Back to Star Wars. The Countdown. 3 Days. (Cannes Report)
EDITOR'S NOTE: ASSORTED SNIPPETS FROM 'DWEEBING GOES TO EUROPE'. (UNCLE G, ET AL, AT THE CANNES FILMFEST).
Lucas back where 'Star Wars' began
The force was with the Festival de Cannes on Sunday as George Lucas, who turned 61 on Saturday, celebrated with the world premiere of the climactic "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith."
Festival artistic director Terry Fremaux and general manager Veronique Cayla presented Lucas with The Trophy of the Festival de Cannes at a ceremony held aboard the Queen Mary 2.
"This is a great honor for me," said Lucas, dressed down for the occasion in a plaid shirt, jeans and a brown sport jacket. " 'Star Wars' actually began here in 1971, when I was in the Directors Fortnight. I brought my first film here, 'THX'."
Lucas recalled making an early deal for the "Star Wars" screenplay with United Artists on the Carlton Terrace. Eventually, the project landed at its current distributor, 20th Century Fox.
The day, which ended with Lucas and his "Star Wars" stars walking the red carpet, began with a press screening in which the press acted like eager fans, breaking into applause at the moment when Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker dons Darth Vader's iconic black mask.
EDITOR'S NOTE: AND JUST FOR DWEEBPAL SAMANTHA, HERE'S A GRATUITOUS PIC OF BALD-AND-BEAUTIFUL NATALIE PORTMAN, TAKEN AT CANNES.....
EDITOR'S NOTE: DON'T YA JUST ABOUT HATE SOMEONE WHO LOOKS THIS GOOD WITH A SHAVED HEAD?!
'Star Wars' producer blasts France on digital
"Star Wars" producer Rick McCallum launched a blistering attack Sunday on the French and Hollywood attitudes toward digital projection and said that if theater owners didn't smarten up their auditoriums, they risk "losing their audiences."
The straight-talking producer, who is in town with George Lucas for the Out of Competition gala screening of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge Of The Sith," told a small gathering hosted by digital cinema pioneers Barco, Texas Instruments DLP Cinema and XDC that he laid the blame for French resistance firmly at the door of the National Federation of French Cinemas.
McCallum accused FNCF chief Jean Labe of entrenched opposition to digital conversion, referring to his competence in distinctly unflattering terms. "Once Jean Labe loses his job, hopefully there will be more digital theaters in France," McCallum said. EDITOR'S NOTE: LUCKY UNCLE G. HE HAS HIS VERY OWN ATTACK-WEASEL.
EDITOR'S NOTE: THANKS TO DWEEBPAL PLANOKEVIN FOR SENDING THIS ONE ALONG.
'Wars' Raises Questions on U.S. Policy
By DAVID GERMAIN
CANNES, France (AP) - Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States' role in it. EDITOR'S NOTE: IN A RARE MOMENT OF SPACE/TIME JE NE SAIS QUOI, WE ARE RELEVANT AND SIGNIFICANT! THANK THE MAKER!
Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday - and Lucas himself - noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.
Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" - the story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering - to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.
Two lines from the movie especially resonated:
"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin - soon to become villain Darth Vader - tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor).
EDITOR'S NOTE: GOOSEBUMPS! (FOR SOMEONE MALIGNED ABOUT HIS WEAK WRITING, UNCLE GEORGE STILL HAS HIS MOMENTS, HUH?)
The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war." EDITOR'S NOTE: SO WHO BECOMES DARTH, AND THEN WE HAVE TO WAIT 20 YEARS (EEK) FOR THAT PERSON'S SON TO FIX EVERYTHING?
Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there," Engle said.
The film opens Wednesday in parts of Europe and Thursday in the United States and many other countries. At the Cannes premiere Sunday night, actors in white stormtrooper costumes paraded up and down the red carpet as guests strolled in, while an orchestra played the "Star Wars" theme.
Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.
