The Star Wars Blues

I think there’s a book to be written about the way the original “Star Wars” generation reacted to director/mastermind George Lucas’s just-completed prequel trilogy to his 70s-80s pop culture phenom. At least as far as can be gleaned from internet bashing, the average Gen-Xer despised both 1999’s “Phantom Menace” and 2002’s “Attack Of The Clones” – and only now is the tide of thirty-two-something bitterness ebbing a bit with the general embrace of this summer’s mega-hit “Revenge Of The Sith.” You’ve heard the rhetoric: “The dialogue sucks,” “The acting sucks,” “Too many effects,” “Who cares about all that political stuff?” and my personal favorite bit of slacker hyperbole, “George Lucas raped my childhood.” Never mind that all those criticisms would also work just as well if leveled against the older “Star Wars” films.

While I myself just turned 32 in April, and grew up clutching little white Stormtroopers in my mitts, I’m gonna go ahead and make an altogether shocking statement: I think that, forced to choose three out of these six best space-fantasy films ever made, the prequel trilogy is better than the holy original batch. These new films tell a stronger, more subversive story. The sizzling action scenes are freed of the terrestrial grounding that late 70s effects-work required. The look of the films, pure psychedelic color, is as giddy as any early Technicolor work done during Hollywood’s golden age of color. And, most significantly (and this is the part of the argument that is irrefutable), the prequel films much more clearly represent what must have been Lucas’s original version of a fantasy space universe sprung from his own wildest fantasies. These films, and “Sith” especially, are George Lucas’s unadulterated and pure vision of “Star Wars” (remember, Lucas is an indie filmmaker now, no studio guys have any say over the final film product) - and all the grumbling from the “original fans” amounts to little more than a serving of dogmatic, conservative, and very sour grapes.

Sour because, instead of catering to the ever-embittered whims of my generation (who embraced the faux-anarchist philosophies and cool black outfits of ‘The Matrix’), Lucas produced this recent prequel trilogy for the same audience he made the originals: Adolescents. In Lucas’s mind, this is one 12-hour film he’s just completed, and he’s always aiming at that 13-year-old kid who gets the six-film boxed set twenty years from now and starts from “Phantom Menace,” plumbs the dark depths of “Sith,” and ends up joyful at the fireworks display than ends 1983’s “Return Of The Jedi” –I gotta say, that is one lucky kid. Stripped of the sentimentality with which my generation rabidly champions the original trilogy, that future-kid is in for one hell of a treat.

And “Sith” is the big cliffhanger right in the middle. It’s a dark film, epic and intimate at the same time. Filled-to-bursting with both terrific action set-pieces and believable comic-book torment, “Sith” is also the “Star Wars” film that most clearly displays Lucas’s liberal and Eastern ideals. Here, in the story of Anakin Skywalker’s final downfall (well-played by Hayden Christensen, who heads up the best-acted film in the series), is the story of how phony wars and politicians can turn youthful idealism into selfish greed. And if that doesn’t seem relevant to America and my generation, you may already be lingering over on the Dark Side (just kidding). While Peter Jackson’s otherwise terrific “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy supported the troubling (and often handy) notion that good armies are made of pretty white people and bad armies are composed of drooling monsters, Lucas’s six-film series, and especially this much-darker prequel trilogy, teaches a more resonant lesson, sneaking it to adolescents under the guise of fantasy: That through the best intentions come the darkest hours of mankind. And that even the wisest governing body (in this case, the fleshed-out and even arrogant Jedi order) is fallible.

In the end, the only thing these new films don’t have is Han Solo. As a friend once mentioned to me, “A lot of ‘Star Wars’ fans are actually just Han Solo fans.” Too true. And there isn’t a loveable rogue like Solo in this prequel set. But I can’t help thinking about that kid again, unwrapping the six-film set twenty years from now. He has a nice surprise waiting for him, after he gets through the emotional pop torment of “Sith” and dives into Episode Four (the original “Star Wars” from ’77) – and an aged Obi-Wan and young Luke wander into that alien bar on Tatooine with the weird jazz pumping, only to ask a wily human smuggler and his tall, furry friend for help getting past the Imperial blockade…

Man, were these films cool, or what?

Weekend Movies

While I had hoped to get this blog flyin’ like a regular stream of altered-consciousness, it seems all I can do is impotently post wholly subjective film reviews. Here’s what I saw this weekend, Yancy.

First, the big one.

