It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes The Starship Enterprise To Cry
by MOLLY LAMBERT
Star Trek
dir. J.J. Abrams
Stardate: 2009
America is ready to come out of the closet! As science fiction fans! Yes what better way to herald the Obama era than with a reboot of the grooviest most racially integratediest show of them, Star Trek. While we were all hoping for a black Captain Kirk (T.I. perhaps?), Chris Pine is totally charming as the cocky would-be captain. Spock is the role Zachary Quinto was clearly born to play.
Star Trek ruled. I had no expectations or prior interest in the franchise and its mythology. I was more of an X-Phile than a Trekkie. But it was sweet. Sure there are missteps (CGI vaginasaur, Eric Bana looking like a bald Michael Richards in Maori Tā Moko, old makeup on Winona Ryder) and plenty of plot holes, but whatever dude. It was 90 percent dope and Simon Pegg made up for the weak spots.
Pre-Show Summer Movie Trailer Round Up:
G.I. Joe: super fucking shitty. tremendously shitty looking.
Transformers 2: not as shitty as G.I. Joe. I would maybe see this 4 Shia
A "Serious" CGI Movie About Rag Dolls: nobody wanted this
Origin stories are not my fave. They are tough to pull off. I'd love to see a super-hero franchise make its first pic in medias res. But I loved this. Even the stuff with Kirk and Spock as kids didn't give me the Anakin Skywalkers as bad I thought it might. Despite the PG-13 rating, there are plenty of redshirts dispatched in amusing ways.
Best CGI I have seen in a big summer movie since the first Pirates Of The Carribean. The reason for that? Models. They used scale models as much as possible, JJ Abrams apparently insisted on it, and it looks much better, more like 2001 and O.G. Star Wars than anything in recent memory. I was prepared for the time travel fuckery from having watched this current season of LOST.
the Wolverine faces on the wall r killin me
I don't know what kinds of future sexualities the Vulcan race follow, but Spock is at least bisexual. He def had way more chemistry with Kirk than Uhura. There were as many non-sexual sex scenes in this movie as there were in "Twilight." I can't count the number of times they showed Kirk panting post-orgasmically after a hot stare-down with Spock or a shot from Bones.
Str8 women have told Hollywood that they are fine with lusting after gay dudes. It's not like they'll get to fuck Gerard Butler either. If the popularity of Sylar and Adam Lambert on ONTD doesn't demonstrate that, I'm not sure what will. More importantly, a probably gay dude that isn't Hugh Jackman or Tom Cruise co-headlined a big summer movie! .
Kirk/Spock is the first ever fanfic pairing (no homo) and the ultimate One True Pairing, and now I see why. There will be Kirk fans (me) and Spock fans (my friend Jess) but mostly there is no one without the other, as Mahnola Dargis noted in her (mostly positive!) review. The supporting cast is terrific. The dialogue is decent with some bright spots. The story is ridiculous but hey, it's Star Trek! "Bones" McCoy was the best. That dude was awes. More Gambit than a Gambit.
there are no rules about story construction in space
Everything that went wrong in Cloverfield goes right here. I completely gasped in awe at a couple of the space CGI effects. The cast has great chemistry and the whole thing has an underlying goofiness befitting the original series. Couldn't ask for much more from a summer tentpole.
THIS RECORDING SUMMER MOVIE TALLY
Star Trek: A
Wolverine/17 Again: C+/B-
Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here.
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