I was in high school at exactly the time this show takes place, so this every bit as relatable to me as My So-Called Life. The music, the clothes, the pop-culture references... love it. And that queer romance that takes place in the background -- we see it featured prominently, but the other characters don't seem to notice -- I had one of those too! I was the Kate in that situation (was never "cool" enough to be Emaline, but that's okay -- she's got so many expectations of her that I don't actually envy her). In any case, I do hope there will be a season 2. .Is this show deep? Not really. Is it well-acted? umm.. no. But I enjoy it all the same, and would like to see it continue.
Designated Survivor is great and enjoyable because of the people involved in it... but also increasingly predictable. They have this structure of:
I like the show because I love to see Kiefer Sutherland and the supporting cast has been wonderful as well, and it's been a "feel good" show, really - even when the outcome of Kirkman's problems is not that great, there is still a positive message being shared. And what can I say about Lyor's scenes, always on point. However, I fear that without innovation the show doesn't have much of a future, especially with the investigation stuff not being that interesting. We'll see what happens.
One of the better comedy specials I’ve seen in a long while. Love both these guys.
[7.6/10] Solo has the scruffy confidence to be its own movie. Of the ten Star Wars films, it’s the only so far not to tie directly into the events of the main saga. That alone makes it interesting and laudable as the first real cinematic step of Star Wars ceasing to be a film series and starting to be a “cinematic universe.”
Which isn’t to say the film isn’t closely connected to its predecessors. Solo reveals how Han and Chewbacca first became a team. It features the first meeting between its title character in Lando Calrissian. It even shows how Han ended up with the Millenium Falcon. And that’s setting aside references to a “gangster on Tatooine” and hints of a growing rebellion and familiar characters popping up in unexpected places. Make no mistake -- the film is certainly interested in reminding its viewers where all these characters will be in ten years time.
But it’s also good enough not to be about that. Solo is part-heist flick and part coming-of-age film. It’s more interested in Han’s big adventure in this movie and how he gets to be the sarcastic smuggler we meet in A New Hope than it is in how he fits into the broader Star Wars Universe, to the film’s benefit. The promise of these “Star Wars stories” is that they can use the diverse, elaborate world that George Lucas and his collaborators created to spin all kinds of yarns untethered to the concerns of the Skywalker family. Solo still anchors its story on familiar faces, but tells its own tale, and comes out the better for it.
The big problem with Solo is that it has two modes: (a.) irreverent action/adventure flick filled with colorful characters and (b.) semi-serious interrogation of What Han Solo Is™, and it’s much more entertaining and effective at the former than the latter. The script, penned by Empire Strikes Back scribe Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan, does a superb job at introducing all these figures, old and new, and then letting them bounce off on another in the confines of a rickety old ship and a job pulled at various rough-and-tumble locales. But it falters when trying to use that setup to get at its title character’s true nature.
The film’s thesis on that front is a solid one -- that he is unavoidably rough around the edges, and wants to be “bad,” but deep down he’s good. That is, after all, his essential arc in the Original Trilogy, where a seemingly good-for-nothing smuggler is revealed to have a heart of gold and sympathies to the cause of the Rebellion, or at least his friends. Solo retraces that arc a bit, and weakens Han’s progression in the saga films a little in the course of that, but the Kasdans get Han: the talk that’s bigger than his paydirt, the cocksure improvisational confidence, and the innate goodness that peaks through his rough-hewn if charming exterior which he’ll deny to the end.
The film just does a much better job of showing us those qualities through Han’s actions and attitude than in having various other characters ham-fistedly comment on it and wax rhapsodic about who he’s been and who he’ll be.
The best parts work, as they must, thanks to Alden Ehrenreich, who takes over the role originated by Harrison Ford in 1977’s A New Hope. Following in those iconic footsteps is a tall order, but Ehrenreich makes it work. He doesn't stoop to doing an impression of Ford, short of a few conspicuous mannerisms, but still manages to capture the character’s rakish charm and overconfident, anything goes spirit. Yes, it’s a little hard to grok that this guy becomes 70s era Harrison Ford in ten years, but Ehrenreich absolutely works as Young Han, and the movie wouldn’t work at all without that.
The other characters that populate the film vary a bit more, but are largely fun and entertaining. Woody Harrelson’s turn as Beckett sees him filling the weathered good ol’ boy niche he’s carved out for years now. Emilia Clarke does fine as Qi'ra, who manages to be a little bit more than just Han’s love interest, but only a little. Donald Glover’s charisma carries the day as he inhabits Young Lando, but occasionally he comes across like Glover doing his best Lando impersonation than a fully convincing character (though his chemistry with Ehrenreich sparkles over that nicely). And there’s plenty of other fun, if seemingly disposable side characters, like Paul Bettany’s genteel but menacing villain, Dryden Vos, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a delightfully irrepressible droid revolutionary named L3. Even relative newcomer Joonas Suotamo brings character beyond the fur to Chewbacca, alongside Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt’s traditional groans and growls.
