I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
When Star Wars debuted in 1977, it was an immediate revolution of cinema and culture. Audiences voted with their wallets: This is how we want our stories delivered, and these are the stories we desire. Four decades later, Star Wars is less a cinematic … Continue reading STAR WARS IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
Directed by Akira Kurosawa and released in 1958, The Hidden Fortress was produced during Kurosawa’s string of financial successes and artistic triumphs that began with Rashômon in 1950 and concluded with Red Beard in 1965. Throughout that 15-year, 13-movie run, Kurosawa released a series of monumental … Continue reading THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (隠し砦の三悪人)
Quite simply, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is magnificent. It’s no masterpiece and certainly not without a few flaws, but writer/director Rian Johnson is given plenty of room to continue the Star Wars saga, answer questions posed in previous installments, … Continue reading STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
A long time ago—May 25, 1977, to be precise—in a Hollywood far, far away, Star Wars took cinematic hearts and minds by storm. Later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars was a ragtag space opera about a young farmer and two mercenaries trying to rescue a captured princess from the evil clutches of the Empire and return her to the Rebel base so she could deliver the stolen plan necessary to destroy the armored base. The backstory was sparse, the plot points were standard, and the characters were archetypal. This was all by design. Writer/director George Lucas drew heavily from Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth—detailed in his book-length … Continue reading STAR WARS AT 40: A space opera in eight films, five directors, and two studios
America in the 1970s was not exactly abundant with optimism. The tragic death of Meredith Hunter at the Altamont Free Concert on Dec. 6, 1969, cast a dark shadow over the free love and hippy counterculture of the ’60s. Then … Continue reading STAR WARS IV: A NEW HOPE
I dream for a living. For me, it’s someone—a protagonist—who is no longer in control of his life, who loses control and then has to somehow regain it. That’s good drama. —Steven Spielberg Continue reading Born On This Day – December 18, 1946
The object is to try to get the system to work for you, instead of against you. And the only way you can do it is through success, I’m afraid. —George Lucas Continue reading Born On This Day — May 14, 1944
The script is what you’ve dreamed up-this is what it should be. The film is what you end up with. —George Lucas Continue reading In Their Words — Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Michael J. Cinema 
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