchu

That was the closest I ever got to an Indiana Jones adventure.  George Lucas and Steven Spielberg said they modeled Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones after a boatload of adventurous academicians, including Bingham.  You can read the Rotten Tomatoes posting on these films at:

INDIANA JONES movies got 13 Academy Award nominations and won 6 Oscars:

• The Temple of Doom (1984, prequel) 84/81
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 95/96
• The Last Crusade (1989, sequel) 88/94
• The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 78/53
• #5 coming in 2022

So on to the #2 1984 Temple of Doom in 1935 Shanghai, which begins with an over the top melange, reminiscent of Busby Berkeley-like dances that has no particular relevance to the subject.  But I guess the message was Anything Goes.  Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones then gets into a variety of ridiculous, but entertaining adventures, none of which I can recall, which leads me to believe that perhaps I never before saw this movie.  Kate Capshaw was a wonderful love interest.  Dan Aykroyd had a role, a very minor one.  Like many of these Spielberg-Lucas action productions, there is the obligatory scene of creatures:  snakes, cockroaches, centipedes, spiders, etc.  This was tamer than #1, which parents decried as unacceptable to their children, and almost got an R-rating.

Next is 1936 for the original 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark.  This is the one Harrison Ford runs away from that giant spherical boulder.  The first was the best of the four, which is usually the case for most.  I've noticed, though, that those producing series find a way to improve it, and many times seasons 2 into the future can attain 100% Rotten Tomatoes ratings when the first one only struggled.  Karen Allen is his co-star, and will keep returning, maybe even into #5.

The third, The Last Crusade (this is the walkthrough version with animation if you have more than an hour to spare) somewhat spoils the sequence because, it begins in 1912 when Indy was a teenager.  

• Indy, played by River Phoenix, observes some cave robbers, steals one of their artifacts to return to public trust, but gets caught and shows why he has  ....a fear of snakes.  Also, how a whip becomes his protective device and how he earned his hat.  
• 
  Unfortunately, River, older brother of Joaquin, died of a drug overdose four years later.
• So back to the movie, this encounter leads to a career of recovering antiquities as an occupation.
• His father, played by Sean Connery, in a more sedate way, happens to be just what Indiana becomes.  
• 
  Alison Doody is the love interest.  Who???  She was a Bond girl in 1985.  Anyway, she happens to be a Nazi.  Then again, her true intention keeps shifting.  She carried on with both Joneses.  
• I'm giving things away because you all saw these films.  There is another Nazi, the rich guy in the U.S. who got Indiana started to search for his father.  Then too, perhaps he was more for himself.

• 
  The last crusade is the search for the Holy Grail (the cup that Jesus used in his Last Supper), a particular hobby of his dad, a tale that began 2000 years ago leading to one of my favorite cities, Venice.
• Rats!  Yes, all Indy flicks have something like this.  Lots of them.  His dad has the rat version of Indy's snake fear.

• 
  Oh, I should mention that the year is 1938, and the Nazis are stirring around.
• Adolf Hitler makes an appearance, and this was an unexpectedly funny moment.
• Chases galore.
• Also, as in the other movies, Indiana kills people, with no conscience.
• The name of their dog was Indiana.  Thus the name.
• Cost $48 million to make, and returned ten times that amount.

After a long wait, #4 Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came 19 years later in 2008, with Harrison Ford now 64 years old.  The timing was 1957.  

• Karen Allen is back, with her son (Shia LaBeouf), who turns out, to Indiana's surprise, to be his son.
• Inserted is a PhD Russian agent (Nazis are no longer around, and the Cold War was still on) Cate Blanchett (nine years after Titanic).
• These villains are searching for a Peruvian Crystal Skull (being held by John Hurt to the right) with alien origins, which somehow is connected to that Roswell UFO, and like that Holy Grail, has special powers.
• 
  A mummified corpse comes into play, and Indiana finds himself at the site of an A-Bomb test.
• Denholm Elliott had passed away in 1992, so brought in was Jim Broadent for a Marshall College role.
• Chases, caves, cobwebs, skeletons, scorpions....the standard assortment.
• Near the end there is a flying saucer that heads into outer space and Ford marries Allen.
• I've figured out why I like Indiana Jones films, they are all travelogues.  

Indiana's kill count sits at 28, but at least one has been shot twice, and a victim is Daniel Craig.  But I don't remember him in any Indy film.  Then too, you got to include the many others who died in those chase scenes caused by Indiana.  Yet, nothing compared to John Wick, who in three films did away with 299, and a fourth is coming in May of 2022.  But, Bodycounters.com showed 2706 total killed in all the Indiana Jones movies, slightly more than the 2,000 or so in James Bonds flicks.  You like DC Comic films?  What about a body count of more than 6 million, about the same as Star Trek or Superman.  Marvel Comics?  More than 5 million.  Disney productions?  Only 13,628.  And the winner is Star Wars:  just about 2 billion deaths.

There will of course be an Indiana Jones #5.  Antonio Banderas is in and Spielberg chose to assist the new director., James Mangold.  John Williams will write the score.   Disney is icing out George Lucas. This will be a sequel to #4.  Release date?  Probably 29 July 2022, when Ford will be 80 years old.

Should you want to watch all four Indiana Jones films for free, Showtime shows them all the time.  Like, earlier today, for example.  If you don't mind spending $3.99,/film go to Amazon Prime.  Even members need to pay.  Netflix does not carry them.

As terrible as this day has been for much of the world, the Dow Jones Industrial average broke another all-time high, up 110 to 35,625.

All recent reports I've read insist coffee is good for your health.  Yesterday I introduced you to affogato.  Today, MojoGizmos has on sale something utterly extravagant to keep your coffee warm:

MojoGizmos is not paying me to advertise their product.  I don't plan to order it.  But you might.

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