When Solo deploys these characters well, it’s a hell of an action-filled romp. Seeing Han’s Oliver Twist-esque origins blossom into his up-and-down efforts to live on the fringes of both the law and the galaxy are fun and thrilling. The movie takes the viewer to new, scrappier corners of the galaxy, packing the frame with wild new creatures and settings that help make Star Wars feel big and diverse again.
Han’s goals and wants are clear; his compatriots are well-if-quickly sketched, and the set pieces are nicely chaotic and spontaneous, as befits the way any plan involving Solo should shake out. The pacing is off here and there, and certain action sequences extend to the point of exhaustion (likely a casualty of the hand off from the nixed boundary-pushers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller to steady hand Ron Howard). But the core setting of the film -- a band of well-traveled and wannabe outlaws does a job with pitfalls and smart remarks -- works like gangbusters.
Then, the final act hits, and the film stops being fun and starts being serious. There’s double-crosses on double-crosses, heavily sign-posted character-defining choices, and cliché, ponderous statements about who Han is supposed to be or can’t be or might have been that one time (we’re not really sure).
Solo, like its protagonist, has its heart in the right place here. It’s laudable to try to turn this adventure into something revealing about one of the franchise’s biggest characters and not just an empty-calorie escapade. But the film can’t support the weight of that introspection (not to mention all of that clunky extrospection) and becomes bogged down when trying to unravel both its less-compelling plot threads and its character study in one big convoluted finale.
But one thing is for sure. This movie is not about the Skywalkers. Despite an eyebrow-raising tie-in, it is not about the broader Star Wars Universe. It’s about Han Solo, and It is, for the first time, a genuinely independent Star Wars story. For most of its run time, Solo is a standalone (if franchise-winking) adventure from the days when Han was still cutting his teeth as a smuggler and outlaw. The film has its problems when it departs from that, but still shows the benefits, and the fun, of Star Wars movies that follow the lead of Solo himself and aim to go it alone.
Well that robbery escalated quickly.
Started watching Good Girls out of boredom, nothing more than that. However, as I finished episode 1, I continued watching, and after episode 2, I couldn't stop watching, until I binge watched all 10 episodes. And as I have seen them all, I have to admit, I really love this series, and I am really glad to have heard that there will be a second season. It's not truly that original in terms of story, and I don't know how to tell about it without spoiling anything, but it is done in such a way that it keeps you hooked, at least, it did for me.
I really really enjoyed this show. Typically I'm not interested too heavily in shows without a procedural type feel, but with Salvation, the drama and intrigue kept continuing. It was a lot of fun with the conspiracies and drama and I really enjoyed the characters and their interactions with each other. I really hope for a season 2!
Putting a sticky note on your laptop webcam was the most relatable thing I've ever seen. It was such a small gesture, but it made it so realistic that I actually laughed.
I'm glad to see Bryce's mum so skeptical. I can't wait for Bryce to be arrested.
Why does Hannah’s “ghost” (or whatever she is) have long hair. Wasn’t it short when she died?
Engaging and Captivating, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is a drama that will leave everyone specullating and guessing without ever revealing the real culprit of the plot's main story! Incorporating Dark Humour, this movie gives us outstanding performances by Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell, and it's sure to leave moviegoers satisfied, even with the lack of closure!
A Great Movie
Your weird cat? I’ll pulverize him! I’ll pet him in the wrong direction! I’ll put a cucumber beside him! That drives them crazy!
ID4 blew the door wide open to the sci-fi action genre. It was the birth of the blockbuster. Is it perfect ? That depends on how you view it. You can find flaws in any movie. The question is how much you let it affect you. Are there logic issues ? Yes. Does it matter ? No, because it is entertaining as hell and the story is much better then dozens of movies that came after this. Despite the fact it is now over 20 years old it has aged well. My opinion has always been that life photography SFX ages better than CGI.
In any case it is way better than the re-quel
As an Aussie I like hearing the attempts at the Aussie accent. it's pretty far away from reality. love it.
Well, then. It seems Jamie keeps enchanting men and women alike with his roguish good looks and auburn locks (I hope for his sake and peace of mind that people stop propositioning him, though)
Oh, Willie, such a darling! He's the cutest stinking Papist ever. I'm really curious to see how and when he and Jamie will be reunited. Now I have more family reunions to look forward to! Will brother and sister ever meet? How long will it take before Claire and Bree figure out Jamie's whereabouts in the past? And also, how on Earth does traveling through the rocks work? Can you actively choose how far back into the past you wanna travel? I always kinda figured it was random. But I haven't read the books, so maybe I don't have all the info.
With ALL of the traumatic things Jamie has gone through in his life, THIS is what makes him collaspe??!
You do not believe the story or the characters. Totally flat film that bores from start to finish
finally, I've been waiting for this season for too long! good to have ya back, bojack <3
6.8/10. This is a really difficult one to grade, because the first few minutes are great, and the last few minutes are great, but everything in the middle is to forgettable-to-bad. We've done the "Robin isn't girly" beats before, and there was nothing particularly new or interesting about it here, let alone anything that justified turning it into a crisis. And while it's nice to see that the show didn't entirely forget Robin's sister, Lily being so upset by it didn't make sense. At the same time, we've pretty much already squeezed all the juice out of The Wedding Bride that we were going to, and the meta-humor of it didn't really keep up in this rehash. It's a lot of broad jokes without any real grounding in character or sharply-honed humor to keep things flowing.
