Some Drivel On...The Force Awakens

I promised myself I would not re-watch “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” for fear of being let down which is exactly what happened when I broke my promise. That I enjoyed it so vicariously the first time felt connected to the excitement of re-visiting a universe that meant so much to me in youth, and in that headspace, in that moment, it became nigh impossible to disentangle myself from personal emotion to truly (fairly) engage with the product. I sort of knew that, which is why I did not want to re-watch it, and so when I did, that personal emotion having died down, I saw that “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is a movie about the movies that come next as well as the movies that came before and barely a movie about itself at all.

If these days I am generally a television agnostic, one TV show that I did loyally watch beginning to end was “Alias”, ABC’s 2002-06 spy spectacular that transformed Jennifer Garner into a star. Its first, and by far best, years of existence were overseen by J.J. Abrams, who followed “Alias” with “Lost”, cementing his status as a master of the modern day serial TV show. He excelled at concocting fast-paced narratives that always concluded with cliffhangers as a means to ensure you would tune in next week. In other words, what “Alias” was most about was wondering what came next, springboards for Big Picture speculation taking precedence over how it was made to convey what it said in the moment. The most important moment in “Alias” always felt like it was just over the next hill, and then the next hill, and then the next hill after that. I suppose the “Star Wars” powers-that-be knew that Abrams specialized in whetting appetites when they hired him since they were specifically putting him in charge of kicking off a series. And that’s what “The Force Awakens” does, re-introduce old characters while introducing new characters and establishing the narrative that they will all occupy going forward, hurtling us through a bunch as a means to leave us wanting more.

I had sort of forgotten it, but Daisy Ridley spends as much time running in the early parts of “The Force Awakens” as Jennifer Garner did on “Alias”, propelled from plot point to plot point, where the Millenium Falcon just suddenly appears as if by story decree and Rey is led to a light saber by some mystical narrative pull. The original “Star Wars” moved fast too, especially for its time and place I, though I dare say so many of us who came of age in the time of its fandom would not have done so if the film was simply preoccupied with what came next. After all, it was not titled “Episode IV” until later; it stood alone, even if Lucas had originally intended it as a first act. It’s not simply that the film’s ending was closed, but that the movie reveled in itself, in its places, in its adventures. One oft-heard “Force Awakens” lament was that it just sort of pilfered the plot of “A New Hope”, which isn’t incorrect, but might have been fine in a broad sense if it had more willingness to think outside the box anywhere else. In “A New Hope” there is the moment when Chewbacca and R2-D2 are playing holographic chess, a little detail that made the whole movie feel so lived-in, whereas Abrams quotes holographic chess rather than proffer his own invention, dispensing easter eggs rather than making something from scratch.

Too often “The Force Awakens” conspicuously demonstrates sentience as the first movie in a trilogy, like the climactic light saber duel where some sort of ill-defined avalanche prevents a satisfactory wrap-up because Abrams must keep moving forward. Lucas’s film, on the other hand, moved not so much eternally toward the distant horizon as crisply from setpiece to setpiece, putting emphatic punctuation on each one before swooping to the next, transforming the Death Star assault into an isolated extravaganza that became the exclamation point. Even the actors playing Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru (Phil Brown and Shelagh Fraser, respectively) share a chemistry so knowing in and of itself that it did not require the filling in of future films to resonate. The most emotionally affecting moment in “The Force Awakens”, meanwhile, is made so because of previously established relationships, and Abrams attempts to impart a little visual flourish go belly up when he cuts to the reaction of the series’ new characters, as if nodding once again to what’s next. When Ben Kenobi bit the dust it was afforded gravity preeminently by the manner in which Alec Guinness had the Jedi pull his light saber back and close his eyes, evincing a dude now suddenly operating on a higher, incommunicable plain, one of many reminders that, such as the way Fraser has Beru steal glances of Owen, “Star Wars” managed to push pause even in the midst of its speedy story to steal a few vibrant images that would and have lingered far longer than any cliffhanger. God, I wish J.J. Abrams would learn how to press pause.

