Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Now it is time for the film I have been dreading to cover the most of the quadrilogy of Indiana Jones adventures and yes I am talking about Indy’s return to the big screen after a 19 year absence with 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (trailer). For new readers you can catch up on my posts for the original trilogy by clicking right here. When it originally released it was the only film in the franchise I vividly recall seeing in its entirety on release week. I recall walking out of that film irate because of a few gut-wrenching cornball scenes I will touch on later, and also because it featured Shia LaBeouf in one of the lead roles of the film fresh off his ultra-annoying performance in the first Transformers film. Needless to say I recall being furious anytime Shia’s mug appeared onscreen. This was 11 years ago however, so it was interesting revisiting this with a fresh set of eyes.

Before I continue bear with me for a quick sidebar. I specifically recall Crystal Skull being the last film playing in what was once the featured theater in my town throughout my childhood. The good ‘ol Columbia 4 was the place where I waited in long lines for tickets to see family blockbusters like Home Alone, D2: The Mighty Ducks, Beethoven and Major League II. Later in the 90s a 10-plex opened, and in 2007 a 15-plex debuted which was the catalyst for the Columbia 4 turning into second run $1 theater a couple months later. For the next several months I caught at least two movies a month there and would chance anything for a $1 but felt something was amiss when the only movie they had playing on all four screens for its last three weeks was Crystal Skull until they finally locked their doors. I miss $1 movies and I hope we get another second-run theater again someday.

Back on track, Crystal Skull opens with Indy (Harrison Ford) and his colleague Mac (Ray Winstone) being thrown out of a trunk by the Soviet KGB. Yes, Indy is no longer squaring off against Nazis in the 1930s, but now communists in 1957. The standard thrilling opening chase sequence transpires with Indy evading peril once again, but with the Russians constantly on his tail. Not all is well for Indy back home as his latest capers leads to his dismissal from his longtime professor job at the university, but he has a hot tip for this film’s self-titled Magoffin, a legendary Crystal Skull. This leads Indy to meeting up with one Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) for more info on the Skull’s whereabouts, and that leads the pair to tracking down the kidnapped duo of Indy’s former pal, Dr. Oxley (John Hurt) and Mutt’s mom Marion (Karen Allen). The Russians are led by one Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), who has some hinted psychological gifts early on, but that part of her persona is quickly brushed aside and she is essentially one of the weaker Indy antagonists. Mac is pretty amusing though with his constant double-crossing. Sadly, Sean Connery does not return to reprise his role as Indy Sr. as Connery stated in interviews at the time he was already a few years into his acting retirement and enjoying it too much to return to the screen, but there is a nice quick little tribute to him here.

After re-watching the original trilogy and now having 100% reverence for Marion’s role in Raiders, I was thrilled to see her return this time around. Her chemistry with Ford does not miss a beat and the two shine together whenever they share a scene after Marion’s introduction halfway into the film. Some of my original qualms was Ford obviously being too old to make a return to all the swashbuckling action the series is famous for as he was 65 when Crystal Skull was filmed. Ford must have had some bizarre combination of good makeup and training, because he comes off as barely spry enough to pull off most of the vintage Indy acrobatics and I was further stunned to see the interviews claim how he did most of his own stunts to boot. Being many years removed from the dreck of the original Transformers trilogy also helped re-watching this as I was able to give Shia’s performance a now un-biased perspective and I was legit surprised LeBeouf actually pulled off a pretty good outing as the greaser, Mutt Williams.

Most of the requisite chases and swashbuckling action scenes of Crystal Skull hold up surprisingly well. As a matter of fact nearly halfway through the film I jotted down in my notes in all caps ‘THIS IS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD SO FAR.’ There are still a few instances that are big asterisks where Crystal Skull does not tiptoe over the wrong side of the line of groan-inducing, hokey moments, it straight up jumps the shark on them. The first instance is a jeep chase that was going well until monkeys and vine swinging gets involved and it instantly took me right out of the moment. The second moment was when Indy and crew all survive a mammoth waterfall drop and instantly all of them walk right out of it without even a scratch.

