30 MOVIES
www.nanaimodailynews.com
@NanaimoDaily
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015
REVIEW
To love the original is to love the new one LINDSEY BAHR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
J
.J. Abrams may not elevate the language of Star Wars, but he sure is fluent in it. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is no more and no less than the movie that made us love it in the first place. In fact, it’s basically the same thing. Isn’t that what we all wanted anyway? It’s hard to talk rationally about Star Wars. It is a deeply silly thing, with a genuine, undeniable hold on our culture.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens STARRING: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher DIRECTOR: J.J. Abrams PLAYING AT: Galaxy Cinemas RUNNING TIME: 136 minutes
Chalk it up to nostalgia, collective arrested development or the ineffable. But for many, the magic of Star Wars is inseparable from
AVALON CINEMA Woodgrove Centre, Nanaimo
Dec. 18-24
Ph 250-390-5021 www.landmarkcinemas.com
THE PEANUTS MOVIE (G) FRI-SAT 11:45, 2:05, 3:45, 6:30; SUN-THURS 11:35, 1:55, 3:35, 6:20 SPECTRE (PG) (VIOLENCE) FRI-SAT 12:05, 3:20, 6:40, 10:10; SUN-WED 11:55, 3:10, 6:30, 10:00; THURS 11:50, 3:10, 6:30 STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (PG) NO PASSES FRI-SAT 12:20, 3:35, 6:50; SUN-THURS 12:10, 3:25, 6:40 STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS 3D (PG) NO PASSES FRI-SAT 11:50, 12:50, 3:05, 4:05, 6:20, 7:20, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30; SUN-WED 11:40, 12:40, 2:55, 3:55, 6:10, 7:10, 9:20, 9:50, 10:20; THURS 11:40, 12:40, 2:55, 3:55, 6:10, 7:10 KRAMPUS (14A) FRI-SAT 1:15, 4:30, 7:30, 10:20; SUN-TUE 1:05, 4:20, 7:25, 10:10; WED 1:20, 4:20, 10:10; THURS 4:20, 7:25 IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (PG) FRI-SAT 1:00, 7:00; SUN-THURS 12:50, 6:50 IN THE HEART OF THE SEA 3D (PG) FRI-SAT 3:55, 9:50; SUN-WED 3:45, 9:40; THURS 3:45 CREED (PG) FRI 12:35, 3:45, 7:10; SAT 12:35, 4:15, 7:10; SUN 4:05, 7:00; MON-TUE 12:25, 4:05, 7:00; WED 9:05 LEGEND (14A) FRI-SAT 10:15; SUN-TUE 10:05 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (G) WED 7:00; THURS 12:30 SPOTLIGHT (14A) FRI-SAT 9:15; SUN-TUE 9:05 THE ROYAL BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER SUN 12:55 THE BIG SHORT (14A) NO PASSES WED 12:25, 4:05, 7:00, 10:05; THURS 12:25, 4:05, 7:00
NANAIMO NORTH TOWN CENTRE
the magic of the movies and, hey, that’s no small thing. These movies make us lose ourselves in the spectacle. They make us forget our best instincts. They make us love the advertising as much as the art. They make us kids again. In this way, The Force Awakens, the seventh movie in this improbable yet inevitable series, delivers. It’s a movie made by someone who loves Star Wars deeply. Someone who can see more clearly than even its creator what made it so
250-729-8000
Dec 18-24
SHOW TIMES SUBJECT TO CHANGE, PLEASE CHECK LANDMARKCINEMAS.COM
THE MARTIAN 2D (PG): 12:20 3:25 6:40 9:50 TRUMBO (PG): 12:55 3:55 7:10 10:05 THE NIGHT BEFORE (14A): 12:35 4:15 7:30 10:05 MOCKINGJAY PART 2 (PG): FRI-SAT MON-WED 1:00 3:15 7:15 9:30 SUN 1:00 4:00 7:15 9:30 THE GOOD DINOSAUR 2D (G): 1:15 3:50 7:00 9:30 SISTERS (14A): 12:45 3:35 6:50 9:45 ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS (G): 12:30 1:30 3:00 4:10 6:30 7:05 9:00 10:10 ****NO EVENING MOVIES DEC 24TH*** BEFORE NOON MOVIES - SATURDAY ALL SEATS $6.00 & 3D $9.00: GOOD DINOSAUR 2D: 10:20AM MOCKINGJAY PART 2: 10:00 AM ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS ROAD CHIP: 10:40 ROYAL OPERA BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER SUNDAY DEC 20 12:55
Becoming a newspaper carrier is an excellent opportunity to teach children the life skills for success. Currrently we are hiring in the Ladysmith area. We are looking for young people to help us deliver the NDN Fridays before 6 pm. If anyone in your family is interested in being a paper carrier, contact us.
