they're digging in the wrong place

How could I ever have doubted them? My anticipation level for the fourth (and long overdue) installment of the Indiana Jones franchise has risen and fallen like the stock market. There was the countless rewrites with several big name, proven screenwriters taking there shot at Indy 4, and being shot down by Lucas in particular. How could he turn away Oscar nominees like M. Night and Darabont. Has he not seen the Sixth Sense or Shawshank? Darabont was a writer for the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but noooooo. So they settled finally on David "Spidey" Koepp (shiver)

Then there was the issue about the principals, namely Harrison "I don't care if I'm sixty-something I'm still going to wear an earring" Ford and Jones Senior himself the now-retired Sean Connery. Connery single-handedly saved the franchise in 1989 in Last Crusade, despite Spielberg moll Kate Capshaw's best efforts in Temple of Doom as the worst female action lead ever. But the news that he would not return for this summer's blockbuster, put the Jones crew on shaky ground. And could Ford, who has been without a hit since Air Force One, still don the fedora and crack the whip well enough?

But now for the three bits of good news I heard prior to actually watching the film. They cast Shia LaBeouf as Indiana the Third, the return of Marion Ravenwood, and the movie features aliens. At least the first and last of the these bits of news were met with some trepidation (some it my own).

Shia, lets face it, is everywhere these days. He apparently can't turn down any blockbuster script he's offered, and really why should he. An Emmy-winning child actor, he broke into the business in 2003 with a decent lead turn in a children's movie success Holes, took supporting roles in summer blockbusters for the next three years in hits (and misses) like I Robot, Constantine, and Charlie's Angels Full Throttle, and staked himself to some indie cred with an impressive performance in 2006 Sundance sensation A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.

Then 2007 became the year of Shia as he carried a Hitchcock remake to March success, then became the envy of every red-blooded malehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif in America as he became friends with Optimus Prime, and locked lips with Megan Fox in Transformers. Many people I think viewed his casting in Jones 4 to be a cheap ploy towards a younger audience, but I'm inclined to believe otherwise. I think this kid can act.

Then was the return of Karen Allen. Marion Ravenwood is one of the key points to my argument that Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the greatest movies ever made. She was as balanced as a female character could be while still occupying that shoe-horned role of damsel in distress. She runs a bar, can drink any man under the table, and is very handy in a fight. Yet she goes gooey in Jones' hands, and becomes the girl that needs rescuing. I heard an inkling that Willie Scott would also cross paths with Indy in this film, but thank god someone put a kibosh on that. In fact, in the film when Marion and Indy fight, he notes that no woman he has been with since her had measured up. This was the ultimate slap in the face to Temple of Doom in my eyes, which of course is well-deserved. Crusade escapes harm from this though as Dr. Schneider turned out to be a villain.

And then of course there is the presence of aliens within the movies plot. My first thought was NO EFFING WAY. Indiana Jones deals with Mysticism, Nazi's, impossible-to-please parents. But then I realized that paring I should have considered was that this was Steve Spielberg yet again tackling alien encounters. As far as movies about aliens go, the man has absolutely knocked it out the park on two outta three tries, and according to Meatloaf "that ain't bad." (Plus I can ignore WOTW due to my hatred of Tom Cruise and the fact that its a remake)

My Cruise-loathing aside...this movie had me at hello. They opened with the original Paramount logo screen that dissolves into the movie's opening shot...just like each of the previous Jones movie's have done. The opening scene blares Elvis's Hound Dog over joyriding teens entrenching the movie in the 50's, and of course toys with its viewers with the reveal of your hero as he's pulled from the trunk of the car, first with the appearance of "The Hat," then the silhouette, and then of course Jones' annoyed snarl. As I viewed Ford at that moment I was drawn back to one of Jones' most memorable lines from the original film: "Its not the years honey, its the mileage." This would become this films mantra, as they fought every instinct along the way to modernize this film and made it just like the Jones movies of old.

Cate Blanchett does of course brilliant work as KGB psychic Irina Spalko, but I felt her casting was a bit wrong. I think that character would have been better suited to have been played by someone less high profile. Substituting the KGB as Jones' foil for the Nazis worked very well however.

