It seems odd to me how many people feel the need to choose between Star Wars andStar Trek. Maybe it’s because I feel one is way better than the other (dodges those who’ve set their weapons to stun), but the main point is: why do we have to choose? Why not appreciate both for what they are, just like J.J. Abrams will now have to do being that he has both directed the Star Trek reboot (and the upcoming sequal, Star Trek Into Darkness) along with being hired to film Star Wars Episide VII. In his interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, the pair discussed the differences in the franchise and what makes each special.
It’s one my worst fears come true. Since they announced that Disney had purchased the rights to the Star Wars franchise and that we would get a new film in 2015, there’s been a lot of vocal people about how it should be approached.
When an Oscar race seems all but sewn up for a film you aren’t necessarily rooting for, there comes a time where you must accept it, make peace with it, and move forward with your predictions. That’s exactly what The Film Experience’s Nathaniel Rogers did this week following Argo’s win at the DGA.
As the talk of 2012 slowly comes to an end, The Awards Circuit moves forward by embracing the new film year. Joey Magidson and Terence Johnson spent a full nine days in Park City, Utah getting to know the films and filmmakers that could make a huge impact in 2013. Check out their interviews, reviews and daily video blogs for the latest Sundance reports. Be sure to also glance at the Sundance Award Winners, just announced last night. It’s no surprise that the festival’s big awards champion, Fruitvale, is now in the nurturing yet powerful hands of The Weinstein Company. Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 1/27)…
Something that many never thought would ever happen is going on in Hollywood right now. Yes, ‘Star Wars Episode VII’ is in pre-production, and it’s not even being fully brought to us by George Lucas. We’re all aware by now that Oscar winner Michael Arndt has been hired to pen the script, and filmmakers like Colin Trevorrow and Matthew Vaughn have been rumored to be taking the directing job. Of course, A-listers like J.J. Abrams, Zach Snyder, Steven Spielberg, and Quentin Tarantino have already pretty much said no, while people like David Fincher and Christopher Nolan aren’t really even worth seriously discussing. That got me thinking though…who else would get people excited? I know Brad Bird is a popular name, but I wanted to get the input of the community here at The Awards Circuit. I’ll be sharing seven names that I’d be interested in seeing get the gig (not including Matt Reeves, who I always put in pieces like this and decided to take a short break from), but I’m just as interested in getting your names as I am in sharing mine. We’re likely not too far out from finding out who the directing choice of Disney is, so before long we’ll know the director of a new Star Wars movie! Until then, here are my picks for filmmakers who could do a good job with the new trilogy…
Moving quickly after the news of the seemingly earth-shattering acquisition, Disney and LucasFilm have confirmed that Michael Arndt will write Star Wars: Episode VII. LucasFilm posted a brief blog posting on Star Wars.com on Friday confirming the news:
After taking a week to let the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm to digest and roll around how the two greediest corporations in film sort of became one, I can finally write about it, though understand I am angry, cynical and bitter about the whole thing. Read more on Thoughts on Disney’s Star Wars…
Over the next few months to a year, many rumors will start circulating the web about who will be starring/writing/directing the upcoming “Untitled Star Wars Episode VII” film due out in 2015. Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood and Beth Hanna are reporting that director Matthew Vaughn, most responsible for directing X-Men: First Class (2011), Kick-Ass (2010), and Layer Cake (2004) is rumored to being considered for the project. Read more on Rumors Suggest Matthew Vaughn being considered to direct ‘Star Wars Episode VII’…
We are joined this week by Associate Editor and Staff Writer of Coming Soon, Edward Douglas. We dive into a variety of topics including the recent openings of Flight and Wreck-It Ralph. We also cover the following things in today’s agenda:
It’s time to visit the week that was via our Around the Circuit piece, where we look back at articles that we feel are worth your time covering the Oscar race, new releases, or really just anything film related.
Link(s) of the week:
The big news this week (or year) was Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm for $4 billion, and the subsequent announcement that there would be three new Star Wars films starting in 2015. Following this announcement, the first instinct was to speculate on who should direct (Christopher Nolan, please). Nathan Adams of Film School Rejects, Ethan Anderson of First Showing, Oliver Lyttelton at The Playlist, and Matt Goldberg at Collider, were just a few who weighed in on the director discussion. While Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today talked about the odds of returning characters, and – enter shameless plug – yours truly was asked who I’d like to see reappear.
It takes something pretty big to unseat a hurricane from the discussions on Twitter, but leave it to the Mouse House to give us a great distraction. In a stunning development, it was announced that the Walt Disney Company would be acquiring LucasFilm for a cool $4.05 billion in stock and cash. Also, and perhaps more surprisingly, Disney announced that Star Wars VII will arrive in theaters in 2015 with plans to release a new film every 2-3 years to continue the franchise. So if you’re counting, Disney is set to have The Avengers 2 and Star Wars VII in the same summer. The Disney deal for LucasFIlm also includes ILM & Skywalker Sound, two of the premiere technical companies working today. The full press release of the shocking announcement is available after the jump!
