Han Solo shoots first: original 1977 Star Wars print to screen in London

Showing all posts tagged: film

Han Solo shoots first: original 1977 Star Wars print to screen in London

17 April 2025

The British Film Institute (BFI) has kept a copy of the 1977 print of Star Wars in their archive, which will screen as part of Film on Film festival, in the British capital, taking place from Thursday 12 June until Sunday 15 June 2025. I have the feeling tickets will sell quickly.

After making changes to the original edition, Star Wars creator George Lucas dismissed the concerns of fans in 2004, berating them for liking “half a completed film”.

Numerous alterations were made to A New Hope, and the other two titles in the original trilogy series, but the most contentious saw Greedo, a bounty hunter, firing his weapon first at Han Solo during their confrontation at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Viewers of the 1977 print will recall it was Solo who shot first. The edit went on to spawn the Alderaan shot first meme.

Meta seeks to improve cinema experience by encouraging smartphone use

15 April 2025

After unleashing their content polluting algorithms onto our social media feeds, allowing the display of stuff (sorry, content is not the right word in this context) from people we don’t follow, far less even heard of, Facebook owner Meta wants to interfere with the film watching experience.

Technology called Movie Mate, will allow people to “second screen” during a film, that is, watch a feature on the big screen, while accessing related “exclusive content” on their smartphones. As if second screening, whereby people don’t put their phones down at the cinema, isn’t already a big enough problem, and Meta wants to encourage the practise.

But let’s talk about second screening for a minute. I don’t have a problem with what’s sometimes referred to as content grazing, while watching a movie. In fact, I find it quite relaxing. I might stream a movie I’m familiar with, and lookup other things on my phone. Since I know what’s going to happen in the story, I can multitask a bit, without worrying about missing anything important.

But this is at home, not in a movie theatre, being the only place Movie Mate will be available. And sure, access to story related trivia, director’s commentaries, and deleted scenes is fun, but hardly while watching the film at the same time. Won’t that be distracting, especially for first-time viewers? Isn’t there the risk they’ll miss something important?

It makes me wonder what the intent of second screen technology really is.

From Meta’s point of view though, it’s pretty simple. They like to take something sensible and straightforward, say a social media feed featuring only content people want to see, and muddy it up. From a film producer’s perspective though? That’s a little trickier to fathom. I don’t see how presenting extra-features content, simultaneously, during the film is screening, is meant to be useful.

For repeat viewings, and at home, of course. But not in a theatre full of people who want see a film, not a sea of phone screens. The second screen technology will be trailed in American cinemas during limited run re-screenings of 2022 horror title M3GAN, in a few weeks. Ok, a lot of people have already seen M3GAN, so just maybe checking out extra features in this fashion won’t be a problem.

But making only-for-use-in-cinema second screen tech available for first-time releases, premieres even? Now there’s a horror story in the making.

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film, film production, technology

The Phoenician Scheme, the new film by Wes Anderson

8 April 2025

The Phoenician Scheme, trailer, is the thirteenth feature of American filmmaker Wes Anderson. As ever, you don’t need to see Anderson’s name on the trailer to know this is a Wes Anderson film.

Many of his regular collaborators return, including Willem Dafoe, Scarlett Johansson, Rupert Friend, and of course Bill Murray, in what is billed as an espionage black comedy, and centres on a strained father-daughter relationship.

And the bit you’ve been waiting for… The Phoenician Scheme opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 29 May 2025. This just might necessitate a visit to the cinema that day.

The grim reality of filmmaking in Australia: the glam of Hollywood it is not

7 April 2025

Tangentially related to last Thursday’s post… Australian actor and filmmaker Matthew Holmes (The Biscuit Effect, Twin Rivers, The Legend of Ben Hall, and The Cost), speaks out in an open letter about the lamentable state of the Australian film industry:

All my films have won awards at film festivals and received fair to excellent critical praise. They have been sold and distributed worldwide to Showtime, HBO, Stan, Prime Video, Apple TV+, SBS, Vudu, Tubi, Peacock, 9GEM, and Foxtel and they’ve been released on DVD and Blu-Ray. Yet, the financial return I’ve seen personally from all four films combined would barely amount to $6,000.

Certainly there are successful, well-off, Australian filmmakers.

Yet it is defies belief that a director like Holmes, who’s made a number of award winning, and well received features, is in the predicament he finds himself in. Holmes isn’t alone. Other Australian directors, with quality work to their names, struggle to obtain funding, while other, far inferior offerings (names not being named) get the green light.

Cinemas are just so twentieth century

3 April 2025

Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, says cinemas are dead. There’s a bold call. Certainly it can be argued there is no need for cinemas any more. No one needs to go to a cinema to see a movie nowadays. They can do that from the comfort of their own home.

Despite the ease and convenience of watching films at home, negating the need for the middle-person that is a movie theatre, I think cinemas will be with us for a while yet. Going to the movies is a social and entertainment experience. A night on the town, sort of thing. Patronage might be down, and we might see some closures, but I doubt cinemas will go away completely.

