Haha! Most of you are crying BLASPHEMY! Is it really?

Okay, maybe a little. But, it gave you pause.

Sorry this is going to be kind of a long post. I thought you’d just go and read the review and that would be it but I’ll give you an excerpt here and a link to the rest instead.

It begins
“As the most gifted and congenial by far of the New Hollywood tyros, Steven Spielberg may be the only consummate master of the post-television movie spectacular-the blockbuster that’s diced out into bite-size narrative units like Chicken McNuggets (every structural hint of bone or body part processed out of existence, every juicy piece a separate unique experience, designed to vanish without a trace). Aspiring to the condition of continuous action as if that were a delirious state of grace-borne aloft by superbly timed jolts and impossibly narrow escapes, usually in three-to five-minute set piece doses- RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK all but bypasses character and logic for a string of stunning rides through separate portions of Disneyland, one right after the other, each one a visceral treat.”

“Consider Karen Allen here, a likable, resourceful actress who gets used like one of those convertible stage units in a play full of short scenes First she’s established (in a drinking bout) as one of the boys, then as some perfunctory variant of the mannish woman (Joan Crawford as Vienna in JOHNNY GUITAR) running a Nepalese saloon, then as a fluttery sort of captive heroine who clearly isn’t one of the boys, then as a background prop; whatever a given scene requires, she dutifully becomes The same principle holds (more or less) for everyone and everything else in the movie, from hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to villain Beloq (Pau1 Freeman) to the Ark of the Covenant to somebody’s pet monkey. Try to summon up a composite image anywhere, a feeling or idea that you can salvage when the movie’s over, and you’re mainly stuck with an arsenal of disconnected poses and disposable functions.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum Soho News. 10 June 1981

Rest can be found at… http://www.coldbacon.com/movies/raiders-rosenbaum.html
Granted he makes good points about its demerits as film but Indiana Jones exists foremost for the audience… as he points out… and therefore inconsistencies and creative disembowelment on screen can be overlooked.

I recommend voraciously reading more of the R-baum before you jump to conclusions about him being “smarmy” or “some dick who doesnt like Indy” so you can begin to get inside his method of critique, which I hasten to mention, is considerably more probing, objective, and in the end, liberated from the trappings that Eberts reviews are bound by. These are two film critics who happen to of worked in Chicago, one is far superior to the other because he labors to approach films as films NOT as products he must put a ribbon on every week so he can “blahblahblah”. One is a parser of cinema the other is more of a personality. But who can judge critics right? F*ck who wants to? I recommend Rosenbaums Non-fiction Manifesto “Movie Wars” I think you’ll really like it Pete. If that takes, and by the way I’ve seriously misread the intent of this site if you think it blows, follow that with “Placing Movies” it collects some of the best crit Rosenbaum has put out.

Don’t get me wrong I LOVE Indiana Jones and thats why I’m not below actually looking at the series as FILM rather than the Grand-dad of the popcorn movie and therefore irreproachable by anything other than blind awe; fodder to be taken no matter how abject it may be.

Love your logic about Ebert, too. He gave it four stars, so it’s stupid to even suggest that it has faults. Right? He also gave The Cell four stars; must be a flawless masterpiece.

and another book of his was Franny & Zooey. So yes.

I think the review is awesome and just what you would expect from Mr. Salinger. I don’t believe one can do anything other than laugh at the absurdity of reviewing a review of from a reclusive author for a mainstream popcorn Steven Spielberg flick. One pointed out the melancholic frustration of adolescence. One wowed us with car chases, a professor who uses a bullwhip and a giant boulder. It’s the effective difference between blowing away and breaking down. One pushes you away, one brings you in. Both are pertinent, but completely different arenas.

Anyone who has ever read Jonathan Rosenbaums review of “Arc” knows that J.D.’s critique holds water… genius here is of the same mind. That said even as you read the critique, which is 100% correct, it really is, you love Indy anyway faults and all.

Perhaps Hunter should write book(s).