i’ve been thinking a lot about how the entire convention of fiction about ‘aliens’ has virtually always been an excuse for people who want to keep thinking of foreigners as not being human
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Raiders and Crusade work because the villains are Nazis and thus anyone running up against Indy is also bad because they are Nazis or Nazi-adjacent (and also placing the films either in Africa or pre-war Europe help dodge some of the “but what about the coerced people” issues)
Temple is “oh shit guy, what are you doing”
Crystal Skull is… I mean, one could argue that the Nazis are kind of an analog for the Soviets in Raiders and Crusade but actually having them as villains is maybe not the best (and also the fridge thing is totally in-sync with a series of movies that includes the existence of God and ripping out a man’s heart from his chest and then the heart catches on fire)
Anglo (and to a lesser degree Russian) empires rode out “at least better than the Nazis” for ideological cover through the entire 20th century which is pretty remarkable really
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jesus christ did you seriously just remove the agency of African Nazi agents to justify liking a movie
what the fuck
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that last season of Archer was pretty good though
i would almost be able to defend crystal skull, there is actually some really good character stuff with jones in the beginning of the movie and everything about blanchett’s character is hilarious. her hairdo is perfect. it also works in this weird 4d chess way where the first three movies are riffing off of old racist serials and the 4th one transmogrifies that into a take on 50’s b-grade sci-fi (nuclear panic, giant ants, flying saucers, etc).
but the cgi is just a tragedy and it has shia labeouf in it. sorry. the movie sucks.
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you had to move on to nuclear fears if only because you can’t have the same character dunk on the Nazis the same way for a third time (like, Last Crusade is already operating in the mode of Hollywood Give Them More sequel) and if they were going to involve WWII-era antagonists, placing the Japanese as adversaries would never end well
unless it was a Manchuko plot or something
no, that sounds even worse
I saw crystal skull at a drive in which should’ve redeemed it but then I got high and fell asleep
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Crystal Skull can only be redeemed by having an intermediary describe it to you while inebriated
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at least Dan Aykroyd’s vodka brand was unharmed
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but that’s the inherent problem with using nazis/enter any obviously evil group of people, isn’t it:
you walk a razor-sharp thin line between being too lenient (“but the nazis are almost likeable, so the director is a nazi as well”), or making them out to be caricatures of nazis - so idk, better err on the safe side and make sure to portray them as monstrous as you dare, to make sure that you aren’t booted because someone feels like you should not portray them nazis as being ‘nice’ (which still would be monstrous, but that’s another topic worth of points to talk about) ?
Considering that, I am still surprised that Man in the High castle didn’t get more flak at some points, where it felt like the show was getting close to being almost vague about this whole thing.
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still can’t believe he doesn’t sell an XXL version in a Conehead skull
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since when
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making bad guys guys who just want to kill Everyone isn’t making them more monstrous, that’s just turning them into a cartoon. actual nazi ideology should be enough. nobody should need to have fascists want to kill them personally before they can empathize with people targeted by fascism. now we got people thinking actual fascists are free speech activists cause I guess they’re waiting for world domination speeches and black uniforms and skull emblems before it becomes authentically fascist enough.
I would imagine a large percentage of people with a negative view of antifa is solely because of the black clothing. disneyland morality.
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Of all his films this is probably not a good example but I remember watching Planet Terror and at parts thinking “at least making something so inherently messy feel smooth, is something of a feat”
Since Spy Kids 3, a Robert Rodriguez digital file.
I don’t believe you
I’ve seen movies Robert Rodriguez has made since the third Spy Kids opus and its the same lurching keyframe bullshit with very occasional grace notes he’s always done
I remember a producer on Once Upon a Time in Mexico telling the story of sending him down below the border with an impending strike. She thought he wouldn’t be able to get the whole movie shot before production halted, but at least they’d have most of it and he could get editing and they’d go back to pick the rest up later. Surprise! He finished with time to spare! It’s because he edits himself, she said. He has the shot list in his head, he knows just what he needs and what he doesn’t so he can shoot a Big Action Scene without a lot of coverage and get it done fast.
But all the action in that movie is whack as hell? His instincts must have been bad on the day? He can’t have really known what he needed 'cause he’s still doing this cut cut cut shit like any other generic motherfucker but he’s missing the tissue to make it work?
Desperado skates entirely on Antonio’s charisma and tan and yeah El Mariachi is an incredible achievement considering but you have more than five-thousand US dollars now Robert quit gaslighting your girlfriends and make a real movie maybe Alita is a real movie I haven’t seen it don’t @ me
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I mean, I was being facetious, because have you seen Spy Kids 3: Game Over?
I try not to think about most of that decade
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