Recapping Sir Alec Guinness’s Rocky Relationship With STAR WARS

On Friday, May 27, one of the most anticipated installments in one of the biggest franchises of all time dropped: Obi-Wan Kenobi, the new Disney+ mini-series. The six-part program features Ewan McGregor reprising his role as the titular Jedi Master, who he first portrayed in the STAR WARS prequel trilogy (1999-2005). McGregor’s Kenobi, was one of the most popular characters in the three widely disdained prequels, largely because his performance paid loving tribute to the actor that originated the role in the original STAR WARS trilogy.

That would be Sir Alec Guinness, who embodied Kenobi, Ben to his friends, in STAR WARS (1977, later re-titled A NEW HOPE), THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), and RETURN OF THE JEDI (1980). So as McGregor again summons the wise, gentle spirit of Guinness for his new journey as Kenobi, let’s look back at an amusing factor that many fans are well aware of, but that many others may be blissfully unaware of – that is, Guinness’s heavy distaste for that “Galaxy far, far away.”

Hatred is a strong word, and Guinness never outright said he hated George Lucas’ iconic creation; just that it wasn’t really his cup of tea, and that its overwhelming popularity was a bit concerning. Since science fiction wasn’t his preferred genre (“Crumbs, not for me”), Guinness took the role for the money, and, with royalties from the 1977 film, and its sequels, he pocketed around $50 million, so we can definitely say that he didn’t hate the money.

Guinness had qualms at the beginning of the shoot of STAR WARS in Tunishia early 1976, noting in a letter to a friend that “new rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper - and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable.” 

Funnily enough, he concluded his note to Anne Kaufman with some chat about his fellow cast members: “I must off to studio and work with a dwarf (very sweet – and he has to wash in a bidet) and your fellow countrymen Mark Hamill and Tennyson (that can’t be right) Ford – Ellison (? – No!*) – well, a rangy, languid young man who is probably intelligent and amusing. But Oh, God, God, they make me feel ninety – and treat me as if I was 106. Love, Alec *Harrison Ford – ever heard of him?”

In another letter, later in the shoot, Guinness wrote, “Apart from the money, I regret having embarked on the film. I like them well enough, but it's not an acting job, the dialogue - which is lamentable - keeps being changed and only slightly improved, and I find myself old and out of touch with the young.”

But when the film was released in the summer of ‘77, he was quite complimentary, writing in his diary: “It’s a pretty staggering film as spectacle and technically brilliant.”

At the height of the film’s success, Guinness appeared on the BBC talk show, Parkinson (hosted by Sir Michael Parkinson), where he praised STAR WAR’s “marvelous, healthy innocence. Great pace, wonderful to look at. Full of guts, nothing unpleasant – I mean, people go ‘bang bang’ and people fall over and are dead, but no horrors, no sleazy sex - in fact, actually, no sex at all, when it comes to that. And a sort of wonderful freshness about it, kind of like a wonderful fresh air. When I came out of the cinema at Tottenham Court Road, I thought to myself, ‘Oh Lord, London’s awfully gritty and dirty and full of rubbish, isn’t it’. Because it had all been so invigorating.”

But still, the script’s words were a sticking point as he told his diary, “some of the dialogue is excruciating and much of it is lost in noise.”

20 years later, Guinness was still going on about the dire dialogue in an interview in Talk magazine (1999): “What I didn't tell Lucas was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo.”

Throughout the years before his death in 2000, the grand actor went back and forth from thankfully acknowledging the fortune he received from the franchise (“Blessed be STAR WARS” he even said at one point), and lamenting that his involvement in the movie that earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination was something that made him squirm.

Possibly Guinness’s best summation came in Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography: “A refurbished STAR WARS is on somewhere or everywhere, I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it is mentioned. Twenty years ago, when the film was first shown, it had a freshness, also a sense of moral good and fun. Then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be having.”

Perhaps the most amusing episode in the saga of Guinness’s rocky relationship with STAR WARS comes in the form of an oft told tale about a young boy, who, when asking for an autograph from the original Kenobi, told him that he had seen the 1977 movie 100 times (actually 102 times). Guinness response was that he only give him the autograph, if the boy promised that he’d never see the film again.

This is how Guinness described the scene in his last memoir, A Positively Final Apperance (2000): “The bad penny first dropped in San Francisco when a sweet-faced boy of twelve told me proudly that he had seen Star Wars over a hundred times. His elegant mother nodded with approval. Looking into the boy’s eyes I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form and I guessed that one day they would explode.

“I would love you to do something for me,” I said. “Anything! Anything!” the boy said rapturously. “You won’t like what I’m going to ask you to do,” I said. “Anything, sir, anything!” “Well,” I said, “do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?”

