At noon Sunday, I attended a press screening of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I returned to my laptop, wrote my review and sent it off, convinced I would be in a minority. I loved it, but then I'm also the guy who loved "Beowulf," and look at the grief that got me. Now Indy's early reviews are in, and I'm amazed to find myself in an enthusiastic majority. The Tomatometer stands at 78, and the more populist IMDb user rating is 9.2 out of 10. All this before the movie's official opening on Thursday.First, the obvious. Yes, I am giddy with excitement to learn what strong an audience response the movie is getting. Like the rest of the world, I figured it'd suck, since it had George Lucas involved, and since I've actually grown to despite Harrison Ford (despite loving his movies). But the other question I had is the "Tomatometer." How do you say this? I said "Toe-may-toe-meter" but then I thought it sounded better saying "toe-may-tommeter". I really like the second pronunciation myself, and yes I know there's a really funny joke in this about how you say to-may-toe-meter, and I say toe-may-tommeter. I am not as dumb as I look.
Nevertheless, I really liked this part of the discussion of the movie. Ebert discusses how and why the movie got a standing ovation at the Cannes, and in doing so, does that thing that makes me love him so much - his honesty, charitableness, and deep understanding of movies as an artform (and especially his understanding of "popular").
Nevertheless, I believe the S.O. was genuine the other night. It takes a cold heart and a weary imagination to dislike an "Indiana" film with all of its rambunctious gusto. With every ounce of its massive budget, it strains to make us laugh, surprise us, go over the top with preposterous action. "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" does those things under the leadership of Spielberg, who knows as much as any man ever has about what reaches the popular imagination. The early reviewer on the web site, on the other hand, knew as little.
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