The TSL Daily Sci-Fi Grindhouse: Contamination (dir by Luigi Cozzi)


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See those green things in the picture above?  You’re probably looking at them and you’re thinking to yourself, “Those are the biggest avocados that I’ve ever seen!”

Well, they’re not avocados.

No, instead they are green eggs from Mars.  They may look harmless but if they start glowing, pulsating, and making an eerie womping noise, you might want to get away from them.  When those eggs explodes, they spray out a green goo.  Any living creatures that is so much as even splashed by this goo will then explode in a mass of blood and guts.  It’s messy.  I would not want to clean up after anyone is sprayed with green goo.

Those eggs are at the center of this week’s daily sci-fi grindhouse, the 1980 Italian film, Contamination.  How much you enjoy Contamination will largely depend on how much you like old school Italian exploitation films in general.  If you’re the type who rolls your eyes at bad dubbing and who demands that a film follow some sort of narrative logic, you are not the ideal audience for this movie.  However, if you’re like me and you enjoy the pure shamelessness of Italian exploitation, you’ll probably have an easier time enjoying Contamination.

It won’t come as a surprise to any student of Italian or grindhouse cinema to learn that Contamination was ripped off from several films that were popular in the late 70s.  The eggs are largely lifted from Alien and, whenever the goo-sprayed bodies explode, it’s reminiscent of that ugly little thing bursting out of John Hurt’s chest.  The second half of the film feels like a secondhand James Bond film, complete with a sinister conspiracy, a mysterious mastermind who earlier faked his own death, and a femme fatale.  The conspiracy is headquartered on a coffee plantation in South America.  It’s not difficult to imagine Baron Samedi or some other villain from Live and Let Die showing up and laughing before throwing an exploding egg at someone.

Contamination opens with a seemingly deserted ship floating into New York harbor.  Fans of Italian cinema will immediately think about the opening of Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2.  Just as Zombi 2 opened with the New York City police investigating an abandoned boat and getting attacked by a zombie, Contamination features the New York City police investigating an abandoned boat and getting sprayed with green goo.  The only cop who doesn’t explode, a tough New Yawker named Tony (Marino Mase), works with Col. Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) to figure out why those eggs were on that boat.

Helping them out is an alcoholic former astronaut named Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch).  Somewhat appropriately, McCulloch was also in Zombi 2.  (And let’s not forget about his role in Zomie Holocaust…)  I once read an interview with McCulloch (in Jay Slater’s overview of Italian zombie cinema, Eaten Alive) in which he said that he didn’t feel he did a very good job in Contamination but I think he’s being too hard on himself.  Is the very British and slightly uptight Ian McCulloch miscast as a cynical, alcoholic, American astronaut who can’t even walk to his front door without stumbling over discarded beer cans?  Sure, he is.  But he’s so miscast that it actually becomes rather fascinating to watch him in the role.  He may be miscast but you can tell he’s really trying and he’s just so damn likable that you almost feel like it would be a disservice to him not to watch the film.

Anyway, Stella, Tony, and Hubbard have to discover out why the green eggs are on Earth and they eventually do figure out what’s going on.  I’ve watched the film multiple times and I have to admit that I’m still not sure what they figured out.  It’s a confusing movie and I doubt that there’s really any way that it could have ever made any sort of coherent sense but then again, that’s part of the film’s charm.

So, here’s what does work about Contamination.  The exploding green eggs are both scary and wonderfully ludicrous.  Ian McCulloch is a lot of fun as drunk Commander Hubbard.  Goblin provides an excellent and propulsive score.  And finally, there’s an alien monster who simply has to be seen to be believed.  To his credit, director Luigi Cozzi realized that the monster looked cheap and he uses all sorts of creative editing and employed an arsenal of jump cuts to try to keep you from noticing.  Much as with McCulloch’s performance, you can’t help but appreciate Cozzi’s effort.

As I said before, you’re enjoyment of Contamination will probably be determined by how much you enjoy Italian exploitation films in general.  If you’re not familiar with the Italian grindhouse, Contamination is not the film to use for an introduction.  However, if you are already a fan, you might appreciate Contamination.

Contamination is in the public domain and, as such, very easy to track down.

