Monthly Archives: January 2016

Growing up I remember watching Jeremiah Johnson with Robert Redford. He played a soldier who wanted to retreat from war and find peace in nature and being a mountain man. He learns it’s a hard life but he survives many hardships and earns the respect of Indian and white man alike. In 1972, it was considered a gritty, realistic picture of that time. It’s an excellent picture, well directed by Sydney Pollack. Now in 2015 we get a new view of those rugged times.

The Revenant is a beautifully filmed meditation on revenge and survival. It is gritty, grueling and as you leave the theater you are sure that you are freezing cold. This won’t be to everyone’s liking but if you are up for a film experience unlike the one’s you are accustomed to then you will be well rewarded.

The film is based on the novel, The Revenant by Michael Punke which is loosely based on real life frontiersman Hugh Glass. Leonard DiCaprio plays Glass who, along with his half Indian son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), are scouts for an expedition of fur traders. They run into a hostile party of Indians who are looking for one of their woman who has been stolen by white men. This battle is intense and fantastically shot. What is left of the group manage to get back to their boat and get away but they know that they are being chased and at Glass’ urging, get off the boat and make their way on foot back to their fort. The film takes place around the 1820s and the land is unsettled and dangerous. Glass has the misfortune of running across some baby cubs and gets viciously attacked by a large bear. This is a tough scene. The ladies that accompanied me were in tears by the end of it. Glass manages to barely survive but as the weather worsens and the snow begins it becomes harder to carry him and more dangerous as the Indians that attacked them are hot on their trail. The leader of the group, Captain Henry (Domnhall Gleason), feeling Glass is near death, offers to pay two men to stay behind to look after him and, once dead, to give him a proper burial. A young man, Bridger (Will Poulter) volunteers as does Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), a more hardened man who is more concerned with the pelts they left behind and getting paid then nursing a dying man.

Fitzgerald gets impatient. Worried about the Indians catching up to them, he tries to convince Glass to agree to his own mercy killing. Hawk happens upon them and fights to protect his father and is killed by Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald lies to Bridger, saying Glass died, Hawk has disappeared and that the Indians were in sight and that they had to leave immediately. Believe it or not, this is just the beginning.

Directed by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu and cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki fresh off their Academy Award wins for Birdman, have created another unique movie experience. The film is gorgeous, shot using only natural light and with camera movements that are thrilling. DiCaprio hardly speaks a word throughout, his performance is mostly physical and psychological. He’s an ambitious actor that is always looking for a challenge and he’s more than up for this one. Tom Hardy matches him in intensity as the object of DiCaprio’s rage. Hardy has been good in many movies, most recently, Mad Max:Fury Road and The Drop, and it finally seems his time has come. The landscape is most certainly the third main character in this film. It’s amazing that the filmmakers found such locations that seem so untouched by the modern world. It really lent to the credibility of the story and the performances.

David O’Russell’s last three films have all been fantastic (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) and I’m a big Jennifer Lawrence fan but I went into this film with low expectations due to the mixed reviews I’d read. But I have to tell you, I really got a kick out of the film. A movie doesn’t have to be great to be enjoyable. This movie isn’t great, it’s uneven, a little too long and loses plot threads here and there but it is really enjoyable. It has a warm spirit. The cast, some of whom have become part of O’Russell’s stable, are all very good, especially Lawrence, who once again shows you that she’s a star.

The film is based on the story of Joy Mangano who invented the Miracle Mop and went on to build a successful company. The film follows her from a young girl who dreamed of inventing things but gets sidetracked by marriage and children and being caretaker to her dysfunctional family. Her grandmother (Diane Ladd) believes in Joy and encourages her while her mother (Virginia Madsen) spends her days in bed watching soap operas. Her father is a ne’er do well who is dropped off at Joy’s doorstep at the start of the film by his current wife who declares she’s ‘bringing him back’ as if her were a defective vacuum cleaner. Joy sets up her father in the basement that he must share with her ex-husband Tony, (Edgar Ramirez). They do not get a long one bit but Joy remedies the situation by separating the basement with a roll of toilet paper. Joy also has a jealous step sister (Elizabeth Rohm) who helps her father run his auto body workshop and who tries to undermine her every chance she gets.

