jon lamoreaux

This is multi Oscar nominated director Jason Reitman’s seventh feature film—Thank You For Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), Up In The Air (2009), being just some of them. It’s also his second film starring Oscar winner Charlize Theron (Young Adult (2011)) and his third time collaborating with screenwriter Diablo Cody who won an Oscar for her Juno screenplay.

I’ll throw this out there now—and said it when I saw it in 2017—THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI will take Best Picture at the 2018 Academy Awards on Sunday, March 4th, 2018. Here are the rest of KEY nominations and my very early predictions:

Best Picture Call Me By Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – MY PICK

Best Director Dunkirk - Christopher Nolan Get Out - Jordan Peele Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig Phantom Thread - Paul Thomas Anderson The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro – MY PICK

Best Actor Timothée Chalamet - Call Me By Your Name Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out – MY PICK Gary Oldman - Darkest Hour Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Best Actress Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water Frances McDormand - Three Billboards – MY PICK Margot Robbie - I, Tonya Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird Meryl Streep - The Post

Best Supporting Actor Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards – MY PICK

Best Supporting Actress Mary J. Blige - Mudbound Allison Janney - I, Tonya Lesley Manville - Phantom Thread Laurie Metcalf - Lady Bird – MY PICK Octavia Spencer - The Shape of Water

Best Adapted Screenplay Call Me By Your Name – MY PICK The Disaster Artist Molly's Game Logan Mudbound

Best Original Screenplay The Big Sick Get Out Lady Bird The Shape of Water Three Billboards – MY PICK

The 8th and probably most controversial Star Wars film—more so than Phantom Menace and its Jar Jar Binks, due to fan division on liking or not liking what director Rian Johnson (Looper (2012), Brick (2005)) has written and directed here—continues the Skywalker saga as the remaining Rebel resistance fighters battle the galactic Empire’s neo-Nazi-like step children, the First Order. Returning are newish characters from The Force Awakens, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and Rey (Daisy Ridley), as well as Luke Skywalker himself played by Mark Hamill.

 The Story: Rey, still struggling with her identity and new Force skills, finds herself living on a remote island with Master Jedi Luke Skywalker who doesn’t want anything to do with her story or any of the past Star Wars family members, saying as much, “the Jedi need to end,” and “this is not going to go the way you think,” when she asks him to help train her to be a Jedi. The First Order, led by Supreme Leader Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) push and retaliate against the resistance led by General Organa (Carrie Fisher) who fight to preserve freedom in the universe while escaping the First Order’s daunting weaponry.

 The Goods: The 8th Star Wars film continues down the path of Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, and exceeds in some areas here by breaking new ground. A hyperspace stunt by Vice Admiral Holdo, played by two-time Oscar nominated actress Laura Dern, shows what space wars are all about with the obliteration of giant space crafts and the reality of space which is that space is silent, there are no explosion sounds and the plu-plu-plu of lasers from space ships. There is a definite consistency here with space battle effects that occur across all Star Wars films. A bit of fantasy too, when The Force is awakened in certain characters, like General Leia, which you might liken to Mary Poppins or something from Harry Potter. Disney would like to think they’ve cracked open a marketing and deeper product sales egg with this move. It’s not that bad in the context of things. Especially knowing that Ms. Fisher passed away just as production completed on The Last Jedi, and as jolting and potentially joking a notion like this might be it plays off sort of sweetly and captures a Cinderella-like magic that was achieved quite well with Rey in the 2015 Episode VII, The Force Awakens.

 The Flaws: But the screen time we’ve had with all of these characters in the past, especially Rey and Finn, who had nearly an hour dedicated to them alone in the first half of the previous Star Wars film, is exceedingly diminished here due to new characters—Admiral Holdo, a mechanic named Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, and a dude named DJ played by Benicio Del Toro (no relation to Marvel Comics’ The Collector)—who take up more time with their own sort-of intermingling screen time with previous characters. Plus we have more time with Luke, and Leia, deservedly so but still undeveloped and with questions unanswered, which the last of this trilogy, Episode IX, to be directed by J.J. Abrams, will certainly address.  Screen time is not necessarily the winning component to character development but it’s crucial in terms of getting a character to arc through a beginning, middle and end story-line, within scenes and within this “episode.” That we don’t have real character development here with any of the many characters leaves us a) wanting more, b) disappointed we didn’t get more, c) disappointed we left with questions unanswered, d) let down that we didn’t spend more time with those characters Rey and Finn from The Force Awakens, e) no real solid time with Luke and what he’s been up to, why he’s so upset about the Jedi, and what’s at the heart of what some might consider a cowardice attitude, and f) all of the above balled up in a nut shell of flatness and two-dimension. That last letter, F, should sort of reflect the grade this film receives too, due to poor character development. But it retains higher marks because of Johnson’s dip into nostalgia, and his grasp of the Star Wars universe as it exists now under the Disney umbrella—which is to say, maybe, let’s water this down for a wider audience and the next generation, for viewers who may have never seen a Star Wars film, let’s not go into too much detail, let’s provide some visual spectacle for the high price of seats, let’s give the old fans from the ‘70’s a little something, and let’s explore the successes of Twilight and Harry Potter films in the sense young adults are looking for characters to latch onto, to receive some sense of young romance to live vicariously through, and let’s not just sell toys the whole time but showcase a few key cool things the little kids can make wish lists with. Oh, and let’s always have an atmosphere and setting of general wonder that Disney can recreate at their theme parks. I hope that covers it all, because Disney was trying to do that too. And it feels like it.  

