Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the third entry in the Indiana Jones series, and it manages to present a couple of interesting wrinkles in the ongoing saga. First, we get a far-too-short sequence starring River Phoenix as young Indy, and it provides us with explanations for why he hates snakes, why he wears a fedora and carries a whip, even how he got that scar on his chin. It’s only about twelve minutes, but it is a real adrenaline rush to start the film. I know there was television program in the early 1990s called The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that attempted to capitalize on the fun of this opening sequence with Phoenix. Unfortunately, it wasn’t successful, but perhaps there is more of the tale of young Indy to be told. The other benefit of this entry into the Indiana Jones universe is the introduction of Sean Connery in the role of Professor Henry Jones, Indiana’s father. Harrison Ford, of course, is back as Indiana, and he and Connery are delightful in their characters’ father-son bickering. Connery doesn’t actually appear until about a third of the way through the plot, but when father and son are reunited, the movie ramps up the humor and action. The senior Jones was never particularly interested in his son’s activities while Indy was growing up, but now the younger Jones (who hates to be called “Junior”) has to rescue his father, who has disappeared in Venice, Italy, while looking for clues to the location of the Holy Grail. A rich American, Walter Donovan (Julian Glover), finances a trip to locate Jones Senior, but later we learn the real reason is his own desire to obtain the Holy Grail for himself (since the myth is that it can provide immortality). There’s lots of stuff here about the Crusades, but I don’t think an understanding of historical events is necessarily important, and you shouldn’t want a fiction film to learn a history lesson anyway. Much of the film is set in 1938 and there are Nazis everywhere—the film travels to Italy, Austria, Germany, even the Republic of Hatay—so you get a clear sense that Germany was already beginning to dominate many countries before World War II had started. As for clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, there’s a broken stone table that’s missing significant information and Henry Jones’s diary (which he conveniently mailed to his son before being kidnapped) has a very cryptic map and some very elliptical instructions for how to find the Holy Grail. All of these items are just an excuse for a series of chases and shootouts and adventures across Europe and Asia. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade includes boat races, motorcycle escapes, a ride on a zeppelin, a biplane air battle, tanks, horses, some camels, and lots of broken stuff and quite a few fires. Alison Doody plays Dr. Elsa Schneider, who was assisting the elder Jones in his research in Venice and who has apparently bedded both father and son, something that the film really doesn’t comment upon very much, perhaps for good reason. Denholm Elliott plays Marcus Brody, a colleague who runs a museum and who seems too ill-suited for adventures like this. Sadly, John Rhys-Davies’s Sallah doesn’t get as much to do here as he had in Raiders of the Lost Ark. None of this really matters, though, because much of the film is devoted to the interplay of Ford and Connery as the two Dr. Joneses. Watching the two of them having so much fun as action movie stars is the greatest highlight of the film. 

Oscar Win: Best Sound Effects Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Sound and Best Original Score

Field of Dreams (1989)

I blame Kevin Costner. He's starting to get on my nerves, especially after watching him in JFK and Dances with Wolves and now Field of Dreams, a nominee for Best Picture of 1989. The Academy must have been quite enamored with him to keep nominating his movies for the top award (and crazed to have given him the Oscar for making Dances with Wolves) during the late 1980s and early 1990s. I'm sure this film was picked as one of the nominees for 1989 because of the alleged "spiritual" message that it contains or maybe for the notion of maintaining some spark of individuality that it supports, but I just found it to be pure hokum.

Costner plays Ray Kinsella, a farmer who isn't very successful. We start the movie with his voice-over about his father's life and then Ray's life until we get to the moment when The Voice speaks to him in a cornfield, telling him, "If you build it, he will come." The Voice, of course, is open to interpretation, and many have imagined it to be the voice of God speaking to Ray. I suspect he's just delusional or schizophrenic, but that wouldn't make for a very happy movie or ending now, would it? There are moments where the film seems to support my assertion, though, particularly by having Patsy Cline's "Crazy" playing at the feed supply store while Ray tries to explain what he's heard to some of the other farmers. And later there's a scene from the movie Harvey, a far superior film in so many ways, playing in the background too. Yes, I know we're supposed to dismiss those as red herrings. I just don't.

Ray's wife Annie (played with gusto by Amy Madigan, who should have had a more successful movie career than she did) supports him in plowing up a portion of their cornfield to make a baseball diamond. You see, Ray had a vision that it was a baseball field he was to build, something involving Shoeless Joe Jackson and the infamous Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. The loss of that much corn means that their savings are gone and the Kinsellas might not even break even that year. Yet they persist in this folly, especially after Ray Liotta's Shoeless Joe walks out of the cornfield one day and plays some baseball with Ray. Soon other members of the team appear to play, but the only people who can see them are members of Ray's immediate family: himself, his wife, and his little daughter. Get it? Only those who truly believe... yeah, I know.

When The Voice says to Ray, "Ease his pain" one night at the oddest and loudest and best-attended PTA meeting ever--over the subject of banning books, of all things--Ray decides to seek out author Terence Mann (played by the great James Earl Jones)at his home in Boston. Ray, a fan of the author's work, seems to think that he needs to take Mann to a baseball game and talk to him because Mann might be able to explain what's going on. Mann has become a bit of a recluse over the years, and even a ballgame can't make him into less of a curmudgeon. When both Terence and Ray hear The Voice say, "Go the distance," they naturally assume it's about Moonlight Graham in Minnesota and go in search of this guy who played only one inning of major league baseball.

