Coming up on Saturday at the Described Movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Temple of Doom.

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From this Saturday at 12am Eastern, that’s 4pm Saturday in NZ, 2pm in Sydney and 5am in the UK, and repeated every four hours throughout the day, it’s the described movies Raiders of the Lost Ark from 1981, and The Temple of Doom from 1984.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg.
Screenplay by: Lawrence Kasdan.
Story by: George Lucas, and Philip Kaufman.
Produced by: Frank Marshall.
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, and Denholm Elliott.
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe.
Edited by: Michael Kahn.
Music by: John Williams.
Production company: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures.
Release date: 12 June 1981.
File Length: 121 minutes.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Budget: $20 million.
Box office: $389.9 million.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman.
Set in 1936, the film stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, a globetrotting archaeologist vying with Nazi German forces to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant which is said to make an army invincible.
Teaming up with his tough former romantic interest Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Jones races to stop rival archaeologist Dr. René Belloq (Paul Freeman) from guiding the Nazis to the Ark and its power.
Lucas conceived Raiders of the Lost Ark in the early 1970s.
Seeking to modernize the serial films of the early 20th century, he developed the idea further with Kaufman, who suggested the Ark as the film's goal.
Lucas eventually focused on developing his 1977 film Star Wars.
Development on Raiders of the Lost Ark resumed that year when he shared the idea with Spielberg, who joined the project several months later.
While the pair had ideas for set pieces and stunts for the film, they hired Kasdan to fill in the narrative gaps between them.
Principal photography began in June 1980 on a $20 million budget and concluded that September.
Filming took place on sets at Elstree Studios, England, and on location mainly in La Rochelle, France, Tunisia, and Hawaii.
Pre-release polling showed little audience interest in the film, especially compared to Superman II.
Despite this, Raiders of the Lost Ark became the highest-grossing film of 1981, earning approximately $330.5 million worldwide, and played in some theatres for over a year.
It was a critical success, receiving praise for its modern take on the serial genre, its non-stop action and adventure, and the performances of the cast, particularly of Ford, Allen, and Freeman.
The film was nominated for several awards, and won five Academy Awards, seven Saturn Awards, and one BAFTA, among other accolades.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is now considered one of the greatest films ever made, and has had a lasting impact on popular culture, spawning a host of imitators across several media and inspiring other filmmakers.
The United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1999.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first entry in what became the Indiana Jones franchise, which includes four more films— Temple of Doom (1984), Last Crusade (1989), Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and Dial of Destiny (2023)—a television series, video games, comic books, novels, theme park attractions, toys, and an amateur remake.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American action- adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg.
It is the second instalment in the Indiana Jones franchise and a prequel to the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Harrison Ford who reprises his role as the title character.
Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone, and Ke Huy Quan, in his film debut, star in supporting roles.
In the film, after arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by desperate villagers to find a mystical stone and rescue their children from a Thuggee cult practicing child slavery, black magic, and ritual human sacrifice in honour of the goddess Kali.
Not wishing to feature the Nazis as the villains again, executive producer and story writer George Lucas decided to regard this film as a prequel.
Three plot devices were rejected before Lucas wrote a film treatment that resembled the final storyline.
As Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas's collaborator on Raiders of the Lost Ark, turned down the offer to write the script, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who had previously worked with Lucas on American Graffiti (1973), were hired as his replacements.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released on 23 May 1984, to financial success but initial reviews were mixed, criticizing its darker elements, strong violence, and gore, and Capshaw's performance as Willie Scott; however, critical opinion has improved since 1984, citing the film's intensity and imagination.
In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about Gremlins, Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system, which it did within two months of the film's release, creating a new PG-13 rating.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
A sequel, Indiana Jones, and the Last Crusade, followed in 1989.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg.
Screenplay by: Willard Huyck, and Gloria Katz.
Story by: George Lucas.
Produced by: Robert Watts.
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, and Philip Stone.
Cinematography: Douglas Slocombe.
Edited by: Michael Kahn.
Music by: John Williams.
Production Company: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures.
Release dates: 8 May 1984 ( Westwood), and 23 May 1984 (United States).
File Length: 118 minutes.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Budget: $28.17 million.
Box office: $333.1 million.
Any questions, comments, or ideas for future described movies: e-mail me: anthony at mushroomfm dot com (e-mail address written that way to cut down on
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Enjoy the movies,