Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Director: Sydney Pollack

Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow

Have I Seen it Before: Inexplicably, no.

Did I Like It: This first thought is going to sound like a complaint, but it isn’t. Maybe, it’s a foolish sense of optimism, but I think that the Times did publish whatever Joe Turner/Condor gave to them, shedding light on the shadow CIA propped up by Higgins (Robertson) and others at the company.

Although that probably makes the movie more similar to a television pilot than a traditional movie with a contained story. Again, that’s not a problem. I want to follow Condor as he tries to take down the people that double-crossed him. I want it to take six years, and I want the last shot of such a series fade away from Turner finally re-uniting with Kathy (Dunaway) in favor of Wabash (John Houseman), back at headquarters contemplating either spending the rest of his days in prison while his enemies claim victory, or hiring Joubert (von Sydow) to offer him the only clemency he can hope for.

I want more of it, is what I’m saying.

This movie fits snugly within the wrinkles of my brain. Between the now ancient computers accomplishing tasks we now take for granted, typewriters in every home and on every office desk in all of creation, and the only good guy in town is the one who’s read the most books, I don’t only want to watch this movie again, I want to live in it. Which, as I’m typing, I realize is an odd reaction to the movie.

It’s so unusual to watch one of your new favorite movies for the first time, much less have that movie be waiting for you to find it for over forty years. I honestly don’t understand how this movie—which wasn’t exactly hiding in Faye Dunaway’s apartment—slipped by me for so long. It may just supplant Die Hard (1988) as my favorite Christmas movie. Fight me.

EDIT: Turns out a Condor series was released last year on AT&T’s fledgling streaming service, Audience. All things I wasn’t previously aware existed, but somehow have already been paying for all this time. What a time to be alive, I think.

Almost Famous (2000)

Director: Cameron Crowe

Cast: Patrick Fugit, Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes.

Did I like it?: I remember liking it well enough, but for whatever reason it didn’t enter that pantheon of great movies for me at the time. Now, as I watch it again twenty years after the fact, I can’t quite grasp why it didn’t more thoroughly burrow its way into my brain.

Which is odd, because that most profound experience occurs for me as the film unfolds. I see myself reflected in the characters. One might think its solipsistic to reach for those—perhaps tenuous—connections, but if we don’t reach to see yourselves in the characters projected for you on the screen, we’re doomed to be subjected seven or eight more Transformers movies, or the written-by-committee blockbusters that Disney and the other studios are churning out with disappointing regularity. We’ve relegated Crowe to not direct that much anymore, after the admitted misstep of Aloha (2015), but if he could reach into the recesses of his deeper felt inclinations to make more movies like this, it may be past time to let him out of director jail.

On first blush, I shouldn’t feel so connected to the film. The main character and I are almost pointed opposites in many ways. We are separated by thirty years. William Miller (Fugit) is doomed to appear younger than he actually he is for all of his days, while I appeared to be in my mid-thirties since the age of ten. Miller’s soul is filled with every inch of popular music, whereas I couldn’t be bothered with anything musical (itself a likely act of rebellion against my musically inclined family), but instead steeped myself in movie so early, it’s entirely possible my real life didn’t begin until after my family got a DVD player and I was first introduced to the wild world of audio commentaries.

So why do I feel seen by the film, as much as I myself am seeing it? There’s the scene early on where Miller and Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman, so perfectly cast that I thought the role had to be written for him, until I realized he was one of the few characters who really existed) talk about writing just for the sake of it, with no aim in sight (see these reviews) and talk about their typewriters like people in other movies might talk about cars and motorcycles. It’s a small scene, but such a specific choice that tickles the wrinkles in my brain that I would have gone anywhere the film wanted to take me after that moment.

Batman Forever (1995)

Director: Joel Schumacher

Cast: Val Kilmer, Chris O’Donnell, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman

Have I Seen It Before?: Ah, 1995. It was a simpler time. Apparently. There I am, ten going on forty-seven, a Riddler (Carrey) action figure in one hand, the novelization of the movie in another. Somewhere in the distance, “Kiss From a Rose” is playing on every radio station in the known universe. I had the above poster hanging in my room well into the twenty-first century.

Yeah, I saw it.

Did I like it?: In a word, no.

A weird and idiosyncratic blockbuster (or as weird and idiosyncratic as a film is like to get when a board of directors is at all involved in the creative process) is unleashed into theaters. Some fans balk. Others think it is a work of genius. Toys don’t sell as well, which is the real problem. Another director is pulled into right the ship. Who cares if the movie is any good, as long as it doesn’t piss off anybody?

Now, am I speaking of the state of play of the Star Wars saga at this very moment, or the circumstances surrounding the Dark Knight twenty-five years ago?

The differences between the two situations are cosmetic, at best, aside from the reality that Star Wars – Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017) is nowhere near the weird, intentionally ugly film* that became Batman Returns (1992). And so we are stuck with both Star Wars – Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and Batman Forever. Both are less films than they are studio memos with a runtime. Both were mangled mercilessly in the editing room. Both are (probably) going to make a ton of money, and the studio that birthed the film will not learn a damned thing.

The campiness isn’t even the problem. Both the tv series and the feature film Batman (1966) revel in their campiness and are infinitely rewatchable delights. 

