The Adventures of Tintin - 2011 - Dir. Spielberg

With all the people behind the camera for Tintin, I feel like I should have set a higher bar it but I went in expecting merely to be somewhat entertained. And I was. But I feel like it should have been more. I have no sense of the source material so I can't have any of that good 'ole fashioned nostalgia some people might have had. Getting right down to it the movie has one BITCHIN' action set piece. One that's pretty good. And then the rest of the movie is okay... I guess. It's not bad by any means. It's charming enough. I know people were kind of bugged by the style, but I got used to it. I understand why it's employed. It allowed it to be cartoon-y and feel like a live action adventure. Actually, there was quite a few bitchin' action sequences. I forgot about the flashback with the boats and whatnot. That was pretty awesome and made me wanna write a movie with pirates... which is not an urge I am used to having. Haddock is pretty amusing. I felt like he could have been annoying but it worked out fine! The ending felt a little sudden to me. Or rushed. But, being that I wasn't emotionally into the movie, I hardly feel like that's a big deal. The movie was supposed to give me some action-packed thrills and it did, but I feel like I should have been disappointed.

EH...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 2008 - Dir. Spielberg

All right, so I think I take a pretty forgiving stance on Blockbusters. I give them a lot of leeway and whatnot. Or perhaps I'm just in the company of much more hostile opinions (INTERNET). And I suppose people my age were especially frustrated with the addition of The Crystal Skull into the series, you know, being that we f-ing grew up with the first few. If you can't tell from my tone, I'm cutting Crystal Skull some slack. First of all, I have a theory that people dislike Shia LeBeouf because he is basically a scrawny, dumb white person. I think he is a reflection of us and if there's anything we hate seeing in our Blockbusters. It's us. I think soon he'll get muscles and be handsome like Tom Cruise and then all will be well but until then, it'll be a rough ride. Can I also say, up until the Monkey part, I thought that action set piece was pretty cool. That one with the three cars. I thought maybe it could have been directed a little better and maybe I didn't need fencing. But it was a really neat series of situations with different characters and weapons morphing into one another. You know, I'm trying to figure out if the hostile opinions are backlash from Nostalgia. Were the previous movies as dumb as this? Is it a kind of generational thing where Stupidity manifests itself in different ways? Is it a kind of Stupidity Inflation where the acceptable level of stupidity in a Blockbuster increases as the years go on? Naturally, I was an Idiot Kid back when the movies came out so I can't say. Clearly the movie is silly and goofy, I can't tell how different it really is from the others though. So lemme think it through. There's not really any exciting trap filled cave to explore. I mean, they explore some stuff, but... it's not the same. They really are just exploring, there's no trap boulders. I think perhaps Indiana Jones has just been cannibalized. We've seen it all before. It can only be bigger and more ridiculous. The days of a simple time of puzzle solving is perhaps over, figuring out how to spell Jehova has lost its appeal because we've spelt it so many times before with doofs like Nic(k) Cage. Perhaps there's just an anger that we can't feel the way the originals made us feel when we were kids. Unlike Harrison Ford, we're just too damn old. We'll just have to deal with Shia's insults about our age and take comfort in the winks at the camera every now and then.

Shia's awed silence promptly followed by a NONONONONONONONONONONO!!!

Minority Report - 2002 - Dir. Spielberg

I don't really get the craze about Minority Report. All right, maybe calling it a craze is a little over-the-top. It does seem to do incredibly well, however. I dunno. I feel like I really dig the movie for a good chunk of it, I think until the plot really gets moving. Watching Tom Cruise evade police and try and prove his innocence, MAN, I've had enough of that. The premise is neat. Although, that must make a little bit of sense only because I'm a sucker for the Philip K. Dick. I'll admit that I haven't really been a huge fan of Spielberg siiiince- Actually, I looking at his filmography, I haven't really been a fan of his action/sci-fi movies since Jurassic Park, but movies like Catch Me If You Can, hey man, I won't complain about that! Anyway, I felt no drive to give a damn about what was on screen, all of the futuristic looks and gadgets felt old and tired. It didn't even feel like it solidified in a single vision of the future. The action is forgettable. It's not an awful movie by any means. Just a tired one. If Spielberg is so supportive of the blockbuster, why's he got to make his two hours plus. All these damn shallow movies (Transformers, I'm looking in your direction) should just admit they're trashy and try and clock in at 90. Now I'm being unfair. Minority Report has an interesting story to tell, it's just not a terribly interesting movie. :p

Tom Cruise operating the future computer, although I would be just an interested to see him operate just a normal computer.