He burst into tears. His mother drew himself up to an immense height. “What a dreadful thing to say to a child!” she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities.”

Despite this anecdote being in Guinness’s book, I thought it was an exaggeration or amalgam of the man’s encounters with fans, but it’s been confirmed by the boy himself – Daniel Henning, an actor/audiobook narrator, who had, at 12 years old, met Guinness at an event in 1979. In 2019, Henning put out the audiobook, Alec Guinness Hated Star Wars or How I Became a Famous Star Wars Fan: A True Star Wars.

Just last month, Henning gave his first ever interview about his exchange on the podcast, Rebel Force Radio. Henning told hosts, Jason Swank and Jimmy Mac, that it occurred at the San Francisco International Film Festival, which held an Alec Guinness tribute at the Palace of Fine Arts that year.

Henning says it went down like this: “I said, ‘Sir Alec, hello - I have seen STAR WARS 102 times,’ and I paused because I thought, when other people heard that they were kind of shocked and I thought that the audience might have some reaction too, which they did, there were gasps, there was laughter, there was a little bit of applause, and then Sir Alec literally did this in his chair (slumps back and acts dead)…and then he leans up to the microphone, and says, ‘it wasn’t even my best picture.’

Henning goes on, “And it would mean very much to me, if I could have your autograph.’ And I expected him to say, ‘Come down to the stage,’ and just sign it there. That was my fantasy of what was going to happen, that was how I was going to meet Alec Guinness, right? But instead, he said, he pointed his finger at me, and said ‘I’ll see you after the show.’”

After some joking around that I’ll edit for time, Henning explains, “We went backstage, my Mom and I, they immediately let us in, and everyone knew, like all the people backstage were like ‘there he is, there he is, there’s that boy.’ People were hanging around wanting to see whatever this is going to be, I guess. I didn’t quite realize that in the moment, but then when it happened, I was like ‘oh, they were all listening.’ We’re standing there and they bring Sir Alec over to me, and he was, huge smile on his face, and he was lovely, and charming, and the very first thing he said to me was, ‘I feel like I should give you some of my money back.’

Following even more kidding around banter, Henning arrives at the pivotal moment: “He says, ‘I’ll give you the autograph, but I want to ask you to do something for me.’ And I said, ‘anything.’ He said, ‘you’re not gonna like what I am going to ask you to do,’ and I said, ‘anything, anything!’ And he said, ‘Do you think you could manage never to see STAR WARS again?’ That is certainly not what I was expecting him to say. Again, I thought it was just going to be the moment of him signing the autograph, I didn’t realize we were going to get into his psychological issues with STAR WARS.”

The 12-year old Henning agreed that he would never again see the original movie again, and that Guinness even put it in writing (“you’ve promised me not to see STAR WARS again”) with his autograph on the program for the festival. Listen to the entire interview.

It’s interesting that Henning points out that Guinness’s first responses to the boy’s tally of viewings were about it not being his best work, and then the money thing. An art versus commerce predicament for the actor so succinctly displayed.

Whatever his issues with the supreme space opera, Guinness brought gravitas and a aged wisdom to the then budding franchise, despite only being 58 years old when he began his run as Kenobi. Having watched the first two episodes of Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series, I can attest that McGregor is successfully channeling Guinness, but at the same time putting forth his own rugged take on the character.

While the great Jedi Master Kenobi has grown in stature as a core character in the ginormous saga with the now extended portrayal by McGregor in the prequels, and the new series, I have a bad feeling that Guinness would still be shaking his head at the absurd longevity of the cult surrounding STAR WARS, and would be lamenting how the dialogue is still so lame.

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Don Cheadle’s Problematic Yet Worthwhile Miles Davis Movie

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

MILES AHEAD (Dir. Don Cheadle, 2015)

This unconventional biopic of jazz legend Miles Davis is undeniably Don Cheadle’s dream project. In his directorial debut, Cheadle stars, co-wrote, co-produced, and even trained on the trumpet to play his subject’s solos so there’s definitely passion in place to make a powerful portrait.

And despite not much of a facial resemblance, Cheadle makes a great Miles Davis. He’s got the voice, affectations, and swagger down as just about anybody who’s spent some time YouTubing Davis clips can attest.

But to get MILES AHEAD (at one point titled KILL THE TRUMPET PLAYER) made, Cheadle had to make a major concession: he had to hire a white co-star in order for investors to finance the film.

Now if you have to have a white co-star, Ewan McGregor is a fine choice. However, I kept thinking that his character wasn’t necessary. McGregor plays Dave Braden *, a reporter for Rolling Stone, who shows up at the door of Davis’ New York brownstone trying to get an interview with Davis. The year is 1979, and Davis has been in heavy seclusion, having not performed in public or put out any music for five years.

