#Review #StarWarsTheForceAwakens hits the right notes. Homage to #ForceTenFromNavarone #nonspoilercommentary

JJ Abrams The Force Awakens hits the high notes. It begins aloft and never really falters. Some critics are calling BS on the nostalgia trip and the Starkiller remix plot. The homages extend not only to Star Wars A New Hope, and the original trilogy, but I could also not help recalling Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Force Ten From Navarone-- a great WWII dirty dozen style adventure featuring a young shiny Harrison Ford as the American Col. Barnsby. Aesthetically these films share paired down plots, archetypes, and storm troopers of either the Galactic of Nazi variety. Abrams shot a movie that is as good as what we remembered our favorite movies to be. It's magic. Don't be a hater. He's a stylist, one groomed on the Goonies, Indiana Jones, Superman, and Jaws. Grand summer cinema.

In many ways the film celebrates Harrison Ford's legacy as a big screen action hero. He gets to do everything here, and with charm.

Abrams film is a marriage of old school craft and new school tech. There's real dialogue for a change, but the action is what characterizes these people. There isn't much room for backstory. It's very much like A New Hope in that regard. We know nothing of these people. And that's great. We are plopped into the middle of a war story; essentially Star Wars films are war movies, albeit romanticized and infused with myth.

The Greek plot tropes work well with Star Wars material. The grandeur of a decaying democracy and the terrifying beauty of a rising power; Oedipal and Electra themes anchoring the characters. Already the new trilogy is better than the prequels, but that is setting the bar low. Note: Each of the first movies in the respective trilogies mirror each other in terms of thematic content. The new heroes and villains are intense and likable/hatable. Rey and Finn are cinema gold--"Gold Jerry, gold!"

Side: The prequels plodding plots (say it...say it), the wooden acting from half of the cast--the "important" half of the cast, mind you (Christensen, Portman... I'm looking in your direction.) and the horrid dialogue took the air out of the films. There are parts that I cannot watch. In the prequels defense, some of the action scenes were exceptional. Ewan and Samuel L kicked it. The Williams score surprised and thrilled.

What Abrams celebrates is cinema. The buzz. The freshness and surprise that a big screen experience brings. It feels like youth. It feels good. I saw it Friday with my boys, eleven and eight. The eight year old has a birthday this weekend. He wants to see it again. And so do I.

Summer Poetry Reading in Rehoboth

If anyone's interested in a mid-summer run to Rehoboth's outlet malls, consider Tuesday, July 27th, and stop by the Rehoboth Beach Librar y for the summer poetry series. Besides moi, Denise Clemmons, poet and food critic for the Cape Gazette, and Sherry Chapplle, poet and professor. Excellent company. Books will be for sale afterwards. It's a quality series, and full of surprises. Garry Hanna has done a bang-up job organizing the summer series. Bring a few quarters to ward off the meter maid. Reading starts at 7:00 PM.

#PresidentBannon, feudal #America. Dugin's influence on the White House

Op Ed. Ramble. Steve Bannon is often described as a Neo-Nazi, or just a Nazi. He really isn’t. That’s way too simple. He knows his Nazi imagery and iconography, evident from the “America First” inauguration speech, the lingo of the campaign, plus the regime’s early policy. Bannon claims to be a Nationalist, one with an originalist view of the Constitution, much like Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s pick for SCOTUS. So what do you get when you thread a Fascism fetish, Old-School Constitutional thinking, and capitalism? American feudalism. A loose federal government, controlled by a strong military, the oligarchy ruling class lording over the spoils of the states which would possibly be recombined, even, into loose nations, pooling resources, and trade leverage. Dystopia schmopia. And how would that even happen? We’ll have to go through Russia to get there. If you’re just catching onto Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller for that matter, two power hungry conservatives ru

Common Core Standards and Urban Decay Inspire First Poem for 30/30 May

This May I will be giving my time to write 30 new poems for Tupelo Press, which is in the throes of raising money via crowd-sourcing for new projects. They are non profit. Grants remain at recession lows. So, this morning as I met with my graduating seniors during their one on one conference (we discuss plans for success, grades, papers, attendance, etc) I pulled up Common Core Apps while waiting for a senior to fetch his book for his book report. The app is Common Curriculum , a cool lesson plan and web posting service. For some reason the idea struck to adopt some of the standards for a United States of Poetry--which sounded dystopian and Orwellian to my ears. So I mashed up some made up standards with some urban decay riffs. The urban decay riffs will need tweaking as they don't really strike any new visual ground, but rather cull standard tropes together. The made-up Common Core riffs are meta, and will also need to be made consistent. There is obvious commentary about CC

Field Recordings

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