Star Wars Return of the Jedi

IMDb
After rescuing Han Solo from the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the rebels attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to make Vader return from the dark side of the Force.



RogerEbert

Here is just one small moment in "Return of Jedi," a moment you could miss if you looked away from the screen, but a moment that helps explain the special magic of the Star Wars movies. Luke Skywalker is engaged in a ferocious battle in the dungeons beneath the throne room of the loathsome, Jabba the Hutt. His adversary is a slimy, gruesome, reptilian monster made of warts and teeth. Things are looking bad when suddenly the monster is crushed beneath a falling door. And then (here is the small moment) there's a shot of the monster's keeper, a muscle-bound jailer, who rushes forward in tears. He is brokenhearted at the destruction of his pet. Everybody loves somebody.

It is that extra level of detail that makes the Star Wars pictures much more than just space operas. Other movies might approach the special effects. Other action pictures might approximate the sense of swashbuckling adventure. But in "Return of the Jedi," as in "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back," there's such a wonderful density to the canvas. Things are happening all over. They're pouring forth from imaginations so fertile that, yes, we do halfway believe in this crazy Galactic Empire long ago and far, far away.

"Return of the Jedi" is both a familiar movie and a new one. It concludes the stories of the major human characters in the saga, particularly Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Darth Vader. It revisits other characters who seem either more or less than human, including Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, Yoda, Chewbacca, and the beloved robots C-3PO and R2-D2. If George Lucas persists in his plan to make nine Star Wars movies, this will nevertheless be the last we'll see of Luke, Han and Leia, although the robots will be present in all the films.

The story in the Star Wars movies is, however, only part of the film -- and a less crucial element as time goes by. What "Jedi" is really giving us is a picaresque journey through the imagination, and an introduction to forms of life less mundane than our own.

In "Jedi," we encounter several unforgettable characters, including the evil Jabba the Hutt, who is a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat; the lovable, cuddly Ewoks, the furry inhabitants of the "forest moon of Endor"; a fearsome desert monster made of sand and teeth, and hateful little ratlike creatures that scurry about the corners of the frame. And there is an admiral for the Alliance who looks like the missing link between Tyrannosaurus Rex and Charles De Gaulle.

One thing the Star Wars movies never do is waste a lot of time on introductions. Unlike a lot of special effects and monster movies, where new creatures are introduced with laborious setups, "Jedi" immediately plunges its alien beasts into the thick of the action. Maybe that's why the film has such a sense of visual richness. Jabba's throne room, for example, is populated with several weird creatures, some of them only half-glimpsed in the corner of the frame. The camera in "Jedi" slides casually past forms of life that would provide the centerpiece for lesser movies.

The movie also has, of course, more of the amazing battles in outer space -- the intergalactic video games that have been a trademark since "Star Wars." And "Jedi" finds an interesting variation on that chase sequence in "Star Wars" where the space cruisers hurtled through the narrow canyons on the surface of the Death Star. This time, there's a breakneck chase through a forest, aboard airborne motorcycles. After several of the bad guys have run into trees and gotten creamed, you pause to ask yourself why they couldn't have simply flown above the treetops ... but never mind, it wouldn't have been as much fun that way.

And "Return of the Jedi" is fun, magnificent fun. The movie is a complete entertainment, a feast for the eyes and a delight for the fancy. It's a little amazing how Lucas and his associates keep topping themselves.

From the point of view of simple movie-making logistics, there is an awesome amount of work on the screen in "Jedi" (twice as many visual effects as "Star Wars" in the space battles, Lucas claims). The fact that the makers of "Jedi" are able to emerge intact from their task, having created a very special work of the imagination, is the sort of miracle that perhaps Obi-Wan would know something about.

Rotten Tomatoes

n the epic conclusion of the saga, the Empire prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star while the Rebel fleet mounts a massive attack on the space station. Luke Skywalker confronts his father Darth Vader in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor. In the last second, Vader makes a momentous choice: he destroys the Emperor and saves his son. The Empire is finally defeated, the Sith are destroyed, and Anakin Skywalker is thus redeemed. At long last, freedom is restored to the galaxy.