While on the sailing boat of her father’s rich new girlfriend, Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), Joy ends up mopping a spill and cutting her hands while wringing the mop and this is the impetus for her big invention – The Miracle Mop. She designs it in her daughters’ room using her crayons and then gets Trudy to invest the money to get the mops made with the intention of selling it themselves. But this proves impossible until Tony puts Joy in touch with an ex co-worker of his and Joy then meets Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) who runs a new cable station called QVC. The rest is history except for the obstacles Joy must hurdle before finally finding lasting success such as shady partners and undercutting relatives which make up the last part of the film.

David O’Russell wrote the script loosely based on Mangano’s life but a lot of the details are fictional. While Lawrence is too young for the part it doesn’t matter because she is so good and believable that you go with it. DeNiro does his “comedic DeNiro” bit and it works. Ramirez gets a nice change of pace role from his usual action oriented films and turns in a very sweet and funny performance.

The film shoots for the fences, it’s ambitious and I always like that, at some points it has a Wes Anderson feel and others a touch of Capra. O’Russell’s directing style is loose and improvisational in his process and sometimes the film veers off the road before getting back on track. Nevertheless, I found myself invested in the story and Lawrence and rooting for her to succeed. I think that Lawrence and O’Russell should take a break from each other, though. I see that she will be working with Darren Aronofsky on his new film and I think that should be interesting.

Ever since I can remember I loved the Oscars. Maybe because I watched so many movies with my dad growing up. Maybe because I was very much a loner as a child and dreamed of one day being an actor. The thought of winning an Academy Award seemed like the greatest thing in the world. Long before the internet or computers or the E Channel I was reading Rona Barrett’s gossip column and watching Gene Shalit on the Today Show. I would get up at 530am to watch the announcing of the Oscar nominations live. Now that I live on the East Coast I’ll get a little more shut eye the night before. Suffice it to say, that I am very excited that tomorrow morning we will find out who will be exalted and forever called an ‘Academy Award Nominee”. So here are my humble predictions. I have not seen all the movies yet but these are my best guesses and then a mentioned of who I would love to see grab the unexpected nomination because there will be surprises as well as disappointments. Here we go!

Best Supporting Actor

Always seems to be the most difficult to predict and this year there are many deserving actors.

MICHAEL SHANNON            99 HOMES
MARK RUFFALO                     SPOTLIGHT
MARK RYLANCE                     BRIDGE OF SPIES
SYLVESTOR STALLONE       CREED
IDRIS ELBA                              BEASTS OF NO NATION

Michael Shannon was in a little seen film but is highly respected and should grab the nomination. Michael Keaton does good work in Spotlight and it’s great to see his continued success from last year’s comeback in Birdman but Mark Ruffalo has the showier part and nails it. Plus the Academy loves Ruffalo. How can you not? Stallone is a sure thing and may be the sentimental favorite to win it. Mark Rylance is a highly respected stage actor who makes the rare film and this is a chance for the Academy to acknowledge him for a movie that was well received but not in the running for the big awards. Idris Elba has been looked over before and the Academy gets a chance to finally give him some recognition.

My wild card pick is Walton Goggins for The Hateful Eight. He is fantastic in that movie and is the definition of Best Supporting Actor.

Best Supporting Actress

ROONEY MARA                           CAROL
RACHEL MCADAMS                  SPOTLIGHT
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH       THE HATEFUL EIGHT
KATE WINSLET                          STEVE JOBS
HELEN MIRREN                         TRUMBO

The studio is pushing Rooney Mara as Supporting Actress even though she really is co-lead with Cate Blanchett so they could both be nominated. This is standard operating procedure. Rachel McAdams will grab her first nod for her strong work in Spotlight. Jennifer Jason Leigh making a big comeback in The Hateful Eight, should pick up her first Academy Award nomination. That is really insane because she has been so good in several films over the years. Helen Mirren is menacingly good in Trumbo and the Academy loves her. Kate Winslet is the favorite again for Steve Jobs.

My Wild Card Pick is Alicia Vikander for Ex Machina or The Danish Girl. She really is the lead in The Danish Girl but, again, the studio is pushing her as Supporting Actress. If she gets in look for Jennifer Jason Leigh to get bumped. The Academy has overlooked her so far so it wouldn’t surprise me to see it happen again.

