I didn't spend yesterday just watching the new "Indiana Jones" movie and filing copy -- in the morning I caught "Gomorra," a very good Italian film about the Mafia in daily life (based on a non-fiction book that's a sensation in-country, telling tales and exposing how deeply rooted corruption is at every level of Italy). With dozens of characters bulleting around (most of them male, most of them not terribly bright, many of them dead before too long), it's not an action or crime movie so much as a pesudo-documentary on interspecies aggression. With rich, real characters. Sort of like if Robert Altman had directed "The Godfather." (And I mean sort of). I haven't read the book, but Glenn Kenny has, and he says the scene in the film where the exploited tailor (Salvatore Cantalupo, weary and terrific) sees the dress he made being worn by Scarlett Johansson on TV was in reality the Dolce & Gabbana dress Angelina Jolie wore to the Oscars.

After Indy, I schlepped to "Ashes of Time Redux," Wong Kar-wai's remix (photo, above) of one of his earliest films and certainly his only martial arts movie. The original 1994 "Ashes," which I haven't seen (it's available in a poorly done DVD version) apparently didn't make much sense, and it certainly doesn't now, but, lord, is it a vision to behold -- a wu xia film turned into an abstract expressionist action painting. I believe the only redux-ing that has been done is a digital clean up, some trimming, and a new score with cello solos by Yo-yo Ma. In that case, what Wong and cinematographer Cristopher Doyle (who were present at the screening, along with the cast) created 14 years ago is either a masterpiece of in-camera wizardry or a triumph of lab work. After all the Indiana Jones madness, I felt like I was tripping. Ended up sleeping through my morning screening, too.

By Ty Burr
Globe staff

*** (three stars)

No, it?s not as good as ?Raiders of the Lost Ark.? Don?t be silly. Lightning can?t be bottled twice, no matter how skilled the vintners.

Instead, Steven Spielberg's ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? is merely grand old-school fun ? a rollicking class reunion that stands as the second best entry in the venerable series. Premiering Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival and opening worldwide on Thursday, the new movie is leagues better than 1984?s nasty ?Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? and blessed with more snap and heart ? more fun ? than 1989?s pro forma ?Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.? All that's lacking is a genuine sense of surprise. It's very possible that was left out on purpose.

The emphasis in ?Crystal Skull? is on old-fashioned stuntwork rather than the shiny chimeras of modern digital effects. When Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) catapults from the back of a motorcycle through the window of a speeding car, out the opposite window and back onto the motorcycle ? his feet nervously skitching along the roadbed ? at least half the excitement is knowing that motorcycle, car, Ford, and road are real.

Thankfully, the approach goes only so far. Character and star may have aged two decades since the last installment, but bullets still miss the good guys with astonishing regularity, and Indiana Jones may be the only person who could escape a desert nuclear test site with an A-bomb due to land in ten seconds. How he manages this makes no blessed sense, but it?s a hoot anyway.

That scene occurs in the movie?s first fifteen minutes, in the sort of fast-charging prologue Spielberg and producer George Lucas know we?re expecting. The sequence also establishes the time (1957), the enemy (Russian Communists), and the stakes (power over all of mankind ? the usual).

Better, it reintroduces Indy as a believably older but still absurdly capable figure out of a Saturday matinee serial, and it brings on Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko, a Red menace with a sword, a Louise Brooks bob, and a nifty accent by way of Natasha in the old ?Rocky and Bullwinkle? cartoons. ?Drop dead, comrade,? the hero sneers at Irina, and that?s a good description of the best ?Indiana Jones? villain yet: She?s a drop-dead comrade.

To sum up the plot of ?Crystal Skull? requires dancing around a number of spoilers, so stop reading now if you want to go in with a clean slate. What Spalko and her KGB minions are after is a rare and very strange crystal skull that legends say was stolen from El Dorado, the lost city of gold in Peru. One of Indiana?s colleagues, Professor Oxley (John Hurt), has set out to find it and disappeared, and a young man named Mutt (Shia LeBeouf) arrives to beg Jones to rescue his old friend.