Full movie on Pubfilm

and Genvideo

and HDmovie14

Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back

IMDb
After the rebels have been brutally overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker takes advanced Jedi training with Master Yoda, while his friends are pursued by Darth Vader as part of his plan to capture Luke.



Rotten Tomatoes
After the destruction of the Death Star, Imperial forces continue to pursue the Rebels.


Full Movie on Pubfilm
And HDmovie14

Star Wars

IMDb
Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.



RogerEbert
Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they're referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them.

"Star Wars" works like that. My list of other out-of-the-body films is a short and odd one, ranging from the artistry of "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Cries and Whispers" to the slick commercialism of "Jaws" and the brutal strength of "Taxi Driver." On whatever level (sometimes I'm not at all sure) they engage me so immediately and powerfully that I lose my detachment, my analytical reserve. The movie's happening, and it's happening to me.

What makes the "Star Wars" experience unique, though, is that it happens on such an innocent and often funny level. It's usually violence that draws me so deeply into a movie -- violence ranging from the psychological torment of a Bergman character to the mindless crunch of a shark's jaws. Maybe movies that scare us find the most direct route to our imaginations. But there's hardly any violence at all in "Star Wars" (and even then it's presented as essentially bloodless swashbuckling). Instead, there's entertainment so direct and simple that all of the complications of the modern movie seem to vaporize.

"Star Wars" is a fairy tale, a fantasy, a legend, finding its roots in some of our most popular fictions. The golden robot, lion-faced space pilot, and insecure little computer on wheels must have been suggested by the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz." The journey from one end of the galaxy to another is out of countless thousands of space operas. The hardware is from "Flash Gordon" out of "2001: A Space Odyssey," the chivalry is from Robin Hood, the heroes are from Westerns and the villains are a cross between Nazis and sorcerers. "Star Wars" taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it's done so brilliantly, it reactivates old thrills, fears, and exhilarations we thought we'd abandoned when we read our last copy of Amazing Stories.

The movie works so well for several reasons, and they don't all have to do with the spectacular special effects. The effects are good, yes, but great effects have been used in such movies as "Silent Running" and "Logan's Run" without setting all-time box-office records. No, I think the key to "Star Wars" is more basic than that.

The movie relies on the strength of pure narrative, in the most basic storytelling form known to man, the Journey. All of the best tales we remember from our childhoods had to do with heroes setting out to travel down roads filled with danger, and hoping to find treasure or heroism at the journey's end. In "Star Wars," George Lucas takes this simple and powerful framework into outer space, and that is an inspired thing to do, because we no longer have maps on Earth that warn, "Here there be dragons." We can't fall off the edge of the map, as Columbus could, and we can't hope to find new continents of prehistoric monsters or lost tribes ruled by immortal goddesses. Not on Earth, anyway, but anything is possible in space, and Lucas goes right ahead and shows us very nearly everything. We get involved quickly, because the characters in "Star Wars" are so strongly and simply drawn and have so many small foibles and large, futile hopes for us to identify with. And then Lucas does an interesting thing. As he sends his heroes off to cross the universe and do battle with the Forces of Darth Vader, the evil Empire, and the awesome Death Star, he gives us lots of special effects, yes -- ships passing into hyperspace, alien planets, an infinity of stars -- but we also get a wealth of strange living creatures, and Lucas correctly guesses that they'll be more interesting for us than all the intergalactic hardware.

The most fascinating single scene, for me, was the one set in the bizarre saloon on the planet Tatooine. As that incredible collection of extraterrestrial alcoholics and bug-eyed martini drinkers lined up at the bar, and as Lucas so slyly let them exhibit characteristics that were universally human, I found myself feeling a combination of admiration and delight. "Star Wars" had placed me in the presence of really magical movie invention: Here, all mixed together, were whimsy and fantasy, simple wonderment and quietly sophisticated storytelling.

