A Steven Spielberg Poll (1974-1993)

ive probably seen Raider 36 times. in none of those times there was an extended food gross out sequence where our heroes are disgusted by the food of their hosts. and that happens twice in Temple.

gotcha. love the monkeybrains sequence, wish i had em tonight.

i prefer raiders because it feels more like a classic carl barks uncle scrooge story. plus temple just feels like it goes on forever, i always start to feel claustrophobic about an hour from the end.

Thought you guys were referring to Roy Scheider re "Brody" for a moment

xxxxpost

Schindler's List, easily.

Also, lotta Kate shrieking in Doom, lotta Short-round, Kane Hodder in Indian-face... The Orientalism very much in character of cheesy, dubious old serials, though that is a weird defense. From an interview I did with Kal Penn:

I was probably in fourth grade when Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom came out. I remember when we went to see that movie, and there all these Indian characters that were eating monkey brains and snakes for dinner, and doing all these things that had absolutely nothing to do with being Indian at all. I went into school, and myself and every other Indian kid I know, and nobody would sit next to us at lunch, for months, because they were convinced we had monkey brains in our sandwich. Similarly, when the Simpsons first started airing, the character of Apu was so degrading, in my opinion. A lot of people disagree with me, but those are the media images that go into people’s heads, and if you don’t have close friends to disprove that, or even if you do but you’re only in fourth grade, that’s pretty powerful. That’s something I was very aware of/

That said, I own this shirt:

https://lastexittonowhere.imgix.net/uploads/catalogue/productimage-picture-lao-che-air-freight-2809.jpg

Dr. C, watch Sugarland Express! I first watched it as sort of a perfunctory completist gesture but I got converted. I really don't understand why it's so consistently underrated.

if anyone doesn't know why Raiders feels like Carl Barks: http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/429/

i'm pretty sure Spielberg would not make Temple of Doom the same way today. I think he would still marry Kate Capshaw.

capshaw another major block on recommending that movie; i can picture very few of my non-male friends finding that character/performance enjoyable.

i dig it. less misogynist than drag. #challops

yeah I have no problem with Capshaw. She played the Dizzy Dame about as well as anyone could in 1984.

one shriekin' gold-diggin' blonde does not necessarily represent women any more than I Love Lucy did. Sometimes a comic stock character is just that.

and I've said before on ILX that Marian's value as a character is overrated too -- she turns into a screaming wuss by the second act too!

yeah but she also pulls a knife on a Nazi in that second act. and after that she comedically slaps a wounded Indy with a mirror.

also that intro where she drinks the patron under the bar at the frozen Nepalese tavern she runs is pretty badass

sometimes you would rather see something like that then a lady complaining about having to ride an elephant

it being a comic stock character doesn't mean it's something one wants to watch for ninety minutes! there are lots of stock characters that i think we're all glad have bitten the dust after all. in this case, the stock from which the character is ladled is sexist as well boring. willie is stupid, slow on the uptake even in the most obvious situations, cowardly, unhelpful, and rude, and the film's main interest in her is how to take her down a peg. spielberg doesn't do anything to reinvent or recontextualize or renew this very dicey material and occam's razor (given the racism and general laziness of this film's conception) would suggest he just thinks it's crowd-pleasing entertainment to watch a woman screw things up and be annoying. call me when this kind of worthless role for the leading female character has been abandoned by hollywood and i'll entertain the idea that including one could be some kind of clever throwback to a forgotten archetype. meanwhile though i still don't think any women i know would find this enjoyable. maybe you two dudes are right though.

This is a movie in which everyone, including Indie, gets taken down a peg and made a fool of; everyone's a cartoon.

I don't mind if someone dislikes Willie, nor will I fight it.

pop culture of all eras sure is rigorously vetted these days (except for Fay Wray)

I like Kate Capshaw in TOD (she's pretty funny in the comic scenes and quite good at being seductive once she gets Indy in her sights), I just don't like her more than Karen Allen in ROTLA.

I got no problem with Franklin Pangborn's prissy fags ftr

"Is there anyone I haven't offended?" - Lenny Bruce, who's glad he's dead

vetted? i mean all i was saying was i don't think I'd recommend the film to a friend. out of all the thrills-and-chills adventure movies out there, why pick one with THIS stuff in it? if it doesn't bug you that's fine but i was, as i said, thinking of non-male film buff friends of mine, so you going "hey, *i* find it entertaining, what's the big deal??" isn't really answering to that. obviously i can't speak for their tastes either, just my own barometer of "will i later feel like an asshole with male-privilege blinders for blithely proclaiming this to be a fun popcorn movie that lets you have a good time and forget your cares" ?

You can recommend the film with caveats? That's my job as a reviewer.

I'm just not seeing the big deal in explaining to a friend what you dislike and letting him/her make up his/her mind. Also, if you wouldn't introduce a film patterned after 1930s serials with ethnic and sexual stereotypes to a friend, then don't.

