2. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984)
The Movie: After crash-landing in India, Indiana Jones and his companions, Short Round and Willie Scott, travel to the ancient Pankot Palace. There, they discover that the thought-extinct Thuggee cult are still at large, and are using captured children to dig for precious stones imbued with incredible power...
What It Says About You: You're convinced Indiana Jones is all about the thrills, and cinema is about that unadulterated escapism you can't get from any other medium. Adventure movies are supposed to take you on a roller-coaster ride, and there's barely a moment during Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in which you can catch your breath. The biggest question on your mind six times a week is: "Why does everybody hate on this absolute hoot?" Don't they realise it's the best realisation of the B-grade serial movie? Your idea of a good night in is with
Gunga Din, not
Citizen Kane. Forget the story: those old serials never had good stories, anyway. Plainly put, you just wanna have a good time at the movies. You're also a sucker for the dark one in a series. Yeah, George Lucas was going through a divorce at the time the story was conjured up, but you couldn't care less if this is what his negative energies turned out. You're also interested in cults and voodoo, especially as movie devices, and adding an element of that to any story is guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat. As a
Temple of Doom fan, your best idea of a vacation isn't the Premier Inn or a Tenerife resort, it's the jungles of India; the busy streets of Shanghai; a decrepit village in Sri Lanka with a dangerous task at hand. You don't feel guilty for choosing
Temple as your favourite, either, despite what the critics might say. You're convinced that it has the best John Williams score ("Parade of the Slave Children" - c'mon!), Indy is at his definite coolest (check out that ripped shirt), and you know what, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) isn't as bad as everybody says. She goes from a whimpering stereotype to a heroine with a backbone... she's even tallying up thuggee kills by the end, right? At heart, you're in love with the idea of the B-movie: all you know is that
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom reaches out and touches those B-movie tendencies you hold so dearly.
Favourite Movies: Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Live and Let Die (1973), King Kong (2005)