Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Grade: A-

September, 1977

Dear Mr. Lucas,

I am 14 years old, and I have just seen "Star Wars" for the 47th time. Twice a week for the last few months, I have taken the bus to the Hicksville Twin South movie theater on Long Island to sit through the movie two times in a row. Some people think I'm crazy and make fun of me, wearing "May the Force Be With You" t-shirts, owning the toys and knowing all the trivia, but I don't care very much. When I'm sitting in the darkened theater, listening to people laugh and cheer over and over again, knowing what scene is coming after what scene is coming after what scene, I'm so happy I completely forget how completely unhappy I am. "Star Wars" is magical, and fills me with a joy I can't even begin to describe. I know I will love it for the rest of my life - it means more to me than words can even say. I just can't wait for you to make more movies that will make me feel this way again. I am your #1 fan.

May, 2005

Dear George,

I don't know what took you so long, but I'm so incredibly happy the magic is back.

Today, I stood on line for three hours outside the Ziegfeld movie theater. Passersby in suits and ties on their way to work thought we were all crazy, and camera crews were poking fun at us for ditching work today, but I don't care very much. We all know it's been a while since that indefinable joy you filled our hearts with so many years ago. "Phantom Menace" didn't have all that much of it. "Attack of the Clones" showed some of that old spark when Master Yoda whipped out his lightsaber western style, but overall the film was still way too whiny and labored.

But today, Mr. Lucas, you made me feel like a kid again.

Okay, okay - some of the subplots are really unnecessary, love stories have never been your strong suit, Anakin's transformation tothe dark side could have used a tad more exposition, Natalie Portman stinks, and nobody really cares all that much about tying up loose ends from the last two episodes. We're all there to see the genesis of Darth Vader and how you manage to build a bridge to that first glorious movie. And what a thrilling, chilling, theatrical, moving climax of a bridge it is. None of the other five movies will ever quite be the same.

The special effects are still dazzling, yet somehow much of the computerized slickness of the last two movies feels replaced by the three dimensional models, airplane glue and genuine sense of imagination that made us fall in love with "Star Wars" in the first place. Lightsabers still flare and buzz in abundance, yet somehow we are returned to the simplicity and grace of that first duel between Obi Wan and Darth aboard the Death Star. The storyline still entwines sweeping romanticism and spiritual fervor with high camp, yet somehow genuine heart, infectious humor and overwhelming poignancy have replaced cockiness and over-inflated showmanship. The first strains of Luke's and Leia's theme music catch in our throats and bring tears to our eyes.

No longer the simple personification of evil, you have transformed Darth Vader into one of the great tragic figures in film history. The incarnate pleasure of the one who lures him to the dark side is matched only by the despair felt by those who have lost their friend, lover, brother. We will never forget he was once a man deeply, torturously in love. We will never forget he has been mummified alive in a black tomb for his sins. We will never forget he was once a Jedi.

The questions are answered, characters are reintroduced, the chess pieces are in place, and the saga is at last complete. In the film's very final moments, we are transported back to the desert planet where it all began, a world of two suns.

And I am 14 years old.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0121766/

Crash

Grade: D/DWR*

Get out your stenography machines, tape recorders, note pads and #2 pencils, 'cause this film has one hell of a lecture to give:

White people hate and distrust blacks, Mexicans, Asians, and Middle Easterners. Black people hate and distrust whites, Mexicans, Asians, Middle Easterners. Black people apparently also hate and distrust other black people. Middle Easterners hate everybody else as well, but seem to have specific issues with Latino men, reasons undisclosed.

Let's not even begin to talk about boat people from Thailand, who manage a cameo.

Apparently, everyone also loves to pontificate openly and constantly about how much they can't stand one another. "Why does it always have to be a black guy committing crimes?" "We're changing the locks tomorrow before the [Latino] locksmith returns to his hood and hands the keys over to his homies." The phrase "you people" floats on the air from hatemonger to hatemonger. If one deleted every race-related pronouncement, polemic, diatribe, commentary, speech or invective from one of the most affected screenplays of the year, ten minutes of manipulative melodrama might be left standing. As it is, the film is a neverendingly self-righteous clusterf#ck, a public service announcement about intolerance as seen through the eyes of racist police officers ("just wait 'til you've been on the job as long as I have"), politically correct (but internally bigoted) district attorneys, more outwardly bigoted wives of district attorneys, dark skinned carjackers, light skinned assimilationist television directors (and their even lighter skinned able-to-pass for white wives), naive blond/blue-eyed apple pie rookie cops, Middle Eastern bodega owners, and tattooed Latinos with cherubic baby daughters questioning "how far bullets go?"

