Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" - Pt XII

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my twelfth in the series, I take a look at the space babes and ass-kicking hotties of science fiction cinema and TV. Ooh La La, my fellow sci-fi geeks.

Read my column, "Va-Va-Va-Voom: The Hotter Side of Sci-Fi," at Forces of Geek.

Film Review: Neill Blomkamp's Elysium

As creative and extraordinary as Neill Blomkamp's first film, District 9, was, that is how non-creative and unextraordinary his second film is.  As exciting and groundbreaking as District 9 was, that is just how pedestrian and generic Elysium happens to be.  It's a shame really.  A big shame.  A huge shame because the potential that District 9 handed out (it was on my best of 2009 list) for the South African director's next film was seriously through the roof.  Through the freakin' roof.  And this potential just makes it even more sad that Blomkamp's follow-up is so...um, ordinary.  Quite sad indeed.

Elysium is the story of a future Earth where all the haves live on the titular rotating space station and the have-nots reside on an overcrowded and dystopicstars Earth.  Matt Damon, as buff and as bald as can be, stars as a down-and-out Earther who must fight his way off-world to save himself, the daughter of a long lost childhood love, and pretty much all the other 99 percenters doing their time on bad old Earth.  The story is rather ordinary, and has been done better before, most notably in the 1990 Total Recall (forget the remake from last year), and the way it is presented could not be more cliche-addled than it is.  Full of mediocre action sequences and oh so obvious so-called twists and turns, Blomkamp's film ends up being nothing more than a sad mirror image of the greatness that was District 9.  And even worse, that potential that came with District 9, shoulda, woulda, coulda been exploited here, if only given a better treatment.

The film is full of stereotypes and all the usual tired tricks and tropes, including a strangely accented Jodie Foster as the sternly frigid Secretary of Defense (seriously, does she need the money this badly?), an arrogant villain that will stop at nothing shy of death, and an inevitable one at that, and the aforementioned little girl at death's door and her mother, the love the hero's life that he will be forced to sacrifice himself for in the end, again, inevitably so.  To beat the proverbial dead horse, as fresh as District 9 was, Elysium is that sour, or to be more precise, that bland and expected.  Perhaps if Blomkamp's film, instead of being the pedestrian creature that it is, was more of a mitigated disaster, it might of at least had some much needed oomph to its belly, even if that oomph was rotten.  Instead we get just another tired mainstream actioner - a creature with no oomph whatsoever.  Sad really, and a shame indeed.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" - Pt XI

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my eleventh in the series, I take a look at the robotic arm of the sci-fi genre, all those cwaaazy robots.  There is, of course, not enough time to talk about all of 'em, but I cover the biggies

Read my column, "I Robot, You Robot, We All Scream for Robots," at Forces of Geek.

For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" - Pt X

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my tenth in the series, I take a look at everybody's favourite giant-ass, radiation-breathing lizard/dragon/dinosaur thing - the phenomenon known simply as Godzilla.

Read my column, "All Things Godzilla," at Forces of Geek.

For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Film Review: Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim

Most of what you would call, your monster movies, have a set pattern.  The first third of the film establishes characters, and lets you in on who's who.  After that, we get the onslaught of monsters, be they a giant ape from a mysterious island, a fire-breathing irradiated giant lizard stomping through Tokyo, or any other kind of gigantic, mutated creature from ants to moths to the dinos of Jurassic Park.  Well, apparently Mr. del Toro ain't havin' none of that, for he starts his film out with one of his monsters taking down the Golden Gate at about minute two (maybe even one and a half).  You see, Guillermo del Toro, though paying great respect to the Kaiju genre as a whole, was never trying for your typical monster movie, or some extension of such a thing.  No sirree, del Toro wanted to capture the artistry, the poetry of the monster movie.  Del Toro wanted to make a living, breathing Kaiju movie, but one with a humanistic approach to its storytelling.  What del Toro got was exactly that - a movie which in its awe-inspiring look and feel, captures not only a great respect to all the Kaiju that have come before it, but also something relate-able, something filled with humanity, but not in a way that diminishes the story, or makes its characters act out in any ridiculous way.  

The film, starting at a high pace, and only getting higher and higher and higher as the film moves along, is the story of a world partially destroyed by giant monsters from another dimension, and the Jaegers, giant metal monsters that the world creates in order to stop the real monsters, the real Kaiju.  But perhaps I should, as an explanatory note to the uninitiated amongst my readers (and I cannot fathom that there are really any such uninitiated among you), talk a bit about just what the hell is a Kaiju movie anyway.  Basically, Kaiju, a Japanese word best translated as 'Strange creature' but having been co-opted into anything describing a giant monster, is what Godzilla is, or Mothra, or Rodan, or Gamera, or even Ultron.  All of these strange creatures are inspirations to del Toro's Pacific Rim, but del Toro, is not just paying homage to the genre.  The director has said,  "I didn't want to be postmodern or referential, or just belong to a genre. I really wanted to create something new, something madly in love with those things. I tried to bring epic beauty to it, and drama and operatic grandeur."  Del Toro has based his film's look just as much on the Kaiju of the past, as he has on the art world of the past.  Using such disparate works as Goya's The Colossus and Hokusai's ancient woodcarving, The Great Wave of Kanagawa as a visual basis for his film, del Toro has paved his own way, and has created a genuine kick-ass monster movie, a Kaiju movie if you will, with an artistic bent, and the proverbial heart of gold.

