Perfect movies

Yeah I know... it's been a while. Not that this is any excuse since you don't get traffic without posting regularly... not to mention posting well, but it didn't look like too many people had been missing the ole Commander anyway, so I went on ahead and took me a little break.

I guess I was goosed to get back on the horse by Indy 4, which I've been grappling with for about the last 24 hours. The bottom line is I didn't like it... not at all... and that's been pretty hard for a man who came to Hollywood because of Indiana Jones to take... but there we are.

A buddy of mine and I used to play a game we called "Perfect Movies." The only criteria for making the list was that we both had to agree. In our game, "perfect" did not mean a "good" or even a "GREAT" movie. There's plenty of those in the world. A "perfect" movie is just that... nothing wasted, not a single bit of useless dialogue, no untied strings, no extraneous characters (a score on which Indy 4 fails miserable by the way), no dumb or meaningless tangents (again... Indy... my man... whattup wit dat!?!?)... in short, a flat-out, no bullshit, perfect movie.

You know them when you see them.

In all the years we've been playing... going on 15 now... we've only agreed on 3.

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
2. Back to the Future
3. The Hunt For Red October.

Well luckily for my sanity, here I am, depressed, sitting on the couch wondering how Indy 4 could have gone so wrong, and here comes Red October on Universal HD.

If there is a better written and at the same time less well-known and certainly unappreciated scene than the one where Ryan briefs the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the situation surrounding the Red October, I can't think of what it could be.

"I'm a politician... which means when I'm not kissin' babies, I'm stealin' their lolipops" is just about as good a bit of dialogue as you're ever going to hear. No one will ever mention it in the same company as "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" or "I asked for a mission, and for my sins they gave me one"... but damned if they shouldn't.