McGregor’s Braden, who’s hoping to get to the bottom of what’s been called Davis’s “silent period” and pen a big comeback piece that will prompt the famous recluse to come out of hiding, discovers that there is a tape from a secret recording session that Davis’s label, Columbia Records, has stolen, and the unlikely duo of journalist/jazz legend team up to steal it back.

The tape is the film’s obvious McGuffin, with the coked-up Davis and the antsy Braden winding through a day involving confrontations with record execs, a shoot-out, and a car chase to retrieve the elusive recording. Caught up in the tape caper is Michael Stuhlbarg as a sleazy producer, and LaKeith Lee Stanfield as his client, a young up and coming trumpeter.

All of these characters and events are fictitious, but Cheadle has the film intermittently flash back to Davis’ early career in gorgeous smoky black and white shots that capture the artist in his late ‘50s/early ‘60s “Kind of Blue” period. These scenes center around Davis’ relationship with his first wife, Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi), whose face face on the album cover for his 1961 album “Someday My Prince Will Come” haunts the later day musician.

The movie is wall-to-wall Miles music, including such key tracks as “So What,” “Nefertiti,” “Frelon Brun,” “Solea,” "Go Ahead John, Pt. 2," and “Black Satin,” all sounding wonderful, and all nicely tied together with new music, a score by composer Robert Glasper, which Cheadle even contributed to too.

“If you’re gonna tell a story, come with some attitude, man,” Cheadle’s Davis tells McGregor’s Brill and Cheadle does indeed do that here, but the fractured narrative zig zags around its protagonist so much that we feel disconnected from him. I felt as baffled as McGregor looks throughout at Davis’ behavior and self-imposed darkness. For somebody who prefers to call his style “social music” instead of jazz, Davis comes across as somebody who’d rather not socialize. One of my major takeaways is that I’d rather listen to this guy play than hang out with him, especially considering his gun waving hostility.

I admire that Cheadle, and co-writer Steven Baigelman (GET ON UP), didn’t want to take a traditional cradle-to-grave Wikipedia page approach to Davis’ life, and decided instead to make an impressionistic portrait, but when one of the most stirring scenes is drawn from the historic record, the 1959 beating and arrest of Davis outside the jazz club Birdland by two members of the NYPD, it made me wonder how they might’ve crushed it had they gone the more conventional route.

The scenario with McGregor’s desperate scribe latching onto Cheadle’s scrambled characterization of the troubled trumpeter, and the convolutions surrounding the much sought after tape wore on me in short time. They felt more like tropes that would make up a bad episode of the HBO show Vinyl (detractors would say that would be any of them) than elements worthy of fleshing out on the big screen.

The conclusion of the film appears to be a comeback concert scene with Cheadle’s Davis, wearing a vest branded “#SocialMusic,” jamming with Herbie Hancock. The implication is that it is modern day and Davis, who in the non movie world died in ’91, is still alive – in influence at the very least. The title: “Miles Davis May 26, 1926 -” backs that up.

So I have some issues with Cheadle’s efforts here, but still found enough of his film to be vital, electric, and effective stuff that pays hardcore homage.

Its flights of fancy can ultimately be forgiven on that respect.

* The character that McGregor plays is listed as “Dave Brill” on IMDb, but “David Braden” on the film's Wikipedia page. Googling it I found that the name Braden or Brill come up in almost equal amounts on many sites entries on the film. So what's the deal? Why two different last names for the guy? Anybody know?

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Gina Carano owns Steven Soderbergh's HAYWIRE

HAYWIRE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2012)



Although I had not seen a trailer or read anything about it going in, I caught on quickly that this film is simply an excuse to string together a series of acrobatic fight scenes showcasing the mixed martial arts skills of Gina Carano.

Thing is, it’s a pretty good excuse.

The plot, something about the CIA trained Carano getting set up and betrayed on a mission, really doesn’t matter, because this movie is all about the kinetic, extremely well choreographed, and superbly shot fight scenes.

Surrounding Carano is a cast of familiar faces: Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, and Michael Fassbender, but I believe had those same roles been played by a bunch of unknowns, it would have the same effect, because, again, it’s all about Carano’s game.

On the run from an international manhunt, Carano hijacks the car of the scruffy Michael Angarano in upstate New York, and she tells him (and us) how she got there, so we get flashbacks of set pieces in opulent settings.

For instance, a hotel suite in Dublin in which Carano and Fassbender have a brutal scuffle; it’s polished violence with class as the couple is outfitted in expensive evening wear.

With its snazzy jazzy soundtrack by frequent Soderberg collaborator David Holmes, HAYWIRE bops along enjoyably from brawl to brawl. It’s a durable diversion especially compared to its competition (*cough* CONTRABAND) in this January dumping ground.

