Q: This is probably the best of all of the Star Wars movies. 

The starting point of the movie was almost like Episode IV--spacey cabaret music and thoughts of a cabaret place, where the seriousness of mobster Jabba the Hutt was getting even more serious. He ordered Luke to die in a basement pit by the bone-crushing teeth of Bantha, who looked almost like a cross between a bear and a shark. Luke's Jedi powers eventually finish the monster off. Adding to the sneaky rescue of Han Solo, who was frozen alive at the end of Episode V, Jabba was very angry about this that Luke was sentenced to die at the Sarlacc pit outside.

But all of the Star Wars "good guys", especially R2-D2, had other ideas...and those other ideas fended off Luke's execution; in the end, most of Jabba's soldiers died and Princess Leia was able to use the force to fatally choke Jabba to death.

Like in Episode IV, the Death Star in Episode VI makes its appearance. As I analyzed the rebel fleet attacking the Imperial fighters around the Death Star, the Star Destroyer personnel, I guessed, sped up the arming of the main laser, using the Imperial fighters as a diversion. The 20-25 Star Destroyers that lined up were ready to attack but was called off and instead the laser weapon on the Death Star was fired in surprise. Once it fired, the rebel fleet's only hope was that the Death Star's deflector shield was going to be knocked out, and this affected Lando so much because he wanted to destroy the Death Star but he couldn't until the shield was taken out. And it was taken out with Lando's increasing impatience.

Like in Episode V, the Imperial Walkers make their menacing appearance with their twin cannons, killing at least one of the Ewoks...but the Ewoks found ancient yet unusual way to deal with them. For instance, Chewbacca, as well as another Ewok, was able to commandeer one of the walkers (and actually used that to destroy from behind one of the walkers), and the other Ewoks used logs to knock out two other walkers.

It is amazing what Luke could do with his Jedi powers on his Light Sabre, like, for instance, the scene on Endor where Luke deflects incoming laser shots from a Storm Trooper speeder bike, and using the Sabre to knock out part of the bike. Or, in a climax, using the Sabre to break off his own father's arm during the final Sabre fight with Sith Vader.

You probably know the Ewoks celebration after the Death Star was blown, complete with a short display of fireworks, drumming on the spoils of victory (e.g., Storm Trooper Masks), and Luke finally meeting up with Leia after Luke's own nemesis---Darth Vader, now dead, is burned on a pyre. The celebration include Ewoks singing but I think Lucas did not buy that--even with the strong respect of film composer John Williams.

On the home movie version, I think Lucas himself wanted a different ending. In addition to the celebration on Endor, he wanted shots of celebratory scenes on the several surviving rebel planets, including a celebratory laser shot that destroys the statue of the Sith. The Ewoks song was replaced by an alternative instrumental piece. He probably wanted the extra stuff to prove that with the Death Star's destruction, balance had been restored to the rebel galaxies. OPTIONS:
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A: positive
Q: I realize it's not supposed to be BSG and I can handle slow-paced shows if they're interesting but I find myself completely uninterested and bored with this series.

The formula for BSG seemed to be: Action + Adventure + SciFi + Suspense + Mystery + Drama

the formula for Caprica seems to be: Bland Drama + Moderate Scifi

Maybe it will get more interesting but as of episode 3 I can barely watch it. In fact, it's at the bottom of my to-watch list for the week. This is a sad state of affairs. The Syfi channel really destroyed their Friday night lineup. Whatever happened to the glory days of SG1, Stargate Atlantis, and BSG on Friday nights? They had a good thing there. OPTIONS:
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A: negative
Q: it's amazing that so many people that i know haven't seen this little gem. everybody i have turned on to it have come back with the same reaction: WHAT A GREAT MOVIE!!

i've never much cared for Brad Pitt (though his turns in 12 monkeys and Fight Club show improvement) but his performance in this film as a psycho is unnerving, dark and right on target.

everyone else in the film gives excellent performances and the movie's slow and deliberate pacing greatly enhance the proceedings. the sense of dread for the characters keeps increasing as they come to realize what has been really happening.

the only thing that keeps this from a 10 in my book, is that compared to what came before it, the ending is a bit too long and overblown. but that's the only flaw i could find in this cult classic.

if you check this film out, try to get the letterboxed unrated director's cut for the best viewing option.

rating:9 OPTIONS:
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A: positive
Q: I love the music of the Clash and I love the music of Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros. I went to this movie hoping to learn about the man behind most of that. But I came out of the theatre not knowing much more about Joe than I already did after reading the entry on Wikipedia. The movie never really gets through to the person, his thoughts and feelings. What they did was to collect the little material that they had, shaky blurry videos and to interview some people about Joe Strummer at a camp fire. It turns out that most of these people knew him very little or not at all, and that the director just wanted them in the movie in order to have some more celebrities say, "Oh, he was such an inspiration to all of us". Like Bono or Johnny Depp (whom they seemingly asked to keep his pirate costume on to benefit from his current success in Pirates of the Caribbean). It seems that the director could not even wait until the body was cold before he jumped in to sell his version of "the greatest punk rocker and hippie at heart" that ever lived, sanctifying the person without really knowing enough about him.

Sure, being a fan i enjoyed seeing the images of the band, hearing the anecdotes behind the songs and such, but in the end I felt like what remained as the portrait of Joe Strummer could have easily been told in 60-90 minutes.

Go see the movie if you are a fan, otherwise better listen to some music of the Clash or even better the undeservedly unknown Mescaleros, where Joe Strummer reached the peak of his musical development before his death, melting all his rich influences together to one amazing sound. OPTIONS:
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A: negative