JJ Abrams Admits To (Other) Massive Mistakes in The Force Awakens

News lit up the Interwebs yesterday like a volcanic eruption on Mustafar that JJ Abrams, auteur of the most anticipated movie in history, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", had copped in an interview with Peter Sciretta of Slashfilm to having made a mistake in regard to Princess General Leia Organa's hug near the movie's end. Slashfilm issued a spoiler alert which was essentially rendered moot 22 seconds later when every other site in the solar system picked up on this story and spilled the beans in the headlines but whatevs.

Anyway, the "mistake" to which Abrams confessed was Leia hugging Rey, Taylor Swift of the Western Reaches, rather than Chewbacca in the wake of, uh, something, uh, considerable, uh, taking place. I honestly had no idea this hug had become all the rage in the fashionable circles of Interwebs vitriol. I confess to not even remembering the moment described.

Buried, however, by the lede was Abrams' confession of "That was probably one of the mistakes I made in that." "One of"????? What were the other mistakes he made in that????? Luckily Cinema Romantico was able to pilfer a full transcript of the interview from sources who will not be named.

In it, Abrams also expressed regret for calling Tatooine Jakku ("It was Tatooine. I don't know why we did that. You got me there.") and for turning the TIE Fighter into a two-seater ("I was trying to homage the snowspeeder. That wasn't canonical. I apologize.") and for the little inside joke where the Millennium Falcon's holographic game table briefly springs to life ("No way it would have still been functioning after so many years. I sacrificed plausibility for comedy. My fault.") and for styling Kylo Ren's lightsaber on a Crusader sword rather than a Two Handed Claymore as intended ("The props department argued that Adam Driver never could have lifted a Two Handed Claymore. I should've listened to my gut.") and for failing to include Lando Calrissian ("You could tell from the first cut we showed the studio that a certain - what's the term? - irreproachable suaveness was missing") and for cutting C-3PO's love interest at the last second ("She was voiced by Dolly Wells. It would've been amazing.").

Abrams, however, did not apologize for ignoring George Lucas's advice. "George suggested centering the narrative around establishing the Bank of the New Republic. I thanked him for his two cents but politely declined."

Countdown to the Oscars: 5 Moments That Made the Movies in 2015

A few years ago my favorite film critic, David Thomson, put out a book titled “Moments That Made the Movies”, a compilation that focused, as you might surmise, on specific moments from specific films. In keeping with its spirit, the venerable web site Indiewire asked the incredibly esteemed Mr. Thomson to digress on the five moments that made the movies in 2013. He did not, however, appear to take up the same task for 2014 or 2015, which is where Cinema Romantico comes in.

To be sure, taking this torch from Mr. Thomson is an act of pure idiocy. I am essentially Nicholas Sparks to his Leo Tolstoy, and yet, like the fool I am, I must forge ahead, even as I suspect he’d look at my moments, his eyebrows raised quizzically, and query: “Those?”

5 Moments That Made the Movies in 2015

The American Dream probably was never much more than a huckster’s slogan to begin with considering that F. Scott Fitzgerald was taking it apart way back in 1925. Yet its myth survives because for so much cynicism inundating culture we nonetheless remain inherently romantic, the dueling notions at play in Brooke Cardenas (Greta Gerwig), protagonist of Noah Baumbach's Mistress America. She is introduced descending the staircase at the TKTS stand in Times Square, arms spread wide to greet her soon-to-be sorta protégé , exclaiming in the manner of a New World tour guide “Welcome to the great white way!” Alas, she’s misjudged the number of stairs and with several still to go is forced to wobbly maintain her starlet facade. And she does. She never relents; she never gives up on the persona; she will grin and bear it in the face of all obstacles. And in that moment, in Gerwig’s immaculate visage, we see The American Dream itself laid bare. She’s wholly sincere; she’s also full of shit.

