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There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth this past week about the latest antics of President Donald Trump. The East Wing of the White House has been effectively destroyed, to make way for a new ball room.
Here's the way the White House complex looked prior to the demolition of the East Wing:
The East Wing only dates back to the 1940s. It really hasn't done too terribly much, to be honest. It's become more or less the province of the first lady, though that's never been a designated official capacity. The East Wing can't honestly be said to be part of the truly historic and traditional White House grounds. And the White House has never been a static location anyway. It's been added to, remodeled and renovated almost since its beginnings more than two centuries ago. America has grown and evolved (ideally for the better) and the White House has evolved with it. And it probably always will be, for as long as America is a republic (if we can keep that).
The East Room of the White House has always been a relatively small setting for formal and especially diplomatic functions. A spacious environment for such affairs is something that pretty much every other modern state has. The United States does not. We've had to do with the tiny East Room. And I'm wondering what Ronald Reagan would have done about adding a ball room. He would have probably been all for it, though I think that at that moment in American history he would have been more fixated on ending the Cold War. Still, a ball room for state occasions would have been right up his alley. It would have been quite an elegant and versatile addition to the White House. One that would doubtless bear witness to much history for generations to come.
So count me as someone who believes there's nothing inordinately inappropriate about what Trump is doing with the East Wing. The plans were already announced months ago that this would be happening. It's not like this is suddenly out of nowhere.
But personally, I think that President Trump isn't going far enough in his design for the presidential residence...
One of the things that was demolished this past week, along with the rest of the East Wing, was the White House movie theater. Originally a cloak room that was converted on Franklin Roosevelt's orders in 1942, the movie theater has since been enjoyed by every president and his family . Reagan was particularly fond of it. I've heard from a few sources that the White House will sooner than later have a new movie theater, one that's much more modern and high-tech.
Well, here's my idea: if Trump wants to go all out for the White House, it can't get much bigger than installing its own IMAX screen:
GeekTyrant, one of my favorite websites, reminds us that this week is the tenth anniversary of the release of the trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I will never forget that night. I was reloading YouTube every ten seconds, waiting for the trailer to publish. And when it finally dropped...
I guarantee you that I watched that thing at least a dozen times before going to bed. Oh sure, there had been the teaser earlier that April, but this was the full-blown serious look at what the first chapter of Star Wars's "sequel trilogy" was offering. And it was glorious! Everything about that trailer was spot-on perfect: the glimpses, the dialogue, the music... just completely epic.
Here it is if you haven't watched it in awhile (or if you've never had the pleasure of seeing it at all until now):
It had been seven years since the previous Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith. That there could be a new movie for the saga was something many of us had given up on ever happening. And then in 2012 came the news that Episode VII was coming in three years.
That day was one of the happiest that we collectively had, in quite a long time. And that trailer for The Force Awakens reflected that. It really did herald the imminent arrival of a new Star Wars movie. Our dream was coming true. The most beloved mythology of the modern era was going to expand. It was going to keep going, on into the future. Indeed, it was going to be altogether possible that there would be no end to Star Wars, until the end of time. I couldn't help but think that I would not live to see every Star Wars movie, and there was some great comfort to draw from that. The way that grown men plant trees, in whose shades their great-grandchildren will play, though they themselves will never see it.
The trailer for The Force Awakens promised that. And more. And we could not see anything but something remarkable coming about, beyond our wildest aspirations. And that's what we got, right?
Right?
Let's get the obvious out of the way: the Star Wars sequel trilogy left a lot to be desired. It's easily the weakest of the three eras of the classic saga of the Skywalker family. For one thing it's painfully clear that there wasn't a grand design from the beginning of production. Now, there was a plan for the sequel trilogy. George Lucas had included it in the deal that he signed with Disney when he sold Lucasfilm and the related companies. But what that was, we'll probably never fully know. Kathleen Kennedy and the other Disney bigwigs abandoned Lucas's plans and instead went for something all their own. And odds are that in large part it was inferior to The Maker's design for the saga he created in the first place.
So there was no master plan, as Disney intended to execute. "But wait, Chris, did the original trilogy have such a master plan??" I'll grant you, that such a concise plot diagrammed out did not exist at the time of A New Hope's release. Lucas and Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan were writing The Empire Strikes Back by the seat of their pants. That it is arguably the greatest Star Wars movie of all time is testament to the vision that they came up with together. Their work on Episode V established the method by which all future Star Wars should be designed and carried out. That method carried over into Return of the Jedi. And when it came time years later to begin work on the prequel trilogy, Lucas already had the architecture established to go back in the saga's timeline and tell the story of young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. And that worked beautifully, too.
The prequel trilogy had none of that. Or if it did, it was a vague semblance of an over-arching plot. Once again the writing was by "the seat of their pants". But there was never a solid plan.
