Some actors are going to be remembered for one role and one role alone, regardless of the rest of their oeuvre. In someways it is an unfortunate outcome of the vagaries of fame, but for somebody who was famous since the day they were born, Carrie Fisher took that upon herself with great grace and humour.
For Gen-X at least, Carrie Fisher was royalty, thanks to her part in 'Star Wars', playing Princess Leia. Way back when the film first arrived, she appeared to us as a sassy, feisty woman who could roll with the boys in the action scenes. It was a very 1970s kind of new feminine, and a generation of boys grew up thinking that was what they liked. Like most boys who identified with Luke Skywalker and his adventures, I always thought of her as kind of like an older sister I never had, doing her thing across the galaxy.
The Carrie Fisher we know outside of 'Star Wars' was somebody with a tremendous sense of humour, influenced by Dorothy Parker's writing. She was briefly in films such as 'When Harry Met Sally', and occasionally did interviews where she would tartly joke she would not date somebody younger because she "didn't want to give them the satisfaction of being able to say they fucked Princess Leia". As long time fans of Star Wars movies, we kind of understood implicitly the funniness of that remark. After all, we owed her and her character an incalculable debt.
Fischer wrote books about her extraordinary life, one of which turned into the film 'Postcards from the Edge'. Her sense of humour was absurdist as well as full of well-observed insight about the foibles of people, as if she couldn't quite believe people were getting off so much on the 'Star Wars' franchise. She was open about her drug use as well as her affairs at various times in her life. The remarks she made were often self-deprecating but devastatingly funny. Her account of her audition for 'Star Wars' that was excerpted from 'The Princess Diarist' is humorous as it is brutally frank about the nature of the film business.
Carrie Fisher is also one of those people who could recognise themselves in songs written about them, namely by Paul Simon, with whom she had a long relationship. She made jokes about her promiscuity in her youth, warning Daisy Ridley not to go to bed with the entire cast and crew as she had done, "going through them like wild fire", and joked that for the 'The Force Awakens', 'they' made her lose weight because they only wanted 3/4ths of her and "may the fourth be without" her.
In the era of the internet, she had a humorous sparring partner in William Shatner - another actor who will be remembered for one role alone - where they would banter and joke about her metallic gold bikini from 'Return of the Jedi'; the legendary bikini of which was apparently a source of much erotic stimulation of a younger generation of Star Wars fans. Fisher said her favourite moment in the entire saga was when Princess Leia killed Jabba the Hutt, strangling him with the chain that kept her tied in her metallic gold bikini.
It is spooky to recall how in spruiking her recent book she was asked why she was coming forward with some of the details in it now, and she remarked that the present was opportune merely because she might not be able to do it in the future, either through old age memory loss, worse still dementia, incapacitation, or death. Thus it is that 'The Princess Diarist' will become her parting gift to her fans, a little like David Bowie's 'Dark Star'.
Heart attack at 60 is awfully, terribly young in this day and age. Vale Carrie Fisher, you were an inspiration to us all. May the Force eternally be with you.
The leader of that list - with a bullet - would be Dr. John Hewson, he of the losing end of the 'the sweetest victory of them all" election in 1993. That's now a long time ago and seems like a galaxy far, far away. If you had Paul Keating and John Hewson as the respective leaders running for office, then you have an embarrassment of riches compared to what we've had lately, which includes Abbott versus Gillard, Abbott versus Rudd, Turnbull versus Shorten. I guess it's Abbott who is single-handedly lowering the intellectual stakes with his much CTE damaged brain.
All the same, Gillard couldn't sell a big picture if it came with a price tag, Rudd's second go was like a facetious after-thought, and Turnbull who replaced the CTE-affected one, remains beholden to the interests of those who seek to prolong fossil fuel profits. When you think about that, the significance of the 1993 election looms large. The defeat of John Hewson brought about a turmoil in the Liberal party ranks that helped it shed its liberal framing of its policies and settled in with the Thatcherite conservative politics, which to this day hampers any sense of social progress. What the Liberals lost that day election in 1993 is not going back in a hurry.