I would be a fool at this point not to point out the elephant in the room in what is the most ridiculous jump the shark moment in cinema history….really….when Indiana…..I am not kidding….survives a nuclear blast on a testing ground by hiding in a lead-lined fridge and to rub salt in the wounds walking out of it WITHOUT EVEN A SCRATCH OR DROP OF BLOOD (SERIOUSLY, CLICK HERE TO RELIVE THIS ABSURDITY)!!! For that last instance it knocks the bonkers ball right out of the park and I can almost give Spielberg and Lucas a pass for being brazen enough to include it in here…almost.

My final gripe with Crystal Skull is how the final act plays out. I remembered enough bits and pieces of the original trilogy going into my first viewing of the fourth film to expect some supernatural material, and the inclusion of it is not what bothered me, but how it is pulled off is. When Spalko gets her just-deserts upon her inappropriate handling of the Crystal Skull, the way the CG-affair plays out is way too over the top to be taken seriously and get on the edge of my seat for like in previous films. This is also the first Indy film in the HD-era and Lucas already had the polarizing Star Wars prequels under his belt which featured the latest and greatest CG so it is baffling how silly the CG alien spectacle is executed.

On the bonus features disc of the BluRay set there is only one extra specific to Crystal Skull and that is Making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It runs just under a half hour and it does a good job interviewing Lucas, Spielberg and Ford on how the fourth film came to be and how it is an ode to the 1950s alien invasion B-movies like how the original trilogy was an homage to 1930s serials. I checked out the last several bonus features on the extras disc that run 10-12 minutes each to round off all the bonus content I had not seen yet. These shorter extras cover the filming locations, the leading women of the films, and post production. They are all well done, but of them the only one I would recommend would be the extra containing excerpts from a panel interviewing the three lead women of the movies that looked like it was shot shortly after The Last Crusade. The actresses are interviewed in the other bonuses, but it is nice to see them shine on their own here and give more insight and anecdotes than the other interviews.

For those interested in one more extra not contained on the set, the Cinemassacre crew did another recent video debating on whether Temple of Doom or Crystal Skull is the worst Indiana Jones film you can check out by clicking here. If it was not for these guys making these videos in the last few weeks it would have taken me several months to get around to covering the last two Indy films so kudos to them for driving me to get to them sooner than later. As far as which of those two films do I rank as the inferior Jones caper, I would have to rank Temple of Doom at the bottom.

As I detailed in my entry for Temple of Doom, I had a lot of beef with it and the only parts I cared for were the opening sequence and the final mine-cart and rope-bridge scenes which only tallied up to about a quarter of the film. For Crystal Skull however my opinion of it turned a complete 180. Yes, I detailed four major gripes above with the film, but those are my only noteworthy problems and other aspects of the fourth film aged better than I could have imagined and I was on board for around two-thirds of the film! I still would rank it as only my third favorite of the series behind Raiders and Last Crusade being my standout favorite, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will likely be the only movie in the history of this blog that I had a positive 180 change of opinion on.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Idiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Welcome to the third part of my trek through the quadrilogy of Indiana Jones films. You can catch up on the first two entries by clicking right here. Today I am covering 1989’s Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (trailer). Like the prior two Indy films, I had only the faintest memories of The Last Crusade’s most iconic scenes from catching bits and pieces of the movie off cable in my childhood. Coming back to it on the film’s 30th anniversary was a treat to see how well it held up all this time later.

