MOVIE THOUGHTS: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

What's not to like about the idea of Indiana Jones coming back for a visit? There are pretenders to the throne -- the National Treasure movies, say. But nothing scratches the adventure itch like Indy.

SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!

Either you have (a) seen the movie; (b) don't want to hear about it because you're going to see it this weekend and don't want to read spoilers; or (c) don't want to see it. So I won't go into plot detail. But the very best review I read of it was (no surprise) Roger Ebert's, so click over there. Here's just a taste of what Ebert says:

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Say it aloud. The very title causes the pulse to quicken, if you, like me, are a lover of pulp fiction. What I want is goofy action--lots of it. I want man-eating ants, swordfights between two people balanced on the backs of speeding jeeps, subterranean caverns of gold, vicious femme fatales, plunges down three waterfalls in a row, and the explanation for flying saucers. And throw in lots of monkeys."

I love Ebert's phrase "goofy action," because it's so right on the money. When we watch Indy, we watch with a great deal of grace. We don't really care that it's not possible to survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined fridge (hey, I said "Spoiler Warning"!). We don't care that a boat that small couldn't survive the drop over three waterfalls. We don't even care (much) that the ending doesn't make sense. We just want to trust that the ride will be fun.

The filmmaking is generally excellent. No one frames a shot like Steven Spielberg, and he's got some beautiful shots here, especially in the first act. Spielberg also trusts his audience to be smart more than most directors: When we visit what is commonly known as Area 51 early in the movie, he doesn't pander to us by zooming in on the "Hangar 51" sign in the background. He just lets it sit there, in the frame, and waits for us to be smart enough to figure out where we are.

Performances are quite good. Harrison Ford slips into Indy's hat and jacket with smooth confidence, though the grey hair is a bit jarring. Karen Allen is a delight, and the two of them convey a lifetime's worth of relationship without too many words to drag us down or exposition us to death. (And wasn't it nice to see a man of Jones/Ford's age with a woman his own age for a change!) Shia LeBoeuf steps ably into his role as Indiana's (ahem) protege, and holds his own very well indeed. The plans are apparently to spin off the series using LeBoeuf as the star, and I think he'll do just fine. (Wouldn't it be fun, though, to see "Colonel Indiana Jones: The War Years"?)
Good performances also from Jim Broadbent, John Hurt, and Cate Blanchett (though she does seem as if she was channeling Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle).

The links back to the previous movies are well-done, hitting most of the nostalgia notes that we may not even realized we wanted. Several beats to pay tribute to the late Marcus Brodie, as well as Henry Jones Sr. A tip of the hat to Indy's fear of snakes, freshly conceived. A visit to a warehouse that may look familiar. "I have a bad feeling about this." The great silhouette shots of Indy putting on the hat. Even a surprise visit by a familiar object that got the biggest applause of the movie in our theatre.

It all works splendidly for the first two acts of the movie. Unfortunately, we then have to deal with the silliness of the "crystal skull." And in the final analysis, that was just a bad choice of Macguffin. Indy is about history, he's about mythology, he's about protecting the past. The crystal skulls (which do exist) simply don't fit into Indy's oeuvre believably. They carry no real danger in and of themselves -- the danger comes because of the traps, etc. set up to protect them (thus making them more appropriate for an opening scene of an Indiana Jones movie rather than for the ending). Their supernatural properties are made up outside of any mythology, and they feel made up. And they lead us to a rather ludicrous ending.

Ultimately, however, we probably don't care all that much, because the ride has been so good for so long. And given the weak decision of Macguffin (a decision George Lucas made some 15 years ago and stuck to), the ending was definitely the best that could come out of it. What matters in the end is that Indy's back, and that he didn't let us down. This is a movie that you'll still be talking about (and enjoying) a couple of days later, weak ending or no.

Many people have opined on where Crystal Skull fits in the pantheon of Indy movies. I would agree with most that it slips in between Last Crusade (one of my favorite movies of all time) and Temple of Doom.

To quote Billy Wilder: "Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." Indy 4 definitely makes the grade on that count. Here's hoping for Indy 5!

JACARANDA SEASON

Yes, I have seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yes, I will post my thoughts very soon...

