…according to the movies, anyway.  Not one but two well-known movie franchises have plots revolving around adventure-seeking archaeologists, Indiana Jones and The Mummy.  I couldn’t resist the hype of the new Indiana Jones movie and made that my first experience with Indiana Jones earlier this year.  It was entertaining, though I still don’t really get what all the fuss is about, although I’m told the latest (and last, supposedly) Indiana Jones movie is not the best one by far.  So for date night last week, we decided to give the latest Mummy movie, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor a try, and again, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.  I did like it better than Hellboy 2, but I really think that has more to do with how sick I was when I saw Hellboy 2 because I just wanted to leave the theater.  My husband liked Hellboy 2 better.  I’m comparing the two because they are somewhat similiar movies; both action-fantasies involving the raising of ancient asian things.  But anyway, back to the latest Mummy movie…  Archaeology is dangerous in the movies!

Brendan Fraser plays an archaeologist who is hired to guard a precious artifact as it makes its journey to become a gift.  There’s a guy who is trying to raise this emperor from the dead; it has something to do with a curse.  So the emperor is raised, and that’s what I really liked about the movie.  The emperor was made out of what looked like metal and fire, and I really enjoyed these special effects.  When they were coupled with the emperor’s voice, it made for a nice scary villian – I hope you appreciate the oxymoron of nice scary villian 😉  The one thing I didn’t understand about the movie is why they threw in the random yetis.  You’ll have to see it to know what I’m talking about, I guess, but let’s just say that there were some yetis all of a sudden and they didn’t seem to have much to do with the rest of the plot.  As far as the plot goes, it wasn’t really my kind of movie, but it was a $3 matinee, buy one get one free, so for that price, I was thoroughly entertained.  Three random notes I have are:  1.  I didn’t realize the Mummy movies take place in the past, in the 1940’s.  2.  Is it a requirement for sequels to have extremely cheesy references to the original movie?  This movie is no exception.  3.  Anyone visiting Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida should definitely try the Mummy ride.  It is a thrill ride with special effects; a haunted house roller coaster, and it’s unlike any other roller coaster I’ve ever experienced – totally awesome!

Are you board of movies?  Yes, that spelling mistake was intentional.  You see, this post is related to movies that are about board games.  There was an article in the local newspaper a few days ago about this topic (link below).  I’m sure we all remember the 1985 movie based on the game Clue, the 1993 chess movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, and of course the Robin Williams movie based on the fictional game Jumanji (along with its Williams-less sequel Zathura).  Now Hasbro and Universal apparently now want to bring us Monopoly, Candy Land and Ouija.  Needless to say, due to my faith I will not be seeing the last in any form.  Depending how the reviews go, I may or may not see the first two either.  Candy Land??  I can only guess this will be a feature for children meaning that I know of a certain Ohio couple who will be seeing it as they have four young ones, at least three of which will likely be interested when it is released.  Anyway, I tire of writing this entry so soon after the last so just click the link below for the news story:  😉

Hasbro rolls the dice on board game movies

I recently discovered a website totally devoted to one of my favorite television series from my youth. The Bionic Woman was a dynamite spin-off from the successful Six Million Dollar Man. Lindsay Wagner starred as Jaime Sommers, a former tennis pro who after a nearly fatal skydiving accident was endowed with bionic limbs (two legs, right arm, and right ear) that not only allowed her to function normally but gave her great speed, the ability to lift enormous amounts of weight, leap great distances, and hear sounds from a five mile radius (don’t quote me on that). The character was introduced on a two-part episode of the Six Million Dollar Man as the childhood sweetheart of Steve Austin, the bionic man (played by Lee Majors). In her debut episode, Jaime was killed as a result of a brain clot precipitated by her body’s rejection of the bionics. However, fan response was so great that the character was revived and eventually given her own series.

Jamie (as well as her male counterpart) was an agent for the Office of Scientific Investigation (O.S.I.). She had the cover of a junior high school teacher. Each week, she was assigned to battle spies, international terrorists, or evil robots called Fembots. On occasion the bionic woman and bionic man would have crossover episodes. On a few occasions, the duo would come face to face with Sasquatch, the mythical Bigfoot. In the final season of The Bionic Woman, Jaime became the guardian of Maxmillian, the bionic dog.

Cheesy, definitely by today’s standards; however, I much prefer the adventures of the ORIGINAL bionic woman to the failed “updated” version from last season that lasted all of 5-6 episodes. The writers strike may have been the final nail in the coffin, but it seriously lacked the heart that both previous series had.

You can either relive or introduce yourself to classic episodes of The Bionic Woman at the Official Bionic Woman website. You just have to love the cool bionic sound effects. On a personal note, my family took a trip to California in 1978 and visited Universal Studios where many of the set pieces for the series were on display. My brothers and I were locked in a jail and bent the steel bars of the cell, escaped, and flipped over a van. Jaime Sommers… not a bad name for a very attractive character.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Walking With Dinosaurs is a traveling show that is based on the BBC documentary of the same name.  It is in Fort Wayne, Indiana this week, which isn’t too far from us.  They’ve been advertising it heavily, and I’ve been meaning to check out ticket info, but I kept forgetting.  Thanks to our local paper who ran a story about it the other day, I was reminded about it just in time!  Seems the tickets are QUITE costly!  However, my computer-savvy husband went online and found a discount that saved us SO much money on tickets, but only if we went opening night…  So, we dragged all the kids to Fort Wayne to see some dinosaurs on a school night.  Let me say, it was SOOO worth it!

