Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Get off Indy’s back!

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Indiana Jones | Adult Education

Newsflash, everybody! The Indiana Jones films are not an accurate depiction of archaeology!!! Gasp! I know, I know. I was shocked, too. I was also shocked to learn that the fateful battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader did not take place in the Emperor’s throne room aboard the Death Star but on a soundstage in California. Also, E.T. was really a monkey in a latex suit.

Seriously, folks, it is just lame when the Associated Press tries to make a news article out of this so-not-news piece of information. Just how lame? Check out this quote:

“The reality of archaeological field work is not a lone hero dashing into hidden chambers with a bullwhip and a pistol and coming away with a priceless relic. It’s large groups of academics and students painstakingly sifting through grids to retrieve artifacts as mundane as pottery fragments.”

Here’s a news flash for the writer, Mr. David Germain: nobody wants to watch a movie about academics and students sifting through dirt for pottery fragments. Lone heroes with bullwhips and pistols are cool; academics and pottery fragments are not.

Every time a big movie comes out, writers will try to make a story out of it by “uncovering” how unrealistic it is. These writers fail to understand the purpose of movies, especially summer action movies. Their purpose is not to act as a textbook; their purpose is to entertain and then, maybe, to enlighten, to depress, or to preach. The makers of Indiana Jones never claimed to present an accurate orientation film for future archaeologists. Trying to make a story out of a non-story by pointing out that they are inaccurate is futile and, let’s face it, cheap.

When all is said and done, this practice has nothing to do with bona fide journalism. These writers are just jumping on the Indy bandwagon to get seen by web search engine users.

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The Top 10 Movie Professors of All Time

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

College professors will be the first to tell you that their lives are boring. They don’t usually find themselves in critter-infested catacombs, duking it out with rabid Nazis or fighting supernatural beasts. They don’t find themselves becoming the victims of their own research, gaining superhuman powers in the process. They especially don’t find themselves in the arms of beautiful, cosmopolitan women. I mean, let’s face it: these guys make a living teaching half-conscious college kids and either reading others’ research or producing their own. They get more involved with spreadsheets and computer models than they do with any damsels in distress.

But wouldn’t we like to imagine that these intellectual giants, these defenders of the ivory tower of academia, actually get to use their brains to save the world from the bad guys every now and then? Sure, we would. That’s why we have the movies.

As a tribute to these professors we wish we had, we have put together a list of the top 10 movie college professors of all time (Of course, Indy is at the top of the list!):