Ink

I watched this movie on a whim via Netflix Instant Watch. I think it made it on my queue from one of the Netflix recommendations, which usually recommend total garbage Hollywood films, but this time it struck gold. This movie rocks. I know I tend to write movie reviews where I essentially say "this movie was fun" end of story. So for this one I will go into a bit more detail about why I liked it, since I'm sure it needs a bigger sell being an indy flick with no marketing. So here's a nice bulleted list:

• Visuals. This movie is visually more interesting, creative, and striking for $200k than Avatar's $500M. The saturation and lighting are stand outs here, and dominate the film from beginning to end.
  
• Audio. The audio was wonderful. The special effects, from dimensional travel to fight scene punches, was top notch. It really stood out, which is really saying something since the visuals were already really distracting!
• Choreography. The fight scenes were awesome. The camera work, the stunt work, the special effects, the lighting, everything came together for truly brutal fight scenes. Not many movies pull this off so well. Most movies end up looking choreographed, like some bad kung-fu film. These fight scenes actually appear like people are trying to fuck each other up, and succeeding. The only other film in recent memory that pulled that off was Casino Royale; specifically the hotel staircase fight scene.
• The characters. Many characters didn't have a lot of screen time or lines, but despite that they still appeared to have depth. I really liked the lead female story teller, Allel played by Jennifer Batter, and her friend Gabe played by Eme Ikwuakor. Allel was just cool; she was kick ass, stylish, and good looking. Gabe had maybe two lines yet I really liked his character and was interested in him. The main character, John, was also done well. I didn't really like him, but he's not necessarily someone we are supposed to like.
• The story. It's a fairy tale. It's not cerebral or enlightening, but it is entertaining. It is a short story about a short conflict about interesting characters in an interesting fantasy world.

So there you have it; the specifics of why I enjoyed the film. Now go watch it before Hollywood starts pumping money into writer/director Jamin Winans and ruins him like big budgets always do.

District 9

I know I am way late on this one. It just came to DVD. I meant to see it in the theater, but never made it there. I finally saw it this last weekend. Best sci-fi movie in years, next to Star Trek. But Star Trek is Star Trek, so it doesn't count. Not going to bother talking about this one, since I am probably the last person on Earth to finally see it. Suffice it to say, the buzz is deserved, it's good.

Sherlock Holmes

Avatar seems to be dominating movie talk this past month. Everyone is raving about the amazing graphics and the terrible plot. Well to be honest, the movie just does not look interesting to me. "But the graphics!" you say. Sorry, the art direction looks boring and uninspired. Sure, the CG is really well done and highly detailed. But you can't polish a turd.

So instead I saw Sherlock Holmes. I know, I know. I was horrified at the trailer. I thought, "they've ruined Sherlock Holmes; fuck you hollywood!" But a trusted movie-goer recommended it to me (believe it or not, my Mother-in-law) and so we went. And I liked it.

First of all, Robert Downey Jr. is an awesome character actor, and if Iron Man and Tropic Thunder didn't prove that to you, then this movie is one more piece of evidence. Jude Law is also a strong actor and works well with RDJ. But the best character of all is turn-of-the-century London. Seeing 1890's London recreated with such grimy detail was way more fascinating than some florescent alien jungle with electric blue cat people.

So did it ruin Sherlock Holmes? No, it didn't. The stories are still there for you to read, unadulterated. But this is a new, almost comic book hero approach to Sherlock Holmes. And it's fun. I also very much like how they interpreted Holmes' character as being almost autistic. In a scene where he is waiting for Watson in a busy restaurant, we see Holmes nervously taking in all the details and conversations around him, overloading him in fact. I think this is a brilliant explanation for Holmes' almost anti-social behaviors, drug use, and middle-of-the-night fiddle playing. If you've read the stories, then I think you would agree, it fits.

So, while not an Oscar winning tear jerker or blockbuster CG masterpiece, Sherlock Holmes is a good, fun movie. And I can't ask for anything more.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

I was a huge GI Joe fan as a kid. I read the comic, watched the TV show, and collected the toys. I would miss my school bus because I was watching GI Joe repeats. I loved GI Joe, I think maybe more than any other toy line. And I still love GI Joe. Just last year I bought a comic. And I have a couple of the newer action figures.

So, like Transformers, making a live action movie based on something so fond from my childhood is dangerous. You are almost guaranteed failure. The hate was quick to surface, long before the movie was released. I didn't like that they made it an international force instead of an American one. I hated the first character shots. Everyone was in those terrible black outfits that Hollywood slaps on all super heroes. Storm Shadow looked retarded in his white outfit. GI Joe was going to suck, and it was clear from day one.

But somehow, it didn't suck. I saw the movie despite my jaded attitude. And it was fun. In fact, I really liked it. In fact, I will admit that I almost, almost, loved it. Movie Bob over at The Escapist hit the nail on the head. The movie was a lot of fun. It was like all those battles you had with your GI Joe figures and vehicles came to life on screen and did all the wild shit you imagined they did. There are some character changes that purists will surely whine about. But at the heart of it is exactly what every kid loved about GI Joe: good guys and bad guys tearing it up with real and imagined military technology.

Go see it.

And Baroness is HOT.

Star Trek XI

So after seeing the movie a second time, I have to say I enjoyed it more. The first time, I was too distracted by the new actors and all the changes. I was watching too closely to see how they all did. So when I saw it a second time, I was able to simply enjoy the movie. And while it isn't an instant classic or anything, I enjoyed it. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

But I think my original list of pros and cons still stands.