My personal biggest beef about the sequel trilogy? It's how Supreme Leader Snoke was treated. The Force Awakens portended that Snoke was going to be a major villain. The new grand adversary for the next generation of the heroes of the saga. I loved Snoke as a character. I saw the movie three times in the theater and each time I knew Snoke was about to appear, I paid especially close attention. Snoke captured my imagination. Who was he? What was he? My theory was that he was going to be revealed to be the ultimate bad guy behind everything wrong that had happened in the saga. Snoke could have been the one who created the Sith themselves, for all we knew. Snoke was an example of Chekov's rule of drama: if you see the gun mounted on the wall in act one, it must be fired in act three. And I wanted to see that gun go off.
But as The Last Jedi showed us, that was not to be. Snoke wound up a wasted character. And I absolutely hate what came of Snoke in The Rise of Skywalker. Snoke deserved better. And we could have had that, if there had been a master plan in mind that was going to be honored by the filmmakers.
Just one of the many problems that I have with the sequel era.
The last time I had watched any of the sequel trilogy was probably about two years ago. I set The Rise of Skywalker playing for background noise as I worked on some writing projects one Sunday afternoon. I couldn't get through it. I got about halfway through the movie before realizing that I wasn't tuning in at all even peripherally. So I stopped the movie and instead started playing the Marx Brothers's movie Duck Soup: a good comedy for stimulating the synapses. And at the time I wondered if I would ever watch any Star Wars movie again, ever. Episodes seven through nine had practically ruined something that I had carried with me since the first moment I saw an Artoo-Detoo action figure, at four years old. Star Wars seemed to be something that for all intents and purposes, was dead to me from now on.
But something funny happened recently...
It was a few weeks ago. A couple of days before my book was published. For nigh on two months I had plunged myself into preparing every facet of what it means to bring a book to the public. Everything from going over the manuscript a dozen times over, to designing the cover, to porting the book to Kindle ebook format. If I wasn't eating or sleeping or working or playing with my dog Tammy, I was focused on getting the book ready. And in the end it was finally finished, ready for the printer or download on October 1st.
I was thoroughly exhausted. My brain was drained. Mentally I was a man poured out. The book had been submitted. It was finally out of my hands. It was something that would soon be in the possession of readers and hopefully there would be many of them and more to the point, I hoped that they would find that it was a book well worth reading.
So with nothing else to occupy my time with, without really comprehending why I was doing it, I put in my Blu-ray Disc of The Force Awakens. I situated myself on the sofa, not actually braced for one thing or another. Just needing to have some distraction from my being so wiped out from the book.
And before I knew what was going on, I discovered that I was liking the movie. An awful lot. Maybe more than a person should.
Suddenly I was transported back to that night in December of 2015, when I met my lifelong best friend Chad and his wife at a cinema in Raleigh, as we watched the first showing of Episode VII. And that was a wonderful night indeed, in every way. I left that theater and hit the highway for the two-hour drive back home and my mind was on fire about the new Star Wars movie. It had been everything and more that I had expected it to be.
Lo and behold, as I watched The Force Awakens playing in my living room, those memories came rushing back. And I appreciated anew how precious those were and why they were precious and it did indeed involve that being a good Star Wars film after all.
I decided that I wanted to keep the vibe going. And so I settled in to watch the next movie: The Last Jedi.
It is perhaps the most problematic Star Wars film ever produced. Thoughts of disappointment went through my gray matter, and I braced myself for the two-plus hours to come. I wondered to myself, "Why am I doing this to myself?" But I had started this by watching The Force Awakens and I had to stay committed to the agenda. I was going to watch the entire sequel trilogy, come what may.
Well. Well indeed...
As I've said, as we all know, The Last Jedi is the most issue-ridden chapter of the entire saga. But watching it with a mind absent discrimination, with refreshened eyes... so help me I found myself enjoying The Last Jedi more than I had before.
I was greatly surprised. Genuinely shocked, even. I was able to overlook its shortcomings and instead respect its strengths. And there are many. Was Snoke mishandled? Yes, I will always believe that for the most part. But his death in The Last Jedi was certainly a shock that very few people if anyone at all saw coming.
What I especially appreciate about The Last Jedi is that perhaps more than any other episode in the saga, it delves into the workings of the Force. The scene where Luke has Rey reaching out, feeling the world around her - cold and warmth, life and death - is absolutely beautiful. Not since The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980 had the Force been so metaphysically examined. I love that scene!
And then there is the fight between Luke and his nephew. Yes, maybe it could have ended better: with Luke living and going on to play a much bigger role in the next film. But as a duel between two Force-users, it definitely satisfies. I kept thinking while watching that scene for the first time that Luke was being awfully self-restrained. He was fighting by not fighting. Luke was being a true Jedi master, as we had never seen him before. Actually, this was the very first time that we were seeing him as a master at all. And it did satisfy, it really did.
I finished watching The Last Jedi much more forgiving about that movie. Definitely not perfect. But it's also not the train wreck that I had first perceived it to be (and maybe had come to believe it as being simply because other people were saying how bad it is). With renewed eyes, and a refreshened mind, it was to considerable length a film worthy of Star Wars.
My revisit to the sequel trilogy was two-thirds done. And so it was that I resolved to watch The Rise of Skywalker. Would the trend continue? Might I come to have new feelings about the final film in the story of the Skywalker clan? Or would the trilogy irredeemably collapse, to be forever stricken from being considered as a worthy chapter of the Star Wars saga?