But this week I have mostly been wrapped up in another movie -- my own. And today we finished it, and within a couple of days we will deliver it to our producer. And so I really haven't spent very much time in the "real" world at all.

But one thing keeps pulling me back to the real world, every time I drive anywhere. It's jacaranda season in L.A.

That means that around any corner, you can run into the shock of an explosion of jacaranda blossoms. The bright purple beautiful, mesmerizing against a canopy of green. Or -- with the freak thunderstorm we had the other day (rain in May? excuse me?) -- the even more stunning contrast of the purple against dark grey clouds.

When I was a little girl, a family down the street had a jacaranda tree in the front yard. In my world of tract houses and uniform street trees, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And now, as I drive through a more blighted section of L.A. (perhaps on my way to USC, say), to be surprised by a riot of purple blossoms, I still think so.


I love L.A. And this is one reason why.

HAPPY TO EAT MY WORDS

Rarely am I so happy to be wrong about a prediction I've made!


I was actually quite surprised at how happy it made me that David Cook won American Idol the other night. I haven't been following AI blogs, websites or gossip at all (I didn't even know, for instance, that apparently poor David Archuleta has the "stage dad from hell"), just watching the show. So I didn't realize I was quite that invested. But the surprise ending just made me smile from ear to ear.

(And kudos to the AI crew for the great final shot of Cook's brother Andrew -- the one who actually wanted to audition, dragging David along just for moral support) -- with Andrew saying "That's my brother!" right into camera as the show closed.)

The show itself was terrific: Syesha singing with Seal, Brooke's duet with Graham Nash, Cook with ZZ Top, and especially the eminently downloadable number with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. standing in as Gladys Knight's Pips. We were very happy to rewatch the highlights by Tivo the next day. (Here's a thought: Someone hire the American Idol folks to produce the Oscars. After all, it's the same thing: A long, long show wrapped around a presentation of a very brief piece of information.)

So why the surprise win? I won't bother to speculate, because the people at MTV News have already done it so well.

Let's just hope next season of Idol will be as hot! In the meantime, I'll actually be looking forward to David Cook's first album.

THE BATTLE OF THE DAVIDS FIZZLES OUT

Last night's American Idol was a bit of a letdown after this whole terrific season, I thought.

David Cook has been the most interesting contestant overall, with his out-there takes on songs like "Billie Jean" and "Hello." He also has the most interesting voice, with its hint of scuffiness layered against an unexpectedly wide range (who thought he'd have the chops to pull off "Music of the Night" as he did?!).

But last night, he let himself down... and his fans as well.

Was he nervous? Playing it safe? It almost doesn't matter. He did a fine, but not exceptional job on "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," had little to work with on the "songwriter-contest" song... but totally blew it on song choice for song #3. That was not the time to go alternative and sensitive, but to pull out the stops with something big and splashy and innovative. And he just gave us... nothing.

(By the way, if the two "songwriter-contest" songs we heard were in the top ten, how incredibly sucky were the bulk of the entries?!)

David Archuleta, on the other hand, also played it safe... but he played it safe in a crowd-pleasing way, relying on his phenomenal voice and the same old shtick to carry him through.

Ultimately Archuleta is a one-trick pony. He sings every song the same way, with the same intensity, the same facial expression, the same riffs, the same lack of understanding of what he's singing. Every time he steps out of his narrow comfort zone of emo ballads, he messes up badly. But within that comfort zone, and especially with the tween girls who can be counted on to vote, he hits the bulls-eye every time (although my own tween girl finds him very boring).

I would have loved to see Archuleta wait a few years to apply to Idol -- until his maturity level could catch up to his voice. But apparently with his stage-father dad pushing-pushing-pushing, that waiting was never going to happen. So we just have to hope that he's able to develop and grow as a singer after he becomes the American Idol.

Because, thanks to last night's lackluster performances by David Cook, that's what's going to happen tonight...

MOVIE THOUGHTS: PRINCE CASPIAN

First, a word about the box office. I hear and read a fair amount from Christians bewailing the lack of movies to go to that reflect their beliefs, that speak to them personally, that they think they'll enjoy. "Why doesn't Hollywood make movies for us?" they insist.

