NOTE: I am still on my spiritual journey in the American South, so I won’t be able to continue the STAR WARS series until the middle of next week. To hold you over until then I’m afraid all I have is a quick look at STAR KID.
Richard Stark is one of the greatest writers in the history of badass crime fiction. His Parker novels are sleek, deeply satisfying classics of the form and have also inspired a few great movies. But what if I were to tell you that Richard Stark’s name wasn’t Richard Stark at all? STARK I.D. is the story of one man’s obsession with uncovering the true identity behind the name. He looked it up on Google and it was Donald Westlake, I’m surprised he didn’t already know that because it’s on the cover of some of the books it’s not like they were hiding it from anybody, it’s pretty widely known and discussed. And also now that I think about it this movie is actually called STAR KID, I don’t know what I was thinking man I need to get more sleep I think.
I don’t think you can say STAR KID is a forgotten kiddy wish fullfillment sci-fi fantasy of the ’90s. More like an ignored one. And that’s fair. The subject matter seems inspired by ’80s kids and aliens movies of the Amblin and fake-Amblin variety, like E.T., FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR, EXPLORES and MAC & ME, but it came out in 1997, fer chrissakes. The successful sci-fi movies of that year were THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK, MEN IN BLACK, THE FIFTH ELEMENT and the STAR WARS special editions. The good reviews went to GATTACA. It was too early for STARSHIP TROOPERS and too late for this shit. (read the rest of this shit…)
programming note: I plan to do all six of these star warses, but I had to leave on a one week spiritual quest and cue these up to post… I’ll catch up on the second half of the series after I get back. thanks everybody
I guess now they’re saying May 4th is Star Wars Day. Yet another fake holiday created by Hallmark and Kenner. At first I assumed they chose May 4th because it’s 21 days before the anniversary of when STAR WARS was released and they are planning seven STAR WARS trilogies. But then somebody explained that it’s supposed to sound like “may the fourth be with you.” Get it. From the nerds who brought you Talk Like a Pirate Day: Seriously, A Whole Day of This Would Be Fun Ye Guys.
SAMURAI FICTION is a deeply enjoyable period samurai picture, made in 1998 but shot mostly in black and white, so it looks very classical. Not that it’s trying to pass. It occasionally uses more modern filmatics, like a seemingly endless shot pulling back down a road in front of three running samurai, or a slow motion shot of a girl smiling to represent the protagonist being smitten with her – you can imagine a love song playing over it sarcastically, maybe something in a Carpenters or a Barry White.
I noticed everybody’s writing about the latest Disney’s Star Wars news on an old post that has about ten billion comments on it and takes six hours to load. We don’t yet have the technology to create a forum, so out of the kindness of my heart I am giving you this fresh new post for any Star Wars related commenting.
Man, say what you will about Luc Besson, he’s still got his exploitation producer thing going, and he’s squeezed more cinema out of Parkour than Cannon ever got out of breakdancing. Back in the late ’90s the LEON director saw dudes bouncing off the streets, walls and rooftops of France, and while other people might’ve thought “I hope that guy doesn’t fall [in French],” his reaction was “I gotta put this shit in an action movie!” So by ’98 Besson, as writer and producer, had Parkour in a foot chase through traffic in TAXI 2, and by ’01 he’d done a whole movie called 
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA is Steve Soderbergh’s one last big score before retirement. In some countries it played in theaters, but here in his home country it went straight to cable. Why? The Man obviously didn’t get how contemporary this story is even though it takes place in the ’70s through early ’80s.
