Star Trek

To boldly go BACK. I am tired of going back to see how it all started. It all started with the first Star Trek episode. I liked Enterprise, the show wasn’t too bad. But after Trek, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, I was ready for something new! A new series set afterward. Maybe Picard could be an admiral and send off a new crew to boldly go… Alas, no, lets go back to the start of Kirk, because he is a name that the average joe knows, and lets make it cool so that other brainless people can enjoy it.

You see, Star Trek is boring, or so most people think and so do the film makers. They are trying to make it less boring, by making it the same as every other poorly written sci-fi movie. I don’t think Trek is boring, and anyone who has the ability to think, shouldn’t find it boring either.

This film is really poorly written. The actors were fine, the ship looked good, but its like the writers just squeezed all the juice out of the orange and we are only left with the peel, which is part of the orange, but not the tasty part. Everything looks good, but doesn’t feel good.

Uhura is appointed as communications officer because she knows Romulan. Bones becomes chief medical officer because the other guy died. Scotty has never served on a starship, but he knows how to transport through warp speed, so he is now chief engineer. What happened to working for your advancement? If you put in your time, gain knowledge, experience, toughen up, work hard, and then are rewarded with a higher ranking. Not accidentally gaining one. The entire movie is treated in that way. No one works towards a goal, the stumble upon it. Does that make a good Captain? Would you trust a boy who has no experience running a ship? Or a man who has been in countless battles and has defeated many enemies. This whole idea of making authority look bad, or useless is getting really tired. Who needs to follow the rules? Kirk doesn’t right? Well that’s because Kirk had been in space for awhile, so he knows all decisions cant be made by a book. It takes experience to run a ship, which Kirk had, but not in this movie. He breaks rules just for the sake of breaking them.

I also don’t like the “sex with farm animals” line and many like it. It’s not funny and it’s screams of bad writing. I would need an entire review for how badly they screwed Spock up. Even when he’s logical, he’s not. I will say that Bones, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov were all pretty cool. Kirk was even ok towards the end, but Uhura, who looked good, was not very well used (keeping to the old show I guess) and Spock, who looked good too, was really poorly written. See, you need to understand logic to write about it.

There is no story at all. Some Romulan wants to destroy Vulcan cause he hates Spock. He is so angry that he can wait 25 years before Spock shows up before destroying Vulcan. What a joke.

The look of the movie was fine, the casting was fine, even with Spock, who could’ve been really good if they knew what to do with him. But even as a non-trek movie, it’s still lacking.

The plot is terrible, the action is shaky (typical of today), and the characters don’t do enough. They are only cool if you know who they are already, which non-trekers wouldn’t know.

I wont even bother talking about the timeline of Trek, which was pissed on LARGE. In any case, this movie wasn’t a real Star Trek movie, and the masses may like it, but then they’ll forget about it like they do with all movies they “love”. Terminator comes out in a couple of weeks, and then everyone will jump on that band wagon.

Where no ONE has gone before. PISSU.

2.5/5 (1 for Bones, Scotty, Sulu, Checkov - 1 for effects and design - .5 for kirk - in the end he was cool).

J-KRAKEN

Star Trek the Future vs the Past.

The new trek movie is out. Ill review that monday night. For now i just wanna mention something on my mind. Why the hell do they keep moving this series back and not forward.

im sure this new movie is just fine, or maybe its a bunch of ass, but we'll see that monday.

i just dont get it. I wanna see the next batch of characters. we had kirk, then picard, then sisko, then janeway, and then we went back to archer (who was made up and then we had to explain why klingons look better in the past etc.) its time to move ahead here.

this new movie couldve really done something. have picard as an admiral and he can send off the new recruits and assign a new captain of the enterprise. no, lets go back and reinvent kirk and spock? what the hell kind of dumbass move is that!!!!!!!!!! just make something new. maybe they are too scared to do something knew, because then they would have to actually create new characters....OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!

What's the next movie gonna be, kirk as an infant?

One step forward, 5 steps back.

J-Kraken

Sunshine Cleaning review

I managed to catch this little known movie a few weeks ago. My wife wanted to watch it, and I had never heard of it but I'm willing to give anything a try. It's an interesting movie about a cleaning lady named Rose Lorkowski, played by Amy Adams, who struggles to support herself and her child on her meager earnings. She learns of a cleaning industry that's built on cleaning the aftermath of gruesome murders from a married cop that she's having an affair with and tries her hand at that, enlisting the help of her loser sister (played by Emily Blunt). Rose becomes successful at it, but of course being somewhat of a chick flick this film delves further than just the trial and tribulations of cleaning murder scenes. Rose deals with her life and how to improve it, coming to terms with her affair with a married man and her constant justification at the perceived lack of success in her life by the women she had gone to high school with years ago. She still tries to show them that she's a success in her own right, but of course she learns that she should frickin' grow up and take stock of real priorities, like raising her son.



I liked this movie. I thought it was funny that this was made by the same people who did Little Miss Sunshine. I guess they're trying to corner the market on movies with the word "Sunshine" in them and that have Alan Arkin playing a curmudgeonly grandfather. His role is virtually identical to the one he played in Little Miss Sunshine, but he's still a bright spot in the film. All in all, it's not bad. It's good to watch maybe once or twice but, in my case, it won't have alot of resonance with me. There isn't alot here that's memorable except perhaps the concept of everyday cleaners trying to clean crime scenes. Still, it's admirably original.
I give it 3/5 stars.


Till next time, human germ!
Deceptisean

An open letter to movie fans

You know, I'm sitting there today, thinking over the movies of today....considering my top ten list of the year, so far...and thinking about the movies I've seen this year...and I'm seeing a lot of 3's...not bad...not Earth-shattering...you know...alright. Now, you could argue that I'm just seeing a certain type of film, but not really. I watch pretty much anything, and you know what? Everything's...mediocre these days. So, that's why I'm writing this post.

