Monday, February 16, 2009
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Last night was Movie Night...where were you? MC baked cookies, and we all garnered a few tips on manliness from no-ties Indiana. This is a pretty classic film, and I'm guessing most of you have seen it before, so rather than talk too much about the movie, I'll relate some of the observations that were made during the movie, with imagined commentary by people involved on the film
Tom: Is somebody timing the cookies?
MC: Yes.
Tom (squinting at the oven): Are you sure?
MC: Yes! We got a bunch of backseat bakers in here!
Commentary by actor Harrison Ford: You guys need to lay off MC. He bakes you cookies, and you take it for granted. Sure be breaks a lot of shit in the suite. Nobody's perfect! Do you know how many fedoras I went through filming this movie? 28! I just kept misplacing them! And sure, Spielberg got upset when that got in the way of filming, but he always said 'Thank you' whenever I made cookies, so we got along fine.
MC (picking up milk carton): Oh, no!
Tom: I have more milk. Do we need more milk?
MC upends the carton. Nothing comes out.
MC: Yep.
Commentary by director Steven Spielberg: This reminds of this time we were shooting with Harrison and we were already behind schedule. It was the scene where he's packing up to leave and he tosses his coat and whip into a suitcase. He was supposed to have his hat as well, but he had misplaced it that morning. We were about to send a PA to find another one when Denholm Elliott, who plays Marcus Brody, sidled up to me and told me he had the hat. Apparently he had been stealing Harrison's fedoras as a prank. Well that was a pretty stupid prank; it wasn't funny at all. Denholm could tell I was upset though, and promised to bring milk the next time Harrison made cookies. That sounded swell to me, so I told him he could keep stealing fedoras if he liked.
The Ark is revealed on screen.
MC: I like how it's glowing.
Commentary by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe: This was a pretty easy effect. We lit the Ark from below, and since it was gold it just kind of glowed. I guess we got lucky.
As Indie escapes with Marion...
MC: He just pushes a three ton block out of the way.
Jon: That's the biggest problem with these films. They lift things that are, like, thousands and thousands of pounds.
MC: I think that was a conscious decsion though. Nobody could lift that.
Commentary by actor Harrison Ford: Wrong! I did lift that. It was actually more like four tons.
Commentary by set decorator Michael Ford: We used blocks of styrofoam painted to look like stone. We had to have a whole warehouse of them, because Harrison kept misplacing the blocks.
Commentary by composer John Williams: Fooled me! I thought they were real!!
Jordo: That's a terrible ending. Is that the end?
Tom: No it's not. It's the best ending ever.
Commentary by writer George Lucas: Both Jordo and Tom are right. In terms of all films ever made, it is the best ending ever. It's still pretty terrible though, and by terrible I mean like how dinosaurs are "terrible lizards" and Mark Hamill is a "terrible actor." When people say that, they actually mean "awesome lizards" and "passable actor."
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if it weren't for Colin this blog would suck
ReplyDeletethanks to that freakin rocket post this blog DOES suck
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