THE NYLON CURTAIN - Billy Joel

The Nylon Curtain
Billy Joel
1982

It only takes one great idea to make a great album. Billy Joel’s The Nylon Curtain has two. As hinted at by its cover of identical silhouetted houses, it’s a quasi-concept album exploring the theme of the dark side of suburbia (which, to save space, I’ll be referring to as DSOS.) Musically, it harkens back to the late 60’s and specifically recalls the style of The Beatles.

To place the album in context, Billy Joel had just released Glass Houses in 1980, which was his attempt to echo the then contemporary New-Wave movement. In 1983, he would release An Innocent Man, delving into the late 50’s early 60 roots rock and doo-wop he grew up with. The results were uncannily authentic and the best retro-album I’ve ever heard.

It was in the middle of this highly creative period of exploring different musical eras that The Nylon Curtain came about. Billy Joel, of course, had already developed his own sound, coming to fruition in his excellent The Stranger. This is key because, only incorporating The Beatle’s style into his own, could lead to an innovative work. Most efforts to simply sound like The Beatles result in fun, but inconsequential bands like The Smithereens.

As far as The Nylon Curtain as a concept album goes, it can only be loosely viewed as such. It does not tell a narrative story or reference particular characters, but does keep coming back to its lower income suburban setting and a family struggling to make sense of the American dream in an environment where pain and regret lay just underneath the idyllic surface.

If this theme sounds familiar, it’s not because you’ve heard it on other albums, but because of its recurring presence in later movies. David Lynch’s Blue Velvet may have been the first of the DSOS films, but it was most successfully realized in Sam Mendes’ 1999 Best Picture winner, American Beauty, a film that owes more than a small debt to The Nylon Curtain. It’s not that the plot points are the same, but Kevin Spacey’s protagonist could easily be the narrator of “Pressure” or “A Room of Our Own.”

Let go through this track by track. The first single, “Allentown” is a perfectly constructed song and one of the best of Joel’s career. The Beatle echo is slight, but its highly melodic pop feel would make the Fab Four proud. It provides an actual locale for the album and there’s no reason to think that all of the DSOS songs don’t also take place in Allentown. While most of the album will deal with suburban decay on a personal level, “Allentown” is about the decay of the town itself. Unemployment and the decline of industry leads to an overt questioning of the American dream and why this generation isn’t reaping the benefits their parents had.

“Laura” is Billy Joel trying to channel John Lennon at his most White Album bitter. The narrator’s relationship to Laura is so dysfunctional as to be rendered comic. If later songs are about a failing marriage, “Laura” shows it all going wrong in the courtship. It’s a relationship, not based on love, but the need to be loved. There’s a constant, sometimes violent imagery of being trapped – “these careless fingers, they get caught it her vice, till they’re bleeding on my coffee table.” By the end of the song, our narrator is completely emasculated, asking, after making his girlfriend sound like a she-devil, “How can you hang up on someone that needs you that bad.”

Joel abandons the Beatle sound for a few tracks starting with the synth driven “Pressure.” The second single from The Nylon Curtain is about tension and sounds tense. The narrator’s breakdown here results not just from home life, but a work environment where “you’re just like everybody else.” Innocent domestic pop culture references like Sesame Street, Time Magazine and Peter Pan are rendered sinister in the context of the song.

Shifting gears to “Goodnight Saigon,” we come across one the most unique songs in the Joel catalog. More Andrew Lloyd Weber than British Invasion, this tribute to Vietnam veterans has the pomp and power of a great musical theater curtain closer. It’s also the song the most critics of Billy Joel hone in on as, in their view, Joel is singing from a point of view he knows nothing about, never having served in Nam. Well, that’s why it’s called writing and not all songs need be autobiographical. The fact that “Goodnight Saigon” is sincere and without irony may be a problem for some, but I feel it only adds to its charm.

Featuring some of his most assured vocals, “She’s Right on Time” is The Nylon’s Curtain’s hidden gem. Both musically and lyrically, it’s a mirror image of “Laura.” Here, Joel celebrates his love’s return while, this time, leveling venom at himself – “A man with too much tension, far too many sins to mention.” The fact that the narrator has torn out his telephones is a wonderful contrast to the earlier songs repeated telephone imagery.

“A Room of Our Own” may sound like a holdover from Glass Houses, but its DSOS lines are among the most vivid on the album. At this point, the narrator and his now wife are in full conflict. To a solid rock beat, everyday differences between man and wife are exaggerated and made irreconcilable. Again the Lennonesque bitter humor reveals itself: “You’ve got diamonds and I’ve got spades. You’ve got pills and I’ve got razor blades. You’ve got yoga honey, I’ve got beer. You got overpriced and I got weird.”

The Beatle sound rejoins the Lennon-influenced lyrics in “Surprises.” What constitutes the surprise may be left to our imagination, but it brings the narrator to the conclusion that the dream is over. Perhaps he’s admitting to an affair or just falling out of love. Whether the relationship is too end or continue in unhappy silence is also not clear, but while the open conflict of “Laura” and “A Room of Our Own” revels in its dark humor, “Surprises” is more somber with a note of regretful acceptance.