Once more, I was surprised. The Rise of Skywalker held up much better than I remembered it doing.
The ending of The Rise of Skywalker is almost what I had imagined for most of my life would be the perfect ending to the entire nine movies mythology: the Skywalker family coming back to Tatooine, accompanied by the droids, with the twin suns above the horizon. So help me that's how I dreamed of the final scene of Episode IX all my childhood and beyond. And what we see in The Rise of Skywalker is darn nearly that. My biggest complaint about it is that it doesn't have Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio in that scene: they were the first two characters we saw in A New Hope and it would have been fitting if they were two of the last characters we saw in the final movie. But I suppose that can be let slide.
Yes, The Rise of Skywalker isn't perfect. But some things about it aren't so bad. When I think of "somehow Palpatine returned", I remember that Palpatine did return, pretty much by the same method (cloning, Dark Side magik etc.) in the Dark Empire series by Dark Horse Comics in 1992: the very first Star Wars comic of the Expanded Universe. George Lucas seriously loved the idea of bringing the Emperor back, enough so that he gave trade paperbacks of Dark Empire to all the Lucasfilm employees as Christmas presents. So that particular idea isn't very alien to Star Wars lore. Of course, Lucas was also the one who suggested killing Chewbacca in the novel Vector Prime, so there's that too, but anyway...
When Episode IX had finished playing, I found myself thinking that the sequel trilogy wasn't too awful after all. It did pretty well, all things considered. The untimely death of Carrie Fisher no doubt detrimentally impacted the story. From what I've heard, the intention was that Leia was going to figure enormously into the final film. J.J. Abrams and his team should be given some credit: they did the best that they could do with the little they were given, and it's something to be thankful for that they had all that extra footage of Fisher left over from the filming of The Force Awakens to work with. It's not a "perfect" fit. It's a bit clumsy, if we are to be honest. But that can be forgiven, under the circumstances.
And that was my day re-experiencing episodes 7, 8, and 9 of the Star Wars saga. I went to bed that night, against all sensibilities, with my love of Star Wars re-ignited. It hadn't been wasted at all. I could call myself a true fan again. The "Star Wars shrine" in my living room - that displays among other things my copy of Heir to the Empire signed by Timothy Zahn, my Yoda puppet autographed by "Weird A" Yankovic, my personal lightsaber, and my beloved Chewbacca mug that my best friend from college gave to me - is again something I can be proud of having to showcase something from my childhood that I've carried along all this time.
The Force Awakens is an amazing film. And the next two movies, if not completely up to par with Episode VII, are more than passable on their own. They are Star Wars movies, with all the lumps and warts that come with that. Even A New Hope was considered by many to be more than a little ridiculous when it premiered in 1977. It has been more than forgiven for its faults.
I do believe, absolutely, that with the passage of time episodes 7, 8, and 9 are going to be better regarded than they are today. The weakest of the trilogy is easily The Last Jedi, but the rest of it isn't too terribly bad. The kids seem to like it. Especially young girls, who found a kindred spirit in Rey, and that can't be a bad thing in any way whatsoever.
I was astounded by how much more I liked these three movies than I had before. They are not perfect, but in the end they comprise what they are: a Star Wars trilogy. I can accept it. Just as I can accept the quirks and weaknesses of any of the other six Star Wars movies.
Give the sequels another five or ten years. I'll bet that in time the seventh, eighth, and ninth Star Wars movies are going to be as welcome into the canon as the rest of the saga. I have tremendous confidence that is going to happen.
I really liked Redford. Yes, he and I had different beliefs on a number of issues. There's no denying that. But unlike a lot of "celebrities" these days Robert Redford never used his star power to shove his opinions down the throats of anyone. He understood that he was an actor, that he was there to play a part in a movie. He was above such things as making his personal politics a factor in his professional career.
The man was an amazing actor. And a very good director. Some of my favorite movies that he was in are The Sting, Sneakers, and The Natural.
Indeed, The Natural is the first Robert Redford movie that I ever saw. We watched it at a birthday sleepover at a friend's house when I was in fifth grade. I thought it was an amazing film.
So in honor of Robert Redford, his life and his career, here is the magnificent scene toward the end of The Natural, where Roy Hobbs hits one last home run.
Word on the street is that there is a remake in the works of Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.
This might be the LAST movie that comes to mind where remakes are concerned. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a 1991 film starring Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson as two bikers in the then-future 1996 who put together a bank heist in order to save their favorite bar from foreclosure (by the same bank). There is more to it than that, but I won't spoil the pure over-the-top ridiculousness of it all.
Then again, with the right cast and direction this might work. In addition to Rourke and Johnson the original film also starred Tom Sizemore, Giancarlo Esposito, and Vanessa Williams. That wasn't too bad a collection of talent.
By the way, the remake may be starring Jason Momoa and Tom Hardy. I'm only reporting what I've heard.
I guess we'll see if this pans out. In the meantime if you want a real dose of Nineties-flavored dystopian action-comedy, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man may strike your fancy. Worth checking out if for no other reason than its opening sequence set to Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive".