From 1989’s SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE to last year’s CONTAGION, Soderbergh has dabbled in just about every genre (can’t wait for him to tackle Westerns), so why not an espionage revenge thriller with a kick ass hottie, who actually can kick ass in real life?

Here Soderbergh throws his new heroine into the ring with Laura Croft, “The Bride” from KILL BILL, and Lisbeth Salander (either Noomi Rapace or Rooney Mara - it doesn't matter), and by the end of it you’ll be convinced that Carano would be the last one standing.

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BEGINNERS: The Film Babble Blog Review

BEGINNERS (Dir. Mike Mills, 2011)

Mills' second feature posits itself as a more poignant piece than his dorky debut THUMBSUCKER (2007). It involves an earnest, soft spoken as usual, Ewan McGregor dealing with the death of his 75 year old father (Christopher Plummer) from cancer.

Previously Plummer came out as gay after his wife of 40 years died. Through his daily depression, McGregor has many flashbacks that tell the story of his father's dying days from the personal ad dating scene to his dying bed.

McGregor inherits his dad's dog, a Jack Russell terrier, who he talks to, and the dog answers in comic subtitles like "While I understand up to 150 words - I can't talk." Cute, huh?

McGregor works as a cartoonist or illustrator (not quite sure which) for a firm that working on album art for an indie band called The Sads. Isn't that cute too?

At a costume party with his co-workers, McGregor dressed as Sigmund Freud meets Mélanie Laurent (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS) dressed as Charlie Chaplin who writes on a notepad to communicate because she has laryngitis. Got that? A major meet-cute.

Set in 2003, the film is full of a sort of slide-show framing device in which McGregor narrates over photos of people and places from previous periods in order for us to get the proper perspective. "This is what the sun looked like, the stars, this is the President" etc. Again we're drowning in cuteness.

If you haven't already guessed, this film struck me as way too cutesy.

The despair over losing a loved one, especially one whose real identity you are just beginning to process, is only touched on affectingly in the final scenes. Otherwise it's a eye-roller with little depth or narrative thrust.

Plummer is an excellent actor who puts a lot into his performance here, but it's an underwritten role. His relationship with the much younger Goran Visjnic, his first openly homosexual relationship, is thankfully not treated cheaply, but it just hangs there as a unexplored thread.

The film has unfinished thoughts as well about McGregor's career, his inability to commit to Laurent even after he asks her to move in, and his off kilter mother (Mary Page Keller) who we see in flashbacks acting all weird at home and embarrassing her son at an art gallery.

I feel somewhat Scrooge-ish in dissing this film, because I know there's an autobiographical element here (Mills' father died after coming out) and on the surface BEGINNERS is a perfectly pleasant indie movie with likable leads, a listenable soundtrack, and, yep, a lot of cuteness that some folks will think is just fine.

But to me it was cloyingly incomplete. An edgeless experience.

If Mills would flesh out his characters more and cut down on the cuteness, I would be inclined to get on board with his work since there's certainly heart there, but I just can't get on board with BEGINNERS.

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I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS: The Film Babble Blog Review

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THE GHOST WRITER: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE GHOST WRITER 
(Dir. Roman Polanski, 2010)

It's not easy to bypass the tangle of legal matters surrounding legendary director Roman Polanski and view his work on its own merits, but THE GHOST WRITER is such a fine film that it is possible to do so.

Most of the time. Every now and then I would remind myself that he edited it in confinement, but that only enhanced the tone of pure tension in which the film revels. Ewan McGregor, whose character's name is never revealed - he's only credited as "The Ghost", takes on the job of rewriting the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (a gruff very un-Bondian Pierce Brosnan), reportedly a thinly veiled characterization of Tony Blair.

It's a daunting task as McGregor only has a month to get the lengthy manuscript in shape, Brosnan is being accused of war crimes by his former Foreign Secretary (Robert Pugh), and there's the troubling matter that the former ghost writer was found dead washed up on the beach of Brosnan's lavish oceanfront compound in Massachusetts.

Goaded by his smarmy agent (beautifully played by Jon Bernthal), McGregor flies to that same compound and is greeted by one of Brosnan's handlers (Sex And The City's Kim Catrall) and Brosnan's frazzled wife (Olivia Williams). McGregor attempts to have a sense of humor about the situation, but is a bit unnerved when after drafting a statement for Brosnan to the press is told by a smug Catrall: "That makes you an accomplice." 

After obliviously tipping off an odd man at his hotel's bar of Brosnan's whereabouts, McGregor wakes up to a media circus. Brosnan's conversations with his lawyers (including a demure Timothy Hutton) and handlers about where he should relocate in order to stay out of the hands of the law is undeniably a moment in which Polanski's real life predicament pulsates through the screen.