Del Toro, always a director with a sense of dangerous artistic style (I mean c'mon, just take a look at Cronos or The Devil's Backbone or the Hellboy films, hell, just look at Pan's Labyrinth!) imbues his film with a brilliant, and darly sinister look.  Never a big fan of CGI, I was still blown away by the effects put forth by del Toiro's FX team and all the folks at ILM, and it is this dystopian realism (think Blade Runner meets Godzilla) that makes Pacific Rim such a deep and resonating film, especially for a Summer blockbuster.  The cast, led by Charlie Hunnam as a bad boy pilot, Oscar nominee for 2006's Babel, Rinko Kikuchi as his co-pilot (the Jaegers are manned by two pilots, sharing a neural connection), The Wire's Idris Elba as their commanding officer, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Charlie Day, stealing every scene he is in, as a Kaiju groupie-cum-scientist, are all a blast to watch, but let's face it, it is the monsters and the action we are here for, and del Toro (a pacifist making damn sure he never actually glorifies the action in the way someone like Michael Bay does) gives us those monsters and action in proverbial spades, and at the same time manages to make us emotionally bleed as well with a series of flashback scenes involving a toddler version of Kikuchi's character that will seriously devastate you with their imminent horror and poetic beauty.   A fun, exciting, adrenaline-pumping sci-fi spectacle of a movie, that is easily one of the best Summer blockbusters in years.

Film Review: Shane Carruth's Upstream Color

When Shane Carruth's debut feature, the sci-fi, time travel tale, Primer, was released back in October of 2004, audiences did not know just what to do with the film.  Even though the film won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, and was welcomed with mostly good reviews, the low budget aspect of the film, along with a twisting and turning time travel story that managed to confuse many a filmgoer, ended up being not the smash indie hit it deserved to be, but nothing more than a mere cult-like phenom.  But isn't that good enough?  I recall placing the film in my top ten that year, and giddily awaiting the engineer-turned-filmmaker's follow-up project.  Well, cut to nearly nine years later, and that long-festering giddy anticipation has finally paid off.  The director's Upstream Color is finally here, and not only is the critical praise even heavier this time around (almost universal acclaim from the arthouse critics to even the mainstream media), the questioning sideways glances from an even more confused audience is as high as it has been since Terrence Malick handed us The Tree of Life two years ago.  But then, that is just how this critic likes it.

Now I am not here to defend any choices the director has made, nor to explain what those out of the avant-garde loop do not seem to fathom, no matter how hard they squeeze and strain their grey matter, but simply to let you, my faithful readers, in on just what I thought of this admittedly befuddling filmgoing experience.  I have watched the film twice now, once on DVD and once on the big screen (the film received a semi-simultaneous theatrical, V.O.D. and DVD/BD release earlier this year) and must admit that some aspects of the story still make my head hurt.  But, as I more-than-alluded to before, that is just how I like it.  Basically, to give what I can of this story, the film is about, well...it is about something, isn't it?  The official Sundance synopsis reads as thus:  "Kris is derailed from her life when she is drugged by a small-time thief. But something bigger is going on. She is unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again. Along the way, she finds another being—a familiar, who is equally consumed by the larger force. The two search urgently for a place of safety within each other as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of their wrecked lives."  This is as good a description as anyone is really going to get, barring any potential, though never truly revealing, spoilers.

Carruth moves his film along with the methodical pace of someone like the aforementioned Mr. Malick.  Slowly but surely releasing bits and pieces of the plot, and letting his audience in on just what the fuck is going on (though never, thankfully, completely so), Carruth's ever-evolving, bewildering narrative, gives this very same audience an almost hallucinatory experience throughout.  Again, that is just how this critic likes it.  The film stars Amy Seimetz (AMC's The Killing) and Carruth himself (he serves as director, writer, producer, actor, cinematographer, editor, composer, casting director, production designer and sound designer - whew!) as the hapless pair of intertwined loners, losing their individual identities and becoming lost in what may or may not be an existence of illusion.  The acting, purposely so one must assume from how other aspects of the film play out, is as methodical as the storytelling, and these two lost souls seem as bewildered as those watching this intriguing, fascinating film.  Sure, most audiences will just not get what is going on here - for they are too ensconced in the mainstream moviemaking world, where everything is choreographed and explained ad nauseam - but for those of us who do get it, even if we really don't "get" it, will be amazed at what Shane Carruth has given us.  Now, hopefully we will not need spend another near decade wallowing in near-forgotten anticipation of what will come next.

