Monday, May 30, 2005

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.