The Force Snores

SOURCE: DISNEY

Oh, yeah. The Force snores. And snoozes.

As you may be able to guess, I saw the latest version of "Star Wars", "The Force Awakens" this evening. It was a wonderful and thoughtful and even appreciated gift from my bosses and company for the holidays but wow. What a stinker of a movie.

This movie is, without doubt the most unoriginal, predictable, repetitive, tedious, cute and cutesy--and even racist--movie you could ever want to see. What was, originally, fresh and clever has become deeply formulaic. Hence the predictability.

And while I will say all that about it---and I can back it up, certainly---I won't put any spoilers here, though the film deserves it.

Personally, I'd like the 2 hours back. 

It's nearly as though someone made 8 or 10 more versions of "The Godfather." It makes that much sense, as a film.

These two writers, responding to the New York Times review, got it right:

OpposeBadThings  United Kingdom

I watched the film last night. I am one of those who saw the original and marveled at it back in 1977. JJ Abrams has a unique talent - the ability to take a franchise, remake the base story with new special effects and modern directing but - and this is the awful truth - has no imagination whatsoever. This is nothing more than the first film re-made. The plot is so alarmingly duplicated in so many details that I felt little more than duped. This was an opportunity to take Star Wars in a new direction, but instead, as he did with Star Trek, he just steals plots and reworks them. Utterly, totally disappointing- we have fallen for the hype - in 2 years everyone will realise how had they were.

anixt999 new york

The true genius here is not in the film itself which is an almost shot by shot remake of the original, no, the true genius is in the marketing and merchandising which has been like something never seen before, it's almost akin to a national brainwashing. Some may even call it similar to Jedi mind manipulation. This full court press of marketing is the true force to be reckoned with and is happening in every corner of the globe where there is a movie theatre.

The Movie itself is the typical action show, designed for kids and the kid in all of us, kids will love it, but they also loved Avengers, and Antman and all those other action flicks, and this will quickly blend in with the rest. It will not be the iconoclastic, seminal, magical event that many of us were lucky to experience in 1977. It's a hyped-up remake that profits in comparison to the hated prequels. Like many of have already stated, the excellent novels which have been disowned to make way for this new storyline were so much better and interesting as well as thought provoking, the kind of stuff that stays with you and stimulates the imagination. This movie has none of that quality. It is an end in itself and will quickly drift away from your thoughts and dreams.

However, It's lack of originality will not be disturbing to Disney, all they care about is Money. 

May the Greed be with you.

All I can say, after the above totally fair judgments, is that JJ Abrams, though he will make millions, should be embarrassed, if not ashamed. And it will be great for Disney, certainly and millions upon millions of people, the world over will go and even enjoy the film. Sadly.

It's just further proof of the very old but also very true saying from H.L. Mencken:

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

Go. Enjoy.

You know you want to.

I'm just happy I didn't pay for it.

Link:   The Pre-Fab “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” - The New Yorker

Opens Today

See this movie.

Quote of the day

" I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world."

--Roger Ebert, June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013,  American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. The Chicago Sun-Times said he "was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic,"[10] and Forbes described him as "the most powerful pundit in America".[11] He was both the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, and the first to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Ebert was primarily known for his film review column (in the Chicago Sun-Times beginning in 1967, and later online)[12] and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, which he co-hosted for 23 years.

May he rightly rest in peace.

Links:

http://www.salon.com/2011/09/15/roger_ebert/

Roger Ebert - Wikipedia

Two movies I believe I want to see

The first, with Denzel Washington:



And the second, with Tom Hanks:



Is it just me or do the trailers seem to resemble one another, with all the blue sky and white letter graphics?

I'm thinking that's somehow no accident.

Anyway, thoughts on the 2nd film:

First, Halle Barry could not possibly be more physically beautiful, I'm convinced.

