Spoiler Alert: Indiana Jones 4 is a Steaming Pile of Shit

Yep, I said it. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sucked. It was terrible. It was abysmal. It was a total tragedy in the history of cinema. I'm still pissed that I lost $6.50 to go waste my time watching that movie, and I saw it weeks ago. I'm even half-tempted to put a hit out on George Lucas for ruining YET ANOTHER fantastic series (Star Wars anyone?). Let me tell you exactly why this movie made me feel like I let Lucas pull another fast one on me, and just why it was so terrible.


1. It had Shia LeBeouf in it. Not only was he just in the movie, he was Indiana Jones's son named Mutt. Mutt is appropriate, because goddamnit, this no-talent hack is nothing more than a half-breed fuck-up deserving of getting euthanised. This little shit ruined Transformers, he's a poor actor, and to this day I still wonder why no one has taken it upon themselves to run this little fucker over with their family-sized sedan. Oh, during a chase scene through the jungle he gets caught in some vines and for some reason, all of the monkeys in the rain forest decide to help him by miraculously teaching him instantly how to swing from vines. Then all of the little monkeys beat up Russian soldiers and help Indiana Jones and his stupid fucking crystal skull (that I wish would shatter) escape.

2. The main baddie is some crazy psychic Russian nutjob named Irina Spalko who carries a rapier and thinks that extraterrestrials left crystal skulls to allow the Russians to gain infinite knowledge and somehow become the ultimate fighting force on the planet...and I'm not even fucking kidding, either. Not only that, the movie begins with her and a few truckloads of Russians breaking onto an American military base. Sure, it's "1957 - the height of the Cold War" (taken from the official webshit), but are you fucking serious? The only successful military campaigns the Russians ever won were pre-1900, and they certainly weren't against the U.S.


3. Indiana Jones survives a fucking nuclear bomb by hiding in a goddamn refrigerator. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Taken from the wikipedia page on nuclear explosions: "The dominant effects of a nuclear weapon where people are likely to be affected (blast and thermal radiation) are identical physical damage mechanisms to conventional explosives. However the energy produced by a nuclear explosive is millions of times more powerful per gram and the temperatures reached are briefly in the tens of millions of degrees." Tens of millions of degrees. I don't give a fuck if you're the Terminator, those kinds of temperatures are going to fuse your body to the stupid little lead-lined fridge you climbed into, and you're most certainly going to die.

4. Bad guys got eaten by "giant" ants (by giant, I mean 6x normal size at best, hardly man eaters) in the middle of the fucking rainforests of Peru. Come on Georgie, if the Russians are gonna die it should be from the hands of a full-blooded bulldog American like Harrison Ford. Christ, when Indie was fist-fighting the big Russian bad-ass and kicking the commie out of him, the fucking ants come and steal the kill! On top of Shia LeDouche's epic-fail performance in the jungle, I finally realized at this point in the movie that I wanted to rip George Lucas's spinal cord out the back of his neck and eat his still-beating heart.



5. After getting chased by Russians and big ants (both marginally less impressive than the Nazis or cultists of the previous movies), Indie & Co. ride a stupid amphibious car over 3 waterfalls that had to have been several hundred feet tall each. The first two, the car lands upright and they climb back in, but OH NO! After the third, it's totally thrashed. Please, the excitement with this movie is ENDLESS...if you're 8 years old and you have down syndrome.


6. The big surprise: THEY'RE FUCKING ALIENS!
Or to be more specific, extra-dimensional beings, all thirteen of which are actually just a single being that are somehow related to the "aliens" from Area 51 in Roswell, NM. Not only are they aliens, but they are aliens with skeletons made out of crystal. Oh, and they love gold too. Mayan gold. Oh, and they came to earth thousands of years ago to teach the Mayans how to grow crops, build things, and do everything else. Yep, aliens taught humanity how to live. I think this practically put Lucas's film on the same playing field as intelligent design. Forget about the idea that over millions of years, Homo habilis developed into the amazing Homo sapiens and progressively picked up skills and talents to learn how to sustain itself and overcome its environment, oh no. Fuck that idea. I have a better one...it was aliens. George Lucas, go fucking kill yourself. I mean in Raiders of the Lost Ark it was Nazis getting destroyed by the Ark of the Covenant, in The Temple of Doom it was the British Indian Army helping Indie escape the Thuggee, and in The Last Crusade it was the Holy Grail getting lost in a temple quake. All three past movies have been pro-American and pro-adventurer with christian themes in the treasures sought. While the latter doesn't quite appeal to yours truly, it's still better than turning the Indiana Jones series into a drawn-out episode of the fucking X-Files.