This acceptance may be why “Scandinavian Skies” seems to abandon the DSOS motif altogether. Its clever world geography wordplay is offset with the most severe cribbing of the Beatle sound on the entire album. The musical source is clearly “I am the Walrus” and it’s a ballsy move to come so close to the originals influence. Joel gets away with it, first, because it’s a damn good song and, second, because he’s been teasing the Beatle sound throughout and here comes clean.

“Where’s the Orchestra?” is a bit anti-climatic after all this. This quiet sad song about broken dreams, is actually much sadder in the context of the whole album. The little hint of the “Allentown” melody at the very end is an appropriately Beatlesque touch of bringing an album full circle.

Billy Joel may have better individual songs than those on The Nylon Curtain, but he has never before or since put together such an ambitious and meaningful work.

Favorite Films of 2008

5) Slumdog Millionaire

Ever wonder what might have happened if Frank Capra directed a script based on a Charles Dickens novel? What if the gritty neorealism of Indian films of the 50’s somehow were to merge with the shiny happy musical romances of today’s Bollywood? Finally, what if it was all put together by a quirky British director best known for films about drug addicts and zombies? The answer to all those questions is the joyously original Slumdog Millionaire.

That’s original only in its execution. The story itself is pure Hollywood in the old fashioned sense of the word – Poor boy makes good, tries to win girl’s heart. The difference here is in the setting. Director Danny Boyle’s camera lovingly explores both the tourist attracting beauty of India and its gritty underbelly. Through an infectious soundtrack and a playful editing style, Slumdog Millionaire has a real kinetic energy that’s hard to resist.

The standard plot is given some new twists. Jamal, a young man from the Mumbai slums finds himself on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” No one, least of all the authorities, can understand how this dirt poor kid with little education can know all the answers. We find out how through a series of flashbacks to the adventures of Jamal and his friends at different ages of childhood.

Scenes of suspense sit comfortably with the humor and romance. Other films on this list may be deeper and more substantial, but why so serious? Slumdog Millionaire is the most enjoyable MOVIE movie of the year.


4) Frost/Nixon

What is it about Richard Nixon that has inspired such consistently compelling films? From Oliver Stone’s Nixon (possibly his best work) and Robert Altman’s one-actor-film, Secret Honor, all the way back to All the Presidents Men, a masterpiece in which Nixon did not appear, but was a constant presence, Richard Milhous Nixon never ceases to fascinate. His on-screen incarnations tend to elicit the sympathy that he never received in real life, mostly due his fall being depicted as the stuff of Shakespearian tragedy.

Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon (also, possibly this director’s best film) carries on this tradition. Frank Langella, one known for having played Dracula, provides Nixon with menace and vulnerability, but unlike previous portrayals, a healthy dose of humor. This Nixon has already been through his darkest days and is now seeking a comeback via a televised interview with British journalist/entertainer David Frost.

Langella is so spot on as Nixon, that Michael Sheen’s Frost might get overshadowed if he weren’t matching him note for note. David Frost, as it turns out, also has something to prove, as he’s been dismissed as a lightweight pretty boy who could never hold his own against the former president. He has to deal with, to quote the title of a completely unrelated film, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

What follows, interestingly enough, takes on the structure of a great sports movie. We see each camp in “training” with aides (kudos to Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell and Kevin Bacon for bringing their A-games to the supporting roles.) The interview itself takes on all the aura of “the big game,” complete with an underdog seemingly outmatched and in search of a comeback.

The politics are really beside the point. Just like the play on which it was based (featuring the same lead actors), Frost/Nixon is about the mindsets and foibles of these two very different men who may have more in common then they suspect.


3) Let the Right One In

In reading reviews of Let the Right One In, there seems to be a movement to consider it something other than a horror movie. Yes, this Swedish import is about vampires, but it’s also a coming of age drama about the friendship between an awkward 12-year-old boy named Oskar and a vampire girl who also appears to be 12 (but, as she says, has been so for a very long time.)

It is, in fact a horror film, one of the spookiest and best to come out in many years. Just because it’s ambitious enough to be about more than scares does not remove it from the genre which, at its best, can be just as rich as any other type of film. Carrie was also coming of Age story, The Shining about a family falling apart and Dawn of the Dead was a political allegory about consumerism in the Reagan era. Let the Right One In is about loneliness.

Its visual style is dark (set in the frigid Swedish winter), but the realistic tone begs the question, what would it actually be like if vampires existed in our world? We learn about the “young” vampire, Eli, at about the same rate as Oskar does and, despite her dietary needs, we like her. It does establish very clearly, however, that it worse to be a vampire than a vampire’s victim.

Because we are so involved in their relationship, when scenes of horror do arrive they are incredibly unsettling. One sequence, taking place in a school swimming pool presents its violence in such an unique way that I was spellbound. Even more impressive than any overt terror, is a very subtle plot thread that could easily be missed, but, if you think about it, makes even the more innocent moments scarier than most horror films would dare to be.

With my #2 choice having already been seen by just about everyone and my #1 pick just as likely to be hated as loved, Let the Right One In is the 2008 film I most strongly urge my fellow film buffs to seek out.


