Posts Tagged ‘Indiana Jones’

How Bad Can It Be?: “Veggie Tales: Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah’s Umbrella”

howbadcanitbe

Something that you might not guess about me (or maybe you would; you ‘re an exceptionally clever bunch) is that I loves me some Jesus. I try not to be an asshole about it — I’ve got no use for WWJD wristbands or cruciform bling or “John 3:16” bumper stickers, and I regard faith and science as, in Stephen Jay Gould’s lovely phrase, “non-overlapping magisteria.” But I do spend time thinking about virtue, and about living with kindness and humility, and I find my Christian practice to be a useful roadmap in that regard. No big deal.

Obviously, I’m not one of that stripe who shun “secular media” out of some need or desire to exist within a bubble of cultural product that only confirms my religious beliefs. It’s fair to say, though, that I have a pretty high tolerance for overtly Christian content in pop culture, and that a lot of my favorite movies and much of my favorite music tend toward the overtly spiritual. The Mission, for instance, still moves me to tears after 23 years and countless viewings. (more…)

The Great Gross-Off: Snickers Adventure Bar Edition

Welcome back to the Great Gross-Off!

Those of you who weren’t loyal Jefitoblog readers may not remember this series — Lord knows I’ve let it lie dormant long enough — but it was a long-running (if totally transparently ripped from Steve at The Sneeze) tradition at the old site. I’ve meant to resume it since Popdose started, but just somehow never…got around to it.

(Apologies to Jason, who I railroaded into eating carbonated yogurt last fall, under the pretense that it would be used for Popdose’s inaugural Gross-Off post — although the pictures from our ordeal remain, my sense memories of the crap we ate do not.)

So, here’s the deal with the Great Gross-Off: Because I have a demented weakness for “limited edition” foodstuffs — particularly those that seem ridiculous or just plain wrong — and also have a wife who frowns on me wasting money and/or stomach lining on said foodstuffs, I have devised an elaborate scheme under which I am able to claim that I’m only buying all this junk food for “research,” or “work,” or whatever I can blurt out with a straight face. I purchase the junk food. I eat the junk food. I regret eating the junk food. I attempt to put my regret into words.

Gross-Off.

Now that we’ve established the ground rules for our little game, please allow me to introduce you to the magical little wonderbar that got this series up and running again. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Limited Edition Indiana Jones Snickers Adventure Bar! (more…)

Sugar Water: The Adventure Continues

Sequels are fun. They’re not always good, but the movie-loving teenager who continues to take up space inside my soul will always be excited by them, especially the mere concept of sequels, i.e. “more of what you love (if all goes well).” These days, when it does go well, like with last summer’s Live Free or Die Hard, it’s a nice surprise. When it doesn’t, like with 2002’s Men in Black II, you almost forget what you liked so much the first time around.

This summer there will be a new Indiana Jones sequel in theaters: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It’s a big deal in the world of sequels, seeing as how there hasn’t been a new entry in this series since 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Expectations are high for some fans, who might have preferred that Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford had stopped after three films, but the Indiana Jones series was never structured as a trilogy like the two sets of Star Wars movies. Nothing was resolved in Last Crusade that was first brought up in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, except for the deaths of more Nazis.

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