Polanski Sues AMPAS

#MeToo boogeyman Roman Polanski is now 85 years of age, seems fairly content with his life in France, where he is still heralded, justifiably so, as a cinematic genius for his past works (“Rosemary’s Baby,” “Repulsion,” “Chinatown,” “The Pianist”). Nevertheless, he has decided to sue the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for taking away his membership last May — Polanski believes he had a right to defend himself and that the decision was made without following proper protocol, fair enough. After all, Polanski’s statutory rape victim was Samantha Geimer, she was 13 at the time, Polanski 44, the sex was “consensual” but, given that she was a minor, there should be nothing consensual about this sort of thing. Nevertheless, Geimer has begged the LAPD and D.A. to stop the hunt for Polanski and their attempts to extradite and convict him in the United States, claiming he’s paid his dues and deserves to live a decent phase of whatever’s left in his twilight years.

Polanski’s attorney Harland Braun had this to say to Variety: “We are litigating the fairness of their procedure. They threw him out without warning and without giving him a chance to respond. There was not even any notice of why. After 40 years, on the same day as [Bill] Cosby. Give me a break.”

Academy to Variety: “The procedures taken to expel Mr. Polanski were fair and reasonable. The Academy stands behind its decision as appropriate,” a spokesperson said.

It's Been 20 Years Since ‘The Phantom Menace' Opened

Watching “The Phantom Menace” in a theater for the first time, back in the summer of 1999, was one of the most painful cinematic experiences I’ve ever had to endure. Just painful. No, I was not a “Star Wars” aficionado but I got caught up in the hype, who didn’t? We all desperately wanted to love it, but the end result was, quite frankly, boring. George Lucas tried to expand and build up a new world of characters, but we ended up getting Jar Jar Binks. and Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker, the latter a badly miscast and badly written character.

There had been suspicions for many years that George Lucas may not have been the filmmaking genius that he was. Yes, he started off his career with “THX-1138,” “American Graffiti,” and 1977’s “Star Wars” but the creative juice he may have shown in those films was all but over with the three prequels he wrote and directed in 1999, 2002 and 2005.

Lucas’ conception of story is second-to-none, but, as we’ve seen it with his work in Star Wars and Indiana Jones, his directing and writing has always been better handled by the likes of Lawrence Kasdan, Steven Spielberg and especially Irvin Kershner in “The Empire Strikes Back,” still the best SW film ever made. I thought 1983’s Richard Marquand-directed “The Return of the Jedi” was entertaining and probably used as the blueprint by Lucas to develop “Revenge of the Sith.” The problem with Lucas is simple; whenever he inserts himself into writing and hands-on work on the production of a film, although highly commendable, his mad ambitions tend to get the best of him and completely crumble out of control.

Corrected: Thanks to Richard Lanier. The correct years for the prequels were 1999, 2002 and 2005. Jake Kasdan didn’t write any scripts for Lucas but it was his father Lawrence Kasdan (of “Big Chill” fame) that did. And finally, Lucas did not direct “Return of the Jedi”; Richard Marquand did.  Yikes, I knew all of these things. Blame it on this morning’s jetlag or blame it on sheer incompetence, whatever the case, big thanks again, Richard.

‘Hail Satan’ Plays Devil’s Advocate [Review]

“Hail Satan” is, first and foremost, about resistance; resistance against sectors of Christianity which have heavily deviated into their own toxic kind of militant evangelism. In fact, it’s this problematic nature of religion that kick-started the creation of The Satanic Temple. In Penny Lane’s documentary, The temple is rendered as nothing short of a troll-punking organization. It’s also an atheist-minded religion which keeps the positives that would come with religion — such as the camaraderie, organization but intersects these positives with progressive liberal values. You might ask, where does Satan fit into all of this? Oh, he’s mostly used as a direct conduit to infuriate Christian extremists, most of which actually believe The Satanic Temple abides by Lucifer’s throne. They don’t. In fact, The Satanic Temple does not worship Satan as a literal god at all. It’s all about the symbolism, baby. After all, the lord of darkness was the ultimate rebel by which the earliest biblical stories were told. These post-modernist Satanic followers mostly just want to place his statues all around red-state public spaces, including a Baphomet smack-dab in the middle of the Arkansas State Capitol. The fight to take the statue down, not to mention the idea of replacing it with a replica of the ten commandment plates, thanks to one Arkansas lawymaker, form the absurdist drama of the doc. Lane uses talking-heads footage from high-ranking TST members to forward her narrative, including the inner dilemmas such as the ethical rivalry between spokesman Lucien Greaves and Jex Blackmore, the founder of TST’s Detroit chapter who caused controversy within the organization, and ensuingly got booted out of it, after deciding to incite violence towards the temple’s enemies. Blackmore believes the separation of church and state isn’t enough, and that anarchy is needed to further promote the Staanic Temple’s goals.The rest of the movie is surprisingly infused in light and satirical manner by Lane, to further establish Satan’s rebelliously playful demeanor. If anything, Lane tries to make the case for America, in all its divisiveness, to take the moral examples presented by these lord-of-darkness-worshiping jokesters and change its mindset for the greater good. [B/B+]

Trailer: Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw

Yes, 1999 Was Probably the Best Decade at the Movies of the Last 20 Years

Brian Raftery‘s “Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen” is making the rounds at bookstores, it came out two days ago. The film media have been hyping it up, including Vulture, which ran an entire chapter from the book on “Eyes Wide Shut.”

And so, the inevitable question one must ask is this: Are we heavily overhyping 1999?

Being John Malkovich, Election, The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, The Limey, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, The Straight Story, Eyes Wide Shut, Three Kings, The Insider, The Blair Witch Project, Bringing Out the Dead, Boy’s Don’t Cry, Go, The Iron Giant, Toy Story 2, South Park, Office Space, The Talented Mr. Ripley, American Pie, Bowfinger, Dick, 10 Things I Hate About You, Arlington Road, Man on the Moon, The Dreamlife of Angels, Romance, Payback.

So, no, we are not overhyping 1999. It truly is the bees knees. Best movie year ever? Probably not. But best movie year of the last two decades, no doubt about it. Is there any other year that comes remotely close? Maybe 2007 or 2011.

Greta Gerwig's ‘Little Women' Might Replace Tarantino's ‘Once Upon A Time' At Cannes

Variety is reporting that Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is Sony’s back-up plan if Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” can’t make it to Cannes. The report says rumors place both “Little Women” and ‘Once Upon a Time’ in post-production at this very moment, but that the QT is seriously being considered to skip the festival due to late-in-the-game editing which might not be done in time for the May festivities.