2) The Dark Knight (SPOILER WARNING)

Most of what’s great about The Dark Knight is obvious. It’s a superior example of its genre. The action, suspense, special effects and pacing make it not just one of the best superhero movies ever made (joining the first Superman and Spider-Man 2 in that exclusive club), but one of the great thrillers in the tradition of Se7en.

Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker has been justifiably lauded as one of cinema’s most chilling villains. The actor’s untimely death has focused much of the discussion of the film around this performance, but it would not have been as effective without the quality that surrounded every aspect of the production. Credit must also be given to Batman Begins for so thoroughly exploring the title character that the sequel was able to seamlessly move forward onto fresh territory.

It’s this fresh territory that distinguishes The Dark Knight from even the better popcorn thrillers. Very serious political and social themes are delved into under the cover of entertainment. The character of The Joker himself is as different from traditional movie villains as the current terrorist threat is from Nazis or Cold War enemies. The Joker has no rational goal and values nothing, not even his own life. He kills for an anarchist ideology that knows know rational motivation.

Faced with the threat of pure chaos, it’s fascinating to see how the good guys respond. In fact, with one exception, every character from Batman himself to idealistic prosecutor Harvey Dent to Commissioner Gordon, Lucius Fox, Alfred the butler and boatloads of Gotham citizens end up compromising their own integrity in facing The Joker. Most provoking is Harvey Dent’s gruesome transformation into Two-Face and the resulting idea that true justice is so meaningless that it may as well be left to the toss of a coin.

In the wake of the Iraq War, many films have come out questioning U.S. foreign policy and how we respond to the terror threat. They have tended to be dogmatic and none have been successful. What Christopher and Jonathan Nolen have done right is to pose these important questions without providing pat answers. That, and by remembering their primary objective was to make a great and entertaining movie. Mission Accomplished.


1) Synecdoche, New York

I strongly believe that Charlie Kaufman is the most daring, original and creative screenwriter currently making films. If you’ve seen Being John Malkovich, Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you already know that his high concepts are mind benders leading to unpredictable places. Knowing this will not prepare you for Synecdoche, New York, Kaufman’s directorial debut and a work of mad genius. Charlie Kaufman without a net.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a neurotic theater director, who, if you can’t guess is based on the real Charlie Kaufman at the beginning of the film, you will surely know by the end. His family is falling apart and he suffers from real and imagined illness. His personal life is a mess, but his work is so successful that he is given a massive grant to produce his masterpiece. His new project will be nothing short of a theatrical replication of his own life, along with everyone he knows and the city in which he lives.

At about the point where Hoffman’s secretary moves into a perpetually burning house, the movie stops making any rational sense and proceeds till its conclusion with dream logic that will either enthrall or alienate you. I can’t imagine one feeling neutral about this film. It’s a love it or hate it proposition. I actually did start to dislike it at certain points only to discover some of what I love most about the film days after the screening.

I’m actually not a big fan of surrealism and have a hard time with some acclaimed directors of the style like Fellini and Bunuel. The difference with Kaufman is, even as the story and images become more surreal, he keeps us grounded by never severing our empathy with the protagonist. Of course, that’s probably because he is dealing with the universal subject of the fear of death and, as in Adaptation, he has made himself his own protagonist. As in that earlier film, the image of a snake eating its own tail applies here as characters are doubled and doubled again until finally they become individuals.

Synecdoche, New York is a film to be engaged and challenged by. To be a passive viewer would be missing the purpose because this is a film as much about the audience as about its characters. It will not provide the missing puzzle pieces. That’s my job and yours. I felt rewarded with a deeper understanding of some very human themes (and an amazing filmgoing experience.) What you get out of it will depend on what you bring into it.

MYSTERY TRAIN by Greil Marcus (book review)

Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music
by Greil Marcus
1975


Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train is the closest thing to literature that I’ve ever experienced reading rock criticism. That may be because it’s also the closest to fiction. Defiantly subjective, Marcus assumes his readers are already familiar with his subjects and dives right into his primary thesis, that rock music is a lens by which we can understand American culture as a whole and vice versa.

He divides his subjects into “ancestors” and “inheritors,” the former being legendary bluesman, Robert Johnson and a relatively obscure novelty folk singer named Harmonica Frank. The latter are The Band, Sly & the Family Stone, Randy Newman and, in the longest and most interestingly named piece (Presliad), Elvis Presley.

Marcus’ love of these artists is palpable in every sentence of Mystery Train. This passage discussing Robert Johnson’s song, “Stones in My Passway” demonstrates an ability to elevate his own listening experience to epic level:

“The song is enormous. I cannot put it any other way. The image of the words is subsumed into Johnson’s singing, his guitar, into the eerie, inevitable loudness of the song. The music has its claims to make: no matter how low you set the volume, the music creeps up louder, demanding, and the only way to quiet it is to shut it off.”

