There’s a new print of Raiders of the Lost Ark making the rounds of the rep theatres, and our new Vancity Theatre is screening it this week (in a brilliant double bill with Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

I had forgotten just how ruggedly handsome Harrison Ford was, and how talented an actor. One of the things that makes his Indy work so well is his ability (and willingness) to show the adventurer in pain. Ford sells every bruise and every punch, and the fact that Indiana Jones can get hurt makes us cheer him on all the more.

Seeing the film on a big screen again also meant I saw things I hadn’t noticed before. Corey mentioned that even he had never noticed the sleeping Arab outside the chamber from which Indy and Marion escape after being entombed in the Well of Souls.

The film’s score, by Lucas and Spielberg favourite John Williams, is exactly what it needs to be: rousing, triumphant, and with a pop sensibility that keeps the fanfare running through my head, hours after the film has ended.

Which is why I’m hearing “da da da da, da da da” right now, and in my mind’s eye watching Indy race after the Ark of the Covenant on horseback. “I’m making this up as I go along,” he says, articulating the philosophy of Indiana Jones in one sentence.