Last evening, Huz benched himself in front of his television to enjoy a University Challenge that included a LucasArts round (Footnote: I think that’s what it’s called; I don’t get this British craziness.). And, of course, he recorded it for us.
“Mid,” I believe, is what the kids would call those attempts.
You spoke, and Disney listened. Ron Howard’s 1988 opus Willow is heading to 4K Blu-ray December 10th.
You can get the full specs over at The Digital Bits. As for the short-lived but beloved television series, it appears that Disney really did perform the ritual that exiled its spirit into oblivion. These things happen.
Source: The Digital Bits
Wake up on the Bright Side of the Moon (Footnote: I think we can all agree that was way better than "something-something 'Bad Day on the Moon-Shoe".) with these fluffy critters adorning your tootsies.
Again, in collaboration with Steve Purcell, the Uncute crew behind such fluffy friends such as "Max" the stuffed animal and more recently "Sam" the stuffed animal, have done the impossible. Two Max's, which we haven't seen the likes of together since Season 2: Ep 4 "Chariots of the Dogs". The pre-order price is $35 dollars and should arrive in time for your family tradition of replaying Season 2: Ep 1 "Ice Station Santa".
Designed in collaboration with Steve Purcell for a limited run, they’ll be ready to ship just in time for the holidays.
You either die a gumshoe detective or it's a slippery slope to become the villain. (Footnote: I'll stop.)
Source: Uncute
The edutainment tentacle of George Lucas’s empire, and the ways it tied together with his Young Indiana Jones concept, is a pretty interesting if underdocumented story that has eluded a proper chronicle despite gallant attempts.
As part of the home video release of the Young Indy television show in 2007-2008, which as you may know involved substantially re-editing the series chronologically into TV-movies, Lucasfilm produced a whopping 94 historical documentaries for classroom use that also turned up on The History Channel. Now, Lucasfilm will be releasing this enormous library of supplemental material on their YouTube channel on a weekly basis, starting with “Archaeology: Unearthing Our Past”:
Source: Lucasfilm.com
According to The Hollywood Reporter, comedic actor/writer Joe Flaherty, best known as a cast member of the brilliant Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV, has died at the age of 82.
In Mojo World™, Flaherty has the distinction of starring in the polarizing live action television adaptation of Maniac Mansion, which ran for three seasons on YTV in Canada and The Family Channel (replete with an artificial laugh track) in the U.S. As we once attempted to chronicle, the show began its life as a pitch that was said to be along the lines of The Addams Family or The Munsters, with the Edisons naturally assuming the role of the kooky spoof of a gothic horror household. Though there aren’t really any details to go on, the impression is that it would have been a fairly loose but recognizable adaptation of the game.
However, the project was ultimately offered to SCTV alumnus Eugene Levy who, when he expressed disinterest in the series bible he had been handed, was told he had creative carte blanche to shape the show into whatever vision he liked. What resulted was a self-aware parody of the conventional sitcom (think It’s Garry Shandling’s Show) and something of an SCTV reunion project - with Flaherty’s casting as Dr. Fred being only the most obvious connection - rather than anything that resembled the story, flavor, or really much at all beyond the title, of the computer game. The show nevertheless attracted a cult following and squeaked past the magic 65-episode number that led it to be regularly syndicated in Canada for years after its cancellation. No proper home video or streaming release has materialized to date.
Flaherty is also known for the many appearance he made in movies and other television shows. To people of a certain age group, he might be most immediately recognizable as the Western Union guy at the end of Back to the Future Part II:
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Never you mind about what Rotten Tomatoes or some Reddit mega thread has to say. The final word on cinema, as on all matters, is Mojo’s, and you are all her constituency. With pride in this civic duty, we bring you our release date review of Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny. After reading it, you will require no other review, or much of anything, because you’ll be dead of old age. Cripes, Jason.
