Tag Archives: Mark Hamill

Cooper Hoffman Tries To Survive In The Trailer For The Long Walk

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Somehow, I missed that a film version of The Long Walk is on the verge of being released.

The Long Walk is one of Stephen King’s best novels, even if it is one that he wrote under the name of Richard Bachman.  In a dystopian future, a group of young men enter an annual walking contest.  They have to walk a certain number of miles an hour (four in the book but apparently three in the film) and, if they fall behind or stop, they are executed by the soldiers following them.  The Walk continues until there is only one survivor.  The Long Walk feels like a distant cousin to The Running Man (the book, not necessarily the film adaptation).

The film version of The Long Walk was directed by Francis Lawrence, who previous directed The Hunger Games sequels, and has a cast that includes Cooper Hoffman, Charlie Plummer, Judy Greer, and Mark Hamill as the main bad guy.  Who knows if the film will do justice to the book’s bleak tone.  The trailer offers some hints.  The film will be released on September 12th.

Film Review: The Wild Robot (dir. by Chris Sanders)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

I don’t know if we fully recognize all the sacrifices parents make for their kids. A person takes on ownership of a whole little being (be it through birth, adoption or the Cat Distribution System) and somehow tries their best to keep it fed, protected, educated and loved, all while still trying to figure out their own lives. It doesn’t always work out. Some parents evade the responsibility, leaving their kids to horrible fates, while others rise to the challenge, often without fully knowing what they need to do. They’re not perfect, but parents can be pretty awesome at times, especially the ones who didn’t have to do the job. 

Dreamworks The Wild Robot may very well be the best Animated Feature this year. Nothing against Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 (which was also wonderful) or Flow (which looks wonderful and took the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature), but I spent a good part of this film sniffling. It’s a very simple, yet sweet story that moves at a very rapid pace. That’s understandable, given that it’s for children, but the story is accessible for just about any adult.

When a robot named Roz (Lupita N’yongo, A Quiet Place: Day One) crash lands in a forest, she studies her environment and tries to get to know the local habitat. The animals are naturally fearful of Roz, but she eventually begins to understand their dialects. While trying to phone home, Roz runs into some raccoon thieves and a rather large bear. The resulting chase causes her to accidentally crash into and destroy a goose nest, save for one egg. When the egg hatches, she finds herself having to take on a parent role for the gosling, though she’s not fully alone. Helping Roz out is a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal, Gladiator II), who lives by his wits and provides some wildlife know-how for survival, while keeping himself well fed. Also along to assist is Pinktail, a possum who has a litter of her own to handle. As she adjusts to her new sense of motherhood, Roz meets tons of other animals that warm up to her. She finds a new task in taking care of Brightbill (Kit Connor, Ready Player One) and preparing him to fly South for the winter.

Directed by Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch), The Wild Robot has elements for both kids and adults. The wilderness is a dangerous place, and the Circle of Life is rougher here than it ever was in Disney’s The Lion King (which Sanders also had a hand in). There are predators and prey, and the audience is made to understand this pretty quickly (though not as harshly as say, Watership Down). There’s a great deal of tenderness as well, focusing on Storytelling (which Roz learns), the friends and family we make along the way and some hardship in the way that Brightbill suffers some insensibilities with from other geese that he doesn’t quite fit in with. 

I feel The Wild Robot‘s strongest points are the music and the art direction. The film looks like an actual watercolor painting, especially when viewed in the largest format possible. The pacing for the plot moved a little quicker than I expected, particularly in the lead up to meeting Brightbill. Musically, Kris Bowers (Netflix’s Bridgerton, The Haunted Mansion) has a great soundtrack that adds some weight to the scenes. With Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross out of the running for Challengers, Bowers is my hopeful pick for the Best Soundtrack Oscar. 

At the time of this writing, The Wild Robot is available to watch on Universal’s Peacock service. Just make sure you bring a box of tissues and if at all possible, call or thank your Mom afterwards.