After my most recent post about Superman a lot of people, especially friends, said that I needed to see the 2025 Superman movie for myself, instead of being so quick to judge by what, well... shall we say more judgmental voices have spoken about it. It was enough to compel me this evening to use a movie gift card that has been burning up my wallet for awhile now. So I've returned from seeing David Corenswet in his first outing as the Man of Steel.
What did I think about it?
In general, I liked it and I'm probably going to like it even more tomorrow after it's had some time to percolate in my gray matter. One thing I will say that came as a bit of a surprise: it is not political at all. Or at least I never picked up on any agenda infusing the story. It's as straight-up and pure a comic book movie as I've seen in awhile. It's not "woke" (I hate everything that word has come to mean in the parlance of American politics, nothing screams arrogance in an iron fist like "wokery"). It's actually making an effort to not be "conservative" or "liberal" at all, as one sound bite late in the movie touches upon.
The one thing I really didn't care about Superman 2025 was the language. It could be a bit much. No, there is not a single F-bomb that is dropped in this film. But it was more than should have been included in a film about perhaps the most beloved superhero of all time. Maybe in another comic book film (perhaps one devoted to Guy Garner, played in this movie by Nathan Fillion in a stroke of perfect casting) that would be appropriate. But not for a strictly Superman movie. It's not very, well... Superman-ish.
If you can forgive that, then 2025's Superman is a very good time. This movie has quite a bit of heart to it. The film quickly establishes that Superman has been active for a few years already, so he's still figuring things out. Like reconciling his raising by Ma and Pa Kent with his Kryptonian heritage and the powers that come with that. And speaking of that, Corenswet does a masterful job portraying both Clark Kent and Superman as different characters, as they are supposed to be in the tradition of the comics going back almost ninety years. Superman 2025 establishes fairly well that Clark Kent is Kal-El's earthly identity, that Superman is an alter-ego of. It was something that Christopher Reeve was the platinum standard for measuring an on-screen Superman, and Corenswet does his due well in upholding that trick.
Well, I could say more. Better to see it for yourself. I had a good time and you probably will too, if you can forgive a few things. My favorite film featuring the character, and maybe my favorite comic book film of all time, is likely forever going to be 1978's Superman: The Movie. Now that movie did have heart! If that film is 5 stars, Then I'll give 2025's Superman a 3 and 1/2 stars. Worth seeing while it's out in theaters.
I haven't seen the new Superman movie that opens today. Between one project and obligation after another there hasn't been much time lately for anything like going to the theater. I hope to catch it soon though. For as long as I can remember I've been a Superman fan to some degree. Superman is the superhero. The prototype by which all others are measured.
In some ways, by which all of us in the real world can be measured, too.
Over the past few days I have heard some bits about Superman as he's being portrayed in the new film. Now, the character is almost ninety years old. There has had to be some growth and acclimation during that time to keep up with the times. But one thing in particular about this latest incarnation that I've been hearing about and... well, it kinda bugs me. Because there is no reason why this should be a problem, for anyone.
It seems that Superman is not about "Truth, justice, and the American way" anymore. Superman is now now for "Truth, justice, and the human way."
Ehhh, no. That's not right. Superman should be for "the American way". And here is why:
The "human way" left to itself doesn't have a good track record. The American way is about believing in something better than ourselves, the people recognizing that it's what they have to aspire toward, and then doing their best to make that happen. That ONLY happens if there is that belief in something higher than man's own nature. Heed that and humanity can do great things. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the American way. It's not perfect and it never will be, but the American way that was traditionally part of Superman's mythos was the best that could be in this world still dominated by baseline Homo sapiens. Superman isn't here to force us to be for the "human way". He sees something greater within us and is going to do HIS best to help us come to that of our own. Superman is an avatar of what is still best in men, something that for all the rotten that human nature is capable of inflicting, is still going to be there in defiance of the bad. Superman calls out to that remnant (as the prophet Isaiah called them) who hold to incorrupt principles. They are the ones who truly "get" Superman and always will.
Maybe that's one of the reasons why Christopher Reeve's will always and forever be the platinum standard by which every Man of Steel is held to.
No, I haven't seen the new Superman movie. I want to though. But I'm just a little disappointed to hear that there's been that much of a change in Superman's guiding morality. We are supposed to see the best in Superman. And he is supposed to see the best in us. And strictly speaking as a historian, who may happen to be an American citizen, this would have been a far different past century if it had not been for American exceptionalism. We must be doing something right, for so many people wanting to come here.
Superman symbolizes the best in us, that looks to something larger than us. And in turn, America is supposed to symbolize what is best in other people, when THEY look to something larger than even America.
The sad news is coming out today that Kenneth Colley, the British actor who portrayed Admiral Firmus Piett across two Star Wars films, has passed away at the age of 87.
Colley had enjoyed having many roles in his six decades as an actor. He did some work with Monty Python (that's him playing Jesus in the opening of Life of Brian) and he appeared in Clint Eastwood's 1982 sci-fi Cold War thriller Firefox. Colley was also among the amazing cast of the sweeping television epic War and Remembrance.
