Blue Cord

The BBC is reporting that a new study demonstrates that the two best known examples of crystal skulls — one at the Smithsonian and the other at the British Museum — are modern forgeries. The study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, found that the skulls were made using tools and abrasives that did not come into usage until the 19th or 20th century. The study did not examine all twelve known skulls, but the findings cast doubt on their authenticity.

Of course, this is not the first study that has shown the skulls to be fakes. Previous studies have also found that several of the skulls were carved using modern rotary tools. And despite claims to the contrary, there are no legends concerning mystical skulls with magic powers in any pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture.

Archaeology magazine also has an online article by Jane MacLaren Walsh. Walsh has spent years studying the skulls and tracing the dissemination of these fakes to different museums around the world. She has outlined several generations of the forgeries and can trace their points of origin and how they were acquired by different collectors.

And lest we forget that this is all about Indian Jones, Walsh’s article contains this tidbit of trivia: Remember the idol that Jones finds at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark? It was based on a supposed Aztec statue of a goddess. Walsh has examined the original goddess statue and found that it is a 19th century fake as well.

Of course, we can’t blame Indy for all of this. After all, electron microscopes were not in widespread use back in his day.

Apparently there is a new movie coming out called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I know this because it has been advertised on every billboard, TV channel, cereal box, and Burger King glass I have seen lately.¹ Cable channels are also jumping in by running Indiana Jones marathons constantly or “documentaries” that explore some of the artifacts from the films. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited about the fourth Indiana Jones film. I only hope it can live up to its advertising.

In the spirit of things, I thought I would get in on all the hype. After all, I love a good bandwagon. So, here is a link to a long lost letter sent to Dr. Jones explaining why he was denied tenure at Marshall College.

1. Yes, I know the Burget King tie-ins are actually kids toys, but I really miss the days when Burger King gave out actual drinking glasses with movie characters on them. [back]

N.B. The following review contains no spoilers, so you may read it without learning anything about the plot that will distract from your initial viewing.

I took in a matinée showing of Cloverfield this afternoon. One of the nice things about living in Iowa is the fact that a matinée costs only $4.00, about a third of what a regular priced ticket goes for in Massachusetts.

I went to see the film in part because I love a good sci–fi horror film.¹ Having seen Alien vs. Predator: Requiem last week — which was almost as bad as the first Alien vs. Predator film — I was hoping for more from Cloverfield.² Like Chris Heard, however, I also went to see it because I knew they would be showing a trailer for the forthcoming Star Trek film.

Cloverfield does not disappoint. It has elements from the classic sci–fi horror genre, particularly the Godzilla films and War of the Worlds. Like the latter, it is told from the point of view of a civilian who is only seeing part of the larger picture.³ You never fully find out what is going on or the origins of whatever is terrorizing the city, and there are things that happen to some of the characters that are never fully explained due to the fog of war.

Unlike a lot of sci–fi horror, Cloverfield does not depend on things jumping out at you unexpectedly. I have always found that to be a rather amateurish way of scaring the audience, and Cloverfield makes only minor use of it. The plot moves nicely from action sequences to scenes focused only on the human characters. The director recognizes something that horror films often overlook: the audience needs to care about the characters. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem centers around too many human characters, so you never connect with any of them. When the aliens catch up with them, you don’t care if they live or die (which is good, because you know they are going to die in fun ways). In Cloverfield, we see enough of the main characters to develop an attachment. They come across as fully developed people instead of cannon fodder.

One slightly bothersome yet critical aspect of the film is that it is set up to be video footage taken by one of the main characters. This vomit–inducing cinematography — popularized by The Blair Witch Project — made me a bit leery of the film. It turned out not to be as distracting as I feared. In some ways, it serves as a commentary on our wired lives in which everything has to be documented on video. The director (J.J. Abrams of Lost and Alias) is obviously aware of this. In a wonderfully done scene, when the Whatever–The–Hell–It–Is tosses the head of the Statue of Liberty down the street,⁴ the people do not turn and run away. Instead, a multitude of them pull out their cell phones and began taking pictures of the head. This and a few other humorous moment are scattered throughout the film, and elevate what could have been a B+ monster movie to A– status.

1. I don’t really care for non–sci–fi horror, with the exception of the Silence of the Lambs films. [back]
2. One problem I had with the Alien vs. Predator movies was that is was a combination of two series: Alien, which I liked, and Predator, which I didn’t. Because of this, I kept wanting the Aliens to win, even though the film is set up in such a way that you are supposed to be rooting for the Predator. [back]
3. In fact, it is a more fitting tribute to that style of storytelling than Tom Cruise’s mediocre remake of War of the Worlds. [back]
4. A tribute to Escape from New York. [back]

I saw a trailer for a new movie last night. The movie, called The Reaping, centers around ten plagues that descend on a town in Louisiana. The movie’s web site describes the story as follows:

Hilary Swank plays a former Christian missionary who lost her faith after her family was tragically killed, and has since become a world renowned expert in disproving religious phenomena. But when she investigates a small Louisiana town that is suffering from what appear to be the Biblical plagues, she realizes that science cannot explain what is happening and she must regain her faith to combat the dark forces threatening the community.

It is interesting that the web site seems to focus on the plagues of Exodus while the trailer I saw revolved around the book of Revelation (which it cited as Revelations).

One thing that strikes me about the description above is the fact that it says she must regain her faith to combat the dark forces. I am willing to wager a large sum of money that this doesn’t mean she must regain her faith in God (and certainly not a faith in Christ). Instead, it probably means she must come to believe that spiritual forces exist, which is not a particularly good definition of faith.

Given the biblical imagery, I think I might go see the movie, which opens tomorrow. If I do, I will post a review.

I went to see Hannibal Rising last Friday, its opening day. I saw it at the 12:45 showing, which had more to do with the fact that I am unemployed and needed the matinée prices than it did with my eagerness to see the movie.

The early afternoon crowd was rather interesting. It was older than I would have expected, especially for a psychological thriller / horror movie such as this. Most interesting was the elderly woman down front who crocheted through the whole movie.

The Hannibal Lecter films now number four. Silence of the Lambs was first, of course. It came out in 1991 and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. Hannibal came out ten years later, followed by Red Dragon the following year. Hannibal Rising, the fourth in the series, is actually the first chronologically. It tells the story of the young Hannibal Lecter from his childhood in Eastern Europe during World War II and his subsequent years in medical school in France.

It turns out Hannibal is from Lithuania. Never mind the fact that no Lithuanian in the history of the world has ever named his child Hannibal. It is not a Lithuanian name. It is a Semitic name, although I couldn’t imagine even a Litvak naming their child Hannibal. Of course, the name was chosen long before the back story of him in Lithuania was written, the name being chosen because it rhymed with cannibal.

[Please note: the rest of this post contains spoilers about Hannibal Rising. Do not read on if you don’t want to know things about the plot.]

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