"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country. EDITOR'S NOTE: IT ALREADY HAS. (OR IS GETTING THERE, AT ANY RATE). THE QUESTION IS, SINCE THIS IS A RECURRING THING THRU HISTORY, HOW CAN WE COMPLETE THE PATTERNING AND GET OURSELVES OUT OF IT!?
"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked. EDITOR'S NOTE: LET'S ALL HOLD OUR BREATH?
That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.
Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.
"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing.
"We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. ... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."
The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.
Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate.
In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.
"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption." EDITOR'S NOTE: SO. DO YOU SEE NOW WHY I LOVE THE POLITICAL STUFF IN THE SW UNIVERSE SO MUCH? CHILLS AND FASCINATING LAYERS.
AND A BIT MORE ON ALL THAT (JUST SENT IN, AGAIN FROM DWEEBONTHESPOT, PLANO KEVIN):
Lucas on Iraq war, 'Star Wars'
From CNN's Chris Burns
Director George Lucas and Hayden Christensen smile before the premiere of "Episode III" at Cannes. (don't Hayden look yummy???)
CANNES, France (CNN) -- "Star Wars" director George Lucas says that although he wrote the original film during the Vietnam War, his six-part saga could apply to the war in Iraq.
''In terms of evil, one of the original concepts was how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship,'' Lucas told a news conference at Cannes, where his final episode had its world premiere.
''The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.
''On the personal level it was how does a good person turn into a bad person, and part of the observation of that is that most bad people think they are good people, they are doing it for the right reasons,'' he added.
The final episode of "Star Wars" blasted into the Cannes film festival Sunday, stirring the greatest hype and excitement here yet, even if it's not in competition for the festival's top prize, the Golden Palm.
Cannes went out of its way to roll out the red carpet for "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," letting fans in costume meet and greet their screen idols before Sunday night's gala screening. Offshore on the Queen Mary 2, the festival gave a special trophy to Lucas.
"Sith" is an action-packed intergalactic morality play exposing the origins of the diabolical Darth Vader.
It shows a young Anakin Skywalker, played by Hayden Christensen, torn between following his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and the power-hungry Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) -- while hoping to save the life of his wife, Padme (Natalie Portman), who is pregnant with the future twin heroes Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.
The film is getting critical acclaim. Though it does have its moments of comic-book dialogue, the finale is an intense human drama. Variety magazine calls it the best "Star Wars" since ''The Empire Strikes Back.''EDITOR'S NOTE: STILL MORE GIGGLING AND DROOLING.
(ON A SIDE NOTE....WE WATCHED EPISODES ONE AND TWO LAST NIGHT........... IN PREP FOR EPISODE 3, NATCH. AND THEY REALLY ARE RATHER GOOD. ALL THAT DWEEB-WHINING ASIDE. EPISODE TWO IS ESPECIALLY ENGROSSING. I KNOW I'VE READ TOO MUCH EU TO BE ABLE TO JUDGE THE FILMS BY THEMSELVES, BUT I WAS QUITE RIVETED ALL OVER AGAIN. I THINK, ONCE THE BIGGEST PART OF THE HYPE DIES DOWN, IT WILL PUT ALL OF THIS IN PERSPECTIVE AND PEOPLE MIGHT REALIZE THEY HAVE BEEN SOMEWHAT UNFAIR TO MR. L).
And so what if "Star Wars" isn't in the competition? It's expected to make more money than all the films vying for the Golden Palm combined.
"Star Wars" is using Cannes as the biggest global launch pad for movies. And the feeling is mutual. Cannes is using "Star Wars" as it tries to balance all its art films with high-wattage Hollywood.
Another film stirring excitement out of competition is Woody Allen's ''Match Point.'' This time he leaves his usual Manhattan venue for Britain, with a modern take on Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment," packed with Hitchcock suspense and a politically incorrect ending.
The 20 films in competition are led by four American, three French and two Chinese entries.
Screening Tuesday is ''Broken Flowers'' by U.S. director Jim Jarmusch. Starring Bill Murray, Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange, it's about a father searching for the son he never knew.
