Critics Write About Our First Encounters with Star Wars

Posted on April 23, 2015 at 9:22 am

The latest Criticwire survey asks for our first encounters with “Star Wars.” I had a lot of fun writing about mine:

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away, or at least that’s how it seems now, my then boyfriend and I finished the bar exam, following three years of law school and six weeks of intensive cramming and even more intensive panicking, and walked outside, blinking in the sunlight we barely recognized. Dazed, we barely made it to the theater for the prize we had promised ourselves all summer. We were going to see “Star Wars.” We loved it. The hologram message from the princess with the awful hair. The bar. The garbage compactor. The droids. Obi-Wan. The wookiee. To go from listing the elements of a negotiable instrument and the factors required for a temporary restraining order and the exemptions to the hearsay rule to Jedi and the Death Star was such an overwhelming experience that we decided to sit through it again. (I did say it was a long time ago.)

We were lucky enough to see them as they came out, to be shocked by the revelations, to suffer for more than a year while Han was frozen, wondering how he could escape. We still love them. The original trilogy, anyway. Unadulterated by later tweaks, please. Han shot first and we are okay with that. Can’t wait for the next one.

Fans should check out the terrific A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on Twenty-five Years of Star Wars for more stories about the impact of the “Star Wars” saga.

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Ebertfest #3 — The “Ida” Panel

Posted on April 19, 2015 at 8:59 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk2–Y8hfqQ

Thanks to Matt Zoller Seitz, Sheila O’Malley, and Todd Rendleman for our superb discussion about this year’s Oscar winner for best foreign language movie, “Ida.”

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Ebertfest 2015, Part 2

Posted on April 17, 2015 at 8:36 pm

It was a great honor to be included on today’s panel of movie critics, along with superstars Godfrey Cheshire, Scott Foundas, Matt Zoller Seitz, Rebecca Theodore Vachon, Richard Roeper, Susan Wloszczyna, Michael Phillips, Brian Tallarico, and Sam Fragoso.

What Movies Do You Watch Over and Over?

Posted on March 6, 2015 at 3:32 pm

A couple of weeks ago, “The Best Years of Our Lives” was on TCM and I decided to watch the first few moments to enjoy again scenes I have enjoyed many, many times. I promised myself I would go to bed after half an hour but found myself once again watching all the way to the end. There are lots of movies I seem unable to not watch, even if I’ve seen them a hundred times and even if I own the dang thing and can watch it any time I want. So I especially enjoyed this discussion by two of my favorite critics, Matt Zoller Seitz and Dana Stevens, talking to Professor Cristel Russell about the movies they can’t resist watching over and over.

Tom Shales on SNL and Lorne Michaels

Posted on February 20, 2015 at 8:00 am

Of all the tributes and critiques of “Saturday Night Live” as it starts its fifth decade, none is more astute than Tom Shales’ for Daily Beast. Shales is the co-author of Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests. In this column he talks about producer Lorne Michaels, and his original idea that the show should be for the generation who grew up on television. It was media-aware and subversive from the beginning.

In the earliest days of Saturday Night Live it didn’t occur to Michaels, who of course created the show, that they would establish characters and bring them back for repeat sketches, with the conspicuous exception of The Bees, with the “Not Ready for Prime-Time Players” dressed in fat padded bee costumes that had been lying around.

Michaels said later he brought the bees back because the only note he got from network executives after the first show was: “Lose the bees.” So it was that SNL began, defying authority and ever-evolving as a showcase for the best and sometimes bravest American humor. It’s Comedy Mountain.