Friday the 13th

I just got done watching Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Except it ended up not being the final chapter or anything close to it because they have since made six more installments-- one of which was titled Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. That was the ninth installment. Then they made Jason X.

Whatever.

Jason (pronounced hay-sone by my Spanish speaking readers) movies will probably keep getting made until they run out of ways to kill people, which will be tough, because those writers are so creative! So the bad news is we can expect another Friday the 13th installment at any moment. The good news is, pretty soon we will be counting down the days until the new Indiana Jones comes out next May. No, you didn't miss anything; I meant May of '08. Relax.

There are some big names attached, as there had better be for something this big. George Lucas is producing. Spielberg is directing. Yes, Steven. The movie will star Harrison Ford. Yes, Old Balls himself is going to break from feeding Calista long enough to go archeology-ing around one more time in what should be the last, Last Crusade because he's looking OLD. Also, relative newcomer Shia Labeouf will be "starring" along side Indy according to The Sewer Chewer (if you don't get newsletters from CHUD.com, sign up for them now). That's actually good news. Hate on him all you want, he's a better than good actor. It's quite possible he will be a small redeeming factor in what Michael Bay's probably going to do to ruin The Transformers.

But good news can be bad after the fact. Just look at the Star Wars prequels. We waited for years for them to come out. They were largely disappointing. Flashes of brilliance interrupted by choppy dialogue and the occasional "Noooooo!" from Vader when he realized Amidala's fate. I'm just afraid we Indy fans are setting ourselves up for the same type of disappointment. Plus, in my opinion, Harrison Ford's last standout work was in The Fugitive back in 1993. Don't get me wrong, the chemistry between he and sometimes-lesbian Anne Heche was nothing short of orgasmic in Six Days Seven Nights. And this is going to be one of the most highly anticipated unplanned sequels in a long, long time, so he better bring his "A" game.

One thing that I, myself am happy about is that I haven't heard anything about M. Night Shyamalan being attached to the project, so I am pretty sure he didn't write the script. A while ago he was working on and I believe nearly finished an Indy script. Sixth Sense was superb. Unbreakable was pretty cool. Signs was decent enough. Lady in the Water was just odd. See the trend? So it's good that he's nowhere near Indy.

So I'm going to be keeping my fingers crossed that when they begin shooting Indy 4 in June that they are shooting a winner. If not, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised with the next Friday the 13th flick due to my lowered expectations. The end.

peace sign,
p