NEVERENDING FILM FESTIVAL #388

every movie ever made, in alphabetical order
(we’re in the I’s, with random anti-alphabetical cheats)

Idea (1932)

This an animated short, 24 minutes, is about a man who imagines a small naked woman. She’s tiny enough to be held and petted like a cat, or be mailed in an ordinary envelope, but everyone’s angry about her nakedness. Images of the naked woman are everywhere, and used prominently in advertising, but the authorities execute everyone who’d been fascinated by the naked lady.

No dialogue. Flutey music that sometimes gets brain-piercing at the high notes. Cut-out animation technique, same as South Park but with lots more attention to the artistry, and in black-and-white that looks like German expressionism.

To me, this was all interesting but baffling. Despite their latest ugly redesign, IMDB is where I go for names and filmographies, and learned that Idea was made by Berthold Bartosch. Never heard of him. IMDB is not where I’d usually turn for understanding or enlightenment, but their description of the film is: “When a liberal idea emerges in a tyranny ruled society, power and wealth unite to bring it down.”

Whoa! That’s exactly what I’d just seen, only I hadn’t seen the allegory, naked lady = a liberal idea. And suddenly this short goes from peculiar to profound.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Identikit (1974)
a/k/a The Driver’s Seat

Elizabeth Taylor plays Lise, a cranky woman who’s difficult and demanding, much like Elizabeth Taylor must’ve been. You can’t be a world-famous movie star from the age of 11 and not develop an ego that needs separate luggage. But that’s neither hither nor yon.

Everywhere Lise goes, the police follow, to interrogate anyone she’s had a moment with. At the airport, Interpol issues an alert on her whereabouts. She’s looking for a man who’s her type, but all she finds are men eager to boink her, so perhaps all movie is mostly happening in Lise’s mind?

It’s an interesting premise with wackadoodle presentation. You’ll be hoping the moviemakers know what they’re doing, and it’ll add up to something at the end. Unfortunately, they don’t and it doesn’t.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

Identity (2003)

There’s an accident in a rainstorm on a remote highway, and in flashbacks we see all the little moments and coincidences that led to the wreck. It’s an audacious and well-delivered opening, but the rest of the movie can’t possibly be as good.

And indeed, after that excellent start, it becomes a genre horror flick about a bunch of people stuck at a small-town hotel in a storm. But you know what? It’s a darn good genre horror movie. Every time you’re pretty sure who’s the crazy killer, that’s the next person who dies.

John Cusack, Ray Liota, and Amanda Peet star. It gets nutty toward the end, but I haven’t enjoyed a horror movie this much since Vincent Price died and didn’t come back.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
and Return of the Jedi (1983)

The Empire Strikes Back is the first sequel to Star Wars, a tad darker than the original but on-brand. There’s Luke and Han and Leia and the hairy Wookie, and more babble about “The Force,” and we meet Yoda, a cute and cuddly Jedi who’s actually a Muppet with Frank Oz’s hand up its backside.

Along the way, there’s a memorable high-speed chase through an asteroid belt, Han and Leia walk into a trap, Darth Vader shares a secret, Luke gets half-trained as a Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi looks pretty good for a dead guy, and Han Solo becomes a chocolate bar. And it’s all set to rousing music.

Turns out the evil Darth has a boss, the wrinkly old Emperor Palpatine, but I wish he didn’t. Palpatine’s ugly and mean, but brings none of Darth Vader’s mystery or gravitas. Vader’s character works better as a super-villain, Evil for Evil’s Sake, than as Junior Evil working 9-5 for some old man who wears a hoodie.

Still, this flick has most of the original’s aura. It’s the middle part of a three-part story, so it comes to an incomplete end designed to make sure you tune in for the next episode — which worked. Soon as it ended, I wanted to see the next episode, Revenge of the Jedi. And unlike the ’80s, I didn’t have to wait three years.

This third and (I wish it was) final film relies almost entirely on the audience’s good will from the first two episodes. It’s fun, but mostly because you want it to be fun.

The plot is a rerun from the first movie — again the intergalactic baddies have built the most dreaded military base ever, and again it’s not yet operational, and again that’s the weakness Luke and his buddies are hoping to exploit.

There are a thousand furries called Ewoks — small, hairy, and incapable of speaking English, instead making indecipherable sounds. They’re mini-Wookies for 5-year-olds, and they’re oh-so cute and cuddly, but the previous movie already gave us cute and cuddly — Yoda — and did it better, and without the Ewoks’ cartoonish jibberjabber shenanigans.

There’s a moment of redemption for Darth Vader, after which he’s dead but buddy-buddy with Yoda and Obi-Wan while a happy, weirdly wrong song gets stuck like chewing gum stuck behind your ear. The movie wants us to love our new hero Darth, but I remember him destroying a planet and being generally nasty, so despite the chewing gum song I’m not willing to forgive and forget.

Revenge of the Jedi is not a bad movie, but despite the required quips and fairy tale drama, it feels like a rerun. You’re watching the magic of Star Wars peter out.

The Empire Strikes Back: YES.
Return of the Jedi: YES, I guess.

You can easily find movies with those titles, but not the movies I just watched. They’re not available, legally, anywhere. Like Star Wars a couple of months ago (except this time in English), these are unauthorized restorations. A few anonymous hacker-heroes have discarded all the changes George Lucas made to the trilogy after the films were released, and brought these three movies back to a near-perfect match for what played in theaters.

The only change they’ve made is a brief add-on after the closing credits, stating that they would’ve bought this version if it was legally for sale, but since it isn’t, they sought to “preserve an orphaned work of our cultural heritage.” I salute their piracy, even as their spiel says they oppose piracy.

6/13/2025

Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer. No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

Neverending Film Festival

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