Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

When I heard “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” would be made, a shiver ran up my spine. The name Indiana Jones might as well be synonymous with words like “blockbuster,” “award-winning” and “man-that-makes-me-question myself-in-so-many-ways.”

Finally, I thought, with all the crap sequels that squeak through Hollywood, here’s something I can sink my teeth into.

The Indiana Jones franchise can breathe a sigh of relief with this movie. It stayed true to its roots, despite the chances of ruining a good movie legend with a sequel.

The movie starts in 1957 with a group of Soviet Agents breaking into Area 51, led by ice queen Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and his sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) are forced to assist the communist forces in finding a highly magnetized object.

After being fired for having “ties” with the communists, Indy runs into the “rebel without a cause” Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), who points him in the direction of his next quest: the Crystal Skull of Akator. Of course, this is not your basic artifact, and those darn communists just can’t keep their grubby, Red hands off it.

Review: Iron Man

Ah, summertime. The temperature increases, everything turns green and the sun stays up past 7 o’clock. It’s a wonderful time of year to be outside, celebrated by barbecues, booming fireworks and blockbusters with budgets bigger than the gross domestic product of most African countries. Starting this year’s parade of summer movies is Iron Man, one of the better comic book adaptations in recent years.

Iron Man tells the story of billionaire weapons industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). After being captured by Afghani terrorists, he is forced to build his most recent weapon for their own malicious use. Instead, Stark builds a suit of iron to dispatch of his captors. Upon returning home, he decides to design a new suit to fix the things he helped destroy with his weapons.

The movie spends most of its time watching Stark build his two very different suits from scratch, which only helps to showcase his social isolation. Unfortunately this doesn’t make for a very entertaining chunk of the movie, even with a few shots of humor involving a robotic arm and its obsession with fire extinguishers. Thankfully some surprisingly good character interaction with his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and a few excuses to get out of the house manage to break up this dominating part of the movie.

Preview of 2008 TV Season: May Upfronts

For a full listing of new and canceled shows, visit the 2008 TV page here or above in the tabs.

NBC’s Fall Schedule

ABC’s Fall Schedule

The CW’s Fall Schedule

CBS’s Fall Schedule

Fox’s Fall Schedule

Notable on NBC:

The Office is getting its own spin-off.

The Office will start off with hour long episodes through September.

Molly Shannon stars in the US translation of the Australian hit of Kath & Kim.

I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence helms the pilot episode of Kings.

Notable on ABC:

Scrubs has moved to ABC midseason.

Lost returns midseason.

The BBC Show Life on Mars is being translated for American television by David E. Kelley of Boston Legal, The Practice and Ally McBeal.