You don't have to be an A student to be an A-List Star Part 1: The Men

Ah nothing like basking in the afterglow of a reference like three people will get in the title.

This past week's Entertainment Weekly (#997 June 13, 2008) featured a cover-story about their picks for the next Hollywood A-listers. As my friend Etan pointed out at the Academy Awards several years ago we're well into the beginning of a transitional period where the big stars of yesterday; the DeNiros, Pacino, Nicholsons and Fords (or what have you) are giving way to the Seymour Hoffmans, the Crowes, the Phoenixs and so on. So now ET is making some predictions about the names you'll be seeing above the title in coming the years and here are my thoughts about them.
Dwayne Johnson-Having officially (and seamlessly) retired his "Rock" moniker Johnson seems primed to really tackle the worlds of action, comedy and hopefully drama. Even back in his wrestling days the Rock was one of the most charismatic and articulate of brawlers (I've been a fan for a long time). I've maintained that ever since he got into movies that had the Rock been around in the 80's he would've been the most successful of all his action peers and subsequently become one of the biggest stars in the world. He's ten times more charismatic and amusing than Schwarzenegger, Segal, Van Damme or any of those guys. Also the guy is sexy. Yeah that's right, I said it. Johnson has not been in the best movies but he never gives less than 100% in them and I still maintain that the Rundown is one of the better pure action films of the twenty first century. Johnson has had his first major success in The Game Plan (which I skipped because I saw the movie for free in a three minute nugglet known as a trailer) so now he's going to be in family films for a bit (hence the forthcoming Escape from Witch Mountain, I guess he plays the mountain). Johnson's appearance in Southland Tales wasn't enough to save the film but it showed me that he doesn't always have to be the tough guy and that he's willing to do unconventional material. I have high hopes for his work in Get Smart (a movie I'll be writing about with great enthusiasm shortly). If he can get a little more selective in his scripts and stretch once in a while he could be like no performer we've seen before.
Is he A-List?: Not quite yet, but if Get Smart does well (and no reason it shouldn't) then he's well on his way.
Shia LaBeouf-LaBEOUF! In two disappointing hours LaBeouf went from beinga decent young actor to my favorite thing about the new Indiana Jones movie. Breathing more life into Harrison Ford then any other actor on screen, the new Spielberg wunder-kid has real presence and two huge potential franchises under his belt. I like this kid, but I'd like to see him in some indie (not to be confused with Indy) films. I don't mean Hitchcock retreads but a Fox Searchlight sort of thing.
Is he A-List? material: Very close, but he needs to do a quality film where he is the main attraction, not an energy cube.
Seth Rogen-At the moment he can do no wrong. His projects always feel fun, cutting edge and tend to be hilarious. I've heard that he doesn't have much of a presence in Kung-Fu Panda but then again the movie is hardly his to own. Pineapple Express looks sensational and both Rogen and Gordon Green are benefiting from each-others company. Zak & Miri looks cute and Monsters versus Aliens sounds incredible. Then there's the Green Hornet that he and friend and co-writer Evan Goldberg wrote. Rogen is constantly making cool, exciting creative choices, I just hope he doesn't neuter himself like Will Ferrell was doing for a while there.
Is he A-List material?: Yes and has been since 40 Year Old Virgin as far as I'm concerned.
Robert Downey Jr.-He's the elder statesman of this list but he definitely belongs on it. He's straightened out his life AND he looks poised to make 2008 the summer of Downey. Let's see, a colosally successful on all accounts franchise (Iron Man)? Check. Fun, edgy looking comedy he looks poised to steal from more accomplished comedy co-stars (Tropic Thunder)? Check. Schlocky sounding awards bait ready for the fall (The Soloist)? Check. Just stay clean and keep being awesome.
Is he A-List material?: If you look up A-List in the dictionary do you know what you see? A picture of Robert Downey Jr? No, the definition of the word a-list, idiot.
James McAvoy-I love him in press conferences and award shows where he seems fun and impish and playful. His movies are a bit of a mixed bag though. I like him in Atonement but he mostly just walks around looking dour. Last King of Scotland was good to him but in the eyes of the public that's Forest Whitakers movie. I'll see Wanted but I'm going to be pretty pissy through it because it looks NOTHING like the comic. As of right now the movie that best shows off what he can do is Starter for 10, but like three people saw it. Maybe he should try to hook up with the Apatow guys or another comedy clique.
Is he A-List material?: Not for another three or four successful movies at least.
Michael Cera: I talked a lot about what makes Cera great a few posts ago. I think that right now if you're an even remotely media savvy person between the ages of 15-28 you love this guy. His upcoming film slate looks pitch-perfect.
Is he A-List material?: Unquestionably. I hope he has a very sexy time.

