chuggnutt.com

No, I'm not going to review or spoil the movie Inception or prattle on at length about it here. I really rather enjoyed it, it has a few holes here and there, and it gets you thinking.

In particular, I like the idea of having a totem. Seems safer that way.

So the first trailer for this year's A-Team movie hit the net yesterday, and if you follow me on Twitter you know that the first link to it I posted was taken down ("infringing"). But of course you can just search YouTube and find it again if you want to watch it.

...I've watched it a bunch of times now. I can't help it: it looks friggin' awesome, and damn if that isn't a good movie trailer. Now I can't wait for the movie to come out.

Well, yes, I am that geeky.

So about two weeks ago I saw the new Star Trek movie (at McMenamins Old St. Francis School, in their second-run theater), and this weekend I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (also at McMenamins). I really liked both of them—Star Trek in particular was fully redeemed for me after I had some serious doubts about it—and it occurred to me, as I started to write this up, that both of these movies are in the top five highest-grossing 2009 movies in the U.S. (Transformers, #1, and Star Trek, #5) and both are intrinsically geek movies.

Is that a great thing or what?

Naturally I have some thoughts about each movie, but in case of spoilers you'll have to click through to read them. You've been warned.

Keep reading

A few weeks ago we had a free preview weekend of HBO and Cinemax from our cable company, and while I was flipping around to see what was on (probably Saturday afternoon), I caught the end of Star Trek: Generations. (Actually, probably the last quarter of the movie or so.) And of course, being the Star Trek nerd that I am, I watched the rest of it.

And, well, I had to write about it too. Feel free to completely skip this post if you have no interest in Star Trek whatsoever. Yeah, it's like that.

Now, Generations is problematic, there's no doubt. While I was watching, I was mentally tallying up the various problems and hence, this post.

Their intentions were in the right place: it was the first Star Trek movie featuring the cast from The Next Generation, whose series had just wrapped, so they wanted to go big. How big? Well let's see... they gave Data emotions, explained the origin of Guinan, destroyed the Enterprise, and oh yeah, had Captain Picard meet Captain Kirk. And killed Kirk.

In order to do this latter bit, the writers contrived a thin plot around a supposed "Nexus" in Time that looked like a big sparkling ribbon flying through space. People can enter this Nexus where Time stands still and they are granted whatever they wish (while inside of it). Kind of like the ultimate virtual reality where you never age and you can have anything you want.

The token villain (played by Malcolm McDowell) was in the Nexus once before and wants to go back. So he's blowing up stars to change the gravitational influence on the Nexus as it travels through space, just so he can direct it to a planet that he'll be standing on at a pre-arranged time—all so the Nexus will suck him back into it when it gets to the planet.

While the movie had some good bits, there are so many things wrong with this plot, it's embarrassing. And then, they went and got the science behind it utterly wrong.

Point: Soran (the villain) didn't need to blow up stars or anything remotely cosmic to re-enter the Nexus. He could have just flown a shuttlecraft into it. Or barring that, open the airlock and launch himself physically into it from the back of said shuttlecraft—he could survive the vacuum of space for the three seconds it would take to accomplish this. Kirk did, after all.

In other words, shitty plotting and unimaginative writing.

Point: During the battle between the Enterprise and the Klingon ship that results in the Enterprise's destruction, we see that the Klingons are spying on the ship's shield frequency modulation via LaForge's visor—thus enabling them to shoot photon torpedoes that pass through the shields as if they weren't there.

However, the Enterprise crew makes no effort to alter the shield modulation—something they did repeatedly during the TV series (especially versus the Borg)! How could something so fundamental get by them?

It would have been an easy fix, too: just show the Klingons (who were spying on them, remember) getting the new shield frequency every time it was changed. Would it really have cost that much more to film?

Point: When the Enterprise finally is able to fire back, Riker tells Worf to have a "full spread" of torpedoes ready to fire. When they get their moment, only one torpedo launches.

What the hell?