Happy Birthday Frank Sinatra: SUDDENLY (United Artists 1954)


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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. The Chairman of the Board certainly had a long and varied career, beginning as a bobby-sox teen idol in the Big Band Era, then a movie star at glamorous MGM.  Hitting a slump in the early 50s, Sinatra came back strong with his Academy Award winning role as Maggio in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. His follow up film was the unheralded but effective noir thriller SUDDENLY.

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The title refers to the sleepy little California town where the film takes place. Suddenly was once a wild and wooly Gold Rush settlement, now just a peaceful suburb. Sheriff Todd Shaw (Sterling Hayden) is a stand-up guy, in love with local girl Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates), a war widow with a son, Pidge (Kim Charney). Ellen’s not ready to stop grieving her husband’s death, and to further matters she abhors…

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And here are the Phoenix Film Critics Nominations!


And finally, to wrap up today’s excursion into awards season, here are the Phoenix Film Critics Nominations!  As soon as you look over these nominations and see if your favorite film made the list, be sure to go back and read Patrick’s review of Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny and Jedadiah Leland’s review of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace!

BEST PICTURE

Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Room
Spotlight
BEST COMEDY FILM

The Big Short
Dope
Joy
Spy
Trainwreck

BEST SCIENCE FICTION FILM

Avengers: Age of Ultron
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian

BEST MYSTERY OR THRILLER FILM

Bridge of Spies
Sicario
Spotlight

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Anomalisa
Inside Out

The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

The Assassin
White God
Youth

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Amy
Best of Enemies
Cartel Land
He Named My Malala
Listen to Me Marlon

BEST HORROR FILM

Bone Tomahawk
Crimson Peak
It Follows
Unfriended

BEST MUSICAL

Amy
Pitch Perfect 2
Straight Outta Compton

BEST ACTOR

Michael Caine, Youth
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett, Carol
Marion Cotillard, Macbeth
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Brie Larson, Room
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Richard Jenkins, Bone Tomahawk
Michael Keaton, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Jacob Tremblay, Room

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

BEST DIRECTOR

Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Alejandro Inarritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Ridley Scott, The Martian
Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight

BEST SCREENPLAY

Matt Charman, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Bridge of Spies
Alex Garland, Ex Machina
Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer, Spotlight
Charles Randolph, Adam McKay, The Big Short
Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs

BEST SCORE

Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL, Mad Max: Fury Road
Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sicario
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Thomas Newman, Bridge of Spies

And Here Are The San Francisco Film Critics Nominations!


Winners will be voted on tomorrow!

San Francisco Film Critics Nominations

Best Picture

Best Director

Best Actor

Best Actress

  • Cate Blanchett (Carol)
  • Brie Larson (Room)
  • Rooney Mara (Carol)
  • Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)
  • Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)

Best Supporting Actor

Best Supporting Actress

  • Elizabeth Banks (Love & Mercy)
  • Helen Mirren (Trumbo)
  • Mya Taylor (Tangerine)
  • Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
  • Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)

Best Screenplay, Original

Best Screenplay, Adapted

Best Cinematography

Best Film Editing

Best Production Design

Best Animated Feature

Best Documentary

  • Amy
  • Best of Enemies
  • Listen to Me Marlon
  • The Look of Silence
  • Meru

Best Foreign Language Picture

Here Are The Confusing San Diego Film Critics Society Nominations!


The San Diego Film Critics Society announced their nominees for the best of 2015 and … well, there’s a little bit of confusion.  As Paddy Mulholland of Screen on Screen points out, the San Diego film critics did not list their nominees alphabetically.  But, at the same time, the SFDC hasn’t acknowledged that the nominees were listed as a ranked slate either.  So, when they list Ex Machina as their first nominee for Best Picture and Brooklyn as their second, were they announcing that Ex Machina was their pick for best picture and Brooklyn was the runner up?  Or did they just decided to randomly list the nominees?

The official winners will be announced on December 14th, at which point we will have clarity!