Robert Englund as Han Solo? A Little May 4th Trivia

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Can you imagine how things might have played out if Robert Englund had played Han Solo?

It’s not as far-fetched as it might sound.  In his autobiography, Hollywood Monster: A Walk Down Elm Street with the Man of Your Dreams, Englund mentions that he was one of the many actor who, in 1975, auditioned for a role in the first Star Wars film.  It’s often forgotten that, before he became famous as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare In Elm Street, Englund was a busy character actor who had roles in several big studio productions in the 70s.  He was definitely a part of the “new Hollywood” that included people like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Jon Milius.

Though Englund doesn’t go into much detail, he does say that he read for the roles of both Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.  At the time, Englund didn’t feel that he was right for either role and he went back to his apartment under the correct impression that he would not be cast.  However, he did feel that his friend and then-roommate Mark Hamill would be a good pick for Luke Skywalker and Englund writes that he encouraged Hamill to try out for the role.

Would Mark Hamill have been cast if Robert Englund hadn’t told him about the audition?  Probably.  Given that Star Wars was Lucas’s follow-up to the very popular American Graffiti, it’s probable that every struggling young actor in Hollywood was hoping to audition.  As well, Hamill was not totally unknown to George Lucas, having early read for a role in American Graffiti.  Still, it’s nice to think that, long before he was cast as Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund may have played a role in casting one of the most successful films of all time.

What would Robert Englund have been like as Han Solo?  He definitely would not have been as grouchy as Harrison Ford’s Han.  Indeed, one of the striking things out about Englund’s pre-Nightmare career was how he was usually cast as friendly characters who were almost shy.  Englund would have been friendlier and rather eccentric Han Solo but I think he would have been entertaining in his way.

Because of the film’s success, it can be a bit difficult to know who was actually considered for a role in Star Wars.  Lucas has said that he originally wanted to cast Black actor Glynn Turman as Han Solo but he feared audiences would not accept the possibility of an interracial romance between him and Leia, even in a galaxy far away.  (Lucas’s regret over that decision is one of the things that led to the casting of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian.)  The film’s IMDb trivia page insists that everyone from Al Pacino to Bill Murray to Marlon Brando to Chevy Chase was considered for the role of Han Solo and I have to say that this is a case where I doubt the accuracy of the IMDb.  Harrison Ford, who had originally been hired only to read with people at the auditions, eventually got the role despite telling Lucas, about the script, “You can type this shit but you can’t say it.”

In several interviews, Christopher Lee expressed regret at having turned down the role of Grand Moff Tarkin, which was instead played by Lee’s best friend Peter Cushing.  Interestingly enough, Cushing was also one of Lucas’s choices for Obi-Wan Kenobi so it’s easy to imagine a universe in which Star Wars reunited two Hammer films legends, along with setting box office records.

Famously, Lucas held joint-auditions with his friend Brian De Palma.  De Palma was casting Carrie and just about everyone who read for one of the films also read for the other.  Reportedly, William Katt came close to getting the role of Luke before instead being cast as Carrie’s doomed prom date.  Amy Irving was also a strong contender for Leia, before instead ending up as Sue Snell in De Palma’s film.  Some source that that Sissy Spacek also read for Leia, though I’ve also read that Spacek was not a part of the joint-auditions.  That’s one thing about collecting trivia about classic films.  It’s often hard to know what’s true and what’s just wishful thinking.

I should mention that another strong contender for Han Solo (and reportedly Luke as well) was Kurt Russell.  It’s actually easy to imagine Kurt Russell as Han and, just as with Englund, it leads to an intriguing game of what if.  Would Kurt Russell have gone on to have Harrison Ford’s career if he had been cast in Star Wars?  Would Russell have gone to play Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan if he had been cast as Han Solo and would Harrison Ford have ended up helping the President to Escape from New York?  Or is it just as possible that Star Wars have not worked without the chemistry of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill?  Would a Kurt Russell, Amy Irving, and William Katt version of Star Wars captured the imagination of audiences?