Best Original Screenplay

BRIDGE OF SPIES             MATT CHARMAN, JOEL COHEN, ETHAN COHEN
EX MACHINA                     ALEX GARLAND
INSIDE OUT                       BOB PETERSON, PETE DOCTER
SPOTLIGHT                        TODD MCCARTHY, JOSH SINGER
THE HATEFUL EIGHT     QUENTIN TARANTINO

My Wild Card here is Amy Schumer for Trainwreck. The Academy rarely goes for the bawdy R rated comedies but Bridesmaids was nominated in this category in 2011 so it could happen. And who doesn’t want to see The Amy and Jennifer (Lawrence) show on Oscar night?

Best Screenplay Adaptation

THE BIG SHORT                  ADAM MCKAY, CHARLES RANDOLPH
BROOKLYN                           NICK HORNBY
ROOM                                     EMMA DONAHUE
STEVE JOBS                         AARON SORKIN
THE MARTIAN                    DREW GODDARD
THE REVENANT                ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ INARRITU, MARK L. SMITH

My Wild Card is Trumbo by John McNamara. It makes sense that a movie about a blacklisted writer would seem to be a sure thing to be nominated but which of the other films should be bumped? If Trumbo makes the cut look for Brooklyn to lose out.

Best Actor

JOHNNY DEPP                         BLACK MASS
MICHAEL FASSBENDER      STEVE JOBS
MATT DAMON                         THE MARTIAN
EDDIE REDMAYNE               THE DANISH GIRL
LEONARDO DiCAPRIO         THE REVENANT

Black Mass wasn’t a great film but Depp’s performance was. The Martian is picking up momentum so I think Damon will get the nod. Fassbender, Redmayne and DiCaprio as certain.

My Wild Card is Bryan Cranston for Trumbo. He’s a TV actor and I don’t know if the Academy would bump Depp to make room for Cranston but it could happen.3

Best Actress

CATE BLANCHETT                  CAROL
SAOIRSE RONAN                     BROOKLYN
BRIE LARSON                           ROOM
ALICIA VIKANDER                  THE DANISH GIRL
JENNIDER LAWRENCE         JOY

Blanchett, Ronan and Larson are locks. I’m going with Vikander to get the nod for The Danish Girl. Jennifer Lawrence is still riding high and should get the nod even though Joy, her fourth collaboration with director David O’Russell won’t be the nomination machine that Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle were.

My Wild Card is Charlize Theron for Mad Max; Fury Road. While I don’t think it was Oscar material the film is well liked and recent Golden Globe and Critics Choice Nominations could cause a groundswell for Theron who gives a strong female lead in an action film. There is precedence for this, Sigourney Weaver was nominated for the Alien sequel, Aliens in 1987.

Best Director

ALEJANDRO GONZALES INARRITU             THE REVENANT
TODD MCCARTHY                                               SPOTLIGHT
ADAM MCKAY                                                       THE BIG SHORT
GEORGE MILLER                                                MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
RIDLEY SCOTT                                                      THE MARTAIN

This is the same list as the recently announced Directors Guild nominations and I don’t see it being any different tomorrow.

The Wild Card would be Todd Haynes for Carol. He could bump Adam McKay. The older Academy may not reward McKay after seeing his resume of silly comedies. Comedy is rarely honored with nominations especially the broad comedies that McKay usually makes but perhaps the buzz for The Big Short will overpower those sentiments.

Best Picture

When The Dark Knight failed to score a nomination for Best Picture in 2009, which it most certainly deserved, the Academy decided to widen the tent and allow up to Ten films to be eligible for the Best Picture nomination. It doesn’t have to be ten, last year only seven were nominated. Seven is a better number. I feel, while there should be inclusion to allow a film like The Dark Knight to be nominated, there still needs to be exclusion so that films that were good but not great don’t get the nomination just because there’s room now.

This year is very much wide open. There is no clear front runner so the speculation is all over the place. So here is what I believe will be invited to the big dance.

THE BIG SHORT
BRIDGE OF SPIES
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
THE MARTIAN
THE REVENANT
ROOM
SPOTLIGHT
STAR WARS VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS

I don’t think Mad Max really should be here but I am a minority voice in that regard besides, my friend, Charlotte, would kill me if I didn’t include it. Bridge Of Spies is a Spielberg film and even though he won’t be nominated, he is highly respected as is the film and it will garner several technical nominations and best Supporting Actor and Best Screenplay. The same thing happened with Spielberg’s War Horse in 2012. I’m taking a chance with Star Wars but it is a phenomenon as well as great film! If Mad max gets in so does Star Wars.