Of course, racists also have redeemable hearts of gold, crack-ho black women have crime fighting sons, and baby faced idealists can still blow people away with the pull of a trigger, just to demonstrate ad naseum how complicated and complex the issue of race really is. In case one misses any of the overall cultural importance to any of this, Eastern musicmore appropriate to "Gandhi" cloyingly plays in the background. Coincidences border on the preposterous, as people fortuitously bump and rebump into one another with astonishing happenstance.

Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Brendan Fraser, Ryan Phillipe, and Sandra Bullock among others work valiantly to imbue their characters with a speck of real humanity, and first time film director Paul Haggis has a nice cinematic eye. Sadly, screenwriter Paul Haggis has a stultifying case of declamatory diarrhea. The fact that this is the same person who wrote last year's magnificent "Million Dollar Baby" does not grant him license to preach the "gospel according to Paul." Think Aaron Sorkin's post 9/11 "West Wing" episode.

Hollywood still has much to say about bigotry and race - the need has never been greater because the discussion is far more subtle and complex than ever before. We are a nation bathed in fear, a country desperate to point fingers of blame. While this film painfully believes it is saying something bursting with import, and we are meant to recognize the antipathy and hypocrisy for what it is, a few intriguing flourishes and smart plot twists cannot camouflage a stereotypical throwback to cowboys and Indians, blackface and Scarface.

"I couldn't bare to see them take away your dignity" a wife tells her husband after he is compelled to apologize to a cop who has just felt her up in front of him.

He should try sitting through this movie.

*For those unfamiliar with this particular designation, DWR (which stands for "Danger, Will Robinson") is used to indicate pretentious, self-congratulatory, holier-than-thou or otherwise self-important dreck that nevertheless manages to garner significant critical praise. I am considering changing this designation to IEFS for "Is Ebert Fu#king Serious?"

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Grade: B

I know nothing about accounting or economics, so let me make this as simple as possible:

Once upon a time, in a far-off land of heat, humidity and pork-barrel spending known as Houston, an evil emperor named Ken Lay hired an equally evil prestidigitator named Jeff Skilling to design a ruthless but somewhat whimsical suit of clothes made of invisible money and built upon a house of cards. The land was full of greedy corporate giants and corrupt children of politicians who all fell into line and pretended the king wasn't stark raving naked, while straw was simultaneously being spun into gold by a dwarf named Andy Rumplefastow. The rich got richer on golden eggs and harps that could sing, the corrupt children of politicians got to move into shiny White Houses, the people of California lost their electricity down a rabbit hole, and thousands upon thousands of local townspeople followed a pied piper off a pier while choking on poison apples and bankrupted 401(k) plans into the bloody waters below. The rats escaped unscathed.

The End.

Billion dollar profits based on fraudulent estimations of anticipated future earnings. Reputable banking institutions and accounting firms averting their eyes while lining their pockets with nonexistent income. Governors brought to their knees by corporate manufactured electricity shortages and well-financed Presidents who shrug and smirk. It is the stuff of fairy tales, and yet Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and other top Enron executives remain multi-multi-millionaires while their employees and stockholders are scattered in ruins.

This straightforward and unembellished retelling of money grubbing greed, awe-inspiring fraud, grand-scale corruption and satanic soullessness is at once inconceivable to believe and impossible to deny. Short on sweeping generalizations and overstepping conspiracy theories, the film does occasionally falter from the odd moment of dramatic reenactment (the gun flash of an executive suicide), poetic license (there's a whole lot of skydiving going on), and the mandatory clouds flying overhead in fast motion. But the fact that one leaves the theater wanting to cash in every last bank account, savings bond, andinvestment plan for the more certain security of a mattress denotes a chilling world where decimal points can be moved at random, flimflam artists can be named to the Fortune 500, and no one actually gets to see or touch their money any more.

And still, one feels kidney punched that they actually got away with it.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0413845/