It’s a question to which there is no real answer, a bit like wondering if The Godfather would have been as big a hit if it had starred George C. Scott, Martin Sheen, and Burt Reynolds.  Still, it’s interesting to consider.

Midnight Ride (1990, directed by Bob Bralver)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Driving to a friend’s house after getting into a late night argument with her husband, Lara (Savina Gersak) makes the mistake of picking up a hitchhiker.  At first, Justin McKay (Mark Hamill) seems like a nice guy but he quickly reveals himself to be a serial killer.  Haunted by his terrible childhood and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother, Justin has decided to get revenge on the world by going on a killing spree.  He’s even got a polaroid camera with him so that he can have a souvenir of every murder that he commits over the night.  Holding Lara hostage, Justin forces her to drive him to his ultimate destination, the hospital where he was once the patient of Dr. Hardy (Robert Mitchum).  Following behind Lara and her murderous passenger is Lara’s husband, Lawson (Michael Dudikoff).  Lawson is a former military policeman turned civilian cop and has experience taking down the bad guys.  But Lawson’s leg is also in a cast and not even he is prepared for how savage and dangerous clever Justin turns out to be.

What is Midnight Ride like?  Think of The Hitcher, just without that film’s subtext of an unacknowledged attraction between the driver and the hitcher.  Also replace Rutger Hauer giving a smooth, menacing, and seemingly indestructible performance with Mark Hamill sweating, bulging his eyes, and fidgeting throughout the entire film.  Midnight Ride is a competent thriller and Michael Dudikoff is a good working class hero but the main reason to see Midnight Ride is to watch Mark Hamill chew the scenery and play a character who is so evil and destructive that not even Luke Skywalker would have risked going anywhere near him.  Justin McKay has much more in common with The Joker than with Luke Skywalker.  Justin is the type of killer who, after murdering a hotel clerk, steals her glass eye and wears it as a necklace.  Hamill really throws himself into the role, savoring every crazy moment.  Dudikoff is stolid and dependable while Hamill often seems like he might be trying to burn the entire movie to the ground.  While Hamill chews up the scenery, Robert Mitchum barely seem to notice the scenery at all.  Hamill gives a masterclass in overacting while Mitchum gives a masterclass in barely bothering to act at all.  Mitchum was famous for saying that he didn’t give a damn and I can’t think of any film where he gave less of a damn than Midnight Ride.  Dudikoff may be top-billed but this is a Hamill/Mitchum joint all the way.

Retro Television Reviews: Sarah T — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (dir by Richard Donner)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1975’s Sarah T — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

In 1975, two years after shocking audiences in and receiving an Oscar nomination for The Exorcist, Linda Blair played Sarah Travis.  Sarah is fourteen years old.  She has a high IQ.  She lives in a nice suburban home.  She has an older sister named Nancy (Laurette Sprang) and she makes a good deal of money working as a babysitter.  Sarah lives with her mother, Jean (Verna Bloom) and her stepfather, Matt (William Daniels).  She misses her father, a chronically unemployed artist named Jerry (Larry Hagman).  Jerry is the type who will complain about how no one is willing to give him a chance while he’s day drinking early in the morning.  Jerry’s an alcoholic.  That’s one of the many things that led to Jean divorcing him.  (Matt is fairly regular drinker as well but it soon becomes apparent that he can handle his liquor in a way that Jerry cannot.  Matt has a glass of Scotch after work.  Jerry has his daughter by a slushy so he can pour his beer in the cup.)  Jean is always quick to keep Sarah from drinking.  When someone offers her a drink at a party, Jean replies that Sarah only drinks ginger ale.