The Wild Cards aren’t so wild really. There’s room for two more accordingly to the new rules so you could see Brooklyn, Carol. Trumbo, The Danish Girl or even The Hateful Eight sneak in. My money would be on Carol.

So there you have it. Good luck to everyone! Let’s see how well I do with my prognosticating skills!

Jack Lemmon is one of my all time favorite actors. We share the same birthday! Below is the clip of Jack winning the Best Actor Academy Award of 1973 for Save The Tiger. He gives a lovely, heartfelt speech. Just wait until you see the other nominees! He references that he had a speech prepared in 1959 but forgot it but no one will ever forget the film for which he was nominated for that year, Some Like It Hot directed by the great Billy Wilder.  Enjoy!

I watched the big Wall Street crash of 2008 in shock. I had absolutely no understanding of what was happening. I have a 401K plan that I pay little attention to and never entertained ‘playing the market’. Apparently bankers and insurance companies found a way to fleece people, got insanely rich, got away with it for a long time and then the house of cards came tumbling down. Some people never recovered. The banks and insurance companies did and are now looking a new way to do the same old things all over again.

The Big Short, based on the novel by Michael Lewis, tells the story of a group of Wall Street speculators that catch on early what is happening in the housing market and start laying down bets on its collapse which would then make them all rich. It begins with a savant hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale) whose clients think he’s crazy when he starts going from bank to bank setting up Credit Default Swaps (CDS). The bankers laugh in his face! But when intense trader Jared Vennett (a wonderful Ryan Gosling) hears about this he does his own investigating and sees what Burry sees. The whole housing market is about to collapse. He then goes to workaholic hedge fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team who take a lot of convincing but ultimately agree and they start setting up Credit default Swaps of their own. Seperately, 2 young investors (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock) catch wind of what Vennett is up to and want in but they are too small potatoes so they enlist a retired paranoid banker, Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to help them. What is so crazy is how long it takes for the market to actually collapse. It amazes the characters as well. Burry sees the problem in 2005. Everyone was so blinded by the money they were making and doing everything they could just to keep it coming they refused to see what was obvious. When Burry’s clients rebel and want to sell he basically refuses to. He knew it was just a matter of time.

When you describe it, this does not sound like a movie you would want to see. Here is how the world economy went belly up and everyone lost their money and this bunch of yahoos were smart enough to make a fortune off of it. But director and co-writer Adam McKay keeps the film moving at a fast clip and the performances are sharp and spot on. McKay is mostly known for his collaboration with Will Farrell (Anchorman, Talledga Nights) and his comedic touch helps when dealing with such dense, complicated material.
Smart, funny cameos by Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez are great and really do help explain some of the more complicated plot points like ‘synthetic CDOs’. What madness!

It’s a comedy about a real tragedy. As Alan Alda’s pompous TV producer says in Woody Allen’s Crimes And Misdemeanors (1989), “Tragedy plus Time equals Comedy.” Ain’t it the truth.

PAUL’S PIECE OF MIND #19 / THE HATEFUL EIGHT

“Ole Mary Todd”
“That’s a nice touch”

I went to see The Hateful Eight Road Show while it was still happening which meant while theaters were still showing it in 70mm Panovision actual film! There were no previews or commercials of any kind before the film started. There was an Overture. There was an intermission. There was also a souvenir book available with plenty of pictures from the film and a little back story. This was an old school movie experience. One I never really experienced before since they stopped showing movies like this back in the early 60s. But I remember when I was a kid that my dad had all these cool books of epic films that we would watch together, films like Spartacus (1960), The Fall Of the Roman Empire (1964), El Cid (1961) and How The West Was Won (1963). These films were called ‘epics’ for the size of the story, the characters, the production and the presentation. They stopped making movies like that by the time I was born around the time films became more intimate, personal and character driven. Every once and a while a film comes out that you could tag ‘epic’ – your Godfathers, your Saving Private Ryans, your Dark Knights but not like the ones they used to make.

The Hateful Eight is not an epic. It is shot on the same type of film that epics used to be shot on. It was Quentin Tarantino’s way of paying tribute to those types of films and the way that big films were presented in the old Hollywood days. It is beautifully shot by Robert Richardson who has worked with Tarantino before (Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained). The film is also a tribute to the Western. Tarantino’s favorite film is Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. So he had Ennio Morricone compose the music for The Hateful Eight. The film mostly takes place in one room, one big room where 8 ‘bad’ people take refuge from a snowstorm. It was very much like a play, the kind of dark, bloody plays that Martin McDonough likes to write and which I enjoy very much. I also enjoyed the Hateful Eight.