But there's something to the idea that the wedding isn't just a big day for Barney and Robin, but that due to major upcoming life changes, it's something like a last great hurrah for the whole group. And that ties nicely into the best part of the episode -- the frame story of Ted and The Mother in 2024, realizing that they've already told each other all their best stories, which features both Radnor and Miloti doing tremendous work selling the two of them as having the rhythms of an "old married couple" and a certain melancholy wistfulness that pervades their interactions. There's some major hints dropped here, but I like the themes explored here, both that The Mother is worried that Ted is going to live in his stories and needs to be able to go on in his life (a lesson The Mother herself learned) and that those stories, even the dumb ones, can be a welcome respite from the harshness of certain truths. Throw in an unexpected appearance from Robin's mother to tie up that story (and hey fellow Simpsons fans, it's Tracey Ulman!), and you have an opening sequence and a closing sequence that knock my socks off, but a whole lot of junk in the middle. A peculiar episode on that account, to say the least.
I was not expecting this movie to be so good. It really shocked me how good it was. I expected it would be just another teen romance, it was so much more. And all the questions it makes you ask and consider it does it so well, without being condescending or contrite. It really makes you think in a good way. Thank you to everyone involved for making this movie as I would never have read the book it was based on and that would have been my loss.
I just saw the BEST movie! I went to see this REALLY tired (I had just driven over 4,500 km in 4 out of 5 days and went to this movie to stay awake until it was an appropriate time to go to bed for the night). It was so much more than a young adult romance. It asked questions like: Am I defined by my shape, my gender, my colour? Have we a right to make decisions for ourselves that will compromise the ability of another to make their own decisions? What does respect or love look like and in the case of the latter does it have to have a “look”? And, finally, what would we be willing to sacrifice for the one we love most in the world and/or a total stranger? This storytelling is exquisitely beautiful. And, as one of the major protagonists is played by a number of actors the emotional tension could have easily dissipated were it not for the entirely captivating character inhabited by young actress named Angourie Rice. A wonderful journey. A new favourite movie. I give it a 10 out of 10. [Romantic Fantastic Drama]
Zach publicly confronting Bryce is the scene I've been waiting for.
This should be the true and definitive end of the series. I absolutely loved this. They have been teasing a school shooting since the end of the first season, and I’m so incredibly fucking happy that it was cut short. I can’t believe people are shitting on the show because Tyler didn’t kill people. The show is giving the message that people don’t have to die for justice to be given. That’s why Clay urges Tyler to stop. And he does. And it’s so beautiful. What a wonderfully realistic depiction of a potential school shooter. With that being said, I don’t appreciate how the episode is calling for a Season Three. Like we really need to see what’s happening with Justin’s Dad, we need to see what Chloe is going to do about being pregnant, what Clay will do with the gun? Meh. The episode was still phenomenal though and struck all the right chords.
[7.7/10] It seems like every season, BoJack does an issue episode, where more than telling a story to advance the plot really, the show focuses more on a specific cultural issue and filters it through its characters. Ideas of when men who’ve been exposed for bad acts in public can/should make their comebacks, and notions of male feminism seem particularly in BoJack’s wheelhouse, so the exploration of those things largely works here.
My issue is that the show gets a little over the top and didactic with it. BoJack tends to be much better on subtlety when it comes to its characters’ emotional lives than its messages, but there’s still some solid laughs and commentary to be had here. The back and forth with ersatz Mel Gibson and BoJack making the rounds to do apology tours, collect plaudits for good but easy opinions, and lob various bombs at one another is an entertaining spine for the episode. I particularly enjoyed BoJack obliviously reveling in the attention and praise, which feels both like a good jab and true to his character.
The episode is strongest, though, when it’s channeling all of this through Diane. While Diane can often be one of the show’s more blatant mouthpieces in these issue episodes, it also does a good job of digging into her frustrations of having her ideas stifled when espoused by her but lauded when championed by others. There’s also a lot of interesting ways in which her words are twisted or used by others on both sides of the argument. And the fact that she gets hired to help out on Philbert to make the show less sexist, only to realize that she’s a prop is another of the show’s well done “everything isn’t magically solved at the end of the half hour” resolutions to a complicated topic.
With all that heavy stuff, I appreciate that we get a comic relief B-plot where Mr. PB and Todd team up to try to help Mr. PB seem tough. The two of them trying to concoct scenarios for Mr. PB to show how serious and scary he can be, while continually running into people finding him genial and affable in escalating ways is a great continuing gag. Plus, that pairing is always gold.