I had no recollection of The Last Crusade kicking off with a 1912 flashback of a teenage Indiana (River Phoenix) swiping the ‘Cross of Coronado’ from a grave robber before he is forced to return it back. It is an entertaining and revealing flashback, and seems a little too convenient for this several minute scene to be the origin of Indiana’s phobia of snakes, trademark whip & hat, and his chin scar. It proves to be a fun chase regardless, and sets the stage for all the swashbuckling action and adventures that are about to transpire. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) comes into possession of the Cross of Coronado again in the film’s present day of 1938. It leads to Indy meeting Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) who sends Indy on a quest to track down his father Henry Jones (Sean Connery) who went MIA while on a job to retrieve the one and only Holy Grail used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Along his travels Indiana links up with his father’s colleague Elsa (Alison Doody) and reconnects with old friends Sallah (John-Rhys Davies) and Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Ford and Doody have a great chemistry in The Last Crusade’s early scenes where the duo is on the path to find Henry. The first two films had snakes and spiders, and thus this feature’s vile creature the duo must evade is a tomb full of rats in a fun scene. When Indy and Elsa finally discover Henry, the film really ramps up with nonstop chase and action scenes of the Jones’ trying to run from or chase after the Nazis and beat them to finding the Holy Grail. I am amazed by the depth of vehicles that get in the mix. Lucas and Spielberg must have been influenced by 1987’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles because 1930s versions of all three are featured in addition to camels, horses, tanks, zeppelins and boats (I am probably forgetting a few more). Where Temple of Doom saw a lot of groan-inducing hoki-ness with their action and chase scenes, Lucas & Spielberg were hitting all their marks in The Last Crusade because every one of the many chase and action sequences had me reeled in all the way and astonishingly hold up strong 30 years later. The tank scene is the standout with many fingernail-biting moments. Watching the film in HD on BluRay definitely helps, but still it goes to show how The Last Crusade raised the bar for a new standard of action/adventure.

The film as a whole is easily my clear-cut favorite of the four Indy films. Sean Connery is an excellent addition to the cast and the chemistry between him and Ford is instantly apparent. It was delightful watching Connery interact with the cast and it is obvious that he is having a blast. It was not surprising in watching the behind-the-scenes interviews after the film that an actor of Connery’s caliber caused the rest of the cast to step up their game and deliver their best. The final 15 minutes is what I remembered the most of from seeing this off TV many years ago, and it was just as enticing now as it was then to see the cast debate which chalice was the true Holy Grail and the resulting aftermath. For fans of cutting edge special effects that recall the melting face of Raiders, they will not be let down because a similar fate awaits someone in The Last Crusade in all the latest and greatest Hollywood flair that 1989 has to offer.

As referenced in the other blogs of previous two films, there is a single BluRay containing bonus features to all four films. The primary one associated with this one is Making of The Last Crusade. It is a 35 minute compilation of interviews from nearly the whole cast and crew featuring original on-the-set interview and newer interviews filmed for this BluRay box set. It was interesting hear Spielberg recount Lucas’s original vision for this and how the pair collaborated to transform the original outline into what became The Last Crusade. The rest of the feature is filled with facts and anecdotes about the casting, stunts and the legacy of the brand. There are about a dozen other much shorter bonus features covering the rest of the films as a whole, and now that I am caught up on the films I only had brief memories of I decided to dive into them here and will catch up on the rest in the blog covering the final Indy film. I watched four of the shorter extras that focused on the stunts, sound design, music and special effects of the Indiana Jones films. All four are just over ten minutes each and interview key crew members from those departments. The one I enjoyed the most of them was The Music of Indiana Jones where it interviews composer Jon Williams where he reveals how he crafted the vintage theme for the franchise.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a huge redemption for the series from the baffling Temple of Doom. Spielberg and Lucas walked a fine line of swashbuckling action and manage to come ever-so-shy of not crossing that line into the cheesy territory that Temple of Doom did numerous times. Shortly after watching this film I checked out a video debating whether Raiders or Last Crusade is the best Indiana Jones movie. I definitely dug Raider, but for me, the huge leap in quality of the action here and Sean Connery wound up the missing elements of a perfect formula the series needed to be the best film of the four.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Welcome to part two of my trek covering the four Indiana Jones movies! If you missed out my first entry, then please click here to check out my take on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Today I am covering the second film, 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Rope-Bridge Temple of Doom (trailer). Like Raiders, I only had a couple brief memories of the Temple of Doom’s most iconic scenes from my childhood (those being the rope-bridge and gross dinner scenes) and had no idea how it would hold up. I only knew going into this that it was a prequel taking place one year before Raiders in 1935 and that it was darker in tone which resulted in the creation of the PG-13 rating.

