Teasing "The Last Jedi"

Click to see the poster largeStar Wars: The Last Jedi opens this December to once again hog all the media attention and all the box office and probably 3 or so Oscar nominations, too. (Here is the new poster to the left.)

The hilariously drama queen thing about the title and Luke Skywalker's pronouncement at the end of the new teaser is that we (i.e. everyone on the planet with any sense) know there will never be a "last" Jedi. Not with literally billions to be made every single year from milking this franchise until no one cares anymore ... an event that surely won't occur in our lifetimes. 

Exhausting as it can be sometimes to live inside a film culture that wants the exact same things annually: two Marvels, two DCs scattered from spring to Fall, a Star Wars movie each Christmas, at least 15 concurrent bi-annual franchises and a few ever-discussed franchises that are infrequent (James Bond for one), Disney has done a bang-up job stoking the fire for annual Star Wars adventures, a fire that would burn bright without any stoking whatsoever!

But they stoke well you must admit. Here is the excellent teaser for The Last Jedi, which is mostly focused on Luke and Rey with a few key shots reminding us of the other players. 

What'cha think? 

On this day: Best Actress Tie, Lincoln Assassination... and a Tarzan and Jill Marriage.

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz...

1865 President Lincoln is assassinated. He's surely the President that's hit the movies the most often, most successfully in Steven Spielberg's fantastic Lincoln (2012)

1894 The first commercial motion picture house opens using Thomas Edison's "kinetoscope" device. You had to look through a peephole though so it was only one viewer at a time, though the venue had 10 of the machines. Coincidentally Thomas Edison will be played by Benedict Cumberbath in this year's Oscar hopeful The Current War which is about Edison's battle with George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) over sustainable electricity in America...

1904 Sir John Gielgud, one of the great British actors, was born. He won the Oscar for Arthur (1981) but his filmography stretches all the way from the silent era through Elizabeth (1998)

1925 Oscar regular Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, The Pawnbroker, In the Heat of the Night) born

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Say What? Tom Cruise Stunting for "M:I 6"

Chris here. Now that filming has commenced on Mission: Impossible 6, we can start anticipating what stunt queen master Tom Cruise is prepping for our amazement. How can he top hanging from a giant skyscraper or strapping himself to a flying plane this time? Time will tell but we have already been told that Cruise has been prepping for a year on the showstopper. Maybe new costar Henry Cavill can get in on the fun?

Cruise was recently filming a more low-key feat on the Paris streets, crashing a motorcycle and somersaulting over a car on a wire. By comparison of several hundred feet, this stunt is positively quaint. But what's Tom got on his mind as he breezes through the air? Tell us in the comments!

Michael Ballhaus (1935-2017)

by Nathaniel R

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus. The 81 year old artist was a crucial figure in making me the movie maniac that I am today. Michelle Pfeiffer on the piano top in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) -- hell the entire movie -- being a defining image in my life, after which I went from enthusiastic regular moviegoer to celluloid-devouring obsessive.

Ballhaus had retired after Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) making only one German movie in the last decade of his life and we had hoped each year that he'd be announced as an Honorary Oscar recipient. His three scant nominations -- The Fabulous Baker Boys, Broadcast News, and Gangs of New York -- do no justice to his long and gorgeous career. That's because they don't feel representative of his career as a whole and because, apart from his crowning glory (Baker Boys -- which ought to have walked away with Cinematography in just about any year, let alone 1989) aren't even his best work.

Ballhaus and Fassbinder worked together all through the 70s

Ballhaus got his start as a young man of 24 in German television but quickly graduated to features...

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Jack Linker

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