Star Wars: A New Hope

Everyone's Favorite
Originally uploaded by Kiel Bryant

The whim came over me yesterday to watch Star Wars, not just any Star Wars but the version of A New Hope from my childhood – you know the one where the blur at the bottom of Luke’s landspeeder was created by putting vaseline on the camera lens. As much as I appreciate Lucas’s desire to “complete” the things he did in the original trilogy, I must say that I don’t think they needed it. The original Star Wars movies have always been perfect in my opinion and to this day the special effect completely hold up with things being produced by effects studios that have almost 30 years on Lucas and his garage effects.

The first and foremost thing that is right with the original edition – Han shoots first! I’m sorry, Greedo doesn’t shoot at Han who then fires back, or they both shoot at the same time – Han is the badass that knows he has to shoot first or die first, and that is the PERFECT set up for his character versus the rest of the more sheltered main characters in the film. Luke is naive, Leia is powerless and Han gets the job done.

I must also say that the prequels must be ignored to truly enjoy the original trilogy. If you actually think about metichlorines, whiny little Anakin, the old republic, or the way Revenge of the Sith ended, you will sit puzzling at how nothing actually fits together. And I’m sorry, the force is so much cooler when you don’t know it’s little organisms in your blood and body that control it. I could have lived without that knowledge – all I needed to know was that it “surrounds us” and I was cool.

Star Wars is the corner stone of the entire franchise, and I have to say that in the filmography of George Lucas it is his best directorial effort. One major element of this is the cast he chose; Lucas put a great deal of emphasis on casting, and wanting to make sure that his main characters had chemistry – he actually did group auditions for the three leads and I have to say that paid off.

Director & Writer: George Lucas
Luke Skywaler: Mark Hamill
Han Solo: Harrison Ford
Princess Leia: Carrie Fisher
Obi-Wan: Alec Guinness
Darth Vader: James Earl Jones

Obi-Wan: Your father's light saber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times...before the Empire.

When Harry Met Sally

If all romantic comedies were as good as When Harry Met Sally I would not hold the disdain for the genre as I do. However, very few movies – romantic comedy or not – can grasp the level of quality and comedy that When Harry Met Sally has.

Harry Burns and Sally Albright meet right after college when Sally’s friend Amanda gets Sally to agree to let her boyfriend Harry drive to New York with Sally. The two dislike each other because Harry has a very dark view of life that Sally cannot appreciate and Harry cannot understand the rose colored view that Sally has. A few years later the two meet again on a flight and butt heads when Harry again reminds Sally of his initial theory that women and men can’t be friends, he also announces to a very shocked Sally that he is about to be married. They to part ways after departing the plane and don’t meet again until a few years later when Harry is getting divorced and Sally had just broken up with her long term boyfriend. This time Harry and Sally recognize the unique spirit in each other and forge a strong friendship that has all of their friends pushing for the two of them to get together, but Harry and Sally insist that they are the only members of the opposite sex that do not see each other in a sexual way. This of course is eventually what changes, altering their relationship and their lives forever.

The star of this movie for me is the writing of Nora Ephron. These characters so perfectly represent a natural character arch for their genders that you can believe they’ve aged eleven years in the two hour time span that the movie takes place in. I know that When Harry Met Sally was a partnership between the lead actors, Rob Reiner and Ephron but her track record proves that she again and again writes great films that people want to see. Her dialogue is simply so good that you will be quoting lines like “you made a woman meow” for years to come.

As a testimony of Ephron’s great writing is the scene at the deli in this movie. Even if you haven’t seen When Harry Met Sally you have seen the clip somewhere of Sally performing a fake orgasm for Harry at lunch, followed by an older woman telling the waiter “I’ll have what she’s having”.

I also adore the faux documentary sections that are used as a device between sections of the film. In these documentary clips an old couple sits and tells their love story – the story of how they met and got married. What is most fun about these clips is that they are real love stories – just not told by the actual couple. Evidently, Reiner and Ephron wanted to have the stories told by the real couples but as couples do they just couldn’t be concise or stay on topic, and so they decided to take the stories but get actors to tell them. The device is charming and one of the funniest things about the movie.

This is one of my favorite movies and it brought me into awareness that you can have an “odd” pairing of actors, or crazy situations and as long as you have the right actors in the part and the right people behind the scenes it will all work. This movie is timeless because the people making it took every opportunity to take the effort and craft When Harry Met Sally into a complete and perfect movie.

Director: Rob Reiner
Writer: Nora Ephron
Harry Burns: Billy Crystal
Sally Albright: Meg Ryan
Marie: Carrie Fisher
Jess: Bruno Kirby

Marie: All I'm saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don't get him first, somebody else will, and you'll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband.