So, it's the nerdiest of holidays, May the Fourth, also known as Star Wars Day, the unofficial National Holiday revered by every Star Wars fan out there.  If you don't know what Star Wars is, please go back to the rock you've been living under, you are not wanted here.  I thought to celebrate, it would be fun to talk about what Star Wars means to me.

The very first movie I saw as a child was Pete's Dragon in 1977, at the ripe old age of 2.  Apparently, I was obsessed with Pete's bleeps, bloops and other nonsense noises that came out of him because I was would mimic those sounds for months.  Star Wars came out the same year and I was obviously too young to go see it.  I'm still amazed I got to go see Pete's Dragon.  So, I did not get to see Star Wars when it first came out.  Nor did I get to experience the phenomenon first hand.  It wasn't until years later when the movie started playing all the time on Select TV did I get to crap my no longer diapered pants at the sight of tie fighters, x-wings, light saber battles, blasters and the Death Star.  I would go over to my friends house all the time just to watch it.  Selfish me.  All my friends had all the toys, I had none.  I had Lego and Construx toys.  Great toys, honestly, but to me, I was left out of the Star Wars craze.

So, I finally got around to watching "The Hateful Eight", Quentin Tarantino's 8th film.  They shot the thing in 65mm Ultra Panavision.  My goodness, that was a beautiful film to watch.  The film overall was awesome:  great story with twists and turns, great actors acting brilliant, Quentin's usual lush, colorful dialogue, and the score was tailored to every scene with eclectic abundance.  I loved it.

But what made it extra special was the cinematography.  I can't believe Ultra Panavision hasn't been used since the 70's and that this was only the 11th film ever made with it.  Yeah, I watched the bonus features.  If you are interested in reading about the details of Ultra Panavision, check out the Wiki.  Seeing everything wider and in more detail really dragged me into the movie more.  It would have been better to see it in the theater at one of the special 70mm showings.  Obviously, shots of blood flying through the snow is going to look dramatic, but it's so much more than that in the higher definition filming.(Okay, not really higher definition technically, but aesthetically, it is)

I'm glad Tarantino went through the trouble of bringing back the old tech.  They actually used the lenses from the 70's and retrofitted them to today's camera equipment.  And now, I've found out that the new Star Wars Story, "Rogue One" is going to have an undisclosed amount of scenes shot in Ultra Panavision!!!  I was already excited about this film.  Hopefully, they use it a lot.

​Sometimes, old school is best.