Film Review: M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth

With the director's last few films, M. Night Shyamalan has more than proven that he is an atrocious storyteller and just a god-awful filmmaker.  Sure, once upon a time, the director had a few films ranging from okay-but-overrated (The Sixth Sense), surprisingly enjoyable (Signs), and even kind of good (Unbreakable), but with each subsequent film, from The Village to Lady in the Water to The Happening to The Last Airbender, Shyamalan has managed to do the seemingly impossible - make a even worse movie than the last one.  After seeing The Village, and its array of preposterous narrative and ridiculous acting, one would have thought it near impossible to make a film that was worse than this.  With Lady in the Water, Shyamalan proved those naysayers wrong.  After the nonsensical bunk that was that film, the guy actually proved us wrong again with The Happening (Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel run from the wind...and actually outrun it!!??), and, with The Last Airbender, one of the epic crash-and-burns of modern cinema, on a par with monstrosities like Waterworld and Battlefield Earth, the so-called filmmaker proved us wrong once again.  Wow!  I must admit that in a warped kind of way, that is a pretty impressive feat indeed.  But the question remains, has he proven us wrong again?  Has he made a film even worse than The Last Airbender?  It seems highly unlikely that such a thing would be possible, but if anyone could pull off such a feat, it would be M. Night Shyamalan.

In a weird way, I now look forward, ofttimes with a giddy demeanor, to each of the director's films being worse than the last.  I think I would be doubly disappointed if he were to actually pull off a good film again.  I would be more upset with that outcome than with  having to sit through yet another atrocious M. Night Shyamalan train wreck of a movie.  Well, I am here to tell you that even though he did not pull off the seemingly impossible again - After Earth is not as terrible as The Last Airbender (what the hell could be!?) - I am not doubly disappointed, for this film is just godawful bad.  The best you are going to get out of this critic is the following statement: "After Earth is not the worst movie ever made."  Let's just leave it at that, shall we.  When you keep setting the bar so high (or so low, if you will), it will just naturally become more difficult over time to sustain such a level of, let us say, consistent descendent filmmaking behaviour.  But enough of this ripping apart on the director's past foibles and failures (not unlike beating that old dead horse we've heard tell about), for this is a time to be ripping apart the director's latest creation - even if, according to some people, it isn't the worst movie ever made.

After Earth.  What can one say about After Earth?  Without getting too mired down in such adjectives as terrible, horrible, ridiculous, ludicrous, or even godawful (my favourite), one can surely discuss how this story, about a military father and his less-than-militaristic son, both of Earth lineage, living on a somewhat distant planet, a thousand years or so after Earth became inhabitable, who crash land on, you guessed it, the aforementioned uninhabitable planet Earth.  This father and son duo, in a blatant nepotistic vanity piece, are played by Will Smith and son Jaden.  Now Columbia Pictures really knows how to sell such a film.  Never even mentioning Shyamalan, aside from a the briefest of small type print, in the trailer, and instead opting to highlight the Smith father and son team, those put off by the ever-declining quality of M. Night's oeuvre, may still actually go and see the damn movie - even if it still looks the steaming pile of batshitcrazy psycho baboon feces that it is.  Oh, have I not mentioned the batshitcrazy psycho baboons yet?  My bad.  You see, apparently (and this is said in dialogue), all the creatures of this futuristic killer Earth have evolved over these last thousand years to hate humans. How this came about without any humans being on the planet over these same thousand years, I am still not sure, but stupidity of narrative aside, what brings this film down most is the godawful (oh, I used that word) boredom that comes with having to sit through the damn dreck.

Though he is often considered something of a great actor by many, my thoughts on Will Smith tend to lean more toward the mediocre side of things.  Granted, I like the guy when he is doing comedy - his true calling I think - but when it comes to drama, the schtick just gets too thick for me to enjoy.  This is no different in After Earth, as both pére and fils Smith are far more serious about their circumstances than anyone could possibly be while watching their quite ludicrous (another word I said I would put aside) predicament.   Far more serious than the film actually deserves.  Then again, no matter how pedestrian I happen to find papa Smith's acting, it is nothing compared to the atrocious acting that Jaden shows here.  Seriously, as the fourteen year old actor ran around Killer Earth, trying to evade those batshitcrazy psycho baboons, some pretty fucking shitty-assed weather patterns, and a space spider-thingee who's sole purpose is to hunt and eat Jaden, tracking him by the fear he puts off, I kept hoping the baboons or the weather or the goddamn space spider-thingee would finally put an end to his miserable, bawl-baby character.  But alas, this is a Smith/Smith project, so nothing bad can really happen, right?  Whatever the case, this inane family therapy session - even M. Night should have bailed on this one - turned into the dumbest of sci-fi snooze-fests, is one to be avoided like the proverbial plague of batshitcrazy psycho baboons.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" - Pt IX

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my ninth in the series, I take a look at the year 1954, a year that gave us an iconic creature from an equally iconic lagoon, a cheesy Disney-ized Jules Verne adaptation, and Mr. Big.

Read my column, "1954: The Year of the Big Bugs, the Black Lagoon, and a Big-Ass Lizard Called Godzilla," at Forces of Geek.

 For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" - Pt VIII

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my eighth in the series, I take a look at the year 1953, a year with some of the very best sci-fi films, and one of the very very worst films, of any genre and of any time, ever made.

Read my column, "1953: Invaders From Mars, War of the Worlds & One of the Worst Films Ever Made," at Forces of Geek.

Film Review: J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness

"Space: the final frontier."  It has been nearly 47 years since those words were first uttered on prime time television.  Now being a spry youth of just 45, I was not yet around to hear these iconic words when they were first spoken, but I can sure as hell call myself a trekker from way back, as I grew up on reruns of the show in the 1970's, and am thrilled by the new places and old glories J.J. Abrams has taken good ole NCC 1701.

Only running a mere three seasons, or just 79 episodes, before being canceled by NBC for lack of ratings (a move that looks quite silly in retrospect), the iconic Star Trek spawned an animated series, four spin-offs, several web series, including a new one making its debut later this month, twelve movies (six original series, four Next Generation, and now two in J.J. Abrams' reboot run) and a veritable slew of toys, games and other sundry items.  When Abrams came out with his aforementioned reboot in 2009, many die-hard fans were skeptical (downright vicious even), but once seeing the film, at least this die-hard fan was amazed.  Somehow Abrams, a guy who has admitted to having never been much of a fan of the original series (blasphemy, I know), managed to put together a film that could satisfy both the fanboys and those without much Trek knowledge.  I believe I myself may have even called it the best of the, then eleven, Trek films (I know, blasphemy again), and even had the audacity to include it in my top ten for the year.  Now cut to four years later, and Abrams has managed to pull it off again.  Granted, perhaps not to the extent he did it in 2009, but the director has indeed made a most enjoyable film - even with what some might call (but not this critic) a rather dubious last act.

Like the eponymously titled 2009 film, Star Trek Into Darkness holds true to the Trek of old - Abrams keeps on Trekkin', if you will - while also giving us a taste of the bold and the new.  From Spock and Uhura's strange bedfellow coupling (hot and heavy as a Pon Farr Summer) and a climactic chase scene on and over the streets of San Francisco to Chris Pine's snarky Shatneresque smile and the return, however brief, of Leonard Nimoy's iconic pointy-eared logician, Abrams' film still plays at crossing from one beloved universe into a new one, boldly going where...well, you know the rest.  And yes, Abrams' wonderfully decisive lens flares are here as well.  Now if we could only get some Klingon action.  The screenplay, written by Abrams' 2009 screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, this time joined by Abrams' old Lost buddy, Damon Linelof, is at times quaint and adoring, while also managing a sort of edge, even with some rather cornbally - though Trek-appropriate cornbally - dialogue mixed in.

What is most important is that in between the space tragedy and f/x spectacle (and those effects are quite spectacular by the by), we get a humour that hearkens back to the original series.  Pine and Zachory Quinto, as the younger Kirk and Spock (32 and 35 respectively, both actors are about the same age as Shatner and Nimoy, both 35 at the time, when they first played the roles) have a great chemistry on screen - a chemistry that also hearkens back to the original series.  Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Zoe Saldana as Lt. Uhura, Simon Pegg as Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott (he is marvelous in the role actually), John Cho as Lt. Sulu and Anton Yelchin as Ensign Chekov, all returning from Abrams' opening reboot, are all form-fitting in their respective roles as well.  We even get a glimpse of the Klingons, but only a glimpse.  Seriously J.J., we want more Klingons.

And speaking of villains, this one has a doozy - even if it is not the Klingons.  This, by the way, is where you avert your eyes for fear of having things revealed that you may not wish revealed - though to be honest, none of it is really all that much of a surprise.  The doozy of a villain of whom I speak, is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, the English actor with the great name and the even greater voice, and his performance as old foe returneth, that old s.o.b., Khan Noonien Singh, is pitch perfect.  First seen in the 1967 original series episode, "Space Seed", and then encountered again in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (played by Ricardo Montalbán in both excursions), the character is a superstrong human with murder in his eyes and revenge on his tongue, and Cumberbatch brings the old villain back to glorious, menacing life here.  He may not be as flamboyant as Montalbán was, but then Ricardo was quite the drama queen, wasn't he?

