Two Movies

[Possible spoilers!]

Watched two surprisingly good movies over the weekend that took my mind off my current troubles. One I watched, saying, “Wow! I would have loved to live a life like that!” And the other, naturally, I recoiled from, saying “Thank you God that I was not born into a life like that!”

Saturday afternoon we put the children down for their naps, curled up under some blankets and watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I wasn’t going in to this expecting much. In fact, I had a pile of philosophy paperbacks and a raw foods diet book next to me that I intended to thumb through during the movie. Then, before I could crack a chapter, I got pulled into the movie.

I’m not a big Harrison Ford fan, but I have to say in his mid-60s he is possibly the most convincing action hero I watched in a long time. The story’s set in 1957, and for a variety of reasons, I find something weirdly compelling about that year. There’s a book between my ears that will be written set in that time period. Spielberg effortlessly pulls you in to Eisenhower-era America, and before you realize it Indy’s fighting commies, getting double-crossed, catching up on familial relations, and meeting saucer men.

There’s a small bit that laid on a little too thick – the anti-Red scare the Left enjoys so much wallowing in, and there’s a bit too much CGI. But it’s just as good as any of the other Indiana Jones sequels. The spirit’s there. The humor, the action, the whirlwind globe-trekking. I found it a great two hours. So much so that I wanted to watch it again, but there was too much other stuff on my plate.

Saturday night, after dinner, toddler baths, reading of bedtime stories, and such, we slid in the DVD The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. This I was expecting great things from, and was not unrewarded. However, those great things I experienced were unexpected. For one, I had no idea how vile a man Jesse James was.* I never heard of Robert Ford, but man does he come off as ultra-creepy: a young, enamored sycophant that winds up killing the thing he loves. But he has just cause. What a nail-biter! It felt a little like the heavy claustrophobia that lead-vested me watching The Departed. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you watch the flick.

Such sad, ill-fated characters, at the mercy of the merciless! What a violent, brutal, unthinking, dirty world they moved in! Their lives were undervalued, short-lived, unrealized. A misconstrued look could get a lead bullet in your back. A fundamental lack of intelligence could bring you there – a quick tongue or a slow one, too. Brad Pitt, as much as I want to think him a wooden lunkhead, is absolutely riveting in it, as is Casey Affleck, in a truly unforgettable character. The supporting cast is excellent, as is the writing, the directing, the narration, the cinematography, the music. It’s an effective and evocative film.

* Never having read a biography of Mr. James, I am at the mercy of the screenwriter. I realize that certain characteristics may be exaggerated for poetic effect. But since we are exposed to a sanitized, almost-folk-hero hagiography of the bandit from grade school on, I tend to think in real life he was closer to an evil bastard than we’d been taught.