Episode 31: Indiana Jones and the Escape From the Retirement Home

We talk about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Nazis, aging action stars, MacGuffins, great villains, and what the movie should actually be called. Featuring the Matriarch, Dennis (a.k.a. Tacitus a.k.a. Samuel Long), Dodgson (a.k.a. Forest Newberry), and (briefly) Sarah Long.

Our special guests

A Tale of Two Cities Dream Cast

Dorothy Tutin and Dirk Bogarde in A Tale of Two Cities (1958)

A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite novel. So, even the whiff of a chance of a rumor that it may be filmed is enough to get me out dream casting. As it is, we're pretty sure that BBC4 will be adapting it soon. It's more than due, since the last TV version was in 1989, and it hasn't been on the big screen since 1958, if we don't count The Dark Knight Rises (which, given the cop-out ending, we don't). The new version is written by Alan Bleasdale, and Netflix might co-produce. There's also a feature film which has been on the shelf for ages. So who knows? Maybe we'll get two, which means there will be lots of thinkpieces from me.

To begin with some minor characters...

A Man for All Seasons (1966) - Movie Review

"More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning; I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity: a man for all seasons."
~Robert Whittington, 1520

This film took me by storm. I expected a dry, rather cheap-looking medieval period piece, with a few quirky British thesps to spice up an otherwise dull historical biopic. Given the age and source, it seemed like an archetype of respectable, old-fashioned film-making. In a way it was. It wouldn’t be made today—it was far, far from the cutting edge of cinema, even in its own time. But it’s just these things that allow it to be the best film I’ve seen this year. 

A riveting political fable, A Man for All Seasons is jam-packed with superb performers and spearheaded by the most interesting protagonist I’ve encountered in a long time. It uses many standard conventions—long scenes, big-budget visuals, everything a little bit stagey, but given these play-like customs, it is allowed a slow, insistent growth of suspense and complexity of character. There are moments when you could cut the tension with a knife, mostly due to clash of personality between these expertly drawn characters.