Now there are a few of my fellow critical compatriots, who have complained about what Abrams does with the character and where he takes the film in its final act.  Some more critical than I have gone so far as to call this final act a cheat and a rip-off, and even plagiarism, which is just ridiculous, and I don't believe that for a second.  Not to give anything away, but Abrams, instead of creating something truly new (as he did in 2009), revisits many of the aspects of The Wrath of Khan, sometimes changing who does what and what happens to whom (in the whole character dynamic, what happens does make sense though), perhaps revisiting some aspects a bit too much and a bit too closely for this to be anything truly new and boldly refreshing for some, but I must admit, when a certain character does a certain thing which I was wondering if this certain character was going to do, it was quite a thrill - and I may actually have done an inadvertent fist pump to myself when this thing did happen.

Sure, Into Darkness may not have flipped my switch quite the same way the bold, new Abrams' first Trek did - an iconic thing in the making there - though it is only lesser by a minute amount, and it most certainly is still a damn entertaining piece of space adventure, and its final shot leads one to believe - to hope even - there is more to come, even if J.J. is heading off to the Star Wars universe soon, to deal with Wookiees and space pirates and Jedi Knights, and may not do the next Trek, if there is indeed a next Trek (no one has directed more than two Trek films btw).  I suppose, in the whole pantheon of Trek, I would place this nugget neatly in at fifth place amongst the twelve theatrical films.  Perhaps not up there with Abrams' first go-around, nor with Wrath of Khan, Voyage Home or the original, often overlooked, 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but good enough to be on par with Search for Spock and Generations, and surely above the rest.  But I am nerding out now, so I shall digress.

From a purely cinematic standpoint, much like the oft-mentioned here 2009 edition, Into Darkness is a boon for both the faithful and the virgins.  No, you need not know anything about the Prime Directive, or that Carol Marcus and Jim Kirk will eventually have a child together (at least in the so-called Prime Universe they do), or how a warp drive works or get the little references (Tribbles AND Harry Mudd) or feel a nostalgic pang for the lovable gruff of Bones McCoy or the cocksure flabbergasting of Scotty, or why it is such a nerdgasm to have that aforementioned certain character do that certain thing, to truly enjoy this film (nerding out again!).  Sure, it helps to know the mythos of this world, but it is not necessary - and that is how J.J. Abrams makes peace in the chaotic universe of Star Trek, and perhaps in his upcoming rebooting of that other Star-related franchise as well.  To steal and paraphrase a line from you-know-who (both Prime and New Universe versions), may this series truly live long and prosper.  Now really, let's bring on the Klingons.

Retro Review: J.J. Abram's Star Trek (2009)

The following is part of a series where I bring back some of my "older" reviews (those written during my 2004-2011 tenure at the now mostly defunct The Cinematheque) and offer them up to a "newer" generation.  With the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, I figured this was as good a time as any to look back at J.J. Abram's first rebooting of the Trek Universe.  On a side note, if someone were to ask me to name the best review I have ever written, I believe I would have to go with the one you are about to read - so we have that going for it as well.  Enjoy.  My review of Star Trek Into Darkness will be up and running either Thursday or Friday.

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Forty-three years after Gene Roddenberry first boldly went where no one had gone before and thirty years after the first cinematic endeavor and twenty-two years after the coming of the next generation and seven years after the last movie attempt (and at least fifteen years after anyone really cared anymore), Star Trek has been reborn - or should I say, rebooted.

Daring us to once again boldly go, while at the same time tagging us with the bold statement that this was no longer our father's Star Trek (or in the case of us "older folks" who grew up with the original series - "our" Star Trek), TV wunderkind J.J. Abrams, probably the best mainstream director working today, has managed the seemingly impossible.   He has made a Star Trek so ingrained with four plus decades of sci-fi mythology as to please even the most discerning of die-hard Trekkers (even those still living in their parent's basement at near middle age - their own phasers set on stun) while at the same time keeping it youthful enough, modern enough, to bring aboard those legions of novice Starfleet cadets that the franchise is in so desperate need of gaining.  Abrams, just like a young and cocky James Tiberius Kirk, has beaten the unbeatable Kobayashi Maru - and he only cheated a little.   How's that for a reference sure to confound all those aforementioned neophyte cadets yet thrill the legions of Trek nerds I boldly announce myself as completely in tune with?
 

