The People vs. George Lucas
Last night I was watching the 1948 movie The Naked City, directed by Jules Dassin. The film is set in New York City and deals with the police investigation into the murder of a young woman. The movie's notable now mainly for it's semi-documentary style. It's a pretty good example of the 1940s film noir style. The movie was the basis for a popular TV series, The Naked City, which ran from 1958 until 1963.
Today I went up and posted a couple of postcards to a friend in North Carolina and a letter to a friend in New York. On my way back I went and got my groceries for the week.
This afternoon I went up to the Filmhouse cinema to see The People vs. George Lucas, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, as part of the Film Festival. The movie is a documentary about the complex relationship between Star Wars fans and Star Wars creator George Lucas, especially in regards to the 1997 Special Editions and the prequel trilogy. The movie consists of talking-head interviews with fans and people who have worked with Lucas, including director Francis Ford Coppola and author Neil Gaiman. It also contains numerous clips from amateur fan films, some of which were really good. It came as no surprise that pretty much everyone hated Jar-Jar Binks in the prequels. The movie was really funny and very entertaining. After the movie the producer and the director came up and did a question and answer session with the audience.
I grew up with Star Wars. I was born in 1978 and a lot of my earliest memories centre around the movies. I collected the toys and games and comics and I saw all the movies, including the Ewok ones, and the cartoon spin-offs and played the video games. One of my earleist memories was going to the cinema to see Return of the Jedi when I was four or five and being really caught up in it. I went to see The Phantom Menace on the day it opened in 1999 and I actually liked it, although I thought Jar-Jar Binks was annoying and I don't know why they made Natalie Portman look like some kind of space clown, but it was a fun movie. The thing is that Star Wars is George Lucas' thing. It's his world and they are his characters and, to be fair, it's up to him, not the fans, what he does with it. The thing is that the prequels could have been the greatest films ever made and people would still have hated them, because what they wanted was the experience they had when they were kids and they first saw the Star Wars movies, but that is impossible to recreate, and unfair to expect. I suppose it's like the first time you fall in love really. Subsequently it might be better or it might be worse, but that initial feeling will forever be impossible to recapture.
When I got home I watched the first of the two part season finale to Doctor Who, which was pretty good.
Today I went up and posted a couple of postcards to a friend in North Carolina and a letter to a friend in New York. On my way back I went and got my groceries for the week.
This afternoon I went up to the Filmhouse cinema to see The People vs. George Lucas, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, as part of the Film Festival. The movie is a documentary about the complex relationship between Star Wars fans and Star Wars creator George Lucas, especially in regards to the 1997 Special Editions and the prequel trilogy. The movie consists of talking-head interviews with fans and people who have worked with Lucas, including director Francis Ford Coppola and author Neil Gaiman. It also contains numerous clips from amateur fan films, some of which were really good. It came as no surprise that pretty much everyone hated Jar-Jar Binks in the prequels. The movie was really funny and very entertaining. After the movie the producer and the director came up and did a question and answer session with the audience.
I grew up with Star Wars. I was born in 1978 and a lot of my earliest memories centre around the movies. I collected the toys and games and comics and I saw all the movies, including the Ewok ones, and the cartoon spin-offs and played the video games. One of my earleist memories was going to the cinema to see Return of the Jedi when I was four or five and being really caught up in it. I went to see The Phantom Menace on the day it opened in 1999 and I actually liked it, although I thought Jar-Jar Binks was annoying and I don't know why they made Natalie Portman look like some kind of space clown, but it was a fun movie. The thing is that Star Wars is George Lucas' thing. It's his world and they are his characters and, to be fair, it's up to him, not the fans, what he does with it. The thing is that the prequels could have been the greatest films ever made and people would still have hated them, because what they wanted was the experience they had when they were kids and they first saw the Star Wars movies, but that is impossible to recreate, and unfair to expect. I suppose it's like the first time you fall in love really. Subsequently it might be better or it might be worse, but that initial feeling will forever be impossible to recapture.
When I got home I watched the first of the two part season finale to Doctor Who, which was pretty good.
Labels: cinema, Doctor Who, Film Festival, movies, shopping, Star Wars, weekend
posted by WildatHeart87 at 1:00 PM
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