When Carol Aird finds herself with a hilariously incredulous facial expression in lieu of taking forced council with the asinine, eager beaver salesman Tommy Tucker, whose motives, it turn out, are tied directly back to an insecure male, I thought of Hillary Clinton at the Benghazi hearings. And I thought about how incremental change in America really is, and how even if we may well be on the verge of having a female President, we have not advanced all that far from 1952. In fact, the only detail missing from this moment in “Carol” is the titular character being told “to smile”. But then, that’s because she already is, with a spectacularly haughty derision I swear Hillary would have been copying if the movie had already been out.

When I left Colin Trevorrow's box office thresher Jurassic World in June I wondered if anyone else had noticed that moment when “Jurassic World's” titular theme park had fallen under attack and some nameless extra had made sure to save his two precious margaritas while fleeing the digitized terror. Sure enough, the next day while listening to Pultizer Prize winning film critic Wesley Morris discuss “Jurassic World” on a podcast he mentioned the Margarita Guy. Then I Googled “Margarita Guy” and learned not only that he was Jimmy Buffet, but that Margarita Guy was a social media sensation, shared by thousands in the form of GIFs and hashtags. And I realized that Margarita Guy beheld the future - one in which our most memorable movie moments are no longer organically built to or even emotionally palpable, but just deliberate little inserts designed less for the silver screen than social media afterwards. #WeAllLose

Throughout Frederick Wiseman’s astonishingly humane three hour documentary In Jackson Heights, about a New York neighborhood threatened by gentrification, two men go from small business to small business, explaining the big business threat and what their options are, which aren’t many or optimal. In one of these scenes, as a business owner details his helplessness, you become aware of a fashion magazine sitting on the desk in the foreground of the frame. Penelope Cruz is on the cover. It’s never mentioned; it’s just there. I have no idea if Wiseman put it there on purpose or just happened to wind up there as some sort of cosmic coincidence. I’d like to believe the latter because I’m a sentimental fool. But then, I’m also not, because the shot is a necessary reminder that for as much as we all love the movies and the stars who inhabit their fantastical worlds, often times those stars and their worlds are the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.

But movies are still movies and their power still holds sway, pulling us out of our respective mundane, miserable existences to allow communion with the Motion Picture Gods. Never was this more evident than in the most anticipated movie ever, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Lord, this thing could’ve gone so wrong in so many ways. But it didn’t. And as I realized it wouldn’t, a kind of exultation peacefully erupted within me, and I realized where I was and what I was watching and that I had waited so long to be back here, right where I was, and that movie magic, contrary to what the grinches eating gruel (and Tweeting) might claim, was real. And I didn’t want to leave, not ever, because soon there would be another Star Wars and another one after that and spin-offs, and the whole thing could buckle. And when Rey, that feminist Jakku scavenger rock 'n roller, took flight in the Falcon (oh, old Friend, how I’d missed you) and suddenly put the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy into free-fall so her new friend Finn could squeeze off a shot from his gun turret at the dastardly TIE fighters.....that free-fall spoke to my heart, my heart which was about to burst. I just wanted to hang with Rey and Finn and the Falcon in that instant forever and ever. FADE OUT

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Though the original “Star Wars” – that is, 1977 – might have been a pioneering cinematic event, its narrative, quite famously, and as has been outlined numerous times in the nearly forty years since, was cribbed from numerous films George Lucas loved so dearly. He employed this pastiche skillfully by using so many story elements to create so many new worlds, an entire galaxy, a place that felt wholly new even it was deliberately old-fashioned (hence, the long time ago). J.J. Abrams enjoys cribbing from the past too, as his ultra-Spielbergian “Super 8” goes to show, and in the madly anticipated “The Force Awakens”, his crack at this revered franchise, the only historical template Abrams deemed necessary to convey his story was the original Lucas trilogy. And if there are a few too many Easter eggs and a few too many sentimental bows to the past, Abrams still uses that template to propel the series forward.