Now, on a slight tangent, it's apparently the case that Christians, in fact, have, as a group, almost exactly the same viewing habits as the population at large. In other words, Christians are watching, say, Desperate Housewives at the same rate as everyone else. So the moaning and groaning about not having any movies to go to doesn't necessarily match up with actual practice. Still...

Here comes a movie -- Prince Caspian -- based on a well-known, well-loved book by arguably the greatest and best-known Christian writer of the 20th century, a book that has survived generation after generation of readers. Not only that, but a sequel to a movie that was an enormous hit, in part because of the marketing directly to the Christian audience. One would expect that "Christian audience" to turn out in droves for part 2 of The Chronicles of Narnia.

But based on early numbers for the weekend, they aren't. I've seen predictions of anywhere from $70 to $95 million for opening weekend. Friday's numbers, however, indicate that this weekend will total more like $51 million.

What does that mean? Well, it means one of two things: (a) There is no "Christian audience" that can be discreetly marketed to, since we're all lining up for the exact same things everyone else is going to; or (b) there is a potential "Christian audience," but they won't go to a movie tailor-made for (most of) them, and therefore their opinions are completely irrelevant when it comes to a studio choosing the movies it wants to make.

Oh, and it means one more thing: While Voyage of the Dawn Treader, movie #3 in The Chronicles of Narnia series, is already being made, it could easily be the last of the Narnia movies. After all, why spend a fortune for an audience that either doesn't exist or won't show up?

But are the Christians right not to show up? Is this movie something that could be called a "Christian" movie? Does it retain anything of significance from the C.S. Lewis book?

Now that's an interesting question. So let's move to a discussion of the movie itself... SPOILER WARNINGS!

While one wants to discuss Prince Caspian as its own thing, it's almost impossible not to compare it to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. And Prince Caspian actually holds up pretty well in the comparison.

In terms of pure filmmaking, Prince Caspian is a much better movie, with more moments of pure cinema, less clunkiness in moving the story forward, and surer performances from its leads. The storytelling does exactly the right thing in taking us directly into Caspian's story -- the birth of Miraz's son, the flight from the castle, etc. -- rather than following the book's lead in having Trumpkin the dwarf tell the whole story one step removed from the action.

The movie's plot also takes some major liberties with the book's storyline, some much to the better. (The book itself is pretty thin plot-wise.) The filmmakers add an entire attack on Miraz's castle, which is nicely done and captivating enough that we really don't notice that there seems to have been little strategic reason to try the attack. In addition, in probably the best moment of the movie, we get a reappearance of Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in a scene that merely takes a moment from the book to its natural conclusion: In the book, Nikabrik brings in a Hag and a Werewolf and starts to conjure up the White Witch from the past; in the movie, they actually succeed in conjuring her up. The scene provides a great moment of temptation for Peter and a moment of triumph for Edmund, and is absolutely terrific.

Much of the movie is one battle scene after another, and the battle scenes are well done. Though reminiscent of some of the Lord of the Rings battles (Look! Here come the living trees to save the day! Look! The river is rising up to kill the bad guys! Look! Giant eagles -- oops, i mean griffins!), the battles have less of the interminable fanboy, video game wild-eyedness that the LOTR battles sometimes had, and feel more intimate as a result. Fight choreography is excellent, and the movie also features the best catapults I think I've ever seen on screen. Despite all the battles, the movie adheres loyally to its PG rating, with blood limited to tiny, non-flowing gashes; even a decapitation happens so carefully just outside the frame that even young kids are likely not to be upset.


Performances are good. Georgie Henley continues to anchor the movie emotionally; this is a young actress with quite a future, I'd say. William Moseley, while a bit grouchy as Peter, nevertheless is more believable this time around (though I don't care for him starting off the movie getting into a seemingly random fight back home, which seems false to his character). Skander Keynes steps up to his role as Edmund significantly compared to his pouty performance in the first movie (Susan gets to spend the movie pouting this time), and he's going to be quite the gorgeous young man as he grows up. Ben Barnes is fine as Caspian, though he sometimes seems preoccupied with getting his false Spanish accent right.