This being the 50s, Mutt is first seen riding a motorcycle with his cap akimbo just like Marlon Brando in ?The Wild One.? He?s a preppie who has dropped out to become a greaser instead of a beatnik, and the sequence in which he and Indiana careen through the college campus (inside the library and out) with Russians in high-speed pursuit is an early high point.

It?s bookended later in the film by a delirious action set piece involving multiple jeeps, a sheer cliff face, monkeys, vines, and a ravenous army of giant ants. (This last leads to one of the few gross-out scenes in ?Skull,? which is noticeably less gruesome than the other sequels. It?s still a bit too spooky in places for young children.)

The basic structure of these action scenes hasn?t change in 20 years, but camera technology and Spielberg?s skill at deploying it have. There?s an organic smoothness to the mayhem that can take your breath away, so much so that the less inspired aspects of ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? stick out more clearly.

It?s wonderful, for instance, to see Karen Allen reprise her role as Marion Ravenwood from ?Raiders,? since her warmth was precisely what was missing from the first two sequels. (Let us now officially forget all about Kate Capshaw and the unfortunate Alison Doody.) The script doesn?t give Allen quite enough to do, though, and the family dynamics that take over the last third of the movie feel overly familiar.

Indeed, a number of Spielberg career threads are woven into ?Skull,? including a climactic shot that blatantly rehashes the finale of one of the director?s best-loved early films. While Ford wears the fedora with believably weathered panache, on some level this Indy seems smaller, less archetypal than his younger incarnation. Where the character once towered over these movies, now he?s just the leader of the pack.

The rest of the cast keeps pace ? Ray Winstone as an accomplice who may or may not be a betrayer, Jim Broadbent taking over for the late Denholm Elliott as Indy?s college friend. LeBoeuf has an interesting alertness that he still hasn?t figured out how to use as an actor, but he throws himself into the stuntwork like a proper student at the feet of the masters.

It bears asking, though: What do we want from an ?Indiana Jones? movie in 2008? Engaged nostalgia, I think, and on that level ?Crystal Skull? delivers. Some may be disappointed that Spielberg and company haven?t invested the series with the latest in computer boffinry or that the new movie treads comfortably (sometimes too comfortably) in the footsteps of its forebears. This isn?t a reinvention but a reunion, of characters, creators, even techniques. ?Same old same old,? Jones says at one point, and that?s what we get. The action may have been updated to the 1950s, but in ways both inspired and unexamined, ?Indiana Jones? remains happily stuck in the 80s.

So. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Maybe you've heard of it? The 800-lb Hollywood gorilla of this year's Cannes showed at the Palais at 1 pm today to a jammed house and cheers for the opening credits. By the end credits, the applause was noticeably less enthusiastic and I heard some sniping from the more jaded media folk -- how easy and how much fun to dismiss something so hyped as irrelevant. Me, I had a very good time with the movie, divining early on that whatever was on the menu, surprise wasn't going to be part of it. My review's running in tomorrow's paper and it's posted here, too; the gist is that it stands, for me anyway, as easily the second best in the series.

The jaded media folk of course swamped the ensuing press conference to shout "Steeeven!" and "'Arrison!" Here's a video clip of Cate Blanchett and Harrison Ford responding to a few questions about their roles:

All right, 10:43 to be precise. But the server gods have accepted my votive offerings of small French cheeses and allowed me to upload videos, so I'm just going to dump them all into one big post. Forgive the occasional shaky-cam; there wasn't a budget for a tripod this year. (Actually, I'm using a digital photo camera I borrowed from Wesley; I don't think there's any place to put a tripod.)

