A Taste of Things to Come

I just wanted to post something so there would be a buffer between the two Friday Batman's, since I didn't get a chance to add anything new to blog since last Friday.

Thus, I present you with a scene excerpt from my newest finished, feature length screenplay tentatively entitled "Rogue Endeavor." It is the story of a CIA Agent who teams up with a British TV survival show host and a retired spook-turned-ranch hand in an effort to thwart a Japanese death cult that is trying to build a nuclear bomb in the Australian Outback.

Enjoy:


INT. SHANERTON PUB - DAY

The Gunmen stand at the bar staring down the barrels of the Bartender’s shotgun as Lead Gunman’s message CRACKLES over their radios.

BARTENDER
I don’t know if you understand English,
but I reckon you understand this.

He pulls back both hammers on the shotgun. They CLICK. The Gunmen slowly back towards the door, keeping their eyes locked on the Bartender.

BARTENDER
That’s right.

Billy leaps to his feet from behind the bar and in a flash FIRES his AK-47. Bullets SLAM through each of the Gunmen, and they crumple to the floor.

BILLY
That’s for Greg, and Irene, and...and...
and whoever that PA was!

Kerry stands up in a rage.

KERRY
What did you do?

Billy looks at her in confusion.

BILLY
What do you mean? I just saved our arses!

KERRY
You can’t just shoot people like that.
You’re a civilian, in a foreign country no less!

BILLY
Come off it love,
this nation was founded by bloody criminals.

The Bartender points a finger at Billy, his face stern.

BARTENDER

Watch it, fella.

BILLY
No offense.

KERRY
Jack was right, you really are idiots!

Sam stands up with an offended look on his face. Kerry pushes past them in a huff and hurries over to the front door of the pub. As she steps past the dead Gunmen, their radios CRACKLE with animated Japanese. Kerry pauses to listen, and then carefully pushes her head out of the front door.

Terminator Salvation: A Review

There are a few things that must be considered when looking back at Terminator Salvation, both in regards to its stand alone value as summer blockbuster entertainment and to the place it holds as a continuing element of a beloved franchise and mythology.

In the first regard, Terminator Salvation succeeds in being an exciting, fast-paced action movie experience that isn't quite as smart as Abrams' Star Trek but is itself not lacking in thought-provoking material. Of course, that is were the comparisons should end because Terminator Salvation is not trying to do what Star Trek did, which is reboot a franchise and try to endear new generations to decades-old characters. Salvation is moving a story forward, past anything the first three movies were and into a new paradigm it is creating along the way (with lots of cool action sequences set to a dramatic Danny Elfman soundtrack.)

Thus we must consider the second regard: does Salvation work as a "Terminator" movie, and what does it mean to the franchise? The short is answer, is yes; the movie works and, more over, it steps the game up, transforms the series, and manages to grapple more seriously with the series over-arching themes then Terminator 3 did. The fact is, Terminator (1984) as a movie isn't all that complex. For its time and place, it was amazing. Cameron brought to life a low-budget action movie that introduced some intriguing and vaguely-original concepts and captured audiences imaginations with its simple, efficient story-line that is essentially your basic monster movie plot. The sequel (Judgement Day), the best of the original three, is the same movie told again with a few frills attached--as is the third film. As entertaining and classic as the original film and its sequels may be, they don't do much to expand on what is established in a 8 or so minute monologue by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) half-way through the first movie. In comes Salvation, looking to not only expand on the premise, but to give the story an engine that drives the mythology onward. Salvation isn't the monster-movie "Terminator", it is a sci-fi war movie that continues to explore the man vs. machine dynamic I so expertly elaborate upon HERE.