“Revenge Of The Sith” (****) is a terrific George Lucas picture, and a mighty webbing that handily straps the older films together with the more recent prequels. It’s also, as you might have heard, a rather politicized adolescent fantasy. Lucas definitely has it out for Bush this time out, and his hits are all below the belt and, in his own way, subtle (secreted as they are, suitably, in the mythology of the fall of democracies). Yes, the dialogue is sometimes awkward, and yes, some of the line readings are therefore hobbled. But just as often, the acting and dialogue are the finest this series has seen. And if you’re coming to a “Star Wars” picture for the stuff of theater, you’re working off a different template than I am. For me, Lucas’s space fantasies are all about singular imagination and design – a real vision based on a mix of Buck Rogers, liberal politics and Eastern philosophy. And on that basis, I can now say that I prefer the three prequel films to the Holy Trilogy of our youth. “The Phantom Menace,” “Attack Of The Clones,” and now the majestic “Sith” all adhere closer to my definition of personal, auteur cinema than either “Empire” or “Jedi.”

That’s it for big cinema releases. If I’m gonna be seeing anything on the big screen over the next few weeks, it’ll be “Sith” again. BUT, my home viewing schedule is thriving, and I screened some good things over the last week or so (many thanks to Warner Bros. and their excellent treatment of their back-library in recent months):

Ken Annakin doesn’t have much of a rep (other than by mentoring George Lucas, and thereby inspiring his “Star Wars” lead character’s name), but the director’s “Battle Of The Bulge” (***) is a pretty solid Sturges-esque WW2 movie. The picture’s rep is low, probably due to dual dead-eyed lead perfs from Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan (both great actors in a fallow period) – but otherwise, “Bulge” fairly rocks, with thunderous tank-battle scenes, a sleek and crazy Robert Shaw as the Nazi tank commander, and the best acting I’ve even seen from Charles Bronson, in a small role as a half-mad G.I. Plus, overall, I like seeing movies where the Nazis lose.

Speaking of John Sturges, I also took another gander at his classic “Bad Day At Black Rock” (****), which features a totally spot-on performance from the aforementioned Robert Ryan, as well as another iconic perf from Spencer Tracy. Vet Tracy shows up, with an apparently mangled hand in his pocket, in a Western relic of a town a few years after WW2. It needs not be mentioned that the town is hiding a dark secret, but it should be reiterated that “Black Rock” is the ultimate clash of the American Western and the post-war Noir genre (although “Rock” has a skillful Cinemascope studio sheen that most Noirs don’t)

Also, at milady Beck’s behest, we screened Michael Mann’s film of “Last Of The Mohicans” (***1/2) last night. I still maintain, as I have since ’92 when it opened, that “Mohicans” has a slightly muddy plot that ends up amounting to little damage in the face of Mann’s tremendously organic setting and his vicious action sequences, as well as a central romance (between ideals-of-the-species Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeline Stowe) that is hot, hot, hot. Mann has made better films, but never a more supple one.

And Bill Condon’s “Kinsey” (****) was just as good as I had been hoping for, and I still can’t understand why I didn’t see the picture during it’s Oscar run late last year. The acting, script, and direction are all predictably superb – but more than that, the film’s noble desire to uproot sexual prudery may ultimately be an even clearer and more pure effort in that Southerly direction than Kinsey’s own study (at least as far as Condon and the great Liam Neeson have characterized him.) Big, big kudos to William Sadler and Lynn Redgrave for late-in-the-film supporting roles.

And, thanks to a Direct TV cable channel called (apparently and quite appropriately) Encore, I was able to see Ridley Scott’s “Thelma And Louise” (****) almost two and a half times on Sunday. The film holds up well, and its strong feminist iconography seems to be the picture’s main feature, rather than the Scott stylization that threw some viewers (this one included) off in ’91. It’s a landmark in American pop entertainment.

Okay, enough typing. Time to draw some blood.

The Best Film Of The Decade (So Far)

As one of my birthday gifts, I was happy to receive a Lion's Gate screener of a major documentary they'll be releasing in the Fall: Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," about the life and times of Timothy Treadwell. You may remember Treadwell from that big news item a few years back. He was the grizzly bear activist who had generated some press (including an appearance on David Letterman), but who generated even more when, after 13 winters of semi-peaceful living among the dangerous grizzlies, Treadwell and his girlfriend were devoured during a thunderstorm by a bear they didn't know. At the time, the news reported that - for whatever reason - Treadwell's camera was running with the lens cap on during the attack, so while there is no video of their deaths, there is audio of the last moments (which has never been leaked.)

Herzog lets us know early on that we're not going to be hearing the death tape. But that's the only restriction he puts on himself. The great German filmmaker (whose past triumphs, I had assumed, were 25 years behind him) has made both the greatest of his films and the finest documentary ever made. From the 100+ hours of footage that Treadwell shot of himself in the wild with his "friends" (he was planning some kind of children's nature series, with himself as the heroic lead character), Herzog says he discovered "a dormant film within Treadwell's nature footage, the story of a man and his demons." And, boy, he ain't kidding. We watch as Treadwell begins to rely more and more heavily on the camera as his confessional, and as the fateful attack approaches, the blonde-haired activist seems to embrace his own strange brand of happy insanity. And his very real disconnect with the world of men.