So here's Mike Tyson introducing the documentary "Tyson" on the evening of the 16th; he looks and sounds quite stunned. I got to sit down with director James Toback earlier today, and probably the most wrenching comment he made was reporting Tyson's response upon his first viewing of the film: "It's like a Greek tragedy. The only problem is that I'm the subject." "Last night was the first time he started embracing the movie," Toback continued, "and stopped considering it an unsettling provocation. He said to me after the audience response 'I've never experienced anything like this,' and I thought, how is that possible? But these strangers responding that way were different from the strangers he knew from the ring."

Here's Woody Allen's response to being asked whether the menage a trois in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" reflects his personal fantasy. It's pretty rich.

And here's Woody on why he'll probably never make a movie anywhere in the former USSR.

That's it, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow's an "Indiana Jones" day, all day.

Filed under: Documentary, Sports, Cannes, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Celebrities and Controversy

"They'll make hypocrite judgments
After the fact
But the name of the game
Is be hit and hit back ... "

-- Warren Zevon, "Boom Boom Mancini"

Boxing is a brutal sport. Does that mean you have to be a brute to succeed in it? Mike Tyson was the youngest ever heavyweight champion in the world; when he stepped into the ring, it was as if he was in absolute control over everything that happened. And when he stepped out, it was as if he had no control over anything that happened. He had a marriage implode in public. He served three years in prison for rape. He became a nightmare-parody of himself, pathetic and terrifying, telling challengers he would eat their children. And now, as seen in James Toback's documentary Tyson, he is older, sadder, sober, off drugs and out of the fight game, trying to battle things you cannot simply strike with your fists.

Continue reading Cannes Review: Tyson

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Filed under: Action, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek

I'm not sure if there are still people who still don't believe that Justice League: Mortal is dead, but here's another nail in the much-hammered coffin for you: Adam Brody talked to Empire, and it may interest you to know that even those on board were no more informed than you or I. I find it more funny than interesting -- scary, too, because directors and producers make way more money than I do, and should be much more organized.

Apparently, none of the actors were ever officially let go or told anything, and Brody has no idea whether or not the film will ever be made. He says, "Actually, I probably shouldn't be commenting on it, but who cares. I don't really know - I still feel like an outsider on that somehow. I know there was a tax credit thing and I know that the strike was a hindrance. Also, you've got Batman coming out and Singer wants to do another Superman. This is only speculation on my part, I have no inside knowledge of this, but, as a fan, I think there's controversy about going off and trying to [show a different Superman and Batman] ... I think maybe it will still happen, but I truly don't know any more than you do".

Continue reading Adam Brody on 'Justice League' Collapse

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Filed under: Action, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels

Attention, Marvel Studios: You forgot to call Jon Favreau about Iron Man 2 when you set the release date and stuff. Please put it on your To Do list. Thanks.

Favreau was on Howard Stern this past Tuesday, and revealed that he has not yet been signed for the sequel. "They haven't offered me anything yet. They're all talking -- they want to do it, they even announced a date."

I want to believe that it means nothing, that things are in such a talky, pat-on-the-back stage that they don't mean anything by it. But still, before you talked to Entertainment Tonight and announced a release date, wouldn't you slap the director on the back and say "I hope you're coming back for the sequel!" Just as a courtesy? A "Good job, Favs!"

After being pressed by Stern, Favreau revealed his director's salary -- $4 million for the first film, with a NET profit deal which will pay a very small percentage once the film begins to turn a profit. But that won't happen for years with the magic of movie bookkeeping. And when a film makes mega bucks, like Iron Man did, all previous contracts are pretty much thrown out the window. That includes those Iron Man actors who have signed on for sequels. "They're all signed for three but it doesn't work that way. That all goes out the window when you make $100 million dollars," said Favreau. "Because people want to have a good relationship with the people they are working with, and if they're making that kind of money, it's an understanding that they're going to negotiate." (Isn't this a fun look into the world of legalities? I thought so.)

Continue reading Jon Favreau Still Not Signed for 'Iron Man 2'

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