McG said as much, and thus I will judge him by his own words. The man presents us with a film that takes itself very seriously and he, to his credit, is able to keep a consistent tone. The film doesn't become laughable, which is good because for a movie about people fighting robots in the desert it is markedly humorless. The funniest part of the whole movie is probably McG's jackass name, and that's only funny in a sad way. McG as a director manages to bring us into a post-apocalyptic world that is fascinating to look at. I am a sucker for these sorts of stories (The Road Warrior is one of my all time favorites) and Salvation borrows heavily from the best elements of contemporary dystopian fantasy (the aforementioned Road Warrior, McCarthy's The Road, Blade Runner, etc.) both visually and narratively. Though obviously highly influenced, the film doesn't come across as plagiaristic, rather the recognizable elements seem respectful homages. Visually, the film is a huge success and there is some outstanding camera work, and more than one "wow" sorts of shots. The action is thrilling and continuous, and never once does the film fail to capitalize on its future-war setting. However, there are some pretty bad cuts (to my taste) that jarred me out of the story.


Yet, McG as a director clearly cannot handle the human element. Many of the negative reviews I read, at least in summary on rottentomatoes.com, make note of how the human drama is weak and (as journalist are all so fond of their cheesy puns) "robotic." To an extent, this is true. There are only a few "character" moments where the film slows down and has two or three people simply interacting apart from the plot, and these moments by and large fall flat. This is due to three reasons:
1) Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, and Anton Yelchin are movie stars and handle their material with the intensity and talent we can expect (it easy to see why Bale was so keyed-up on set now), or will come to expect (Worthington is fresh-faced from Australia but is destined for greatness. Yelchin was most recently seen as the lovable Ruskie Chekov in the new Star Trek. Just as a side note, all three of the aforementioned actors are foreigners.) Thus their intensity and strength as actors helps them to rise above McG's lame direction thereby throwing them in stark contrast to the others, particularly because...
2) ...There are no strong female characters, which is only really worth mentioning because of the importance of Linda Hamilton's presence in the first two films and Len Hedly's in the TV series. Like Claire Danes in Terminator 3, Bryce Dallas Howard is just along for the ride. Her character has no real purpose in Salvation, and I don't even think her character's name (Kate) is even once uttered in the movie. The other female lead, Moon Bloodgood's Blaire, is even worse. She is meant to be a Sarah Connor replacement; a tough as nails, warrior woman. Unfortunately she has some of the worst lines in the film and her character isn't given enough development to justify her actions. It appears as though good deal of her role was cut, and had they gone all the way and just sliced her out of the movie entirely it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.
3) McG obviously doesn't know how to get good performances from actors (i.e. direct.). Other than the stars, who know what they are doing, the supporting cast is mostly serviceable at best and in Common's case, absolutely abysmal. Why does this man keep popping up and ruining his scenes in my action movies? You'd think after his continually worsening performance in Smokin' Aces and Wanted somebody would have figured out that, sure he looks tough, but he delivers lines with the emotional equivalence of a brain-dead ten year old.

Bale takes some shots in other reviews, but those clowns are simply wrong. Bale nails this role. This is John Connor, a man whose whole life has been a battle to survive so that he can become mankind's savior. Now, the war he has been trying to stop his entire life has arrived and he is just some soldier in This Man's Army. He isn't treated like a savior, he has to take orders from men who don't know what he does, and his ineffectualness is straight pissing him off. The TV show touched on what Bale brings to the character, an anger at not getting to be his own man. Bale's Connor is everything the savior of mankind would makes himself if he knew his destiny from day one and had seen what he had seen in his life and then reached that climatic point only to be pushed aside by lesser men. He is hard, determined, focused, and highly frustrated.

The film's story is engaging, and manges to continually raise the stakes and throw in a few unexpected twists despite a brief second-act lull. If you are a "Terminator" fan, you will find that the story honors everything that came before and manages to kick start a whole new chapter that I hope gets a chance to play out over the two planned sequels. Ultimately I liked the movie, even though it did not achieve greatness and in many respects is a mess (particularly, as another reviewer pointed out, the last third wherein heavy editing and studio meddling is apparent.) To a degree, how much you enjoy the film really depends on how invested you already are in the characters beforehand, since McG and the screenwriters didn't seem to care too much about that "development" stuff.