Second, it looks like the "Boomers" are considering life, death, the possible afterlife and all that entails again (ala' "The Big Chill", etc.) from the looks of this film. It looks like Shirley McClaine created a movie with Ridley Scott or something, given all the "before lives" "and after lives" and space ships, etc., suggested in the trailer. We'll see.

With all the "Life", "Death" and "Rebirth" and "Everything's Connected", it looks like somebody smoked some serious stuff in the 2nd one, too.

Stay tuned.

Watch the extended, 6 minute "Cloud Atlas" trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgI6EeYbV84&list=UUzPAlRRUqh-PUYL5h9-PO8w&feature=player_detailpage

Coming movie: supposed to be good

Phillip Seymour Hoffman. It's supposed to be good.



A second trailer, maybe my favorite of the two:



Here's hoping they're right and it is.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/movies/cloud-atlas-and-the-master-playing-at-toronto-festival.html

Yet another pointless, lazy movie sequel out of Hollywood

I saw this advertised today and could barely believe it.

I had been taken by friends to see the first of these movies.

Yikes.

I do my best to avoid Sylvester Stallone and his "work", such as it is, but I ended up seeing the original of this.

Wow.

I was right.

I need to stay away.

I hadn't heard it was successful but clearly, sadly, it must have been because here comes number two.

The original was so bad, so pointless, so predictable, it was painful.

Now? For there to be a sequel? A second one of these stinkers?

I can only assume there isn't a lull in teenage boys, wanting more "blow 'em up" movies.

I'm just surprised they'll go watch old dudes, doing it.

It's finally happened

There has finally been a Tim Burton/Johnny Depp film that's been created I don't care for and patently don't want to see. And this is it.

By virtue of numbers, it was bound to happen.

Right?

I'm so old...

I remember who Kim Baisinger is.

Films that could never be remade VII

This movie, "Arthur", from 1981 is surely one of the good to great films--comedy this time--that no way could be remade. Between the pass is got at the time on the subject of alcoholism and the actors in it, it's frozen in time. With Dudley Moore, Liza Minelli and Sir John Gielgud, it is magnificent. The jokes and comedic timing are so spot-on, it just doesn't get much better than this. Such terrific one-liners. This is one of those movies that, over time, you can see again and again, I think, even though you see and hear the same jokes. Fantastic stuff, then, now and forever.

Films that could never be remade IV

Here's an unusual one, for me because while I admit it could never be redone, partially due to the time period it was made and partially because of the actors who did it, this is a movie I hope is never redone because--this is a secret--I patently don't care for this film. There, I said it.

Films that could never be remade III

On this one, not only could this film never be remade, there will also never be another film-maker like the one, the only, the brilliant, Stanley Kubrick. As anyone would know, a few, at least, of his films will be in this category, certainly, and no surprise.

Films that could never be remade II

Next up, "Star Wars." Certainly, it will never and could never be remade, not that there would be a need. That said, there is nothing like it and never will be. The people, the technology, the ideas--it was the right thing at that right time. It blew us away. I also could have put up so many scenes from this film, it made it very easy.

Entertainment overnight

One of the best "Star Wars" scenes ever. Right from the opening scene of the first film of the entire series, they had us. What a time that was.

Eddie Murphy has done it again

It looks as though actor, comedian Eddie Murphy has done it again. It looks as though he has selected a movie that, once again, will be dreadful. At least, this time, he isn't playing an older, heavy-set woman. Or 6 different characters in the same, awful movie. It just looks awful, period. Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0763831/

This looks funny as heck

I saw this trailer last evening. The movie looks funny as heck--and I usually hate these "blow 'em up" films. Here's the premise: Two top CIA operatives wage an epic battle against one another after they discover they are dating the same woman. Absurdity of the first order. Bring it on.

"Paper Moon", 1973

Filmed, in large part, an hour North in certain people's hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri, for what it's worth. A great film, for sure.