Pros:

• Bones - Karl Urban nailed it and he was my favorite part of the movie. Bones is easily my favorite character from TOS, maybe ever.
• Alternate Reality - I thought that was an awesome way to free themselves from any restrictions of the shows and movies that came before them. And it's hardly a new concept in Star Trek, so it fits with the canon.
• Kirk - He played it well without mimicking Shatner, which would have just turned into a parody.
• CG - The CG of the ships and worlds were awesome. The Enterprise coming out of the dust cloud around Saturn was sweet. All the little touches on the ship made it feel more real.
• Overall the story was good and to the point. It introduced characters but didn't dwell on origin stories, which could have really dragged.

Cons:

• They did a little of the shaky-camera action bullshit that Hollywood is addicted to. Shaking the camera does not make anything more exciting, it just annoys your audience who is trying to follow the action. Fortunately, this was limited to only a couple scenes.
  
• If you had told me yesterday that there would ever be a Beastie Boys track in a Star Trek film, I would have called you a retard.
  
• Sulu with a katana? The whole point of Sulu's character was that he was one of the first Asian guys on TV that wasn't a martial artist. Sulu was Asian, but he was just a dude, no kung-fu or samurai swords. They kind of ruined that, and I feel like Hollywood has moved backwards. It's like making Chekov a communist, or giving Uhura ghetto slang lines; "I gots kids to feeed wit yo special!".
  
• Spock's Ship broke the Star Trek feel and moved into Star Wars territory. Star Trek doesn't do one man vehicles with pointless moving parts, that's Goerge Lucas crap. I always felt like part of what kept Star Trek grounded in plausible reality was the fact that an advanced ship that travels space needs a large crew to operate and maintain it.
• Spock and Uhura? Really? The guy who came up with that should be fired.
  
• This is really nit picky, but I wish they had stuck to more of the original technology. Such as the solid beam phasers, both with the Enterprise and the hand phasers. It really made Star Trek unique in sci-fi tech and again seemed to be more plausible than most. And power requirements, such as raising shields during warp, shouldn't be possible. Power management was a big deal in TOS. It took time to raise sheilds, and you had to sacrifice engine power to do so. Again, it adds to the plausibility, but also allows for some space battle intrigue, such as when Kirk would hesitate to raise shields in a gamble, but takes a photon for it.

Week 17

"Hello, Computer!" - Scotty

So for week 17 I watched the remainder of the original cast films, 3-6. I also saw the new film, but I will post separately about that once I've seen it a second time.

The odd-numbered movies do suck, the curse was true. I think part of it is whom they allowed to direct. Nimoy directed III and Shatner directed V. III had some redeeming qualities, such as storyline and setup for future movie plots, but the directing, action, and writing were over all poor.

The Voyage Home was a comical break from traditional Trek. The idea is not foreign to TOS, so I feel like it was appropriate. And finally, The Undiscovered Country was a good note to finish on for the entire crew. The plot was great, the directing good, better writing, and the story is very timely where it reflects on a changing world with aging actors. It was a good way to go out and say farewell.

103. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock •••
     
104. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ••••
     
105. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ••
     
106. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country •••••

Count 106 of 737

Week 16

This week I've finished TAS and started on the movies. I figure I will watch I - VI of the movies because they are all TOS era. Technically, I will be watching them out of order since I have been following release dates, not chronological time. But I want to have all the movies watched before the new film is out next week.

While TAS had some good episodes, and I recommend any TOS fan to watch them, I won't miss it as much as I am missing TOS. So the movies are a welcome change, even if everyone does look like hell. For the first movie, they redesigned the entire Enterprise to be boring and sterile. The uniforms are ridiculous; they all look like aging hippies wearing yoga outfits. And to top it all off, the entire plot of the first film was a repeat, WTF? The whole "probe from Earth evolves with outside help and corrupts it's programming before returning to endanger it's creator" was done back in TOS season two. Specifically, "The Changling" had Nomad, and the entire plot is almost exactly the same, right down to humans being imperfect and infesting the Enterprise. Not a good start. But it gets better...

KHAAAANNN!!!

The second film was far better, and arguably the best Star Trek film ever. The uniforms were reworked and actually look like uniforms, so big improvement there. The plot was more complex and involving. The themes were deep and meaningful. The conversations between Kirk, Bones, and Spock were wonderful and timely. Some of the best dialog ever written for any Star Trek characters come from this movie. Just a few examples:

• "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor." - Kirk
  
• "Damn it, Jim; what the hell is the matter with you?! Other people have birthdays; why are we treating yours like a funeral?" - Bones
  
• "Jim, I'm your doctor and I'm also your friend. Get back your command! Get it back before you turn into part of this collection, before you really do grow old." - Bones
  
• "If I may be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of material." - Spock
  
• "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before. A far better resting place that I go to than I have ever known." - Kirk, on the death of Spock.
  

It doesn't get any better than that. I only wish the writer who wrote those lines was writing for all the movies. One can only wish.

98. TAS: Albatross ••••
    
99. TAS: How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth •••
    
100. TAS: The Counter-Clock Incident ••
     
101. Star Trek: The Motion Picture •••
     
102. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn •••••
     

Count 97 of 737*
*Note, I have updated the total count to include the 11 movies. The original count was TV episodes only.

New Movie Trailer

A new trailer for Star Trek is up! Pure awesome. The only reservation I have so far is Bones. He better raise that goddamn eyebrow sometime during the movie, or I will be greatly disappointed!

And I love the desperation in Eric Bana's voice when he shouts "Fire everything!" Can't wait.