Of Men and Machines

The apprehensions of human beings toward technological advancements are as old as our race, and well documented. Anecdotes pepper history wherein the introduction of a new invention or machine is immediately met by a group of individuals, spurred on by fear, who either through word or force of action oppose and rebel. Take for example the Luddites, who met the oncoming Industrial Revolution head-on by destroying mechanized looms, and anything that sought to replace the strength of man with the promise of science. Such was the reaction to the fire arm, the steam engine, the automobile, the computer, Skynet, etc.

In literature, the fears of technology are the underlying inspiration of the science fiction genre; many of the classics being imagined accounts of dystopian futures where machines run amok, where computers terrorize, where mankind has become subordinate to his creation. J. R. R. Tolkien's seminal work, The Lord of the Rings, is strongly influence by anti-machine sentiment as he, like many of his contemporaries, viewed the Industrial Age through the lens of World War I, wherein the brightest scientific advances were put to use solely to kill millions. As Saruman takes over in Isengard, his first order of business is to rip out the trees. He declares war on the nearby forests and seeks at once to turn the pastoral dreams of the past into the iron-wrought nightmares of Mordor's proposed future.

Romanticism was born during the Industrial Revolution of the wistful longings for an imagined, green past where man and nature cohabited in a spectrum of beauty. Reading Keats or Coleridge (or worse, Wordsworth) one gets the sense that before all the damnable industry took hold, the world was a bright and idyllic vision, a Dahl landscape. Yet the undeniable surge of science could not be ignored or stemmed, and thus mere nostalgia gave way to utter terror: Futureshock. Blake began to see the devil in everything, and soon men like Orwell would begin linking technology to man's darkest ambitions.

We almost have a subgenre now, a period of paranoia and fear of the machine. It has overtaken every aspect of artistic expression from Dick's novels to the striking visions of fields of human batteries in the Matrix. This is where The Terminator fits in, a seemingly straight forward action movie that somehow managed, whether wittingly or not, to tap into the reservoirs of anti-futurism that has been accumulating like ground water since the invention of the cotton gin. James Cameron's film is set in a world where the worst has happened, not only have the machines taken over under the leadership of a omnipotent Artificial Intelligence, but they have become the dominant species on Earth. The future of the Terminator films is one in which man has become an endangered species in a fight against un-winnable odds for survival. Thus the first three films exist in a paradigm where, inevitably, man creates his own destruction. Yet, as is quintessentially human, there is hope.

The Terminator series is set in the dystopian universe of technological paranoia, but it is built upon the Messiah Myth. John Connor, a man, is destined to lead humanity back from the edge and restore balance. The Matrix shamelessly worked off the same model, as have many stories in literature leading all the way back to their origins with Jesus Christ. Where the Terminator succeeds in being unique is in the way it creates its savior (through time-travel rules so improbable they bear no in-depth examination) and then has him, from day one, dealing with a picture of his future self that is already determined and completely outside of his control to change. He must rise to the occasion, or mankind is doomed. Granted, the idea of a messiah sentient of his own inevitable destiny is another direct Christian thematic, but in John Conner's case there is no divinity. The burden of mankind's fate must be shouldered and dealt with by a simple man (Connor) without the knowledge of a guiding hand of providence (the knowledge of the Father's will), and without the omniscience that lead Christ to the cross (the mind of God in the body of Man) though not without difficulty as Gethsemane demonstrates.

With such strong thematic blood coursing through its narrative, the Terminator franchise has proven fertile ground to explore deeper ideas then simply man's fear of machines. Though sadly cut short after only two seasons, the Sarah Connor Chronicles managed to delve into the very dichotomy of the Terminator's narrative foundation: having the A.I. that would eventually become Skynet ponder about God and the human compulsion towards good that such a belief engenders, or similarly having a machine try to grapple with the aspects of love and its inherent irrationality. What makes a human being a human? The very question of men's souls, their duties to a higher power, and many other such queries often found themselves working into the simplistic man vs. machine plot structure.