Kurt Russell is John Ruth and Samuel L. Jackson is Major Marquis Warren and they are bounty hunters trying to take their prisoners to Red Rock to collect the bounties. Warren’s prisoners are dead and so is his horse which is why he needs to hitch a ride on the stagecoach carrying Ruth and his prisoner, a hard woman named Daisy Domergue wonderfully played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, to Red Rock. Ruth and Daisy are handcuffed together for most of the film and this creates an interesting dynamic between the two which includes Ruth yelling and punching Daisy a lot. But she’s a tough one and she just wipes off the blood and grins after these encounters. After some macho back and forth between Ruth and Warren, Ruth allows Warren to join them and as they continue their journey Warren reminds Ruth that they’ve met before and this leads Ruth to ask Warren about ‘The Lincoln Letter’. It’s well known that Warren has a letter actually written to him from President Lincoln and he uses it as a calling card to social circles he would otherwise be denied being a black man in the 1870’s.

Suffice it to say ‘The Lincoln Letter’ comes into play quite a bit later in the film.
As with all of Tarantino’s scripts, nothing is said or introduced that doesn’t have layers of meaning or intent. This is what makes him an excellent screenwriter. His use of language is as distinct as Mamet and just as incendiary at times. Once again, the word ‘nigger’ is used many times but, considering the story takes places a few years after the Civil War and some of the characters fought on the Confederate side, it certainly is not out of place.

Once all these characters meet and are holed up in Minnie’s Haberdashery to wait out the storm the real fun begins. None of these fellas trust each other, except Ruth and Warren and that’s really a business arrangement to protect each other’s prisoners, dead and alive so they can collect the bounties. Besides the stagecoach driver, O.B. (James Parks), they pick up another straggler, the supposed new sheriff of Red Rock, Chris Maddix (Walton Goggins) who has yet to put on the badge officially. Already at Minnie’s is Bob ,“The Mexican” (Demian Bechir), o crusty old Confederate general, Stanford “Sandy’ Smithers (Bruce Dern), a British dandy, Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), and a quiet cowboy, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen). Most of these actors are Tarantino regulars and know how to deliver his material but Walton Goggins really stood out for me. Goggins played Shane Vendrell, one of the many crooked cops on The Shield (2002-2008) and then the criminally eloquent Boyd Crowder on Justified (2010-2015). He shines as Chris Mannix and has some of the funniest and best moments in the film. Kurt Russell does a fine John Wayne drawl through his “Tombstone’ mustache. Samuel L. Jackson gets to deliver one of the most intense speeches in a Tarantino movie. And Jennifer Jason Leigh is fantastic as Daisy. She has been an excellent actor for many years but never seemed to get her due. Now after being away from movies for awhile she’s back in a big way and hopefully back to stay.

When you go to a Tarantino film (or a Mamet play) you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get the film broken down into ‘chapters’ as is a Tarantino custom. You’re going to get great dialogue. You’re going to get Samuel L. Jackson. You’re going to get violence and lots of blood. I admit by the end of Django Unchained the amount of blood bothered me but it didn’t reach that level on this one. You’ll also get some time jumps. This is a staple of Tarantino films. I remember watching Pulp Fiction and jumping out of my seat when Bruce Willis blew Travolta away! But then the story backed up and ends with Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson triumphantly walking out of that diner. In this one, Tarantino throws in a nice curve that shakes up the narrative and ups the ante for a bloody finale. The Hateful Eight is highly entertaining, vulgar, bloody and has a great ending.

“Ole Mary Todd.”
“That was a nice touch.”

It certainly was.