30 years have passed, it seems, since “Return of the Jedi” but Abrams, ever an accelerative filmmaker, is not concerned with relaying so much backstory. Instead he provides the iconic opening scroll, with concise sentences telling us what we need to know, that a vaguely defined First Order has risen from the ashes of the Galactic Empire and that a Resistance rather than a Rebellion has met it head on, and that the best pilot in the resistance – Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) – is on a secret mission to locate the whereabouts of one Luke Skywalker to aid the cause. In other words, Luke has become what Obi Wan Kenobi was in “A New Hope”, a peripheral caretaker, necessary to the cause though not its primary point.

This search involves a new droid, the mellifluously named BB-8, which moves less like R2-D2 than a lovable Scottish Terrier, and BB-8 has a map implanted in its memory bank when Poe is captured by the First Order’s mouth breathing chief henchman, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). This bad guy homages Darth Vader, of course, but as Abrams does throughout, he both nods at the past and looks to the future by having Kylo remove his mask early rather than interminably drawing the reveal out. It’s smart, and it’s also indicative of how Abrams primary interest lies in rescuing new century “Star Wars” from its inadvertent anti-human stance, giving us actual people in primary roles who even without great depth of emotion have emotions that are understandable, relatable and substantial. And if these characters come across as being familiar to the icons of yore, they are not automatons; they are themselves, and they are wonderful.

Amidst so many special effects, often the best images on screen are simply those of human faces, like an indelible shot of a Storm Trooper removing his white helmet to reveal the visage of a panicky John Boyega underneath. This speaks to a broader point, the way in which Abrams captures details that Lucas merely glanced over – a storm trooper, who were mainly just foils for our heroes in the originals, given a face and a name. He’s FN-2187, a number bestowed by the First Order since he’s been orphaned, but a crisis of conscious leads him to bail and help Poe, who renames FN-2187 “Finn”, and they escape to the desert planet of Tatooine which is called Jakku as if trying to cover for the fact we all know it’s Tatooine. Boyega, so charismatically indestructible in “Attack the Block”, here has a comic, yet never annoying, fear, a little less Luke, a little more screwball hero, trying to get out of bad situations only to blunder right into them, perpetually convinced he’s a little more valiant than he actually is.

If Boyega’s a little bit Luke, a little bit C-3P0, then Daisy Ridley, the series’ new superstar, like Taylor Swift of the Western Reaches, is a little bit Luke, a little bit Han Solo. She is Rey, a self-sufficient scavenger on Tatooine Jakku, met in some of the movie’s most swift storytelling, ransacking an old Imperial cruiser in what’s like the Cadillac Ranch of Star Destroyers, and in one sublime shot sledding down a steep hill of sand. This, frankly, is when “The Force Awakens” is at its best; not world building, because Lucas has already built these worlds, but in gleefully expanding upon them. Some might accuse moments like these, of which there are many, as derivative, but to me they played like Abrams as something of an apprentice chef who suddenly got hold of five star chef's kitchen and can’t quite believe his good fortune. Instead of concocting all new recipes from scratch, he's content to noodle around with the recipes and ingredients already intact and find a new way to make his dishes taste. There’s a moment when Poe and Finn wind up in a TIE Fighter and God, you can feel the filmmaker’s joy emanating from the screen, as if he’s making this scene and bellowing aloud all the while, “I’M SHOOTING A SCENE IN A TIE FIGHTER!”

And it these introductory passages that make up the first-third of the film, as everyone is rounded up, Poe apparently vanishes into thin air (or does he?), Rey and Finn become buddies as they squire BB-8 and his precious information, and the narrative wheels are set in motion, that “The Force Awakens” positively flies, like the Millenium Falcon itself, which re-appears at a crucial moment with Rey at the controls and takes us on a chase worth all the spice of Kessel. As the enemies pursue, and Finn’s gun turret gets stuck in place, Rey jams on the spaceship parking brake, bringing the Falcon into freefall, allowing it to momentarily hang in place so Finn can get off a shot, and frankly, I wanted to hang right there in that instant forever.

