Word: wit
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Lucas may be obsessed with all things digital, but in this film he and co-writer Jonathan Hales also appear fully engaged with his flesh-and-blood characters. Obi-Wan, in the form of McGregor's bearded visage, is growing into the moral authority and gruff wit exuded by Alec Guinness as the fogie Kenobi in Star Wars. His exasperation with Anakin has a paternal tint. In that Coruscant night chase, Anakin is the car-crazy teenager of many Lucas films, and Obi-wan is the speed demon's nervous dad who regrets giving his son the keys...
...girl's nickname, a gentle emasculator--and telling him, "You'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine." He doesn't help his case by plighting his troth at every opportunity. (Is there anything less sexy than declared devotion?) But gradually, Padme, beguiled by Anakin's quick wit and impressed by his martial skills, comes to realize that they are destined to be together. And not just because the audience knows they will be the parents of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. As the galaxy careers toward catastrophe, the imminence of total war unites them, gives emotional weight...
...super strength and rear-mounted machine guns to fight evil robots. The longest of the three self-contained stories, "The Hot Dog Corps," involves a queen whose robot spaceship pilots shoot down any rocket headed for the moon. Filled with the mischievous mayhem that boys love, but told with wit and imagination, the stories always have an underlying theme of friendship and goodwill. Drawn with a whimsical simplicity based heavily on the Disney cartoons, Tezuka has a loopy sense of humor. He will sometimes insert nonsense characters into a scene just for fun. One Brechtian moment has Mr. Mustachio kicking...
...including Twisted Sister's Dee Snider (as himself) and Frank Zappa (Griffin Dunne), portrayed ludicrously as a kind of chain-smoking Yoda to Priestley's yuppie acolyte. It's a rich premise, but this farce has all the subtlety of a Twisted Sister video--and about one-tenth the wit...
...nostalgic no more. The old form is alive--with a nice femme kick--in British writer-director John McKay's Crush. The film bubbles with acid wit, in the tradition of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, while simmering with the ache of lust pursued and love lost. Pleasanter still, it provides a career-defining role for its all-American star, Andie MacDowell, who's been nibbling at the edges of moviegoers' attention for 20 years and now gets to stand center screen, tall and gorgeous. Combined with her stalwart turn in Elie Chouraqui's Harrison's Flowers, as a journalist...