But it is his portrayal of Captain... and then Admiral... Piett that is most remembered in the annals of pop culture.
Piett first appeared in 1980's Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back as the captain of Executor, Darth Vader's flagship Super Star Destroyer. Following the deployment of thousands of probe droids across the galaxy, Piett was monitoring their progress when a droid in the Hoth system picked up signs of habitation. Admiral Ozzel was quick to brush it off, though Vader took interest and was convinced that this was the Rebel base that the Empire was looking for. Vader ordered the fleet to set course for Hoth, as Ozzel gave Piett a spiteful glare. Piett merely stood in quiet confidence, content to have done his job to the best of his ability.
I think that Darth Vader appreciated that. Vader appreciated Piett as a man. I have to wonder if Vader had wanted Piett to be higher up in the chain of command all along. It would explain Vader's disdain for Ozzel. When Ozzel messed up by coming out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, Vader was all too eager to express his displeasure. Vader immediately tapped Piett to take Ozzel's place: "You are in command now, Admiral Piett." Piett expressed his thanks and immediately gestured for Ozzel's corpse be taken off the bridge. And then toward the end of the film, when standing there after Vader had lost the Millennium Falcon, Piett awaited his lord's next action, certainly that he now would be punished. Instead Vader walked away, and no doubt Piett breathed an inward sigh of relief.
Piett showed up again in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. He must have been doing something right because by that point in the story he had survived being admiral aboard the Executor for a year. Admiral Piett had been ordered by Emperor Palpatine to move the fleet around the Death Star to the far side of the Endor moon, where it waited to ambush the incoming Rebel forces. In the massive space battle that followed a Rebel A-wing veered out of control and slammed into Executor's bridge. Piett and the rest of the command staff were killed, and Executor was sent smashing into the second Death Star's surface.
Piett has been called one of the most important of the many background characters in the Star Wars saga. Kenneth Colley certainly brought dignity and gravitas to the role. It was one of those nuances that gave Star Wars its rich and deep presence in our culture. It also endeared himself tremendously with fans, who Colley always came across as being very appreciative of. I had the honor of meeting him a couple of times, at Star Wars Celebration II and then III a few years later. The first time we met, I told him that it must be quite something to be known as "the luckiest guy in the Empire". Colley said that he heard that quite a bit actually!
He played an honorable and decent bad guy, and you had to respect a character like Piett. Colley really was the only person who could have pulled that off as magnificently as he did.
I think that in his memory I'll plop in my Blu-Ray of The Empire Strikes Back for background sound as I work this afternoon. Which includes this classic scene of Darth Vader "promoting" Piett to admiral:
Not looking like there's going to be any going about this evening. There are a few things I've got on my plate, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And there is always church in the morning, so that accomplishes my spiritual and social needs in great part.
So on a Saturday like this I do some errands around the house, play with my miniature dachshund, make dinner, and for the rest of the afternoon and early evening it's usually sitting up on my sofa with my iPad and keyboard and working on writing. And that's how a lot of my other nights develop into: writing for my book or op-ed pieces, or the fantasy romance novel that I've been inspired to start (seriously).
But since this is Saturday I've also got the weekly entertainment to look forward to, straight outta Berwyn.
Svengoolie - whose real name is Rich Koz - has been upholding this noble tradition from the Chicago market since 1979 (yes, more than 45 years now!). Some time ago he and his franchise were picked up by MeTV and he's now presenting his favorite films for a nationwide audience. And the nation has certainly taken notice. Svengoolie is now one of the most-watched programs during the weekend. It has become a true Saturday night ritual for countless fans, who show their appreciation in many different ways (being photographed wearing a Svengoolie shirt in some exotic location is particularly popular).
It's a terrific formula for good hearty entertainment! And it has also introduced me to a lot of movies that I otherwise might have never seen. A few weeks ago Svengoolie presented Strait-Jacket from 1964 starring Joan Crawford. I thought it was an amazing film that more than deserved to be seen by a modern audience. And last week's feature was Village of the Damned (a movie I first saw in 1989 on "Billy Bobb's Action Theatre" on Greensboro's Channel 48). That is also a motion picture that merits appreciation by people of our era. Whether the movie of the week is terrifying or thought-inducing or evoking laughter, you can't go wrong with Svengoolie (and his pals on the Sven Squad).
If you've never had the pleasure, I can't recommend Svengoolie nearly enough for Saturday night. It's a rollicking fun time to be had by all. And hey Sven, if you're reading this, I would like to suggest that some week you might run Yor: The Hunter From The Future. It's perfectEighties schlock that deserves some modern appreciation. The #svengooolie hashtag on X/Twitter will be burning up with commentary!
'We will need a lot more hemp before we're through."
Will this be Old Man Warner's "lucky year"? He's no doubt praying that it isn't.
A 1969 film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's horrifying classic short story "The Lottery".