If “The Force Awakens” doesn’t lose its way, per se, it blunts that momentum in the middle portions when things need to get aligned, both for this movie and for later ones. Abrams has always best with the throttle all the way down, less so when it isn’t, and these passages are the closest his creation gets to the self-serious slog of the prequels as it tends to a few housekeeping affairs. Yet as if calculating this deficiency, this is also when Han Solo (Harrison Ford) re-appears, alongside his old pal Chewbacca. His character has apparently extracted himself from inter-galactic politics once again, only to once again get pulled back in, which seems entirely apropos, and Ford, while gray and gruff, never seems disinterested, and in the brief sequences he gets opposite Carrie Fisher as General (though, as one character says, “she’ll always be royalty to me”) Leia, they don’t crackle so much as dance around one another like long-married and consequently worn-down lovers. “Same jacket,” she says. “New jacket,” he replies, and Ford gives it the familiar ring of a defensive spouse.

Han Solo factors into the plot in a crucial way, which is not to be revealed, but unfolds over a concluding act that re-gains a good portion of the first-third’s energy and involves several set pieces in different locales, a hallmark of the earlier films, including a hellacious light saber duel that Abrams sets against snowy backdrop for no other reason I could detect than damn those light sabers look good against the falling snow. There is a moment in the midst of this duel when Abrams quotes one of the series’ best shots: a lightsaber entrenched in snow and summoned by the hand of a Jedi. Who summons it is not for me to say, but when it happens, tears filled my eyes, and here, dear reader, is where I, stone-faced critic, must excuse myself from critique and confirm that, yes, the lightsaber, one of which I received as a Christmas present in the first house where I ever lived, was a crucial totem of my childhood. And while one might be compelled to argue that this moment is mere repetition of a previous shot, it is and it isn’t; glowing against that pristine snow, the lightsaber looks very much like a torch, which it symbolically is, passed from one generation to the next. Godspeed.

Princess Leia's What Now?

Word dropped yesterday per a report from Entertainment Weekly that Leia Organa will no longer be referred to as "Princess" in the forthcoming "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

This might seem an outrage, like Ms. Organa was unfairly demoted a la Pluto, but Cinema Romantico suspects this announcement merely means she was promoted to Queen, like Elizabeth filtered through Nora Ephron. The problem, however, emerges in determining who the new Princess of the Star Wars™galaxy will be. Because there obviously has to be a Princess. I mean, you didn't make a Star Wars™and not include a Princess, right J.J Abrams? Because while a lot of the fanboy sniping just makes me leisurely roll my eyes, no Princess will not abide. And if it's going to be a new Princess, a Princess to follow in the footsteps of Princess freaking Leia...well, unless it's the lady shown below appearing as herself (which makes perfect sense in regards to the space time continuum because the lady shown below moves through space and time as she damn well pleases), just keep your stupid character alterations to yourself, J.J. Abrams.

The Five Types of Force Awakens Trailer Reaction

The latest trailer for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" dropped during Monday Night Football last night. We here at Cinema Romantico could provide a link to it and we could provide a full breakdown of it and we could offer our personal reaction to it...but what's the point? You've seen it. Or heard about it. And formed your own reaction to it or to the reaction of it. There was a lot of reaction to it out there last night on the Twitters. Yet despite so much reaction, the majority of it is really just the same. Let us explain.

Reaction One: "I don't give a fuck about 'Star Wars.'"
Translation: I don't give a fuck about "Star Wars" and I'm letting you know I don't give a fuck about "Star Wars." Because I don't. I don't fucking care about "Star Wars." Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME??? I DON'T CARE ABOUT STAR WARS. THAT'S WHY I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT IT. AT ALL. BECAUSE I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT STAR WARS. I'M BETTER THAN YOU.

Reaction Two: "It's just a trailer."
Translation: You're taking something seriously that I don't take seriously and because I don't take it seriously I refuse to accept the fact that anyone else takes it seriously. (Reader's Note: This is the same sorta person fancying him or herself a modern day Copernicus for proffering the most reductive phrase in the English language - "It's just a game".)