The real standout is Peter Dinklage as Trumpkin. He brings a depth to the character that simply didn't exist in the book, and that really doesn't exist in any other performance in the movie. In every shot where he's onscreen, we can't look anywhere else, we understand what he's thinking, we're drawn deeper into the movie.

But what about Aslan, I hear you asking.

Well, yes. That's a good point. What about Aslan?

Aslan, as it turns out, hardly appears in the movie. Now, he doesn't appear much in the book either, but his presence is felt throughout. Remember that we saw this issue arise in the first movie as well: In the book, Aslan, though offscreen, has a constant presence through other characters' expectations and awareness, which simply isn't there in the movie.

Prince Caspian has the same problem. Aslan simply isn't present. And when he's there, he's sort of cuddly. A warm-fuzzy Aslan. Really, just another talking animal, don't you know. And one that didn't show up in time for the battle.

Ultimately, Aslan just doesn't matter much in this world. Yes, he shows up and wakes the trees, which help win the final battle. And he sends the children home and the Telmarines on to their new land (why didn't we see those lands through the "doorway," by the way? A great potential effect that was missing!). Oh, and he replaces Reepicheep's tail. But that's about it.

Even the earliest scene involving Aslan -- the one when Lucy hears his voice and goes off on her own to find him, only to discover that (once again!) no one believes her (except Edmund this time) -- is drastically lessened in the movie because it's turned into a dream sequence: Aslan wasn't really there, Lucy just dreamed he was. What a cheat!

With this one storytelling decision, the movie eviscerates one of the major themes of the book: The journey from faith to sight (rather than the expected other-way-around). Lucy (in the book) follows Aslan because she sees him. But she only sees him because she believes. The others, who don't believe, don't see him. Lucy ultimately insists the others must follow, too, and one by one, they come to see him.

Paralleling this thematic wishy-washiness is the loss of the other "belief" theme running through the books: The idea that Aslan and the four kings and queens themselves are a myth. As good as Peter Dinklage is as Trumpkin, we didn't get to see him play out Trumpkin's real storyline: His lack of belief in "Old Narnia," in Aslan, in Peter/Susan/Edmund/Lucy... a lack of belief that continues even as he meets the actual people he believes are myths. (And while Reepicheep is still a fun and noble character, wasn't he better in the books when he stood not only for supreme loyalty in general, but supreme loyalty to Aslan in particular?)

Again, it's a small-but-telling storyline about how faith precedes sight. And again, it's missing from the movie.

Without these thematically-driven moments, is the movie still a "Christian" movie? Is it still a movie about Aslan? Probably not.

Ultimately Prince Casptian is a war movie made for kids -- a decent one, yes -- but not much more. It lacks the emotional resonance of the first movie, the grip on our imaginations that keeps us talking about it the next day. It doesn't meet the spiritual needs of the audience.

(However, remember, the people involved with the making and the marketing of the movie can't possibly understand how they've eviscerated the Christian themes. So as far as they're concerned, they've made a movie that should have the "Christian audience" excited. And if that audience doesn't show up -- as they didn't show up for Evan Almighty last year, despite heavy marketing -- well, why bother to make movies for them? See, we're back to that issue again.)

I must add that Sabrina was incredibly excited by the movie -- bouncing in her seat and leaping with joy when the children arrived in Narnia, when Reepicheep first appeared, when Aslan showed up -- and she wanted to see it again immediately. But I don't think all that many people will share her excitement.

Which is a problem. Especially when you didn't manage to get your audience into the seats in the first place.

Bottom line: It's a decent movie. But it's not the book. If that bothers you, you may not enjoy the movie (as I had great problems with much of the LOTR movies).

Nevertheless, if you want to see more Narnia movies, or if you want Hollywood not to write off the "Christian audience" completely, you'd better go see Prince Caspian today or tomorrow. Because next week belongs to Indiana Jones, and it'll be too late. So see it now... or there may not be any more such movies to go to.