 The Call: None of which, or any of this really, has anything to do with finely tuned characters that we go into the theater hoping to lose ourselves in. I say spend the ten if you’re a fan, of course! But it’s not the best of the Star Wars films. By far. Many are comparing it to The Empire Strikes Back which that film still remains a better film, and one of the best in the overall main saga. Comparing just the number of characters in the two middle trilogy films, The Empire Strikes Back and The Last Jedi, you’ll find that The Empire Strikes Back has four or five main characters to deal with and maybe three or four ancillary characters like Lando, Chewbacca, Boba Fett, the droids, etc. whereas The Last Jedi has Leia, Luke, Poe, Finn, Rey, a new character, Rose, Holdo, Kylo, Snoke, DJ the Thief, and the remaining side characters and droids, not to mention cute cuddly penguin-like creatures called Pogs. That’s a lot. And there is more in The Last Jedi, General Hux, Captain Phasma…so, search your feelings…the Force is crowded with this one, and therefore not as personable as a Star Wars film usually is.

 Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence. Running time is 2 hours and 32 minutes.

The path to new Star Wars stories has been carved and cut and whether you like this first one or not—the first live action Star Wars product to arrive outside of the Skywalker saga (and by product let’s call it Star Wars product B, C, or D to the original main series A)—it's a success for Disney. And though it’s different, let’s say it has a pleasant Star Wars veneer, it still works competitively well in the new episodic, binge watching digital TV and theater world we live in.

 The Story: A band of Alliance Rebels—think French and British underground rebels fighting the Nazis in WWII—know the power and destruction of the Empire’s latest weapon called the Death Star. They must at all costs steal the digital blueprints of the planet-destroying spaceship in order to stop the tyranny of an army in possession of such a fearsome device. We do indeed see the Death Star’s strength in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) for which that film acts as a sequel, sort of, to this prequel. Central to the rebel endeavor is Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, whose father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is one of the weapon’s creators.

 The Goods: For the Disney business model, and for Star Wars fans, the film is a huge plus. There is already, and there will continue to be, endless products and programming as the Mouse that bought Luscasfilm for $4 billion in 2012 will be story-mining details of previous films and characters from those films for decades to come.  And this will be for all demographics and age groups regardless of whether those products are critically received or not.  Which brings us to this semi-inaugural film—not animated like Star Wars Rebels, the Lego Star Wars films or Star Wars: The Clone Wars—but linked in terms of the Rebels’ fight, in a space war, with the Empire just like all of the films and ancillary TV and game commodities before it.

 Most diehard fanatics who were there in 1977 won't feel the same however, for Rogue One, as a younger crowd might but that's why rolling these new items out every few years is important—it’s a scientific, mathematic equation that Disney’s quantitative assessment analysts have forecasted accurately—that they will continue to reach out and appeal to a new generation at every turn.  But it’s important to point out, spoiler free, that they didn't ruin Star Wars. Disney and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards didn’t harm the Star Wars legacy or universe in any way, and that’s very important to know going into Rogue One.

 The genius of all this is that it’s probably impossible to do so because the originals, Episode IV, V, and VI sort of exist in this historic vacuum.  Yes, in Rogue One they use props, tools, machines, wardrobe and uniforms from previous films—from the 1977 original, specifically—and used one of an infinite amount of moments from Star Wars lore for the Rogue One story but the rest as a whole is mostly a digression like you might see in a midseason episode of The Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones. That’s to say it’s not a massively impressive “episode” (like season five episode eight of Game of Thrones, Wildlings vs. Walkers) that makes you drool for more, or want to tell people about it the next day at work, even wanting to talk about it with people who don’t watch. Rather that Rogue One is more like one of those sort of book-to-TV adapted filler episodes with 70% talking and character development, and 30% action. Which still gives us the goods to keep us watching until next week though not as hair raising.