In a masterfully shot sequence, McGregor drives his deceased predecessor's car following the stored GPS directions and ends up at the house of Tom Wilkinson as a retired Harvard professor with possible CIA connections who denies any connection to Brosnan. McGregor has pictures that suggest otherwise, but Wilkinson insists. 

Wilkinson's edgy presence evokes good memories of MICHAEL CLAYTON - another polished and pleasing thriller in the same class as THE GHOST WRITER. Despite a few scenes that drag slightly, this is a powerful and intensely satisfying film. It's the definition of a slow burner with an ending that is absolutely on fire. I was seriously blown away by the construction and impact of the final shots. 

That Polanski can still make such a vital piece of cinema - one that I believe will stand in his canon comfortably along ROSEMARY'S BABY, CHINATOWN, FRANTIC, and THE PIANIST - at this complicated point in his career is no less than exhilarating. So whether or not you can separate the art from the artist, this is a must see. I

t's a great story; it has great performances (even Jim Belushi as a publishing CEO puts in solid work!), a great gripping score by Alexandre Desplat, and, most importantly great direction. Just shy of a masterpiece, and I know it may be to early to say this, but it's already one of the best films of the year.

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THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS: More SPIES LIKE US Than Dr. Strangelove

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
(Dir. Grant Heslov, 2009)


"More of this is true than you would believe," so says a disclaimer of sorts at the beginning of this film. 

Also, folks should note that it isn't "based on" it's "inspired by the book" which is another nifty indicator that this is as loosely based on real events as possible. 

So in their adaptation the film makers decided to follow John Ford's advice and "print the legend" with this absurd exploration of a secret paranormal army program based on hippy New Age concepts that most likely didn't exist. "Or did it?" they want us to ask as we leave the theater, but it doesn't dig deep enough to actually bring that question to mind for the project just skates on the surface of craziness, never cracking the ice. 

Not to say it isn't a worthwhile movie - it's well crafted with good performances by Ewan McGregor as a down on his luck journalist who stumbles upon these psychic spies, George Clooney as one of the top men of the unique unit who considers himself a Jedi warrior (we get to see him kill a goat with his mind - hence the title), and, best of all, Jeff Bridges as a very Dude-like intelligence officer who may have taken the zen-like philosophy of his training too far. 

As an adversary Kevin Spacey has a one-note role but it's a necessary well played note that happily won't bring smug crap like K-PAX (also with Bridges) back to mind - 'cept that I just did because I'm sadistic like that.



McGregor forms an unlikely friendship with Clooney crossing the desert of Kuwait as frequent flashbacks fill in the convoluted back-story. There is a busy narrative but it's not very strong as the film seems to go in circles in its second half. 

Regardless Clooney crony Heslov (he co-wrote GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK) working from Peter Straughan's adaption of Jon Ronson's 2004 book, gets a good visual vibe going with amusing Wes Anderson-style montages and swift set pieces. With stronger material, Heslov is sure to hit a home run on a future project. 

Funny but not hilarious, THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is a likable lark that won't make my best of the year list but I can see stopping on it when clicking through cable channels sometime down the line. 

I bet I'll think the same then - that Clooney and Co. were shooting for DR. STRANGELOVE and they got SPIES LIKE US. They should still rejoice though for there are far worse fates.

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Swank's On A Plane

Now playing at multiplexes and art houses, but I bet, not for long:

AMELIA (Dir. Mira Nair, 2009)

It's apparent up front that 2 time Oscar winner Hillary Swank has the right stuff to step into the shoes of world famous American aviatrix Amelia Earhart.

She's got the tiny waif-like frame, the smiling eyes, and, yes, the big teeth. 

She infuses Earhart with the tom boy pluck of a young Katherine Hepburn; a fierce independently willed woman fighting to make a name for herself in a man's world. 

Unfortunately the movie she anchors was assembled according to the rulebook for Conventional Biopic 101. 

The basic obligatory biopic formula rules are as follows: You start near the end of your subject's life, and then flash back through the greatest hits. 

You show your subject as a child when the light of inspiration first flashed through their eyes. You have a montage showing when your subject first got famous - here it's a sweep through ticker-tape parade spectacle, press quotes, and re-staging of well known photographs. 

You then get the rough patches with the subject rising above marital discord and the doubts of peers before your ostensibly emotional finale. At the very end you show historic footage of the real person and folks leave the theater thinking they've seen a noble tribute to your subject. 

Then you sit back and wait for your Academy Award. 

So there are no surprises in this by-the-book biopic but it's fair to say that nobody was expecting any. Mira Nair makes competently crafted films and on the surface this is a good looking and well acted work. It's just that the pure passion and sense of purpose to make this project fly (sorry) are sorely missing.