In competition for the first time is an Iraqi film, ''Kilometer Zero,'' a tragi-comedy on Iraqi-Kurd relations during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. It's told from the perspective of a Kurdish man drafted to fight for Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.
It ends with what can be perceived as a slap at France and others who sat out the 2003 Iraq war -- after Saddam fell to the U.S.-led coalition, the main character and his wife, then in exile in Paris, scream out their apartment window, ''We're free! We're free!''
'Star Wars' Tidbits From Cannes Festival
By DAVID GERMAIN
CANNES, France (AP) - "Star Wars" fans have divided loyalties, says George Lucas, with older audiences preferring the original trilogy and younger ones loving the current films.
At the Cannes Film Festival for a screening Sunday of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," his last chapter in the saga, Lucas said he pays no heed to the bad reviews that greeted the current trilogy's two predecessors, "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones."
"We have two fan bases. One is over 25 and one is under 25," Lucas said. "The over-25 fan base is loyal to the first three films. They actually are in their 30s and 40s now, so they're in control of the media, they're in control of the Web, they're in control of everything, basically. So mostly, what you're hearing from are people over 25 years old.
"But the films those people don't like, which is the first two, actually are very fanatically adored by the under-25-year-olds, and as you get up on the Web and you listen to these conversations, they are always at each other's throats, and the devotion for each group is pretty equal."
Lucas compared the debate to older rock fans talking up the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, while younger fans worship hip-hop.
"I'm curious to see what happens in about 10 years when that other group starts to get their voice. How they'll remember it. I hope they remember it as one movie," he said. EDITOR'S NOTE: IT TRULY IS ONE BIG STORY. THAT'S HOW IT ALL WORKS, REALLY.
-------------------
A few hours before "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, director George Lucas made a quick trip to another glitzy locale: the Queen Mary II.
Lucas received an achievement award Sunday from the festival aboard the world's largest ocean liner, docked nearby in the Mediterranean.
The director recalled coming to Cannes in 1971 to show "THX 1138," his first feature-length movie.
"Cannes is always a very special place for me," he said. "So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this award."
Others who have received the "Trophy of the Festival" award include American actor Gregory Peck, French actress Jeanne Moreau and British director Ken Loach.
----------------------
Bearing Jedi-powered twins Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia gave Natalie Portman a few sympathy pains for her expectant "Star Wars" character.
In the final film of the adventure, "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," Portman's Padme Amidala is pregnant with hubby and future dark lord Anakin Skywalker's kids Luke and Leia, who grow up to be heroes of the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
"It was funny, because having the pregnancy hat on, it does make you go home, you get a little back pain in the evening, you get hungry for three," Portman said at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film screened Sunday.
---------------------------
An offhand comment during a TV interview put Samuel L. Jackson on the path of the Jedi.
In the 1990s, asked if there was a director he really wanted to work with and aware that a "Star Wars" prequel trilogy was in the works, Jackson said, "Yes, George Lucas. I'd love to be in 'Star Wars,'" the actor said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" was screening.
Word trickled back to Lucas, who brought Jackson in for a chat.
"I remember saying to you in that first meeting, 'I would really like to be a storm trooper,'" Jackson said at a news conference alongside Lucas and other "Star Wars" collaborators.
"'Anything. Nobody needs to know I'm in the movie but me. I'll just run across the screen, and I'll be happy.'"
Jackson ended up getting the plum role of Mace Windu, the Jedi master who fights a losing battle against the evil ruler destined to become the tyrannical emperor of the original trilogy.
Since the original three movies spelled out that the emperor and his henchman Darth Vader destroyed the Jedi order, Jackson went in knowing Mace's days were numbered in "Revenge of the Sith." But Jackson likes the way Mace exits the story.
"I was pleased with my death. I asked him not to kill me in my sleep," Jackson said.
-----------------------------
Two of the men who played "Star Wars" characters behind masks said it gives them the pleasure of being involved with the franchise while maintaining relative anonymity.