I saw Star Wars when I was eleven years old. My friend, Mark, and I were rabid Star Trek fans. We even went to an early Star Trek convention in 1976 with our friend, Bobby. My poor dad took us and we were the only kids there! We would often play Star Trek at school. Bobby was Spock, Mark was bones and I was, of course, Captain Kirk. We loved it! But I don’t think any of us knew what to expect from this new film coming out that we had heard nothing about. It opened on May 25th, 1977 on 32 screens. It was considered low budget sci-fi schlock along the lines of the sort of films Roger Corman was making back then. In fact, after Star Wars was such a huge success Roger Corman started making low budget sci-fi schlock. Remember Battle Beyond The Stars (1980)?
Star Wars, with its ‘light saber’ duels, reminded me of those fantastic swashbucklers that I used to watch with my dad when I was growing up. Films like The Adventures Of Robin Hood and The Mark Of Zorro were thrilling and exciting! I would pretend to be have great sword fights in my back yard. I could imagine Errol Flynn as Hans Solo, Tyrone Power as Luke Skywalker, Basil Rathbone as Darth Vader and Olivia DeHaviland as Princess Leia. Those films, like Star Wars, were fairy tales, action and adventure, good guys and bad guys. In other words, the stories are timeless. A long time in a galaxy far, far away……

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens feels like a ‘Star wars’ movie. It made me feel like that eleven year old kid again. It was fun! It brought back that world and those characters I said goodbye to in 1983. It was like seeing your best friend again, thirty three years later and it didn’t disappoint.

JJ Abrams has breathtakingly brought back the Star Wars world and rekindled that magic that wasn’t there in the three prequels. He was also smart enough to bring back Lawrence Kasdan to work on the script. After all, Kasdan co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, so he knows this world and these characters well. Together they created a new story, one which mirrors the original in many ways and then fills it with new and fascinating characters. It is infused with the right amount of nostalgia. Abrams doesn’t shy away from throwing in call backs to the original films and they just absolutely thrill.

The hero of this film is a young girl named Rey. She’s a scavenger on a remote desert planet called Jakku whose been abandoned by her parents (sound familiar?) She has grown up, seemingly alone, and lives in the hope that her parents will one day return.

Finn, as we come to know him, is a young storm trooper. In the film’s exciting opening sequence, an army of storm troopers descend on a small village. During the battle, Finn watches one of his buddies die and comes apart, his white helmet smeared with his friend’s bright red blood. He seems to decide then and there that he no longer wishes to take part in this dark army’s dirty work.

Po Dameron is a Resistance pilot on a special mission that includes some very important info that he hides in his trusty companion, BB8, a very expressive orange and white droid. BB8 is like R2D2’s younger brother.

Kylo Ren is the new ‘big bad’. He has advanced skills using the Dark Side of The Force and while we see him do terrible things we also see that he is conflicted. The Light Side still tempts him. His lineage is complicated and he is pulled by both sides of his family, dark and light. But which side will he choose?

Chewie and Han Solo are back! And better than ever! They have the camaraderie of lifelong friends and companions. They’re still smugglers, scoundrels and screw ups. Mostly attributed to Han, if you ask Chewie. Han becomes mentor to Rey and Finn and when he speaks to them about knowing Luke and telling them that everything they’ve heard about The Force and the Jedi is true it really gets you in the gut.

Princess Leia is now General Organa and the leader of The Resistance. Her reunion with Han is so emotional and touching not even the clueless C3P0 can ruin it though his entrance is hilariously awkward indeed.

But where is Luke Skywalker? It seems he has vanished and the whole galaxy is looking for him. The First Order, formerly known as The Empire, wants to find him to put an end to the Jedi for good. The Resistance wants to find him in order to save him from The First Order or perhaps so he can save them. Poor R2D2 has been comatose since his master’s disappearance.

All of these iconic figures collide in the search for Skywalker and the battle to control the galaxy. It’s a wonderful thrill ride that places character above special effects and the visuals are excellent. Seeing the Millennium Falcon again, still a pile of garbage but also the ship that made ‘the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs!’ Hearing those familiar John Williams themes playing especially when Han and Leia are together really pulls at the heartstrings. While the plot is similar to that of the first Star Wars (now called Episode 4) right down to another bigger, badder Death Star, it doesn’t matter. It’s Star Wars! It’s everything we could have wanted and it leaves us wanting more.

Daisy Ridley is fantastic as Rey. When she smiles she has a ‘Keira Knightly’ sweetness but she proves over and over again throughout the film that she strong and a warrior. She is bad ass. Oscar Isaac is dashing as Po Dameron. I suspect we’ll see more of him in the next two films. His relationship with Finn mirrors that of Han and Luke in the first film.
John Boyega as Finn is energetic as he finds his courage through his friendship with Po and Rey.