There's a lot of people out there who consider themselves "movie people". They sit around, talking about this latest film, and that new flick, and they speak as if they know something about movies. Now for those who don't know, I know about movies. I was practically raised on them, I can remember one wall of our dining room practically covered with bookshelves stacked two deep with VHS movies (and it was a decent-sized room). As it stands now, I have close to 1,000 DVD's, and none burned. I've attended classes that showed films from Thomas Edison, all the way down to The Godfather. I've seen epics of the modern era, and epics from the golden era, and right now as it stands, the two don't compare. They just don't make films like they used to, which is sad.

So, why write this post, bemoaning about the state of films today? Simple: because I care. I care about movies, and about where they're headed, and I don't like where the new releases are headed. Think about it: we live in an era where information is literally a click of a button today. We have the Internet Movie Database, which documents pretty much every film in existence. We have scores of movie classes that teach genres, and even ones based on individual filmmakers. Why are films so mediocre these days? We have history on our side, and we know how the masters did it. Think about this progression: D.W. Griffiths, Cecile B. DeMille, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg...Michael Bay? What's wrong with this picture?

The problem is this: we accept mediocrity too easily nowadays. We're shovelled it by the barrelful. I liken movies to fast food: you absorb it, you crap it out two hours later, and you completely forget about it by the next day. The filmmakers and studios have all these classics, all these masterpieces that came before them, so, the natural progression is that films get bigger and better, right? We're supposedly a sophisticated society. We should expect sophisticated, better produced movies, right? Nope. We have more explosions, I'll give you that. We also have shaky-cam, amateurish humour, t and a, and not a storyline in sight. Any storyline we do get, usually feels as if it was dreamed up by an exec's 12 year-old niece. These guys don't seem to understand they have a legacy to continue. They don't care; after all, it's just a movie, right?

Some of us still care though, and to those, I am appealing. Hell, I'm getting down on my hands and knees at this point: please, please, PLEASE do not accept mediocrity anymore. Let these yahoos know that while the koolaid drinkers of the world still might be the majority, the minority, the ones who actually think for themselves, are still going to be an annoyance. Let them know that the kind of bland, cookie-cutter, pie chart drivel that is constantly being driven into our skulls is not going to continue unchallenged. You won't change the world, but you'll let them know that we're all not going to sit there and take this garbage.

Still with me? I know, this is a rant, and not a movie preview, but I've simply had enough. It's time some people sent a message to these schmucks in Hollywood. I know what you're thinking now; you're thinking one man can't make a difference, you can yell and scream on your blog all you want, and it won't make a damned difference. You're probably right, but remember this: the sun shines on every dog's ass, even a mutt like me.

I bid you a fair good night.

- Stephenstein

Wolverine.

I started out with low expectations on this one. Not a big Xmen fan, at least not of the movies…but Jackman was the best part of them (along with Prof.X and Magneto). But I am a fan of Wolverine. He was the first character I picked when playing Marvel RPG. The first comic I every bought at a convention was Spiderman Vs Wolverine, and Punisher Vs Wolverine. So I’m a fan of the character and Jackman’s portrayal. That being said, I wasn’t expecting too much. But I really enjoyed this film! In fact, I really really liked it, I loved it! I mean we got a solid wolverine origin and I love that him and sabertooth teamed up at the end!

If you stayed through the end credits (depending on which theatre you were at, there are 2 different ones) it showed Deadpool going for his head, and saying “shhh” breaking the 4th wall (like the deadpool comics do – thanks wiki!). The other is wolverine in japan drinking…hopefully taking us to the Logan with patch (or without) and his japan adventures!

There are problems with some of the characters, as with all xmen movies, and a lot of guys are tense over deadpool. Even thought deadpool was “ruined”, he really wasn’t, cause you can say he becomes the deadpool we know after this movie. All I know is that we got the bone claws, weapon x, and a lot of cool fights and the best opening credits of a marvel movie. Wolverine was perfect in it, and that’s what we wanted. Plus I like wolverine doing his own thing, not being a sidekick to the xmen. There were also a lot of wow moments. I was stunned at a few things, so its all good! Definitely the best mutant movie, and I cant wait to see it again!

5/5 (that’s right, I really liked it!!!!!)

J-KRAKEN

I have literally just come back from the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. My thoughts? Well, Wolverine was awesome, and so was Hugh Jackman, though that's pretty much been the case through the entire X-Men run. Okay. Liev Shreiber was good too, though there could not be a satisfying ending in this case, as this was a prequel, and we all know Sabretooth shows up in the first X-Men movie. Fine. However, the one thing that sticks in my craw is the Deadpool character. What the hell was that? Ryan Reynolds shows up for a couple of scenes as Wade Wilson, and then we have nothing until the end when he's and uber-mutant with powers? Then he's offed by Wolverine! I mean, Deadpool's pretty popular, I think he got a raw deal. Other than that, a lot of mutants show up, but they reall don't do much. This is Wolverine's movie, and the only character who is on his level is Sabretooth...which is disappointing that they can't have a decent fight. Was this movie good? Yeah, but only if you're a huge fan of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Otherwise, I found it a good tease: they were going in good places, but never quite fulfill what they promise.

- Stephenstein

Well, I walked into this one thinking it was gonna be ass, and that the fighting was gonna be terrible. I was half right. The fights were poorly shot. More "shaky cam", which is the trademark of hiding the fact that no one can actually fight. Tony Jaa never has shaky cam. That being said, everything around the fighting was really really good! I liked the characters, especially the leads, and the plot was pretty good! All in all it was a good movie. Kinda like Midnight Cowboy meats Lionheart. 3.5/5

J-KRAKEN.