Anthony Daniels has played robot C-3PO in all six "Star Wars" movies, while Ian McDiarmid was the evil emperor in "Return of the Jedi" and politician Palpatine, who morphs into the emperor, in the current prequel trilogy.
"There are moments when it's very nice to be recognized. A lot of moments when it's very nice not to be," Daniels said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" screened.
Daniels said some hardcore fans know what he looks like, and sometimes a slip of the tongue has allowed people to peg him as the man behind the robot.
"On occasions, if we've been filming a lot and I've been doing C-3PO's voice, it can come out somewhat inappropriately in the middle of a Safeway store. 'I say, might I have this, please?'" Daniels said, slipping into the robot's obsequious voice. "And they go, 'Wait a minute, you're C-3PO.'"
McDiarmid was hidden behind the emperor's gnarly, hooded visage in "Return of the Jedi" but presented his own face in the first two prequels and much of "Revenge of the Sith."
Enjoying his privacy, he said he has largely escaped recognition. "In this movie, I develop into a full-scale monster," McDiarmid said. "I hope it's the mask they remember and not my face." EDITOR'S NOTE: ACTUALLY, I THINK IT WILL BE HIS SPOT-ON, WONDERFULLY OILY LINE READINGS!
Lucas back where 'Star Wars' began
The force was with the Festival de Cannes on Sunday as George Lucas, who turned 61 on Saturday, celebrated with the world premiere of the climactic "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith."
Festival artistic director Terry Fremaux and general manager Veronique Cayla presented Lucas with The Trophy of the Festival de Cannes at a ceremony held aboard the Queen Mary 2.
"This is a great honor for me," said Lucas, dressed down for the occasion in a plaid shirt, jeans and a brown sport jacket. " 'Star Wars' actually began here in 1971, when I was in the Directors Fortnight. I brought my first film here, 'THX'."
Lucas recalled making an early deal for the "Star Wars" screenplay with United Artists on the Carlton Terrace. Eventually, the project landed at its current distributor, 20th Century Fox.
The day, which ended with Lucas and his "Star Wars" stars walking the red carpet, began with a press screening in which the press acted like eager fans, breaking into applause at the moment when Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker dons Darth Vader's iconic black mask.
EDITOR'S NOTE: AND JUST FOR DWEEBPAL SAMANTHA, HERE'S A GRATUITOUS PIC OF BALD-AND-BEAUTIFUL NATALIE PORTMAN, TAKEN AT CANNES.....
EDITOR'S NOTE: DON'T YA JUST ABOUT HATE SOMEONE WHO LOOKS THIS GOOD WITH A SHAVED HEAD?!
'Star Wars' producer blasts France on digital
"Star Wars" producer Rick McCallum launched a blistering attack Sunday on the French and Hollywood attitudes toward digital projection and said that if theater owners didn't smarten up their auditoriums, they risk "losing their audiences."
The straight-talking producer, who is in town with George Lucas for the Out of Competition gala screening of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge Of The Sith," told a small gathering hosted by digital cinema pioneers Barco, Texas Instruments DLP Cinema and XDC that he laid the blame for French resistance firmly at the door of the National Federation of French Cinemas.
McCallum accused FNCF chief Jean Labe of entrenched opposition to digital conversion, referring to his competence in distinctly unflattering terms. "Once Jean Labe loses his job, hopefully there will be more digital theaters in France," McCallum said. EDITOR'S NOTE: LUCKY UNCLE G. HE HAS HIS VERY OWN ATTACK-WEASEL.
EDITOR'S NOTE: THANKS TO DWEEBPAL PLANOKEVIN FOR SENDING THIS ONE ALONG.
'Wars' Raises Questions on U.S. Policy
By DAVID GERMAIN
CANNES, France (AP) - Without Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and "Star Wars" to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States' role in it. EDITOR'S NOTE: IN A RARE MOMENT OF SPACE/TIME JE NE SAIS QUOI, WE ARE RELEVANT AND SIGNIFICANT! THANK THE MAKER!