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film, movies, trends

The Inner West Film Fest part three, scary clowns, road trips, and other films

27 March 2025

The Inner West Film Fest returns for its third outing, between Wednesday 9 April to Thursday 17 April 2025. The inner west — for readers outside of Australia, and that’s a fair few you — is a group of suburbs to the west of downtown Sydney, not too close in, but not too far out either. Newtown, Leichhardt, Balmain, and Marrickville, are among the suburbs in Sydney’s inner west.

Flat Girls by Jirassaya Wongsutin, Who by Fire by Philippe Lesage, and The King Tide by Christian Sparkes, are but a few of the titles screening. Check out the festival trailer for the vibe.

The mysterious death of a young woman’s uncle triggers family turmoil in On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, trailer, by Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni. The title screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2024, but isn’t in theatrical release in Australia, as far as I can see, so check the streaming services.

Deux personnes échangeant de la salive (Two People Exchanging Saliva) a short by Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh, is set in a repressive world where kissing is illegal. Don’t snigger: it might happen. Luàna Bajrami, who featured in Portrait of a Lady on Fire (presently stream-able on Kanopy, by the way), stars as Malaise. See the teaser here (Instagram link).

With or Without You, trailer, by Kelly Schilling, an Adelaide, Australia based filmmaker, is a road trip story about three people, at odds with each other, forced to drive together across Australia. With or Without You opens in local cinemas on Thursday 8 May 2025.

Why do clowns and horror stories go together so well? I have no idea. But if you like horror movies featuring sinister clowns, then Clown in a Cornfield, trailer, directed by Eli Craig, might be for you. Also opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 8 May 2025.

Small Things Like These, a film by Tim Mielants, with Cillian Murphy, Emily Watson

13 March 2025

Small Things Like These, trailer, directed by Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants, and starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Watson, looks like a drama/thriller not to be missed.

Based on the novel of the same name by Irish writer Claire Keegan, and set in 1985, Murphy portrays Bill Furlong, who works as a coal merchant and timber merchant, in the Irish town of New Ross.

After finding a young girl locked in shed while on a delivery job, he takes her a convent to be cared for. But it soon becomes apparent things are not what they seem to be at the convent. Bill goes on to not only uncover some disturbing secrets about the convent, but also his own past.

Small Things Like These opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 10 April 2025.

Wake in Fright, Ted Kotcheff’s Australian outback classic, restored by Mark Hartley

7 March 2025

Canadian filmmaker Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 drama/thriller Wake in Fright, trailer, set in the Australian outback, is being re-released after being remastered by Australian film director Mark Hartley.

Wake in Fright may not be a horror film in the conventional sense, but to be trapped alone, in a mining town in the middle of no where, full of hard drinking, gun-totting men, who slaughter kangaroos for leisure, might make it seem that way.

But Wake in Fright was lucky to see the light day again.

The camera negatives were lost soon after the film’s 1971 theatrical run, and turned up in a rubbish bin in the US city of Pittsburgh in 2002. Hartley commenced work to restore the film several years ago, collaborating with Charlie Ellis, who did the colour correction.

The Phone Call, a short film by Mat Kirkby, with Sally Hawkins

5 March 2025

Aside from a co-worker, possibly a boyfriend, and the voice of veteran actor Jim Broadbent, British actor Sally Hawkins is about the only person visible in the twenty-minute short feature The Phone Call, trailer, made in 2013, by Mat Kirkby.

In Kirby’s collaboration with James Lucas, who wrote the screenplay, Hawkins portrays Heather, a reserved, bookish, crisis help-line worker. Heather’s shift has barely started, when she takes a call from a distressed elderly man, calling himself Stan (Broadbent). Heather desperately want to help, but Stan is unyielding, and time is running out. Suspense hangs heavily in the air.

The Phone Call, which won the short film (live action) award in the 2015 Oscars, can be viewed in full here. You won’t be disappointed. I can’t think of single dud Hawkins has starred in.

How many people will Oscar winners thank? How long will they speak for?

3 March 2025

A forty-five second limit for Oscar acceptance speeches was introduced in 2010, but that doesn’t always stop the motivated. Or those who feel they need to acknowledge everyone who contributed to their award. Back in the day — seventy plus years ago — acceptances were usually only a few words long. But a decade ago, they were pushing three-hundred words, says Stephen Follows:

Acceptance speeches in the middle of the 20th century were exactly that, a chance to accept the award and say thank you. Over time, they have evolved into a platform to express opinions, share emotions, and highlight personal journeys.

Why the increase? Having the undivided attention of what was once a large, captive audience, might have been something to do with it. Today, of course, Oscar recipients have the social media platforms, offering a continuous outlet, not just forty-five seconds of television.

On the subject of social media platforms, the size of Oscar television audiences has, overall, been in decline — at least in the United States — plunging to a nadir of about ten million viewers in 2021. What’s going on there? Were people keeping tabs on the Oscar’s ceremony through the likes of TikTok and Instagram, or has there been a general loss of interest in the awards?

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