But mainly this movie works because of homage and tradition. The introduction of LaBeouf's Mutt Williams is so steeped in movie lore its ridiculous. He appears on a motorcycle costumed almost to a T, just like Marlon Brando in A Wild One. Throw in a dash of Rebel Without a Cause, and stir in a pinch of the Outsiders, and voila there's Mutt. There was the Wilhelm scream featured for the umpteenth time in the library. There was even a rare homage reversal of sorts. The scene which features swarms of ginormous ants seemed to be taken directly from the man-eating scarabs from The Mummy...which I always so as a poor mans Indiana Jones movie anyway. And of course you can't have Harrison Ford ever deliver the line, "I have a bad feeling about this," without humming the Star Wars theme.

But the real homages are to the previous Jones movies. There's the blink-and-you'll-miss-it reappearance of the Ark of the Covenant in the opening hangar scene, and the return of the redline traveling via-map movie device. But I broke into a broad grin, when Jones reflected in his study on the photographs of Henry Jones Jr. and Marcus Brody. Both important cogs in the previous film they were justly acknowledged and remembered. The only person missing was John Rhys Davies's Salah, who I would like to have seen if only for a moment.

The movie worked, because it was an Indiana Jones movie through and through. Jones punched drivers out of vehicles to take the wheel himself. He was constantly kidnapped and forced to lead his enemy to their common goal (because they couldn't do it without him). He saw everything as a riddle, and of course solved them all. And he saw the bigger picture. While all those around him sought treasure and power, Jones, the perennially archaeologist sought to prove the legends he grew up believing, For him it was always about the hunt, and not the prize.

And of course the movie closes on a really well done scene. The wind blows the fedora at Shia's feet, and he picks it up to put it on his own head, only to have it snatched by its rightful owner. The scene encapsulates the film so well. Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas are deftly saying, "We've still got it, and this ain't the end for the ole Jones boys." These fellas are going to clean up with this film, and damn it they deserve it.

I love the 90's

So I feel like I'm channeling Beck these days...Vintage Beck circa '94. The first song off the Mellow Gold album kinda encapsulates what I'm feeling right now.

And this doesn't relate to our family's cat Tick dying on Friday night. Tick had been in our family for 17 years, but that number can be misleading when referring to our emotional connection to this cat. Tick never took very well to house training so she quickly became the black sheep of our stable of animals. Losing Tick hurts a little bit, but not a great deal. Thank you to y'all who have sent your online condolences. I appreciate it. Sadly though it is a whole other ball of wax that has got me buried in my web of neuroses at the moment.

In only a few words, I had something I wanted at arms reach, and I apparently did everything in my power to let it slip through my fingers. I'm left with this horrible aftertaste in my mouth, because I really don't know what in god's name I did wrong.

I shouldn't be surprised. I've spent most of my life hiding from this sort of disappointment, by never putting myself out there. So I finally decided I would take that plunge, and I got WAY ahead of myself. And to say I crashed and burned would be putting it lightly.

Maybe good things aren't meant for me at this point in time. That doesn't mean I have to stop hoping for them, but my cynical nature will certainly do everything in its power to keep that from happening.

I guess the bright side would be I gained two friends out of the whole situation. I hope that benefit can help me stay positive about it all. This blog will undoubtedly serve as my closure for the whole mess (and it seems that will be the only way I will get it.

Tomorrow is a new day. We'll see what she brings.

game called on account of capitalism

Seeing as the though I still keep abreast of the goings on in the poker community (despite eschewing it these last several months for a menial newspaper job) I feel compelled to comment on the most recent dramabomb dropped by Harrahs Entertainment and ESPN. Apparently this year at the World Series of Poker Main Event, once the final table of nine is determined (which should happen around mid-July), play will stop, and those nine will be brought back in early November to play out the remainder of the world's biggest poker tournament at an "almost-live broadcast."