Anyway, here are the San Diego nominees.  And again, h/t on this goes to Screen on Screen:

Best Picture
1. Ex Machina
2. Brooklyn
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. Room
5. Spotlight

Best Director
1. George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
2. John Crowley (Brooklyn)
3. Lenny Abrahamson (Room)
4. Tom McCarthy (Spotlight)
5. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (The Revenant)

Best Actor, Male
1. Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
2. Jason Segel (The End of the Tour)
3. Matt Damon (The Martian)
4. Bryan Cranston (Trumbo)
5. Jacob Tremblay (Room)

Best Actor, Female
1. Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
2. Brie Larson (Room)
3. Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)
4. Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)
5. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)

Best Supporting Actor, Male
1. Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies)
2. Tom Noonan (Anomalisa)
3. Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina)
4. Paul Dano (Love & Mercy)
5. R. J. Cyler (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)

Best Supporting Actor, Female
1. Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
2. Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight)
3. Helen Mirren (Trumbo)
4. Kristen Stewart (Clouds of Sils Maria)
5. Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)

Best Original Screenplay
1. Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig (Mistress America)
2. Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
3. Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows)
4. Quentin Tarantino (The Hateful Eight)
5. Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer (Spotlight)

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Nick Hornby (Brooklyn)
2. Emma Donoghue (Room)
3. Charlie Kaufman (Anomalisa)
4. Donald Margulies (The End of the Tour)
5. Drew Goddard and Andy Weir (The Martian)

Best Cinematography
1. Roger Deakins (Sicario)
2. Yves Belanger (Brooklyn)
3. Dariusz Wolski (The Martian)
4. John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road)
5. Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant)

Best Editing
1. Margaret Sixel (Mad Max: Fury Road)
2. Joe Walker (Sicario)
3. Pietro Scalia (The Martian)
4. Michael Kahn (Bridge of Spies)
5. Nathan Nugent (Room)
6. Stephen Mirrione (The Revenant

Best Production Design
1. Colin Gibson (Mad Max: Fury Road)
2. Mark Digby (Ex Machina)
3. Arthur Max (The Martian)
4. Francois Seguin (Brooklyn)
5. Adam Stockhausen (Bridge of Spies)

Best Sound Design
1. The Martian
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Ex Machina
4. Sicario
5. Love & Mercy

Best Visual Effects
1. The Martian
2. Ex Machina
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. The Walk
5. Jurassic World

Best Use of Music in a Film
1. The Hateful Eight
2. Love & Mercy
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. Sicario
5. Straight Outta Compton

Best Ensemble
1. Spotlight
2. The Hateful Eight
3. Straight Outta Compton
4. Inside Out
5. The Big Short
6. What We Do in the Shadows

Best Animated Film
1. Inside Out
2. Anomalisa
3. Shaun the Sheep Movie
4. The Good Dinosaur
5. The Peanuts Movie

Best Documentary
1. Amy
2. He Named Me Malala
3. Cartel Land
4. Meru
5. The Wrecking Crew

Best Foreign Language Film
1. Phoenix
2. Taxi
3. White God
4. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
5. Goodnight Mommy

Best Breakthrough Artist
1. Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl / Ex Machina)
2. Jacob Tremblay (Room)
3. Emory Cohen (Brooklyn)
4. Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation)
5. Sean Baker (Tangerine)

 

#LateNightMovie Review: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny


Every year, since 2013, us as a #LateNightMovie gang have had an annual Christmas party week. In 2014 it was two weeks and this year it will be three weeks. And as a joke, myself and Tammy (@TRDownden) try to find the worst #LateNightMovie ever.

And as Tammy, and the rest of the gang admitted, I found it!

The movie I put the gang thru was “Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny

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Cast: As I researched this movie, literally, no cast member wanted to be associated with this movie, but here is what I could find.
Director: R. Winer

Writer: Hans Christian Andersen (You will get this if you watched the movie)

Santa: Jay Ripley

Plot:

In Florida, Santa has his sleigh stuck in the sand. To escape the heat all of his reindeer fly back to the North Pole, leaving him in the heat. Passing out from the heat, Santa telepathically summons local children to help. The children bring several animals, including a donkey, a horse, a gorilla and most hilariously a pig, to try and get the sleigh free.

When all efforts fail, Santa tells the children the story of a girl who visits a theme park and hears the story of ‘Thumbelina’. At this point, the movie-in-a-movie starts, with the entire 1970 Barry Mahon ‘Thumbelina’ playing, credits and all.

After the movie, Santa tells the children not to give up. The children leave and return with an Ice Cream Bunny driving a fire truck. The bunny offers to take Santa back to the North Pole. The kids left wondering about the sleigh, it disappears and joins Santa at the North Pole.