250.729.4266
marilou@blackpress.ca
special to so many people. Abrams has taken everything that we adore about that first film, delicately mixed up a few elements, and churned out a reverent homage that’s a heck of a lot of fun to watch. From the opening scroll to the sequelsetup ending, he manages to hit each beat of its 38-year-old predecessor. Abrams has essentially passed the torch on to its new cast by making them amalgamations of the originals. You’ll know it when you see it. Who cares if it’s Star Wars Mad-Libs? There’s the resistance-affiliated droid, who ends up stranded on a desert planet carrying a secret message (BB-8). There’s the nobody with the dead-end job and a Jedi obsession (Daisy Ridley’s Rey), who has a life-changing encounter with said droid. There’s the reckless kid uncertain of his allegiances (John Boyega’s Finn). There’s the cocky pilot (Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron). There’s the powerful, masked villain, too (Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren). The plot is as unwieldy and MacGuffin-filled as one might expect. It almost serves no purpose to go into the specifics at this point beyond the fact that the galaxy is in disarray, an evil army is growing (as is a resistance), and a series of coincidences help Rey collect a Wizard of Oz-worthy posse to help get BB-8 back to its rightful owners. This time, it’s all because of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). He’s vanished. Those are the first words on the screen and the last we’ll say about the big mystery. The action is nearly non-stop, as is the humour, which kicks into gear when Han Solo (Harrison Ford) finally shows
up. Ford is in his element — delightful, energetic, funny, brash and fully Han, bantering with Chewie and everyone with the same verve he showed nearly 40 years ago. If only the same showcase was given to Carrie Fisher, who is woefully, inexcusably underused as Leia. As for the new characters, Ridley’s Rey is a dream. She is feisty, endearingly awe-filled, capable and magnetic. She is the new anchor. She is our Luke, and she’s much cooler than he ever was. Driver’s Kylo Ren is also a disarmingly powerful presence, whose wickedness seeps through the mask. Boyega is appealing as Finn, too, even if his character doesn’t quite make sense on paper. (How do empathy, guilt and personality develop in a man who has been trained since birth to be a Stormtrooper?) But that’s taking things too seriously. Others are less memorable, including Gwendoline Christie’s Captain Phasma, and Andy Serkis’s preposterous-looking Supreme Leader Snoke. And while Abrams captures the lively, hokey and practical visual fun of the originals, he occasionally slips into generic blockbuster mode. But those moments pass, and all it takes is a perfect John Williams music cue to transport you back into the cozy blanket of that galaxy far, far away. Loving Star Wars without reserve isn’t an easily justifiable thing, and neither is the fun of The Force Awakens. They are intrinsically linked. To love the original is to love this one. On its own, The Force Awakens probably isn’t much. It’s not likely to convert anyone, either. But for the rest of us — even the most casual of fans — it fits the bill just fine.
MOVIES
‘Star Wars’ has become a pop-culture fixation THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
So maybe he was mixing his Star Wars and Star Trek references. But when President Barack Obama spoke of getting congressional leaders into a “Jedi mind meld” back in 2013, eight years after the last Star Wars movie had come out, he was displaying in one small way just how firmly the franchise had rooted itself in our popular culture. Well, the new Star Wars is finally out. But since it might take you some time to get to the multiplex, here’s something to chew on while you’re waiting — some reasons Star Wars has retained its exalted position in the pop culture firmament: IT MADE SCIENCE FICTION COOL Just ask a science fiction nerd. “I remember going with my wife and saying, ‘Look at these audiences!”’ says Paul Levinson, sci-fi author and communications professor at Fordham University. “This franchise really brought science fiction, which had a cult following, into the mainstream in a huge way.”
IT SPAWNED A PARALLEL UNIVERSE And we don’t mean up in space — we mean down here on Earth, in human shopping malls. The comics, the video games and, of course, the toys. “The films are the mother ship,” says Henry Jenkins, professor of communications, journalism and cinematic arts at the USC Annenberg School. ESPECIALLY THE TOYS How big has Star Wars been to the toy industry? “The biggest property the industry has even seen, bigger than any other by billions,” says Jim Silver of TTPM, an online toy review site. “To put it in perspective, just imagine Frozen lasting for close to 40 years, but with a much larger demographic.” HUMOUR One of the best things going for The Force Awakens — and this is hardly a spoiler — is its liberal use of humour amidst the action, a quality it takes from the early films, particularly from Han Solo (more on him soon) and, of course, C-P30 and R2-D2. “Robots had never been funny before,” says Levinson.