It’s difficult to weigh in on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker without rhapsodizing on the entirety of the intergalactic saga George Lucas launched over four decades ago, seemingly with a guilelessness that would quickly be eradicated by unexpected merchandising … Continue reading Now Playing — Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Given that he emerged as a movie star in the nineteen-eighties, the era when sequels emerged as Hollywood’s favorite toy, it’s remarkable that Tom Cruise was a solid twenty years into his screen career before he appeared in a film … Continue reading Then Playing — Four Impossible Missions
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015). As a piece of nostalgic reclamation, the latest “Episode” of the Star Wars saga does its job so efficiently that its hard to get overly enthused about it as cinema. In a strangely fitting turnabout, the film series that fundamentally changed the business of U.S. moviemaking has turned into a follower, adhering closely to the mighty Marvel model. There’s little indication that The Force Awakens is laying the groundwork for vaster, interconnected stories, but it’s all introduction and reassurance, a tapping of the baton before commanding the symphony to life. The sense of … Continue reading Abrams, Benson and Moorhead, Fosse, Jones, Roach
The 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise, directed by J.J. Abrams, was better than any such pillaging of pop culture’s past has a right to be. Ingeniously drawing on the exact time travel tropes that contributed to some of … Continue reading I was so nervous I shook my head, it was a struggle but there was pleasure at the end
The flattery is sincere, all right. For his first two outings as a feature film director, J.J. Abrams handled established franchise properties: the unwatchable Mission: Impossible III followed by the amazingly engaging reimagining of Star Trek. For his third film, … Continue reading He piloted this song in a plane like that one
We buy our tickets in an era in which remakes have given way to reboots, as good an indicator as any as to the degree to which major studios have planed away any remaining aspirations towards art in their respective business models. Instead creative efforts are tagged with the same term used to describe the latest outpost of a nationwide food chain, and possess a level of quality akin to mass-produced burgers. To find something operating well within that framework that also manages to be fresh, inventive, witty, smart and wildly entertaining is plainly stunning. Director J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2009 — Number Ten
If it’s still true that familiarity breeds contempt, then there must be a lot of contemptuous people buying movie tickets these days. While I still subscribe to Manohla Dargis’s assertion, made in defense of a movie I find mediocre at … Continue reading We travel everywhere, we’re gonna take the suburbs to the stars
Coffee for Two 