Review:

Gawd, this movie was horrible! I mean really horrible! If you are sitting around with 96 minutes of your life you never want back, try and sit thru this movie. I will almost put that out as a dare.

Quips:

As always, the #LateNightMovie gang brought their A game to this movie. Here is a sampling of the snarky fun!

TRDowden:
Annnd we just found an even more annoying song

(referring to another movie we will watch!)

WarrenPeas64:
So… exactly how much LSD would it take to write this?
TRDowden:
Did Vic Savage direct this one too?*

PinkyGuerrero:
no one thinks to get an adult with a brain to help

kellythul:
Little children, animals, creepy old guy… this IS a Vic Savage film *

*Great minds thinking alike!

TRDowden:
Is there going to be trauma therapists on hand after this movie, because we’re gonna need it

WarrenPeas64:
I think I’ve been to the other part of Florida – the parts I’ve been to don’t have children wandering the beach with farm animals

JesCoolbaugh:
Plot twist, the horse kicks Santa in the jingle bells…

PinkyGuerrero:
Ok, how ironic that Santa say if you have faith your dreams will come true, and he can’t move his sleigh
Janeen_FluffyJ:
Wow! Santa heard our wishes and gave us a new movie! LOL
(And Thumbelina begins)
kellythul:
Was this movie one of the 7 plagues set upon Egypt? It should have been

WarrenPeas64:
When this bottle is empty I’m going to hit myself in the head with it

Janeen_FluffyJ:
Great… now our hell is freezing over.
TRDowden:
The director really needed to quit licking frogs at this point
WarrenPeas64:
Hey – I am LOVING this – we’re MYSTing a movie that’s nearly as bad as Frankenstein’s Island
(Nearly as bad???)

JesCoolbaugh:
Ahahahahaha!!! THe coming was foretold!!!
kellythul:
makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop
WarrenPeas64:
Bet you guys aren’t pitying me for being a Jew now, are ya? are ya?

JesCoolbaugh:
Even Santa can’t take another song. F’k the sleigh, let’s get outta here!!!

Thanks Amber, Becs, Myke, Cindy, Holly, Jinni, Jes, Kelly, Phil, Pinky, Warren, Matt, Kurt, Tammy and Myrna for watching this disaster with me!

If you dare to try and sit thru this movie, here is your chance!

Sci-Fi Review: Stars Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999, directed by George Lucas)


Star_Wars_Phantom_Menace_posterA long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

The time was May of 1999.  The place was a movie theater in Baltimore, Maryland.  The theater was packed with people waiting to see the most anticipated film of their lifetime.  The film was The Phantom Menace, the first prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy.  For two years, the people in the audience had followed every detail of the film’s production.  Some of them had gone to showings of Meet Joe Black and Wing Commander, just so they could see the first trailers for the film.

Sitting out in that audience was one 16 year-old boy who, a few nights earlier, had been standing outside a Target at midnight so that he could be one of the first to buy Phantom Menace merchandise.  He bought two Jar Jar Binks action figures because, even before Phantom Menace opened, he suspected Jar Jar would be the most controversial character.

When the lights went down, the audience cheered.  At the start of every trailer, someone in the dark theater shouted, “I bent my Wookie!”  The audience laughed the first two times.  By the fifth time, there were only a few pity titters.

Finally, it was time!  The first few notes of John Williams’s Star Wars theme echoed through the theater.  Again, the audience cheered as the familiar title crawl appeared on-screen.

The 16 year-old read the opening crawl and he started to get worried.  What was all this talk about taxation?  Trade routes?  Trade Federation?  Blockades?  It seemed more appropriate for Star Trek or even Dune.  Except for the mention of Jedis at the end of the crawl, it did not sound much like Star Wars.

Things started to look up as soon as Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor made their first appearance as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.  Obi-Wan’s first line was, “I have a bad feeling about this.”  A few people in the audience clapped.  “I bent my Wookie!” a familiar voice shouted.  Nobody laughed.

When a hologram of Darth Sidious appeared and told the Trade Federation goons to kill Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, everyone in the audience knew that Darth Sidious was Palaptine, the future Emperor, and the excitement was palpable.  When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan fought off the battle droids and escaped to the besieged planet of Naboo, the audience started to relax.  Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as the critics were saying.

Then Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan met Jar Jar Binks and the whole movie went to shit.

