I have never really been a big follower of the LEGO movie verse over the years, I’ll admit. I loved “LEGO Batman” and “The LEGO Movie” but that’s as far as it’s ever gone. LEGO and Star Wars have teamed up for a while to deliver prime kid content and this time they merge to offer up a Halloween themed movie that’s great for the holiday but also good for the young Star Wars fan. “Star Wars” isn’t exactly known for their spooky stories, but I think they do a very good job mixing their mythology with some horror themed elements. A lot of it proves to be actually quite clever.
Tag Archives: Star Wars
Five Great Minority Movie Heroes, Part VII
This Friday sees the release of “Blue Beetle” one of DC Comics’ most popular teen superheroes who’s garnered much acclaim and fandom over the years. The new vision of the classic DC Comics hero spotlights Jaime Reyes, a young latino teen given an alien technology which grants him a super powered body of armor that allows him to become a powerful superhero. With a great cast, and what looks like excellent action, I’m hoping “Blue Beetle” garners as much success as 2023’s “Spider-Verse” movie. In either case, in anticipation here is the seventh edition of our “Minority Movie Heroes” series.
These are five more minority movie heroes we loved.
A Disturbance in the Force (2023) [Fantasia Film Festival 2023]
When I think about it, it’s pretty shocking that no one has made a movie about “The Star Wars Holiday Special” yet. It’s an untapped corner of the “Star Wars” fandom that has remained mainly a running joke and mythical hurdle a fan must endure as a rite of passage. Director Jeremy Coon and Steve Cozak team up to deliver what is one of the breeziest, interesting and most entertaining “Star Wars” documentaries of all time. Likely to be regard as a classic fandom documentary, “A Disturbance in the Force” chronicles the making of “Star Wars” and how the pop culture climate took a fairly straight faced science fiction adventure movie and transformed it in to a disco variety show.
BAD MOVIE MONDAY: Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
I’ve never liked reviewing a film right when it comes out. You get caught up in the hype whether you like it or not, swallowed into the propellers of either the always positive marketing machine or the always negative social media rage engine, both of which are revving at full speed. So your review suffers because you can’t stay impartial in that sort of environment. It’s like trying to judge the power of a hurricane while standing in the eye of the storm. I saw this movie a few years ago. I won’t say that I “watched” it because that wouldn’t be accurate.
I played it on a streaming service and then sort of half glanced at the screen. Now, in the interest of science, I’m going to watch it again because I feel it’s a good example of what I like to call “advertiser friendly corporate content.” This is the sort of movie that has an insultingly low opinion of its audience. It’s cynical, insincere, soulless, lazy, and ultimately empty. It’s to cinema what school cafeteria food is to cuisine.
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Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows (2022) [CINEJOY 2023]
To his friends he’s known as Ghyslain Raza, but if you grew up during 2003, in the infancy of the digital age, you know him as “Star Wars Kid.” What began as an innocent test with a high school project turned in to one of the most viral videos every conceived on the internet. It’s also probably the earliest incident of internet bullying ever to develop, as a young high schooler by Ghyslain Raza became the object of media scrutiny and mockery by literally everyone from the UK to America.
5-25-77 (2017)
It’s a shame that in 2022, a year filled with movies about movies that landed with a thud, that the best one, “5-25-77” will have gone largely unnoticed and ignored. “5-25-77” is a love letter about movie making, it’s an ode to the art of filmmaking, and how film can also be a reflection of how we view life. Director Patrick Read Johnson’s coming of age drama comedy is a pretty excellent indie film, one that I’ve been waiting for over five years to watch that is now being available to view for a wider audience.
The Last Starfighter (1984): Remastered [Blu-Ray]
Nick Castle’s science fiction adventure film is one of my all time favorite “Star Wars” rip offs. It’s a film that fully embraces the hero’s journey trope and has a damn good time with it, bringing in robot clones, big headed aliens, and a pretty great mythology begging for a franchise. “The Last Starfighter” thankfully hasn’t lost any of its luster even in the midst of the glut of “Star Wars” wannabes, and it’s still a big personal favorite of mine.