But what I find most interesting about “BoJack the Feminist” is how it plays the same idea for laughs (and biting social commentary) that it eventually plays for the seriousness of it. There’s a loonyness to how the Mel Gibson expy continually does terrible things and makes his way back to the spotlight, and a lot of satire about how easy it is for men to pretend they’ve changed and get chance after chance after chance without ever showing any real growth or understanding, with a not-so-subtle suggestion that we, as a society, shouldn’t be nearly so willing to accept or forgive such transgressions.
And yet, in the very same episode, it shows BoJack rising through his performative feminism and reaching a genuine epiphany -- that like Diane said, he is helping to normalize a certain view and treatment of women through his work, even if it doesn't glamorize it. And better yet, he takes concrete steps to try to correct for it, acknowledging Diane’s contributions to that realization and inviting her onto the show to try to fix it.
But then, Diane is confronted with Ana Spanakopita’s tape of BoJack’s confession about what happened with Penny. You have the sudden realization that yeah, however much we’re invested in BoJack and want to see him get better and improve his life, he’s done some pretty terrible shit. That cuts both ways -- both to broaden the audience’s perspective and make us think twice about how much forgiveness and success we ought to want for BoJack, but also making us think twice about how to treat public figures who do genuinely have demons they’re running from and have made concerted efforts to change.
For however blunt “BoJack the Feminist” seems for much of its runtime, it acknowledges the complexities of the issue it’s tackling in startling, personal fashion in its final frame, in a way that speaks to both story and character, which makes it noteworthy even among the series’ similar episodes.
Set aside the last few minutes of the finale for a moment. That last little reveal changes the shape of the episode, and the series, in significant and meaningful ways that make it easy to let it overshadow the rest of the episode. But stop and think about everything that happens here before the scene where he finally meets The Mother.
Because it is, at best, a mixed bag, long before we see the blue french horn again.
I understand the urge to give the audience some idea of what happens to the gang between 2014 and 2030. The problem is that covering a decade and a half in one big episode makes every story feel rushed and underdeveloped. One of the great things about HIMYM is how it used the past and the future to inform the present. Jumping back and forth between a prior conversation and a current one could be the crux of a joke, as could Future Ted's knowing commentary on some boneheaded mistake or unexpected development that was coming down the pipe. But those time jumps weren't just fodder for comedy, as the show did a great job of creating dramatic irony and emotional stakes by showing what lie ahead or the path that led us here. But by compressing fifteen years worth of life developments into an hour, nothing has time to really breathe or feel like it has the temporal scope the show is shooting for.
After all, there's a great story to be told about the gang drifting apart over the years. Another one of the series's best features is the way it combines the exaggerated goofiness of its comedic sensibilities with real, relatable aspects of being in your twenties and thirties. Well, one of the things that hits you once you start to move past that stage of your life is the way that friends, even good friends, can slowly drift apart, not through neglect or anger or hurt feelings, but just because you're suddenly at different places in your life. That's an idea worth exploring.
The problem is that the rush of years in "Last Forever" makes this process feel like something sudden instead of gradual. Sure, we see the chyron at the bottom of the screen showing that we've jumped ahead a year or two, and there's a boatload of semi-clunky expositional dialogue in the episode to let the viewer know where everyone is in their lives and what they're up to, but when all those developments take place over the course of just a few minutes and just a few scenes, it can't help but seem very fast.
One of the best choices HIMYM's creators made in the final season was to parcel out little scenes of the gang's future throughout, giving us a glimpse of what the future held without trying to pack it all into one big episode like this. Sprinkling those flashforwards in did a nice job at making the group's future feel as well-populated as its present and its past. Obviously there were limitations on how much they could do this in prior episodes given the reveals in store for Barney and Robin and Ted, but the method the show chose to relay the gang's future almost inevitably leaves it feeling too quick, too underdeveloped, and too unsatisfying, even apart from the directions the individual stories go.
Those plot developments, however, are another albatross around the finale's neck. The first and most obvious problem comes from Barney and Robin's divorce. Again, there's a legitimate story to be told of two people who care deeply for one another, but don't work as a couple, but it's a difficult story to tell in five minutes, especially when you've spent huge chunks the past season and a half trying to convince the audience that they make sense together. As someone who's been a Barney and Robin skeptic from the beginning, it's entirely plausible to me that the two of them could mean well and have real feelings for one another, but still end up divorced due to some basic incompatibilities. But the reason for their split feels thin here.
There's nothing we know about Barney that suggests globetrotting would be something he's so against. And while there's hints of bigger issues between the two of them, like not getting to see one another or not being on the same page about their respective plans and projects, we never really get to see these problems develop. We're just told about them, and expected to accept that as enough to break them up one episode removed their wedding. Is that result plausible enough based on what we know about Barney and Robin? Sure, but it's just presented to us, rather than developed before our eyes, and since we don't see their path from pledging to spend the rest of their lives together to getting divorced, that end point feels like it happens by fiat rather than something the show earned.
