Brick Is An Excellent Neo-Noir In Touch With The Past And The Present

The most prominent shared trait across Rian Johnson's eclectic group of feature film directorial efforts is that he loves to take traditional film genres and subvert expectations audiences have of those genres. The Brothers Bloom take heist movies into a quirky direction, Looper was a more methodical time travel action movie and The Last Jedi brought an intimate angle to the Star Wars mythos. Johnson constantly upends conventional genre norms in his motion pictures but he does so with clearly evident love and knowledge of the genres or franchises he's tackling. This prominent feature of his work as an artist was alive and well in his first directorial effort, Brick.

Charlie Chaplin Bid Farewell To The Tramp By Embracing Real-World Turmoil In Modern Times

Whether you're Bear in the Big Blue House or Johnny Carson, there comes a time when you must say goodbye. Whether it's because the general public has gotten tired of you, by your own choice or other external circumstances, there comes a moment when all pop culture figures must take their final bows and walk off gracefully into the sunset. This was true even for a cinematic icon like Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp character, who had been entertaining audiences for more than two decades since he first premiered in the 1914 short film Twenty Minutes of Love. Yes, even The Tramp couldn't last forever and so the character went out with a bang with the 1936 movie Modern Times.

A Great Cast And Confident Directing Make The Brothers Bloom A Delight

The occasionally wacky humor of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a surprise to many viewers of that space opera, but thinking on it, that sort of humor feels like trademark Rian Johnson, especially in regards to his 2009 feature The Brothers Bloom, which is chock full of stylized gags that feel heavily reminiscent of Monty Python or perhaps Wes Anderson. It takes a little while to get into the heavily ridiculous aesthetic of The Brothers Bloom, but taken as a whole, it's easy to see why Rian Johnson decided to go full-on silly since he's doing an extended homage to the caper subgenre with this project and that's a section of cinema that's well-known for its heightened tendencies.

"That's How We're Gonna Win This War...Not By Fighting What We Hate, But Saving What We Love": A Look At The Hopeful Heart of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

"He who has health has hope; and he who has hope, has everything." - Thomas Carlyle

MASSIVE  SPOILERS FOR STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI AHEAD

2017 has been such a rough year, holy smokes.

The Force Is Strong With Writer/Director Rian Johnson's Work On The Excellent Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Waking up this morning after seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi last night, I was shocked to discover that the film has already generated a bunch of controversy from various corners of the internet populated by Star Wars fanboys who are irritated that the feature didn't spend its runtime clarifying every aspect of Supreme Leader Snoke's backstory or validate their fan theories that have been stewing int he two year gap between The Force Awakens. It's been kind of fascinating to watch this unfold since none of this stuff was anywhere near my mind when I exited my screening of The Last Jedi (though I'm notoriously anti-fan theory and, for that matter, never had any expectations that The Last Jedi would flesh out the backstory of Snoke).

My Thoughts On The Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer

OK folks, this is another trailer post where I won't be babbling for long. Let's get to the trailer we've all been waiting for for so long......the trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi!



Well now, if that don't look dandy!

This is very much a teaser trailer, akin to that very first teaser we got for The Force Awakens all the way back in November 2014 (remember when we were all so hungry for that footage? My how time flies....) in that it basically gives us some establishing shots of the new characters and two classic figures (Leia and Luke). No footage that I could see of newbie characters like Rose (the most prominent new character, a technician played by Kelly Marie Tran) or the other new figures played by Benicio Del Toro or Laura Dern. That's fine by me though; we've got eight months to go until the movie's release, don't spoil everything for me!

What footage we do get looks quite memorable (those ships flying over the desert with their red gas is especially noteworthy) and that final line from Luke Skywalker do seem to indicate (combined with Daisy Ridley mentioning at a Star Wars Celebration panel today that "sometimes your heroes don't live up to your expectations") that Luke is gonna be a complex figure in this movie, which sounds super intriguing to me. Consider me plenty hyped for this one and eager to see more from Rian Johnson's foray into the Star Wars universe!

Oh yeah, and that poster is AMAZING!

The Next Star Wars Movie Has A Title!

Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie (Star Wars: Episode 8, don't you know) has been waltzing around in an extremely secretive manner right now, with no plot details coming out beyond what could be gleaned from the occasional rumor or set photo. Well, at least we have a title today to tide us Star Wars geeks over until the film comes out in December! The film will be titled....Star Wars: The Last Jedi! A reference to a line of dialogue Obi-Wan had in The Empire Strikes Back wherein he referred to Luke as "...our last hope", I presume?