I must admit that I am not a big Star Wars fan. For example, I do not know who Boba Fett is, a character who seems to pop up frequently in discussions about the film, and this ignorance undoubtedly puts me beyond the pale. But I know enough and recall enough of the first three films (#4,#5,#6) to enjoy this imagination of how the same story could have been told by this eminent documentarian.
[Read more…]
On Stephen Colbert’s show he discusses his new film Where to Invade Next which hasn’t opened yet and that looks interesting. He goes to various countries, mostly in Europe, to find out their good ideas so that we can adopt them. I had not been aware that in Portugal, for example, they have not arrested anyone in the last fifteen years for drug offenses, even if it is the possession and use of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. He claims that drug use and drug-related crime have decreased in that time.
[Read more…]
This week marks the release of the latest installment of this franchise. In this clip we see a Darth Vader voiced by a guest artist, using his own words.
[Read more…]
I am a big fan of the children’s TV show Sesame Street. I don’t watch it anymore but I used to watch it every day with my children when they were young and I got very fond of the characters on the show, particularly the Muppets, because the program was clever and funny. My children are all grown up now but I still watch some of the clips online where they parody popular culture
[Read more…]
I just do not understand the desire that some people have to be the first to get or do something that seems so trivial, and even if that lead is so fleeting and intangible. For example, the people lining up for days in advance, or paying others to do so, just for the privilege of getting a new iPhone on the day it is released, when you could wait a few days and get it at your leisure. But it seems to matter greatly to some to be the first.
[Read more…]
1968 was a turbulent year. Marin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy had both been murdered, opposition to the Vietnam war was at its height, the Tet offensive had shattered the US government’s claim that they were winning that war, and racial tensions were soaring. It was in this volatile environment that the two political parties held their nominating conventions. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was notorious for mayor Richard Daley imposing what was essentially a police state, with tanks and armored vehicles patrolling the streets and the violent clashes that ensued. Haskell Wexler’s film Medium Cool (1969) captures the mood well.
[Read more…]
In writing about the film Gaslight, I mentioned that actor Joseph Cotten also appeared in The Third Man (1949). Anyone who has seen that film will undoubtedly recall the mesmerizing theme and the soundtrack. In his retrospective look at great films, critic Roger Ebert’s rave review begins:
[Read more…]
Last night I watched this old film that won an Academy Award for Ingrid Bergman. She played Paula Alquist, an orphan who was raised by her aunt, a famous opera singer who was strangled in her London home by a killer in pursuit of expensive jewelry that had been gifted to her as a reward for her performance. The case was never solved and the jewels never found. Paula was just 14 at the time and she was immediately sent away to Italy to study music under her aunt’s tutor, and the London house was mothballed but not sold or rented.
[Read more…]
When US audiences think of parodies of TV police shows, the first name that comes to mind is Leslie Nielsen in his role as Frank Drebin in the short-lived six-episode 1982 series Police Squad! that later was made into the hit trilogy of Naked Gun films beginning in 1988.
[Read more…]
A couple of days ago I watched once again this classic western. It is one of the few films that I have watched more than once and it still grips me. It is a western but has little action, its fascination lying in the human drama. For those few who have not seen the film, the entire action takes place in almost real time. It stars Gary Cooper as marshal Will Kane who has cleaned up a western town. At 10:30 am one morning he gets married to Amy Fowler (played by Grace Kelly), a Quaker, and following he ceremony he gives up his badge in order to accommodate his pacifist wife and leave town and start a new life elsewhere as a shopkeeper.
[Read more…]