While having great admiration for Robert Johnson as the most vital of the early bluesmen who set the stage for rock n roll, I was not affected by “Stones in My Passway” as Marcus was, but his eloquence in making his case renders agreement or disagreement irrelevant. I believe him when he claims to have spent many months listening to nothing but Robert Johnson (whose recorded catalogue includes only about 30 songs.)

I also believe him when he claims that Johnson’s songs were musically structured in such a way that, had he used a full band and amplified sound, rock music, as we know it, would have been invented in the 1930’s. Of course, Johnson’s mythical selling of his soul to the devil is the stuff of legend that Marcus thrives upon throughout the book. What’s most affecting about the Johnson chapter is his observation that the blues is such a purely American art form because it’s the first to embrace the American dream and then demonstrate the tragic results when it does not come true.

Nowhere is Marcus’ free association taken to such an extreme as in his chapter on Sly and the Family Stone. He actually only wants to talk about one of Sly’s albums, There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Earlier releases by the group were feel good late sixties funk, but Riot was a sullen and depressing album, purposefully distant and cold. It was the sixties ending before our ears, with brotherhood replaced by racial divisions and drug induced highs inevitably leading to dark withdrawals.

From this album Marcus riffs, at length, about how Riot was really under the influence of an African-American murder ballad, literally covered hundreds of times, called “Stagger Lee.” The song differs slightly in all its many iterations, but is basically the story of a badass gambler who kills a man for stealing his hat and usually gets away with it. Loosely based on an actual incident, Stagger Lee became the black equivalent of Jesse James and the Western outlaw legends.

Marcus uses this song as a general umbrella for a more aggressive stance taken by many black artists in the seventies. It was the Stagger Lee influence that led The Temptations, for instance, from the Motown fun of the mid-sixties to a song as bleak as “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” Stagger Lee was also the father of blaxploitation movie anti-heroes like Superfly. It’s an impressive feet of the book that an analysis of Sly and the Family Stone culminates with a detailed look at the obscure (but worth a rental) violent Blaxploitation police thriller, Across 110th Street.

His take on The Band also relies on symbolism, but of an even less tangible kind. Their first two albums, Music From Big Pink and The Band are widely hailed as masterpieces of Americana. If they are concept albums, it is not readily apparent, but Marcus finds all kinds of fascinating connections. If the American Dream seems unattainable in the African-American experience (remember, this was written in 1975), for The Band it is a possibility, but first must be defined, or in some cases even desired.

Take this passage from Big Pink’s most well known song “The Weight”:

“I picked up my bag, I went looking for a place to hide
Then I saw Carmen and the devil, walking side by side
I said, hey Carmen, come on, let’s go downtown
She said, I gotta go, but my friend can stick around”

There’s more to be noted about these lyrics than there’s space for here, but what’s most fascinating to me, is how Marcus contrasts the devil imagery in “The Weight” with Robert Johnson’s legend and songs like “Me and the Devil Blues.” For The Band, the association is more nebulous, while Johnson’s spelled doom.

The Band, by the time of their self titled second album, was able to see America from a variety of perspectives, with voices ranging from the farmer of “King Harvest” to the Civil War rebel of “The Night They Drove old Dixie Down.” Randy Newman, on the other hand, also looked at this American landscape, but through much darker glasses.

Newman, who would cast himself as the devil in his version of Faust, writes with absolutely wicked humor. Marcus compares him, not to other musicians, but to pulp crime novelist, Raymond Chandler. The Newman song most discussed is “Sail Away,” which is melodically beautiful, but tells its story from the point of view of a slave trader in Africa, selling the idea that the natives would be happier as slaves in the colonies. It’s a mark of Newman’s craft that, despite his narrators being the most unpleasant sorts, his songs are so rife with irony that we never confuse his storytelling with approval.

Shifting gears, Marcus ends with Elvis Presley. By this time in the book, it’s no surprise when Presley is described as a combination of Huckleberry Fin and Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab. More biographical than the rest of the pieces, Presliad traces Elvis from the ambitious poor boy to visionary artist to (in his opinion) Vegas hack. Marcus states:

“Beside Elvis, the other heroes of this book seem a little small time. If they define different versions of America, Presley’s career almost has the scope to take America in.”

Of course, Elvis doesn’t need Greil Marcus to tout his legend. That job’s been done. Instead, Marcus looks at his rockabilly roots, particularly those early sessions at Sun Studios. He cites “Good Rockin’ Tonight” as a defining example of the previously unmatched energy that would define rock ‘n’ roll. The unresolved tension of “Mystery Train” and “Hound Dog’s” sexual danger are also considered indispensable turning points.

Then, as the fifties ended, he went into the army and spent most of the next decade making interchangeable and forgettable movies. In 1968, Elvis launched a televised “Comeback Special” that marked the first time since he became The King” that he had something to prove. Marcus believes that, with the song “One Night,” Elvis captured the essence of his greatness and marked the high point of his career.

Mystery Train ends with a discography. Actually, to call it a discography is a bit of an understatement as it takes up a good third of the book. Updated to 1997, the discography not only details the recorded works of the artists featured, but also other musicians who influenced or were influenced by them. Anecdotes abound and, frankly, Marcus just goes off about whatever he wants to. He’s earned that right.