Overall, I'd give this movie a 3 out of 10 because it was such a monstrous abomination of cinema. The only thing that kept me from giving this load of Peter North's semen a 1 out of 10 was the fight scene in the diner that was provoked when Indiana Jones told LeDouche to "hit that frat boy" and an all-out brawl between frat boys and greasers broke out.

George Lucas, if you're out there, if you make another Star Wars movie or make Shia LeBeouf the next Indiana Jones, I'm going to gouge out your eyes with my thumbs and beat you to death with your own severed appendages. The horse has been dead since 1989, so stop fucking beating it or a large angry man with a Daneaxe is going to show up to your house one day and nothing, not even $30+ million in CGI will be able to save you.

-K

Opeth: band of the century

I don't think I could possibly find a flaw with this band, and I've even tried. I've tried to find things about this band that suck or things that they do that aggravate me, but I'll be damned if I fail every single time. They're amazing. Their music is a fantastic medley of death metal, prog-rock, folk, blues rock and jazz, and from what I've heard (hopefully what I can see in the near future) they sound phenomenal live. I'm going to take a look at a couple of their albums, and review the band as a whole.

Ghost Reveries - This is Opeth's eighth full-length album that was released in 2005. Usually people will start with earlier work, but I don't fucking care. This is by far my favorite Opeth album. It opens up with the 10:29 powerhouse, "Ghost of Perdition," which contains more beautifully composed and executed transitions than most bands' (I listen to) careers. It moves wonderfully into the second track, "The Baying of the Hounds" which also finds itself in excess of 10 minutes. Other songs on this album like "Hours of Wealth" do a superb job of showcasing the band's talents of not only being able to write extremely heavy songs, but also soothing and melodic tunes as well. All I really have left to say is that this album was produced to near-perfection, and that the sound quality is phenomenal. Opeth really demonstrates that they make every note count in Ghost Reveries.




Blackwater Park - Released in 2001, Blackwater Park is Opeth's fifth full-length album. This album opens with "The Leper Affinity," a monstrous 10:23 musical adventure composed of beautifully blended musical styles, transitions, pattern changes, and a soothing ending so flawlessly executed that is reminiscent of an Autumn landscape (I fucking love it, don't judge me). "Harvest" is yet another perfect example of Opeth's stunningly diverse musical capabilities, and it flows quite nicely into the following track, "The Drapery Falls" (which has more separate pieces than a goddamn Lego castle, all of which are miraculously amazing). "Dirge for November" is a hauntingly beautiful song that I can only imagine is a about suicide and the stages one goes through (beginning with hopelessness, moving to anger, and then ending with the act of suicide). It's both sad and chilling while still managing to be auditorily attractive. The mood quickly shifts with "The Funeral Portrait," but returns to a somber yet calming state through the instrumental "Patterns in the Ivy."


Orchid - Orchid is Opeth's debut album which was released in 1995. It's absolutely amazing to me that a band could make their debut with such a fantastic album. Every song is in excess of 10 minutes, with the exception of "Silhouette," a piano interlude played by the drummer and "Requiem," an acoustic track that started Opeth's career-long exhibit of 'better-than-your-band' music. Orchid is probably my least favorite Opeth album, but when speaking in terms of this band that still leaves this at an 8.5 out of 10. It certainly isn't as good as most of their other albums, but then again this was their first and the band was still in the stages of developing their style (both as a single entity and as individual musicians). None of the tracks on this album particularly pop out at me as exceptional, but I still find myself listening to it often.


So to effectively sum up my review of this band, I would most most definitely give them a 10 out of 10. I have not disliked anything of theirs I have heard, and their style is very unique and original. It's rare to find a band these days that makes their albums worth buying, but I can honestly say that I feel Opeth is within the elite core of those bands. Every one of their albums contains as much music as possible, and the quality of each is truly beyond expectation. This isn't your estranged second cousin's obscure Black Metal band that sounds like every album was recorded on a 4-track in a metal garbage being thrown down a rocky hill or another electro-grind band that packs over 90 songs onto a mini-disc. It helps that each member of this band knows their job and how to perform their duties to the fullest, and that they obviously care a great deal for the music they write. Opeth is easily one of the most amazing bands I've had the pleasure of listening to, and I can't wait to hear what Watershed (their newest album) sounds like. If their gradual and steady growth from incredible to prodigious continues, that could only leave Opeth in a marvelous utopian state.

-K