Adam Driver is excellent as Kylo Ren. He is not just the bad guy. He is multi layered and complicated and just when you start to sympathize with him and his struggles with his inner demons he does something that makes you want to see him pay the ultimate price for his deeds.

Carrie Fisher isn’t given much to do but just seeing her with Harrison Ford brings a tear. This great love story seemed to end on such a happy note at the end of Return Of The Jedi (aka Episode 6) has gone through some rough patches over the years but the love is still there. I also expect to see more of her in the next films.

Harrison Ford is just awesome! He IS Han Solo. And he always will be. His performance is the heart of the movie and perhaps the capper of his career. He also looks like he is enjoying himself.

The film ends perfectly. The last few minutes are highly dramatic, beautifully shot and quietly powerful. It definitely wets your appetite for the next film. I have high expectations that Star Wars VIII can be as good as The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V). Meanwhile, I’ll be watching The Force Awakens several times, looking for clues and dreaming up theories of what’s to come.

Now. If you haven’t seen the film yet (Really?) Then stop reading now.

Spoiler Alert!

I will now go further in depth and discuss some specifics and throw out some theories. You’ve been warned!!!

First off, Kylo Ren is a great new villain. He has advanced mastery of The Force – stopping Po Dameron’s laser blast in mid air was awesome! Never seen that before! Then pulling out info about Po’s mission Vulcan Mind Meld style only different – Dark side of The Force style – like a Magician making something rise with his fingers! When he tries the same thing with Rey it doesn’t quite go the way he expects when Rey starts pulling info from out of Kylo’s mind. That’s the first time we realize along with Kylo that Rey is strong with The Force as well. How did either of them become so powerful? Kylo is still given to fits of anger and frustration when things don’t go his way and is demonstrated very comically early in the film. He is still extremely conflicted about his allegiance to The First Order and tempted by The Light. By the end of the film that conflict seems to be resolved. More on that later.

Who is Rey? Some say Kylo Ren’s little sister from Han and Leia 9they don’t seem to acknowledge having a daughter), some say she’s Luke’s daughter 9when could that have happened and with who?). But she has an English accent and Ewan McGregor’s voice is heard in her ‘vision’ scene so could she be a descendent of Obi Wan Kenobi? Her ability to channel The Force so quickly and use it so well, especially in her light saber duel with Kylo may indicate that. Still, how could this be? It will take some explaining to make that believable. I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know. Oh, she’s probably Kylo’s sister! Keep it simple!

How did Maz Kenata come to have Luke’s light saber? This is the one he lost, along with his hand in Cloud City in Empire. Did Lando Calrissian find it (and his hand?) and barter it with Maz? And what happened to Maz after the attack on her compound? I assume she’s still alive to show up in the next film and explain all this.

OK, so they built another Death Star! A bigger Death Star! And it was also blown up by the Resistance right as it was about to fire! I’m fine with this as long as we don’t see a yet BIGGER DEATH STAR in the third film!

Back to Kylo Ren – The scene on that bridge was powerful. It was beautifully shot and staged. Han calling out “Ben!” and walking across the bridge to meet his son halfway in a gallant attempt to reach him, reach the light in him and bring him back to his mother. Chewie watching from the next level up, Finn and Rey watching from high above and a passel of Storm Troopers watching from everywhere. All eyes were on this father and son reunion. It almost looked like it was going to work – Kylo looked genuinely conflicted. When he says “I’m being torn apart” I couldn’t help but think about James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause.

But then the dark clouds covered the sun and all the light faded leaving only dark and red, and try though he might, Han could not wrestle the light saber from his son’s hand. Kylo makes his decision to purge the light and runs his father through with the light saber. He is pure evil now. As Han said to Leia earlier in the film, “There’s too much Vader in him.” I loved how Han caressed his son’s face right before he fell off the bridge and into oblivion. (In real life, Harrison Ford does have a son named Ben.) Some expect to see him redeemed by the end just as we saw with his grandfather, Darth Vader, but I don’t think it can go that way. I think he needs to die alright but I don’t think he’ll be redeemed. He should die a villain, it’s only a question of who gets to have the honor, Rey, Finn, Luke or Leia herself. That would be powerful.

I fully expect to see Luke kick some major ass in the next film! And we should get to see him be ‘Yoda’ teaching Rey the finer points of using The Force though she already is stronger than Kylo Ren.

Ok, folks, until 2017!