This week Terminator Salvation will be released, and will likely succeed in presenting a decent summer action flick. Whether or not it will continue to pursue the philosophical implications of its ethos is another matter. I personally am hoping for the best, because with a title that wears its implications on its sleeve, one can do no less. The question that sits in the back of my mind, is what will be John Connor's cross?

Friday Batman

Okay Ladies and Gents, as you all know Terminator Salvation is to be released upon the world next Thursday, the 21st. I can barely contain my excitement, and neither can Batman.

In fact, the whole Terminator mess might actually turn out to be Batman's fault, at least according to this amazing mash-up trailer that some brilliant young person cut together:

A New Short Story, Para Ti

I have not only just finished a marathon writing session wherein I cranked out a first draft of my second feature length screenplay, but also a short story I wish to share with everyone.

Please read, and enjoy. I welcome your comments.

Del corazón
by John Milton

He sat on the edge of his bed and balanced his cell phone in the bowl of his cupped palms. He had the numbers in place, sequenced just so, and all that was needed was the push of the send key. Yet that one button, the last button, was the only one that mattered; the only one that mattered and the hardest for him to press. The more he waited—the more he sat rolling thoughts about in his mind from one end to the other—the more his heart pounded in his chest until all he could hear was the dull thump of blood…rapid, and incessant.

Two days earlier Sam had stepped off of the airplane at the Aeropuerto de Almería with nothing but his pack and an idea of Spain. Everything that he had left behind in the States called to him in echoing voices that made a home in the back of his skull, behind his eyes and inside his ears. He concluded that the first thing he needed to do was find a drink.
He found a pub where he could slap his pack down on the floor and pull up a chair next to a grizzled Granadino who sipped his wine with an air of severity, as though each sip was tantamount to his entire existence.
“Habla Ingles?” He offered to the camarero. He received an affirming nod that led him to ask for a carafe of whatever the old man was drinking. The camarero smiled and stepped around the bar and into a back room. The Granadino held his glass up in a salute to Sam then downed the dark fluid. He smacked his wet lips loudly as the camarero returned and placed a brimming carafe and glass in front of Sam on the bar.
“You have made a wise choice.” The Granadino said in a low voice that vibrated like tires over gravel. Sam poured himself a glass then proffered the carafe.
“Join me?”
The old man smiled.
“You are a man who knows how to fast make friends in España.” He slid his glass over to Sam, who filled it and slid it back.
“Salud.”
“Salud.” They each drained their glasses. Sam refilled.
“Tell me, my new friend, are you on holiday or business?”
Sam thought a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
“I suppose you could say business. I am chasing a girl.”
The Granadino chuckled and shook his head.
“Los juegos de jovenes.”
Sam mouthed the words to himself.
“Yes. Games.”
“Does she know you have come for her?”
Sam shook his head and then gulped the remainder of his wine.
“No. She knows I’m in Spain, but not that I’m in Spain for her.”
“Ah, si. So you have come here to drink instead of going to her, because…”
Sam sighed and tapped his glass rhythmically on the bar.
“Because I’m scared to death.”
The Granadino placed his hands on the edge of the bar and slowly pushed himself back. He then stepped from his stool and placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder.
“Vamanos. I have something to show you.”

