This documentary isn’t just a trip down memory lane; it’s an exploration of the love and madness surrounding the Star Wars phenomenon. Starting from the roots, it revisits the inception of Star Wars, highlighting its unexpected success and how it revolutionized movie marketing and merchandising – concepts that were almost alien before George Lucas’s vision. But the core of the documentary is the Star Wars Holiday Special itself, often regarded as a bizarre and low-quality variety show typical of the 1970s era....

Bring us up to speed on Shaun Peterson, the quick history. I was born in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in both KC and in the small town rural areas outside of St. Louis (Wentzville, MO). I was a highly imaginative child. I spent most of my boyhood in the basement inside of a cardboard box pretending to be Luke Skywalker. I was very political in high school: I was student body president, voted Most Likely to Succeed and was one of 2 kids chosen from Missouri to meet with President Bush at Boys Nation....

Stan Ailor (Stuart Ford) has a perfect life. He has a loving wife (Jennifer Louise), a young son (Lucas Morris-Steele), and a 9-to-5 working as a security guard at the local prison. One night, the unimaginable happens: an unknown assailant, Kenneth (Nick Mitchell), breaks into Stan’s house and kills his family. Three years later, the murderer is on death row, and Stan has one final opportunity to face his family’s killer as the two dine together for Kenneth’s last meal....

Tell me about the basic plot of B-Side for Taylor. Christina YR Lim: B-Side for Taylor follows Taylor Wagner, a Korean-American adoptee who, a year after the sudden death of her adoptive mother, has grown desperate to connect with her birth family, especially since the loss has strained her relationship with her adoptive father. When a Korean family serendipitously immigrates to her all-white suburb, Taylor befriends a new maternal figure who helps her reconnect with her roots and search for her birth family’s whereabouts....

What kind of life is this? Against his father’s best judgment, Thomas hangs out each day with a girl, Charlotte (Sadie Soverall), and her family. When the sun sets, the boys must return home to board up the house, except on this day. Thomas is missing. Paul decides to brave the night and look for Thomas, leaving Joseph to protect the house by himself until morning. Everything I’ve told you here is only the first act....

Riley is highly driven and very talented, but she suffers in private. She has massive anxiety that makes her pull out single hairs on her eyebrow (trichotillomania). Her mom, Tracy (Shannyn Sossamon), tries to help but is a bit of a gasoline puddle herself. Then Riley, Amanda, and friend Rachel (Noa DiBerto) get a chance to try out for the elite cheerleading team Thunder Hawks. They are scrutinized at tryouts by the stern head coach, Eileen McNamara (Evan Rachel Wood), and her laser-eyed assistant coach, Devon (Thomas Antony Olajide)....

It’s sometimes uneasy as it flits between the two tones, but it certainly has the characters to embrace either. Gregarious “Bee Guru” Gregg McMahan, for example, is as comfortable entertaining as he is educating, and his over-the-top personality rules the day. His partner, Bill Schlenker, is quieter, but equally as memorable with that ever-present Bluetooth headset in his ear. Other characters seem to exist within those two extremes of overwhelming personality and quiet expertise....

Samantha (Megan Castle) and Steve (Steve Froehlich) are spending a casual day at the beach. Samantha is enjoying the sun, and Steve is cracking rocks, hoping to find a rare fossil. On the drive home, the couple is discussing the difficulties they’ve had conceiving a child, like Sam’s recent pregnancy test that came up negative again. Steve assures his beloved that it will happen soon enough. Just as Steve is about to hold Samanthat’s hand, he sees a woman (Nathalie Soto Cuzin) in his backseat, but no one’s there....

Burn is a nasty little revenge flick, and just when I think I’ve seen every disturbing nugget film has to offer, I get reminded that, nope, still stuff out there to have nightmares about. I don’t want to give anything away, but the options the young man is given for how things will end are gruesome, cruel and unpleasant, any way you look at it. He might get out alive, but he ain’t walking away happy....

There’s been no shortage of films in recent years chronicling the lives of deaf and hard-of-hearing people. There’s, of course, the phenomenal Sound of Metal, the best picture-winning CODA, and even Marvel has the recent TV series Echo. Just as members of that community are diverse, the projects depicting them are equally varied. Dosh, which translates to “fault” (or “flaw,”) deals with the way that these perceived imperfections can lead to feelings of being unworthy or undeserving of love....