Swank reaches for passion and comes close at times, especially when she tells her promoter turned romantic pursuer George Putnam played by Richard Gere that she must be free - "a vagabond of the air." But beyond that she's got nothing but strained cock pit close-ups and there's not enough to latch onto throughout the broad strokes.


Despite some fleeting charm, Earhart's alleged affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) particularly has little effect. Gere is too wooden as the jilted husband to make us care so the infidelity comes off as an inconvenience not heartbreak. The flying sequences are beautifully shot though, with gusto and suspense hinting at a movie that could've been if the rest of it been given the same Oomph. 

Because it so aesthetically fits the Academy mold, AMELIA may still come home with some gold. Swank is sure to be nominated but I'll be shocked if this film gets anywhere close to a Best Picture nod. See? That's what it all comes down to. Through all the hype and noble trappings, this is just formula biopic Oscar bait - nothing more. 

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10 Sequels To Classic Movies That Really Should Not Happen

Okay, I know it's the nature of the film business beast to repeat successful formulas ad nauseum with remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings galore; and I don't want to be another one of those movie bloggers that complain that 'Hollywood has officially run out of ideas', but dammit these sequels are really bad ideas. A few are just talk, a few are in production, and the rest have nothing happening but an announcement with a corresponding IMDb page but they are all scary sobering possibilities on the horizon. So just to put my 2 cents in here's 10 projected sequels of classic movies that I truly hope are axed:

1. BLADE RUNNER 2 (Dir. Ridley Scott? 20??)

Scott has batted around the idea of a sequel to the seminal 1982 cult sci fi movie for the last decade. The most recent news, in 2008, was that EAGLE EYE writers Travis Wright and John Glenn were tackling a screenplay for a sequel. More recently Scott and his brother Tony Scott announced that they were going to produce a prequel in the form of 5-10 short "webisodes" called PUREFOLD. Webisodes are fine, but the idea of a full length sequel is an awful one; BLADE RUNNER was a flawed yet contained story that created a convincing world pre CGI 'n all. A sequel would be indistinguishable from the over 25 years of bleak neon-lit dystopian future imitators. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Scotts just leave it with the webisodes.

2. MONEY NEVER SLEEPS AKA WALL STREET 2 (Dir. Oliver Stone, 2010) The plot description on IMDb is: "As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor." Oh so it's supposed to be all timely! What's worse is that the young trader is set to be played by Shia LeBeouf (God, I hope it doesn't turn out he's Gekko's son - see #3 below), which I guess makes him this generation's Charlie Sheen. Michael Douglas is in place to reprise his Oscar winning role as Gordon Gekko who had the famous line: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Well, there is no better word and this time, greed is very bad.

3. INDIANA JONES 5 (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 2012) Now I was one of the few in the film geek blogosphere that actually liked INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM... (I didn't like the title however) yet I strongly feel this would be one trip too many back to the well. The 4th film had the ring of one final trip through cliffhanger clichés for old times' sake, but a 5th one would be really pushing it. All Harrison Ford franchises have to end sometime, how about now? Now sure works for me.

4. REPO CHICK (Dir. Alex Cox, 2010)

Cox has not been able to leave his beloved 1984 punk oddity alone - in the 90's he wrote a "semi sequel" entitled "Waldo's Hawaiian Holiday" which was later adapted into a graphic novel and just recently he announced REPO CHICK, an actual proper sequel produced by David Lynch. Emilio Estevez opted out, telling the Austin Decider: "I remain proud of "Repo Man", but my focus is on what's ahead of me, not what's in my rearview mirror." This film is in the can so it can't be axed but still some sensible soul could see fit to shelve it and save the reputation of a genuine cult classic. Here's hoping.

5. FLETCH WON - This has also been in development hell for ages. Over a decade ago, Kevin Smith was tapped to write and direct what would be a prequel based faithfully on the Gregory McDonald novel, with either Jason Lee or Ben Affleck as the iconic character, but major disagreements (particularly about the level of Chevy Chase's involvement) squashed the project. After that, in 2005, Scrubs writer/director/producer Bill Lawrence was on board with his Scrubs star Zach Braff, but neither is attached or listed (nor is anyone else) any more on the film's IMDb page. Looks like the project has been certified dead...or extremely sleepy. Let's hope it never wakes up.

