Cinematic Thoughts

Hang 'Em High is Hollywood's response to the spaghetti western - borrowing some of the stylistic tics of Sergio Leone and repatriating the scion of spaghetti, Clint Eastwood. Despite this unpromising derivation this is not altogether a poor film. Eastwood is magnetic as ever and the spaghetti ingredients receive a coy leavening of  truth, justice and the American way. I like Eastwood. He can rescue moderate films.

For many afficianados the most depressing words in the language are 'me's a Jar Jar Binks.' I was reminded of this tonight when rather against my better judgement I viewed The Phantom Menace. Actually it is not as bad as my memory had thought. Mind you it's not very good either. Even more off-putting than the Binks banality is Ewan Mcgregor's accurate but annoyingly affected adoption of his best Alec Guiness voice. Ok it's clever and makes theoretical sense but, I'm sorry it just drew yet more attention to the wooden George Lucas dialogue.