The film exists, quite amazingly, as a dialogue between Herzog and the dead Treadwell. Between two filmmakers with differening takes on the footage we see in the film. While Treadwell saw nature as friendly and innocent, Herzog admits that he "is haunted by the fact" that he only sees hunger and boredom in the bears' eyes. There are images in this film, moments captured on the fly, that are among the most beautiful in all film. And the fact that they were captured by a madman who died for his cause, and then assembled by another semi-madman (Herzog was famed for intensely difficult, dangerous shoots in remote locations) is nothing short of miraculous.

You'll be hearing a lot about "Grizzly Man" when it gets a wide-ish release in September. But you heard it here first: This film is a masterpiece.

The Mystery Of This Life Grows

A few posts ago, you'll notice I wrote about encountering someone else's unflushed toilet in a stall at work. Well, I came in today, and the self-same toilet has been retro-fitted with a auto-flush device. Either someone really powerful is reading my blog, or I control the universe. There is no other option.

Let's Bury All The Hipsters

Not being a Catholic, I had a pretty good week. I think that's probably a sentence that could describe any week I ever had, but this one in particular. Out of the corner of my eye, I've seen masses gathering around the dead on every news channel. But as I said, it's been a fine week for me.

1) New music. And I don't just mean new to me music. I mean, finally, crochety old Berns is allowing himself to enjoy some of the music these kids today are making. I always figure, when I read a glowing review of, say, the last White Stripes album, that there should be an asterisk that leads to the following disclaimer: "But, of course the age of The Beatles and The Stones are over, so it's not good like THAT"...

And while this new music I've allowed myself to absorb ISN'T The Beatles or The Stones (or even early Elton John), it is better than crochety old Berns would have admitted before he got deeply into Joni Mitchell last month. Now, I know what you're thinking: Joni Mitchell is not "new" music. No, of course not. In fact, she's retired. But I dunked myself headfirst into her entire catalogue, including the really difficult jazz stuff from the later 70's. And I feel like I retrained my ears to accept the true merits of anything. If you can get serious enjoyment out of "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter," you're ready for any sounds imaginable.

So now I've got the new Beck album (lotsa fun), four Bright Eyes records (the guy is pretty much as good as the L.A. Times says he is), and - perhaps in the most revolutionary and anti-social move of all - the most recent Elton John album. Yes, Elton John. Even his fans admit that his great years are far, far behind him. Which makes his new stuff as underground as you could possibly go, music-wise. Once you've gone through the wormhole of the deepest, darkest alternative record store, once you've listened to Charles Manson records all night - you emerge at the other end, with the new Elton John album in your hand. And you know that nobody else your age, not even the guy with the wire hanger through his nose and the split penis, has on his iPod. The ultimate rebellion. And isn't that the goal of every hipster? To be the only guy who "gets it"?

Anyway, the Elton John album is pretty good, much better than the majority of garbage he was putting out during my generation's formative years (80s and 90s), if not quite in the ballpark of masterpieces like "Madman Across The Water" and "Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy"...

2) I went to Disneyland recently with three very attractive, smart women - one of whom is my long-time lover (forever, babe, forever) and the other two of whom are the mysterious Soy Noodle #1 and #2. Which one is which remains a mystery. But let me tell you: Spend some time at Disneyland with three terrific women. Every cynical thought will leave your mind, and you'll the enjoy the park for the masterpiece it really is (on the design level)

3) Saw some more fine, fine movies. My truly outstanding girlfriend is working nights these nights, so I'm my own best friend after 6:30. Recently saw Bresson's "A Man Escaped," Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby in "The Country Girl," Werner Herzog's "The Enigma Of Kasper Hauser," and William Wyler's "Carrie"... And you know what? They were all good, very good. I'm a happy guy.

What The Hell Is Wrong With You People?

I'm thinking about writing a film book, something very personal. A book all about defending certain movies from the last, say, 10 years that have been hated by large majorities of the critical press and/or the public. I don't know who I expect to read this book, since the ethos behind its reason-for-maybe-being is that everyone feels differently than I do. Or should I say, "everyone"...

Movies I could write 10,000 word essays in defense of:
The Hulk
Spanglish
A.I.
Eyes Wide Shut
Solaris (Soderbergh version)
Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode Two: Attack Of The Clones
Ishtar (may be a little too "old" a picture at this point)

There are a lot more. So you better not prompt me any more by expressing your subjective opinion. Because for some reason, my ego manifests itself as this idea that my subjective opinions are more clear-eyed than anyone who disagrees with me. But as far as human flaws go, I'm not too down on that one. Better than, say, obstinant self-righteousness. About things other than popular entertainment. Or, say, deep and negative racism.