The two men stumbled along down the stone-lined alleyways that wound erratically along the contours of the terrain, down past solid blocks of sandstone dwellings and deep into the heart of Almería. The Granadino fumbled along ahead, his pebbly basso bouncing off the close walls as he sang the praises of El Cid in battered Arabic and Spanish mixed. Sam struggled to keep his legs beneath him. Suddenly the old man ducked left and disappeared into an open doorway. Sam froze and grabbed hold of his head, forcing his eyes to explain themselves, when the Granadino’s voice boomed from insides the walls.
“Here, come here!”
Sam cautiously stepped towards the echo of the voice and found himself sinking deep into the darkness of an unseen room, his ears guiding his feet as he followed the continued singing of the old man. Soon Sam became aware of an emerging glow that seeped in from some back doorway; daylight that stole into the confines of the cell. Sam reached forth and pushed open the door. Immediately he was engulfed once more in the sun as he stepped forth into a walled-in plaza.
There sat the Granadino, encircled by a group of three other men and each of them clutching onto a different instrument: one a cello, one a guitar, one with castañuelas, and the old man himself with a trumpet. The Granadino waved Sam forward.
“Come, sit.” He patted his hand on the bench next to him. Sam eased himself down. The Granadino was so near that Sam could hear his labored breathing, smell his sickly sweet odor of too much wine and too thin blood.
“These are my friends.” Then to the men, “Amigos, éste es un muchacho que juega a juegos con amor.”
Sam hiccupped and the men laughed. The Granadino pointed to each man and recounted his name.
“Hola,” Sam said to each, and the men laughed more. The Granadino held up his hand for silence. His face became serious.
“We have a game we play as well, joven. We are old—”
“Eso lo dirás por ti!” Said one. The others slapped his back and expressed their concurrence. Again the Granadino held up his hand for silence.
“Por favor, gracias. We are old and have seen much, lived much, learned much. To us, words no longer mean as much as they did in our youth. Often now, we do not trust words at all. Soon too, you will see, in your game, that words fail you…and for you, maybe you think, much is at stake.”
“Happiness.” Sam said, now solemn. The Granadino shrugged.
“Si, and no. Now, watch our game.” He stood and slowly raised the trumpet to his lips.
“Del corazón,” he whispered. Then he played…
Long, mellow strains emit from the horn and lift into the stillness of the afternoon heat. The Granadino’s cheeks invert and expand as each note is tenderly brought to life through his lips. Sam closes his eyes and as he does, the sound of the cello begins to creep up behind the trumpet. The deep melancholy of the strings vibrates in the air and Sam slowly opens his eyes. The castañuelas begin like the rapid heartbeat of an infant. The Granadino pauses and lowers his trumpet. He nods to the man with the guitar, and with the beat of the castañuelas clicking like the hooves of a stallion on cobble stones, the two join in together. Sam cannot find his breath as the music rises around him. An eternity passes in a moment and the music slowly dies as the sun falls from the sky. Sam closes his eyes once more, and is asleep…

It was the ticking of an ancient Swiss clock that woke Sam. He was disoriented and confused. He dragged his dry tongue through a mouth that seemed made of paper. There was a shaft of light coming from somewhere that fell upon his face where he lay, reclined on a long cushion. He forced his eyes to open wide and focus, and as he did The Granadino swam into view with a knowing grin.
“Mi amigo, cómo estás, esta mañana?”
Sam pushed himself up on one elbow and rubbed a hand across his face.
“Sorry, what?” He mumbled.
The Granadino laughed and as he did he seemed to vanish from the room. The laugh followed him as he disappeared, echoing in Sam’s throbbing skull. Then the laugh seemed to grow louder again, and Sam sat fully up as the old man once more materialized. In his hands were a clear glass filled with water and some sort of bread. The Granadino took a seat beside Sam on the cushion and handed over the bread and water.
“El hombre no puede vivir sólo de pan. But it helps.”
Sam drank the entirety of the water and then nibbled at the bread. The two men sat in silence as the sounds of Almería stirring wafted in through unseen portals. Finally, Sam sat his glass down on the floor and stood.
“I don’t think I could explain what I felt last night. What it meant. Was that the point?”
The Granadino slapped both of his hands down on to his knees and rocked backwards, laughing heartily.
“Perhaps yet, mi amigo, you will make a truly wise man.”
Sam smiled then extended his hand. The Granadino righted himself and rose, clasping Sam’s hand and pulling him into an embrace.
“Del corazón?” Sam whispered. Unseen to him, The Granadino smiled solemnly.
“Del corazón.”