If this is all sounding a bit preposterous to you--and you haven't already seen the movie--you'd be on the right track, in my opinion. The leaps of faith it takes to accept some of the scenarios here are, frankly, far too great for a person of logic and reason to make. I know we suspend disbelief sometimes when we go to a movie, but you'd think the plot would at least attempt to cover over some of the gaping holes in the narrative in order to ease our disbelief a bit.

Nevertheless, while Ray's farm is being sold to his brother-in-law (played by Timothy Busfield of TV's thirtysomething), Ray goes back in time (yeah, I know how that sounds, but it's in the movie) to hear Doc Graham (played with great style by Burt Lancaster) talk about his time in the big leagues. They later pick up a young hitchhiking Archie Graham and take him to the field. By now, there are enough players to form teams and have real games. Ray's daughter claims people will show up and buy tickets, and it seems everyone agrees that it will be a return to simpler times. Typical reactionary response, isn't it? We just need to go back to the way things used to be. The past is always better than the present, isn't it? Nonsense.

The movie gets even crazier at this point. Shoeless Joe tells young Archie Graham that he was a good player. The players invite Terence to join them when they walk back into the cornfield. I suppose it's meant to be heaven? An Iowa cornfield doesn't strike me as all that heavenly, but we're supposed to go along with it for the movie's sake. And then Ray's dad shows up. Dwier Brown is the actor who plays John Kinsella, and he has perhaps the most thankless job in the movie. He gets to play catch with Costner's Ray so that the two men can reconnect with each other. Let's overlook the fact that Ray's father has been dead for so long that he probably would freak out if some grown man tried to pass himself off as Ray. We have to overlook it or else the film doesn't make sense. Well, that is, if you think it's made any sense so far anyway.

I know people will criticize me and say that I don't get it. This is a movie about second chances and reliving your youth and getting to have those moments again that you wished you could have. It's about reuniting with the most elemental parts of your existence, such as your relationship (if you're a man, it seems) with your father. The truth is I do get all that. I really do. I still think it's a pretty stupid movie, requiring me to forgive an awful lot of stuff that shouldn't be forgiven, frankly.

And that's where I blame Costner. He has to carry this movie and make this outlandish scenario believable, but he just isn't up to the task. He always looks like he's just had his foot stepped on. There's a pained expression on his face throughout much of the film, as if he himself is finding all of this a bit tough to believe. I'll be the first to admit that he looks pretty good in a pair of tight jeans, and the film's makers manage to incorporate a scene of him in boxer shorts just for purposes of titillation, I guess. But I'm still a bit bewildered by how he became such a big star. He's not a strong enough actor to convince us (well, me, anyway) to buy the plot of Field of Dreams. And if you still want to think that I just don't get it, well, then just wait for The Voice to tell you what to do to turn me around.

I should mention that people still show up, almost twenty years after this film's initial release, looking for the baseball diamond in the cornfield. I guess that's a testament to the power of film, that a movie could still be so memorable to encourage people to look for inspiration in such a place. Instead, though, I think it's sad. A Hollywood shooting location isn't the site of the Second Coming, and it's too bad that people have such a void in their lives that they will seek out what's left of the set from Field of Dreams (or the image of Jesus in a tortilla or whatever) as a sign of a reason to maintain their faith.

Oscar Nominations: Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Score

My Left Foot (1989)

How can anyone really talk about the achievement of My Left Foot without concentrating upon the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis? Although the film was nominated for Best Picture of 1989, the primary reason it got noticed was his lead performance as the artist Christy Brown. Without the work of Day-Lewis, this film might not have gotten as much attention.

Brown was born with cerebral palsy and only slowly learned the ability to draw and write and speak. The film shows the struggles that Brown faced, and the actor who plays him at a young age, Hugh O'Conor, is quite marvelous. He plays Brown before the artist learned to speak clearly enough to be understood, so this is mostly a silent performance. O'Conor's face is so expressive, though, that you're always able to understand his emotions.

However, when Day-Lewis begins his performance, that's when the real fireworks begin. Unlike Dustin Hoffman's performance in Rain Man, which I have always found to be rather one-note, Day-Lewis is totally committed to the full portrayal of a man with cerebral palsy. He distorts his body and his face. He demonstrates the struggle that Brown faced just to form words. He uses his left foot to draw and write, and Day-Lewis shows remarkable dexterity in these scenes. He also allows us to note his slow progress over time. It's the kind of acting that makes you forget that you're watching a performance. You do feel as though you're watching the person himself.

I also admired the performance of Brenda Fricker as his mom, and the supporting actors who play his siblings are good too. Fiona Shaw as the doctor who works with Christy to learn how to speak is luminous. You can see why Christy would fall in love with her. One of the most heartbreaking scenes is at the restaurant when he finds out that she is engaged to another man; his rage is uncomfortable to watch, yet it shows you the depth of Day-Lewis' commitment to the role.

I do have one major criticism of the film, and that's with the way that it was edited, with the flashbacks throughout the film. The "frame" for the movie is a presentation of Christy Brown at an event at a country estate and his flirtation with the nurse who looks after him while awaiting his moment on the stage. I do think My Left Foot would have worked just as well as a more straightforward narrative. Then it could have perhaps maintained a bit more of the intensity of feeling that certain scenes create. Still, overall, it is competently made and interesting to watch, but it's only Day-Lewis that elevates it to a film that could be considered Best Picture material.