Mystery Train is a sprawling book that perfectly matches the sprawling nature of its subject, and that can apply to both rock ‘n’ roll and America.

Star Crap

The Star Wars Holiday Special
1978
* (out of 4)

Clone Wars
2003
*** (out of 4)

The Clone Wars
2008
* (out of 4)


A CLARIFICATION – Right off the bat, we need to distinguish between “The Clone Wars” and simply “Clone Wars.” Clone Wars (without the “The’) was a traditionally animated set of shorts that aired on Cartoon Network beginning in 2003. THE Clone Wars, released in 2008, was the computer animated feature that acted as a pilot to a different series, also on Cartoon Network. It’s important to remember the difference because one of them really really sucks.

I would’ve found it difficult to believe that any new product would join the dreaded Holiday Special in the smelly armpit of the Star Wars universe, but damned if The Clone Wars doesn’t sink right in there. Like its similarly named predecessor, The Clone Wars is meant to bridge Episodes II and III. The likeness ends there.

I get that The Clone Wars is geared toward kids. I get that it’s the pilot to a TV series and not a stand alone film. What I don’t get is how George Lucas could deliver a product so shabby. Sure, the prequels had their problems, but nothing remotely compared a drag queen Hut named Ziro, who sounds like a combination of Truman Capote and Droopy Dog.

Such atrocities abound! Anakin is provided a Padawan to train, who appears as a young alien girl, but talks like a modern day tween at the mall. She calls him “Sky Guy” and he calls her “Snips” (cause she’s snippy – get it.) The plot like thing that passes for a story involves the rescue of Jabba the Hut’s baby, nicknamed “stinky,” who fails to be cute, which is quite an accomplishment for a baby anything. Its educational that, during the commentary track, the filmmakers (I’m not even going to bother to look up their names) specifically credit Lucas with the most cringe-worthy moments.

Having heard about the various horrors mentioned, I was hoping for at least a bit of campiness to relieve the pain, but whenever idiocy is not on screen, The Clone Wars sinks into utter boredom (I honestly fell asleep). With a little lightsaber work thrown in here and there, a whole hour of this thing is basically droids and clone-troopers shooting at each other over and over again. To top it all off, the computer animation effects aren’t any good either. All the characters pretty much look like dead eyed toys, which may not have been an accident. We have advanced beyond the technology where hair needs to look like plastic.

As maddening as it is to see the Star Wars franchise sink this low, what’s truly unfathomable is that there already was a successful blueprint from which to start a Clone Wars series. That would be the traditionally animated Clone Wars shorts than ran in three to fifteen minute installments from 2003 to 2005. Produced by Genndy Tartakovsky, of Samurai Jack fame, this version of the Clone Wars had all the action and, more importantly, the Star Wars spirit lacking in the 2008 model.

It also had limitations, but they were inherent in the format. With the first set of shorts averaging less than five minutes each, there was only so much character development possible, not to mention the fact that they couldn’t mess with the continuity of the feature films. The animation style was traditional, only enhanced by CG for special effect shots. This old-fashioned look meant that there would be no jaw-dropping special effects, but it freed the creative team to explore fresh ideas in the Star Wars universe.

Clone Wars not only followed the Jedi we already know, but shown the spotlight on minor characters who only received a few seconds of screen time in the features. Underwater battles, a cave containing lightsaber crystals, a Jedi with four throats using his voice as a weapon, and an increasing array of weapons and aliens got the animator’s creative juices flowing.

Among my favorite sequences were those involving Mace Windu. Since Samuel L. Jackson’s vocal talents were unavailable, they had the character say little, but kick much butt while single-handedly facing an army of battle droids and a new secret weapon. Anakin is provided a suitable opponent in Asajj Ventressa, a hissing female Sith wannabee who makes a great entrance by easily vanquishing a squadron of Count Dooku’s minions.

Another villain, introduced near the end of the series, tied in directly to Episode III. It seems Lucas was suitably impressed with the first season of shorts to make the series canon. If you wondered why the lightsaber wielding cyborg, General Grievous, had a sickly wheeze in Revenge of the Sith, it’s because of an injury suffered during Clone Wars.

General Grievous and the plot to Kidnap Chancellor Palpatine ends Clone Wars at exactly the point where the last of the prequels begins. It remains the most impressive Star Wars product outside the feature films themselves.

No discussion of the Star Wars franchise would be complete without talking about the aforementioned armpit of awfulness known as The Star Wars Holiday Special. Unlike The Clone Wars (2008), which should be avoided at all costs, this is something you really need to see. Just as you need to see the Bee Gee’s and Peter Frampton try to make a movie of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band or hear William Shatner try to sing “Mr. Tambourine Man,” this is the accident on the side of the road that you can’t help but stare at in disbelief.

Take yourself back to 1978 and remember the variety shows popular back then – Donnie & Marie, Sonny & Cher, Barbara Mandrell & the freaking Mandrell Sisters. Now combine it with Star Wars and you can only begin to imagine the mess. The “story” involves the Millennium Falcon having to return to Chewbacca’s home planet so his family (Malla, Itchy and Lumpy) can celebrate “Life Day.”