Disclaimer: While we tried to be mindful about spoilers by refraining from any explicit summary of the plot beyond the first act, we can’t vouch for what your personal standards are. Go to the cinema clean if you want to experience the movie that way. And who are you kidding, anyway -- it’s not like you aren’t going see this like a good little consumer.
The thing’s a week away and so the marketing machine is belching out exhaust in choking quantities now. How diligent do you expect Mojo to be about collecting all that smoke with a butterfly net? Well, we’ll see what we can do.
First off, we’ve got a new piece from Variety with James Mangold that’s reasonably substantial as far as these things go. There’s some new behind-the-scenes photographs as well as a little more light shed on the process of Spielberg passing the torch.
It was the fall of 2019, and Mangold had joined the team working on the film adaptation of “The Call of the Wild,” in which Ford plays a rugged frontiersman, to help with reshoots. In their downtime, Ford began confiding in Mangold about the fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, which had been bouncing around in development for the better part of three years. Steven Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp had conceived a roughly five-minute opening sequence set during World War II, in which Ford would be digitally de-aged. Ford wasn’t sure it was a good idea.
“Harrison told me he was nervous, because he felt like if people saw him younger, when they confronted Indiana in his 70s they’d be disappointed,” Mangold says, sitting on a cream-colored couch inside his sunlit office on the Fox lot in early June.
At the time, the filmmaker had no reason to think he was auditioning to be the guy to solve Ford’s dilemma. But Mangold impressed the actor. “He seemed to have a keen perception of what was required,” Ford says. “I just found it very easy and comfortable to work with him.” So much so that when Spielberg decided later that year that it was time to bequeath Indy’s signature whip and fedora to someone else, Ford recommended Mangold.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who has produced every “Indy” film since serving as Spielberg’s assistant on “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” recalls, “It was pretty much immediate that Steven said, ‘Oh, he would be fantastic. Let’s do that.’”
The director gave another good interview to Uproxx as well. If reading bores you, Mangold and the cast have been junketing their way through no end of taped puff pieces for morning shows and the like, so a “fun” day on Youtube awaits the PR-addicted. I think the most worthwhile plug is gonna be an upcoming appearance by Ford on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, likely dropping Monday. It’s comforting to know that despite Conan’s television show being over and the general improbability of a fifth Indy with Ford even existing, that the tradition of the two of them behaving like jackasses survives for one final round. A good sampling of the arts they’ve worked together in the past:
There’s also a bunch of new clips, promos, and featurettes. Probably more than the four below, and there’s undoubtedly more to come, but I think we’ve done our part by now. On the Dial of Destiny score, let’s agree to meet up again at Mojo’s release day review. Our topicality streak can’t possibly last, but why not go out swinging?
Today we have two minutes of people blowing smoke up John Williams’ ass (note I don’t say it’s undeserved), with some hitherto unseen footage from the movie sprinkled in.
For those interested in owning up to 30% of the recorded score, an official release will drop ahead of the movie on June 28th, at least digitally. A pressed album will follow later in the summer. Here is the cover art, showcasing a level of effort that some have called “Remi-esque":
The Los Angeles premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny took place at the El Capitan Theatre on Wednesday. Still needing to fill some seats after indiscriminately inviting every TikTok profile with a fedora, Disney took the measure of hauling in some actual heavyweight dignitaries, including Temple of Doom reps Ke Huy Quan and Raj Singh (who played the doll-stabbing Maharajah in what some (Footnote: citation needed) have called LeChuck’s prototype):
The attendees were treated to a little John Williams concert before the screening, and here’s Spielberg giving an intro for it. George Lucas’s demeanor is best described as “My Consent Wasn’t Sought By Disney For A Sea of Thieves Crossover.”