No character has any real arc to speak of, aside from maybe Dick Grayson (O’Donnell) who wants to kill Two-Face (Jones, inexplicably pigeon-holed into a c-minus Jack Nicholson impression that would be embarrassing to anything beyond single-celled organisms) but then decides he won’t. One would think that this would please Batman (Kilmer, forever cementing the fact that Michael Keaton is an American treasure), who has spent the entirety of the film’s runtime discouraging his nascent protégé against the evils of vengeance for the sake of vengeance. Instead, Batman immediately kills Two-Face himself. Also, the Riddler and a blonde lady are there. Fade Out. Roll Credits. Cue Seal.

That’s it. That’s the whole movie. 

*A sincere compliment, I assure you.

Moana (2016)

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Cast: Auli’I Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison

Have I Seen It Before?: No.

Did I like it?: Yes.

After the acquisition of Pixar by Disney, and the pollination of creative executives into Disney Animation, the Mouse House has lifted itself out of its slump and produced insanely watchable movies, whereas before they were content to churn out direct-to-video sequels and make just enough money to make sure the shareholders stay happy.

Moana happily fits in this Disney renaissance. The script is perfectly crafted, to the point where it could legitimately be used in examples for books about writing screenplays. The setting is new and interesting. I cannot think of any film that immerses itself in Polynesian culture and mythology like we see here. The cast is both filled and headlined with performers representative of the cultures depicted.

And yet, something about the movie bothers me. It feels like such a story should not only include representation in front of the camera, but also behind. This story should have come out of the cultural marrow of someone from that culture. Pixar isn’t necessarily blind to this, as their recent short Bao (2018) brilliantly showed. Am I to truly believe the three people best qualified to both write and direct the tale of Maui (Johnson) and Moana (Cravalho) are three white guys from Burbank who had sufficient seniority in the Walt Disney Corporation.

By all indications, the writing of the film went through several hands before it reached its final version, credited to Disney in-house writer Jared Bush. At one point, even Taika Waititi took a pass at it that was apparently largely abandoned. It’s heartening that the film credited a large team of cultural advisors, but one of them didn’t have a burning story to tell on their own? It’s a fine film. The music keeps occasionally running its way through my head, even as I type this a few days after first watching the film.

I just can’t help think that there was an even better film somewhere in there, and the corporate realities of modern film-making robbed us of something that could have been not just special, but transcendent.

Why in the hell wouldn’t they go with a script originally written by Taika Waititi? Why?

Return to Oz (1985)

Director: Walter Murch

Cast: Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, Fairuza Balk

Have I Seen It Before?: There was a period as a child in the 90s where it seemed like everyone I knew had seen the movie, was just finishing watching the movie, or in the middle of watching it, but somehow, I never got around to watching it. As we finally took the dive into Disney+, my wife insisted that this be one of the first things we watched. Apparently, she was watching it back in the time when everyone else was. Thus, I can remedy what might have been a tragic oversight from my own early years.

Did I like it?: This film may have the opposite problem of The Wizard of Oz. The original film is drab and largely banal during the scenes that take place in Kansas, and the film only comes to life (quite intentionally, and technicolorly so) when Dorothy reaches Oz. Return to Oz makes its more bold choices in the early scenes, hinting at a darkness in the world of the Gales—complete with early ECT machines—that surprisingly got past the Disney corporate heads.

Once Dorothy (Balk) returns to Oz here, the film exhibits the same kind of puppetry that one could find in Labyrinth (1986), The Dark Crystal (1982) or other fantasy films of the era. The stop-motion use to bring the Nome King (Williamson) to life ages poorly. Stop-motion can be a delight on its own, but it has never, ever interacted believably with real actors. It was fine for King Kong (1933), when it was the leading edge of special effects, and could be stylistic in the works of Ray Harryhausen or Tim Burton, but here it distracts more than it enchants. Jack Pumpkinhead (puppeteered by Brian Henson and Stewart Larange) is an interesting creation, it does make me think a live-action-esque remake of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) might be the worst thing Disney could possibly do.

It may not be any particular fault of the movie, but the adventure is mildly pedestrian, and the far more transfixing parts of the film deal with the hero attempting to cope with not being on an adventure. I want to like the film more than I do, but it’s entirely likely I may have missed the key moment where it could have burrowed its way into my imagination.

The People vs. George Lucas (2010)

Director: Alexandre O. Phillipe

Cast: George Lucas

Have I Seen It Before?: I thought I might have, but its entirely possible that I had spent the last twenty years intermittently agreeing with and refuting the arguments brought up by the film.

Did I like it?: When looking at most documentaries, there is usually room for two avenues of analysis. First, is it technically good? I find myself so embarrassed by any documentary that can’t keep a baseline competency as far as editing and quality of footage goes, that I often find myself not able to finish the film at all. This film looks like many other modern documentaries, especially on the subject of films. It’s nothing special, but it doesn’t distract.

The second criteria must decide whether or not I agree with the film, or if it could somehow change my mind on any given subject. Here, the results are a mixed bag. Ultimately, the title is misnomer. The film isn’t really organized as a trial against the writer-director of Star Wars (1977), more of a venue for various subsets of fans to vent their frustration.

No, George Lucas did not rape anyone’s childhood. To suggest otherwise is hyperbolic in a way that is willfully crass and ugly.

Yes, George Lucas does (or, at least, did before he sold the entirety of his IP to Disney) have the rights to revise his work.