6. NOBODY #*$%'S WITH THE JESUS (A THE BIG LEBOWSKI spin-off) Now, I just made up the title but, hey, it's a much quoted line and it falls right in line with Adam Sandler's YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN so I think it works. This is just talk, mainly John Turturo's, about a spin-off film written by the Coen Brothers and directed by and starring Turturo. In a 10th anniversary article in Rolling Stone last year ("The Decade Of The Dude" Sept. 4th, 2008) Turturo relays that the story will deal with Jesus landing a job as a bus driver for a girls' high school volleyball team. "It will be like a combination of ROCKY and the BAD NEWS BEARS. At the very least we'd have to have a Dude cameo." Uh, no thanks - methinks this idea reeks as bad as Walter Sobchak's "ringer" suitcase filled with his dirty underwear.

7. PORNO (The sequel to TRAINSPOTTING) This is another project that's probably dead or just resting quietly at the moment. Director Danny Boyle has said he'd like to do this follow-up in the future when the original actors have aged appropriately because the book sequel takes place much later but it's been a while since he said that now. Ewan Macgregor though has nixed the idea that he'd reprise Renton with these remarks about Irvine Welsh's follow-up novel "Porno": "I didn't think the book was very good. The novel of 'Trainspotting' was quite fantastic ... and then I find that the sequel ... it didn't move me as much." Like when Rodney Dangerfield bowed out of doing CADDYSHACK II because he hated the script, Macgregor just earned some major integrity points there.

8. BEVERLY HILLS COP IV (2012) This one is pretty likely to happen. Whatever your feelings on Murphy he is still huge bankable star (albeit in crappy family films these days) and it has been a lucrative franchise so I bet this one is in the cards. Maybe reprising Axel Foley will bring back some much needed edge to Murphy, but I doubt it. No matter how you slice it this is an unnecessary and uninspired attempt to cash in where there most likely will be insufficient funds. I mean, it's not exactly BOURNE or even the DIE HARD series we're talking about here, is it?

9. TRON 2.0 Working title: TR2N (Dir. Joseph Kosinski, 2011)

This is a sure thing too, but that doesn't stop me from wishing it away. TRON wasn't exactly a treasured part of my childhood, in fact I found it more than a little dull, but it had its charms as a dated ode to the world of video gaming before the rise of the internet. Now 29 years later with Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner returning, a sequel is poised to come win over the fan boys. That's just the problem - who else but fan boys will be lining up for this? Unless I hear it's a major re-imagining that smoothes over the shortcomings of the original, I surely won't be in line.

10. GHOSTBUSTERS 3 (Dir. Ivan Reitman?, 2012) This has been a buzzing on the internets for a while now with all of the principals set to return (even Rick Moranis who, except for some cartoon voice work, hasn't been onscreen since 1997) joined by fresh meat: Seth Rogen, Steve Carrell, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, and every other Apatow player and crude comedy regular working today as Ghost Buster trainees. Actually that last bit is just rumored (as is Moranis being present) but it is true that Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (writers on the US The Office) are writing a 3rd film and most of the original cast is set to come back except Sigourney Weaver who recently said: "I don't expect to have anything to do with it, although I wish them well." Well, I wish them well too, but I have a sad feeling that G3 will be a sticky pile of ghost goo.

Okay! Ten sequels I'd rather not see come to fruition. Any others out there you're dreading? HEATHERS 2? JURASSIC PARK 4, the UNTOUCHABLES prequel?!!?

More later...

ANGELS AND DEMONS: The First Big Bad Movie Of The Summer

ANGELS AND DEMONS (Dir. Ron Howard, 2009) Symbologist Robert Langdon, the hero of the critically condemned yet commercially successful 2006 film THE DA VINCI CODE, is back in this bloated blockbuster wannabe adaptation of Dan Brown's inconsequentially controversial bestselling book. As played by a unusually stiff Tom Hanks, Langdon, who was described by Brown as "Harrison Ford in a Harris tweed", is no franchise powering figure - obviously he's no Indiana Jones but come on, he's not even in the league of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan who Ford played in a few durable 90's thrillers. After the Pope dies and Cardinal candidates are kidnapped with the Vatican under terrorist threats, Hanks is called upon by Vatican police officials to do his deciphering clues thing. He suspects the Illuminati - the secret society considered to be the "power behind the throne" and with Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer as his obligatory dark haired female companion, he runs around Rome spouting exposition connecting the dubious dots. As the Pope's shifty eyed assistant, Ewan McGregor seems eager to chew scenery but stalks the shadows instead, lacking a coherent character. So does Stellan Skarsgård as a police commander in charge of a bunch of black suits with ear pieces also running from location to location for reasons you're likely to forget. "I need a map with all the churches in Rome!" Hanks yells in possibly one of the least gripping moments in recent movie history. Like its predecessor, ANGELS AND DEMONS looks great (Salvatore Totino's luxurious cinematography being one of the sole saving graces), but the emptiness is endless with the actors, director, and everyone involved grasping for a gravitas that simply isn't there. Ron Howard has made many solid accessible films - FROST/NIXON was one of last year's best movies - so with hope, he'll leave Dan Brown's mechanical formula history playtime theatrics behind from here on out. I was reminded in one of the many long boring stretches of this intensely tedious film that I saw Howard/Hanks's first film together, the man meets mermaid rom com SPLASH, in the same theater almost exactly 25 years ago. Now, come to think of it, that was a fun movie with a more plausible take on mythology. Wish they'd make another like that next time around. More later...