I thought there would be some key scenes here with this being a prequel that there would be some foreshadowing to the upcoming events in Raiders, but that is not the case because minus a couple subtle references, Temple completely stands on its own. I was optimistic going into the start of this film because the opening scene is executed wonderfully with a diamond exchange at a club in Shanghai going terribly wrong and Indy (Harrison Ford) going on a swashbuckling chase to procure the diamond and get the hell out of dodge. Indy eventually finds himself in India where the locals send him on a quest to retrieve their beloved Sankara Stones that were taken from them.

I should have known better to get my hopes up because said opening scene also introduces the love interest Willie (Kate Capshaw) and Indy’s sidekick boy wonder, Shorty (Jonathan Ke Quan). This duo accompanies Indy throughout the film, and provides nonstop cringe-worthy comic relief throughout. Maybe their zingers were passable for 1984, but most of their lines are the bad type of cheesy that made Temple ultimately a chore to get through. Willie has several ‘broken nail’ and ‘damsel in distress’ moments and is a polar 180 from the charismatic tomboy Marion of Raiders while Shorty relies on eyebrow-raising high-pitch shouts of ‘Indyyyy’ and countless other low-brow cheap laughs (the dinner scene is absolutely littered with them) throughout.

Director, Steven Spielberg relied on Willie and Shorty’s jokes too much in the opening hour and change because when the film does take a darker tone with some intense torture scenes, it proved difficult to wrap my head around the sudden tone shift because I was conditioned into expecting more ha-ha humor from Shorty & Willie. Things finally pick up in the final 20-ish minutes with a gripping mine-cart chase and the epic dangling rope-bridge of DOOM!!! That scene was likely the catalyst for me being petrified of heights and it taking longer than I care to admit to overcome. The final scenes helped saved Temple of Doom from being a total flop; as a whole it still proves to be a far weaker film when compared to Raiders.

While Raiders had three near hour-long making of features on the BluRay box set bonus disc, Temple only has one Making of special clocking in at 41 minutes. Definitely check it out though because there is a ton of worthwhile factoids to consume in new interviews from the cast and crew. Some key nuggets that stood out were George Lucas & Spielberg stating the main reason for the existence of Temple was because they had to so many stunt scenes out of Raiders that they had enough stunts for the sequel. As much as I disliked Kate Capshaw’s character, her interviews did provide some entertaining stories on learning how to properly scream and how she came to terms filming with snakes on the film. They do explain how they asked the MPAA for creation of a different rating in-between PG & R but that it took the MPAA a few months after Temple hit theaters for it to go into effect with Red Dawn being the first PG-13 film. I want to give props to Harrison Ford for roughing out the filming of this after I discovered in the doc he suffered a herniated disc that lead to him being off the shoot for six weeks!

After watching this I asked a couple friends I recall that are big Indiana Jones fans where they would rank Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and their sentiments echoed mine with it being the weak link of the original trilogy. It is not a total wash because the first 10 minutes and final 20 minutes provide quality entertainment, but the rest in-between is not worth your time whatsoever….at least we got a killer rope-bridge scene.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-5
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark

I have owned the Indiana Jones collection on BluRay for quite some time now, and regrettably it has remained in my backlog for far too long….until now. The globe-trotting treasure hunter has always been a favorite genre of mine. It is why I also dug the National Treasure and Uncharted franchises over the years. Other than the lackluster Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which I saw upon its 2008 release, I have only vague memories of the Indiana Jones films from seeing bits and pieces off cable as a kid. The only scenes that rung a bell when re-watching the series debut entry from 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark (trailer) were the moments with the lines “bad dates” and “don’t open your eyes!” I subscribe to the Retronauts podcast, and their newest episode was dedicated to Radiers and that was the impetus I needed to inspire me to finally boot up this George Lucas/Steven Spielberg collaboration.