That sentence is garbled: if your friend normally has a problem with such movies, etc.

I'm mostly annoyed that for all that's, well, annoying with her character, Indy inexplicably doesn't rip her heart out later. They never explain that, do they?

I recommend things with caveats all the time! I'd recommend Raiders with caveats, happily. But the more caveats that I have to layer onto a funtimes popcorn movie specifically, the more it's like, maybe I should be recommending a movie that involves less work and fewer "now, you'll want to brace yourself for..." moves. Life is too short; I'd rather recommend things that are fun all the way through, and it's a bummer that Spielberg didn't always pull that off.

Dr. C, watch Sugarland Express! I first watched it as sort of a perfunctory completist gesture but I got converted. I really don't understand why it's so consistently underrated.
― Cork Taint (Old Lunch)

Keep fighting the good fight, OL.

i dig it. less misogynist than drag. #challops

I note that this thread has strongly shifted to arguing between Indiana Jones movies. This seems predictive of the outcome, unless a presently-silent majority rules the final results.

Raiders will be in the top 3. The other two somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10.

my names not gareth its brodie

― brodie, Sunday, January 23, 2011 5:32 PM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Best silly: Raiders.
Best serious: Empire of the Sun.

Voted for Raiders.

Although fuck it, maybe I should have gone with my heart and voted Temple of Doom.

i wouldn't change a thing. somehow even him holding the rocket launcher backwards makes perfect sense in this world. and the end of the film, with the power of God being unleashed and just destroying a canyon filled with Nazis in the most demonic-metal special effects extravaganzas of all time. then there is still the final shot of the guy in that giant room of government secrets.

Raiders is efficient, well-made, unparalleled pulp. the end of TOD is them on a bridge with a bunch of guys falling down to get eaten by crocodiles offscreen. then the guy tries to do the heart thing on Indy, which is the 3rd or 4th time we have seen that trick in action, and it never works in the good guys. then he falls down to again get eaten by crocodiles. i do like the fakeness of the effects, but it is cheaper, far less visually and thematically impressive, then the ending of Raiders. in Raiders we never see the power of the ark until the ending, making it all the more impressive when it happens. it is like the shark in Jaws, used sparingly, the tension building throughout the movie between brief scenes of the main monster or whatever. ofc this is pulp/b-movie making 101.

him riding on the submarine is the maybe the best part, that they never explain that. it effectively turns him into a superhero, which, come on, he always was. this is the kind of folk legend that would be used in a comic strip.

also that wordless scene of the ark burning the whole through the crate in the submarine base is beyond cool. it starts with a shot of some rats and there is this ominous hum and then it pans to show the Imperial Eagle symbol and the ark from within burns it and chars the box black so the Nazi symbol is destroyed. it is a really cool shot of magic happening onscreen when nobody is looking.

The Raiders template is sending up Crap Movies. Which is also what Tarantino's career has been, but Spielberg's pastiches are much better and don't run 3 fucking hours.

is the ending to "Raiders" sort of a nod to DeMille's "The Ten Commandments"? the animation in parts kind of resemble the pillar of cloud and other effects from that classic film.

It's interesting, that sort of is the Raiders template, but that might be more Lucas than Spielberg. I never got the same film historian vibe (pulp or otherwise) from Spielberg that you get from erstwhile peers like, say, Scorsese. Spielberg always seemed more of a savant. Like Coppola, maybe, but less grand Great American Novel ambitious.

xpost Raiders is silly but also has some moments of real drama and portent and menace, not least the intensity of the ending. Doom is just silly, for better or for worse. One can (and we have) made the case that that makes it more faithful to its source inspirations, but ... nah. Still fun, but that's largely linked to Ford, who is perfect in the role.

Adam:

http://www.theraider.net/features/articles/demille.php

Has Spielberg talked much about specific film influences, either directors or movies that made an impact on him?

He has, a fair amount -- not in encyclopedic Scorsese fashion -- but I don't have one source for you.

Assuming Spielberg saw it in its theatrical release when he was about 9, you can imagine how The Ten Commandments would ring all his bells.

I always got the impression he was as or more influenced by pulp fiction: Weird Tales, pulpy sci-fi-fi novels and stuff. But I'll look into film specifics.

That was easy, this one was great and recent:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-films-inspired-steven-spielberg

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/styles/full/public/image/secret-of-the-incas-1954-001-charlton-heston.jpg?itok=y5A4vU5u

get your stinking scales off me, you damn dirty snakes

Q: Why doesn’t Jurassic Park enter into the discussion anybody higher? Is it the fact that it is so overrepresented in nerd culture? Technically speaking, I think it’s one of Spielberg’s best.

I saw it once, and thought all the accomplishments were technical, aside from Goldblum's meta japery.

I like that the people are all pulpy archetypes, but the dinosaurs are realistic and scary. It's a nice contrast.