 Though Rogue One is not as aesthetically pleasing or paced as well as Edwards’ other films, Monsters (2010) and Godzilla (2014), and I can’t believe I’m saying a Godzilla film is better than a Star Wars film, Rogue One is still well put together in terms of the story and plot territory it covers and the actual war battle sequences that ensue. The best parts of Rogue One are the actual “star wars” dog fights between the Rebel X-Wing fighters and the Empire’s TIE fighters, and blaster-laden land battles in exotic locations, which are extremely well done. And then there’s Darth Vader. Vader makes an appearance in the film, not a spoiler here because you see him in the trailers, but let's just say his appearance in the film and the lead-up to Episode IV is worth the cost of admission.

The Flaws: Edwards knows Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick well.  He is a student of great cinema, and you can see that in his other work.  Most of the awesome, wide vistas and images of great breadth we see in the trailers for Rogue One—very similar to use of great spatial dimensions on screen in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and found in John Ford films—are missing from Rogue One’s finished presentation and seem to be only found in production stills used in marketing and advertising.  In that respect the ads sell a completely different, expansive, wide screen creative work that is opposite of the quick, short, almost TV-like one we see in Rogue One.  

 It is a well done cover of a Star Wars original, certainly not part of their flagship class A line.  To think they may have purposefully set out to make a Star Wars film, for the big screen, that doesn’t try as hard to be better than the rest is disappointing. Like purposefully not using certain John Williams created Star Wars score cues to amplify emotional moments as heard in the A films. Instead there is a completely new though familiar sounding accompaniment to keep the films separate, while visually keeping it all in the family, which defeats the purpose really. Especially when Rogue One needs that familiar Star Wars theme to help when solid character development fails.

 In reality Rogue One is no different then something you might see in an NBC Heroes episode circa 2006, or Agents of Shield, or something from the early 2000's on the Syfy channel, like Battlestar Galactica from 2004. That is to say polished, action oriented with long sequences of dialogue for budget purposes. And while several “shows” from the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s paved the way for Netflix, Prime, HBO, Hulu and their bread and butter serial TV, Heroes and Galactica stand out as the kind of new kid on the block products these streaming channels gunned for. Rogue One could be a part of that category. Even though it’s not TV it certainly feels like it. Not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just not of the Class A Star Wars echelon we’re familiar with when we go to the theater.

 Here’s what watching Rogue One felt like to me: since I mentioned Battlestar Galactica, if you saw the original Star Wars film in 1977, in a theater, and then a year or so later saw Battlestar Galactica, the movie, in the theater, you would understand what it feels like to see Rogue One. Sure they’re different, absolutely. And how can you compare anything to the original Star Wars. George Lucas sued the producers of Battlestar Galactica for certain technical similarities to Star Wars: A New Hope, and John Dykstra who was a special effects supervisor on A New Hope also worked on Battlestar Galactica. Regardless, one felt like the greatest space adventure ever while the other felt like the TV pilot space war surrogate that it was. And that’s sort of what we’re talking about here. Coming from a huge Star Wars fan.

 Again, I can’t say enough of how much I appreciate and applaud what Disney and Lucasfilm have done. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws. The major error for me in Rogue One (as if I haven’t been critical enough) is the very limited but highly visible use of computer graphics to create two well known Star Wars characters. It's great CG animation, don’t get me wrong, but it's also noticeable as such. So when the rest of the film looks incredibly real, in terms of old school model making and matte paintings, and shooting on location, when none of the characters are animated and along comes a cartoon you really know and feel it and it removes you quickly from the film. Not quite Jar Jar Binks distraction, but along those lines. More like in Tron: Legacy (2010) when Jeff Bridges' computer likeness appeared.

 When George Lucas did this with the prequels, Episodes I, II and III, he interweaved an equal amount of human actors with computer generated ones and the finished product while at first was hard to swallow soon turned into a crafty, acceptable balance we learned to live with through those three films. Like watching a foreign film with subtitles, or a Shakespearean British drama, it takes a good fifteen to twenty minutes to get into it and assimilate the presentation. Whereas here when suddenly after an hour of solid human interaction we get an artificial actor well it just feels out of the norm. There’s not enough of it seasoned throughout the film to allow us to get comfortable with it. Sort of cool, yes. But it fails the movie in its disruption. Especially when compared to nostalgic, organic realism of 2015’s Episode VII, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 The Call: Spend the ten. Regardless of my personal petty criticisms, as a long-time Star Wars fan, Rogue One has some hot action adventure sequences—though not as many as talking ones—and an appearance by the one and only Darth Vader (voiced once again, thankfully, by the great James Earl Jones). Kudos to Disney and Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, for successfully planning, executing and inaugurating the Star Wars Story line for Star Wars where we are sure to see a Star Wars story for everyone. And on every device.

 Running time is 2 hours and 14 minutes. Rated PG-13 for extended sequences