When Stanley Kubrick was making "2001" in the late 1960s, he threw everything he had into the special effects depicting outer space, but he finally decided not to show any aliens at all -- because they were impossible to visualize, he thought. But they weren't at all, as "Star Wars" demonstrates, and the movie's delight in the possibilities of alien life forms is at least as much fun as its conflicts between the space cruisers of the Empire and the Rebels.

And perhaps that helps to explain the movie's one weakness, which is that the final assault on the Death Star is allowed to go on too long. Maybe, having invested so much money and sweat in his special effects, Lucas couldn't bear to see them trimmed. But the magic of "Star Wars" is only dramatized by the special effects; the movie's heart is in its endearingly human (and non-human) people.

full movie on Pubfilm

and MovieSub

Last Tango in Paris

IMDb
A young Parisian woman meets a middle-aged American businessman who demands their clandestine relationship be based only on sex.


Rotten Tomatoes
In Bernardo Bertolucci's art-house classic, Marlon Brando delivers one of his characteristically idiosyncratic performances as Paul, a middle-aged American in "emotional exile" who comes to Paris when his estranged wife commits suicide. Chancing to meet young Frenchwoman Jeanne (Maria Schneider), Paul enters into a sadomasochistic, carnal relationship with her, indirectly attacking the hypocrisy all around him through his raw, outrageous sexual behavior. Paul also hopes to purge himself of his own feelings of guilt, brilliantly (and profanely) articulated in a largely ad-libbed monologue at his wife's coffin. If the sexual content in Last Tango is uncomfortably explicit (once seen, the infamous "butter scene" is never forgotten), the combination of Brando's acting, Bertolucci's direction, Vittorio Storaro's cinematography, and Gato Barbieri's music is unbeatable, creating one of the classic European art movies of the 1970s, albeit one that is not for all viewers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Full movie on MovieSub

The LuckyOne

IMDb
A Marine travels to Louisiana after serving three tours in Iraq and searches for the unknown woman he believes was his good luck charm during the war.


Rotten Tomatoes
U.S. Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault (Efron) returns from his third tour of duty in Iraq, with the one thing he credits with keeping him alive--a photograph he found of a woman he doesn't even know. Learning her name is Beth (Schilling) and where she lives, he shows up at her door, and ends up taking a job at her family-run local kennel. Despite her initial mistrust and the complications in her life, a romance develops between them, giving Logan hope that Beth could be much more than his good luck charm. -- (C) Warner Bros


Full movie on Pubfilm

The Crow

IMDb
A man brutally murdered comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée's murder.



Rotten Tomatoes
Based on the graphic novel by James O'Barr, this fantasy follows Eric Draven (Brandon Lee), a rock musician who is murdered along with his fiancée, Shelly (Sofia Shinas), by a group of marauding thugs who terrorize the decaying city in which they live. One year to the day after his death (which happens to be Devil's Night), a mystical crow appears at Eric's grave; Eric rises from the dead and, with the bird as his guide, goes on a mission to avenge himself against Top Dollar (Michael Wincott), the leader of the gang who killed him. Star Brandon Lee was killed while filming a scene in which he was shot with a shell from an improperly cleaned gun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks. Like his father, martial arts superstar Bruce Lee, Brandon was fated to enjoy his greatest popular success after his premature death. ~ Mark Deming, 


Full Movie on Pubfilm

THE BAD EDUCATION MOVIE

Rotten Tomnatoes
Alfie Wickers is probably the worst teacher to (dis)grace the English education system, but no one cares about their pupils quite as much as Alfie does. Having completed their GCSEs, Alfie is keen for his class to join him on one last hurrah and what follows is a coming of age story like no other, the best school trip ever!


IMDb
Mr Wickers and his class go on one final school trip after they finish their GCSEs.



Full mopvie on Pubfilm