Star Wars: Construction Paper Remix

I hope on the tenth re-release of the original trilogy, George Lucas replaces all CGI with construction paper animation. I also hope on the inevitable re-release of the prequel trilogy, George Lucas replaces all poorly constructed plot points, one-dimensional characters, and soul sucking visuals with a better movie. Zing!*

*-Star Wars prequel trilogy zing #458,361,591,734,909,887,456

Enjoy.

'The Staircase' Documentary

For awhile, I was on a serious documentary kick. One fantastic documentary, 'The Staircase,' is a mini-series by filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade that came out in 2004 and chronicled the trial of author Michael Peterson, accused of murdering his wife. Due to the ambiguous circumstances of his wife's death, the documentary never offers a concrete conclusion on whether or not he killed his wife (despite the trial's outcome), but the lack of a final word is what makes this documentary so absorbing. The film mostly follows his family and the defendants as they go through the trial, but it shows in such extreme detail the limits prosecutors and defendants will go and have to go just to win a trial. As Michael Peterson says at one point (in a probably butchered quote I'm just pulling from my head), "They don't care about finding the truth. They just care about winning."

Here's a clip from the film where Michael Peterson laments how so much press and public focus is spent on his trial when it should be spent on the endless poverty and corruption that plagues his city of Durham, Alabama, instead.

And oh yes, a Netflix link for the lazy.