Well that's it for the men. Tomorrow (or Thursday) I'll write up my thoughts on the women (and hopefully have a review up of Kung-Fu Panda). Stay awesome.

We Named the Blog Indiana: You're insulting them and you're embarassing me, now eat it

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crustal Skull is really several movies at war with each other. It's a for hire job to get the fans back on the side of it's creators, it's the actors chance to redeem or prove themselves to audiences and it's David Koepp's burden to patch together several different drafts in an attempt to satisfy a number of master's. Only one group really succeeds.
In his review of Indy 4 CHUD.com's Devin Faraci remarks that the film is definitive proof that Steven Spielberg could direct a movie like this in his sleep and did. While I wouldn't go that far I will say that Spielberg's direction feels very removed. There are flashes of brilliance but he never attains the sense of awe that is the Spielberg hallmark. It feels very by the numbers and the film loses the organic, analogue feel of it's predecessors. It may have less CG than the average summer blockbuster but it never quite blends seamlessly into the world. I'd rather have the green screen or matte paintings of the previous film, it gave them a sort of unified feel. DP Janusz Kaminski, a great cinematographer in his own right, feels a bit lost and the opening scene has the sort of distance and feeling of unreality found in the Star Wars prequels. The script, while loaded with inventive action sequences feels bloated and mismanaged, a case of not enough fine tuning and editing. Characters are introduced and then given nothing to do, problems are solved through luck or convenience and Indiana Jones spends a great deal more time explaining rather than doing. The problem is that there are huge swaths of the film that aren't really about anything other than going forward (oftentimes with little more motivation than "because I have to"). That said the film does at time's return to the groove and feel of the previous films and consequently a good hour stretch of the film is purely enjoyable without any reservations.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:
The film continues the Indiana Jones tradition of never repeating the same type of opening twice. This time it's a lively bit of drag racing between Nevada teens and an army convoy (secretly Communist agents in disguise). The Communists destination is a secret army base that is both a storage facility as well as a nuclear testing site. It is here that the villainous Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett channeling Natasha Fatale from Rocky and Bullwinkle) releases our nineteen years older, but not at all worse for wear Dr. Jones from the trunk of a car. Say what you will about the film but Harrison Ford is the most alive and in the moment as he's been in a motion picture in over a decade. He's having loads of fun and it shows. The Communist want Jones' expertise to help them find something in the warehouse, something magnetic. Jones however, isn't having it and wants out. Unfortunately this opening warehouse sequence is ridiculous in the extreme. Jones was always an adventure hero but Spielberg has him jumping, swinging and fighting like a super-hero instead of a mortal man. The dialogue is a bit stilted and awkward as we're filled in on Jones' relationship with OSS agent Mac McHale (Ray Winstone) and Indy's past as a Colonel in the US army. Then Mac, Indy's long-time friend mind you, goes and betrays him to the Russians. But no matter because even with as good as an actor as Winstone in the part Mac is so thin that the betrayal means nothing to the audience.
As Indy escapes he makes his way to the aforementioned nuke testing site and but for a lead-lined refrigerator would certainly be killed. When Indy makes it back to civilization the US government (as embodied by a suspicious FBI agent played by Neil Flynn aka The Janitor from Scrubs) worried about his possible affiliations with both the reds and Mac basically black list him. Indy returns to Marshall college where the new Dean (a well-intentioned but wasted Jim Broadbent) informs him that he can no longer teach at the school.