Lucas' themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday - and Lucas himself - noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times.
Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" - the story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering - to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.
Two lines from the movie especially resonated:
"This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause," bemoans Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) as the galactic Senate cheers dictator-in-waiting Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) while he announces a crusade against the Jedi.
"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy," Hayden Christensen's Anakin - soon to become villain Darth Vader - tells former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor).
EDITOR'S NOTE: GOOSEBUMPS! (FOR SOMEONE MALIGNED ABOUT HIS WEAK WRITING, UNCLE GEORGE STILL HAS HIS MOMENTS, HUH?)
The line echoes Bush's international ultimatum after the Sept. 11 attacks, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
"That quote is almost a perfect citation of Bush," said Liam Engle, a 23-year-old French-American aspiring filmmaker. "Plus, you've got a politician trying to increase his power to wage a phony war." EDITOR'S NOTE: SO WHO BECOMES DARTH, AND THEN WE HAVE TO WAIT 20 YEARS (EEK) FOR THAT PERSON'S SON TO FIX EVERYTHING?
Though the plot was written years ago, "the anti-Bush diatribe is clearly there," Engle said.
The film opens Wednesday in parts of Europe and Thursday in the United States and many other countries. At the Cannes premiere Sunday night, actors in white stormtrooper costumes paraded up and down the red carpet as guests strolled in, while an orchestra played the "Star Wars" theme.
Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.
"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country. EDITOR'S NOTE: IT ALREADY HAS. (OR IS GETTING THERE, AT ANY RATE). THE QUESTION IS, SINCE THIS IS A RECURRING THING THRU HISTORY, HOW CAN WE COMPLETE THE PATTERNING AND GET OURSELVES OUT OF IT!?
"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked. EDITOR'S NOTE: LET'S ALL HOLD OUR BREATH?
That comment echoes Moore's rhetoric at Cannes last year, when his anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the festival's top honor.
Unlike Moore, whose Cannes visit came off like an anybody-but-Bush campaign stop, Lucas never mentioned the president by name but was eager to speak his mind on U.S. policy in Iraq, careful again to note that he created the story long before the Bush-led occupation there.
"When I wrote it, Iraq didn't exist," Lucas said, laughing.
"We were just funding Saddam Hussein and giving him weapons of mass destruction. We didn't think of him as an enemy at that time. We were going after Iran and using him as our surrogate, just as we were doing in Vietnam. ... The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable."
The prequel trilogy is based on a back-story outline Lucas created in the mid-1970s for the original three "Star Wars" movies, so the themes percolated out of the Vietnam War and the Nixon-Watergate era, he said.
Lucas began researching how democracies can turn into dictatorships with full consent of the electorate.
In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.
"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption." EDITOR'S NOTE: SO. DO YOU SEE NOW WHY I LOVE THE POLITICAL STUFF IN THE SW UNIVERSE SO MUCH? CHILLS AND FASCINATING LAYERS.
AND A BIT MORE ON ALL THAT (JUST SENT IN, AGAIN FROM DWEEBONTHESPOT, PLANO KEVIN):
Lucas on Iraq war, 'Star Wars'
From CNN's Chris Burns
Director George Lucas and Hayden Christensen smile before the premiere of "Episode III" at Cannes. (don't Hayden look yummy???)
CANNES, France (CNN) -- "Star Wars" director George Lucas says that although he wrote the original film during the Vietnam War, his six-part saga could apply to the war in Iraq.
''In terms of evil, one of the original concepts was how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship,'' Lucas told a news conference at Cannes, where his final episode had its world premiere.
''The parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we're doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.
''On the personal level it was how does a good person turn into a bad person, and part of the observation of that is that most bad people think they are good people, they are doing it for the right reasons,'' he added.