Of course, the name of this movie is Sarah T. — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic so we already know that Jean is incorrect about that.  When we first meet Sarah, she is fourteen and she’s been regularly drinking for two years.  She’s even worked out a system where she gets liquor delivered to the house and then tells the deliveryman that her mother is in the shower but she left the money for the booze on the dining room table.  Like many alcoholics, Sarah has become very good at tricking people and hiding her addiction.  Of course, Sarah doesn’t think that she’s an alcoholic but …. well, again, just check out the title of the film.

When Sarah goes to a party with Ken (Mark Hamill, two years before Star Wars), the handsome captain of the school’s swim team, she ends up having too much to drink.  Nice guy Ken not only takes her home but also takes the blame, telling Jean and Matt that he was the one who gave Sarah the alcohol.  Jean, convinced that this is the first time that Sarah has ever gotten drunk, forbids her from spending any more time with Ken.  In the morning, Jean comments that Sarah will probably have a terrible hangover and maybe that’s punishment enough.  The joke, of course, is on Jean.  Sarah doesn’t even get hangovers anymore.

Soon, Sarah’s grades start to slip and she starts to skip class so that she can drink.  Still blaming Ken for all of Sarah’s problems, Jean finally takes Sarah to a psychologist, Dr. Kitteridge (Michael Lerner).  Dr. Kitteridge announces that Sarah is an alcoholic and recommends that she start attending A.A. meetings.  Sarah does go to one meeting, in which she meets a surprisingly cheerful 12 year-old alcoholic.  However, Sarah still has a way to go and so does the movie.  I mean, we haven’t even gotten to the scene where Sarah begs a group of older boys to give her the bottle of wine that they’re clumsily tossing in the air.  By the end of the film, she’s even managed to hurt poor, loyal Ken.

Myself, I hardly ever drink.  Some of that is because, like Sarah, I’m the daughter of an alcoholic and a child of divorce and I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be to live with an addiction.  (My Dad has been sober for five years and I am so proud of him!)  Of course, another reason why I hardly ever drink is because my tolerance for alcohol is amazingly low.  I get drunk off one sip of beer.  Long ago, I realized my life would be a lot easier and simpler if I just didn’t drink and so I don’t.  Watching the film, I wondered if I was watching what my life would have been like if I had gone the opposite route.  Would I have ended up like Sarah T?

Probably not.  Sarah T is one of those films that was obviously made with the best of intentions but it just feels inauthentic.  A lot of that is due to the performance of Linda Blair, who often seems to be overacting and trying too hard to give an “Emmy-worthy” performance.  There’s not much depth to Blair’s performance and, as a result, the viewer never really buys into the story.  At her worse, Blair brings to mind Jessie Spano shouting, “I’m so excited!” during that episode of Saved By The Bell.  (Blair was far better served by B-movies like Savage Streets, in which she got to kick ass as a vigilante, than by films like this.)  As well, the film’s portrayal of A.A. is so cheerful, upbeat, and positive that it almost felt like a Disney version of Intervention.  Who are all of these happy addicts? I wondered as I watched the scene play out.

Because I’ve been a bit critical of his acting abilities in the past, I do feel the need to point out that Mark Hamill gives the best performance in this film.  He plays Ken as being a genuinely decent human being and it’s hard not to sympathize with him as he gets in over his head trying to deal with Sarah.  If Blair plays every emotion on the surface, Hamill suggests that there’s a lot going on with Ken.  Deep down, he knows that he can’t help Sarah but he still feels like he has to try.  Though Blair may be the star of the film, it’s Hamill who makes the biggest impression.

As a final note, this film was directed by Richard Donner, who is best-known for directing The Omen, Superman and Lethal Weapon.  This was Donner’s final made-for-TV film before he moved into features.  There’s nothing particularly special about Donner’s direction of Sarah T.  If anything, the film’s pacing feels a bit off.  Fortunately, just as Linda Blair would get to prove herself as one of the queens of exploitation cinema and Mark Hamill would go on to achieve immortality as Luke Skywalker, Donner would get plenty of opportunities to show himself to be one of Hollywood’s premier, big budget maestros.

