A Long Time Ago...

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write about the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars for today. There has already been enough ink spilt and bandwidth burnt about the franchise recently that I don’t think there’s much, if anything, I can add. Still…

I was eight years old the summer of 1977 when Star Wars came out. I still remember how my friend Todd, who was the first among us to see the movie, described the opening sequence as two battleship-like spaceships firing lasers at each other. It was all my young imagination to do to wrap around that idea, so blown over by the incredible coolness of how that sounded. This was sometime in mid-June, I believe, the first flashes of what would become a pop culture phenomenon like no other. Little did anyone realize what kind of juggernaut it was to become.

And little did I realize what an impact that Star Wars would make on my life.

Living in the suburbs with no movie house being within an acceptable bicycling distance, it was hard for me to get to the movies unless one of my parents took me. Thus I was left with trying to get glimpses of Star Wars whenever I could- commercials on TV, news reports about its continually growing box office returns and the like. But what really opened my eyes was when the “Making Of” special aired.

Although I tuned in to hopefully catch a glimpse of the Millennium Falcon shooting down TIE fighters, but what I saw opened my eyes. For the first time, I was introduced to the world behind the camera and everything that goes into making a movie. More importantly, it introduced me to the serial adventures of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, major inspirations to George Lucas. A gateway drug, if you will, that led to other old movies starring the likes of Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart and George Raft. An infinite world of flickering celluloid dreams and nightmares, stories and legends. A world that I’m still exploring.

True, the bloom is off the Star Wars rose somewhat, thanks to Lucas’ incessant tinkering with the films in the form of “Special Editions” and a rather disappointing set of prequels. But even as he tries to redefine his epic through such changes as Han shooting first or replacing the sweat and hard work of the original craftsmen of those spectacular space battles with the coldness of computer generated effects, he can’t deny that it was those original films that shock the pillars of the world’s popular culture, redefining how we go to the movies, how we interact with the movies and how Hollywood presents its films to us.

I consider myself fortunate to have been the age I was when I was to not only witness film history happening but to have it swirl around me, pick me up and put me on a path I’m still traveling today.

MPAA Clarifies R Rating, World Shrugs

The Hollywood Reporter has posted a story today where the Motion Picture Assocation of America's Classification And Ratings Admission has announced a change of wording that will accompany the "R" rating certificate on future movies receiving the rating.

Previously, the wording accompanying the rating went "Children under 17 not admitted without parent."

Going forward, the new advisory will read "Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures."

Gee, you think?

You mean the "graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity" which is already noted in the R rating for 300 needs to be reinforced with the additional warning that it wouldn't be appropriate for parents to bring their you children with them to see it?

If this the MPAA's ideas of their recently promised improvements to their much (and quite possibly rightfully so) maligned ratings system, then I can't say that I'm impressed. If this is the best that CARA chairwoman Joan Graves, MPAA general counsel Greg Goeckner and MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman can come up with, than perhaps its time for them to clean out their desks and get some new blood in there.

Right now, I can only imagine that the meetings leading up to this revision mirror an early scene from Mel Brook's 1974 classic Blazing Saddles- "We've gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!"

The Trouble With Lists

Well, I guess I can die then…

The Houston Chronicle’s tech writer, Dwight Silverman, has posted on his blog a list of 15 films he considers essential film geek watching. Not surprisingly, I’ve seen all films on the list.

I’d also have to say that I’m not that impressed with his choices overall. Sure, I’ve enjoyed every film named to one degree or another and 12 of the titles sit on my DVD shelf at home. But Silverman’s list is an awfully narrow slice of science-fiction, fantasy and horror genre films that arguably are pretty well known to the general public. I mean really, two Star Trek films? Even a die-hard Terry Gilliam fan like myself is wondering at the inclusion of 3 of his films. Likewise, Sam Raimi gets two of his films named to the list with Silverman even admitting that Army Of Darkness is “a more mainstream and approachable film” than the first two Evil Dead flicks. How, exactly, can a movie be both "mainstream and approachable" and worthy of being placed on a list of "geek films"? It seems to me that the two are mutually exclusive.

In an effort to provide some more geek film titles for his readers, Silverman also links to another blog that contains the title of 81 geek movies “that do not suck.” While this new list does traffic in roughly the same science-fiction/fantasy/horror milieu that Silverman’s list, it does deserve some credit for trying to expand things a bit with the addition of the “Obsessive Nerd-Chick Stalker Geek,” “Cult Film Geek” and “Nostalgia “I was a nerd kid in the 80s” Geek” categories.

But still the list is problematic. There are a few titles – An Evening With Kevin Smith and Children Of Dune – which aren’t films but made for DVD specials or television mini-series. There also seems to be a lot of padding on this list- naming both Spider-Man films, four separate Star Trek films (though the original Star Wars trilogy gets grouped as one entry), and films like Constantine and Swordfish. Swordfish?!

