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.

From the Strokes’s first album, Is This It? No idea why it’s in my head early on this foggy, Sunday morning. But there it is.

Sometimes internal soundtracks are like that.

The best single off that album, by the way, is Someday. I can’t listen to that song without smiling and wanting to dance. And nobody wants to see me dance.

Despite what you may think, Canadians can jump on the TiVo bandwagon. In this week’s Channel Changer I write about why this is a good idea.

I love my TiVo.

Somehow appropriate that I woke up this morning to the sound of Wake Up, from Arcade Fire’s first full-length album, Funeral. Win Butler’s vocal talents have an atonal waver to them that works, and when backed by the sweetness of Régine Chassagne (who happens to be Butler’s wife), you’ll hear the quality that makes Arcade Fire one of Canada’s best bands.

The latest Trigger Happy, published in the Georgia Straight has a Halloween theme.

Prowling the night gallery reviews 2K Software’s Prey, Bethesda Software’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Capcom’s Dead Rising.

I also look at Ubisoft’s Too Much Imagination game design challenge, which is, indeed, a challenge. Read about it here.