From the Department of Holy-Crap-How-Did-I-Get-to-Be-This-Frakkin’-Old? comes the news that today is Molly Ringwald’s 40th birthday. Forty. Wow. Hard to believe that so much time has passed since I first laid eyes on her in the first season of The Facts of Life. (Yes, I’m one of the three people that actually remembers her being on TFoL, before she was jettisoned along with several other girls in the second-season retool.)

Of course, everyone knows her breakout role was in the seminal Eighties teen flick Sixteen Candles, in which she played hapless Samantha Baker (hence the title of this entry), whose entire family utterly forgets her sweet-sixteen because of the chaos surrounding her older sister’s wedding. (As it so happens, I caught a few minutes of Candles on TV the other night; I still think it’s pretty damn funny, although I grant that you maybe had to be there at the time to think so. If I ever get around to having kids, they probably won’t understand enough of the cultural underpinnings of the movie to get the jokes.)

I’m not shy about admitting that I had a pretty hard crush on Molly back in her Sixteen Candles/Breakfast Club days. She was about my age and her characters seemed like girls I might actually know, as opposed to the usual perfect automatons created by Hollywood make-up artists (Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend Cameron, for example, was utterly cool and utterly beautiful and no one like her has ever existed in any high school anywhere on this — or probably any other — planet.) Molly’s career faltered as she matured — she reportedly turned down the lead roles in both Pretty Woman and Ghost (doh!) — but she luckily managed to avoid the drugs, booze, and general nonsense that befell many of her fellow “Brat Pack” contemporaries.

A year or two back, the Girlfriend and I saw Molly Ringwald in the touring revival of the Broadway musical Sweet Charity, and although I know the critics weren’t very kind about her performance, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Maybe that was simply because I enjoy seeing someone I used to like return to the spotlight, or maybe it was just another case of the critics being unnecessarily harsh and snobby. Either way, it was good to see her again. I’d love to hear that a comeback is in the offing…

(Hat tip to SamuraiFrog, who brought this my attention and shares some similar sentiments about Ms. Ringwald…)

Hey, just doing my part to help out Lucasfilm and Paramount’s marketing divisions:

***VIDEO MISSING***

(Remember, if you want to see it large enough to tell what you’re looking at, you can go to the official Indiana Jones website, or here.)

As promised, the trailer for Crystal Skull is now online. You can see it at the official website, or I imagine it’ll be all over the Interwebs by afternoon (if it’s not already).

I’ve watched it three times already and, as trailers go, it’s a good one. Not surprisingly, it plays very heavily on audience nostalgia, easing us into the proper mindset with scenes from Raiders, Temple of Doom, and Last Crusade before a classic “intro” shot involving the hat, the music, and a familiar silhouette. What follows is non-stop action with a few humorous one-liners and very little clue for the non-obsessed as to what’s going on. The trailer does confirm that there is a big set-piece inside The Warehouse, the “TOP SECRET DO NOT OPEN!” crate does not contain the Ark (if you freeze-frame at the right moment, you can see that it’s filled with files), and there is, as much as I hate to say it, a Roswell connection.
That said, there is no sign (in this trailer at least) of Greys or flying saucers, and there is plenty of whip-cracking, truck-smashing, bone-crunching punches, ancient jungle temples, and naked tribesmen. It feels, in short, very much like one of the classic Indiana Jones flicks. And there are even a couple of gags relating to Indy’s advancing age, so they’re not trying to pretend the years haven’t taken their toll on him. (It’s not an age joke, but I really like the exchange right at the end of the trailer between Indy and Indy, Jr.: “You a teacher?” “Part-time…” There are echoes there of exchanges between Indy and his dad…)

Maybe it’s just a Pavlovian reaction, but when I saw the fedora lying in the dirt and heard the “Raiders March” begin, I broke into a big grin. I’m still a bit wary — I keep thinking of how awesome a trailer for a certain other revisit to my childhood was compared to the finished product — but I’m definitely excited for Memorial Day weekend now…

This image has been floating around the ‘webs for a couple of weeks now, so it’s not a scoop for Simple Tricks or anything like that. I just happen to like the picture. It amuses me. The look on Indy Jr.’s face (I remain convinced Shia’s character is going to turn out to be Indy and Marion’s love child, until I see otherwise in the finished movie!) is so alarmed, so clearly saying, “Holy crap, what’re you going to do with that?!”, whereas Marion’s expression is more, “Oh, God, I know exactly what he’s going to do with that, and isn’t it just like him?” I suspect this whole scene — whatever may be actually going on, plot-wise — is designed as a nod back to one of the most memorable moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Sallah asks Indy what’re they going to do next, and Indy replies, “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.” It’s the possibility of that sort of thing — fun little gifts to the fans who’ve been quoting lines and scenes from Raiders and the others for 27 years(!), and a warm reunion with characters we grew up loving — that’s been driving much of my interest in this film.

However, other recent insights into The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have revived my reservations about the project, and whether it’s ultimately going to be an embarrassingly lame epilogue for one of my favorite movie series

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