In the months leading up to the release of The Phantom Menace, everyone had heard about Jar Jar Binks and how he was a totally computer-generated character.  Jar Jar Binks was the future of movie technology and, from the minute he first appeared, the future was fucking terrifying.  Jar Jar was a Gungun, an amphibious creature who was characterized as being clumsy and cowardly.  He shrieked in a high-pitched voice and spoke in an indescribable dialect.  As much as the audience tried, there was no way to avoid or ignore Jar Jar Binks.  He was not in the entire movie but he was at the center of every scene in which he did appear.

As Jar Jar led Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to the underwater city of the Gunguns, a voice in the dark theater shouted out, “I bent my Wookie!”

“Shut the fuck up!” the 16 year-old snapped back.

The 16 year-old was not sure if anyone heard him but the voice was silent for the rest of the movie.

Sorry, Ralph.

Sorry, Ralph.

No sooner had the audience recovered from their introduction to Jar Jar then they met young Anakin Skywalker.  Anakin’s story was the whole reason that The Phantom Menace had been made.  The audience knew that the prequels would show how Anakin Skywalker would grow up to the greatest and most evil badass in the universe, Darth Vader.  But in Phantom Menace, he was just a 9 year-old slave on the planet of Tatooine, conceived by immaculate conception.  Even before Phantom Menace was released, the word was out that Jake Lloyd, the child cast as young Anakin, was not exactly the best actor in the world.  But even though they had been forewarned, the audience was not prepared for just how terrible little Jake Lloyd was in the role.  There was no darkness to Jake Lloyd’s cutesy performance.  There was no sadness or toughness.  Jake Lloyd came across like the type of hyperactive child who would end up in the ensemble of a Christmas play, breaking character and waving to his parents during the Crucifixion.  Not only could the audience not see him growing up to be Darth Vader but they could not imagine him as a slave living on an inhospitable desert planet.

Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Jar Jar, Queen Padme (Keira Knightley), and Padme’s handmaid, Amidala (Natalie Portman) were stranded on Tatooine when they first met Anakin.  Qui-Gon felt that Anakin was “the chosen one,” who would bring balance to the force.  It was hard for the audience to believe him when they heard Anakin shout, “Yippe!”

For that 16 year-old who had stayed up past midnight to buy two Jar Jar Binks action figures, that “yippe” was the final straw.  He had watched the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS tapes.  He had gone to the re-releases.  He loved Star Wars and he wanted to love The Phantom Menace.  Instead, he felt so let down by the film that he could barely look at the screen.

The 16 year-old wondered why C3PO and R2D2 were in the film.  Phantom Menace revealed that they were built by the future Darth Vader.  R2D2 would even help Anakin in the film’s final battle.  It made no sense.  The 16 year-old wondered if anyone else in the audience was as confused as he was.  He wondered why, if he could see that this made no sense, George Lucas could not understand the same thing.

Anakin won a pod race and was allowed to leave Tatooine.  The film’s action was moved to the Coruscant, a planet that was covered with one huge city.  Samuel L. Jackson appeared as Mace Windu and, when he stared out at the audience, he seemed to be saying, “I fucking dare you to yell anything about bending your motherfucking Wookie!”  There were scenes set in the galactic senate, presumably to appease everyone who wanted a meticulously detailed portrait of how a galactic Republic would be governed.  Padme turned out to be a fake and Amidala was revealed as the real queen.  There was a final battle between the forces of the Republic and the Trade Federation.  Qui-Gon was killed in a duel with the evil Darth Maul (Ray Park) but Obi-Wan promised to train Anakin in the ways of the Jedi.  Palpatine promised that he would be watching Anakin’s development.

And, of course, there was this:

For many in the audience who truly loved the original trilogy and who had spent the past two years scouring every corner of the Internet in search of news about The Phantom Menace, the midi-chlorians was the point that they give up on the movie.  The Force added a hint of mysticism to the original trilogy.  Because it was so mysterious and its origins so deliberately obscure, fans of Star Wars could imagine that The Force was inside of them as well as Luke and Darth Vader.  “May the force be with you,” was more than just a catch phrase to those fans.  It was a reminder that, even in a galaxy far far away, there was still mystery and faith.  When Qui-Gon talked about midi-chlorians, fans realized that not only did they understand the appeal of Star Wars better than George Lucas but George Lucas did not even care why they loved his film.  For those fans, the midi-chlorians not only ruined The Phantom Menace but cheapened the original trilogy as well.  The Force was no longer special or mystical.  Anakin might as well have just been bitten by a radioactive spider.