Barney's reversion afterward is just as unsatisfying. Again, there's a believable story about Barney having worked so hard to become a better person, in part to woo Robin, and reverting to his old tricks as a retreat and defense mechanism when his marriage falls apart. But because of the rapidity with which the finale goes from Point A to Point B, it doesn't feel like the natural result of a difficult event; it feels like throwing nine years of character development down the drain in less than a minute. There's a disparity between how much time the show spent building Barney up as more than just an cartoonish hound dog and how much time it spends showing him reverting to his old persona. That cannot help but feel jarring.
What kills me is that I love where they take Barney in "Last Forever." There's something beautiful about the idea that what really changes him isn't some conquest or accomplishment or even a great romance; it's becoming a father. For Barney, "The One" isn't a woman he'll meet some day; it's his daughter, and Neil Patrick Harris delivers a tremendous performance in the scene where he repeats his Ted-like plea, this time to his baby girl. It's a wonderful scene, but the path the episode takes to get there still comes off as a shortcut that has to ignore seasons of character development in order to make it work.
The finale isn't all bad though. While the story of the gang drifting apart is too quick, the scene where they all reunite for Ted's wedding is legitimately touching and full of the good will and warm feelings that the show's been able to generate during its run. Ted and Tracy (I can use her name now!) continue to be adorable together, and the twist that romantic Ted made it five years and two kids into his relationship before he actually married The Mother is a small but effective way to show how much the substance of finding The One was more important to him than the formality of it (even if he was planning on a European castle). It's one of those lived-in details that speaks to his character.
Beyond that, the actual meeting of The Mother is very well done, and it really had to be. Sure, there's a few meetcute cliches involved, but the easy rapport between Ted and Tracy soars once again and nearly saves the entire finale. After all, this was the moment the "Last Forever" had to nail, and it did. Ted and Tracy's conversation weaves in enough of the yellow umbrella mythos for everything to click, and Joshua Radnor and Cristin Miloti both sell the subtle realization that this is something special. For an episode that had to make good on the promise of its title, that meeting went about as well as any fan of the show might have hoped for.
And if the series had ended there, everyone might have gone home happy. Sure, the other problems with the rushed and shortcut-filled finale might have rankled a bit (particularly the way it undoes the wedding we'd just witnessed), but making that moment feel as big and as meaningful as it needed to after all that build up is no small feat, and that alone would have bought Bays & Thomas a hell of a lot of slack.
Frankly, the series could have still gotten away with Tracy dying shortly thereafter, another controversial choice in the finale. There's something tragic but beautiful about the audience watching Ted seek out the woman of his dreams for nine years and then realizing that he only gets to be with her for the same amount of time, while still cherishing and being thankful for the time the two of them had, for that connection and love that was wonderful and worth it no matter how all too brief it may have been. There's a touching theme about the fragility of things in that story, but also about the joy that comes from finding the person you love, that stays with you even after they're gone. It's sad, but it's sweet, in the best HIMYM way.
And then there's Robin.
The decision to pair up Ted and Robin in the last moments of the finale is as tone-deaf and tin-eared an ending as you're likely to find in a major television program, and the reasons abound. The most obvious is that the show devoted so much time to the idea of Ted getting over Robin, and had any number of episodes (the most recent being the execrable "Sunrise") where Ted seemed to have achieved that, to have moved on in his life. Folks like me may try to handwave it, and the show can call back to the premiere of Season 7 where Ted and Robin can declare that all you need for love is chemistry and timing, but at base, Ted and Robin getting together feels like it contradicts so much about the two characters' relationship with one another over the years. So much of the final third of the show involved going over the same beats between Ted and Robin over and over again, of having each move past the other, and coming back to them in the final, despite how iconic that blue french horn has become for the show, just feels like another poorly-established cheat or retcon that isn't in sync with where the show went since that finale was crafted in Season 2.
What's worse is that that ending transforms the story Ted's been telling from a heartwarming if irreverent yarn about the path that led to him meeting the love of his life, to a smokescreen to gain his kids' approval for dating an old flame after their mother's death. Look, to some degree you have to accept the conceit of the show for what it is and not take it too seriously. In real life, no two kids would sit through such a long story, and no father should tell his children about all the women he slept with before he met their mom. But taken in broad strokes, How I Met Your Mother is a story about how all the events in Ted's life, big and small, good and bad, planned or unexpected, went into making him the person who was ready to find Tracy and capable of being with her.
Future Ted himself put it best in "Right Place, Right Time." He tells his kids "There's a lot of little reasons why the big things in our lives happen." He explains that what seemed like chaos was bringing him inexorably toward the best person and the best thing to ever happen to him, that there were "all these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you're supposed to be, exactly when you're supposed to be there." And he tells them at the time, he didn't know "where all those little things were leading [him] and how grateful [he]'d be to get there."
That, to my mind, is the theme to take from this great, if tainted show. Sure, it's unrealistic that anyone would go on that many tangents in telling the story of their great romance, but the point is that each of these moments, each of these people, were crucial in who he was and who he became when he met Tracy, and that they were as important as that fateful meeting was. Yes, it's a long story, and it has many many detours, but it's the story of all the twists and turns and bumps in the road that brought Ted into the arms of his soulmate, and that smooths over the rougher edges of the show's premise.
