Blast from the past: Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own

Not very long before the 1997 release of The Devil's Own -- the late Alan J. Pakula's thriller about an IRA terrorist (Brad Pitt) who hides out under an assumed name in the home of a too-trusting New York cop (Harrison Ford) -- Pitt was quoted by interviewers as being highly displeased by the way IRA activists were depicted in early rewrites of the script. (Midway through production, he denounced the movie as the  "most irresponsible bit of film making — if you can even call it that — that I've ever seen." He seemed to have changed his mind about the project by the time I caught up with him at the New York junket for Devil's Own. (At the very start of the video, we're caught briefly chatting about the long-delayed release of Hard Eight -- a.k.a. Sydney -- which starred his then-sweetheart Gwyneth Paltrow.)




But I have to say: Looking back at my interview with Ford at the same junket, it strikes me that he was still a tad unhappy about his co-star's going public with complaints. Come to think of it, Ford doesn't seem much happier about the then-upcoming re-release of Star Wars movies, does he?

The Empire Strikes Back -- From 1950! In 3-D!

Yet another DIY Star Wars movie. And one of the better ones. Maybe it'll be excerpted if there's ever a sequel to The People Vs. George Lucas.

George Lucas: Threat or Menace?

I'm quoted here -- look around the 0:20 mark -- and I can't help thinking that when this documentary is released next year, some critics will try to read something into the fact that, if you look over my left shoulder, you'll see a photo of Francis Coppola. Trust me: It's just because the Starz Denver Film Festival folks very graciously arranged for the filmmakers to shoot an interview with me in a room at the Starz Film Center. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

Clunky Clone Wars

David Cox of The Guardian insightfully acknowledges the "biggest single influence on attitudes to war and peace during the last few decades" -- George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy. But that's really just a warm-up to his takedown of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Money quote: "The Star Wars prequel series was but an enfeebled shadow of the original trilogy. Nonetheless, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is far, far worse. The grungy realism that changed the coinage of celluloid sci-fi has disappeared; in its place, we are offered the flat gloss of a bad comic-book. Drained of wit, charm or intelligence, (un)animated avatars of what were once, figuratively as well as literally, flesh-and-blood characters drag their way through an opaque and tedious farrago, uttering lines that would disgrace a speak-your-weight machine. As such, they are incapable of inspiring anything in anyone." Ouch. (Hat-tip to Garth Jowett.)