It’s been a really long time since I was really excited about something that actually ended up measuring up to my expectations.  I was really excited about this show; I thought it would be a good show, but I will say that it EXCEEDED my expectations!  Not only was it visually stunning, It was a perfect show for the whole family.  There were lifelike dinosaurs engaging in battles, flying, and scavenging…  what’s not to like?!?  We have kids of all ages and bravery levels, and they were all entertained.  Our 8-year-old and our 4-year-old did get a little nervous in the beginning, but their fear quickly turned to excitement and awe once the dinosaurs started appearing.  Our 19-month-old LOVED everything about the show.  She is getting to the age where it’s hard for her to sit still, especially now that she can walk, but she watched every moment of this show, and clapped and laughed so hard that I was even distracted from the dinosaurs at times by my daughter’s cuteness.  I wasn’t distracted too much though, cuz the dinosaurs were totally AWESOME!  They were life-size and SO realistic looking, it was amazing.  Our seats were great too – best in the house, front row center.  These dinosaurs were even better looking than the ones in the movie Jurassic Park!  Walking With Dinosaurs operates on a $20 million dollar budget, and it shows!

I would venture to say that this is probably the best professional live show I have ever seen, and that includes musicals from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Phantom of the Opera, Camelot, and Les Miserables to other shows like Monsters Inc. on Ice, Dragon Tales Live, and dinner shows like Medieval Times, Arabian Nights, and Pirates Dinner Adventure in Orlando, Florida.  This was fun for the whole family; probably even most fun for my husband and I!  If the tickets weren’t so pricey, I would definitely go back and see the show again – even with the $20-30 it cost in gas money alone.  My 4-year-old suffered from what I call “fundown” after the show – a feeling of disappointment when an event is over that is so intense for kids, they usually cry or throw tantrums.  But I can’t say I blame her.  When I realized the show was ending, I had my own “fundown” when I realized there weren’t going to be any more dinosaurs!

Totally awesome show – wait, that’s not even the right word.  It was more of an experience than a show.  Even better than the dinosaur-themed rides at Disney World and Universal Studios.  As we were leaving the coliseum, the rest of the audience seemed very pleased as well.  Everyone was smiling and jabbering about the dinosaurs a mile a minute.  They also had one actor – who was upstaged by the dinosaurs, of course! – and some other props and effects in the show that made it totally awesome.  Also pretty impressive were the rows upon rows of trailers parked outside that carry the dinosaurs from venue to venue.  I knew it would take a few semis to cart around all those dinosaurs, but there were probably at least 25 semis parked out there!  It is understandable that all these lifesize dinosaurs would create such an entourage, since the Brachiosaurus alone was 36 feet tall and 56 feet from nose to tail.

If this live show experience is going to be anywhere near your hometown, I highly recommend that you do your best to get tickets.  It is a perfect show for the young and old, dinosaur fans, skeptics, or even those who are indifferent to the world’s history; I don’t see how anyone could NOT enjoy Walking With Dinosaurs!

Before last night, I had never seen an Indiana Jones movie.  So when the opportunity presented itself to view Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on its opening day rather inexpensively via email coupons from Fandango.com, I couldn’t resist the temptation to see what all the fuss was about.
I walked away entertained, but still a little bewildered about why the character is SO popular.  The people I saw the movie with (both have seen all of the movies in the series) said this was not the best of the Indiana Jones movies.  Not that it was a bad movie, but I would have chopped off about an hour of it.  A few of the chase scenes ran a little long, and there was a little too much hokeyness in my opinion.  Before I went, I was hearing critics talk about the Indiana Jones movies and how they are a throwback to the adventure movies of the 1930’s and 40’s.  I thought this might be a good explanation for some of the cheesy action; for example, characters swinging through the air and falling exactly where they need to in order to avoid certain death or to land the perfect punch, etc.  I can deal with hokey action sequences.  What was a little hard to swallow however, was the origin of the movie’s namesake, the crystal skull.  Since I’m at risk of spilling some major spoilers here – and don’t read any further if you’re worried about learning anything about the movie you don’t want to –  it will suffice to say that I did not appreciate the supernatural element they gave the fourth Indiana Jones movie.

The acting wasn’t anything Oscar worthy, but that is to be expected in this type of movie.  I didn’t see Shia LeBeouf as the kid from Disturbia, so he must have some diversity in his acting.  Cate Blanchett was really good as the villianess, and I found it funny when I read that when people heard she was in the movie, they just assumed she was Harrison Ford‘s love interest.  People were so critical that an older man’s love interest was going to be a much younger woman, then they had to eat their words when it was leaked that she was playing the part of the evil enemy.  Indiana Jones’ actual love interest in the movie was a character played by Karen Allen that had been in some of the previous movies, which I liked.  What I didn’t like is that there were 2 characters in the movie who were supposed to be former friends of Indiana Jones, however, my Indy experts tell me that neither of them were in the previous movies.

I was entertained throughout the entire movie, and there were funny jokes and interesting characters.  Also a few plot twists anyone with half a brain could see coming from a mile away.  During most of the action sequences, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a video game.  I was really appreciating the components of the quest to obtain the crystal skull, at least until the supernatural element came into play.  Parts of the movie also made me envision a Universal Studios ride – it would probably be really cool, maybe a splashdown ending…  I didn’t fall asleep during this movie, but as you just read, my mind did wander a bit, probably because of the lengthy action sequences.    Overall, I’d say the movie was exactly what I was expecting, perhaps even a wee bit better.  And hearing from 2 experienced Indiana Jones viewers that this was not the best movie makes me willing to give the others a try – providing they are not over 2 hours each, of course – that’s just too long to sit through an action movie in my opinion!