Basically the thing starts out with about twenty minutes of Wookiee talk, highlighted by Grampa Wookiee seemingly getting off on some virtual reality Wookiee porn, which turns out to be Diane Carroll singing. This, closely followed by a Jefferson Starship performance (get it – Starship! ‘cause it’s in space - yeah.) and a plethora of guest stars like Art Carney and Harvey Korman, highlighted by Bea Arthur singing to a giant rat in the Cantina. As a bonus, the cast of Star Wars (yes, even Harrison Ford), humiliates themselves for our entertainment. Want to see Mark Hamill in way too much eye makeup? How about Carrie Fisher singing lyrics to the Star Wars theme?

Needless to say, after one showing in 1978, The Star Wars Holiday Special was hidden away in a secret vault in the hopes that it would be forgotten. As a result, it’s only available as a bootleg. The version I saw was a friend’s bootleg videotape of a New York airing that included commercials and a teaser to the evening’s local newscast. This teaser was of a mustached, very ‘70’s announcer right out of Anchorman, repeatedly promising, “fighting frizzies, tonight at 11:00!” This made me laugh hysterically because I had recently watched The South Park Holiday Special, which had a parody of that same news teaser. Utterly inexplicable; unless you had, not only seen the Holiday Special, but the version that aired in New York, with the commercials intact. Talk about an inside joke!

You know, I could go on reviewing even more Star Wars stuff. There were two Ewok Adventure TV movies, Saturday morning cartoons (Ewoks and Droids), The Clone Wars series and countess novelizations and comic books. I feel done though. So, in the name of the Force, the Star Wars forum is now closed. On to other adventures.

REVENGE OF THE SITH

Revenge of the Sith
2005
*** ½ (out of 4)

It was almost inevitable that Revenge of the Sith would have an edge up on its prequel predecessors. Episodes One and Two spent so much screen time futzing around with inessentials that the bulk of the story was left for the third installment. This only works to its benefit. After all, we now know what comes directly before and directly after. Provided with an inherently strong narrative, George Lucas and company proved (mostly) up to the task of bridging the prequels with the original trilogy.

Revenge of the Sith opens with the kind of majestic space battle that generally served as climaxes for earlier installments. It’s a tangible raising of the stakes, not only on an action level, but dramatically as well. Finally getting around to the tale of Anakin’s fall to the dark side puts all the action sequences in a broader context and they resonate more powerfully because of it.

This is especially true in scenes featuring Emperor Palpatine as played by Ian McDiarmid in one of the best performances of the series. Yes, he’s hamming it up in that old British Shakespearian actor’s way, but he finds the exact right tone for this type of movie, whether conveying deviousness or all out evil. When he’s tempting Anakin toward the dark side, Hayden Christensen (better here than in Attack of the Clones) shows more chemistry with McDiarmid than he did with Natalie Portman.

This leads to the great Force/lightsaber battles, first with Mace Windu, then with Yoda. As in Episode II, there’s something very gratifying in watching Yoda fight. More gratifying still is the climatic showdown between the, now fully dark, Anakin and Obi-Wan on the volcanic planet of Mustafar. Rumors of this battle, complete with its fiery setting, have been gestating at least back to the time of The Empire Strikes Back. With exploding lava in the background, thankfully, Lucas gets this epic moment right.

The results are pretty grim and, along with a very effective sequence showing the slaughter of all but a few Jedi, led Revenge of the Sith to become the first Star Wars movie with a PG-13 rating.

It’s not that Revenge of the Sith doesn’t have some problems. It’s just that, unlike The Phantom Menace’s Jar Jar Binks or Attack of the Clone’s sappy romantic dialogue, they’re small unfortunate moments that, all in all, total about a minute of screen time. In fact, if a few seconds here and a few seconds there were edited out of the film, it would easily graduate from very good to great.

These three moments, all near the end of the film, are as follows:

1) “She lost her will to live” – Please don’t make me issue a spoiler warning here. If you’ve been at all paying attention, the death of Luke and Leia’s mother should not come as a surprise. Why should Padme, a supposedly strong character, whose kids would hold the fate of the galaxy in their hands, simply give up on life while giving birth? (as explained in a line of dialogue by a nurse droid.) Especially since Anakin had already wounded her with the Vader throat choke, they already had a logical way to justify why she would die in childbirth.

2) “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” – OK, was this a moment in a Star Wars movie or a Simpson’s parody of a Star Wars movie. Upon learning of his wives death, the newly minted Darth Vader’s cry of anguish is rendered comical at the very wrong moment. Poor James Earl Jones gets to utter about two sentences and one of them is this!

3) “A new mission for you I have” – One of the mysteries of Star Wars has always been, why do some Jedi disappear into thin air when they die while others do not? I had hoped this would eventually be revealed, but not as a throwaway line jammed into the end of the film with no context or follow up. Seemingly, as Yoda tells Obi-Wan, the disappearing act is an advanced Jedi trick that can be learned through years of practice (cause you don’t want to get this one wrong.) Yoda’s mentioning of Qui-Gon Jinn as part of this training begs the question of why he didn’t vanish at the end of The Phantom Menace.