Those crazy Catholics crack me up

I mean, if they aren't busy sexually abusing children in their schools or enabling others--mostly church hierarchy to do said same, Catholics can be one great source of humor. I didn't see this last Fall when it came out but it seems the Vatican came out against a Hollywood movie on Vampires, of all things: The Vatican vs. 'New Moon'

The Catholic Church objects to the newest "Twilight" film This is the part that really made me laugh: "Ahead of the weekend's blockbuster opening for the teen vampire fantasy Twilight: New Moon, a Vatican official condemned the movie as a 'deviant moral vacuum.'" I mean, come on, it's a movie, from Hollywood, naturally, that's about vampires. How seriously can it be taken? Of course, this complaint is from the same group that not only believes in exorcists and exorcisms but keeps a practicing, "official" exorcist on staff. Come to think of it, if they believe in exorcisms as real, it's easy to see how they just might take turning into a wolf once a month literally, too. No wonder they got they're panties in such a twist. Link: http://theweek.com/article/index/103245/the-vatican-vs-new-moon

The New Yorker on "Contagion"

The good news? They like it. They like it a lot. The bad news? They gush. (See link at bottom). What's important from the review, though, is this: "'Contagion' is, of course, a 9/11-anniversary movie, though probably not one that the public was expecting. Soderbergh appears to be saying, 'I’ll show you something far worse than a terrorist attack, and no fundamentalist fanatic planned it.' The film suggests that, at any moment, our advanced civilization could be close to a breakdown exacerbated by precisely what is most advanced in it. And the movie shows us something else: heroic work by scientists and Homeland Security officials. We can’t help noticing that with two exceptions—a French doctor who works for the World Health Organization (Marion Cotillard) and a renegade epidemiologist in San Francisco (Elliott Gould)—the heroes are all employees of the federal government, and instinctively factual people. No one prays, no one calls on God. “Contagion” lacks any spiritual dimension—except for its passionate belief in science and rational administration. The movie says: When there’s real trouble, we’re in the hands of the reality-based community. No one else matters." That said, I'm still waiting for a reviewer to compare it to "Andromeda Strain", one way or another. Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2011/09/19/110919crci_cinema_denby#ixzz1XTcuen8M

Contagion: Andromeda Strain 2011?

It will be interesting to read how the new movie coming out soon, "Contagion" will be anything different from what "Andromeda Strain" proposed so long ago, in 1971. (I say read because, though it has the likes of Helen Mirren and Matt Damon in it, whose work I usually always enjoy, I will likely not see it unless I read or hear great things of it and from people or sources I trust). We'll see. Apparently the new one is based on disease spread by birds, if we are to trust the trailer, while "Andromeda" is more based on what the famous astronomer Carl Sagan suggested might happen when/if we were contaminated from space. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain

Mel Gibson's latest movie: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

First, let me say, I wouldn't pay to see a Mel Gibson movie even if, say, you paid me.

Just so you know where I'm coming from.

Once he did his blockbuster "Passion of the Christ" and earned so many millions of dollars, I knew Mel didn't need my money for the rest of his life.

So to see now that Mel "Coo-Coo for Cocoa Puffs" Gibson has a new movie out and that it has him playing someone with a mental illness speaking with a beaver puppet on his hand is just too good.  It's way too self-serving for me.



Here's the really funny part to me right now.

In a big ad in The New York Times this last Sunday, it lead with a HUGE, glowing review/blurb, naturally:   

"A TRUE MASTERPIECE*****'The Beaver' is a crowning achievement in American cinema.  Expertly guided by Jodie Foster's precise and focused direction."

And get this---this, to me, was the really funny part, aside from the part that clearly-racist, religion-crazy Mel is playing the part of someone who's lost his mind:  The glowing review blurb was from a local Kansas City reviewer--Shawn Edwards of FOX-TV here in town.

That was their big, all-important, glowing recommendation.

I think they might be in trouble

But thanks, Mr. Gibson, for making it easy for us.

We appreciate it greatly.

 
Links:  http://www.thebeaver-movie.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1321860/