I first read "The Lottery" during my freshman year of college. Our English instructor Phil Conte promised that this story would scare us as few things in literature could. What was Jackson trying to convey with her tale? The older I get the more I believe that "The Lottery" is a dark parable about rigid conformity and obedience to mob mentality. Something that must be sacrificed to if it's to have any power. In my mind the people of the town are no different from those among us who place party over all else, even if their loved ones must suffer for that.
Or, well... who knows what Jackson meant? Almost eighty years later and here we are still debating it.
Making us afraid to go into the water for a full half a century.
One of the greatest scenes in film history: Quint (played by Robert Shaw, who practically rewrote his lines) telling the tale of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.
Over the weekend I watched Gettysburg, the 1993 Civil War epic film about the Battle of Gettysburg. It's one of my most favorite historical films, although at more than four hours long it's really not one I can afford enough time to watch often. But for some reason or another I felt led to see it again.
Now, to be accurate about it, the Trump Administration is not directly restoring the original Confederate namesakes. Fort Bragg was originally named after General Braxton Bragg. Fort Bragg 2.0 gets its monicker from Army Pfc. Ronald Bragg, who earned a Silver Star for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge. It's a clever way to re-brand the forts to their first identities. And I think it's a magnificent end-run around an ideology that cares not for the things that matter, like history and heritage.
And honor.
Something that has struck me every time I've watched Gettysburg, which was based on Michael Shaara's richly-researched 1974 novel The Killer Angels. It's how the men of the Union and the Confederacy respected each other. That, despite how they were on opposing sides of a bitter conflict. The Civil War was ultimately founded in the few errors made by the Constitutional Convention: namely the issue of slavery. That manifested itself in time into the issue of states versus federal government, but I greatly digress...
The Civil War was going to happen. It's a wonder it didn't break out thirty years earlier during the Nullification Crisis. But there is not a doubt in my mind that conflict would break out eventually.
But that isn't what the men, and women, on either sides of the fighting wanted. They each wanted the right thing to be done. Unfortunately it took a violent thrashing-out to decide who would determine that. It was an unenviable situation that truly pitted brother against brother, literally and figuratively.
Back to Gettysburg, the film and what it depicts. The officers of each side, and on down to the basic soldiers, don't necessarily hate each other. They didn't in real life either. As I said, they respected each other. How could they not? They had too much nobility. They had too much honor.
If those men could honor each other, I don't see how I can't honor them all, either.
I've heard the screeds: "they were a foreign country fighting America!" "They were traitors!" "They were the losers and we don't pay tribute to losers!" Ad nauseam.
Those things are said by people who have no concept whatsoever of honor. They couldn't care less what honor means. They barely ever use the word at all. "Honor" is a thing almost dying. It seems more fitted for an earlier time, somewhen that doesn't factor in to a world of thoughtless replies and cruel memes.
The men and women of the Confederacy and Union alike, they didn't ask to be drawn into war against one another. They were doing the best that they could with the hand that was dealt them. It was their lot to participate in the very worst of family disagreements. And the men of the Confederacy loved their countrymen no less than the Union loved theirs.
They were admirable, every one of them (okay, except for those like the ones in charge of the prison at Andersonville). They played the parts given them. And after the war, they reconciled. They embraced again. Decades later at the reunion at Gettysburg battlefield, the survivors of Pickett's charge went up the ridge to meet the Union defenders, only this time they met and shook hands and hugged one another.
I really can't see that kind of thing possible among people today. The people of today like bitterness. They thrive on hate. They despise all vestige of honor.
The people who tore down the Confederate monuments in recent years have acted like animals of base instinct. They have no notion of respect for those who came before us in generations past. How could they? Honor is an alien notion to them.
I have no problem whatsoever with a fort being named for a Confederate officer. Or having a Confederate statue erected. Or something like a school named after Robert E. Lee, arguably the most beloved general in America's long and illustrious history. There can be monuments for North and South alike. If the United States federal government came to reward pensions to veterans of both sides, we can still abide by that.
Union and Confederate. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb. The blue and the gray. They both fought with honor. And we can honor them both.
The perfect movie about young adventure. Released on June 7th, 1985.
My family saw it in the theater about a week later, at the long-gone Janus Theater in Greensboro. Watching it made me wish, not for the first time, that there were other kids living closer by, instead of us being out in the country. It would have been fun to have others my age nearby to have adventures with. The best we could do was have friends from school over on weekends, when we could use our imagination and make our family's farm into something more than it really was.
Mikey, Mouth, Chunk, Data, Brandon, Andy, Stef, and Sloth... you are just as "Good Enough" today as you were four full decades ago.
A couple of things went online today that I've watch a few times. I've got a good feeling about both of these.
First, it's the first trailer for the second season of Amazon's Fallout series. As a die-hard fan of the Fallout games I absolutely loved the first season. They completely nailed the look and feel of the franchise. It was an astounding surprise that throughly delighted me. Season two debuts in December, which may be a busy month for streaming if the final volume of Stranger Things comes out then also (as many are speculating).