All is set right by the very end, however, with scenes taking place on there very ship that opens the first Star Wars, as well the Tatooine home where Luke would grow up. All throughout Revenge of the Sith, ship models, set design and music more closely hearken back to the original trilogy, providing a pronounced feeling of nostalgia. It’s a good nostalgia though, and necessary to close the circle and set the stage for “A New Hope.” That it succeeds in its primary purpose is enough to set Revenge of the Sith apart and ahead of the other prequels.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Attack of the Clones
2002
*** (out of 4)

The last half hour of Attack of the Clones brings the energy and adrenaline that had been missing from the Star Wars prequels thus far. Finally the promise made to fans was fulfilled and once again the Force was with us. It must be noted that Attack of the Clones runs almost two and a half hours and getting to that last half hour is a bit of an uneven trudge.

It’s in this film that the main Achilles Heal of the prequels reveals itself and is not so easily solved as cutting down Jar Jar Bink’s screen time. Episodes 1-3 purport to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker’s temptation, fall to the dark side and the destruction of his soul that leads him to become Darth Vader. This is the stuff of high tragedy, but to make that work, at some point the audience needs to relate to and like Anakin.

Young Anakin of The Phantom Menace was likable enough, but simply too young a child to relate to as a full character. Hayden Christensen, taking over the role for Attack of the Clones, plays the teenage Anakin as moody, selfish and whiney. This all taking place before the influence of the dark side means he didn’t have too far to fall. In the original Star Wars, Luke Skywalker also began as whiny and immature, but his story arch turned him into a hero we could root for. For Anakin, what should have been tragic instead plays out as inevitable.

Attack of the Clones was marketed as the “love story” episode. The romance of Anakin and (formerly princess) Senator Padme Amidala, as played by Natalie Portman, is a key plot point, but here’s where the going gets rough. Not only do Christensen and Portman have zero chemistry, but they are provided with possibly the worst romantic dialogue I have ever heard. The language is so gooey sugary that one expects a punch-line. Unfortunately, there’s not a trace of irony in such saccharine moments as when Anakin favorably compares Padme to sand. Considering the spunky lines Lawrence Kasdan gave Han and Leia in Empire, Lucas should have known his own limitations and outsourced to a quality writer.

Things don’t improve much as our young lovers, cavorting in a Naboo field straight out of The Sound of Music, turn the conversation to politics. Anakin’s simple minded assertion that all would be well if he was simply in charged might have been a hint that he was not playing with a full deck. I buy that love is blind, but does it have to be dumb as well?

I initially thought the mistake was in casting Hayden Christensen, who I had not seen prior to this film. The kid can’t act, I figured. A few years later, seeing him in the newspaper drama, Shattered Glass, I was proven wrong by his steady lead as an ethically challenged newspaper reporter. Natalie Portman had long been one of the better young actresses around and would soon give one of the decade’s powerhouse performances in Mike Nichols’ sexual battlefield tale, Closer. Still, both actors are so wooden in Attack of the Clones, that it seems they were instructed to act badly.

Relief from all this comes with the expertly crafted action scenes that are the reason to see this film. A flying car chase through the crowded skyways of Coruscant and Obi-Wan’s rain drenched brawl with Jango Fett are pre-climax highlights. The later sequence being significant for cleverly introducing the clone army concept and providing a cameo for young Boba Fett, a character who, in the first trilogy, developed quite the cult following that has always escaped me.

In the original Star Wars, a much older Obi-Wan Kenobi made a passing reference to the Clone Wars. Considering all the mythology surrounding that first film, this unseen bit of history remained an intriguing piece of the puzzle that is finally brought to fruition in Attack of the Clones. Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme are all taken prisoner on the planet of Geonosis, populated by strange cockroach type creatures. The young couple are to be sacrificed in the galactic version of a gladiator arena to an even stranger selection of beasts.

Obi-Wan is interrogated by Christopher Lee’s Count Dooku, now revealed to be a Sith Lord. Bringing in Christopher Lee is a great bit of casting fun, since he co-starred, from the 50’s through the 70’s, in a long running series of horror film by the British Hammer studios. His nemesis in these films tended to be played by Peter Cushing who neared the end of his career as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars.

The momentum of the climax kicks into high gear as the Jedi Knights come to the rescue. This would be our first glimpse of Jedi in their prime (i.e. who are not being trained, incredibly old or half cyborg) in full blooded action. The resulting battle does not disappoint, but must take a back seat in coolness to an all digital, lightsaber wielding, badass Yoda who just steals the movie from everybody.

Here again, the mythology of the original trilogy is so strong that it carries on to a film made decades later. The depiction of Yoda as a master of the Force was so convincing in Empire that we just knew, despite his size (“size matters not”) that he could kick some major ass. In Attack of the Clones, we see him do it.

The film ends on a strong note with the clone army looking like prototype stormtroopers and our first glimpse of what will become Imperial Star Destroyers, all as “The Imperial March” ominously plays on the soundtrack. A cut to the (thankfully dialogueless) wedding of Anakin and Padme, with emphasis on the groom’s now artificial hand, indicates that the circle between the two trilogies are closing.

