The headline refers to the movie, of course, which I took the kids to see today. It was great. No, I mean it—it was great.

(No spoilers.)

Several things contributed to it’s greatness. First, not knowing (until the credits roll) who any of actors doing the voices are, except of course for Jack Black. I think sometimes on animated movies I get distracted by actually knowing who the actors are and then listening for them, rather than enjoying the movie.

For instance, the voice behind Tai Lung (the snow leopard villain) was really good—really well cast—and itchingly familiar. Turned out to be Ian McShane, who played Swearingen on "Deadwood" (possibly the best TV show of all time), and that was masterful. But had I known it was him beforehand, I would have been listening for "Deadwood" instead.

Jack Black, by the way, is also perfectly cast. But you probably already knew that.

Second, this movie doesn’t suffer from what a lot of animated movies these days (particularly Dreamworks ones) does: slapstick humor propped up by "modern" or meta-themed jokes. In other words, nothing is out of place here (plot-wise, humor-wise)—with one exception which I’ll get to—and comedy doesn’t rely on "outside the box" or "frame of reference" jokes.

(An example? How about Pinocchio wearing thong underwear in "Shrek 2"?)

Third, that "one exception": Po the Panda—as played by Black—is such an otaku of kung fu and the hero characters that he actually has action figures and posters of them (the "Furious Five") all over his room. Yes, this seems out of place in ancient (? or medieval?) China, but it’s what pulls this movie together; Po is the ultimate geeknerd, the comic book-type obsessive who already knows (cerebrally, anyway) all about the Five and kung fu and the history of the epic battles of good and evil just like the "modern" geeknerds on the internet and in comic book shops today. It works because it resonates, I suppose, and if you’ve actually read this far then it’s very likely you know exactly what I mean and it resonates with you too.

Fourth, it’s great fun with elaborate, enjoyable kung fu fight scenes. Ah, the wonders of animation.

It’s well worth seeing. Thumbs up.

Just offloading some things and ideas that have been rattling around.

• CNN ran a story last week entitled, "Nine cool jobs that pay well." (Paying "well" is relative in their article, I guess.) Top of the list? Brewmaster ($42,430).
• And good news if you want to take advantage of how cool it would be to be a brewmaster: Beer is recession proof.
• Where are the open source MySpace/Facebook clones? Are there any? In particular, I’m wondering if there is an open source social networking application written in PHP. There didn’t seem to be any last time I checked, so I was half thinking of writing one myself.

  …not with the intent of competing with MyFaceSpaceBook or anything like that; for that matter, anyone can create a free social network on Ning. I was more thinking in terms of, what if I wanted to create a separate, private social network site that didn’t rely on the Ning shared hosting paradigm? Or plop that software down on an intranet somewhere, behind a firewall? Any PHP apps out there I can just download and install for that?

  Hence my thinking on writing one. Mostly just because.

• "Digital nostalgia." Not sure where I’m going with that yet, but it’s sparked by William Gibson’s comments about eBay in this interview.

First summer blockbuster of the year: we went and saw "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" this past weekend. I rather liked it, as I knew I would, though for me it’s not as good as "Last Crusade", although that’s forgivable (for me) because it’s only been nearly two decades since the last movie was released.

More to say, but spoilers are in effect… click through with caution

Spoilers!

Overall, while I may not have gone with aliens in the plot of an Indiana Jones movie, I realize that previous movies all dealt with highly fictionalized, supernatural Macguffins that render this movie’s plot no less likely. The more I think about it, the more I like it; it’s kind of like the Indiana Jones mythology is mirroring the era it finds itself in, you know?

So of course "Roswell" is an appropriate Indy theme in that context. A little over a decade ago a friend told me the current plot being batted around an Indy 4 movie was in fact "Roswell 1947". So it’s interesting/fun to see the connection to this movie.

What I liked

Hell, it’s a new Indiana Jones movie made with all the principals and shot on real film (not digital); what’s not to like?

However, I like to look at lists when I’m reading similar reviews, so here we go with a few things:

• I liked the subtle and not-so-subtle nods to previous films; having the infinite warehouse at the end of "Ark" being Area 51 (and even catching a glimpse of the Ark itself in the broken crate), for instance, was a cute touch. Also including at least the obligatory photo and mention of Sean Connery’s role was good; I think handling his character was appropriate.
• I liked that they handled the aging and the amount of time that has passed right up front; trying to pretend otherwise would have been EPIC FAIL. (Despite was JWZ says, however, Indy 4 was not FAIL.)
• Dealing with the Cold War and the Soviet Russians as the enemies. At least that was reflective of the era (and the time passing thing). Nazis in 1957 would have been stretching things.

What I disliked, or found problematic

• After Indy made a big deal of how hard decoding the "riddle" Oxley had left for him in a dead language ("maybe if I run it through Mayan first"), he seemed to have suddenly figured the entire sheet of riddle-glyphs out in about 30 seconds.
• Why did they bring Mutt’s motorcycle to South America with them? Were there any sources of gasoline in remote 1957 Peru?
• The ending was awfully reminiscent of the ending to the first "X-Files" movie ten years ago. I actually don’t mind that all that much, just an observation.
• Indy surviving a nuclear blast by jumping inside a lead-lined refrigerator was simultaneously amusing and frustrating; I mean, that’s a hell of a blast and fall to be inside of a fridge, I don’t care who you are. Plus, why is that fridge the only object flying away from the explosion? Shouldn’t there also be other debris in that case? (However, I rather liked the "it’s dangerous to seal yourself inside one of those things" line. It made me laugh.)

So will there be a fifth movie? Apparently the original obligation (way back in the 80s) was for five movies.