So here's the trailer for Fallout season two:
And then there's this: the new (and probably final) trailer for Superman. This is a project that has gotten me increasingly intrigued with each new spot that's been released. I think David Corenswet is going to do much as the great Christopher Reeve did in the role: making Superman and Clark Kent two entirely separate personas in the eyes of the world. Reeve's portrayal is the platinum standard of that and Corenswet seems poised to tap into that also.
More than that though, I can't help but believe that this is going to be a movie we need right now. The idea of Superman being good and upright and moral in a world that has grown cold and jaded and cruel, like ours has become... there is something uplifting about that. It seems that there are few absolutes on this earth anymore. A Superman who can inspire us to be our best should be one of them.
I could say a lot more about that, but anyhoo here's the trailer:
The past several years have seen my love for the Star Wars saga take some brutal hits, but my love for the original film will forever endure.
Over the decades I've gotten to meet a lot of people from this movie. Maybe too many than can be readily counted. For some reason the ones who most come to mind are Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca, and Paul Blake who was Greedo. A week and a half before 9/11 I had a VERY wild barbecue ribs dinner with Blake. Quite an interesting chap. I asked him about what he thought regarding the changes that George Lucas had made to A New Hope with the 1997 "Special Edition", particularly making it so that Greedo opened fire first on Han Solo. Blake's response was awesome: "I think it's absolutely BOLLOCKS what George did to Greedo! Why did he do that?!? Han was perfectly right to shoot Greedo first. I was holding a gun on him after all. I just can't understand why George did that!"
Well, however it is that you choose to celebrate the occasion, May the Fourth be with you :-)
Looks like we're about to get a whole new meaning for "going off the grid"...
Tron is one of the more delightful films from my childhood and I really liked Tron: Legacy when it came out in 2010. Tron: Ares looks like it's going hardcore for the next iteration of the franchise's evolution: the digital world entering the real one. Well, Flynn did tell his son in Legacy that the two realms are more connected than we realized. And Clu believed he could invade our reality. So that seed has already been sowed.
Maybe if Disney commits to a solid film without a "woke" agenda - like its Snow White currently bombing bigtime - I might see this.
The sad news came out this morning that Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their home in New Mexico. An investigation as to what happened is underway.
My first exposure to Hackman was his portrayal of Lex Luthor in 1978's Superman: The Movie. I've seen most of his films. My favorite film of his was the 1992 western Unforgiven: he played the evil sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett and it earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
A few years ago I watched The French Connection - the winner of the 1972 Academy Award for Best Picture among many other prizes - for the first time. All I knew about it going in was that it starred Hackman and that it was about drug smuggling. If anybody had told me beforehand that I was going to be screaming my lungs out while watching it, I would not have believed it. But that is indeed what happened. The scene where Hackman's Popeye Doyle (which snagged him his first Oscar win) commandeers a car and goes off in pursuit of a train is one of the most terrifying spectacles committed to film that I've ever beheld. It's just CRAZY. It might be the best chase scene in the history of American cinematography.
So I thought that to honor the memory of Gene Hackman, I would share that scene. A fine actor at his very finest.
Almost exactly ten years ago I launched a new series on The Knight Shift: Movies I've Never Seen. It's just what it suggests. I would watch a movie that until now I've not beheld before and write about it. It would be an attempt to fill in the many gaps that exist in my personal motion picture database. It would be contributing to the cultural dialogue. And it would be a lot of fun.
Well, that new series until now has had one... and only one... entry: my viewing of The Big Lebowski. And then like with so many other things at the time the wind was just lacking in my sails. It was a few months after Dad passed and I was still reeling from that. I was also trying to maintain some income as a freelance technical writer. And failing miserably at writing my book (which was only completed in the past two and a half months). Writing about movies that until now had escaped notice enough to finally view them was something I very much wanted to make a regular feature out of.
Maybe things have gotten better enough that I can commit some time toward that. It's rare that I find myself enjoying a new movie anymore. Perhaps doing this will be a good thing for me in other ways.
So in rededication of Movies I've Never Seen, here is the the second film in the series. A motion picture that I have heard various things about over the past few decades...
Event Horizon (1997)
Fifty years into the future, the rescue ship Lewis and Clark is dispatched from Earth to investigate the sudden reappearance of the Event Horizon. The massive starship vanished seven years earlier after embarking on humanity's first attempt to venture out beyond the confines of the solar system. Now it has been discovered, in orbit around the planet Neptune.
Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew have escorted Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill) - the engineer who created the Event Horizon - to the wayward vessel. They are tasked with finding out what happened to the ship and its personnel. Weir explains to his colleagues that the Event Horizon was an experimental ship designed around a gravity drive that would fold spacetime between two distant points: where a normal spacecraft would take tens of thousands of years to reach neighboring Proxima Centauri, the same voyage with such an engine would be able to be accomplished in a matter of days.
But things went wrong on the Event Horizon. The people who made it envisioned the starting point and the end point but unfortunately they didn't seem to consider what was between the two. Where the craft was going to be traveling through. And that's where the ship went to and is now back from and as the crew of the Lewis and Clark come to discover, the Event Horizon didn't return alone.