The final episode of "Star Wars" blasted into the Cannes film festival Sunday, stirring the greatest hype and excitement here yet, even if it's not in competition for the festival's top prize, the Golden Palm.
Cannes went out of its way to roll out the red carpet for "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," letting fans in costume meet and greet their screen idols before Sunday night's gala screening. Offshore on the Queen Mary 2, the festival gave a special trophy to Lucas.
"Sith" is an action-packed intergalactic morality play exposing the origins of the diabolical Darth Vader.
It shows a young Anakin Skywalker, played by Hayden Christensen, torn between following his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and the power-hungry Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) -- while hoping to save the life of his wife, Padme (Natalie Portman), who is pregnant with the future twin heroes Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.
The film is getting critical acclaim. Though it does have its moments of comic-book dialogue, the finale is an intense human drama. Variety magazine calls it the best "Star Wars" since ''The Empire Strikes Back.''EDITOR'S NOTE: STILL MORE GIGGLING AND DROOLING.
(ON A SIDE NOTE....WE WATCHED EPISODES ONE AND TWO LAST NIGHT........... IN PREP FOR EPISODE 3, NATCH. AND THEY REALLY ARE RATHER GOOD. ALL THAT DWEEB-WHINING ASIDE. EPISODE TWO IS ESPECIALLY ENGROSSING. I KNOW I'VE READ TOO MUCH EU TO BE ABLE TO JUDGE THE FILMS BY THEMSELVES, BUT I WAS QUITE RIVETED ALL OVER AGAIN. I THINK, ONCE THE BIGGEST PART OF THE HYPE DIES DOWN, IT WILL PUT ALL OF THIS IN PERSPECTIVE AND PEOPLE MIGHT REALIZE THEY HAVE BEEN SOMEWHAT UNFAIR TO MR. L).
And so what if "Star Wars" isn't in the competition? It's expected to make more money than all the films vying for the Golden Palm combined.
"Star Wars" is using Cannes as the biggest global launch pad for movies. And the feeling is mutual. Cannes is using "Star Wars" as it tries to balance all its art films with high-wattage Hollywood.
Another film stirring excitement out of competition is Woody Allen's ''Match Point.'' This time he leaves his usual Manhattan venue for Britain, with a modern take on Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment," packed with Hitchcock suspense and a politically incorrect ending.
The 20 films in competition are led by four American, three French and two Chinese entries.
Screening Tuesday is ''Broken Flowers'' by U.S. director Jim Jarmusch. Starring Bill Murray, Sharon Stone and Jessica Lange, it's about a father searching for the son he never knew.
In competition for the first time is an Iraqi film, ''Kilometer Zero,'' a tragi-comedy on Iraqi-Kurd relations during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. It's told from the perspective of a Kurdish man drafted to fight for Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.
It ends with what can be perceived as a slap at France and others who sat out the 2003 Iraq war -- after Saddam fell to the U.S.-led coalition, the main character and his wife, then in exile in Paris, scream out their apartment window, ''We're free! We're free!''
'Star Wars' Tidbits From Cannes Festival
By DAVID GERMAIN
CANNES, France (AP) - "Star Wars" fans have divided loyalties, says George Lucas, with older audiences preferring the original trilogy and younger ones loving the current films.
At the Cannes Film Festival for a screening Sunday of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," his last chapter in the saga, Lucas said he pays no heed to the bad reviews that greeted the current trilogy's two predecessors, "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones."
"We have two fan bases. One is over 25 and one is under 25," Lucas said. "The over-25 fan base is loyal to the first three films. They actually are in their 30s and 40s now, so they're in control of the media, they're in control of the Web, they're in control of everything, basically. So mostly, what you're hearing from are people over 25 years old.
"But the films those people don't like, which is the first two, actually are very fanatically adored by the under-25-year-olds, and as you get up on the Web and you listen to these conversations, they are always at each other's throats, and the devotion for each group is pretty equal."
Lucas compared the debate to older rock fans talking up the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, while younger fans worship hip-hop.
