Tag: George Lucas

Screening Room: ‘THX 1138’

On By chrisbarsantiIn DVD - Film, Film - RepertoryLeave a comment

If you are not familiar with George Lucas’ first feature movie, THX 1138, then now is the time to seek it out.

My article about THX 1138 ran at Eyes Wide Open:

George Lucas’s most grown-up piece of work is, oddly enough, his first feature. He premiered his instant classic of dystopic angst, THX 1138, in 1971. It set off a downbeat decade in science fiction, crafting a template of futurism that saw technology as more threat than promise. But Lucas did not follow up on the movie’s promise with increasingly complex and innovative storytelling. Instead, six years later the first Star Wars began his steady decline of artistic maturity into increasingly cartoonish sequels. Though, to be fair, maybe that is where he wanted to end up all along…

Here is the trailer for the 2004 director’s cut:

Screening Room: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

Since it’s almost Christmas, that must mean time for a new Star Wars movie. The latest one is directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) and features a grab-bag of characters newer (Poe, Rey) and older (Luke, Leia, Chewie), plus the odd adorable critter (see above).

My article on The Last Jedi and the whole dang Star Wars universe is over at The Playlist:

Back when George Lucas was that oddball car enthusiast and confederate of Francis Ford Coppola’s with two of the greatest and weirdest movies of the 1970s under his belt — “THX 1138” and “American Graffiti” — he really wanted to make a movie out of “Flash Gordon.” But that didn’t work out, so he moved on to cranking out his own rollicking space opera. Forty years after the first “Star Wars” movie, Lucas’s rag-and-bone shop of cribs from Kurosawa, John Ford, and Joseph Campbell has now turned into its own self-perpetuating universe with an annual haul that probably beats the GDP of some small nations. The latest installment, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” looks likely to keep that cycle going for the foreseeable future…

Department of Health: ‘Star Wars’ and Vaccines

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Repertory, OmniculturalLeave a comment

(U.S. National Library Of Medicine)
(U.S. National Library Of Medicine)

In the late-1970s, a couple decades before measles was declared officially eliminated in the United States—and before Rand Paul and the rest of the anti-science crowd got busy bringing it back—the government felt it needed some help convincing parents to give their children the measles vaccine that had been first introduced in 1968.

What better allies in the fight against easily-stoppable communicable diseases than a couple of droids from a galaxy far, far away?

At right you’ll see the poster that the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare used at the time to make their case. Perhaps it’s time to bring them back?

(H/T: Pixable)