Three Reviews

Victoria and I sat down Saturday night to watch a movie, and we put in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I love Indiana Jones movies, I have the first three on DVD, and I hate people who don't give movies a chance.

I don't know if we made it past the first thirty minutes. It was terrible. And not because Harrison Ford is old, either. It just wasn't Indiana Jones. The movie is set in 1957, and the bad guys are the Soviets. It involves Roswell, and aliens, and there's a nuclear bomb test. And none of it felt, looked, or sounded like an Indiana Jones movie. The wisecracks all fell flat, the action was dull, and the omnipresent CGI just increased the artificiality of it all. Early George Lucas movies relished in their on-location filming, and that helped the first Star Wars trilogy and the Indy movies a lot. I don't know if they bothered with the two hours it takes to go to Nevada to film, but if they left a soundstage I'd be shocked. The less said about this travesty the better.

Sunday afternoon I went to see Watchmen with two friends. I loved Watchmen as a comic book, buying it in monthly installments when it was first released, and I've read it many times. It is one of my favorite, if not my very favorite, comic-book story, and I was concerned how the movie would turn out.

I am very pleased. I could pick some nits, but the film captures the comic book's tone and themes as well as anyone could expect. The acting, from a mostly unknown cast, is a little uneven, but mostly good, and Jackie Earle Haley's portrayal of the iconic crimefighter Rorschach is memorable.

I think what pleases me the most is, even though the film is very violent, and portrays a harsh, even cruel, world, the underlying message that every single human life is a miracle, an existence born out of astronomical odds, and therefore worth defending. The filmmakers used the comic's dialogue whenever possible, it seemed, and even used the art as camera frames, so that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' vision is fully realized. All of that said, Watchmen is not for everybody.

However, the real gem of the weekend was something else entirely. Sunday morning, Victoria and I watched a wonderful movie called The Visitor. It is about a widowed, Connecticut econ professor who, through a few random actions, becomes involved in the lives of an illegal immigrant couple, and befriends them. I won't go into the plot any further, but it is a really good movie, filled with authentic performances. The friendship that forms between the prof and the Syrian African-drum player, and the commonality they share in their love of music, is wonderful to behold. And when the Syrian's mother enters the picture, the prof and her forge a relationship that is understated and lovely.

It's a little movie about big things, like identity, and compassion, and it's beautiful.