BOOK THOUGHTS: THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY

For the last several years, I start off every year reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. This is simply the best, most profound, most enlightening, most challenging, most joy-inducing Christian book I have ever read. Frankly, I could probably read it cover to cover and start over again immediately and still get something new out of it. But I limit myself to once a year if only to see how remarkably little I have retained (or have incorporated into my own life) in the meantime.

This year a couple of concepts really leapt off the page for me:

(1) Safety

With this magnificent God positioned among us, Jesus brings the assurance that our universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be.

I grew up with a mom who went into full panic mode if I was five minutes late getting home (or even if I was on time). Who was genuinely worried when we bought a house half a mile from the ocean because what if there was a tsunami? Who once called in a frenzy of anxiety because she saw on the news that there was an accident on the 405 freeway (even though the 405 is about 100 miles long, and we don't commute). My mom is actually proud of the fact that she's such a worrier.

You can see why worry has always come naturally to me. I have worked long and hard to get rid of it. But of course it pops up, like a mole in a whack-a-mole game.

So Willard's conception of the universe as a "safe place to be" -- in a world of disease and car wrecks and heartbreak and unemployment and lies -- is a radical thought for me to hold before my mind. More from The Divine Conspiracy on a related subject:

We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God's full world.

And the second point that really stuck with me this year is actually connected to the first through the idea that:

...to believe something is to act as if it is so.

.

2. Asking

So often these days it seems as if prayer is equated with praise. We're not really praying unless we spend most of the time thanking God for what he's done, praising him, and the like.

Yet Willard puts forth a simpler, more direct view of prayer as he delves in detail into the Lord's Prayer:

Asking is indeed the great law of the spiritual world through which things are accomplished in cooperation with God and yet in harmony with the freedom and worth of every individual.

Yes, Willard acknowledges the importance of praise and thanksgiving:

...praise is not prayer, though praise is a wonderful exercise, and we will do very little praying unless our hearts are full of praise. Indeed, for anyone who has a genuine knowledge of God, praise is the only appropriate attitude in which to live. It is the only sane attitude... Thanksgiving too is an inevitable accompaniment of vital prayer... Thanksgiving goes hand in hand with praise. We are thankful when we know we are living under the provisions of his bountiful hand.... But still the heart of prayer is the request.

"You do not have because you do not ask," we are told. Yet how often do I not ask because it seems so demanding, or because it seems rude (cheeky, even), or because I'm afraid that Jesus's promise won't hold true. It was actually some years after I became a Christian that I even realized it was "okay" to pray for myself, rather than just for others.

Willard puts it in perspective for me:

Prayer is never just asking, not is it merely a matter of asking for what I want. God is not a cosmic butler or fix-it man, and the aim of the universe is not to fulfill my desires and needs. On the other hand, I am to pray for what concerns me, and many people have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even knowledge of.

Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about "good things" that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in.

...So those were this year's points. They may seem elementary to you. But I guarantee that, wherever you are in your spiritual walk, The Divine Conspiracy will make a difference in your life. Go read it! (And I'll be back here this time next year with new insights from the same old book.)

"CALIFORNIA" CHRISTIANS

I know Californians are different than people in the other 49 states. I know this because people keep saying it, though, as a native Californian (born in Hollywood -- it doesn't come more "native" than that), everything here feels perfectly normal to me.

Nevertheless, I thought you might enjoy some trenchant thoughts from Sean on what it means to be a California Christian.

I laughed. You will, too.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: SPEED RACER

I have never done hallucinogenic drugs, but watching Speed Racer made me wish I had. In fact, it made me wish I was stoned while watching the movie. Because if I had been stoned either (a) it would have made sense and been fun or (b) I would have had a better time than I was having watching the movie in a non-mind-altered state.

Why did I even go, I hear you ask? Because it was free. The producer, whose child goes to Sabrina's school, invited the whole school to a private screening of the movie this weekend. It was very gracious and generous of him. And it was probably the largest audience for Speed Racer in the entire city.

The movie is stylized to the nth degree, and perfects the art of the little-used movie transition known as the wipe. The screen is wiped (taking from us one scene to another) with cars, bodies, and always, giant floating heads. And the over-stylization doesn't end there. Perhaps in an attempt to look like the Japanese animated series on which it's based, nothing looks real. Colors are hyper-saturated, lights swirl around us, and none of the racing feels like a real race.