"I'm curious to see what happens in about 10 years when that other group starts to get their voice. How they'll remember it. I hope they remember it as one movie," he said. EDITOR'S NOTE: IT TRULY IS ONE BIG STORY. THAT'S HOW IT ALL WORKS, REALLY.
-------------------
A few hours before "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, director George Lucas made a quick trip to another glitzy locale: the Queen Mary II.
Lucas received an achievement award Sunday from the festival aboard the world's largest ocean liner, docked nearby in the Mediterranean.
The director recalled coming to Cannes in 1971 to show "THX 1138," his first feature-length movie.
"Cannes is always a very special place for me," he said. "So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this award."
Others who have received the "Trophy of the Festival" award include American actor Gregory Peck, French actress Jeanne Moreau and British director Ken Loach.
----------------------
Bearing Jedi-powered twins Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia gave Natalie Portman a few sympathy pains for her expectant "Star Wars" character.
In the final film of the adventure, "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," Portman's Padme Amidala is pregnant with hubby and future dark lord Anakin Skywalker's kids Luke and Leia, who grow up to be heroes of the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
"It was funny, because having the pregnancy hat on, it does make you go home, you get a little back pain in the evening, you get hungry for three," Portman said at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film screened Sunday.
---------------------------
An offhand comment during a TV interview put Samuel L. Jackson on the path of the Jedi.
In the 1990s, asked if there was a director he really wanted to work with and aware that a "Star Wars" prequel trilogy was in the works, Jackson said, "Yes, George Lucas. I'd love to be in 'Star Wars,'" the actor said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" was screening.
Word trickled back to Lucas, who brought Jackson in for a chat.
"I remember saying to you in that first meeting, 'I would really like to be a storm trooper,'" Jackson said at a news conference alongside Lucas and other "Star Wars" collaborators.
"'Anything. Nobody needs to know I'm in the movie but me. I'll just run across the screen, and I'll be happy.'"
Jackson ended up getting the plum role of Mace Windu, the Jedi master who fights a losing battle against the evil ruler destined to become the tyrannical emperor of the original trilogy.
Since the original three movies spelled out that the emperor and his henchman Darth Vader destroyed the Jedi order, Jackson went in knowing Mace's days were numbered in "Revenge of the Sith." But Jackson likes the way Mace exits the story.
"I was pleased with my death. I asked him not to kill me in my sleep," Jackson said.
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Two of the men who played "Star Wars" characters behind masks said it gives them the pleasure of being involved with the franchise while maintaining relative anonymity.
Anthony Daniels has played robot C-3PO in all six "Star Wars" movies, while Ian McDiarmid was the evil emperor in "Return of the Jedi" and politician Palpatine, who morphs into the emperor, in the current prequel trilogy.
"There are moments when it's very nice to be recognized. A lot of moments when it's very nice not to be," Daniels said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" screened.
Daniels said some hardcore fans know what he looks like, and sometimes a slip of the tongue has allowed people to peg him as the man behind the robot.
"On occasions, if we've been filming a lot and I've been doing C-3PO's voice, it can come out somewhat inappropriately in the middle of a Safeway store. 'I say, might I have this, please?'" Daniels said, slipping into the robot's obsequious voice. "And they go, 'Wait a minute, you're C-3PO.'"
McDiarmid was hidden behind the emperor's gnarly, hooded visage in "Return of the Jedi" but presented his own face in the first two prequels and much of "Revenge of the Sith."
Enjoying his privacy, he said he has largely escaped recognition. "In this movie, I develop into a full-scale monster," McDiarmid said. "I hope it's the mask they remember and not my face." EDITOR'S NOTE: ACTUALLY, I THINK IT WILL BE HIS SPOT-ON, WONDERFULLY OILY LINE READINGS!
posted by QOTD (the Queen of the Dweebs) at 1:21 PM
1 Comments:
NO WOMAN should look that good bald! It's a disgusting prank that nature plays. On the other hand, 58 hours & 19 minutes left! Woo hoo!
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