Point: In what is probably the worst production/science gaffe they could possibly make, Soran launches his missile from the planet towards the sun (to blow it up, remember) just as the Nexus is nearing. Immediately the sun darkens and explodes. Do you see what's wrong with this picture?

The sun should not have appeared to change for at least 8 full minutes. Not even counting the time it would take for the missile to reach the sun—let's suppose it has warp capabilities, to get around that issue—the light (and gravity) from the sun can only travel at the speed of light. And since they were on an Earth-looking planet, which is 8 light-minutes away from the sun, then that means there's no possible way the sun would appear to darken immediately—and the gravitational effect on the Nexus would be similarly delayed.

Huge, huge blunder. Somebody (preferably the writers) should have been fired for that one.

Point: Picard is now in the Nexus. The planet (and the remains of the Enterprise and its crew) all blew up. Picard (with the help of Kirk) escapes the Nexus, jumps back in time to just before the missile is launched (the Nexus can let you go to any place and time, apparently), and saves the day, altering the events that already transpired. Time travel.

Thus, an alternate timeline was created, in which Soran succeeds and the Enterprise is lost with all hands.

(For that matter, why didn't Picard return hours earlier and destroy Soran's base and missile before any of that happened? Or any other convenient time to stop Soran?)

Point: Picard is now in the Nexus. He has been told (as have we, the viewers) that the Nexus grants your fondest desire; it gives you whatever you want. The ultimate virtual reality, remember. Well, once Picard figured out what was going on, his fondest desire was to leave the Nexus. But wouldn't the Nexus grant that desire and give Picard a (virtual) reality where he left the Nexus and stopped Soran?

In other words, Picard never left the Nexus—he just thinks he did, the Nexus granted that wish inside its virtual reality. If he never left, then that alternate timeline I mentioned is in fact the "correct" and current timeline—and all the subsequent Next Generation movies never "happened." (Maybe a bunch of the subsequent TV series, either.)

Actually this last point isn't really so much of a problem, more of an observation. But it makes for an interesting plot device... once that actually forms the basis for the on-again, off-again dabbling I've been doing in Star Trek fan fiction over the years.

(My fan fiction "series" is set in the future—yet another generation—and in the "alternate" timeline in which Picard is still in the Nexus.)

Overall, Generations wasn't a bad movie, just flawed (severely flawed in some cases) and the weakest of the Next Generation movies.

But then again, I only caught the last half or third of it, after having not seen it for a long time... maybe I'd find a lot more to rant about if I saw it from the beginning...

We saw "The Dark Knight" a little over a week ago, and bottom line, it's not only the best movie I've seen this year, it's also the best Batman movie ever made.

Without spoilers, here are some of the pluses:

• No origin story for the Joker. I've said before, these things work when not bogged out with origin stories. By presenting the Joker as "an absolute" (the filmmakers' words), just there, it's perfect.
• Speaking of the Joker, Heather Ledger's interpretation: yeah, amazing.
• The way they handled Harvey Dent was really, really, really well done. I won't say more because of spoiler issues, but if you know the source material, well...
• Like "Batman Begins," they keep everything (more or less) grounded in reality, which is such a breath of fresh air after the horrible, horrible Joel Schumacher Batman films.
• It's freaking awesome.

One of the reasons it's the best Batman movie ever made, I think, is that they treat the material seriously and have devotional respect to the character—and they assume an intelligent audience, rather than a theater full of nitwits who want to see nipples on the Batsuit.

Now I just wish someone would come along a reboot the Superman movie franchise and make it as good as Batman. (No, I haven't seen "Superman Returns", nor do I want to.)

The headline refers to the movie, of course, which I took the kids to see today. It was great. No, I mean it—it was great.

(No spoilers.)

Several things contributed to it's greatness. First, not knowing (until the credits roll) who any of actors doing the voices are, except of course for Jack Black. I think sometimes on animated movies I get distracted by actually knowing who the actors are and then listening for them, rather than enjoying the movie.

