TMW #2: Future Star Wars ideas, courtroom dramas and The Wingman Quiz
Suggestions on where to go next in the galaxy far, far away, and why Clint's Juror #2 has us hankering for more courtroom movies
Hello there!
Welcome back to the second instalment of The Movie Wingman, and thank you for riding with us again. This week, our resident galaxy far, far away expert Matthew Leyland is throwing out his ideas for the next Star Wars movie: much needed, given how many end up being cancelled or postponed these days. Meanwhile Jordan Farley is taking the stand give evidence in support of more courtroom movies. Testify! Plus, further down you’ll find the first (of many) Wingman quizzes.
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Thanks again for joining us, and enjoy the latest edition. We’ll be back on Friday with a review of Wicked and more…
Matt (and Jordan and Matthew)
Juror #2 and the case for more courtroom movies
Who doesn’t love a good courtroom movie? There’s a terrific one playing in cinemas right now - just about, anyway - Clint Eastwood’s morally knotty, unapologetically old-fashioned Juror #2. It stars Nicholas Hoult as Justin Kemp, a father-to-be assigned jury duty on a murder trial. But as the facts of the case are laid out, Justin realises he has firsthand knowledge of what happened on the night in question, and a responsibility to see justice served.
It’s a classically riveting bit of filmmaking, with a complex moral conundrum at its core and one of the chewiest endings of the year. Notoriously it’s been buried in the States (but got a fairer shake in the UK, releasing wide on some 334 screens) - a strange ignominy to foist on Eastwood when the legendary nonagenarian has delivered his best film in at least a decade.
I caught up with the film this weekend, and it got me thinking: there should really be more no-frills courtroom movies. In the last 12 months two of the best have come out of France - Oscar winner Anatomy of a Fall and The Goldman Case - while Hollywood spectacularly fumbled the gavel with Joker: Folie à Deux, a film which deserves a life sentence for its crimes against such an esteemed genre.
Juror #2 is my pick of the bunch, partly because it’s the most traditional. There’s the prickly judge, the seemingly open-and-shut case with hidden depths, the David-and-Goliath dynamic of a slick prosecutor (Toni Collette) facing off against an underfunded public defender (Chris Messina), dubious witnesses, heated cross-examinations… the TV Tropes entry on courtroom movies could just be a link to this film. But Juror #2 has enough wrinkles - not least the 12 Angry Men style jury deliberations - to keep a tried-and-tested format fresh where it needs to be, while simultaneously playing to the strengths of its trappings.
As with many mid-budget genre staples, the courtroom movie has largely migrated to TV in the last decade or so. Presumed Innocent was a big hit for Apple TV+ this summer, but other than a standout Peter Sarsgaard performance, there’s nothing to recommend it over the 1990 Harrison Ford adaptation. For me, the 120-ish minute feature film is the courtroom thriller’s natural home, where the twists and flow of the case can be more precisely controlled, without the need for tension-defusing breaks between episodes.
So seek out Juror #2 where and while you can. And in the event it isn’t playing at a cinema near you, I’ve thrown together a non-exhaustive list of my favourite courtroom movies - all guilty of being great. (Jordan Farley)
Where next for Star Wars?
Another week, another Star Wars movie postponed. With everyone from Patty Jenkins to Rian Johnson to Simon Kinberg previously or currently attached to a Star-flick, the issue doesn’t seem to be getting big-name talent interested… So could it be lack of agreement over which stories to tell? If so, here are five semi-serious pitches for Lucasfilm execs to consider giving a ’saber-green light to…
Darth: A Star Wars Story
Which Darth? Come on. Only one, there is. Before he passed, James Earl Jones signed a deal to let AI do The Voice, and Hayden Christensen always seems up for popping the mask on, so let’s stop mucking about with bit parts here and there and give the daddy of all dark lords his own feature. And it’d be a cinch to poach ideas from Vader’s many solo Marvel comics (which generally involve our anti-hero having IT issues with his armour, daydreaming about Natalie Portman or enduring another of the Emperor’s spurious, sadistic tests to atone for his latest failure).
Render-It Ralph
Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art was instrumental in getting studio execs to realise that this Star Wars thing might actually be a goer. So would it be thinking too far outside the box office to make a movie animated entirely in his style, a bit like Van Gogh homage Loving Vincent (2017), only with 200 per cent more aliens and lasers? Such an idea would also align nicely with the current vogue for ‘painterly’ toons like the Spider-Verse series and The Wild Robot. Obviously it would need a strong guiding hand to make sure it didn’t look like some AI-generated nightmare; let’s get McQuarrie superfan and seasoned animator Dave Filoni in the director’s chair. The sequel? Doug Chiang Strikes Back…
George Lucas in Lego
The recent Pharrell Williams brick-based biopic Piece by Piece represented a bold new direction for Lego movies. How about giving the OG Jedi movie-master the same treatment? And in honour of his fondness for making revisions, we could call it Tweak by Tweak.
The Making of Star Wars
A companion piece of sorts to the above, but in live action and centred on the tumultuous production of the movie that changed everything. So much drama to, um, dramatise: Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher’s off-screen dalliance, Lucas’ hospitalisation, the 1976 UK heatwave, everyone thinking this silly space movie is going to be a dud… Casting? Let’s start with Glen Powell as Ford, Millie Bobby Brown as Fisher, Mark Hamill as Alec Guinness…
The Star Wars
Yes, before it was Episode IV: A New Hope, before it was even Star Wars, Lucas’ seminal sci-fi bore a ‘The’. This early draft was adapted in 2013-14 into a comic-book series, providing a detailed blueprint for a movie. Fascinating thing about the original script is how much it tonally resembles not Episode IV, but the prequel trilogy - which it’s OK to love now, so we’re definitely on to a winner here. (Matthew Leyland)
And the winner is… the Oscars?
Late last week it was announced that Conan O’Brien would be the host of the 97th Academy Awards, and it seems like… a pretty good choice. He has the professional host/comedian chops, but now that he no longer hosts a late night talk show, he doesn’t have to worry about offending someone who’ll be sitting on his couch the following week. Plus, he understands a satirical song-and-dance number having penned the all-timer episode of The Simpsons, ‘Marge vs. the Monorail’. And despite his old-school appeal, he’s proved himself adaptable to modern media formats, from his hit podcast to being one of the best-ever Hot Ones guests. (MM)
The 97th Academy Awards take place on 2 March 2025.
The Wingman Quiz: Musical Witches
The all-singing, all-entrancing Wicked is coming… are you coven-ready? Scroll to the bottom for the answers!
What instrument does Susan Sarandon’s character play in The Witches of Eastwick?
What comes next in this line from Agatha All Along’s ‘The Ballad of the Witches’ Road’? “Maiden, Mother, ___”
What’s the name of the deleted song performed by Meryl Streep’s Witch that didn’t make the final cut of Into the Woods?
‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ is the signature ditty of which witch?
Covered by Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus, ‘I Put a Spell on You’ was originally written and recorded by which artist?
(Quizmaster: Matthew Leyland)
Quiz Answers
The cello
“Crone”
‘She’ll Be Back’
Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
I'm so gutted Juror #2 was never on at a cinema near me. I really hope it goes on a streaming service at some point. I also absolutely loved Agatha All Along!