Is the current version of Star Wars the same film that won the Academy Award for Best Editing? No, it’s not, and the original versions of the films should be preserved, somehow. And it is, kind of. There are Limited Editions that were available on DVD in the mid-2000s that included the unaltered versions of the films. They don’t support 5.1 sound, or a transfer that fits current, widescreen television sets, but it is there. Even though the Limited Editions are out of print, you can get them on Amazon for about $70.00. I wait a few more years and those babies will only appreciate further.

Now, when people complain that the original versions of the film deserve digital remastering, THX sound, and the other loving treatment that Lucasfilm would normally lavish on such films, I start to blanche. They did remaster them, and in the process changed them. We can’t have it both ways. Much of this documentary’s runtime is devoted to the debate as to whether or not Lucasfilm’s assertion that the original film sources of the trilogy are either destroyed or in such bad condition that it is a fool’s errand to try and release them in a modern format. I tend to actually believe the company line on this one, as in making digital versions of the films, Lucas’ famed distaste for shooting and exhibiting on film leads me to believe that the original sources of the first three films in the series are now indeed one with the Force.

Finally? Getting mad about Star Wars has never put anything good out in the galaxy. I love some of the movies George Lucas created, sort of like some of the others, and there are a few of his films I want to like, but don’t work for me at all. That’s okay. Lucas was allowed to make mistakes. Let’s not make a federal case out of it.

Bumblebee (2018)

Director: Travis Knight

Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz

Have I Seen it Before: No. What would possibly possess me to be in any kind of a hurry to watch a Transformers film?

Did I Like It: Okay. Well, here’s the confession. I kind of—sort of—like the first Transformers (2007). It has just enough of the influence of Spielberg where the film is more about a boy and his connection with his car (who happens to be sentient) than it is about the struggle between the Autobots and the Decepticons. 

Every subsequent film in the series that I had the misfortune to have been exposed to is so laden with exposition and an endless series of meaningless MacGuffins that each film became the equivalent of spending several hours reading the cardboard backing of an action figure. I gave up on Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) long before its interminable nearly three-hour runtime. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) was a non-starter for me long before the near-war crime of its 149 minutes was unleashed on an unsuspecting populace.

So it is with great relief that I report Bumblebee—a film no one asked for and no sane studio should have green-lit—is a delight from start to finish. The glip-glorps and whoozi-whatzis that propelled… plots?... in the previous films are stripped away, and all we know about the various Transformers in the context of this film are:

1)     The Transformers come from Cybertron.

2)     Cybertron is at war.

3)     Bumblebee is a good guy. To a far less important extent, so is Optimus Prime.

And that is all you need. Everything else is only of interest to people who have mint-condition Generation One Starscreams* hermetically sealed in their basement.

With the artifice of the franchise now stripped away, the human element that the first film hints at comes back in full force. Shia LaBeouf was sort of a wry, detached figure in the first film, and his affection for the alien car he lucked into never felt like a real performance. Much to Hailee Steinfeld’s credit, I believe the friendship between her and Bumblbee throughout the picture. Her character never becomes a cliché. She never once detaches herself from the proceedings, and one can easily imagine a less polished actor doing just that. After all, there are five films of evidence.

Who knew this series could find its resurgence by making a film actually about people? If the Transformers can turn things around like this, maybe there is hope for other big-budget franchises.

I reserve the right to revoke that optimism upon the release of any further Transformer movies, and probably will.

*That’s a thing, right?

Steve Jobs (2015)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. Hell, I’ve read the book it was (loosely) based on twice.

Did I Like It: It feels like my opinion about the film seems like a fait accompli dependent on the answer to two questions:

1)     How do I feel about Steve Jobs (Fassbender) and the company he created going into the film?

2)     How do I feel about the work of Aaron Sorkin?

The answer to the second question is I enthusiastically love Sorkin’s work. I have no problem with The Newsroom, and I even like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, if you manage to ignore the last five episodes or so. Even if he’s starting to repeat himself a little bit and has never quite been as sharp as he was before he sobered up, I watch anything he has written, and I suddenly want to work harder at everything I do. Some people have some track of music or a particular recording artist to get them pumped, I have Sorkin.

Here, he has constructed a film story that reflects the products made by its subjects. Splitting a basic three-act structure across three of Jobs’ product launches, it bobs and weaves through many of the idea introduced in the Walter Isaacson biography upon which it is based. It was the only way to fit the essence of the book and the man into the confined package of a prestige drama. Sure, it creates fictions throughout that narrative, and in a vain attempt to make Jobs a gentler soul end the film at an arbitrary point in its central relationship. These are the realities of the biopic, even when it’s difficult to call this a biopic when it barely glances at the pre-Macintosh Jobs and only hints at the things he will do in the last decade of his life.

Which brings us to an attempt to answer that first question I mentioned above. Steve Wozniak (Rogen) may be the tragic, doomed hero of the piece, imploring his old friend that he can be gifted and kind. For a moment—as I indicated above—that it artificially seems like the lout Jobs was throughout the film may have found that his heart grew two sizes just before the launch of the iMac, but the reality and the text indicates he remained prickly and often hard to deal with for the rest of his life. The man didn’t really change, and he didn’t really mellow, but that’s not what the film is about. To watch him terrorize his colleagues is entertaining in and of itself, but I’m not sure I would have wanted to know the man personally.

