Star Wars Trailer Breakdown - Good and Bad

It was one of the great shocks of my young life to find out Darth Vader's true identity. I followed my dad around, badgering him with questions. How could that be? Anakin is dead! He's not dead? Obi-Wan said he was. He LIED? Why didn't Obi-Wan tell Luke the truth? I thought Obi-Wan was a good guy!

12 Years a Slave - How Long Until the Reckoning?

It’s the curse of almost any American movie about race relations to instantly become a political football. I usually ignore the outrage, because in general, these are message movies exploiting furor to distract from dearth of artistry—but 12 Years a Slave is a startling exception.

For one thing, it isn’t a message movie. Well, it kind of is, but it’s not the expected message. This movie isn’t about skin-color, or even prejudice—it’s about slavery. And it’s really about slavery. Easily earning its R-rating, much of the film’s length is spent portraying brutal violence—psychological, physical, and sexual, all this amidst the poverty and privation, hopelessness, nakedness, and cruelty that was the slavery of the American south. It’s graphic, but (except in, perhaps, a few instances) never gratuitously so, never sensationalist, never Tarantino. Indeed, my overall impression was one of restraint, with many long shots, silent but for the sounds of crickets.

And it’s a true story.