I feared that watching these original trilogy films with an adult set of eyes for the first time would expose them as outdated flops that do not stand the test of time. Luckily, this has two things working in its favor - Raiders is a period piece from 1936 and the HD transfer on BluRay is especially well done. I was a little worried at the beginning of Raiders however. Indiana Jones’ (Harrison Ford) initial treasure jaunt inside a South American temple sees Indy playfully evading booby-traps in comedic fashion to the point I thought I was watching a satire. After the opening scene when Indy sets out on his true worldwide adventure is when Raiders eases up on the lighthearted-ness gradually throughout the movie and around halfway through I had my hoki-ness qualms put to rest and became fully invested to see Indy thwart the Nazi’s attempts at beating him to the treasure.

It should go without saying that Ford is the perfect Indiana Jones. The man can yield a whip like no other! I was bamboozled upon watching the extra features to discover Tom Selleck was originally casted as Jones before CBS reeling him in for Magnum PI cleared the way for Ford to head up this brand. Karen Allen is dead-on as tomboy love interest, Marion and has a killer drinking duel introductory scene that blows away Indy’s opening booby-trap-filled debacle. Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) is a mysterious, but valuable ally of Indy that was fun to see where he would turn up next throughout. Toht (Ronald Lacey) and Brody (Denholm Elliott) round off the cast as the stereotypical, yet effective foreign villains constantly on Indy’s tail throughout his quest for the fabled ‘Ark of the Covenant.’

It is difficult to imagine my words here doing the iconic scenes of Raiders any justice. As kooky as the opening scene is, the giant-rolling boulder chasing Indy out of the temple is one of the most memorable scenes in cinema history. Indy showing why you do not bring a knife to a gunfight had an unforgettable resolution and I instantly cracked up at it. The aforementioned “Don’t open your eyes” scene petrified me as a kid when I first stumbled upon it on cable, and while the melting special effects are kind of cheesy now, they are hokey in a cool way because the filmmakers went completely over-the-top with the melting of the skin! The climactic airplane duel with the burly Nazi that goads Indy to bring on the fight had me rooting for him all the way. Finally, I am guessing Raiders is the film responsible for the “top men” line I have seen used several times in various news stories over the years, and could not help but sport a grin upon hearing that line.

The BluRay collection has a fifth disc that is dedicated solely to extra features for all four Indiana Jones films. Of those extras, a hearty amount is focused on Raiders. I am not kidding when I state there are three comprehensive ‘making of’ features all running just shy of an hour apiece. All three are highly informative and well put together pieces worth watching, but if you have time for just one I would recommend On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark. It has a vast amount of vintage on-set interviews with many of the cast and crew of their experience with the production, and expertly pace it throughout with inserted deleted scenes, between takes b-roll and outtakes. It made for a smooth viewing experience by mixing up all the standard extra features into one comprehensive feature, and to have it all be taken directly during production from this old of a film was quite rare from that time.

A fair amount of the interview excerpts from On Set with Raiders are reused for the 1981 Making of feature so you can probably skip that one, but if you have the time I would suggest giving the updated 2011 Making of feature a watch to see how gracefully the cast has aged and how they fondly recount their memories 30 years later. Finally, as a bonus extra I highly recommend checking out this documentary on how these children spent seven years doing a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders and how it took them over 20 years to release it into the wild. Just trust me on this one ;D

I was trepid going into Raiders of the Lost Ark based on the hijinx of the first half hour. I am glad the filmmakers dialed it back afterwards because Raiders laid the groundwork for the modern-day treasure hunting genre that I crave so dearly. Raiders held up far better than I imagined, and with its exquisite HD transfer will likely hold up for years to come. I am excited to see how the films progress next when I re-watch the sequels. Make sure to check back here in the coming months for my takes on them.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-5
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past