Using the time-tested (pun very much intended) Trek standby (re: cheat) of time travel to create what is in essence an alternate reality Star Trek, Abrams comes aboard, as brash and full of bravado as Chris Pine's newly retooled rebel without a cause, Kirk himself, with not just a beloved sci-fi universe rolled out in front of him, but with the suave beauty of a clean slate to boldly go wherever he damn well pleases - and boldly he does indeed go.  Abrams (born mere months before the original series first flew into living rooms across America) can have his space cake and eat it to - and blow it up if he wants (which he does in part).   Just like Roddenberry back in '66, it lays at his feet for him to do with whatever he so desires.  After seeing the finished product, this self admitted Star Trek nerd can safely say he believes that Roddenberry is looking down from his resting place amongst the stars with a happy heart - or at least he damn well should be, because Abrams has created a loving tribute to the universe that Roddenberry created oh those forty plus years ago.

The story begins, as always, in the heat of battle.   A federation ship is being attacked by Nero, a renegade Romulan looking more like a Maori beyond Thunderdome than the traditional Romulan of Trek lore.  When the ship's captain is summoned over to the Romulan's obvious deathtrap, he places a young officer by the name of George Kirk in command.   To make a long story short, Kirk goes down with his ship after making sure the crew, along with his giving-birth-right-now wife and their fresh-faced new son, one James Tiberius Kirk, are shuttled off to safety.  It is pure space opera and it works on just that level.  After this we get backstories and character introductions (and even get to see cadet Kirk's tryst with a green-skinned alien) and finally just why that damned Nero is so pissed off at the federation - and especially Spock.  We even get allusions to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when Nero screeches Spock!!! into the otherwise soundproof environs of space just as Shatner's Kirk yelled Khan!!!.  It's just as cheesy and just as fun.   Pauline Kael once wrote of the second Trek movie that it was "wonderful dumb fun" and this is certainly no different - and I too, just like the late Miss Kael, mean that with the utmost sincerity and adoration.

And the new cast, the veritable nexus of chat room speculation and argumentative controversy ever since Abrams' revamping plans began to first unfold, works as well.   Chris Pine as the iconic Captain Kirk is a twenty-something horndog roustabout who joins Starfleet more out of spite or on a dare than out of any sense of duty.  The perpetually brooding Zachary Quinto plays the even more iconic Mr. Spock with a Vulcan calmness just this side of emotional eruption.  He looks so much like Nimoy one must wonder if he wasn't born to play the part.  Karl Urban, in one of the most dead reckoning impersonations in the group, plays Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy with the same bug-eyed curmudgeonry as DeForest Kelly's original grizzled anti-social country doctor with a taste for bourbon and a definitive distaste for space travel.  Then there is Simon Pegg doing Scotty in high brogue as only a comic actor can and should do him.  My one major criticism of the film is there is not enough Scotty (he doesn't even make an appearance until around minute 85 or 90).  We also get Zoe Saldana as the smokin' hot Uhura in retro mini skirt and gogo boots (she really doesn't have much else to do), John Cho (Harold, sans Kumar) as the helmsman Sulu, Anton Yelchin as a seventeen year old Pavel Chekov, with a major case of 23rd century ADD, Bruce Greenwood as the ill-fated Captain Christopher Pike, Ben Cross and Winona Ryder as Spock's star-crossed parents, Eric Bana as the aforementioned Khan-esque Nero and even Tyler Perry as a Starfleet Admiral (luckily not trying to be "very funny").

All the favorite characters are here (but where are Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand?) fulfilling their duty as newly appointed icons, replete with all the old standard lines that have become part of sci-fi lore, but still, as always, this is the Kirk and Spock show.  Philosophically set against each other - Kirk and Spock, body and mind - we watch the beginnings of an eternal struggle put to rest by the almost symbiotic way these two opposite reactions work together toward the same goal.  Both are great in the parts but it is Pine who has the decidedly tougher mountain to climb.   Pine has to channel the bravura of Shatner's Kirk but also avoid falling into the drama queen over excess of Shatner the actor.  A friend describes Shatner lovingly (sort of) as that embarrassing uncle who tries to get you to fish around in his pocket for a present.   Shatner's presence, bloated jackass or not (and don't get me wrong, I loved him in the original role), will always be there and yet Pine manages to parlay only the good into his transformation into Captain James T. Kirk.

Yet, the old school Trekker in me (I was just two years old when the original series was canceled due to low ratings!? but grew up on the seventies reruns) cannot help but keep returning to Leonard Nimoy's Spock Prime.   More than just a glorified cameo, Spock Prime, who's inadvertent delineation of the known timeline which flips everything on its head is the nadir of the film's story, is the very heart and soul of the new Star Trek.  Watching Nimoy back where he belongs and obviously loving every moment of his trek back home (pun intended again) is like once again seeing that beloved childhood friend you never even realized you missed like crazy but who has been in the back of your mind for years and years and years.  Just as Nimoy has gone home again (and who said you couldn't?) so to has this once, and always, impressionable perpetual youth.

