4 d. ago The original Star Wars is back – but what if George Lucas is right about it not being much good?

After 48 years, the 1977 theatrical cut of the movie is set to screen again this summer. It will surely look rather different this time roundCast your mind back, lightsaber-wielding relics of a certain age, to the first time you saw the 1977 theatrical cut of Star Wars. Was it in a cinema, surrounded by gaggles of wide-eyed space cadets astounded by this glittering, laser-blasted disco ball? Or perhaps on a VHS recorded off ITV’s small-screen premiere in 1982? Perhaps, if you’re under 30, you’ve never actually seen it, and a Star Wars without crappy CGI Jabbas, Greedo shooting first and gratuitous Tatooine dinosaurs is something you can’t even imagine. Maybe you actually think it’s called A New Hope, and is a sequel to all those brilliant films about Anakin Skywalker, trade route embargos, and midichlorians.And perhaps you’re right. It’s so long since we’ve seen the original version of Star Wars, our collective memories of it as a gritty, charming space western may be nothing more t...

Events

5 d. ago Star Wars: Original 1977 release to be screened in London by BFI

Star Wars: Original 1977 release to be screened in London by BFI  BBC

Events

5 d. ago Star Wars original cut to be screened for the first time in decades

The sci-fi blockbuster will be shown as part of the British Film Institute’s Film on Film festival.

Events

8 d. ago Visit Films strikes North American deal for BFI Flare London selection ‘Rent Free’ (exclusive)

Visit Films strikes North American deal for BFI Flare London selection ‘Rent Free’ (exclusive)  Screen Daily

Politics

9 d. ago Visit Films strikes North American deal for BFI Flare London selection ‘Rent Free’

Visit Films strikes North American deal for BFI Flare London selection ‘Rent Free’  Screen Daily

Politics

2 w. ago Chewbacca's crossbow from original Star Wars trilogy sells for £600,000

The Wookie's weapon was described by auctioneers Propstore as 'one of the rarest Star Wars hero props in existence', beat its estimate of between £198,000 to £397,000.

Economics

3 w. ago BFI announces programme for season of Tom Cruise films after fellowship award

The 62-year-old actor, who plays Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible series, will also introduce a screening of one of the franchise’s films.

Events

3 w. ago ‘He threw body piercing parties and lay on a bed of nails’: the wild life of body modification guru Fakir Musafar

A new documentary explores how the pioneer of the ‘modern primitive’ subculture used painful BDSM practices to access new spiritual planes – outraging conventional societyIn the opening moments of A Body to Live in, a documentary by American film-maker Angelo Madsen, we are confronted with two black-and-white photographs. Taken in 1944 by the teenage Roland Loomis, they show him stripped to his underwear, his waist heavily restricted by a leather belt, a rope wrapped several times around his neck.Loomis later renamed himself Fakir Musafar and became one of the founders of the modern primitive movement – a subculture that revolves around body modification practices including branding, suspension, contortion and binding. A Body to Live in, which premieres internationally at London’s BFI Flare film festival this week, dissects Musafar’s body of work, which explored the tension between masculinity and femininity, pain and pleasure, spirituality and S&M. Continue reading...

Politics