Instead, the twist that it's all supposed to be about Ted having the hots for Robin turns that lovely story into a long-winded attempts by a middle-aged man to convince his kids that he should date their aunt That seems much more crass. There's still meaning to be wrung from it, meaning that finds parallels with Tracy and her dead boyfriend Max and the idea that you can have more than one meaningful relationship in your life. But it doesn't add up with what the show had really done to that point. The past nine seasons were no more about Robin than they were about Barney or Marshall or Lily. They no more feel like a way to suggest that Aunt Robin's good dating material than they do that Ted should spend more time with Uncle Barney. As great as that blue french horn was the first time, it had meaning because it represented something we knew was going to end, but which still had beauty and value despite that. This last time we see it, it's represents the opposite, that something beautiful has ended, and the value it had is cast aside in favor of a relationship the series spent years disclaiming. That is deeply, deeply unsatisfying.
Take away those final few scenes, concocted in a different era of the series, and you have a flawed but still potent finale, that delivers on the show's biggest promise and gives the gang one last "big moment" together. But add them back in, and you have an ending to the series that not only runs counter to so much of what the show developed over the course of its run, its final season in particular, but which, moreover, cheapens the story the audience had been invested in for the past nine years. It's almost impressive how a couple of truly terrible moments can do such retroactive damage to such a longrunning show , but here we are, with a sour taste in our mouth from such an ill-conceived finish.
Future Ted was right, a little moment can have a big impacts, and the one at the end of the series is a doozy in that regard. But maybe, just maybe, when we tell our own stories about How I Met Your Mother, we can do what Ted should have done many times -- just leave that part out. There's something wonderful to be gleaned from the ending to this fun, optimistic, heartfelt, and occasionally very rocky series, but it requires us to do what we always do when looking back on things: focus on the good stuff, make our peace with the bad stuff, and remember it at its best.
Home Alone is a perfect movie, not in the sense that there is zero room for improvement or it's the greatest artistic achievement in human history, but in that it does what it sets out to do in a nigh-flawless fashion. It is impeccably paced, shot, and edited. It has the right balance of escapist fantasy, relatable family drama, humor, heart, and even slapstick comedy to keep the film lively without making it a piece of fluff. And miraculously, despite a cast full of ringers like Catherine O’Hara and Joe Pesci, the whole thing hinges on the acting talents of a nine-year-old boy who pulls it off with flying colors.
Because as great as O’Hara is as the mother desperate to get back to her son, as amusing as Pesci and Daniel Stern are as a pair of robbers who get more than they bargained for, as hilarious as the inimitable John Candy (who steals the show with less than five minutes of screen time) is as a polka-playing good Samaritan, Home Alone is, first and foremost, a story about Kevin McCallister, and even at that tender age, Culkin (with a huge assist from writer John Hughes and director Chris Columbus) sells that story like a champ.
That’s part of why Home Alone works so perfectly as a family movie that plays with both kids and adults. As a child, the more outsized elements of the story loom large. The iconic scenes of Kevin tormenting his pursuers offer a spate of perfectly deployed slapstick, worthy of Looney Tunes or The Three Stooges and apt to elicit any number of giggles from the younger members of the audience. By the same token, there’s an escapist fantasy for kids in the early part of the film, where Kevin jumps on the bed, eats junk, and “watches rubbish” without anyone being able to tell him otherwise. There is an incredible sense of fun to these scenes, whether it’s the ACME-inspired antics and great physical performances of the “Wet Bandits” or Kevin living out the immediate joy of his wish to be family-free.
But what makes the film more than just an insubstantial flight of fancy is the way it mixes that holiday mirth with enough heft, enough of the downside of that wish and a stealthily nuanced depiction of a young child maturing in both his ability to take care of himself and his understanding of the world.
When we meet Kevin in the film’s frenetic opening sequence, showing an entire household abuzz with cousins and uncles all in a state of pre-travel frenzy, Kevin cannot even pack his own suitcase. There’s recurring jabs from his siblings and cousins that his mom has to do everything for him. Over the course of the film, when pressed into service by being the all to his lonesome, Kevin becomes a surprisingly self-sufficient little boy. When not smothered by a score of other siblings, he shows a surprising resourcefulness, proving himself able to go to the store, do laundry, and even leave out cookies for Santa Claus when the time arrives. This culminates in the cornucopia of traps Kevin sets for the robbers, proving that he is even capable of defending his house from those who would do his family harm.
In the process, Kevin overcomes a number of his fears, which provides another thematic throughline for the film. Chris Columbus and Director of Photography Julio Macat help this part of the story tremendously by the way a series of normal things are made frightening by shooting them from Kevin’s perspective. From the low shot on the furnace in the basement as it seems to taunt and beckon Kevin while he’s doing laundry, to the scene in the store where Old Man Marley is introduced only by his big black boots, seeming to glower down at Kevin from high above, Macat’s camera keeps us inside Kevin’s head, seeing the terror in these otherwise quotidian interactions. That cinches Kevin’s transition when he tells the furnace not to bother – we understand what he’s overcoming.