The Awfulness Of Being A Man

Perhaps MWB's female contingent will find themselves unable to relate to this posting - at least, I hope so.

This morning, at work, I stumbled into the bathroom and towards my usual stall. I prefer the handicapped stall because A) there aren't any handicapped people I know of here at work, so I won't be bothered in there and B) it's bigger, and it creates the illusion of entitlement. Plus, because the toilet is around the corner from the door, nobody who knows my shoe type will be able to identify me from a bottom view.

Anyway, as I rounded the corner and entered the defecation suite, I was horrified to discover that the bowl was still full from a previous tenant's stay. And I'm not talking a simple yellow urine and tissue paper stew. I'm talking the full male bowel movement, soiled paper and all.

It's not the first time I've encountered this fascinating and repulsive occurance. Many times in my life, I've come upon such a leaving. But this morning I've finally started to wonder: Who does this? What male beast, what drooling knuckle-dragger, slouches out of the stall without a simple flushing of his newborn waste?

There are only two possible answers. The first is comforting: Perhaps said shitter was absent-mindedly riveted by the latest L.A. Times article about tumult at the Disney company, and he forgot to flush. I'm sure that happens. Or maybe he was on his cell phone, or simply was distracted. Hell, I'm sure that kind of circumstance is possible at least, say, once in a man's lifetime. I'm sure I've even done it, I suppose. But I don't think so...

And that leads to the second, more disturbing possibility: That this human evidence was left on purpose for an unsuspecting, anonymous soul to discover. And this morning, and on at least a dozen mornings of my recent life, that soul was mine. But what does this signage mean? What does this filth signify? Why did this degenerate want me to inspect, even for a moment, this intimate offering?

Bruce Springsteen once said he wanted to become a famous pop star not for the money or even the ego-mania, but simply because he wanted to feel his presence reflected in the world. He wanted to prove he existed, by seeing that existence mirrored in a throng of fans and admirers. If he heard his own song on the radio, he'd know that the world knew, "Bruce was here."

Perhaps the same is true of my anonymous friend, who leaves his dump behind him in the mornings without taking advantage of modern plumbing. Perhaps this is his rebellion, his way of feeling entitled. "I don't live here," he might think, "I'm a king around here, and someone else can flush my mess down."

Or maybe this is how we communicate the truth to each other in the 21st century. Perhaps this is the caveman left in all of us, but that lingers most tenaciously in the male of the species. We can't cry to each other, we can't talk about our feelings, but we sure enough can leave a festering pile of shit in a stranger's way.

And if that is the case, did I receive the communication clearly? It's a little fuzzy, as this blog posting points up. The message did not come through clearly, my friend. I understand that you can't be botherered to flush, that you're proud of the length and diameter of your fecal droppings, and that you expect someone else to clean up after you. But I don't understand what that means in the grand scheme. What are you trying to tell me, sir?

I didn't end up using that stall, nor did I do the flushing for him. If he's too good to flush his own waste, then I'm WAY too good to do it for him. For a brother, maybe. A lover, certainly. But a stranger? No way. But who will flush the mess? And how will that debased action affect that man's day? Will that third man now leave a similar offering of emasculation in a stall at a cheap restaurant tonight, in retalation towards a world built on a faltering and mysterious foundation of anonymous shit? Is this our chain of sorrow?

A Widmark On The Hi-Way Of Life

I've been getting deeply into pre-1960 films as of late. Something about the cleanliness of them, the graphic up-closeness, the adolescence of the form represented in these stark black and white lines.

And within that new obsession is a newfound appreciation for Film Noir, the post-war style employed by the majors (influenced, somehow, by neo-Realism in Italy) that reflected the moral ennui that apparently was brought to the fore of the culture as it slunk from triumphant wartime into the odd decade of the 1950s.

And as a new noir nut, I've discovered my new fave poster boy: Dick Widwark. He's still alive, and you might recognize him as the cranky old guy from that movie you saw that one time back in college. But he was, during the film noir era, the face of that new realism, the new visage of the audience. I've seen, in quick succession, Widmark in Jules Dassin's "Night And The City" (released recently by Criterion,) Elia Kazan's amazing "Panic In The Streets" (also released recently, as part of Fox's new film noir line-up) and Sam Fuller's crisp "Pickup On South Street" (...) - All good films, all pungent and shorn of all bullshit ("South Street" runs 80 minutes).

I find it hard to go back to modern films, which more resemble the kind of bloated garbage (some of which I guiltily enjoy) that led to the film-school revolution of the 70s.

I'm tired, baby. So tired.