None can Cope with Koepp

It seems like Steven Spielberg just doesn't give a shit, or at any rate he gives a shit for perplexing things. To-day brings the news that the next Indiana Jones movie will be Crystal Skull 2 essentially. This follows from the announcement that David Koepp, screenwriter for Crystal Skull, has been brought back to write the new film. Koepp, whose credits include extraordinary, infamous examples of bad writing like Panic Room and Secret Window, has, with the exception of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and the first Mission: Impossible (which he co-wrote with Robert Towne, who wrote Chinatown), only achieved real box office success for the films he's written for Steven Spielberg--the first two Jurassic Park films (the first co-written with Michael Crichton), War of the Worlds (co-written by Josh Friedman, based on the H.G. Wells story), and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (co-written by George Lucas, Jeff Nathanson, and purportedly there are bits of an early draft of Back to the Future in there). So it seems rather clear that movies written by David Koepp succeed in spite of him--due to a renowned director--than because of him. But that's just how Hollywood keeps parasites alive. Well, one of the ways.

Most of the screenwriters worth their salt work for television nowadays anyway. Based on the way last week's Better Call Saul ended, it was pretty easy to predict what would happen in last night's episode, but it was delightful anyway. It was wonderful seeing all the chaos that can come from simply changing a 61 to a 16. It was nice, too, finally seeing a confrontation between Kim, Jimmy, and Chuck where just about everything came out, despite two characters playing their cards very close to the chest.

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A feinting caterpillar danced through swords.
When ev'ry mask was blue paper they sunk.
Hot cellophane expanded past the hordes.
And swallowed inky steam in fabric trunk.
Engaged to bunnies quick by batt'ry springs,
A dream reclines upon the redwood bar.
In two unlike and broken voices sings
The mirror patient trapped; a lighthouse star.
Erastian umbilical, a vote.
A breath absorbed in two dimensions missed.
A heavy candle must by paper boat
In madness see the truth in Isolde's tryst.
A webbing pattern grips the ageing skull.
The able heart condemned yet haunts the hull.