Mid-Life Crisis Songs #96: Indiana Jones & The Inexorable March Of Time

I went to see the new Indiana Jones film at the weekend. It made me sad.

Not because it's a bad film. It's perfectly acceptable popcorn fare that occasionally recaptures the magic of the earlier movies, if only through the sheer force of Harrison Ford's undimmed charisma. I appear to be in a minority of finding Phoebe Waller-Bridges very, very annoying, and the action sequences relied too much on CGI for my liking, but that's the case with all big budget movies these days. More effort went into movies when I was a kid - building the sets, getting the right stunt people, setting off actual fires and explosions... nowadays it's all done on computers and it feels lazy. The suspension of disbelief required by the audience is the same, only different. Somehow I found it easier to accept cardboard sets and smoke bombs than green screen everything... but that's just Old Man Shaking Fist At Sky.

I was ready for all of the above, so it's not that which made me sad. Seeing Indiana Jones as an old man though... well, nostalgia can work two ways, can't it? It can remind you of your youth... or it can force you (once again) to face up to your own mortality. Harrison Ford will be 81 next week, and it's amazing that he's still cracking the whip and doing a fair few action sequences himself. But still...

Someone said to me recently that the worst part about growing old is that (if you're lucky), you have to watch all your heroes grow old and die before you. Despite hanging up the fedora after this final adventure, Harrison appears to be enjoying a bit of a career resurgence at the moment, and long may it continue. But there will come a point when I have to say goodbye to him, as I have so many others. When you're young, you think it'll all go on forever... lately, every day brings a new reminder that this isn't the case.

I'm reminded of a line from one of my favourite albums of last year. This in turn reminds me of Jim Steinman's Objects In The Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are, but that's more about the power of memory and how it constantly fools you into thinking 1989 was just last week. Instead, James McMurtry sings here that, "There's more in the mirror than there is up ahead," a sentiment I'm finding it hard to come to terms with. He does, however, manage to put a positive spin on the idea...

Now it's all I can do just to get out of bed

There's more in the mirror than there is up ahead

I smile and I nod like I heard what you said every time

So run another rack

Pour another shot

You don't get it back so give it all you got

While you still got a more or less functional body and mind