For instance, the voice behind Tai Lung (the snow leopard villain) was really good—really well cast—and itchingly familiar. Turned out to be Ian McShane, who played Swearingen on "Deadwood" (possibly the best TV show of all time), and that was masterful. But had I known it was him beforehand, I would have been listening for "Deadwood" instead.

Jack Black, by the way, is also perfectly cast. But you probably already knew that.

Second, this movie doesn't suffer from what a lot of animated movies these days (particularly Dreamworks ones) does: slapstick humor propped up by "modern" or meta-themed jokes. In other words, nothing is out of place here (plot-wise, humor-wise)—with one exception which I'll get to—and comedy doesn't rely on "outside the box" or "frame of reference" jokes.

(An example? How about Pinocchio wearing thong underwear in "Shrek 2"?)

Third, that "one exception": Po the Panda—as played by Black—is such an otaku of kung fu and the hero characters that he actually has action figures and posters of them (the "Furious Five") all over his room. Yes, this seems out of place in ancient (? or medieval?) China, but it's what pulls this movie together; Po is the ultimate geeknerd, the comic book-type obsessive who already knows (cerebrally, anyway) all about the Five and kung fu and the history of the epic battles of good and evil just like the "modern" geeknerds on the internet and in comic book shops today. It works because it resonates, I suppose, and if you've actually read this far then it's very likely you know exactly what I mean and it resonates with you too.

Fourth, it's great fun with elaborate, enjoyable kung fu fight scenes. Ah, the wonders of animation.

It's well worth seeing. Thumbs up.

First summer blockbuster of the year: we went and saw "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" this past weekend. I rather liked it, as I knew I would, though for me it's not as good as "Last Crusade", although that's forgivable (for me) because it's only been nearly two decades since the last movie was released.

More to say, but spoilers are in effect... click through with caution

The trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out today. See it here.

Of course, I could've embedded it here, too, but I thought I'd rather whet your whistle with screengrabs. More fun, too.

We popped the DVD of "The Incredibles" in for the kids tonight, and I swear, I can't not watch it when it's on. "The Incredibles" is pretty much at the top of my list for the best superhero movie out there. While it's tough to pin down exactly what makes it so good—I mean, they did pretty much everything right—I think one of the strongest points to the movie is that they don't bog it down with origin stories. They just present it to you with, "here's their world, they have superpowers, it doesn't matter how or where they got them."

They don't let the origins get in the way of the story, in other words. Almost every other superhero movie I can think of does.

I'll grant the exception to "Batman Begins." The whole point of that movie is the origin of Batman, and it's done so well that it's also on my list of top superhero movies.

Speaking of which, I watched the illicit trailer for its sequel, "The Dark Knight," online today. Even bootlegged, grainy, shaky-camcorder style footage doesn't stop me from thinking, Hot damn I want to see that movie. It's gonna be a really good Joker, I think.

What else is on my list? Um, "Mystery Men," I think. The first "Superman" movie. "Unbreakable" too, I think (it was so unconventional).

As for others, I'd have to weigh them carefully before I commit. You'll notice I'm not talking about "comic book movies" here—I'm considering the superhero genre, and some of them are based on comics, some aren't. At some point I'll compile and post my full list.

When I wrote the post about the G.I. Joe movie awhile back, I started ruminating over the apparent trend over the past few years of making movies based on 80's TV series. Like "Miami Vice" and "The Dukes of Hazzard."

It took awhile, but there is an "A-Team" movie in production, scheduled for a 2008 release. And I'm a little surprised someone hasn't taken up such obvious movie-fodder as "Airwolf" and "MacGyver." I mean, if ever there was an 80's show destined to be a movie, "Airwolf" is it.

It's when they start hitting the 80's cartoons that you realize they're desperate (or is that brilliant?)—like "Transformers" and the afore-mentioned "G.I. Joe." I got to thinking about what other noteworthy 80's cartoons to watch out for...