Just how is our economy to not only recover from the 0.5 per cent fall in growth in the September quarter, but actually produce a "growth spurt" as assumed through to the end of the decade – which industries, which jobs? None of this can simply be "assumed".
It is most sobering to realise that the accumulated budget deficits (relative to GDP) since the GFC already dwarf those that followed each of the previous two recessions, and we haven't had a recession, rather we are now in our 26th year of continuous growth.
Moreover, even on the optimistic forecasts/predictions of MYEFO, we will have at least four more budget deficits, totalling some $95 billion through the budget period. Using more realistic forecasts – and recognising the some $14 billion of measures still stuck in the Parliament (that still exceed the net savings achieved since the last budget) – the budget repair task is a very significant challenge that will require both more expenditure restraint and tax increases overall. It is most telling that the government won't "commit" to the small projected surplus in 2020/21.
While we may have dodged the ratings downgrade bullet for now, the possibility of a downgrade is still very real. We certainly can't be complacent, especially as our economy is now probably more vulnerable than it has been since the GFC, certainly recognising the limited policy capacity and flexibility to handle another "shock".
It sounds like he's exasperated with this government. I imagine his own party is exasperated with their former leader, but then in that sense he might be to the Liberals what Mark Latham is to the ALP: Failed leader, thought bubble monster.
Yet, there's more:
Monetary policy has already reached the limit of its capacity to stimulate – except by jawboning our dollar down – and rising borrowing costs, and associated bond market corrections globally, could further work to restrain growth. Similarly, the magnitude of the budget repair task, and the threat of a ratings downgrade, leaves us with very little budgetary capacity to stimulate as well.
Our vulnerability is the result of at least 10-12 years of poor economic management, under governments of both persuasions. The benefits of the resources boom were squandered – failing to put some away for a rainy day – and then we failed to move early, and more decisively, in budget repair, even allowing for the GFC.
We now face the toughest and most unpredictable global economic environment in memory, where our fate is most heavily dependent on China, where their growth is slowing much faster than they will admit. Add to this the need to achieve "compromise" with a very short-term focused, opportunistic, Senate.
All this is to say, it's enough to induce a bit of nostalgia for a time when our political leaders were actually very good to excellent, and the contest of ideas was real and rewarding. It's weird how politics hasn't really de-polemicised itself but lowered the intellectual power to a dim, dark glow of a dying bulb. All we get are empty polemics about things like gay marriage or fake news, while we ignore the biggest picture of them all, global warming.
I really didn't think we'd sink to this level where the last two Treasurers seem to be people with very little intellectual capacity to deal with ideas more intricate or nuanced than rhetoric. I never would have guessed if you had told me back in 1993, that what I was witnessing was the last great contest of ideas at the ballot box; that it would be shits and giggles ever onwards, ever after.
A source who was not authorized to discuss the incident said the actress was “in a lot of distress on the flight.”
A statement released by United Airlines said that medical personnel met Flight 935 from London on arrival after the crew reported a passenger was unresponsive.
60 is much too young in this day an age for this to be befalling her. Our thoughts are with our favourite princess. May the Force be with her.
Alright, Alright, Alright. Spoiler Alert!
Hate spoilers? Don't read on.
If you read on, you can't complain to me about having it spoilt, okay?
Many thanks to GS who sorted out the ticket for me. Very nice of him to do so.
In a Galaxy not too long ago and only far away as LA, the deal was done for the other Uncle George to sell off his franchise to Disney for One Beeeellion Dollars. The upshot of that is the high rotation releases of new Star Wars content. There are two upsides to this and that more regular Star Wars movies satisfies a crowd that's been dying for good Star Wars movies as opposed to any old thing uncle George could think up with his fatigued inspiration. The other good news is that people with more current tastes and technique are getting to have a go at the Star Wars franchise, and when you consider that one of the best Star Wars movies was directed by somebody-not-uncle-George, it means there's serious hope that these films could be good in the same way.
After all, we all know how a good one goes, right?
Well, if last year's 'Episode VII: The Force Awakens' is anything to go by, there are a lot of miscalculations that can beset the best of intentions.