For the 16 year-old, it was somehow even worse that, before asking about the Force, Anakin apologized to Qui-Gon for causing so much trouble.  Sitting out in the theater, he knew that the boy who would grow up to be Darth Vader would never yell “yippie!” and he would never apologize for causing any trouble.

At the end of the movie, the audience did not know how to react.  The 16 year-old talked to his friends as they filed out of the theater.  Everyone was in a state of denial.  They knew that they had seen something very disappointing but, after all the excitement leading up to the release of The Phantom Menace, they did not want to admit how disappointed they really were with the actual movie.  They talked about what did work.  They talked about the pod race, which had been fun.  They talked about the exciting light saber duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul.  Being teenage boys, they also talked about Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley.

Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley

They tried not to talk about Jar Jar Binks, beyond agreeing that he sucked.  They tried not to talk about Jake Lloyd as Anakin.  It was too painful to know that Star Wars had been reduced to Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd.  They did make fun of the “I bent my Wookie” guy.  In the face of grave disillusionment, it was all that the 16 year-old and his friends could do.

Today, enough time has passed that it is easier to laugh about Jar Jar Binks and The Phantom Menace.  Though the initial trauma may have faded into memory, it all came rushing back to me as soon as Lisa asked me if I would be willing to review The Phantom Menace for this site.  I cautiously agreed and hoped that, since I already knew what I was getting myself into, The Phantom Menace would not be as disappointing the second time around.

It was a strange experience rewatching The Phantom Menace.  While I remembered how bad the movie was, I’d forgotten how equally boring it was.  Jar Jar Binks was even more annoying than I remembered and Jake Lloyd was even worse.  Of the film’s best scenes, the pod race went on too long and the duel with Darth Maul was too short.  For such a badass villain, Darth Maul was underused for much of the film, as if George Lucas did not understand that the kids he claimed to have made the film for would be far more interested in the dynamic Darth Maul than the histrionic Jar Jar Binks.

Emphasizing Jar Jar Binks over Darth Maul made as much sense as emphasizing the Ewoks at the expense of Boba Fett.

Emphasizing Jar Jar Binks over Darth Maul made as much sense as emphasizing the Ewoks at the expense of Boba Fett.

Worst of all, the entire movie felt even more pointless the second time around.  When the prequels were first released, George Lucas always said that all three of them should be viewed in the context of the larger story that they were telling.  But what do we really learn from The Phantom Menace or any of the prequels?  Did anyone really want to know about how trade was regulated before the Empire?  Did we really need to know the exact details of how Anakin became a Jedi?  Watching The Phantom Menace, the answer is no.

I was especially surprised by how bad the CGI looked.  When The Phantom Menace was first released, the CGI was often the only thing that was critically praised.  Critics may have hated Jar Jar Binks as a character but they all agreed that it was impressive that a major character had been created by a computer.  It is easy to forget just how big a deal was made about The Phantom Menace‘s special effects.  At the time, we had yet to take it for granted that an entire movie could be made on a computer.

But seen today, the CGI not only seems cartoonish but, like the midi-chlorians, it feels like a betrayal of everything that made the original Star Wars special.  The universe of New Hope and Empire Strikes Back felt lived in.  It was imperfect and real.  It was a universe where even the most fearsome storm trooper could accidentally bump his head on a doorway.

But the CGI-created universe of The Phantom Menace was too slick and too perfect.  There was no chance for spontaneity or anything unexpected.  The universe of the original Star Wars trilogy was one in which you could imagine living but the universe of The Phantom Menace seemed only to exist in the computers at Lucasfilm.  With The Phantom Menace, George Lucas seemed to be reminding those who loved his films that the Star Wars universe belonged to him and him alone.  Our imagination was no longer necessary.

As for that 16 year-old who first saw The Phantom Menace in that Baltimore theater, I still have those Jar Jar Binks action figures.  I keep one of them on my desk at work and I enjoy the strange looks that it gets.  If you push down its arms, Jar Jar sticks out his tongue.

It just seems appropriate.