2005-05-27

The delivery notices from our sanitary supply company read �This is not an invoice� in bold black letters across the top. Whenever I read it I reflexively think, �Ceci n�est pas une facture�. See now, whoever said art school training was useless? I can nail a tired surrealist joke at fifty paces.

Lightsabre tragedy! Guess the Force was not with these two berks.

Speaking of lightsabres, I went to see Episode III, despite not having seen Episode II and not really giving two shits anymore about the Intergalactic Empire or whatev, because new films in Portsmouth are thin on the ground. And I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. The latest instalment is 99.9% Jar Jar free, which is a plus in any film; and Darth Grouchypants, despite looking like a boy-band escapee with a bad case of constipation, does a palatably un-stinky job of the whole �descending into the depths of pure evil� shtick. Plus, Natalie Portman dies at the end, and better late than never, right?

However, George Lucas has never been a real light touch with dialogue and the film does commit a few classic cardinal sins, like having a character shake his fists at the sky and shout �NOOOOOOOO!� at a tragic turn of events, which is right up there with saying �We�ve got company� when a passel of bad guys shows up, or even the execrably clich�d �I�ve got a bad feeling about this�; both also heard at various points in the trilogy. Of course, since all the films take place long long ago in a galaxy far far away, one could choose to assume that these were in fact the very first historical utterances of these phrases, and that therefore every other action adventure ever created since the dawn of recorded time has simply been pre-emptively ripping Mr Lucas off. I�m sure that legal rights will soon be filed to that effect. Gotta fund the Planet Hollywood Death Star somehow, right?