Archive
REVIEW: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Directed by: Irvin Kershner
Produced by: Gary Kurtz
Written by: Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay), George Lucas (story)
Edited by: Paul Hirsch
Cinematography by: Peter Suschitzsky, BSC
Music by: John Williams
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, Frank Oz, Jeremy Bulloch, Jason Wingreen, Alec Guinness, Denis Lawson, Clive Revill
Review based on the 1980 theatrical version
Year: 1980
It’s all downhill from here, folks. Movie number 2, and I’m already at the best of not just the original trilogy, but the entire saga, and it’s honestly doubtful that even the new sequel trilogy will best the work put forth here. George Lucas still had some say in the story of The Empire Strikes Back, but this is the film that people point to when they want to point out how, even back then, less of Lucas was always a good thing, even if what his diminished presence improves upon is his own creation. Heck, even the subsequent retoolings couldn’t diminish the film’s quality – though sometimes they even improved upon it, as with the enhancements to Cloud City’s ambience and the insertion of Ian McDiarmid’s take on the Emperor in that holoconference scene between him and Darth Vader. Let’s just chalk all that up to the fact that The Empire Strikes Back is just too awesome for its radiance to not influence any such reconfiguring. Read more…
REVIEW: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Directed by: George Lucas
Produced by: Gary Kurtz
Written by: George Lucas
Edited by: Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew
Cinematography by: Gilbert Taylor
Music by: John Williams
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, Phil Brown, Shelagh Fraser, Denis Lawson, Gerrick Hagon
Review based on the 1977 original theatrical version
Year: 1977
I told myself that I wouldn’t let my reviews of the Star Wars films devolve into insane fandom, and so I will attempt to keep that promise. That being said, let me start you off by letting you in on a secret that not many before now really know about me: A long time ago… I actually absolutely hated sci-fi, fantasy, and everything in between. The object of my particular ire was actually Star Trek, as my friend Tye was actually an insanely fanatical Trekkie, but coming in a close second was, yes, Star Wars. The reasoning? It had the word “star” in it, which obviously meant that it was for nerds, which I did not identify as at the time. (I so was…) Read more…
REVIEW: Alien
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Produced by: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill
Written by: Dan O’Bannon (screenplay); Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett (story); David Giler, Walter Hill (uncredited)
Edited by: Terry Rawlings, Peter Weatherley
Cinematography by: Derek Vanlint
Music by: Jerry Goldsmith
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Bolaji Badejo
Year: 1979
I’ve been wanting to write this review for quite some time, but somehow never went forward with actually doing it. Don’t really know why it’s taken this long, but I figured that using it as the finale of the 3rd Annual Halloween/Scary Movie Month was appropriate enough! Read more…
2011 in Review: My 10 Favorite Films, 10 – 8
It’s hard for me to pick a favorite film of all time, but with a year like 2011, it wasn’t that hard to narrow down my choices for favorite films over the past year.
After making my selections and arranging them, I’ve realized a lot of my choices for 2011 involved some combination of whimsy, science fiction, or fantasy elements. While I love a good realistic film — and indeed, had this blog existed at the beginning of 2011, I would have likely been talking about how much I loved True Grit and The King’s Speech — I always seem to go back to the more whimsical ones the most, and 2011, for all its faults, was full of some wonderful films of this ilk.
I had originally intended to place all ten of my favorite films here in this one article, but around the time I had completed the tenth place film and began writing the entry for the ninth (the rankings of which continued to evolve themselves, so that was its own dilemma for me as I love them all, some more equally than others), I began to realize just how much I had to say about the films I loved this past year. If you read my past articles on the films I didn’t see in 2011, the ones I liked, and the ones I hated, you can see that there wasn’t a huge number of films that I especially wanted to see that was new, so perhaps that is why I ended up feeling so compelled to write so much about these films.
Ultimately, I am my own editor, and I know I can be quite wordy, but it is my hope that, in writing these analyses on my favorite films of 2011, I can impress upon you what it is about these films that I love so much and maybe compel you to love them similarly and, if not, defend your position, retort with your own, and perhaps feel compelled to introduce others, including me, to something they had never considered seeing before. That being said, this is a perfect jumping off point for the first entry on my list, so here they are, Entries 10 – 8 of My 10 Favorite Films of 2011: Read more…