The Screening Room

You know, appeasement never works.

We keep throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at George Lucas, hoping each successive windfall will be enough to convince the man to finally retire from butchering his own youthful successes.

And every time, Lucas just gets a little chubbier and comes back for more, adding a Jar-Jar Binks here and an embarrassing crystal skull over there, counting his fortune and looking more and more like a Caucasian Wookiee with each passing year.

Now all we're left with is a collection of defiled memories and surplus McDonald's commemorative cups.

I say enough.

This latest act of naked aggression must not be allowed to stand:

Lucas sat down with AP Television at his Big Rock Ranch outside San Francisco, where he said he didn't pay much attention to the reception from critics and fans to "Crystal Skull," a sci-fi adventure set in the 1950s. But he definitely sees a future for Dr. Jones. A fifth movie is certainly a possibility.

"The franchise really depends on me coming up with a good idea," Lucas said. "And that series is very research-intensive. So we're doing research now to see if we can't come up with another object for him to chase ... hopefully we'll come up with something."

I don't care what it takes. We shall fight Lucas at the multiplex, we shall fight at Netflix and Blockbuster, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength on pay-per-view, we shall defend our sacred childhood films, whatever the cost may be.

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, Indiana Jones 5 is released, then in God's good time, Harrison Ford will simply be too old to make Indiana Jones 6.

An organization of disabilities groups is planning a full-scale boycott of Tropic Thunder ahead of its Wednesday release, according to The New York Times. The offending portion of the movie concerns a mentally challenged character that Ben Stiller's character played in a previous movie (still with me?) in an attempt to land an Oscar.
Do the groups actually have a bone to pick? I saw the movie at a screening last week, and I can see why someone would be offended. Any time you play a disability for a laugh, you run that risk. That being said, the butt of the joke is not the mentally challenged but the actors who take these parts in an attempt to show what range they have.
The question then, becomes: Is the joke worth the tangential harm caused to these groups? If the movie makes a ton of cash, I have a feeling DreamWorks will feel it was worth it. If the boycott leads to Tropic Thunder's early demise, then DreamWorks may wish it would have been a little more sensitive.
With the hunger out there these days for comedy to push the boundaries with each successive film, I would bet on option A.

Landmark Theatres Film Club is offering a little extra incentive to sign up by the end of the month. Anyone who wants to take part in the free club -- basically an e-mail blast of screening information, filmmaker appearances, etc. at the Inwood and Magnolia Theatres -- will be entered into a drawing to receive CDs, DVDs, books, movie passes, stuff like that. You can register for the club here. At the very least, you'll know what's going on at those theaters.