The great and the good films of the eighties were often box office failures, re-discovered within a few years by audiences and critics on video, as home entertainment brought a whole new world to audiences and the movies. Suddenly audiences could watch the films at home, on their TV by renting a video, which became a huge success, and video rental stores popped up all over North America. Within a year of release a film was on video, sometimes longer, and there were holdouts from directors and studios who believed films should be seen on the big screen, though eventually they gave in to the new toy that would help save the business. Suddenly it was possible for a film that initially failed to be found within a year and celebrated for the work of art it was, rather than waiting years, which had been the case for Citizen Kane (1941) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). An example might be Blow Out (1981), celebrated by critics, but audiences stayed away in droves, only to find the film on video, making it something of a cult classic. The new medium would allow audiences of the next generation and beyond to be the best educated film audience in history, simply because of the sheer availability of the films. I remember coming home for the weekend from college, and Dad having been among the first in our area to buy a VCR would stop at the video store and I would rent ten movies. It was like John’s wet dream, movies at my fingertips. Suddenly I could see films I had wanted to see again, films I had not seen, and foreign language work that had not made it to the theaters in my area. It was incredible. Read more on Best of the Decades: 1980s…
I love film, I really do. I love watching film, I love learning the history behind the film, I love hearing how a film broke ground during the time it came out, and I love learning the trivia that goes on during the making of a film. Film is my first love if you haven’t gathered and I wouldn’t change that day in 2001 when I woke up and decided I would begin my obsession.
When I first read my assignment I thought I’d be telling you all about my favorite films of all time. I had my list ready and set to go, and then I was punched in the face by Mark Johnson’s list and article. My heart started racing because my task just became tougher; at 21 years old I was forced to sit down and analyze all the films that have been released throughout the years, years I wasn’t even alive for. Read more on 10 Greatest Films of All-Time (Anna)…
As I have been impressed and enamored with the lists that precede this one, and likely the remaining lists to follow from our Awards Circuit staff, I have to confess that I have agonized over this assignment and this list for weeks. I do not have the mental makeup to take something like this lightly. I pored through my Netflix ratings (approximately 2600 or so), went through my DVDs and Blu-Rays, looked at notes, and considered countless films. I redid the list more times than I care to admit and still can debate myself with what is here and what is not here.
Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter nearly made the list – a film that has reduced me to tears more than once and made me immediately purchase all of his films on DVD in the days after I experienced it. Pixar’s groundbreaking Toy Story series, each exceptionally crafted and designed, continually raised the bar and changed animation forever. To that extent, the hand-drawn animated films Beauty And The Beast and Spirited Away were considered. The go-to classics all got a look. The grandeur and flat out timeless nature of Gone With The Wind, spoken about so eloquently earlier this week by some of our staff, was a late scratch. The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II just missed somehow. I even considered films as diverse as Apocalypse Now, Brokeback Mountain, Halloween, countless Hitchcock films, an interminable amount of documentaries, and even a couple of Christmas films.
Here’s what I have determined. At the end of the day, my Best Of/Greatest Of All Time list consists of films that made the most impact on me. They changed my worldview somehow. They made me recognize the intricacies and staggering detail that motion picture filmmaking requires, they presented viewpoints and political ideologies I had never previously considered. They made me appreciate the simple gift of a smile, the rapid loss of childhood, and the all too rare feeling of being so mesmerized and captivated by something you are experiencing that time stops completely and you do not want the experience to ever end.
So…with that said…these 10 films changed my life and perhaps changed yours as well. Spoilers may follow as well…
The 10 best films of all time. Think about how profound that claim is when considering the seemingly unlimited amount of movies that have been made – and from that, the 10 best. It is such an elite group of films, and yet there are many worthy of being considered. I always find such lists to be so intriguing, as it says a great deal to me about a person. Their list becomes their cinematic fingerprint, as it never seems that two lists are the exact same.
For me, the biggest challenge is to separate what may be my favorite movies ever made from the actual best. It might sound silly, but there is a big difference. For example, while The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my favorite movies ever made, I would never argue that it is anywhere near one of the best films ever made. And conversely, I might not be an enormous fan of Gone with the Wind, but how can I deny its greatness? Especially considering the era in which it was made. Ah, another dilemma. How does one compare the smallness of something like Chaplin’s City Lights to the eye candy that contemporary times and technologies have gifted us with something like Cameron’s Avatar? As far as I am concerned, you MUST consider the era a film was made when disputing its relevance in a top 10 list.
In the end, you must accept that there is no such thing as a correct list. And yet while there is absolutely no way to make a correct list, there certainly are many ways to make a wrong one. For example, whether Citizen Kane is #1 or #7 on a list shouldn’t be something we look at and say, you are wrong! It’s apples to apples at that point. But if you have something like Battlefield Earth in your top 10, then surely you deserve a bit of a beat down, no?
Aside from that, to each their own. No pressure, right? It’s in the eye of the beholder, after all.
Have a look at the 10 films I consider to be the best ever made after the jump…
A documentary that never quite manages to make itself more worthwhile than just as a gimmick, The People vs. George Lucas amounts to little more than fanboy ramblings about how George Lucas has taken the ‘Star Wars’ saga way from its rightful owners.
Individual arguments work and hold water, but the total thesis is muddled and diluted, keeping the viewer from actually seeing this as being a successful documentary. What saves this from being a waste of time is how entertaining some of the flick is (especially the fan re-creations of the original trilogy), but it can’t add up to enough. The end result is a bit of a disappointment, especially if you have a passionate stance on whether or not Greedo or Han Solo shot first (if you don’t know what that means, this documentary either isn’t for you or it will be incredibly informative to you, if rather one sided). Read more on The People vs. George Lucas (**½)…