She lived on the third floor of an ancient apartment building near Cabo de Gata. He had found that much out before even leaving his country. Yet, when he finally stood outside, looking at the terraces and the vaults, his knees lost all resolve and seemed to abandon the legs with which they had been previously allied. He could not think of moving, nor of her name, nor least of all del corazón.
An old woman exited the building carrying on her shoulder a basket filled with freshly baked loaves of bread, and seeing the poor boy rooted to the pavement, took pity and offered him his choice of her goods. She searched Sam’s face with her eyes, and he could not help but smile. At first, he politely refused to take any bread, but the vieja was insistent and Sam knew that it would be rude to refuse. He reached into the basket and selected a moderate, round loaf that still felt warm and smelled of a home Sam did not know, but was sure he would recognize.
“Gracias.” He said.
She smiled and reached a weathered hand up to his face and placed it on his cheek. Sam saw then that she had seen right through him, and that for all his postulating, and all his guardedness, he was an open book. The vieja removed her hand and turned to leave, carrying away her bread to nourish others.
Sam stood now, holding onto his loaf and thinking of how in two days two strangers had perceived his true self as though it were worn on his sleeve, and had seen fit in both instances to feed him bread.
“España.” He muttered, before turning at last to trudge the long winding roads back to his hotel.

That brought him at last to the place where he was certain that if anything was to happen, he would make it happen. If anything was worth having, he would have to take it. If anything had brought him to Spain, it was her and for two days he had learned this and there could be no third day or the lesson was lost and he might as well return home. Thus, sitting in his hotel room, with his heart beating in his throat, he finally entered the last digit, the only one that mattered, and made the phone call.

She had laughed when she heard his voice, and he was immediately disarmed. They spoke briefly, for she had far too much excitement to waste it on the telephone. He had come all the way to Spain, just for her, and nothing more romantic had, or would happen in her short life. He was in her city, near the desert that her heart prayed to every morning, and they must at once see each other. He had been there for two days? Why had it taken him so long to contact her? She could not understand his fear, nor the journey he embarked on to learn of del corazón.
In truth she would never understand him, and he would never fully come to grips with who she was as a person, or how all the years before they had met had layered upon her soul a restlessness that could only be satisfied with ideas of love, and of destiny, and of deserts. Never the things themselves. Sam could not know then, that instant when they finally dashed across the Plaza Major to crash into an embrace that she was only the beginning of the story that would be del corazón. When Spain grew too small for them, and they too small for each other, and all the planets would bend between them, they would look back on that night and what it meant. The small victory in Sam’s eyes, the fulfillment of some unlooked for dream in hers.

Ten years later Sam was sitting in some high, nameless place where few people lived, and hard. She was long since gone and his memories were stored like water in a plugged barrel. Now he hears the long, mellow strains emit from the horn and lift into the stillness of the evening cool. Now the deep melancholy of the strings vibrates in the air and he slowly opens his eyes. The castañuelas begin like the rapid heartbeat of an infant. Now the guitar, and with the beat of the castañuelas clicking like the hooves of a stallion on cobble stones, they join in together. Sam cannot find his breath as the music rises around him. An eternity passes in a moment and the music slowly dies as the sun falls from the sky. Sam closes his eyes once more, and is asleep…

Friday Batman

Well, all the buzz is star trek today, right? Well, in that spirit I present you with...

DARK TREK!
I found this to be particularly pertinent:



Clever editing, am I right? There was also some fan film on Youtube called Star Trek vs. Batman, but it kinda sucked, and it was twenty minutes.

The Next Big Thing

"You killed my mother, Sarah Connor. You killed my father, Kyle Reese. You will not kill me!"



