Anthony Lane on Star Wars

Anthony Lane's review of the new Star Wars movie in The New Yorker is one of the funniest reviews I've read in quite a long while. Clearly sick of the entire franchise, he's trained his considerable wit on it. I should say that I am not a particular fan of the whole thing and haven't bothered to see any of the 3 movies though perhaps at some point I will just to have that cultural literacy.

Anyway, Lane spends a lot of time discussing George Lucas' puritanism which is interesting, but the jokes are the best part. Here's a few:

"Sith. What kind of a word is that? Sith. It sounds to me like the noise that emerges when you block one nostril and blow through the other, but to George Lucas it is a name that trumpets evil."

"The general opinion of "Revenge of the Sith" seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes...True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion."

Discussing R2-D2 and C-3PO, "I still fail to understand why I should have been expected to waste twenty-five years of my life following the progress of a beeping trash can and a gay, gold-plated Jeeves."

Lane particularly loathes Yoda.

"May I take the opportunity to enter a brief plea in favor of his extermination? Any educated moviegoer would know what to do, having watched that helpful sequence in "Gremlins" when a small, sage-colored beastie is fed into an electric blender."

After speculating on Yoda's lack of a sex life, he continues:

"Also, what we're here, what's with the screwy syntax? Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. "I hope right you are." Break me a fucking give."

I suppose if I cared about these movies, this might piss me off. But considering that I don't, this is the funniest movie review that I can remember ever reading. There are few film reviewers today as valuable and consistently worthwhile to read as Anthony Lane.