This movie is all over the place. I can understand why it has become a cult classic, for the most part. But it's too disjointed for me to really say that I love it. I like the general premise of Event Horizon the film: that a spacecraft has gone to nowhere less than Hell itself. But there was a lot missing in the execution that keeps it from being a true horror classic on par with The Thing and Alien. I did like the performances by Fishburne (before his iconic role in The Matrix and there is a little bit of Morpheus peaking out from his portrayal of Captain Miller) and Neill, still on a crest following Jurassic Park. The film also stars Sean Pertwee, who has become an actor I appreciate.
The real star of Event Horizon however is the titular spaceship. It evokes some reminiscing about the U.S.S. Cygnus, the gigantic vessel from 1979's The Black Hole. Each of these ships is in a subgenre all its own: the "haunted house in outer space". When done right it could be amazing. Unfortunately I can't think of any examples where any film has stuck the landing on that particular milieu. But design-wise the Event Horizon is certainly imposing enough of a superstructure to darken the thoughts of any who would dare trespass aboard her deck plates.
Now a few hours after having watched it, I find myself thinking that Event Horizon is a high-concept film that misses the mark. I won't say that I can't recommend it however. It's worth catching at least once, and who knows: it may interest others enough that they would want it in their own personal library of movies (please Lord let physical media last a long loooong time still, I am not ready to have everything streamed from a remote server). Director Paul S.W. Anderson swung for the fences with this movie, and it shows. And that's also admirable. This plot and execution needs a bit more finesse though. Maybe in another few years the time will be ripe for a remake, because it's certainly a notion worth visiting anew.
I believe that every film should be judged by the standards of the time it was released in, as much as anything else. As it is, 1997's Event Horizon is a model example of Nineties sci-fi filmmaking, and there is some respect to be had in that. So for anyone who considers himself or herself a scholar of that era, I will heartily suggest Event Horizon as something to complement your broader knowledge of that decade's culture.
One last thing: I had heard, several times in fact, that Event Horizon could serve as a distant-era prequel to the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. Having finally seen this movie, I can say that I absolutely understand why! Maybe Anderson needs to be extended an invitation to direct something from the upcoming Warhammer 40K projects in production at Amazon. If that happens, I definitely believe he could nail it.
My family and I saw A Christmas Story on its opening day in 1983, and I saw it again a few weeks later with my Cub Scout pack. Every holiday season I wind up watching it at least once or twice. And I'll forever treasure the Red Ryder air rifle that Dad gave me for my tenth birthday. This movie is as near and dear to me as this sort of thing is likely to be.
When it was announced that there was a sequel coming and that most of the original cast was returning, my curiosity was aroused. What would it be like to see grown-up Ralphie with a family of his own? I was looking forward to finding out. A Christmas Story Christmas was released two years ago and for various reasons I haven't been able to watch it during the holiday season, when it's meant to be seen. But last night some stars aligned and I decided it was time to see the Parker family is up now.
I'm glad that I did, because A Christmas Story Christmas turned out to be something that I needed right at this moment. I saw a lot of myself in the now 43-year old Ralphie (once again inimitable portrayed by Peter Billingsley). The situation he is in at the start of the movie is much my own at the moment. And then, it is now just over ten years since Dad - my own "Old Man" - passed away, and Christmas hasn't been the same without him. It's been said that you don't know how much you appreciate someone until they're gone. There have now been eleven Christmases without my father and there hasn't been one that I didn't feel his absence.
So seeing this movie last night very much resonated with me. It made me thankful, for the happy times which I have had in my life, however much fewer those seem to have been in recent years. It gave me a little bit of hope, that maybe my pursuit of my dreams hasn't been a vain thing after all. It made me grateful for the loved ones I still have in my extended family: people who are as dear to me as anyone could possibly be.
I could say more, but I guess what I'm trying to convey if nothing else, is check out A Christmas Story Christmas if you haven't already. It may delight you as unexpectedly as it did me. A very worthy follow-up to a beloved holiday classic.
Okay, it's the new movie adaptation that came out just before Thanksgiving. I still haven't seen the original musical yet but now I want to remedy that.
Today is Christmas Day. Two of my dearest friends live the next town over and they didn't want me to spend the holiday alone without us doing something fun together. They picked me up and after a bit of lunch at Waffle House (maybe the only restaurant open on the holiday) we proceeded on to the theater nearby for the 2:45 show.
I knew nothing about Wicked other than it's based on The Wizard of Oz and the musical is composed by Stephen Schwartz (who also created my all time favorite musical Children of Eden). I figured out early on though that it's about the Wicked Witch of the West, the main antagonist of the books. But that's pretty much it.
Well, talk about subverting expectations!
Wicked was unlike anything I've seen in a film. I genuinely was not prepared for either the sheer cinematic spectacle or the twists and turns that the story took. And after the movie one of my friends told me that almost everything in the movie, the effects and the sets and whatnot, are practical: not computer-generated at all. Which absolutely astounded me to be told that.
I could say so much else about this movie. But if you haven't seen it yet, my advice is to go in and see it cold. So I'm not going to say much more than what I've already told you. I must note though: the casting of the Wizard is perfect. So looking forward to seeing Part Two!
