easycure

It had been too long since a review on the DTs. Thank goodness!

I would like to know what Poletti thinks of "Trip to the Moon"? ..Because really, even reading many of the recent comments that have broadened my perspective regarding the use of special effects by Lucas, that’s the sense of it. Just to understand if his approach is purely snobbish or rather snob-intellectualistic ;-D

Unanimous chorus of criticism?? ..come on, if you didn’t even provoke this (despite your obvious intent).. :-) if you do the math, there are almost more comments in favor than against your opinion: what doesn’t work in the review is your somewhat a priori closure: who said that Lucas destroys highbrow science fiction? when has he ever had that intent? what does it mean to commercialize science fiction when, in cinematic terms, this is a genre that was primarily born to astonish with imagery? Why talk about blackmail? what does that have to do with anything? is the intent not clear from the start? who would ever interpret this film as "highbrow" science fiction? Come on, that last point is just a total load of nonsense.. I mean, look at the characters, look at the scenic ideas, the special effects themselves, who would ever take this film seriously? :-) ..what is it, did you start watching "Star Wars" thinking you were seeing the new Metropolis or the new Journey to the Moon (the latter, if you think about it, is much closer in spirit to Star Wars than the highbrow science fiction you mention)? Come on, you imposed the blackmail on yourself, let’s be honest..

Moreover, I find your approach rather snobbish, implying that anyone who enjoys this film must be a "fool" :-D ... I'll be honest, I'm not too passionate about it anymore, but if I were a child, I'd consider you a perfect idiot ;-D ... and anyway, critics like Mereghetti or Morandini also consider it a great film. Are they all fools?

but where.. this is a masterpiece.. it will be a masterpiece for childhood (because in the end it has the plot of a fairy tale), it will be purely a masterpiece of entertainment. The fact is that Lucas has carried out a highly creative operation. And where you said it yourself: in the gigantic citational patchwork that forms the backbone of the film, a patchwork that unlike you I don’t see as trivialized (how could it be, after all, if it references Ben Hur in a fantasy/science fiction context?), but rather blended in a completely unpredictable manner in terms of setting, characters, and scenery. It’s obvious that it’s purely a "blockbuster" operation, but certainly Lucas does not have a pretentious, snobbish auteur approach; it’s clear that his intention is to entertain, plain and simple. Yet in this, he managed to create a "monster" that has entered the collective imagination like few other films, truly managing to build, with cinematic language, a sort of science fiction fairy tale destined to remain in Western culture. And this is a feat that only a few in the history of cinema have achieved with such effectiveness.

But really, the Academy is a joke... and it has been for years (or decades??)... the fact that they awarded Departed and not Goodfellas is just proof of the superiority of Goodfellas :-) ...I mean, they managed not to award films like The Thin Red Line or Insider, so how much can the Academy be worth? Let's say maybe as much as the MTV awards. kosmo, the magazine :-D

You made me make mistakes too at the beginning.. ehehehe ;-D

Come on, very different from Mean Streets... it's obvious that we're talking about a film 20 years older, there are indeed differences. But the world of the mafia's laborers, the context, the spirit of Scorsese, as experimental as it is realistic, is the same. Too much so. If you had mentioned Casino, we could agree on more differences, but Goodfellas is almost the hypothetical continuation (or perhaps more accurately, the predecessor) of Mean Streets. Moreover, it's a more general question of approach: Mean Streets is ultimately a very dry film, where every experimentation has an expressive purpose, while Goodfellas and Casino, I'll give you that, draw on their intrinsic baroque essence, they are behemoths of visual excess. I repeat, great, truly great films, but it would be hard to say they aren't manneristic. P.S. it’s not called "Main Streets," it's called "Mean Streets" ;-)

Yesterday I watched Mean Streets, which I believe remains superior to all subsequent mafia movies by Scorsese (and possibly his absolute masterpiece). In light of Mean Streets, both this and Casino are great films, but they suffer from mannerism, at least that’s how I see it.

I heard a song on the radio today... nice, catchy.