Then again, I am typing this review on an iMac, so what do I know? He was probably right.

Sky High (2005)

Director: Mike Mitchell

Cast: Michael Angarano, Danielle Panabaker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kurt Russell

Have I Seen it Before: More time than I would have thought I would have for a live-action Disney film.

Did I Like It: Is it surprising? Is it showing me anything I haven’t seen* before? Is it going to down in history as one of the greatest films of all time?

Probably not.

However, one cannot deny that the film has no illusions about its ambitions. It aims squarely at its audience and efficiently delivers exactly what it promises. That may read as damning with faint praise, but far too many films lack the focus to know what they are, and more than a few of them have been lately produced by the Walt Disney Company. The film is intermittently funny, deals in appropriate levels of cuteness, and couldn’t possibly offend the sensibilities of anyone who came to the movie with the right level of expectations.

So, why have I watched it so many times? Why do I own it on DVD?

My wife really likes it. For all the times she has patiently sat through RoboCop (1987), accepted that I view Die Hard(1988) as a Christmas movie, and accepts that I’m likely not going to get rid of my special-edition Blu-ray of Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), it’s important to watch movies that she likes for no other reason than she likes them. That may sound at odds with my lukewarm praise for the movie, as if I don’t think she has good taste. She has the best taste, and I’m pretty sure if I’m not 100% on board with this movie, the problem lies with me.

Therefore, I’ve decided I like it quite a bit. But please, don’t make too big a deal out of that. She might make me watch Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) again. Which I would do. For her.

*Or made…

Die Hard (1988)

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia

Have I Seen it Before: Every Christmas Eve for years…

Anybody got a problem with that?

No? We good?

Did I Like It: It’s reputation as a one of the greatest action films of all time would be hard to dispute. Every moment of the film is precisely to design. I can count on one hand the amount of films that waste not one second of their screen time. The movie made Bruce Willis a star beyond the dreams of Moonlighting, when his subsequent work in films has only intermittently earned that degree of notoriety. It birthed an entire of subgenre of “Die Hard on a…” action movies that actually contributed a few pretty great movies.

Someone might not care for action films, and on this level one could not recommend the film. Otherwise, it is one of those superlative films that repels controversial or contrary assessments.

Except on that one issue. Fine, let’s talk about it. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Many—including the film’s star, apparently—have dismissed the idea completely out of hand. Many insist that it objectively not only qualifies as a Christmas movie, but in fact is at or near the top of the greatest Christmas movies. Still more find the debate between the two points to be tiresome and tedious.

I think all three perspectives need to take a minute and remember both the holiday they’re dragging through the mud and the movie they’re taking the piss out of in the process. It’s about family. It’s about togetherness. It’s about trying to be with family on certain dates in late December. If that’s not a Christmas movie, then I think the universe is fundamentally at odds about fundamental truths.

I watch Die Hard every Christmas Eve. The holiday is not real, nor does it even officially start until Argyle (De’voreaux White) drives Mr. and Mrs. McLane away in his limo.

If it’s not a part of your Christmas celebration, then it is not a Christmas movie for you. Can the rest of us do what we want in December?

Good.

Now if I only could get everyone on board with the idea that Batman Returns (1992) being a Christmas movie, then we could finally have peace on Earth and good will toward man and Bonnie Bedelia.

GoldenEye (1995)

Director: Martin Campbell

Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen

Have I Seen It Before?: I may be the only person my relative age who has seen the movie, more than he has played the seminal Nintendo 64 video game, which itself was released in August of 1997, just a few months before the release of the films sequel, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Now you know.

Did I like it?: It’s clearly Brosnan’s best attempt in the role, buying him a measure of goodwill that would get him through the odious, Roger Moore-esque valley that was his swan song, Die Another Day (2002). If he had been more present and awake for his remaining three films in the series, he might have been in the running to rival Sean Connery himself.

Goldeneye is an interesting relic of its time. In the six years since the release—the longest between entries in the series—of Timothy Dalton’s last shot at the role, License to Kill (1989) the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the machismo that had been core to the series up until this point started to feel passé. 

Some wondered if there was room for Bond in such a brave new world.

Which is hilarious, when one realizes that the far more scary and insidious threats were still in our future, and that the era of sexual harassment was not only not over, but was reaching its peak, Clinton-led golden age, and Bronsan is more than equal to the task of lecherously and sort of absent-mindedly forcing himself on women left and right.

The film also has some weird elements that age it squarely in the mid-90s.

Is it possible that Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) is the worst computer hacker ever to be conceived by 1990s film (a steep competition, to be sure)? His passwords are easily guessed words from the English dictionary, it appears one has an unlimited number of guesses to gain access to his systems, his fingers dance insanely over just a few keys of any keyboard (admittedly, he’s not alone among 90s movies hackers on that front), and when things inevitably go south for him in the third act, he takes out his frustrations with a monitor, like that is going to do something to re-set the guidance system of the GoldenEye weapon.

