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Thumbnails 5/12/17

Rest in Peace, Al Nalbandian; Merging of Hollywood and China; Nnedi Okorafor on whitewashing; Decline of the Western; Kristen Stewart on bisexuality.

Ebert Club

#268 January 7, 2016

Sheila writes: Happy New Year! In the wake of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," I came across a video put together by violinist Taylor Davis, where she plays the famous themes from John Williams' original score, both "light" and "dark." Arranged, orchestrated and performed by Davis, it's a fun and rousing celebration of the possibilities inherent in that music. Have a look!

Far Flungers

The Dark Knight Rises, an American genre falls

I love the Dark Knight Trilogy for one simple reason: it gave me the permission that I didn't know I was looking for to dislike all the rest of the Superhero movies. The high point of my dislike came in the highly ambitious "The Avengers" of this past summer. Don't get the wrong idea: as far as superhero movies go, it is one of the best, or at least it is one of the biggest. But something was wrong. It suffers from the same thing that the whole genre has suffered from. First and foremost, we are watching a bunch of costumed adults pretending that they're children in an expensive suburban Daycare. Second, the genre has otherwise exhausted itself to the point of exciting ritual. Third, the movies in the Dark Knight trilogy are solid and smart entertainment (though not without their flaws).

Scanners

Faces in the crowd: Here's looking at you, Nashville

For some reason I have the notion that the guy with the camera, getting the low-angle shots of Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley) against that American flag that stretches across the Parthenon from sea to shining sea, is the cinematographer Paul Lohmann. Is that right?

I didn't know it at the time, but 35 years ago the course of my life was set into motion. It began, no doubt, the previous summer with Roman Polanski's "Chinatown," followed the next June by Robert Altman's "Nashville." If those two movies -- seen at the impressionable ages of 16 and 17 -- don't thoroughly transform your world, then I don't know what would. I'd always loved the arts, but from that moment on I knew for certain that movies were the art form of the century -- my century -- because never before could such vibrant, kinetic masterpieces have been born. They made me feel fortunate to have come into the world just at the moment in human history when, at long last, such miracles became possible.