Speed Racer just tries to hard to make us like it. Desperation screams from every over-acted giant head pumping out fake excitement over Speed Racer's exploits. Oh, for the relaxed confidence of an Indiana Jones (two more weeks!) or of Tony Stark. But no -- Speed Racer is just a little kid acting out as loudly and obnoxiously as possible because he's scared no one will pay attention to him if he doesn't.

John Goodman, playing Speed Racer's (yes, that's his given name) dad, does the very best he can to ground the movie in emotional reality, and does an impressive job, given that 95% of his performance had to have been given in front of a green screen. Susan Sarandon (proving that there are indeed no good parts for women over 40 by her very appearance in this movie) does her best with the little she's given.

Other than that... well, this isn't a movie you go to because you want to follow the story. (The basic story: Speed Racer overcomes comic book obstacles to follow in the footsteps of his missing-presumed-dead brother Rex and become a race car driver.) And maybe there was a decent story there, if you chopped off a good 45 minutes of its inexcusable 2 hours/15 minutes running time.

But in the end, we're lost in races that don't make sense and just aren't interesting after the first few seconds. Imagine the Phantom Menace pod race expanded to 2 hours, but with nothing real at stake. There are a few fun moments, particularly a funny ninja fight. But it's hard to imagine who over the age of 8 would be seriously involved in this movie.

Or maybe you just have to be stoned. (I actually foresee a significant DVD business for stoners with this movie.)

Ultimately, Speed Racer is, um, a drag. Wait a week and go to Prince Caspian instead -- or go see Iron Man again.

And forget "Go, Speed Racer! Go!"

Instead, it's "No, Speed Racer. No."

GETTING TO KNOW YOU BY TWOS

My friend Chris sent me one of those "fill out the answers and send to ten friends" quizzes, which I am a total sucker for. Only now instead of forwarding them, as you probably know, I just treat them as memes and post the answers here.

And I really have to do this one because Chris listed me as one of the two people most likely to answer!

So here we go! And when you're done reading, feel free to post your own answers on the comments page!

Two names you go by:
1. Jan (friends)
2. Janet (professionally, and also to some extent at church because when I was an elder, there were a ton of "Jan's" around and I thought it would be less confusing)

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. A maroon knit top I bought for Lee at a Barney's warehouse sale years ago, then kept for myself
2. grey sweatpants from Lucy (the store, not a person)

Two of your favorite things to do:
1. hang with friends with no timetable
2. read

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. to get paid (cash in hand!) for the job we are starting
2. to move

Two Favorite pets you have/had:
1. Mr. Underfoot -- a grand cat, irreplaceable... died about 9 years ago of kidney cancer and we still miss him
2. Leia -- the feistier and more affectionate of our current two cats (I'll let you guess what her brother's name is)

Two people who will send this back completed: (Or in this case, post a response)
1. Hard to tell -- who usually posts to these things?.... Sarah?
2. And maybe Regina?

Two things you did last night:
1. Cooked chicken tortilla casserole for dinner (and let Lee wash the dishes!)
2. Washed the "American Idol" results show and rejoiced that Jason was sent home

Two things you ate today:
1. Sweet and spicy meat pie (tonight's dinner)
2. A Stouffer's French bread pizza (today's breakfast -- hey, I'm writing on a deadline, okay?!)

Two people you last talked to:
1. Lee
2. Sabrina

Two things you plan on doing tomorrow:
1. Sign the contracts for our new gig
2. Help Sabrina pack for her sleepover (and Dance Dance Revolution contest!)

Two longest trips taken in the last five years:
1. Chicago (for our friend Pete's wedding -- five years already?!)
2. Washington, D.C. (to teach for Act One)

Two favorite holidays:
1. Christmas. Really looking forward to it this year, as the strike cut off much of our 2007 Christmas (and if you're wondering why you didn't get a Christmas card -- that was why)
2. Memorial Day -- great movies and a stone's throw from summer vacation

...Okay, now it's your turn!

THE ELEMENTS OF A GREAT SUMMER MOVIE

Summer may not be here as a season, and summer certainly isn't here from the point of view of a school calendar. But we're past the first weekend of May, and that means summer movie season has started.