Excuse me, I need to go change my pants now.

Star Trek: A Review

We're off to a good start.

J.J. Abrams, of whom I have been a fan since the very first episode of "Lost", proves that when it comes to sci-fi he is the king. Not only has he taken Lucas' crown and raised the Star Trek franchise to new, greater heights, he has without a doubt altered the course of cinema itself. The look, the intensity, the smarts; an Abram's film will be as instantly recognizable as Kubrick or Hitchcock. Here's hoping the man has only just begun...


On to the film. I want to first mention Karl Urban and Simon Pegg. You may recognize the names, as both men have established themselves as character actors par excellence on both sides of the dramatic spectrum over the past few years. Urban has been popping up in crappy B movies a lot following his break-out as Eomer in LOTR, and I was worried that he had been relegated to Billy Baldwin-ville. Yet, his casting as Bones was perfect. He utterly inhabits the character, gets at least half of the films laughs, and shows off a whole new dimension of talent that his participation in films like Doom, and The Chronicles of Riddick belied. I honestly believe Deforest Kelly would have been proud.
Simon Pegg is, of course, Shaun from Shaun of the Dead and in the film he plays Scotty in the most excellently comedic way. He, as an actor, is able to convey with his eyes more humor than most can manage with pages of dialog, and when he finally yells "I'm givin' er all she's got!" the crowd in my theatre burst into delighted laughter and applause. Pegg succeeds in not only filling the shoes of Scotty, but adding a whole new level of awesome in the process.

Star Trek is fantastic, in a word, and in more words is a perfect example of how pure entertainment can be smart, engaging, and emotionally resonant while still essentially being about big, explosive battles in space. The story is a true reboot, and I can't really delve into the plot without ruining the surprises, but suffice to say if you watch "Lost" or "Fringe", you'll be familiar with Abram's time bending tactics.
I went and saw the film with a few people, one of whom was a Star Trek virgin, and she gave it her seal of approval having had no prior knowledge of the franchise--which is a perfect indicator of how well Abrams succeeded in "pulling it off" (i.e. getting the nerds approval) and still making an awesome, accessible summer blockbuster. The movie is going to make buckets of cash, and it deserves too. The pacing is pitch perfect, the effects are outstanding, and the movie is just plain fun. The sound track is powerful and grand, and even though it does tend to call attention to itself, I felt that Michael Giacchino perfectly captured the scope and wonder of the film musically. I was so affected by the soundtrack that I went straight home and (acquired) the OST. Good stuff.

Yet, the true star of the film is the cast and how well each actor nailed the character they were filling the shoes off. Chris Pine is Kirk, with all of the snark and humor of Shatner on a good day, and with twice the intensity. That kid from heroes nails Spock, and since he (SPOILER ALERT) shares screentime with Nemoy, you actually get to size the two up--and the kid passes the test. Over all, everybody knocks the ball out of the park, including Eric Bana who portrays a suitably ruthless, yet strangely quirky villian (he actually gets a few well deserved laughs himself.)

The last thing to be said is that the film is big. Abrams perfectly manages to scale things up so that really, this is a film that must be seen on a large screen to fully appreciate the magnitude of the long wide shots in space with the Enterprise opposite Bana's Romulan monstrosity, or coasting past Earth, or being sucked into the massive emptiness of a black hole. Star Trek is not a film you wait for on DVD.

The film is one that most will likely want to see again immediately, and I personally will be heading back before too long. Summer movie season is cranking away splendidly now, and it is up to Terminator: Salvation to keep things humming.

Friday Batman

No posts this week? What? You're kidding....Follow me on Twitter if you need something to read.

Anyway, here is today's Friday Batman. From Funny or Die comes a hilarious little short about Adam West trying to sell his Batman stuff at a yard sale.

Batman Garage Sale with Adam West from Adam West

Also, apparently (though not surprisingly) Batman is a rip off of Zorro. Cracked has the 411.