Don’t Make Us Make More Crappy Movies

As if his recent movies weren’t proof enough, George Lucas offers the following, showing he needs emergency remedial education in both metaphors and logic:

Star Wars Creator Calls for Attack on Piracy
“I am begging for co-operation. There are unintended consequences of piracy. If piracy is not stopped, the rainforest of the entertainment business ecosystem will collapse. I am pleading for the creative people in this industry,” he said.
Mr. Lucas warned that piracy threatened to reduce the movie industry’s revenues, forcing film corporations to concentrate on blockbusters, rather than also investing in smaller art movies.

Rainforest? Ecosystem? Give me a break.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the film industry already concentrating on blockbusters? And isn’t that due more to the success of blockbusters created by Lucas and Steven Spielberg (who lends his voice to Lucas’ plea) rather than to piracy? This is the film industry holding a gun to the head of movies they already don’t like to make and telling viewers, “Don’t make me shoot her.”

Austin Powers Doesn’t Translate

I paid $15 Saturday night to see Austin Powers at a local cinema. And the only laughter came from our group of English-speakers.

Seeing a movie at a theater is pretty expensive in Japan, and the venue quality here in Nagano leaves something to be desired. The theater looked something like a high school auditorium, and I’ve seen bigger screens in home entertainment systems. On the bright side, I was able to buy a beer at the snack counter.

How well does this sort of humor translate into Japanese? It doesn’t, judging by the audience response. No wonder there are no comedy sections at the local video stores.

Beyonce Knowles should get some kind of award for Leading Character with Zero Character. You can dress her up, but…