They’re already melding Sea of Thieves with Monkey Island. So why not Indiana Jones with The Legend of Zelda? This summer, the tracing red line sets a course for Hyrule:
Though there’ve been a lot of cheap alternates as well, the primary one sheet for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny by artist Tony Stella is quite credible -- a welcome throwback to the days of illustrated posters that fits in nicely with the iconic contributions of Richard Ansel and Drew Struzan. Regrettably, the artist had indicated that the studio meddled with his work, but it’s a testament to the quality of his pre-processed art that goodness survives whatever nonsense it may have been subjected to along the way. A reminder:
Unfortunately, “surviving” is not a status enjoyed by an international poster design that Stella had also been commissioned to do. Today comes a tearful Tweet from the artist, offering a tantalizing glimpse of his spurned masterwork as he crates it up for what I assume to be a one-way trip inside a cargo hold bound directly for Disney’s underground Fortress of Neglect. (Reportedly, that’s also where Ken Macklin’s The Dig backgrounds can be found.)
Speaking of Dial of Destiny alternates, it seems we overlooked one when trying to round them all up a while ago, so here ya go:
You can get it clean as well:
As we enter the final month of Mojo being able to use this movie as Styrofoam peanuts for filling the front page with, Disney keeps the promotional hose running with seven character posters that proudly declare, "We are capable of clicking Copy and Paste":
Meanwhile, Disney Plus subscribers can kiss goodbye to those miserable days when their TV ever didn't have Indy on it, as today is the day that the four Spielberg installments as well as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones became available on the service. For how long, who knows, but I'm sure you'll have at least until Dial of Destiny comes out to binge, purge, and binge again.
We elitists, of course, will be sticking to our UHDs, where the iconic sight of George 'Mac' McHale choosing not to stand up will be faithfully reproduced under the fullest color space, the maximum bit rate, and the highest dynamic range. It's called having standards, people.
The press tour continues as James Mangold chats with the Den of Geek. Sounds like COVID might have been a reason things lined up, so Remi causing the pandemic wasn’t without its fringe benefits:
James Mangold did not say no, exactly, to Indiana Jones when the man in the fedora came knocking. But he didn’t open the door at first either. Instead, during those precious few months before a pandemic changed the world, Mangold experienced the surreal sensation of having his filmmaking idols Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, and Kathleen Kennedy approach him about directing the fifth Indiana Jones film—and essentially turning them down.
“There seemed like a lot of danger on a project like this,” Mangold recalls about that early discussion, “a lot of Mount Rushmore heads of greatness around me and a kind of pressure that I’m used to, but the point for me is always why are we making this movie? What does it have to say? Like, I know why a corporation might want to make the movie, but what is the creative endeavor?” For Mangold, the sticking point became Lucasfilm wanting Indiana Jones 5 to shoot about six months after that sitdown if it was going to meet a 2021 release date. And Mangold needed a delay.
Says the director, “The script wasn’t there, and I felt like I wasn’t there. I needed to find a way in. I needed to somehow own something like this if I was going to do it. It’s not a gig you jump on.” At that moment, it seemed as if he might have let the project go, as a delay would throw Disney off its timetable. But as it turned out, the whole world would soon be on pause, and Mangold would have that precious resource that would come to haunt Ford’s title character in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. He had time.
Meanwhile, another production photograph has been released. We got a hell of a gallery going by this point.
Source: Den of Geek
It turns out that a whole mess of new Dial of Destiny posters were released today, as opposed to just that IMAX one. In fact, every one of those upcharge rackets premiere presentation formats gets a one-sheet of its very own, so naturally we gallery’d them up all up. Here they are:
IMAX
Dolby
ScreenX
4DX
Nice to get another illustrated design along with the routine cheap stuff.
You might have heard that the critical reaction at Cannes wasn't quite the complement for the enthusiasm Dial of Destiny was clearly enjoying behind the Disney parapets. Could it be that a conglomeration was somehow capable of misjudging audience tastes (gasp), or is the type of blogger who rates access to a prestigious European film festival perhaps not the best bellwether for a big tent swashbuckler's appeal?