Also, the music is little weird. The theme, strangely written by Bono and The Edge, but performed by Tina Turner is fine, but apparently the production was somewhat disjointed, and the score reflects nothing of the melodies introduced in the theme. And then there is that score. Oh, man, that score, though. Long gone is the sweeping dramatic scores of John Barry and in its place is an occasionally off-putting faux techno score from French composer that felt vaguely antiquated at the time of release. As much as the rest of the film is strong, the music throughout may be the weakest throughout any of the 50-year-plus history of the series. I’ve often thought that a good score can make a film—for instance, Halloween (1978) borders on unwatchable with John Carpenter’s music—and one wonders if this could have been one of the absolute greatest in the series if John Barry could have been persuaded to return.

The Hidden Fortress (Kakushi-Toride No San-Akunin) (1958)

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Misa Uehara, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara

Have I Seen it Before: Never, although its legend as the spine of Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) has always lingered in the back of my mind. I’ve struggled with enjoying Kurosawa films, as I found Seven Samurai (1954) a bit of a chore to get through when I was 17. My tastes… may have expanded since then. I need to broaden my horizons.

Did I Like It: I guess I should probably start this film with a confession. I watched this while trying to complete the rest of my reviews for the Star Wars saga that I was going to post tonight. As such, I only occasionally was able to focus on the subtitles for the Japanese dialogue. I didn’t catch much of the plot, or at least the details therein.

But the film still works, and that’s probably the element most worth analysis. The feelings of the characters and the visuals that surround them are far more central to the film. It would have worked as a silent film. The dialogue is incidental to the enjoyment of the film. I can see where Lucas felt the influence of this film as he went about constructing A New Hope. Indeed, the early scripts for his film (and the comic that was eventually created based on that early material) are filled with the samurai sensibility of Kurosawa’s most popular films, like this. 

It’s almost like, by the time Lucas got the opportunity to make his Buck Rogers by way of a samurai sensibility film, he would have probably preferred to make it a silent film altogether. He probably spent the rest of his career wishing he never had to write a line of dialogue.

Which would explain some of the problems he had with the prequels. Hey-yo.

But enough about the films that came after The Hidden Fortress, let’s talk about the film itself. It is vibrant and funny the tableaus of each shot are each a painting unto themselves, even when they are largely showing arid, sandy landscapes.

Sound familiar? Okay, I’ll stop.

American Graffiti (1973)

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah, a couple of times.

Did I Like It: It’s another odd duck from Lucas before he reached his true destiny. With THX 1138 (1971), he embraced every nihilistic impulse he must have had as a film student, and here he takes a completely left turn and manages to sing-handedly create the teen comedy genre that John Hughes would continue to perfect in the following decade.

He’s still trying to create interesting soundscapes in his films. THX is a cacophony of an evil future, and this a similarly overwhelming wave of adolescent noise. That instinct started to disappear with Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) and was all but gone by the time Star Wars – Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) rolled around, that had disappeared.

Is it possible between the dourness of THX and the crowd-pleasing qualities of Star Wars, this is the kind of film we could have expected from Lucas when he was happy? I suppose not, as he also later made More American Graffiti (1979). It was not a success and continued to haunt him almost twenty years later when he made an off-hand comment about it during the making-of documentary of Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). 

Lucas so thoroughly nails this movie that even though I was a teenager forty years after these Modesto teens moved on to their adult lives, I am filled with nostalgia for my own days. Why doesn’t someone make the film about a bunch of kids running around trying to make a film themselves without any actual resources to back them up.

Guess I should probably make something like that myself.

God, this filmmaker has an ability to make me want to do things outside of my comfort zone. Usually it’s trying to find a heated-plasma sword and hoard religious artifacts. Is there any higher sign of a great filmmaker? Good on ya, Lucas.

THX 1138 (1971)*

Director: George Lucas

Cast: Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, Don Pedro Colley, Maggie McOmie

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah, a couple of times. Hell, I’ve owned it on DVD a couple of times, just like any cineaste of sufficient stuffiness.

Did I Like It: It’s a trip, to be sure.

It’s sort of fun to imagine what kind of filmmaker George Lucas might have become, had he enjoyed any measure of commercial success earlier than he did. This film feels like the kind of movie he has really wanted to make this whole time. He may be still be producing “tone-poems” like this in some fashion after his retirement from big-budget blockbuster, if his interviews post-Disney takeover of Lucasfilm are to be believed. 

I can see why people didn’t like it when it was initially released. It is dour and aloof in a near-monolithic way. Lucas might have refined his film school sensibilities further had the studio system not so thoroughly kicked the crap out of him during the early goings. But, I got a lot of neat action figures over the years, so I guess that’s nice, too.

It should be mentioned that the ending of the film sticks with me long after the film is over. It’s the strongest, most coherent part of the film, and that’s no surprise as it is largely a remake of Lucas’ previous student Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967). While the feature tries to go through the milieu of Orwell’s 1984, things take a turn when the almost happy-ish ending where THX (Duvall) escapes society, largely because the authorities don’t have the budget to keep chasing him. Something about that gives me hope. We’re all too expensive for tyranny to truly break us.

Anyway, it’s a strange film, and the Lucas we all came to know is almost undetectable in the movie. Could you imagine if George Lucas kept going along this path? Can you imagine what he might be working on now that he has totally divorced himself from the audience? It boggles the mind, or at least the mind’s eye. The mind’s ear might be able to keep up. His early films almost sound like radio plays.

*Unlike with the original Star Wars movies, I had to watch the final George Lucas directors cut, complete with additional CGI effects. The augments are clearly less obtrusive than they became in his other, more famous movies, but it would have been something to see the film in its original form.

Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast*: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley

Have I Seen it Before: It’s opening weekend fam, beyond the vague sense of a mixed reaction, I had no real idea what I was in for, although I did get the impression I might fall into a diabetic coma with the amount of fan service potentially on the horizon.

Did I Like It: Well, since I’m already on record adoring Star Wars – Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), I guess I have to loathe this one, right? 

Is it okay if I still like this one? Are we cool if I do? Do I care if we’re cool? All good questions. Yes, I think the film is messy, and there are plot threads I may spend some idle time over the next few years trying to make sense of, but it was rousing, and crowd pleasing, and fun.

That’s the job J.J. Abrams was hired to do, and now he’s done it twice.

The flaws are real, though. While it was nice to have scenes with Carrie Fisher again, she never felt terribly present in her scenes. Had we somehow not known she died after the production of The Last Jedi, maybe I wouldn’t have had the same issue with her material. Had the film opted for a different tact and had her die off-screen in the events leading up to the film, maybe we would have had a whole new set of complaints.

With the diminished role of the original trilogy characters very much hanging over the film—Billy Dee Williams’ Lando has scarce screen time, and very little to do with the plot other than to show up places and be Lando—the film fully becomes the purvue of the new characters. Rey, Poe, and Finn finally become a trio, spending much of their first two films apart, and their chemistry is breezy, and their quest for the location of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, another original trilogy character underserved) is the most coherent part of the film. Kylo Ren’s redemption also gives Adam Driver some of his best material in the series. I’ve read some takes on the film that have said it ruins the legacy of all Skywalkers, Rey, Ben Solo, Leia, the entire series, Rian Johnson specifically, and more childhoods than I thought were still standing after Lucas made swift work of them in the last decade.

The film ruins nothing. The story of Ben Solo and Rey (insert last name here) is complete. As had long been prophesied, the Skywalker was destroyed the Sith and brought balance to the force. The Last Jedi still exists, and as of this writing is still available to watch on Netflix, Disney+ be damned.

So, once again—just like with The Last Jedi—I am left with one big complaint: I could have used a whole lot more Lupita Nyong’o. Yes, Kelly Marie Tran virtually disappearing from the film isn’t a great look for the franchise, but Nyong’o was the best part of Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) and was tragically underused in The Last Jedi and here even more so. In The Last Jedi she is relegated to not much more than a cameo, but it was a fun moment that added to the mythology around her character, Maz Kanata. Here, she largely just stands around the Resistance base camp quietly reacting to the story around her, and I even think that level of involvement for Maz was a byproduct of her being central to the re-purposed footage of Carrie Fisher from The Force Awakens. 

Dear Hollywood, 

Please use more Lupita Nyong’o. Jordan Peele and Abe Forsythe are exempt from this notice. Even Ryan Coogler could do a little bit better in this department.

Yours in watching,

Mac

And now, we are left with the final question I introduced in my review of The Force Awakens: While we may not have needed these movies, I’m still glad we got them. They are spectacle writ large, and adventure storytelling at their very best. I’ve spent most of the last day since completing my re-watch of the series and my first screening of this film humming the John Williams march. I’ve dug into my comixology library, purchased a copy of the annotated original trilogy screenplays, and even bought a dirt-cheap copy of the novelizations of those movies. Why? Because even as this film took a winding, sometimes bewildering road to reach its completion, I still don’t want it to end.

* I mean, technically, Harrison Ford should have gotten second billing in this film, as his appearance in the film is far more substantial than Hamill’s was in The Force Awakens (2015), but I suppose that—in the interest of not being nitpicky—I won’t try to override the will of SAG.

Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, yes…

Did I like it?: Well, that is the big question, isn’t it?  The moment I take a position on whether this movie is terrific, or the worst thing that ever happened to the series, that defines me as not only a critic, but a purveyor of human morality. Honestly, some of you out in the world make having any kind of opinion about movies an absolute chore, sometimes.

With that being said:

I adore The Last Jedi.

There, I said it. If you need to leave these reviews, now is the time.

Okay, now that the rest of them are gone, let’s really talk about this one. It is a fundamentally odd film, and that’s what makes it certainly in top three of the whole series for me. There may be moments where it is number one. Ranking them beyond that is insane, the internet. Honestly, did we think we would ever get such an idiosyncratic film when George sold Lucasfilm to Disney?

Every frame of which is interesting to look at, from the throne room of Snoke (Andy Serkis) through the salty wastelands of Crait, I’m never not interested in what the film is showing me. To drill down further on Crait, at first blush, the film looks snowy, not unlike the ice planet Hoth from Star Wars – Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Then, the sheen of salt around the land breaks apart to reveal the red below the surface. The planet bleeds. I’ve never seen that before, and neither have you.

Some might complain about some of the characterizations of the film. I find those arguments usually disjointed, although I suppose I could see how people might view Luke’s story in the film as a little counter to what we understood about the character in previous films. For me, Skywalker’s decision to cut himself off from both the rest of the galaxy and The Force itself is the film’s secret weapon. The notion that a classic Joseph Campbell-esque hero would ever have a crisis of faith is so powerful that I am immediately annoyed by anyone who is put off by that element of the film. Our heroes are supposed to inspire us to reach for the best part of ourselves, and the notion that such a character could lose their way and find it again means that there is more hope for all of us than we may have previously assumed.