Reaction Three: "Boycott 'Star Wars.'"
Translation: I can only find faux-pleasure in belittling the joy of others.

Reaction Four: "What's 'Star Wars?'"
Translation: Psssst. I actually do know what "Star Wars" is and I'm merely masquerading as if I don't know in order to cleverly convey my disinterest it. But it's humorous, see, because I'm acting as if I don't know what this very, very famous film franchise is. Ha ha! Right? Funny!

Reaction Five: "I was probably gonna see it anyway."
Translation: "I was probably gonna see it anyway."

Don't See The New Star Wars: Force Awakens Trailer Here!!!

Today was the first day of “Star Wars” Celebration, scheduled to run until Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center. Cinema Romantico bought a ticket in hopes of seeing the debut of the first full length trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and recording it on our iPhone to upload here to the teeming masses. I should have known better. I was forced to check my iPhone at the door and was then treated to a security patdown by guards armed with Chewbacca tee-shirt guns who absconded with my ankle Samsung Galaxy. So I had no choice but to document was I seeing with an old-fashioned pen and notebook. What follows is exactly as I wrote it down, no embellishments.....

The trailer begins not with the familiar notes of John Williams’ score but with something approaching……Gershwin. We fade in to Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley at what appears to be a Coruscant food co-op discussing the relevance of the Golden Age of Alderaan literature. The audience is a little restless. You can sense it. But it's okay. The music turns ominous. We cut to an X-wing just chilling in the hangar. Oscar Isaac is in the cockpit. A harried Greg Grunberg walks up and offers him a bag. “What's this for?” Isaac asks. “For being an honest X-wing pilot?”

The next shot is Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher standing in front of some sort of CGI-enhanced landscape. They're dressed like it's an episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and he's Ray and she's Deb. The crowd cheers. “Kids,” Ford says. “They're not doing anything you didn’t teach them to do,” Fisher replies. “We taught them to be rebels,” he growls. “And they are,” she says.

Spacescape. X-wings. Laser blasts. Then……wait, is that a Death Star? …… Nope. Sorry. It’s just a disco ball gleaming above some sort of ginormous dance floor on the forest moon of Endor. Suddenly, we see Billy Dee Williams, dressed like a resort owner on Zeltros, which he might be, at a turntable. “Welcome to Lando’s Landing! Home of the all night pants off dance off and combustible champagne!” Now it looks like that scene in “The Matrix Reloaded”, the one where everyone’s throbbing to the beat, a beat that's like Petra Marklund fronting the Cantina Band. People around me are starting to get skeptical. I’m, like, into it.

Now we’re on Jabba’s skiff. It’s just like that scene in “Return of the Jedi”. It IS that scene in “Return of the Jedi”! Except it’s old Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams scampering around and trying to avoid being seen by young Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams! It’s like that scene in “Back to the Future 2” where the characters from now wind up back in 1955! PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR MINDS! OR SCREAMING CURSE WORDS! I CAN’T TELL WHICH!

Title Card: “SEVEN DAYS EARLIER.”

Wait, Keira Knightley is on the screen now with an aquamarine lightsaber dressed like her version of Guinevere in “King Arthur”. Did they time travel back to “The Phantom Menace”? Was Natalie Portman HER decoy? Or is this the Marcan herbs kicking in? Did I not mention that? That beforehand I was out in Jabba's Tent in the Anaheim Convention Center Parking Lot where they were passing around hookah?

Now Disney representatives are going through the aisles and stealing money from people. I think. I might be imagining that too.

Send help.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer

Fear not, loyal readers, I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45 this morning to be at the first showing (6:50 AM) of the new Blue Raja movie in order to catch the debut trailer for the new "Star Wars" movie set for release during Christmas 2015 and I managed to record it and at risk of lawsuit for committing high treason have posted it below. So please try to enjoy it.