So it's a good time to think about what makes a great summer action movie. Some casual chats with summer movie aficionados over the weekend produced the following list:

1. Spectacle we haven't seen. In a great summer movie, your jaw should drop at least once at the fist-pumping awesomeness of the visuals on the screen. Great stunts. Great special effects. We want to see the Death Star blow up. We want to see the T-1000 morph from a puddle into a cop. We want to see a bullet stop in mid-air. We want to see things that are too dangerous, too far-removed from our own lives, too sheerly impossible.

1a. Explosions. And as its own special subtopic within the category of Spectacle, it's pretty cool to watch stuff blow up.

1b. Great fight moments. Again, we want to see something we haven't seen before. Something clever, more than just two big guys waling on each other. This can be as small as Jason Bourne choking someone with a book, or as huge as the fight against the Imperial Walkers on Hoth. Scope can be important, but cleverness and ingenuity (on the part of the writer, choreographer, director and hero alike) is more so (I mean, for all its scope, did anyone find the pod race all that exciting?). Mismatched opponents are always good, too.

2. A good villain.. Good villains are hard to come by, and all too many action/adventure movies have stumbled for the want of one. But oh, they do exist. Darth Vader. Commodus. Agent Smith. The Joker. The Alien. Doc Ock. A great villain combines power, will, and phenomenal levels of self-centeredness to drive a story forward, to challenge a hero, to make us gasp.

3. Good acting. Huh?, I hear you say. Since when have action films been known for their acting? And if you're thinking of actors like Steven Seagal or The Rock, well, that's understandable. But it's much harder than anyone would think to carry a spectacle-driven movie. This means that when an Oscar-caliber actor is placed in an action role, the results can be spectacular. Tobey Maguire. Harrison Ford. Johnny Depp. Alfred Molina. Robert Downey, Jr. The trend to hire "non-action" actors for these roles only bodes well for us, the viewers.

4. Good vs. evil. There's a time and a place for movies that are nuanced and full of shades of gray about what is good and what is evil. But those are October to March movies. Between May and August, we want good to be good and evil to be evil. And if our hero is caught in between, or if he's tempted to the dark side, we want him to figure it out and make the right choice by the end of the movie. "Good vs. evil" is always an underlying theme of a great summer action movie. And good always wins. Just as it should.

4a. "With great power comes great responsibility." In the "superhero" subcategory of summer action movie, there is always a second driving theme, overtly stated in Spider-Man and its sequels. (Or, as one might want to rephrase it, "To whom much is given, much shall be expected.") Batman. The Incredibles. Superman. If you make a superhero movie and fail to echo this theme in some way, I would humble submit that you should not expect a great turnout at the box office.

5. Witty or iconic lines. We don't need a lot of profound, provocative dialogue in great summer movies. But, as we relive the movie in our drive-home and day-after conversations, we want to quote it. "Hasta la vista, baby." "Do you expect me to talk? / No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die." "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes." "Do you feel lucky... well, do ya, punk?" "I feel the need, the need for speed." "May the Force be with you." "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

6. Escape. When we go to a summer action movie, we really don't want to visit the real world, with its real world problems of bills, grades, unemployment, crazy relatives, heartbreak, and ethical conundrums. A galaxy far, far away is just fine with us. We're happy to visit worlds that have never existed, worlds that never will exist, worlds that couldn't possibly exist. (And if we're stuck in our own world for the duration of the movie, then we want villains we'll never meet in real life -- giant sharks, aliens, Nazis.) We may have stopped reading fairy tales in kindergarten, but we still need them. We need to escape. And great summer movies let us do just that.

...The 2008 summer movie season is off to a great start (see below). Let's hope there's more of the above in store for us all as we head to the multiplex.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: IRON MAN

And now that we know what a good summer movie should look like (see above)...

It's hard to see how we could have started this summer off better than with Iron Man. Fun and funny, entertaining and compelling, it hits all our must-have elements right on the nose. Let's run through our checklist, shall we?

SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!

Okay, consider yourself warned.