As for Sarah T., I would recommend watching it on a double bill with Go Ask Alice.

Retro Television Reviews: The City (dir by Harvey Hart)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1977’s The City.  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

“Civilization began when man realized that he could not survive alone. He left the wilderness and built his citadels, security against intruders and erosion from within. The cities of the world have since become the crossroads of trade and ideas. Ideas that have made the human race more powerful than primitive man could ever have dreamed. Among these was an invention, a machine that conquered to contemporary enemies of man: time and distance….”

So goes the opening narration of 1977’s The City.  The narrator is the veteran character actor (and television producer) William Conrad and, as he speaks, we sees images of the California desert eventually being conquered by the growing city of Los Angeles.  It’s a bit of a portentous opening for a film that turns out to be fairly standard police procedural but it makes sense when you consider that The City was apparently meant to be a pilot for an anthology series about the people of Los Angeles.

The City features Mark Hamill, shortly before Star Wars would turn him into a cultural icon.  Hamill plays Eugene Banks, a sweaty, wild-eyed petty criminal who has made his way to Los Angeles from Texas.  Banks manages to get a nice apartment and a job working at a gas station.  One day, after a lawyer demands that Banks fill the tank of his Porsche, Banks snaps.  He grabs a wrench and attacks the car.  Then, he attacks the lawyer, beating the man until he dies.  Banks proceed to go on a crime and killing spree across Los Angeles, flashing a particularly scary-looking knife whenever he gets the chance.

Searching for Banks are two mismatched cops.  Matt Lewis (Robert Forster) is the tough-as-nails, emotionally reserved veteran with a bad knee and a determination to catch the bad guys.  The case becomes personal for Lewis after Banks kills his partner.  Brain Scott (Don Johnson) is a shaggy-haired country boy, much like Banks.  Brian comes from a wealthy family and is a bit more idealistic in his approach than Lewis.

Banks, it turns out, is obsessed with a country singer named Wes Collins (Jimmy Dean).  Banks not only resents the fact that Collins has everything that Banks has ever wanted but he’s also convinced that Collins is actually the father who abandoned him when he was a baby.  Banks wants to get revenge and he’s not going to let anyone, whether they be a bystander, a cop, or a dog, stand in his way.

Yes, Eugene Banks kills a dog in this film.  Fortunately, it happens off-screen but it’s still an indication of just how different this role is from Hamill’s best-known live action role.  As the two cops, Forster and Johnson work well together and bring their somewhat stereotypical characters to life but the main reason most people will watch this film will be for the chance to see Mark Hamill play an absolute lunatic.  With the exception of his somewhat dodgy Texas accent, Hamill does a good job with the role.  He’s got the crazy eyes down and he’s actually frightening when he attacks the lawyer at the start of the film.  The film itself is a bit predictable (i.e., the mismatched partners learn to work together, the bad guy gives a speech at an inopportune time) but The City is worth watching for the cast.

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Body Bags (dir by John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

An odd but mildly likable film, that’s the best description of Body Bags.

Originally, Body Bags wasn’t even meant to be a film.  Instead, in 1993, Showtime wanted to do a horror anthology show, one that would mix comedy and chills in the style of HBO’s Tales From The Crypt.  Three episodes were filmed.  Two were directed by John Carpenter.  The other was directed by Tobe Hooper.  Robert Carradine, Stacy Keach, and Mark Hamill all agreed to appear on the show.  That’s an impressive collection of talent but, for whatever reason, Showtime decided not to pursue Body Bags as a series.  So the three episodes were strung together in an anthology film.  Linking the stories was a warp-around segment where Carpenter played a coroner and Tobe Hooper and Tom Arnold played morgue attendants!

