Category: Columns
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May the 4th is not Star Wars Day
The joke is bad and you should feel bad This piece, originally published on TIFF’s The Review on May 4 2017, remains relevant every year. Star Wars is meant to be seen on a big screen. It is meant to be seen with its original, non-digital effects intact. And its arrival into the world is…
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Destroy All Monsters: Ben Solo Was The Key To The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, And JJ Abrams Never Noticed
For no reason whatsoever, I wrote 3,000 words about Ben Solo yesterday. Well, here they are.
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THE LAST JEDI Was A Star Wars Fan’s Star Wars Film… Until It Wasn’t
“[The Last Jedi] was the first time I’d seen a Star Wars film that had clearly been made by someone who loved the series as much as, and had thought about it as obsessively as, me.”
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All the Young Dudes: SOLO and the Plight of the Prequel
Happy Star Wars Day! I wrote a small piece of this. I think you can imagine which piece. Read it here: https://www.tiff.net/the-review/solo-and-the-plight-of-the-prequel/
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Make Your Kid a TIFF Kids Kid this March Break
Once per calendar year, I get pulled off the bench and allowed to write something for our web site. This year, I picked the TIFF Kids films I’m most looking forward to!
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Rey Before Rey: Padmé Is the Protagonist of THE PHANTOM MENACE
Among many things, one area where The Phantom Menace falls behind the other Star Wars films is its lack of a clear hero’s journey, driving the narrative as Luke’s drives Star Wars and Rey’s drives The Force Awakens. Fans like myself have debated Episode I’s weird plot — and its issues — for years, and one question that comes up…
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10+ Years Later: THE GOLDEN COMPASS, a Failed Footnote in Fantasy Adaptations
I’m reading La Belle Sauvage this week and I’m happy as a clam, and the timing feels right to tear (yet another) strip off The Golden Compass, which was an abjectly terrible adaptation of (my favourite) book.
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Destroy All Monsters: All Monsters Destroyed
“All Monsters Destroyed?” Well no, of course not. I wish the things that became the common themes in my weekly column at Screen Anarchy over the course of the past 4+ years could be called “resolved” — but really, they’ve just become part and parcel of the fabric of our conversations around pop culture in ever-increasing…
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Destroy All Monsters: In Light of WONDER WOMAN, It’s Time To Reconsider 1984’s SUPERGIRL
Like the others in the very slim “before Wonder Woman” canon, Supergirl is largely considered to be an outright creative misfire, except, I dunno – it sorta rules? It’s cheesy and silly the way adventure movies for families were back then, but I grew up with this stuff and can assure you, it’s far from…