When last we left the doughty trio of Ozone, Turbo, and Kelly Bennett (“Special K” to her friends), they had overcome internal strife and incredible odds to…okay; honestly I don’t remember what happened in the first “Breakin’” movie. I think Kelly (Lucinda Dickey) left her old dance instructor because he was, like every other man in the early ‘80s, unable to resist the siren call of Lucinda Dickey. She hooked up with Ozone (Adolfo “Shabba Doo” Quinones) and Turbo (Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers) and danced – a lot – often accompanied by that classic song, “There’s No Stopping Us....

Here we find six women luxuriating at the expensive mansion owned by the mysterious Bella (Renata Fajti). Lucy (Megan Hernandez) is the first to open up about her life as the Hollywood Groupie, an aspiring actress fleeing her small-town woes for a glamourous lifestyle. She doesn’t quite nail her first audition, but the producer sees something in her. When the film wraps, she does cocaine, sleeps with the film’s director, and is instantly blacklisted by the producer, who believes in her....

The sedate drama is structured as an unusual and moody character study of Hamish, a man of few words. He’s on his way from London to his ancestral homeland of Donegal, Ireland, to see the house left for him by his late aunt. In the introductory scene, Hamish refuses to participate in frivolous chatter with an affable rental car employee (Pauline Hutton). The employee likes his name and engages in flirtatious behavior, but he isn’t having any of it, sternly asking, “What are you doing?...

I also had the misfortune of experiencing the new film version of “Les Misérables”, which fails to hide the weaker aspects of the source material and, with the exception of a single sequence, never brings any imagination to the screen adaptation. But even if I never saw “Les Misérables” on stage, I would still have difficulties with this dreary, enervated endeavor. For starters, the film is often at odds with its musical theater roots....

Everything goes to hell one evening, however, when a stranger (Marc Vos) comes calling. Murdering Michael’s wife on the front steps of the house, the man stalks around looking for Michael and some sort of “silver scorpion.” Michael retreats to the basement with his daughter where, fearing the menacing presence of the stranger, he proceeds to make one bad decision after another. Derek Dubois’ short film Lucid clues us in early not to trust our main character....

The film follows aged police detective Wilbert Moser (Basil Hoffman), who, many years after his retirement, still dreams about the one robbery he could not solve. When a young criminology student (Madelyn Dundon) approaches him for insight on the very same robbery, Moser and his weekly Bible study group — all of whom are ex-convicts — decide to help solve the case once and for all. Who committed the theft, and why did it take so long to catch them?...

There are few facts. The soldiers appear to be Americans. The narrator is speaking English. The propaganda flyers dropped by the enemy are in German. A good deal of time passes, months or years on the mountain. Stark and beautiful images of stillness are intercut with the desperation of escape. The film moves very well. This be could seven minutes of a chase in any war film you’ve seen. The Inglorious Basterds, Green Berets, or E Company’s Band of Brothers could be over the next ridge....

Sports can be transformative, giving life-changing confidence, as well as lifting people out of tough socio-economic environments. This is the lens through which Kipp became a role model for other Native-American women from the Blackfeet Nation tribe in Browning, Montana. The film offers beautiful scenic wide-angle shots of the reservations. Although gorgeous, these small towns of a thousand people do not provide a ton of opportunities besides the social problems of drugs, alcohol, and absent parents that plague many reservations....

Sunless – 2023 Palm Springs Shortfest My personal favorite film of ShortFest so far (I haven’t had time to watch all 299 films yet) is a thriller called Sunless, about two men who attempt to break the deep dive world record in a submarine. It features top-notch acting with a range of emotions in its brief runtime, directing that ratchets up the chills, and beautiful life-like cinematography, while giving us a glimpse of a dramatic event that is eerily similar to a ripped-from-the-headlines current event....

Mark and Lawrence Zubia were part of a family with five siblings. Lawrence, who lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and whose father was a first-generation American from Mexico, calls his family “the Chicano Brady Bunch.” A mariachi musician, Mark and Lawrence’s father’s influence on them led to their love and, to an extent, their worship of music. At the burgeoning music scene in the late 1980s, the Zubia brothers were in the band Live Nudes combining rock, blues, soul, pop, and a little country in Scottsdale, where their band life was born....