Now, I’m not blindly enamored of the film. I have one beef with the movie that can’t be waived away simply as a matter of taste. Incidentally, it is the same complaint I will have with my forthcoming review of Star Wars – Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), just in case you were wondering if I was going to arbitrarily be pro-J.J. or pro-Rian.

There’s not enough Lupita Nyong’o in it. As The Rise of Skywalker has exactly the same problem, and more pointedly so, I may save my elaboration for that review.

But seriously, if you’ve got Nyong’o in your film, it’s important you do everything to maximize how much you have.

Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast*: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, the tired joke to hint at here is that with the amount of times I’ve seen Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), even if this had been the first time I had seen this film, then I would have already have seen it before. I’ll skip that, and say that I was right there on opening weekend, along with everyone else.

Did I Like It: After the highest highs of the original trilogy, and the objective lows of the prequel trilogy (even if you’ve managed to forgive some of the larger flaws in those films, you can’t deny there is some weak sauce transpiring) we may have all come to the new sequel trilogy with bad intentions as an audience.

I’ll only go as far as maybe on that idea.

The first question I want to wrestle with is whether or not we needed a Star Wars sequel trilogy. After mentioning in a few interviews years ago that he had “a plan” for films that would take place after Star Wars – Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), he spent most of the last few decades insisting that he had no notion of such movies, and he pointedly didn’t think they would be very interesting in any event. 

I tend to think he was lying, or at the very least remembering the truth from a certain point of view, but I can understand why. For one thing, I can’t imagine the reactions to the prequel trilogy were fun for him, regardless of whether they were deserved. Getting older, he probably came to some degree of peace with the idea that he didn’t have anything to prove anymore. He made some great films, some not-so-great ones, and made enough money that his great-great-grandchildren won’t have to worry about money, so long as action figures still exist in the 22ndcentury.

But as Lucas’ attitude toward the idea of the further adventures of Luke Skywalker and company, the story began to take a shape where such stories weren’t needed anymore. I walked out of my first viewing of Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) thinking that the story of the rise, fall, and redemption of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker was—for better or worse—a complete story in six parts.

So, right out of the gate the sequel trilogy has the challenge of justifying its existence, far more so than the prequels had to reckon with. We didn’t need a sequel trilogy, but Disney was relatively sure there would be an audience for such films, and as I write this at the close of the opening weekend for Star Wars – Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker(2019), they were largely right in that regard.

As mentioned above, some might complain that this movie borrows too heavily from A New Hope to be thoroughly enjoyed. They are correct that it owes much to that film, but when one realizes that the original Star Wars is beholden to the structure of Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (1958), I can’t help but think that is a criticism divorced from any real sense of film history.

Here’s what the film has going for it that reaches beyond the reductive:

The new characters are an absolute treat. On spec, the film would be an opportunity to spend some time with your favorite characters from the original films, but the fact that Rey, Finn, and Poe keep our attention so thoroughly is a testament to the strength of these films going forward. Say what you will about his skills as a storyteller or a visual stylist, Abrams is an absolute master at casting very watchable actors in interesting characters. He managed to pull off the same trick in his first Star Trek (2009). This doesn’t even begin to deal with my favorite character of the new films—and possibly any of the Star Wars films—Maz Kanata as played by the transcendant-even-when-mo-capped Lupita Nyong’o. 

Then there are those original characters. Mark Hamill merely has a cameo, and his film will be Star Wars – Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017). Carrie Fisher toes the line between the optimism at the center of Leia, and the world-weariness that Fisher uses to inject her with new life. And then there’s Harrison Ford. This film is Han Solo’s Unforgiven (1992)—as much as a laser sword movie can reach for that degree of an elegiac quality—and if nothing else, it is a relief and a revelation to not have Ford sleep-walk his way through an entire film. Before this film, the last possibly I would say he did so was Air Force One (1997), and probably as far back as The Fugitive (1993). I’m glad we got you back, Han, even if for only a minute.

Now, the larger question we must answer is: was it worth going through a sequel trilogy? At this point, I would say yes, but to definitively answer that question, I’ll probably wait for my review of The Rise of Skywalker.

*The film gives second billing to Mark Hamill, but I think we can all agree that such placement is overestimating the great Hamill’s contribution to the family.

Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)*

Director: Richard Marquand

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher**, Ian McDiarmid

Have I Seen It Before?: Any number of times, with any number of different celebration scenes at the end.

Did I like it?: It’s generally regarded as the weakest film in the original trilogy. I would tend to agree, but I am left wondering why.

The climactic (or semi-climactic, thanks to the films in the sequel trilogy) battle between Luke Skywalker (Hamill) and his father, Darth Vader (David Prowse in the suit, Sebastian Shaw once his helmet is removed, and James Earl Jones via voice in the suit) is among the greatest in the series. For years, the Ewoks felt like the most annoying thing that happened to the series, before the prequels made them look absolutely charming by comparison. Also, the series once again ret-conned large swaths of its mythos to shoehorn in the twist that Princess Leia (Fisher) and Luke Skywalker are actually twin siblings.

All of these can be forgiven, especially when considered in the larger context of the series, but I think the real flaw is that the emotional stakes, at least for me, were never fully established, or I never fully bought into them. 