Forty-three years of pop culture references - from South Park and Family Guy to Galaxy Quest, SNL and even That 70's Show - and the franchise of Star Trek, with its phasers and communicators and its "beam me up Scotty" apocryphals, is still alive.  Perhaps it has been on life support for a while now - kept alive long after any real interest in the later spin-offs and elongated episodic cinematic endeavors has gone as kaput as a red-shirted ensign on a landing party - but no matter how sick it may have become, the imagery has never died.  It is this very pop culture and all the mythos and iconography which surrounds it that makes Abrams reboot work as well as it does.  His sleek new look that never takes away from the now-retro original series is a pitch-perfect melange of old and new sensibilities.  My critical half (aka my pretentious half) is inline with my nerd half and I too can have my cake and eat it as well.

In the final scene, when everyone is on the bridge in those iconic (and somewhat cooler) original episode uniforms - I actually got chills (god, I am a nerd!!!) and Pine's subtle Shatneresque smirk and slap on Bones' shoulder and the way he sits in that captain's chair, legs crossed a la Shatner, along with the obvious love and care in giving us Nimoy's Spock "Prime", shows that though this is not our father's Star Trek and is definitely boldly going where no one has gone before, it would and could still hold high reverence for all that had come before it.  The mythology is still there and yet, like Zefram Cochrane making first contact, Abrams brings new life to this long dead Phoenix and we realize we can boldly go anywhere from here.  What more could we ever ask for?  Now bring on the Klingons.  Live long and prosper. 

[Originally published at The Cinematheque on 05/09/09]

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" - Pt VII

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my seventh in the series, I take a look at the cheap films and super TV from the year 1952, one of the early years of the decade that what would become known as the hey day of sci-fi cinema.

Read my column, "1952: The Year of the Slave Girl and the Man of Steel on TV," at Forces of Geek.

For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section. 

Forces of Geek "A History of Sc-i-Fi Column" - Pt VI

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my sixth in the series, I take a look at some alien invasion films from the year 1951, one of the early years of the decade that what would become known as the hey day of sci-fi cinema.

Read my column, "1951: The Year Worlds Collided and the Earth Stood Still," at Forces of Geek.

For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Film Review: Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion

Say what you want about Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as Tom Cruise.  Be it oddball Scientologist, loony egomaniac, self-centered media whore, or just plain and simple, a bad actor.  Say what you will, but one thing is for certain, no matter the odds, Cruise's characters will fight to the death - and sometimes beyond - to rescue the damsel in distress or maybe even save the whole freakin' planet.  In this way, Tom Cruise will not let you down, and that is certainly the case in Oblivion.  Weather his heroic character - always running, running, running, though here doing said running via space ships and futuristic motorcycles - actually succeeds in rescuing the damsel in distress, or whether he manages to save the planet from evil other-worlders, I will not say - but it is Tom Cruise after all, so an easy assumption can be made - but he will do his damndest, his Tom Cruiseiest, to do exactly that.

The story of Oblivion is simple, even if it tries to be convoluted for convolution's sake.  We meet our hero Tom...er, I mean, Jack Harper, who is a technician on a dying Earth, about sixty years after the world fell to alien invaders.  As for backstory, sixty years ago, aliens destroyed our moon, which caused catastrophic earthquakes and tidal waves, followed by an all-out invasion.  We won the war, but in the process, the planet was destroyed by nuclear battle and fall-out.  Jack, along with his communications officer-cum-lover (she's the only game in town, as is he) Victoria, played by English actress Andrea Riseborough, is saddled with the job of guarding the few left vestiges of civilization - ie, the giant machines sucking what is left of Earth's water onto a space station hovering above - from the roaming bands of rebel aliens, until they too can make their way to the rest of Earth's survivors, now supposedly happily roaming around Saturn's largest moon, Titan. 

Of course, as always, there is more than meets the eye here.  Most of the surprise twists and turns - one of which is ridiculously revealed in the trailer - can be seen coming a mile away, but that doesn't stop the film from being a fun adventure romp.  Something akin to the slew of sci-fi films from the 1970's - films like Westworld and Soylant Green or even the Planet of the Apes series - Oblivion keeps the action going, keeps the tension going, keeps the entertainment going, even if it is a rather shallow entertainment, a rather obvious tension, a rather expectant action.   Maybe not a great film, nor is it actually as good as any of those I just compared it too, but it is quite stunning to look at (courtesy of Life of Pi's Oscar winning cinematographer, Claudio Miranda), and it is full of great fun, and a lot of that great fun has to do with the oft-maligned hero figure known as Mr. Tom Cruise.  Keep runnin' Tom, keep runnin'.

Battle Royale #13: Battle of the Big Boys

Welcome to the thirteenth Battle Royale here at The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World.   It is an ongoing series that will pit two classic cinematic greats against each other - and you can vote for who is the greater by clicking your choice over in the poll at the top of the sidebar.