Whether you are interested in seeing a movie that would inspire such schizophrenia, or if you're simply an incurable Indy fan, your response to all this is likely to be "Tickets, please." To that end, today is the day those become available for purchase. Here's a new sizzle reel with some fresh footage to encourage those credit card transactions, and beneath that is an IMAX poster, seducing you to spring for that surcharge.
You may recall that Disney cancelled Willow after one season when its viewership didn’t make the grade. Hey, it’s just business. But after you’ve whacked a guy and sent him to rest in the Jersey Pine Barrens, that’s traditionally the end of it, and back you go to shooting pool at the Bing. Not content with tradition, Disney went full plaid and decided to go to the trouble of digging the body back up so they could shoot the damn thing into the Sun for good measure.
I don’t know quite how else to describe Disney’s decision to remove Willow (among other titles under their ownership) from their catalog altogether. It’s become a disturbing trend with these hemorrhaging streaming platforms – something to do with tax loopholes, residuals dodging and other ledger-book shell games – but it’s still kind of wild to observe. I realize we’re not talking about the most beloved of television casualties here, but nevertheless – damn.
When reached for comment, Jon Kasdan remained firm in his optimism that a Season 2 was still hypothetically possible, probably right after that Solo sequel gets produced.
Source: Deadline
Today is the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the Cannes Film Festival. For Disney to have programmed the premiere over a month ahead of the general release is a major vote of confidence, because the movie will be soaking in the incoming word of mouth for a while. Clearly, they are not ashamed of this movie, which seems fated for a glowing reception – reviews are already trickling in. On the downside, spoilers are going to be a challenge to avoid while you wait for June 30th. Good luck.
In the meantime, there’s been no end of red carpet photographs and pushy interviews of the attending Indy team splattered across social media (here’s a decent roundup) if you’re into that sort of thing. Mojo is famous for efficiency, so let’s leave things with this nifty new promotional reel released amongst the media shrapnel, which includes bits of new footage:
Source: The Raven
Though Disney obtained Indiana Jones as an IP when they acquired Lucasfilm, the distribution rights to the first four movies, plus The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, remain controlled by Paramount. Consequently, they’ve never appeared on Disney’s streaming service. Many have asked when that situation would change. The answer, of course, was “when they paid up.”
With a new movie to promote, Disney evidently felt the time was right to play ball with Paramount, and the latter hasn’t exactly been shy about leasing out the movies for cash anyway, with the series regularly disappearing from Paramount’s own service while they were licensed to the highest bidder. It looks like the Mouse bought their turn, and so starting May 31st, Disney+ will be streaming the Indy catalog on a nonexclusive basis (they will continue to be available on Paramount+), the better to leverage that sweet brand extension. Finally, a victory for corporations.
Source: Lucasfilm
Ahead of its Cannes premiere this week, a one minute clip from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has been shared. It's a glimpse of an elaborate chase sequence set in Tangier, Morocco, which sees Indy and his goddaughter Helena trading quips while racing through the streets in separate tuk-tuks. It looks blessedly dusty and digitally self-restrained. Take a look:
Source: The Upcoming
In “no duh” news, it seems that the U.S. is getting a widespread, if fleeting, re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark to properly set the table for Dial of Destiny. You’ll wanna check your local showtimes for information accurate to your area, but it’s looking like all the big chains (AMC, Regal, Cinemark) are participating and will run the movie on Sunday, June 4th and Wednesday, June 7th. Hopefully the presentation is the real deal (a DCP) and not any of that simulcast nonsense.
No word on any of the sequels getting the big screen treatment, though you can always pester your local art house. Failing that, the UHDs that came out two years ago are rather fantastic for all your marathoning needs. The glorious reds of Temple of Doom have never been more vulgar.
In other Indy news, a new still has been shared from Dial. It shows Indy next to a character named Teddy (Ethann Isidore), who will it seems do some sidekicking during the oft-glimpsed Tangier section of the movie.
Source: Fandango