There are so many reasons why this film should not have been made.  The Rule of Three suggests that a fourth will not work.  The fact that the Last Crusade was released in the year I was born suggests that the world has moved on.  And no film of any description with such comprehensivly poor dialogue should not make it beyond crumpled yellow paper.

Given the circumstances, nobody was expecting the film to work.  But it did.  It couldn’t be bad, because it wasn’t trying to be good.  This is not an action film - it is an Indiana Jones film.  Just as one watches the latest James Bond because it is a James Bond film, this film must be approached in context.  It tries so hard to be an Indiana Jones film that it is almost self-parodying.  And it’s no bad thing.

There is a stupid plot (this one far worse than the ludicrous Nazi seizure of the Ark of the Covenant), and pointlessly long and directionless action sequences.  The score rises and falls in such textbook movie fashion that you know exactly when to expect the next thing that is meant to take you by surprise.  The Russian accents are about as believable as Lowestoft-born Tim Westwood’s ghetto lingo.  If you want a good action movie, stay at home.  This is an Indiana Jones film: watch it with that in mind, and you will love it.

I wouldn’t want to spoil the vacuous plot line (and admittedly it is far too flimsy to be put into words).  I will, however, touch on two (of many) moments which made me laugh out loud.  The first is during Jones’ first dramatic escape from the clutches of death.  A sequence already saturated with cliches climaxes as the archaeologist swings limply from a chain, mildly landing on a Star Trek-looking desk.  Suddenly, from nowhere, a big red clock suddenly lights up, counting down from 30 seconds.  The unashamed cheapness of it was amazingly funny.  Minutes later, Jones finds himself in an atomic bomb testing site, and - who could imagine - a siren sounds.  He leaps into a lead-lined refrigerator just as the blast whips through a model town, and the fridge is tossed through the air like Dr. Who’s Tardis.  Jones spills out of the makeshift nuclear bunker and looks over his shoulder to see a mushroom cloud.

Every plot and sub-plot leaves the viewer in bewilderment.  But the film is extremely well made, and has an air of fun about it.  It is a good couple of hours, meant to be enjoyed not analysed.  So I shall not begin to try.  Instead, I suggest that you go to watch the film with an eye open for tongue-in-cheek moments, and then enjoy them.

From the Daily Kos:

It looks like many of Hillary Clinton’s apologists and several political pundits claim that her assassination remarks can be explained because of fatigue.

Perhaps. In fact, it’s likely.

But won’t she be fatigued at 3 a.m. in the morning?

Didn’t Bill claim she “mispoke” over Bosnia because she was tired too? To have to make an excuse once is bad luck; to use the same one twice is careless….

In a stunning repeat of the 1950s, the Communist Party of Russia calls for the new Indiana Jones film to be banned as mind-bending Western propaganda…

From the bowels of the Torygraph blogs (Yes, I know, shudder…) comes this:

I think he’s riding for a fall. As is Boris Johnson. My colleague Simon Heffer wrote just before the Mayoral election that Boris has founded his various careers on “stooges”, an observation examined at some length in another colleague Andrew Gimson’s biography of the mop-haired Mayor. The stooges – at Oxford, in journalism and in politics – are the people who do all the work, while Boris concentrates on his more important task of self-aggrandisement.

Parker, in Boris’s mind, will be King Stooge. Boris doesn’t understand business. Far too boring for a man of vision such as himself. Also, it’s rather “trade” for a toff from Eton and the Bullingdon Club. So Parker will be his Managing Director, he thinks, and the one who can have all those tedious meetings about budgets while Boris gets photographed with Miss Bust-Conductor on a new Routemaster.

The trouble with this plan is that, talented as he undoubtedly is, Parker is not essentially a runner of businesses. He’s a turner-round of businesses and a deal-maker. He’s a slash-and-burn man, laying waste to unproductive factories and under-performing people. He once told me that it’s best to fire people as soon as you arrive somewhere, before you’ve got to know them. That may be just what London needs – some cost-saving at the centre, to better serve the interests of Londoners, who Parker calls “shareholders”.

But unless Parker is allowed to float London on the Stock Exchange, or organise a management buy-out of Chelsea, or break up Westminster and sell the profitable bits, he will quickly grow bored. Once he’s made something pay, he wants out. In that sense, he is very much like Boris (though without the narcissism). He even shares a propensity for a storm of unruly, big hair (I note that reports have suggested he’s known as the Prince of Darkness at companies he’s commanded – I can only say that I only heard him called Bogbrush on account of his mop).

Parker is not so much a stooge as a sibling and there will be grim rivalry. Boris thinks he’d bought a drone. He’ll get stung by a busy bee.

Note that the piece essentially confirms Parker as the terrifying Prince of Darkness the unions fear. When the Torygraph praises a man as a cost-cutter who lays off as many as possible, you know they mean an inveterate bastard who’ll ruin the lives of (ex-)employees to make a quick profit, before leaving them with nothing. When they refer to him as a, “slash and burn man,” well…

Also note that Boris may have hired more than he bargained for. Why doesn’t that surprise me, for some reason?

The reaction within the PLP to the loss in Crewe and Nantwich puzzles me. On the one hand, there have been few overt calls for Brown to go from those who really matter. Discontented backbenchers, yes, but there’s been no concerted move to remove (hah…) Brown in the 30 hours since the by-election. The most high-profile statements - from Margaret Beckett and Ai Desai - call for Brown to improve, rather than attack him outright. There has, in short, been no Geoffery Howe type ready to stand up and savage Brown with a parliamentary sheep.

On the other hand, the anonymous briefings against Brown have been hostile at best. This, from the Tool, is typical:

A senior minister said: “I’m not sure that Gordon can change. I think [his exit] is a decision that we’re all going to have to sit and think about very seriously over the next few weeks.”

Hardly a vote of confidence, is it? The contrast between the nameless mutterings scattered throughout the papers and the official cabinet line could hardly be more stark.

Interestingly, the Times article contains a hint of a challenge from a less expected area:

One source revealed that Stephen Carter, the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, appeared weakened by the episode. He “read the Riot Act” a fortnight ago against those using class-war tactics but was overruled by “elected politicians” around Mr Brown.

The discontent is there, and could be a problem for Brown. He wanted Carter to change his image. What would it say about Brown’s image if Carter walked out because he couldn’t do it?

Perhaps Brown opponents seek to undermine his remaining support in the PLP by splattering shady quotes all over the Saturday papers. They don’t have enough support in the party now, but if they pushed a little harder, they might gain it - and oust Brown.

They’d be mistaken to do so. As disastrous as Brown seems for Labour, getting rid of him could well be worse for them. With two PMs chosen outside of an election, the government would be on very shaky ground if it didn’t call a General Election soon afterwards. And, given current form, they’d probably lose quite badly, Brown or otherwise.

Of course, that might not be their intention at all. It’s still early, probably too much so to draw as much from the by-election as the media has tried to. But we’ll see…