The heart of the movie, however, comes through in the scene where he conquers his other big fear – his scary looking next door neighbor, whom his brother described as a secret murderer the cops couldn’t catch. When Kevin runs into him at church, he discovers that Marley isn’t some serial ghoul, but rather a kindly old man who offers him a bit of solace and comfort in a time of need.
It’s an incredibly well-written scene, bolstered by the stellar performance of Roberts Blossom as Marley and Culkin playing Kevin at his most precocious and worldly. Blossom sells the utter warmth and humanity of Blossom behind his icy visage. His sitting next to Kevin as a friendly presence, telling a small part of his life story, and speaking to the lad as something approaching an equal provides a big leap for the film’s protagonist. It’s part of that maturation process, the realization that he shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, that he can’t necessarily trust his brother’s accounts, and that the people who seem the most unnerving can be the people you want in your hour of need. In one scene, Old Man Marley goes from being the film’s great threat to being its heart.
And he ties into the other big motif running through the film – an appreciation of one’s family. What could easily be a trite Hallmark card of a message from the movie has real force from the way the lesson is delivered. When Kevin wishes he had no family, the film helps us understand why, putting him in that relatable little kid situation of causing a scene, feeling you were goaded into it, and that nobody takes treats you nicely or appreciates you. And then when his wish comes true, it takes some time to let the audience, and Kevin, revel in his newfound freedom. But it also show’s Kevin slowly but surely realizing that he misses them, and that as much as they drive him nuts sometimes, having them back is what he really wants for Christmas.
That’s why the scene and story of Old Man Marley’s estrangement with his son is so important. It’s center on the idea that the issues Kevin is dealing with – fear, family discontent, loneliness around the holidays – are not unique to him or his tender age, but are universal obstacles that people of all ages confront at various points in their life. It’s a sign of Kevin’s broadening perspective, the way he’s being changed by this experience and learns that it’s possible to love your family even when you’re angry with them.
It’s also his realization that even in those impulsive moments, whether you’re an old man or a little boy, that you make grand declarations about not wanting to be a part of your family anymore, you may soon find yourself regretting it, yearning for the thing you were so ready to give up. Kevin starts to understand this in Home Alone, and it’s why his sincere plea to one of Santa’s “messengers” (who amusingly offers him tic tacs and can’t get his car started) to bring his family back has weight and meaning.
All of this is able to come together so well because so many of the technical, or less showy parts of the film are all done extraordinarily well. John Williams’s score expertly matches the mood of the film at every turn, whether he’s playing yuletide pop classics or an orchestral score that fits a grand escape or moment of tension. The writing has a clockwork quality to it. Hughes’s script accounts for the circumstances in which a nine-year-old would left alone by himself, unable to be contacted by his parents or the authorities in a nicely plausible fashion, and he constructs a series of events in which Kevin believes he wished his family away and then wished them back in a way that is equally convincing for the kid and the viewer.
And the film is shot and edited superbly, with amusing cuts like Kevin calling out for his mother with an immediate smash cut to a roaring airplane, or the frenzied fashion in which the McCallisters are depicted racing through the airport. Every part of this film works in sync, to deliver a visually exciting, narratively sound work that lets its humor, story, and message, land without a hint of friction.
So when we reach the end of the film and see Kevin’s reunion with his family, and Old Man Marley’s reunion with his, both moments feel earned. Chris Columbus tells a nigh-wordless story in the final scene, with O’Hara’s Kate McCallister silently marveling at how great the house looks and Kevin offering an expression of reluctance, one that suggests he might still be holding onto the anger he unleashed at this mother the last time they were face to face, before quickly sliding into a smile and running to embrace her. Their expressions tell the story, of the way both mother and child now see each other differently on this Christmas Day. The same goes for the expression of gratitude, of near-tearful camaraderie, between Kevin and Old Man Marley as Kevin witnesses his new friends’ reunion with a family of his own. Everyone here has grown; everyone has taken chances despite their fears, and come out better for it.
Throughout all of this, Home Alone manages to be cute, sweet, thrilling, funny, sharp, clever, and hopeful. For films set alone the holiday, it’s all too easy to lean into maudlin sentiment or cloying comedy, but Hughes’s and Columbus’s collaboration produced a film that manages to be nimble and amusing from start to finish, with enough meaning and mirth in it to make the story told feel as important as it is small. Home Alone tells the tale of a young man learning that despite his fear, his inexperience, and his familial resentments, he’s ready to take his first step into adulthood, and finds in the process that what he needs most are the people he was afraid of or wanted to wish away.
While the debates among the Star Wars faithful rage on about the proper ranking of the theatrical films, or the level of canonicity of various events, or who shot whom when, one simple truth remains. However high its highs, a franchise as wide-ranging as Star Wars with tentacles in television, novels, comic books, toys, games, and every spinoff and merchandising opportunity imaginable, is inevitably going to produce a fair amount of utter crap.
Most of that crap can be laughed off or outright forgotten because of how tangential it is to the anchors of the franchise. Ephemeral stories or characters, dreamed up by folks far removed from franchise czar George Lucas, who may or may not have been paying attention to one another’s work, can be easily derided and discarded.