It's HERE that the movie I loved begins. There is a nice somber scene where the movie really becomes about something, notions of legacy and mortality that it pursues for a bit until the effects once again take over in the film's final third. As Jones ponders a life without teaching he discusses the losses of both his father and Marcus Brody. Here the scripting becomes almost elegant. "You reach a point in your life where life stops giving you things and starts taking them away." Had the film revolved more about the fallacy and truth of this statement it might have a bit more "oomph." Just as Indy is about to leave the campus, life gives him something instead of taking it away and that something is Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). The introduction of Shia LaBeouf, of Mutt really, kick-starts the film into high-gear. He's an enormously fun character, a curious adventurer who's hair-obssessed greaser veneer hides an uncertain Mama's boy. He and Ford have wonderful chemistry. Mutt relays to Indy that his Mom and their mutual family friend Professor Oxley (John Hurt, as thinly characterized as the other Brits in the movie) have been kidnapped by the Russians and he needs Jones' help in deciphering the clues Oxley has left behind to find his family and the mysterious Crystal Skull of Akator. Unfortunately Mutt's acquisition of a note from Oxley was an ellaborate trap by the Russians and soon Mutt and Indy are locked in a thrilling motorcycle chase through the campus as the younger and older man impress each other with feats of daring-do. Then it's off to Peru where Mutt and Indy bond over unraveling the clues Oxley left behind. There's plenty of fun catacomb exploring and native fighting but the pair are eventually captured and the Russians want Jones to decipher Oxley's insane ramblings. He's compelled to do it when they reveal their prisoner (and Mutt's mother) Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, lovely but not given much to do except for some cute bantering). Yes, that means EXACTLY what you think it means, Mutt is really Henry...Jones...III. Indy's reaction to seeing Marion after so many years is so great that it almost makes the entire film worth it. I loved the early scenes with these two actors. Marion truly was Indy's perfect partner and had the film been about this newly discovered family unit and the legacy of the Jones' we'd really have something. This idea begins to carry over as Jones goes from cool contemporary to Mutt to basically the reincarnation of Henry Sr (going so far as to shout "This is intolerable" as Mutt drags him through an escape). We get the start of a cool Indy chase as various vehicles race through the rain forest as all the characters scramble for the skull. It's very exciting until a derailed Mutt has to pull a Tarzan, inexplicably mastering swinging on conveniently placed vines in seconds.
From here the film dips back from exciting, fun Indiana Jones movie to silly, over-stuffed with characters, by-the-numbers puzzle solver. Indy spends a lot of time explaining to us what's about to happen and then Oxley uses the titular crystal skull (easily my most hated MacGuffin EVER!) to do all the work. Oh that Crystal Skull. Whether it's repelling army ants and natives, opening doors, reading minds or turning a temple into a spaceship, the crystal skull is a lazy screenwriters dream. Oh how I yearn for the days when Jones solved problems through ingenuity, elbow grease or luck, here all problems get crystal skull-ed away. The end is never really in question but still there is enough promise shown in the Mutt and Indy's relationship that I wouldn't mind seeing a Last Crusade-esque follow up. Then again, maybe enough is enough and it's time for Dr. Jones to give it a rest. Regardless of the years the mileage may be too high.

We Named the Blog Indiana: I thought I'd lost you boy!

So word has come in from New York midnight screening friends and while the consensus is lukewarm they're glad that the movie exists. The best of it is that Harrison Ford is alive, awake alert and enthusiastic as an actor once again (after basically sleep-walking his way through the better part of a decade). Or as my friend Frank put it:

You're not looking at Harrison Ford, you're looking at Indiana goddamn Jones.

Yeah, that'll do nicely. Frank, also was extremely complimentary of Shia LaBeouf, or as we like to call him "The Beef." Frank also posited that it wasn't George Lucas who dropped the ball on the film but-well, I'll leave those of you haven't seen it yet hanging. We'll talk tomorrow in the review and see if I agreed with Frank. The next time I post I will be living in a world where I've seen four Indiana Jones films. I am practically jumping out of my skin right now. Low expectations be damned.

It's going to be legen- wait for it

-dary