I had heard whispers of this development during my intermittent poker forum surfing over the course of the last month, but I summarily dismissed the idea as too radical, even for the money-hungry exec's in charge. Even those who supported the idea from the beginning never believed in a million years that the powers that be would have the sac to make this radical change. We shouldn't really be surprised though.

The only two years I've had the opportunity to get an inside look at the vaulted World Series of Poker (as a member of the much maligned "poker media;" not only the lowest of the low, but I worked for Card Player Media; which according to many of the smaller fish as Public Enemy #1) it was run entirely at the Rio, completely under the Harrah's Entertainment banner. I don't know a WSOP w/o the huge gaudy sponsors. What did one do when their weren't nubile young women in Milwaukee's Best Light gear, roaming around trying to give you free (and worthless) poker chips? Was the all-in moment less exciting when it wasn't the Degree All-In moment.

What I'm getting at is simply, what was the outcry when this poker event became ridiculously commercialized at the hand of NASCAR guru Jeffery Pollack, WSOP commish for the last three years?

Wow....as I turn the idea over in my head more....it actually makes sense. Yikes.

---

Since the invention of the lipstick pocket cam, the poker boom has enjoyed a huge rollercoaster ride. The best possible scenario happened in 2003. An unknown internet player, outlasted the field of 839 entrants to take down the $3 million 1st prize. He busted up pro after pro, and found the good fortune to outlast a truly shark-invested final table. But really it was all about his name baby. And as Mike "The Mouth" Matusow would say every day at the WSOP '07 the pros mantra became:

"God bless Chris Moneymaker"

He turned a $40 satellite into about $1.5 million, or at least thats what ESPN wanted you to believe The endless ESPN reruns, neglect to mention how he was so confident he would get smoked that he nearly sold off his entry after he won, only to have someone buy up 50% of his action. (Raymer had backers in 2004 as well. Strange how in 2005, the winner plopped down the full $10k entry, but the bigger story seemed to be runner-up Steve Dannenman, who almost gets less time on screen than his "business partner" who gets half his winnings.)

The win for Moneymaker itself was a blessing and a curse. He scored a huge sponsorship deal from Pokerstars, but also had his marriage collapse. All involved with poker could care less. The Maine Event swelled to huge proportions over the next three years. In 2006, Jamie Gold won four times what Moneymaker did (although his money-appropriate name only has half the media shine) besting over 8,000 players. They were predicting over 10,000 for 2007, but then karma slapped the poker community with a nasty one-two combo.

Gold was taken to court when he balked at having to fork over half his winnings to a man who he promised 50% of his action in exchange for that guy finding a couple of "celebrity's (see also.. two-thirds of the dynamo that headlined the critically acclaimed Without a Paddle) to wear the logo of Gold's backing poker site. Now the string of three charismatic main-event-champion-poker ambassadors was gone (Only one of the those last three was really perfect; Moneymaker has very few results to back up his win and "Salty Joe" Hachem was great at the marketing, but is a Mr. Hyde at the tables; he's downright nasty, only coming second to Hellmuth in the whining category)

And to kick the poker community while they're down, The UIGEA made it near impossible for poker players to deposit money on poker sites, shutting down the main resource for Joe-Schmo to enter the tournament.

--

So now the execs need a new way to market their television coverage. And by golly they've found it.

So when play is halted at the WSOP this year, each of the final 9 players will be awarded ninth place money. The remaining prize money will be placed in an interest-bearing account, which will simply add to the remaining prizepool.

The final table-ists will also now have months to plan their strategy for the big dance. This will include players paying for coaching, and discussing their opponent's play ad nauseam.

This means better play. This means I might actually know something about the final tablists, which means I can give a hoot if one of them wins.

Editor's note: This maybe the last poker related tidbit I post for a while...the end of bar league poker was none too kind to me. A freeroll for a TV is a daunting task, but I thought I had a better chance of winning then most. However, I saw my solid play wasted when I risked my tournament life for the first time when we were 4-handed, only to be torn a new one by the poker gods who decided the that the a guy willing to risk 90 percent of his chips on a flush draw should be rewarded. Nevermind that I had flopped a set and was 65 percent to win when the money went in. Oh well, thats poker.