But The Star Wars Holiday Special cannot be. Despite its status as complete and total dreck, despite the minimal involvement from Lucas, and despite its mostly disconnected pieces, the special has become an indelible part of Star Wars lore, the original misstep for the franchise, destined to live in disco ball-tinged infamy as long as the franchise persists.
It is, after all, the first on-screen glimpse of the soon-vaunted “Extended Universe” of the franchise, the first unofficial expansion of the world Lucas crafted outside of the films themselves. It features the original introduction of Boba Fett (who was designed by Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnston). And most importantly, it has the imprimatur of legitimacy that comes from having nearly all of the major players from the original cast reprise their roles.
It’s true. That’s part of why it’s so hard to cast aside the holiday special. As tempting as it is to write off the bizarre psychedelic phantasmagoria/comedy throwback, there are Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford in all their phoning-it-in glory to remind you that, no, like or not, this really is Star Wars, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.
But given how thoroughly the flaws of The Star Wars Holiday Special have been documented, let’s start out by focusing on what’s good about it, however slim those pickings may be.
The highlight of the piece, to the extent something so dim can be said to cast and bit of illumination at all, is Bea Arthur’s “Goodnight, But Not Goodbye” number. Set at the famous cantina on Tatooine, the song (written by Ken and Mitzie Welch, parents of superb folksinger Gillian Welch) doesn’t exactly fit in with the spirit of A New Hope, but it has a sort of campy-but-sincere quality all its own.
The piece is a Cabaret-meets-Cheers setup that Arthur sells like a champ, wandering around the room and cavorting with any number of rubber mask aliens in a fashion that’s enough to make you believe she has the slightest modicum of affection for them. Again, it doesn’t really work in the context of Star Wars (though the way the song integrates the famous cantina theme deserves some recognition), but Arthur embraces the sweet-ish kitsch and delivers one of the special’s few winning segments.
The other saving grace of the special, and indeed the only part of it that Lucasfilm has ever officially released, is the animated segment at the halfway mark. The short piece was animated by the production company Nelvana, who went on to do the animation for two future Star Wars ventures on television: the Ewoks and Droids series. This segment does feel the most Star Wars of anything in the special, with a space-bound adventure, a shocking reveal, and a new planet bustling with unusual alien life.
But even this piece of the special, entitled “The Faithful Wookiee,” is mostly a dud. The designs and movements of the characters are bizarre, leading the viewer to wonder if the animators had ever actually seen A New Hope. Luke looks like an escaped mental patient who just got back from a makeover. Han’s nose is longer than his blaster. C-3PO bobs along on his coils in a way never seen before or since, and R2-D2 bends and wobbles like he was made via a droid-shaped jello mold. The reveal of Boba Fett’s true allegiance plays well, but the segment comes off as the fever dream of someone who caught the first half of Episode IV in a bar one night rather than the real deal.
There’s other merits to the film. As bizarre as it is to include a scene of Chewbacca’s elderly father watching holographic human pornography, Diahann Carroll sings the hell out of “This Minute Now,” a song that scans more like a forgotten Bond theme than a part of the Star Wars universe. There’s a mildly redeeming sweetness to the way Saun Dann (Art Carney) offers his affections to the wookiee family. And while it gives the special itself no greater credit, the 1970s commercials attached to the bootleg versions of the film floating around are endlessly fascinating as a time capsule of American culture and commerce.
But otherwise, The Star Wars Holiday Special is an onslaught of the predominantly dull, the overwhelmingly chintzy, and the occasionally bizarre. There’s an odd strain of psychedelia to the special, from a parade of Seussian acrobats, to the acid trip background of Carroll’s musical number, to a lite brite-colored performance from Jefferson Starship. The hideous Wookiee costumes look like they were later spray-painted and reused in the live action How the Grinch Stole Christmas film, which would match the set’s hideous green carpet.
The broad attempts at comedy (most of them from Harvey Korman in a variety of roles) are tepid and full of awkward and sometimes creepy dead spots. The long stretches of segments that include nothing but Wookiee growls quickly become exhausting. And the ending, which features a series of Wookiees seemingly walking into the sun and emerging on the set of the local community theater’s production of Eyes Wide Shut, where all the main Star Wars cast members are magically present for undefined reasons, is the cherry on the perpetually bewildering cake.
Still, The Star Wars Holiday Special lives on in the hearts and minds of the diehard fans, even if we’re not exactly clamoring for another celebration of Life Day. It’s a reminder that even just a year removed from the film that started it all, Lucas & Co. were ready to put their good name on a steaming pile of bantha fodder. The special is an insane combination of a space opera and a variety show, a monument to the fact that the merchandising and spinoff empire that’s spanned decades and mediums galore, started off with a stumble that makes The Phantom Menace look like The Empire Strikes Back. But it too is Star Wars with all the greatness, terribleness, and downright strangeness that title conjures up.
That Game of Thrones joke was glorious. Hardest I laughed at a movie scene all year.