Out Now In Theaters: GUNNER PALACE & ROBOTS

Sorry for the lame lack of posts lately. Dammit, I’ve missed babblin’ ‘bout the Oscars, the MILLION DOLLAR BABY debate, and the release of the PASSION UNCUT!

No matter, we're back and ready to go so here's a few brief movie reviews:

GUNNER PALACE (Dirs. Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker)

A.O. Scott of the New York Times says "not a movie anyone should miss.” Well, I think a lot of people would do just fine missing this flick. Don't get me wrong this is fascinating stuff at first approach. U.S. soldiers take over a bombed out pleasure palace formerly owned by Uday Hussein in Iraq, and they party while carrying on their service from those headquarters.

Filmed on video in 2003, this is a rough and poorly constructed documentary. The hushed tones of the director’s voice-over, and the loose thread narrative does little to engage the viewer. A shame really, because in all the rubble that litters the streets of Baghdad and in all of the footage taken of the 2/3 Field Artillery lies a much better film than this.

ROBOTS (Dirs. Chris Wedge & Carlos Sardanha)

A slick but disjointed PIXAR competitor from Twentieth Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, the crew that brought you ICE AGE. Some laughs in this noisy animated effort, but they are few and far between with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel’s trademark sentimentality sabotaging the mechanics at nearly every step.

The death-to-death plot mechanics concern Ewan McGregor as Rodney the Robot, an idealistic inventor who tries to stop the evil corporate doings of Phineas T. Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), who heads Bigweld Industries in Robot City.

The voices of McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Paul Giamatti, and bit-part roles by Jay Leno and Al Rooker are warm and welcome presences (well, except for Leno) help make the time pass by, but the fart jokes, lame pop-culture references and weak one-liners makes me want to see THE INCREDIBLES again to appreciate how this sort of enterprise is much better done. 

More later...

DVDs: ALONG CAME POLLY, TRAINSPOTTING (Special Edition), & LIVE FOREVER

Now out on DVD:

ALONG CAME POLLY 

(Dir. John Hamburg, 2004) 

Along comes another stupid Ben Stiller-as-punching bag rom com. 

They seem to appear every few months. This time he's a risk management analyst who falls for a flaky artsy Salsa loving Jennifer Aniston and, of course, wackiness ensues. Not exactly high concept. 

At least there's a above par supporting cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Bob Dishy, and Bryan Brown make this at least a notch above DUPLEX. Hoffman provides one of the only reasons this movie is not a complete waste of time playing a washed-up brat pack era actor. To make memorable the weak material he's given in a routine best-friend part in a routine formula comedy is quite a feat for Hoffman. He'll get better words to work with next time out, I bet.

TRAINSPOTTING
(Dir. Danny Boyle, 1996)
(Miramax Collector's Series, 2004) 

"Small time wasters with an accidental big deal" This British cult classic from the mid 90's is now done right by a domestic DVD release that contains extras long available on overseas formats. The commentary recorded upon the film's original release has Ewan McGregor, director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge, and producer Andrew MacDonald waxing wise and witty. 

Yet again, it's a stone cold blast to see McGregor's Renton and his scraggly crew (including Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, and Robert Carlyle) slum through heroin-infested episodes of petty theft, nasty squalor, and refusal to take part in any part of normal society. A few then and now retrospectives, scratchy deleted scenes, and Cannes film festival interviews round out this essential package. Essential, that is, if you don't have an import version that has this stuff on it already.

LIVE FOREVER: THE RISE AND FALL OF BRIT POP

(Dir. John Dower, 2003) 

Mostly covering Oasis, Blur, and Pulp this loose documentary also touches on the Verve, Stone Roses, and Radiohead. Oasis makes their TV debut just weeks after the death of Kurt Cobain heralding the end of the grunge ara and start of the Brit pop period. Just as new Prime Minister Tony Blair represented a new way of government these shiny updated slices of Beatlemania re-ignited English culture if only for a moment. 

A well sequenced thesis marred by a lack of more on-screen identifications of the interviewees. Is that a member of a Oasis tribute band or is it an actual member of Oasis? I'm not sure. But the humor and pretensions of the key players especially during the Blur Vs. Oasis chapter make this a must for '90s music fans.

More later...