Peculiar Reviewer

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, which brought me out of my movie critic retirement home in Tatooine to say: don't try to repair the formula of the most culturally impactful and epic franchise in movie history!  Star Wars: The Last Jedi  follows Rey on a mission to receive Jedi training from Luke Skywalker to aid the Resistance in the fight against the First Order. Where we are now is Episode 8 and the second film of the sequel trilogy. Prior to this installment, J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens had the audience in the palm of his hands with that final pivotal scene of Rey presenting Luke with his father Anakin Skywalker's old lightsaber which Obi-Wan Kenobi bestowed upon Luke in the original trilogy. Sounds like a great starting point for a fulfilling narrative. So many possibilities. How could it go wrong? New to the Star Wars universe is writer/director Rian Johnson  ( Looper , Brothers Bloom ), who was given the "go ahead" from Lucasfilm pres...

HBO 's smart new series Enlightened scored this fall season, where Hung left viewers limp and unsatisfied (which is why it got chopped off). Never has the office workplace been so dead-on-screen as the numbing corporation Abaddon (which literally means in Hebrew: the depths of hell), that drives Laura Dern 's ( Wild At Heart , Jurassic Park ) character to seek enlightenment at a Hawaii retreat. Diane Ladd ( Chinatown ) limelight's as seasoned Inland Empire -er Laura Dern's real-life, and fake-life mother, who is aloof when her daughter hugs her. The series co-creator, and writer, Mike White ( Chuck & Buck , The School of Rock ) plays Dern's corporate confidant. Enlightened has been picked up for a second season and will return to HBO next fall. Higher calling coming soon.