Sure, the Rebellion is on the brink of collapse, and the thin possibility of the redemption of Vader hangs over everything, but for years I never believed that Luke was ever in any real danger of turning to the dark side. He had always been portrayed as so morally pure, and not until the last frantic moments of the duel with his father do I get a sense that he could be corrupted in the service of his friends.

That was, of course, until my viewings of it more recently. Of the three main protagonists through the course of the Skywalker saga (Anakin, Luke, and Rey), Luke seems as if he is the furthest on his journey to the dark side. 

Consider, he is dressed in a black outfit for the entirety of the film. Not exactly the light robes of a nascent Jedi Knight. Also, the sequence rescuing Han Solo (Ford) from Jabba the Hutt seems like an overlong effort to walk back the cliffhanger from The Empire Strikes Back (1980), but his band of rebels hesitates not one whit to destroy not only the admittedly vile gangster, but everyone else on board his pleasure skiff. Thieves, gangsters, and other odious ones for the most part, but are there not slaves on board worthy of resuce? Any smugglers? In another world where Han had made good on his deliveries to Jabba, would he have met his end there along with everyone else? It’s a minor act of mass murder for someone who killed several million Imperials on the first Death Star***, but Darth Farmboy is way farther along on his journey toward the Dark Side than I was initially led to believe.

That he is still able to pull out of this descent into evil only raises the film in my estimation. Maybe it is still the weakest of the trilogy it has the bad luck of closing, but if it continues to improve with age, it may one day exceed its predecessors.

*I watched the unaltered versions available on the 2006 “limited edition” DVDs. See my review for Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) for further thoughts on this.

**I keep wanting to give her higher billing, but I feel like I have to wait for the sequel trilogy for that, and I don’t thinkthat is my fault.

***Of which—despite any debate in Clerks (1994)—I have to believe at least some were trying to work their way out of the Empire’s clutches.

Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)*

Director: Irvin Kershner

Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Frank Oz

Have I Seen It Before?: Yes, but probably in the wrong way. I missed all of the original trilogy in theaters by one year, and so had to watch them on VHS in the late 80s and early 90s. So, the first time I saw Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) it was preceded by an ad for the rest of the series, including Luke (Hamill) asking Yoda (Oz) that trilogy-spoiling question: “Is Darth Vader my father?”

So it’s kind of like I had the experience of seeing the film before I ever actually got to see it.

Did I like it?: It would be pretty disingenuous of me to say anything other than “yes” here. It is universally accepted as the greatest of all Star Wars films. It is truly great, not possessing one moment or element that annoys or distracts, and in fact adds so much to the tapestry of the saga, that it probably has had a hard time recovering in the 39 years since its release. It is thrilling and funny in equal measures, and even its supposed “down” ending hints at the—for lack of a better term—new hope just beyond the horizon.

But is it better than A New Hope? I’ve probably spent most of my life thinking so, but I’m not sure why I have changed tracks in the last few years, but I think… (I think) I prefer A New Hope at this moment. It’s an incredibly close comparison, at any rate.

That may make the debate about which film is “better” a fundamentally meaningless one.

It is a far better sequel than we had any right to expect from the original Star Wars. As such, it may be partly to blame for the litany of movies we’ve received since, each one demanding of us as viewers to not so much react and take in the subsequent films, but create positions on which one we like and which ones we don’t. It has reduced fandom of the series to a tedious xerox copy of partisan politics in America. 

Stop ranking movies. Enjoy them, don’t enjoy them. That is up to you. Just watch them.

With that in mind, both this film and the one that preceded it are great and you should watch them, if you haven’t.

Which you almost certainly have.

*I watched the unaltered versions available on the 2006 “limited edition” DVDs. See my review for A New Hope for further thoughts on this.

The Irishman (2019)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Ray Romano

Have I Seen it Before: No, but it took several days to get through the film. So, yes I went against Scorsese’s wishes and watched it essentially as a miniseries, and I watched it almost exclusively on my phone. I’m not sure Scorsese gets to dictate the terms in which his films are watched anymore.

Which brings us to his recent comments about current popular filmmaking, specifically those films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He dismisses them as not really cinema, and even went so far as to say that they shouldn’t be shown in cinemas.

Is it possible to disagree with him, and not blame him for having the opinion in the first place.

If I were Scorsese, and I had made a career out of a litany of prestige films, the shifting of the movie business to favor what would have been B-movie material during his formative and prime years would feel a little disconcerting. It means that his material of choice is now receiving the resources of B productions.

Thankfully, he is still getting the resources—if not the exhibition he once had—to tell the kind of stories he wants to tell.

Did I Like It:  Oh, I guess you came to this review wondering about that part. Sure. What’s not to love? Pacino and De Niro taking a swing at not slumming it for the first time in what feels like forever? Scorsese working in the genre that made his bones, so to speak? The long-prophesied return of Joe Pesci? Hell, make the movie six hours next time. I’ll show up. One might quibble with the under-utilized Anna Paquin—and even I’m a little befuddled by her near-prop status—but it is a minor quibble with an otherwise ornate tapestry of mob goodness. It feels elegiac, but I think that is a remark on De Niro’s character, and its stretching to apply it to Scorsese himself. I think he’s got plenty of great films still left within him.

Now if only he could get the same kind of presence in cinemas as some of the Marvel movies, maybe we could all get along again and enjoy watching De Niro shoot people in the face.