redbelt

Indy and Redbelt

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Redbelt

Brief comments on two movies I saw last weekend:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- I had fun watching this, especially at the beginning, relieved that unlike the Star Wars prequels the fourth in the Indiana Jones series did not betray the spirit of its predecessors. Still, it was the weakest link in the series' history, saddled by an aimless script, a humdrum second act, and the presence of Spielbergian aliens -- a sad departure from the reliance on religious artifacts of the earlier films.

Redbelt -- I'm generally a Mamet fan, but I liked this film even more than I expected. Despite a few false notes and a dependence on an overly-serpentine twist even for Mamet, Chiwetel Ejiofor's excellent lead performance more than compensated for any flaws. It's a rare fighting movie (in this case, Brazilian jiu jitsu, though Redbelt isn't a fighting movie in the traditional sense) that actually earns its climactic ending.

Sat, 05/31/2008 - 4:45pm
  • Inspired by Redbelt, Roger Ebert has coined a new genre: the "Twister" -- a movie that's less identifiable about what it's about than how it's about it -- specifically, one that constantly plays with the audiences expectations:
    Twisters don't twist only at the end. They pull one rug from another out from under our feet, until we're astonished by how many rugs we were standing on. Sometimes it's almost impossible to keep all the versions of reality straight. Sometimes it's a futile exercise, because we realize the film could continue indefinitely. But when a Twister is in the hands of a master like Mamet, it can be devilish and ingenious.
    (2) #
    5/14/2008
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