Indiana Jones – Cinema Sips

Image credit: *Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom*, 1984

A much-anticipated trip to experience the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland prompted this week’s watch; the second installment of Spielberg’s Indy trilogy that I’ve always referred to as “the gross one”: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Disc/Download). As a child, I couldn’t get past the monkey brain scene, but as an adult, I made it all the way through pits of fire and creepy crawlies, and a sprawling underground city of child slave labor. When I tell you I have earned that trip to Disneyland, believe it.

Although my favorite Indiana Jones movie will always be Last Crusade, the sheer weirdness of Temple of Doom bumps it up to second place in my eyes. Imagine, you create a character that looks like he came straight from the Golden Age of Cinema, a hero adults and children can all rally around, and then you… send him into a whirlpool of black magic and voodoo cults. You serve him eyeball soup and raw beetles. You give him a heroine who, while stylish and beautiful, is fairly annoying throughout the entirety of the film. If not for Short Round and the fabulous production design, there wouldn’t be much to recommend in this movie. However, the relationship between adventurer and precocious child is every bit as fun as the one between adventurer and precocious old man in Last Crusade. This movie takes the viewer on a circuitous, bizarre ride, but it manages to keep Harrison sweaty and shirtless for a satisfactory amount of time. And at this particular moment in my life, that’s enough for me.

Make no mistake, the banquet scene is still gross. It helps if you have a cocktail and a blindfold, and preferably an empty stomach. While watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, I recommend drinking this Temple ‘Tini.

Temple ‘Tini

1 1/2 oz Dark Spiced Rum

1/4 oz Banana Liqueur

1/4 oz Vanilla syrup

3/4 oz Cold Brew

3 dashes Ginger Bitters

Gummy snake (garnish)

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill, then strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a gummy snake.

Although the Disney Imagineers built a ride inspired by the production design of Temple of Doom, I really wish they had instead focused on the Shanghai nightclub where this story begins. Like Rick’s Café, Club Obi Wan looks like the perfect place to sip a cocktail amid the chaos of war, or crowds of screaming children. A missed opportunity, Disney. Cheers!

last-crusade-sidecar — Image credit: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989

As a rule, I try to avoid film franchises at all costs. However, I have to make an exception with this week’s film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (DVD/Download). Even though it stands on the shoulders of the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark (and on the not-so-classic Temple of Doom) to me this is the best Indiana Jones film of them all. Sean Connery, snappy dialogue, and creative problem solving- what’s not to like?

Perhaps the reason I enjoy this third film in the trilogy so much is that finally Indiana Jones is taken down a peg. For once, he’s not the smooth archeologist who can con a woman into his bed even faster than he outruns a giant boulder. In Last Crusade he’s just Henry Jones “Junior”- an ordinary son trying to repair the relationship with the father who abandoned him. Sure, they have action-packed zeppelin escapes and a tense run-in with Adolph Hitler at a book burning party, but at the end of the day this is all normal family drama. Like a really exciting episode of Parenthood. And let’s face it, watching Indy and his dad solve riddles and outsmart the bad guys in their search for the Holy Grail is a lot more fun than watching people eat monkey brains. Just sayin’.

For me, the banter between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford is what makes this film so enjoyable. And how cute does Connery look in the sidecar of Indy’s vintage motorcycle?? That bucket hat kills me. While watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I recommend drinking a Sidecar.

Sidecar

2 oz cognac

¾ oz lemon juice

¾ oz Cointreau

Granulated sugar

Lemon twist (garnish)

Combine cognac, lemon juice and Cointreau in a shaker filled with cracked ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a glass that has been rubbed with lemon juice and rimmed with sugar. Garnish with a lemon twist.

When Indy finally reaches the Holy Grail, he must choose which glass offers life, and which death. I can’t say my stakes are quite so high, but it is always a challenge to find the best glassware for a drink. If only I could find the magic glass that would turn alcohol into something healthy, and not something that will eventually pickle my liver and cause my skin to dry out. Now that’s the Holy Grail. Cheers!

	We’re No Angel… on Donovan’s Reef
	Concluding thoughts… on Ocean’s 11 (1960)
	The Blue Gardenia… on The Goonies