Ultimately, while both lists attempt to be something that starts discussions among film fans (See, we’re doing it here), they fail in that their scope is limited to however the writer chooses to define “film geek.” In both instances here, the writers clearly think that geekdom (Geekatude? Geekosity?) is clearly confined to a few narrow genres. But what about those people whose unabidding love is the movie musical or westerns or silents? Don’t they get their geek lists too?

No art can be judged in a vacuum and if one only exposed themselves to films considered “classics,” one would rapidly loose any standard by which to judge said films. It’s much better to have knowledge of a wide range of films from all genres in order to be able to better appreciate any movie they may watch. Soderberg’s recent The Good German invariably invites the viewer to draw comparisons to Casablanca. But how are those comparisons tempered when the viewer also factors in the Pam Anderson film Barb Wire, which also drew inspiration from the Humphrey Bogart classic?

I’ve always tried to steer clear of “Best Of” or “Essential” lists here at FilmBuffOnLine. It’s not that I’m afraid that someone is going to disagree with my choices. It’s that there are too many choices to narrow a list down to manageable levels. That’s why if pressed for a list of movies that one absolutely must watch by friends or family, I always answer “As many as you can.”

Coulter Chickens Out Of Franken Doc

If you happened to catch the new documentary Al Franken: God Spoke at last spring’s Tribecca Film Fest, than you are among the privileged few who got to see a slightly different cut of the film with an extra scene in which the film’s subject, political satirist Al Franken, gets the better of conservative pundit Ann Coulter in a 2004 debate. Apparently, Coulter has refused to sign a release for the scene, forcing the producers to remove the scene from the film.

Al Franken: God Spoke premiered in New York City this week and will make its way across the country over the next two months. You can find more release information at the film's website.

The scene in questions features a segment of a debate where the two were asked by the debate moderator which historical figure they would like to be. Coulter responded first, saying that she wished she could be Franklin Roosevelt, so she could prevent his New Deal economic recovery program. Franken reposted with the observation that he would have liked to been Hitler so he could have prevented a little thing called the Holocaust.

In an interview over at CHUD, Devin Feraci spoke to the film’s directors Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus, who confirmed that the scene was squelched by Coulter’s camp, though they accept some blame for the footage being initially included in the film.

“We went under the unthinking presumption that it was a public event and we could shoot it,” Doob told Faraci. “It was really, in fact, a miscommunication in our office. To use that footage we had to have permission from Ann Coulter.” The filmmakers have replaced the scene with one of Coulter and Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly discussing Franken.

The film's distributors have asked critics not to mention the missing scene in their reviews. Of course, there's nothing stopping the rest of us from writing about it and leaving you readers up to draw your own conclusions about Ann Coulter...

Fox’s IDIOCRACY

This past weekend director Mike Judge’s long awaited follow-up to his hit comedy Office Space (1999), Idiocracy, finally appeared in theatres, though one would be hard pressed to know it.

The film stars Luke Wilson as an army private who is cryogenically frozen and then thawed out in the year 2505 to find that the future isn’t so bright as it is dumb. It seems that over five centuries the stupid people have out bred the smart ones, making Wilson’s average Joe character the smartest man in America.

After months of being bounced around Twentieth Century Fox’s release schedule, the studio finally released Idiocracy on a paltry 130 screens in seven cities- Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Chicago and Toronto. There were no advanced screenings for critics. There was no discernable advertising outside of a few newspaper ads. Although a trailer for the film is mentioned in a recent Esquire magazine portrait on Judge, it can’t be found online. In fact, the film’s internet presence is virtually non-existent, even on Fox’s own website.

One would suspect from this apparent lack of confidence that Fox had a dog picture on their hands and were looking to dump it quick. However, almost as soon as the film’s first Friday matinee ended reviews started appearing online and they ranged from at the worse mixed and the best raves. As I write this, the movie even earned a 71% fresh rating over at Rotten Tomatoes.com. Certainly not the disaster one would expect from its apparent treatment by the studio.

So why is it that Fox is giving this as quiet a release as possible? The reviews have been respectable, especially for a summer which gave us such lackluster comedies as You, Me And Dupree and the two Fox releases My Super Ex-Girlfriend and John Tucker Must Die. While Office Space did not perform spectacularly during its initial theatrical run, a release many would argue Fox bungled, it would go on to earn millions for Fox on VHS and in two separate DVD releases. Advertising Idiocracy as being from the director of Office Space certainly sounds as if it would be an effective way of getting people to line up at the box office.

The film’s small release might make sense if this past weekend was just the first step in a multi-week release strategy where Idiocracy would open in further cities as word-of-mouth spread. It’s a strategy currently being employed by Fox’s own Fox Searchlight division for Little Miss Sunshine. However, there’s been no indication that there’s any indication that Fox plans to get this film onto more screens than the initial 130, basically telling fans outside of reasonable driving distance that they’re out of luck.

Maybe Judge is right. Maybe America is getting dumber and the idiots are in charge. It’s already happenedwith Twentieth Century Fox studio executives.