Indy's Indies

Harrison Ford's days as an action star probably ended with Crystal Skull (and that wouldn't have gone over if it wasn't a sequel to the beloved Indy series). Ford is doing the smart thing with 'Crossing Over' -- maintaining a presence with smaller indie films. This one looks like a tough sell, though. The same may hold true for 'Crowley', a drama about a scientist who searches for a cure for his children's genetic disorder.

But, while 'Crossing Over' and 'Crowley' won't draw huge audiences, anything is better than seeing Ford struggle to convince us he can still carry an action movie by portraying a geriatric hero defending family and society against all manner of bad guy(s). That's just too embarrassing for everyone involved.

The last I heard 'Crossing Over' is set for release in early 2009.

Happy Birthday Mr. Ford

Over at Pop Dose, Robert Cass wishes Harrison Ford a happy 66th. This is one of my favorite movie stars -- a Golden Era leading man in an age of disposable icons. However, I agree with Cass when he asserts that Mr. Ford tried to hang on to his status perhaps a bit too long with more than a few roles (see: 'Firewall') in which he plays (as Cass rightfully points out, citing many a reviewer's assessment) yet another character who delivers cliche dialogue through clenched jaws with eyes burning of determination and the lips snarled just so.

With Ford not willing to budge on his asking price per movie and with the scripts (and box office) for said movies becoming more laughable, I thought his career was in crash-and-burn mode. But then comes Indiana Jones 4 and, just like that, Ford earns a reprise. He's putting the new lease on his movie star's life to use not by demanding top-dollar for a retread execution of a bloated cliche script, but by doing small pieces like 'Crossing Over' (pictured, with Alice Braga), and what looks like another character-driven drama, 'Crowley', in what one would hope and assume is an effort to re-establish himself as a viable commodity.

Good to see him back, albeit not exactly in the same form as a president kicking terrorists off Air Force One or a privateer blasting the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace to elude capture. By the same token, though, he's not in the same form as he was in 'Hollywood Homicide' (which, in this case, is first degree premeditated murder of one's career)... At age 66 doing movies like 'Crossing Over' is a very smart move.

Here's Cass' write up. A couple excerpts:

If you were to ask me "What did you want to be when you grew up?," I could lie and say "astronaut" or "baseball player" or even "actor," but the answer is "Harrison Ford." More than anything else, I wanted to be Harrison Ford. I grew up in the '80s, a decade in which the actor played Han Solo in two Star Wars films and Indiana Jones in three films. For a young boy, those were iconic characters...

...because he wouldn't drop his $20 million fee, those interesting scripts from young writer-directors never showed up in his mailbox...