Good God, look at this forecast, from the Weather Channel’s Web site, for the beginning of June. That’s 10+ degrees hotter than normal for this month — these are August temperatures.

I went outside last night after 9:00 and it was like being rolled up in a hot, wet blanket. The temperature and the humidity was oppressive even with the sun down and the sky dark.

When I park my car in the driveway or a parking lot, now, I have to remember to roll my car windows down and put up the windshield shade. This past weekend, I forgot to do that both days, and when I got in to drive a couple times, it was like being in an oven.

It’s just turned June for cryin’ out loud. Come on! We barely had any Spring temperatures and weather and we’re jumping right into Summer?

When I was a kid, Summer was my favorite season. It was hot, school was out, and my birthday was in Summer. Now that I’m an adult, Spring has become my preferred season — it’s warm, not hot. I want my Spring! Don’t cut me short on Spring! I want to complain to the management.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: Theater

Wow. I really didn’t expect to not like it. I didn’t dislike it; I just didn’t like it. How can I not like an Indiana Jones movie? But I can explain my disappointment with one word: “unbelievable.” The action was unbelievable. I’m not saying, “unrealistic,” here. None of the IJ movies have been strongly realistic.

I noted immediately how this movie didn’t start out like the previous three movies. The previous movies started out with a sequence showing Indy, himself, in some kind of adventure, situation, predicament unrelated to the main story to come. This one starts out showing people who are not Indy. And then when Indy is brought into it, the situation isn’t unrelated to the primary story — it’s the beginning of the primary story. Now this was not a problem for me, but I did notice the departure from the standard formula.

Where the movie lost me was when he ran into the town in the desert. (It’s hard to talk about this without giving things away, but I’m trying to not spoil it.) I started loosing my suspension of disbelief the more I saw of the town, and then I completely just dropped it when Indy saved himself from the “event.” At that point, it was obvious that this movie was not even trying to nod at realism. And when the story and events go so far from realism, believability is the casualty.

This early in the movie I came to realize this is not a pulp-style movie — it’s a pure fantasy. Raiders of the Lost Ark felt more down to earth, realistic, believable, with a real human hero in the real world. There was some little magic in the story, but it wasn’t the story. Temple of Doom also showed Indy as a real human hero in a realistic world. The magic was a little more obvious, but still small compared to the overall story. The Last Crusade had Indy evolve a little out of real human hero and into fantastic hero, and the magic was more part of the story. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shows Indy, right from the start, as a fantastic hero in a fantastic world, with the magic playing a very prominent role in the story. Unrealistic, unbelievable.

I mentioned, in a recent post, my fear that the Indiana Jones movie would have over-the-top stunts and effects that didn’t fit the style of the 1980’s versions. Well, it does. The stunts and effects were not believable. They were too fantastic, too super.

I don’t hate this movie. I just don’t have any feelings for it. Once I was taken out of my suspension of disbelief, I didn’t feel like I was watching an Indiana Jones movie. It did have a few really good action sequences and humor moments, but a “cool” or a chuckle here and there doesn’t overcome the overall “meh” I felt watching it. The unbelievability left me with apathy for the whole thing.

I don’t know if there’s anything after the credits because I wasn’t interested enough to hang around and see.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Sometimes I have just so much to write about that I don’t know where to start. Should I write about what Calfgrit3 did today, or about what Calfgrit7 did yesterday, or about what Cowgrit said the day before, or what I saw last week? Maybe I should just write it all in one big long post. Maybe I should write up several posts and ration them out in smaller chunks.

And then I’ve also got a bunch more pictures to post in the Amateur Photography section. But most of them are crap now that I look through them again. Maybe I shouldn’t bother putting them up. It could be embarrassing.

I’ve also got a couple more articles to write. I’ve had these ideas in my head for a few months, now, and I just haven’t had time to get to them. They’ll just have to stay on my to do list for now, because I’ve got to write these posts, first.

Cowgrit needs help with some stuff in the house, and I have to run that errand before the store closes. And I just reinstalled an old computer game this weekend thinking I’d try to find time to play it again sometime this week. And there’s that book I just got that I want to read. And that movie I just rented that I want to watch. And that game I want to test. And that TV show I want to watch. And that full eight hours of sleep I want to get.

Meh. Maybe I can just write up some rambling steam of consciousness kind of post and no one will realize I really didn’t put any effort into the post this time until they reach the end.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com