A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

With less than six months to go before Mark Hamill returns to the big screen as Luke Skywalker in Rian Johnson's "Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi," it's worth noting that the actor has played other roles in films with much lower profiles, including "Corvette Summer" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia." Hamill, now 67, is best known as George Lucas's farmboy-turned-Jedi Knight in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, but his career never reached the same lofty levels as his co-star Harrison Ford's. While Ford became an in-demand leading man as Indiana Jones and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Hamill's best-known film appearance beyond the "Star Wars" saga is probably Private Griff in Sam Fuller's World War II drama "The Big Red One." Written and directed by the crusty Fuller, "The Big Red One" is not a Hollywood-style all-star extravaganza. Other than Hamill, "The Big...

“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989) Directed by Steven Spielberg Written by Jeffrey Boam, from a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Michael Byrne, John Rhys-Davies, River Phoenix Fedora: You've got heart, kid. (indicates cross) Fedora: But that belongs to me. Indy: It belongs to Coronado. Fedora: Coronado is dead. And so are all his grandchildren. Indy: This should be in a museum! As a result of the mixed critical reaction to “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” director Steven Spielberg told his friend (and executive producer)  George Lucas that the next chapter of the trilogy needed to evoke the lighter, more fun spirit of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”   Lucas first suggested a story that featured a haunted castle, but Spielberg rejected that idea because it was too similar to “Poltergeist.”  Lucas then pitched a plot that involved the Ho...

(C) 1977 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Lucasfilm Ltd. Poster art by Tom Chantrell Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they're referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them. - Roger Ebert, in his 1977 review of Star Wars Star Wars celebrated its 40th Anniversary yesterday.  For those of us who were alive when George Lucas's groundbreaking space-fantasy epic set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" premiered, it's hard to remember what the 1970s were like before Star Wars. Because the film (which was renamed Star W...

(C) 2008 Dark Horse Comics and Lucas Books, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd. Today is May 25, 2017, and  Star Wars turns 40 today. Wow. A lot of water has flowed under the metaphorical bridge since 20th Century Fox - skeptically, somewhat grudgingly - released George Lucas's space-fantasy film about "a boy, a girl, and a universe" on Wednesday, May 25, 1977. The studio - and even Lucas himself - didn't think that "that space movie" (as some of the suits at Fox referred to Star Wars ) would do well at the box office; it would probably attract young children and teens for a couple of summertime weekends, then vanish before the release of Fox's projected sure-fire hit,  The Other Side of Midnight, which premiered two weeks later.    It is ironic that Star Wars (or, as we know it now, Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope ) succeeded beyond anyone's - including Mr. Lucas's - wildest dreams. I say "ironic" because Fox - believing that scien...