In the past, our battles have been between actors and directors, dancers and comedy teams, but this time around, we are going for something a little different - and something a lot bigger.  For lucky Battle Royale number thirteen, we are going for two of the biggest stars in movie history.  No, not Ollie Hardy and Fatty Arbuckle.  This time around we are pitting two giants of the silver screen against each other in mortal combat.  Real big giants.  Yes ladies and germs, they did battle only once on the big screen, back in 1962 (as well as a brief battle three years later, in the DC comic, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #84, though for copyright reasons, their names were changed - as well as making a joint appearance in a Peruvian burger commercial), but here they are again for a second epic battle.  You guessed it baby (not that it was a difficult task of guessing, since there is a picture right over there), it is King Kong versus Godzilla.  It's boom time baby!

Kong was born in 1933, in the now classic monster movie by Merian C. Cooper, and Godzilla came about in the self-titled 1954 Japanese film, before becoming Americanized in the 1956 semi-remake.  Throughout cinematic history, both Kong and Godzilla have had numerous filmic incarnations - sequels, spin-offs and remakes galore.  These two movie monster greats can also be found in comicbooks, cartoons and graphic novels, as well as toy lines out the wazoo.  Godzilla even got a Scrappy-Doo-esque little cousin named Godzooky once - but that may not be his most shining hour.  But back to the battle at hand.  Now yes, if one were to compare the size of the atomic-radiated prehistoric dinosaur-esque Godzilla with that of the great ape Kong, Godzilla would be about four or five times bigger than Kong, and therefore the eventual winner (I know, I know, David vs. Goliath, Jack vs. the Giants, etc, but still), but in the 1962 film version, Kong is sized up quite a bit and is therefore the same approximate size as our big freakin' lizard.  In fact, when these two bad ass movie monsters clashed in said 1962 movie, it was Kong who came out the victor, but that doesn't mean he has to here as well - although he still might.  And it is YOU who can decide!!

All you need to do is go on over to the poll - placed conveniently near the top of the sidebar of this very same website - and make your vote heard.  And remember, you can rant and rave about Kong and/or 'Zilla, all you want in the comments section of this post - and please do, because we encourage such antics - but in order for your vote to be counted, you must actually vote in the aforementioned poll near the top of the sidebar.  After that, please feel free to come back here and rant and rave to your heart's delight.  And also, please tell all your friends to get in on the voting fun as well.  Our record voter turnout here in the Battle Royale arena, is just 66 votes - waaaay back in our second battle - but I know we can blow that number out of the proverbial water - maybe even reach triple digits this time around.  Voting will run through midnight EST, the night of April 26th - just over two weeks from the starting time - so get out there and vote vote vote.  The winner will be announced in a post on Saturday, April 27th.  Oh, and by the way, in an attempt to give credit where credit is due, the above artistic rendering of these two giants at battle is by Frank Parr, who's work can be found at Kaijuverse, DeviantART.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Column" - Pt V

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my fifth in the series, I take a look at the a pair of rocket to the moon films from the year 1950 and the beginning of what would become known as the hey day of science fiction cinema.

Read my column, "1950: The Hey Day of A Genre, and a Rocketship (or two) to the Moon," at Forces of Geek.

For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" Column - Part IV

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my fourth in the series, I take a look at the the onslaught of horror and sci-fi from Universal, at the serials of the day, and at a big ole loveable ape by the name of Kong.

Read my column, "Universal Horror, Space Age Heroes, and a Giant Ape Falls in Love," at Forces of Geek.

For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" Column - Part III

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my third in the series, I take a look at the the 1920's and the expressionistic and art deco work of Fritz Lang, and especially at his great classic of the genre, Metropolis.

Read my column, "Fritz Lang, Metropolis and German Expressionism," at Forces of Geek.

  For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" Column - Part II

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, the second in the series, I take a look at some of the very first feature length sci-fi- films from around the globe, as well as the stop-motion dinosaur classic The Lost World.

Read my column, "From Mad Scientists to Modern Day Dinosaurs," at Forces of Geek.

 For links to all the parts in this series, go here, and scroll down to the Forces of Geek section.

Forces of Geek "A History of Sci-Fi Cinema" Column

The fine folks over at Forces of Geek have allowed me the space and time to ramble on about the history of science fiction cinema.  These bi-weekly columns, will make an attempt, however feeble, at discussing the history of this often chided cinematic genre.  From its birth to the latest CGI box office hits, I will take a look at the films that have filled the genre, as well as their literary influences and TV offshoots.  In this episode, my first in the series, I take a look at the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Welles, and how they influenced the genre, and Georges Méliès, and how he helped shape said genre.

Read my column, "The Magic of Méliès and the Birth of a Genre," at Forces of Geek.