What's Good About It
First off, it's a good, big, blockbuster. It delivers what it promises in most part and if you're dissatisfied with this, it's probably because you're jaded, not because the film is under-delivering. It's a decent film, probably more decent than Ep7TFA in the sense that the plot is not a carbon copy of a previous Star Wars film. The Empire is tough, the Stormtroopers still miss, but they do hit enough of the good guys so it looks like war.
Just as it was with EpVII TFA, 'Rogue One' nails the Star Wars look, from production design to film stock grain to even the lighting. It's quite uncanny that way. Parts of it have that gritty grain going, and other parts has the harsh flat-lit look going and over all, it's quite the joy to behold from a technical standpoint. It's a movie made by somebody who actually loves Star Wars, with plenty of little homages.
The story's pretty solid, although we know what happens to these characters thanks to Episode IV: A New Hope, which tells us they gave up their lives for the important bit of info that enables the Luke Skywalker event we all love so dearly. As such, the narrative is more important than the actual story as we wind through the process of just how the rebels acquired the plans for the Death Star.
There are no Jar-Jar Binks-like figures to make it a super-young-kids movie, there are no Ewoks to sell us more soft toys, there aren't that many gratuitous sentimental moments, and the whole thing has at least a taut, adult quality about it. It does feel like a war movie, where people really are fighting for a cause in outer space.
Ben Mendelsohn makes a cool space opera villain. It's not surprising that he plays great villain in 'Bloodlines', but he really does do a wonderful job with this one. You need a good credible villain and Mendelsohn delivers somebody you can believe in to be the bad guy trying to foil the good guys.
What's Bad About It
John Williams is not on this and it's immediately telling. The opening theme which is also Jynn Erso's theme is a bit stilted and decidedly not touched by Williams' magnificent sense of melody. While the orchestration takes a lot of the cues from Gustav Holst and Williams' previous work with Star Wars, it's just not that good. It's not particularly anything memorable or appealing, and you feel the glaring problems right there. The new guy just doesn't have the melodic talent and so we walk out of the cinema to an indifferent musical score, neither soaring nor rousing nor for that matter romantic or expressive. It's so pedestrian, it reminds you of the greatness of John Williams and his ability to churn out such anthemic fanfares for Luke, Han, Darth, but also Indy Jones, Superman, E.T., and the big shark Bruce in 'Jaws'. The film goes to show, you just don't place replace Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, or John Williams.
It's going to be a while before they find a composer who can bring it like Williams.
We also don't learn anything new about some of these older characters. The Grand Moff Tarkin is back, and so is Darth Vader, but we only get glimpses of their work and thinking. Tarkin is a bit of a dick in the original Ep4ANH, and really, he's exactly the same dick here. The fact that they recreated his likeness using CGI is, well, amazing, but there is something gratuitous about all of this, given that he doesn't show us a new side, the film is content to give us the same-old-same-old Grand Moff Tarkin.
Darth Vader's presence is equally vexing. He has a little killing spree at the climax, but his use of the force to fling people into the ceiling was a bit lame. Also, if we're being picky, Darth Vader's shoulders aren't broad enough in this one. He looks wrong in this. They don't show you anything new about Darth when in fact, they could have brought back Hayden Christensen and done some interesting things - certainly more interesting than the tank he spends time in where he's obscured by smoke and vapour.
Being even pickier, James Earl Jones is sounding old and husky. One of the lines gave away his age a bit. It may well be the last time we see Darth Vader.
Oh, the CGI Princess Leia looks terrible. It's just awful. GS said she looked like a 4th rate Xbox game animation and he's about right. It was better not to turn her around. Or re-cast her with a lookalike. Something, anything but that awful CGI.
What's Interesting About It
Star Wars movies always seem to wind back to desert landscapes. There's the original Tatooine, but also Jakku in EpVII TFA, and this one provides yet another with Jedah. All of them share vast empty, sandy, expanses right out to the horizon audit occurred to me they are all descendants of Salvador Dali paintings. 'Rogue One' works very hard to give us new places where new things can happen. Some of them look like they come from other Space Opera stories with the Star Wars look painted over, and other places look like the kinds of places Dali would have wanted to paint.