Now, it must be said that John Carpenter probably made the right decision when he decided to become a director instead of an actor.  That said, what Carpenter lacked in acting technique, he made up for with unbridled enthusiasm.  Carpenter appears to be having a blast playing an old style horror host.  Who can blame him?  In fact, I would say one the most appealing things about John Carpenter as a personality is that he always seems to be truly enjoying himself, regardless of all the crap that he’s had to put up with in Hollywood.

As for the segments …. well, they’re uneven.  That’s not really a shock. Part of the problem is that, because they weren’t originally envisioned as all airing together, a lot of ideas and story points are repeated from segment to segment.  The first segment is about a serial killer.  The second segment is about a transplant.  The third segment is about both a transplant and a serial killer.  It gets a bit repetitive.

Carpenter directed the first two segments, The Gas Station and Hair.  The Gas Station is a bit too simple for its own good.  Robert Carradine is a serial killer who harasses a woman at a gas station.  That’s pretty much it.  Carradine gives a good performance ad Halloween fans will get a laugh out of a reference to Haddonfield but there’s not much else going on.  Hair is a bit better.  Stacy Keach plays a businessman who gets a hair transplant, just to discover that the hair is extraterrestrial in origin.  Hair is clever and playful, like an above average episode of The Twilight Zone.  Keach plays his role with the right mix of comedic outrage and genuine horror.

The third segment is called Eyes and it was directed by Tobe Hooper.  Mark Hamill plays a baseball player who is losing his eyesight as the result of a car accident.  He gets an eye transplant.  At first, everything seems fine but soon, he’s having visions of himself murdering people!  It turns out that the eye once belonged to a serial killer.  You can guess where this is going but Mark Hamill really throws himself into the role and Tobe Hooper’s direction is appropriately intense.

Body Bags is a pretty minor entry in the filmographies of two great directors but, at the same time, it’s enjoyable in its own silly way.  There’s a likable goofiness to John Carpenter’s wrap-around segment and it lets us know that we shouldn’t take any of this too seriously.  Watch it for your own amusement.

Film Review: Corvette Summer (dir by Matthew Robbins)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1978 film, Corvette Summer, tells the story of Kenny Dantley (Mark Hamill).

Kenny is a student at a high school in Southern California.  He lives in a trailer park and he’s kind of dumb.  He’s the type who rarely shows up to class and, when he does, it’s just to discover that he managed to score a D-minus on his last test.  Kenny doesn’t think school’s important, though.  All Kenny cares about is cars.  He doesn’t date.  He doesn’t have friends.  But he can rebuild a corvette and spend hours talking about why it’s the greatest car in the world.

Yes, Kenny’s an idiot.

Kenny’s auto shop teacher, Mr. McGrath (Eugne Roche), warns Kenny that he’s spending too much obsessing on cars.  Don’t fall in love with a car, Mr. McGrath says.  A car is just a machine and a machine will always let you down.  A machine is something that you build so you can sell it and move on to something else.  To me, Mr. McGrath makes sense but Kenny’s like, “No, that’s totally squaresville.  Real melvin, man.”

(Well, okay, Kenny doesn’t use those exact words but you can tell that he’s thinking them…..)

Anyway, Kenny and the shop class have just rebuilt a red corvette and Kenny’s convinced that it’s the greatest car ever.  However, on the same night that the car makes its debut by cruising down the streets of Kenny’s hometown, it’s stolen!  Maybe Kenny shouldn’t have given the keys to Danny Bonaduce.  Kenny gets so angry that he smashes a cup of coke and attempts to beat up Bonaduce.

Mr. McGrath tells Kenny that these things happen and he suggests that Kenny instead look into enrolling at a community college after high school.  Kenny, however, is too obsessed with finding his car to listen to Mr. McGrath.  He even prints up flyers with a picture of the corvette.  “Have you seen this car?” the flyers ask.  Amazingly, it turns out that someone has.  He tells Kenny that he saw the corvette in Las Vegas.