Despite the unevenness displayed throughout, the climax of Attack of the Clones showed that Lucas could still do some Star Wars when he sets his mind to it.

THE PHANTOM MENACE

The Phantom Menace
1999
*** (out of 4)

As we begin our discussion of the Star Wars prequels, you may notice a disconnect between the level of criticism I heap on the films and my conclusion that they are actually pretty good. The question at hand is; should they be judged as self contained works or as part of the overall Star Wars universe? If the former, then yes, George Lucas has made three entertaining sci-fi adventures. What they are not, are worthy successors to the original trilogy, which why nitpicking is the order of the day.

Perhaps it was never realistic to expect the prequels to live up to their predecessors after 16 years. Had Lucas followed the example of Peter Hyams, he may have set more realistic expectations. Hyams had the unenviable challenge of directing 2010, the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s unparalleled masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. He wisely understood that the task was impossible and any attempt to recreate Kubrick’s genius was doomed to fail. So he changed the game. Using the many of the same characters and settings, Hyams made 2010 an effective space thriller that stood on its own and bore no resemblance to the original.

George Lucas, on the other hand, never stops reminding us that we are back in the Star Wars universe. If fans don’t feel that same thrill of years past, it’s our fault for losing our own sense of childhood wonder. Could it be that it was his own anticipation of this reaction that motivated Lucas to tweak his originals so that they more resembled the updates? If we had lost that sense of wonder, it was miraculously regained a year later when The Lord of the Rings proved that filmgoers still appreciate great fantasy.

All these accusations of jadedness were a result of Star Wars fans everywhere rejecting a creation Lucas was particularly proud of, The Phantom Menace’s odious Jar Jar Binks. Jar Jar was the first fully realized computer generated character in a live action film. It was a technical breakthrough that paved the way for a battle ready Yoda and Lord of the Ring’s unforgettable Gollum.

Unfortunately, Jar Jar was provided with mannerisms so unbelievably stupid that the movie stops dead in its tracks whenever he appears. There was some talk that he was some kind of racist portrayal of a Jamaican stereotype, but I never saw that. What I did see was a character in a Star Wars film shamelessly breaking into Bill Cosby’s old dentist comedy routine (just before the pod-race) and making kindergarten level shit and fart jokes. Lucas’ excuse was that this was the episode for the tots. I couldn’t help but remember the droids and Ewoks from the first trilogy filling that function without insulting the intelligence of the very kids they were trying to appeal to.

Though overshadowed by Jar Jar’s inanity, equally frustrating were the vocal ticks of those Trade Federation aliens meant to convey some kind of bureaucratic threat to our heroes. Here, I found accusations of racial insensitivity spot on, as their accents were third rate Charlie Chan Asian stereotypes. Maybe subtitles are too much to ask for in a self proclaimed children’s movie (though they certainly worked for Jabba the Hut), but at least pay some attention to where your alien dialects are coming from.

I’m less annoyed by young Jake Lloyd’s casting as future Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, in his childhood years. He’s not particularly engaging, but he’s also not given much to do. If he doesn’t match such stellar child actor performances as Henry Thomas in E.T or Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, its likely that he was cast too young for a part that could have been more involving with an actor a few years older.

If you’re waiting for the “on the other hand” part, here it is. The Phantom Menace was wholly successful in using computer technology to create a rich visual pallet and a beautiful looking film. The sprawling cityscapes of Coruscant (very influenced by Blade Runner) and the royal classicism of Naboo, showed that new computer technology could be used not just as enhancements, but to create whole worlds from scratch. Most impressive was an underwater chase sequence that collected a vivid menagerie of sea monsters and ended much too soon.

Two other set-pieces were just as memorable. The pod-race on Tatooine harkened back to a Star Wars environment we were already familiar with, but with the added bonus of a state-of the-art CG action piece. Cameos by Jawas and Sand People offered welcome bursts of nostalgia. The climatic light saber battle with Darth Maul (an effectively unsettling creation) also did not disappoint, thanks not only to great stunt-work, but also John William’s haunting choral theme, “Duel of the Fates.”

On the performance front, Ewan McGregor as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi had Alec Guinness’ mannerism down pat, which would lend credibility to all the prequels. Liam Neeson has long been typecast in mentor roles and for good reason. His portrayal of Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, offered the same kind of grounding as Harrison Ford provided in the original trilogy.

So we have some quality set pieces and some good performance, but what is sorely missing from The Phantom Menace is a strong overall narrative. So much emphasis is placed on the film’s technical achievements that the story just gets bogged down. The political maneuverings that will pay off in subsequent episodes are never made interesting here and, worse, even the concept of the Force is made mundane by providing a pseudo-science explanation for what should have remained a spiritual phenomenon.

The Phantom Menace ends up doing what it does well, very well, but what it does poorly, it cannot really recover from. As enjoyable as some sequences are, without a solid narrative through-line, it’s not really Star Wars. It’s the kind of movie that fast-forward buttons were created for. Particularly, when any line of dialogue begins with "Meesa."