They always manage to give you a glimpse of a new planet- this time a sot of tropical paradise world with a dildo of a building which is an archive. It sort of flies in the face of real estate pricing to build such a tall structure on abundant flat land, but then again we do have Dubai.
In most part, the scenery of the new places were the interesting bits and the best of them get blown to smithereens by the Death Star. It shows us how awful the Death Star is, I know, but it seems a shame given how interesting those places looked.
Political Correctness? Really?
The 'Alt-Right' crowd are apparently boycotting this film, labelling it a masturbatory Jewish fantasy of political correctness. It's a sad world we live in. As far as I could tell, it was lots of white people setting agendas and some friendly token aliens there to help shooting and getting killed. On both sides.
Yeah it's got a lead female character, like, it's not exactly the only film ever to do that. Yes it has some non-white folk in it, and some aliens too, which makes the non-white people a new kind of token. The Star Wars universe is still very much white people doing white people stuff in space and deserts. The non-white people get to go along for the ride and get killed heroically, but none of them set any agendas. It's quite laughable that the 'Alt Right' crowd thinks this film is some propaganda piece for diversity, and equally laughable that the screenwriter thinks they've done enough for diversity. Like, hullo! No. It's still the same old Hollywood sausage machine. There is not even a Mace Windu here.
Disposable Characters In The Barren Landscape
The weird thing about this movie is knowing these characters are all going to die. I had it explained to me hat that's no different to seeing 'Hamlet', but upon reflection I realised that this movie had been 'spoiled' for me by the very concept being pitched to me. There's no way around it, if you've seen EpIVANH, you know these guys died to get the plans. You can't not know it, so perhaps the best thing that can be said is that they all have good deaths. As an aside, I have to say that's the biggest spoiler for this film, and it's not any person who's seen it before others who will be spoiling it, but the very concept upon which this film stands.
It's weird but apart from Donny Yuen's blind warrior monk, the characters aren't exactly people you get excited about. They're brave and stoic and daring, but then, so is Jason Bourne - and that recent movie was especially a turkey with a bow tied on top. The best thing that could be said about these characters is that as a group, they are the dirty half-dozen, and they get the job done in exchange for their lives. The biggest pay off for this film comes in EpIVANH. It's like watching replay of a quarterback throwing a pass without seeing the ball land in the hands of the receiver who then runs miraculously into an unlikely touchdown. You know it happens, but this is not that bit. Maybe it's even less than that.
I do wonder if these characters really have the same kind of appeal as the originals or even Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan. I have a feeling they won't be selling many figurines with this one as other films.
If There Were No Other Star Wars Films
It's hard to imagine what is interesting about this film if it weren't for all the other Star Wars films. it just can't exist in a vacuum of cinema, it necessarily has to relate to all the other Star Wars films. Yet I can well imagine somebody seeing this as their first Star Wars movie and really liking it and inevitably watching the prequels and hating those and having mixed feelings about the original trilogy.
In the context where is a tremendous amount of cultural production, you wonder if the Star Wars franchise can keep delivering the goods without breaking out into radically new story lines. In that sense this film which represents a breakaway from the Skywalker family saga is an important step. If anything I have higher hopes for these one-off side story Star Wars films than what may happen in episodes VIII and IX to come.
"I Have A Bad Feeling About This"
Some things never change. That line makes an appearance, as customary. What's interesting about these Disney Star Wars movies is just how unromantic they are. I noted this in the EpVII TFA crit last year but this is another film where there is no sense in which you are being swept up in the narrative or that you long for these characters. They're more arbitrary ciphers that serve the plot and the mechanical demands of the plot is they go to a terrible place to fight a terrible battle to get the information they need.
In the process, they cite 'hope' as the reason they are doing all this high stakes stuff, but in fact what they are really talking about is more in line with faith. It's all a bit Kierkegaard-ian in that the characters go do this terribly frightening thing on the say so of somebody they barely trust. They really do take a leap into the dark.
I'm not even sure this is the smartest of Star Wars movie. It feels like it might be one of the dumber ones - but it does hit a lot of the right emotional notes. All the same it might be the most emotional Star Wars movie since Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. That's not necessarily a good thing. It shows just how awful the prequels were in the emotional stakes.