Spectacle. Check. Got that. From Tony Stark learning to fly ("I want that suit," Cory leaned over to whisper to me), to the prototype Iron Man stomping out of that cave, to the holographic building of the Iron Man suit ("I want that computer program," Cory leaned over to whisper to me), to Iron Man being chased by fighter jets, even to Tony's house and cars ("I want that house," Cory leaned over to whisper to me), boy, does Iron Man deliver in the spectacle department. Awesome visuals that we've never seen. My jaw literally dropped during the fighter jet chase.

As for our subcategories: Some cool explosions. My personal favorite was the initial Jericho missiles, but plenty to choose from, all good. And good fight scenes. The fight between Iron Man and Jeff Bridges in his Iron Monger suit was a bit predictable for me, but hey, at that point in the movie, we do sort of know how it's going to end.

A good villain. Yes, on two levels. Not being a follower of the Iron Man comic books, I did not realize that Obadiah Stane was going to be the bad guy (hey, I gave you a spoiler warning, okay), so that twist worked for me. I thought the bald guy out in the desert was the bad guy. So actually we had a multi-level villain, always good plotting in a movie like this.

And, according to Cory, that bald guy out in the desert may turn out to be more important than he seemed. Apparently Iron Man's chief villain is a guy named the Mandarin, a descendant of Genghis Khan. He derives his power from alien rings that he wears, and leads a group named the Ten Rings. Well, our bald guy in the desert wore a massive ring, talked about Genghis Khan (remember?) and the terrorist group that he leads, which kidnapped Tony Stark, is called "Ten Rings." Coincidence? I think not. (And props to Cory for putting this all together.)

So we have plenty of set-ups to keep the Iron Man franchise going. The Mandarin is already in place. That visit from Nick Fury is promising (did you stay till the end of the credits?). And do we really know for sure whether Obadiah is really, truly dead?

Good acting. Let's hear it for the trend of putting Oscar-caliber actors in action movies! Robert Downey, Jr. is terrific as Tony Stark, full of bravado and snarkiness and vulnerability and concentration, often all at the same time. And he looks great, too. The way he lets us into his soul through his eyes is remarkable, and lifts the movie to a level most action movies just can't reach. Oh, and those other Oscar-nominee/winner types, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, and Terrence Howard, aren't bad either.

Good vs. evil. Iron Man lands squarely in the middle of the thematic territory delineated by Spider-Man's "With great power comes great responsibility." Tony Stark is a profligate and wastrel, playing with toys of mass destruction when we meet him. He already has the power that most superheroes gain during Act I and the first half of Act II in their movies. Tony could build the Iron Man suit before the movie begins: He has the knowledge, the skill, the cleverness, the resources.

So he doesn't need the "Great power" part of the equation. But he has a long way to go to realize the "Great responsibility" half, starting as he does as an arms dealer. Only in facing death -- in damage done literally to his very heart -- does he first become dependent on the technology he used to wield so cavalierly, and only after the death of his unexpected friend and savior Yinsin, and at Yinsin's urging, does Tony begin to think through the consequences of his use of power.

An interesting and fresh twist on the theme.

Lines. Not the wittiest of action movies, Iron Man nevertheless has a fair amount of lines that I heard fans repeating with glee in the days after the movie. "Yeah. I can fly." "I am Iron Man." Even Pepper Potts's "Sometimes I take out the trash." (And though not a line, the tossing of virtual trash into the holographic trash can has also gotten a lot of post-movie play in various conversations.)

Escape. Iron Man gives us just the right kind of escape. Not a full retreat into another world ("LOTR," "Star Wars," etc.), it instead gives us the real world (or a facsimile thereof), but a world where a guy in a gold titanium alloy suit can change things for good. Or (perhaps equally unbelievable in the real world) where a callous, self-centered arms dealer can take the consequences of his job seriously. Or where houses like Tony's actually exist.

Take a look at this month's Quote of the Month, courtesy of Billy Wilder: "Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun."

I chose that quote deliberately for this month, the start of the summer movie season. And Iron Man starts our season out well indeed!

Go see it (if you weren't already part of the $102+ million opening weekend). And stay to the end of the credits. Have fun!