As you already know, I'm a huge fan of the Indiana Jones movies. I like everything about them. (I like everything about the first three, that is. I only like most things about the fourth one.) And liking everything about them has led me to a shocking discovery. One thing I really liked was a piece of music you hear in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. You hear it when Indy and his father have gone to Berlin to retrieve the Grail diary, as they're surrounding by rallying, book-burning Nazis. I would hear that music and think: "I love that! It is awesome! John Williams surely composed a truly enjoyable piece in imitation of the kind of music heard at these events." But John Williams didn't do anything of the kind. See, a week or so ago I watched Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, an extremely important movie that I embarrassingly had only seen in excerpted form up to that point. So I'm watching it, and what do I hear? That music from Last Crusade! It isn't an awesome pastiche of Nazi music. It's real Nazi music! And I've been talking about how great it was! Needless to say, my very perception of ...

[rating: 3.5] Moviegoers in search of political satire have had a rough time these past few years, as Hollywood has backed away from the genre due to America's contentiously divided electorate. Sure, the electorate has always been divided, but rarely with as much venom and animosity as we have seen in the 2000 era. It's not so much about policy or government anymore as it is about culture. Pickup trucks vs. Hybrids, Beer vs. Lattes -- we see these divisions everywhere in America, and once you make politics personal, some are easily offended. Enter Bud Johnson, the pickup-driving, beer-swilling underachiever who doesn't much care about anything. Hollywood has put it's faith in him, thinking that perhaps his story can ease some of America's political pain. Bud is played by Kevin Costner, who hasn't been as funny and charming as he is in Swing Vote for decades. Only his performance in Field of Dreams compares in terms of downright likability -- and we do like him. Costner's Bud doesn't care about his job, his friends, or even his (broken) family, all that's left of which is his adorable little daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll), but we somehow manage to care ...