• Robotech: recently announced, possibly headed up by Tobey Maguire.
• He-Man: "Masters of the Universe" was made way back in 1987, with Dolph Lundgren as He-Man. That's apparently not stopping a new version (set for 2009) though: here's the IMDB page for it, and here's an article from May of this year.
• Voltron: There was some speculation that JJ Abrahms' weird "Cloverfield" movie was going to be Voltron, but that was debunked. However, someone else picked up the ball: a movie set for 2008 apparently; here's the super-secret IMDB page for it. More details here.
• Thundercats: Good grief, Esquire has an article about this that includes cast and everything. Who knew? (Ugh, it even mentions a "Care Bear" movie.) I got snookered! (See comment below.) Here's a real link to a "Thundercats" movie.
• Gummi Bears: Please, no.
• Smurfs: Please, no. (Alas, it looks like a CGI animated movie is set for 2008.)
• M.A.S.K.: None as far as I know.
• Thundarr the Barbarian: I'm getting Eclectic Old-School here. But a cartoon set on an apocalyptic, far-future version of the Earth? (Even the moon is split in two!) What's not to like? But no movie treatment as far as I know.

What's next?

Announced on Variety.com: a live-action G.I. Joe movie, to be released summer of 2009 and directed by Stephen Sommers.

Hasbro's Goldner said that the mythology of G.I Joe was fleshed out during the 1980s through 155 issues of Marvel Comics, as well as an animated TV series. There are about 30 core characters, good and evil, that can be exploited in films.

"Marrying Steve's vision with 25 years of this brand mythology feels like a great way to go forward," Goldner said.

While some remember the character from its gung-ho fighting man '60s incarnation, he's evolved. G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer. The property is closer in tone to "X-Men" and James Bond than a war film.

Brussels-based and more like an "X-Men" movie? I don't know, sounds like it could be weird. I guess that's what you'd expect from the guy who directed Van Helsing.

And I might be wrong, but reading over the Wikipedia G.I. Joe page, isn't the "double-crossing Scottish arms dealer" Destro? If they don't have Cobra Commander with the ultimate casting choice playing the role... man, I don't know. (Next fun diversion: picking the ultimate cast for the movie.)

I guess the time is ripe for this sort of thing. But yeah, I'm surprised it took this long, though on the other hand, I remember seeing a live-action G.I. Joe movie back in 1994...

Don't let the title completely fool you, this entry is a rant, as much as anything else. And don't think that I'm some sort of pop culture otaku; I'm usually behind the curve when it comes to such things, especially music.

But I seem to consume a fair amount of it anyway, and so here we are.

What do I really have to say about pop culture? Read on...

I saw the third X-Men movie on Saturday, and while I don't think it's as good as the previous two movies, I rather liked it. It won't classify as a great movie, but it was certainly enjoyable.

So what follows is my review... although it's less of a "review" than just a general geeking-out about things. And there are definitely Spoilers ahead so be warned.

More...

I just had to point to this: The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed. You gotta love it when he opens the Star Wars section with:

Everyone remembers the exact moment when they realized that their Phanom Menace sandwich was filled with shit. For me, it was the scene on Tatooine where Qui-Gon is talking and Jar Jar is snatching fruit from the bowl with his tongue, eating like an insect. Annoyed, Qui-Gon reaches out and snatches his tongue out of the air and holds it in his fist while he talks. That was when I realized I was watching a cartoon.

Good stuff. Via... I actually don't remember where I first saw this. Oh well.

Sunday my dad and I took the kids to see Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Hands down, the best movie I've seen this year. The story is funny and quirky, and the claymation is simply a delight to watch. And it's genuinely funny, which is rare in a movie these days; like my dad said, I haven't laughed so hard at a movie in a long time.

Amazon has a good deal on the first three Wallace and Gromit films on DVD. I've got a couple of them on videotape around here somewhere, but it sure would be nice to get a hold of this...

In other related news, a fire wiped out Aardman Animations over the weekend... destroyed nearly everything, including the props and sets from those first Wallace and Gromit films. That's rough.