Criticwatch

5/23/08 -

Nineteen years ago this week, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade debuted to audiences. Chapter four of the Indiana Jones series opened this Thursday. He may be older but the reviews are still fresh, flirting with an 80% approval rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, currently making it the 4th best reviewed film of the year (minimum of 100 reviews) behind Iron Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Spiderwick Chronicles. (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Counterfeiters have 2007 roots so they haven’t been included.)

Surprisingly enough though, one critic who is on that negative side is none other than quote whore du jour, Peter Travers. The man who liked Charlie Bartlett, 21, and Speed freakin’ Racer is invoking the term of "silliness" to describe Indiana Jones. And he’s not alone.

The reigning Peter Travers Whore of the Year, Shawn Edwards, blasts Indiana Jones as being neither "fun or adventurous." Edwards says, "it’s silly and annoying" and "the worst and most anti-climactic ever in the history of the movies." Shawn, you ignorant slutwhore. You would rather sit through Fool’s Gold ("Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson are this generation’s most engaging on-screen couple") than Crystal Skull? You liked Semi-Pro, Drillbit Taylor AND Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins? Did poor Shawny get denied an interview from Spielberg and Lucas? (And if anyone saw Access Hollywood’s "exclusive" interview from Cannes, more sympathetic I could not be. "Who’s better with the whip?" was one of their questions.) And here I was going to use this space to celebrate the impending two-month anniversary of our movie ads being Shawn Edwards free. He’s been absent since Leatherheads, the culmination of a period from Feb. 8 - Apr. 4 where he amassed 10 quotes with some of the gems listed above. He had 11 going into the summer season in 2007 where he picked up another 9 quotes from May-to-August. Let’s keep the streak going. I don’t know what more to say about these two idiots. Their reviews, as always, are suspect. Talk amongst yourselves.

Meanwhile, speaking of talk - feel free to tune into Nick Digilio’s show this Sunday night (May 25). At Midnight, myself and Collin Souter will be in-studio to discuss all things Indiana Jones and the resurgence of the elder action franchises. Just click below to listen online, go to www.wgnradio.com or tune into 720 AM in Chicago for what should be an entertaining and informative discussion. Maybe Travers and Edwards can call in.

Universal this month pulled a very dirty trick on members of the Chicago Film Critics Association and, from what I’m told, some other markets as well. Early reports from colleagues that the studio was going to withhold their latest film, Baby Mama, from online critics until the last possible moment seemed, in a word, silly. Since we know the old-fashioned consciousness about the internet critic are mama’s fanboys in their basements with Jolt Cola I.V.’s connected to their crotches - you can understand their trepidation. After all, why would they be interested in a leading lady MILF who makes constant science-fiction references on one of the funniest shows on television? Silly.

(NOTE: Earlier in the week the Rotten Tomatoes score for Baby Mama was at 90% - 9 out of 10 of those "early reviews" that Universal hoped to avoid by inviting the onliners were positive. Since then, as we get closer to print, the score has dipped to 57% with 8 of the last 11 posted reviews negative. Good call, Universal.)

So, despite having (at least) three confirmed screenings in the Chicagoland area in public theaters with more than enough space to accommodate the membership, more than half of the CFCA were relegated to a screening the night before. And not just online critics. Print and radio were also reduced to this treatment while only a handful of select media were invited as early as April 8 and some were invited to all three (including the 10th & the 17th.) 60 members of the CFCA and, give or take, a third were invited to anything allowing a review before their deadlines.

This is the same studio that screened Forgetting Sarah Marshall at least three times before its opening in the city as well and no one, to my knowledge, was left on the chopping block; a film which got Universal its best reviews of the year - including multiple CFCA members who said it was the funniest movie they had seen so far this year. (I don’t know if its the funniest ever, Mr. Roeper, so let’s scale it back a little - but very funny nevertheless.)

Speaking of chopping blocks, the reason for this lengthy introduction is so we can congratulate Universal for getting precisely what they wanted. Few CFCA members would be so bold as to speak out loud such ostentatious prose for a studio to plaster on the film ads. But WGN Radio’s Dean Richards has let it all hang out and called Baby Mama:

"The freshest, funniest comedy of the year."

WOW! Fresh AND funny? That combo has never been utilized together in film before; and certainly never mentioned here on Criticwatch as the mark of the unintelligible blurb whore. I’m sorry, but this is more embarrassment than anything else. One of Windy City’s own who has done little, if anything, to support the organization, when asked, stays in Universal’s favor by either speaking or e-mailing those words to one of their representatives looking for a reaction to the screening that about two-thirds of his colleagues were denied. How does one sit down to write those words? Is that an honest reaction?

Having not seen the film, I cannot attest to how funny it may very well be. But exactly how fresh is it, four months removed from a year known frequently referred to as the “year of the pregnancy.” Does Knocked Up, Waitress and Juno ring a bell? Baby Mama is about as “fresh” as a Maury Povich episode. But maybe it IS the funniest comedy of the year, but how would I know as I stand with my CFCA brothers and sisters who weren’t invited.

Besides, I have it on good authority from Shawn Edwards that Drillbit Taylor was “the freshest and funniest comedy in a long time.” Good company, Dean.