That’s all it takes for Kenny to head to Nevada.  Of course, since Kenny doesn’t have a car, he has to hitchhiker.  Despite the fact that Kenny looks like a killer hippie and tends to spend a lot of time yelling in a somewhat shrill manner, he’s picked up by Vanessa (Annie Potts).  Vanessa is an “aspiring prostitute” who lives in a van.  “Vanessa” is written on the side of the van, which means that it will be useless if anyone ever needs to use it as a getaway vehicle for a bank robbery.  Way to go, Vanessa.

Once they arrives in Las Vegas, Kenny and Vanessa work a series of different jobs while looking for that corvette.  Along the way, Kenny falls in love, discovers that there’s more to life than just cars, and also suffers a bit of disillusionment when one of his mentors turns out to be not as perfect as Kenny originally believed.

Corvette Summer is best known for being Mark Hamill’s first post-Star Wars role.  He’s in almost every scene of the film and, to be honest, his performance kind of got on my nerves.  Some of that is because, as written, Kenny is almost unbelievably stupid.  But Hamill doesn’t help things by giving a rather shrill performance in the lead role.  Though the film may be a coming-of-age comedy, Hamill is so intense in the role that he comes across as being less like a naive teenager and more like a mentally unbalanced time bomb.  You find yourself hoping that he’ll get the car back before he’s forced to take hostages.  Annie Potts is a bit more likable as Vanessa but her character is dreadfully inconsistent.  One gets the feeling that she’s mostly just there so that Kenny can finally lose his virginity and be a little bit less of a loser by the end of the movie.

I will say that I did really like the performance of Kim Milford, who plays a superslick car thief named Wayne Lowry.  As I watched the film, it took me a few minutes to realize where I recognized Milford from.  He was the star of Laserblast, a film that featured Milford finding a laser gun and using it to blow up a sign advertising Star Wars.  Milford only has a small role in Corvette Summer and we’re not supposed to like him but he’s so handsome and sure-of-himself that it’s hard not to prefer him to the rather histrionic character played by Mark Hamill.

Corvette Summer is such a film of the 70s that watching it is like stepping into a time machine.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course.  Indeed, in 2020, the main appeal of a film like this is a chance to see how people lived in 1978.  (It’s always a bit odd to watch a movie where no one carries a phone or has a twitter account.)  Watching this film in 2020, it’s hard not cringe a little at the sight of not only Kenny hitchhiking but also people stopping to pick him up.  Seriously, are they just trying to get killed?

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – Final Trailer

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

Well, it all comes down to this.

During tonight’s Monday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and New York Jets, ESPN is hosting the final trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The last film of the new trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker seems to have Rey (Daisy Ridley) coming into her own as a Jedi. It also looks like her friends are due to face a new threat, could it really be The Emperor? While Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi may have left some audiences divided, Disney is hoping this will bring everyone in line and in the theatre. It seems to be working as theatres around the country are already selling out in pre-sales for the film.

It looks like we have Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) fighting against and alongside each other again. Could this also mean some sort of redemption for Kylo? We’ll find out come December 19th, when the film is released.

Enjoy!

Celebrate Life Day With The Star Wars Holiday Special!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Life Day!

The Star Wars Holiday Special was first aired in 1978 and, over the years, it has achieved a certain amount of infamy.  Some people say that it’s the worst thing to ever be made for TV.  To those people, I say that 1) that’s not a good attitude to have on Life Day and 2) have you seen Disco Beaver From Outer Space?

Anyway, this is a musical Star Wars extravaganza.  One thing that makes it interesting is that Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher were all ordered to appear in it.  Seeing as how Harrison Ford tends to come across as being grumpy on a good day, I can only imagine how he reacted to filming The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Also, a few years ago, Val reviewed the Hell out of this thing.  Be sure to check out her review.

And now, for those of you looking to experience a dubious piece of pop culture history on this Christmas, we present to you …. The Star Wars Holiday Special!