One quick comment about the new Star Trek, which I finally saw this weekend. (Minor, unimportant spoiler ahead.)
Early in the movie, the young James T. Kirk steals a car and drives it off a cliff… … …in IOWA.
Just sayin’. This didn’t bother me until I thought about it after the movie, though, and the movie was quite entertaining in the intended way.
I saw WALL-E tonight. It was utterly charming. I loved every second of it, and I want to see it again. I want more movies where the robots are the good guys.
Saw the new Indiana Jones movie tonight, for a friend’s birthday party. I have a vague recollection of perhaps seeing some of the original three back when I was a kid, but I didn’t really remember them, and Julie hadn’t seen them, so we’ve been “studying” in preparation by watching the originals again. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade are okay, but Temple of Doom is possibly the worst movie ever made. No redeeming quality whatsoever.
So I was prepared for Crystal Skulls to not be that good, especially since I’d heard some early reviews to that effect. I was pleasantly surprised: I think I’d say the new one is the best of the four. It’s totally preposterous, of course, but in a willing-suspension-of-disbelief sort of way, at least I thought. Lots of entertaining action sequences and special effects. No jarringly terrible dialog. The one bit of aggregious racism was mercifully brief, and almost felt to me as though it had been included for authenticity, as a requisite characteristic of any Indiana Jones movie. Not the deepest way to spend two hours, to be sure, but I enjoyed it.
And there was a shot in the movie in which a swarm of (giant) ants chasing after a character build a tower/bridge out of themselves. I imagine to most people that was just a clever way of the monsters getting to the bad guy, but I’m a big geek so I loved it because ants actually do that, and it’s a wicked cool example of collective/emergent intelligence in nature.
Spoiler alert! Spoiler in the comments thread.
Just saw an add for the movie “Waitress”, which looked notable only because it stars Nathan Fillion (better known as Captain Malcolm Reynolds). Nice to see Firefly stars getting work…pity it doesn’t look like good work. I wish they’d make more Firefly.
Just got back from seeing Spiderman 3 with some friends (for one of those friends’ birthday). I don’t remember Spiderman 1 or 2 especially well, but I think I remember liking them better than Spiderman 3, which really wasn’t very good. I don’t seem to be alone in this opinion.
The professional reviewers have and will pan Spiderman 3 better than I will here, but be that as it may…
My two biggest complaints will seem a little silly, considering that we’re talking about a summer blockbuster based on a comic book, but the movie lacked subtlety and plausability. But other such movies have managed to keep me entertained without jarringly unbelievable expositions or hitting me over the head with the moral: Batman Begins, the X-Men movies (especially the earlier ones), and even the earlier Spidermen (Spidermans?) are examples.
I’m not asking for total realism, of course, but I’d like a movie to make an effort to help me suspend disbelief. In Spiderman 3 one of the villians (one of four…) jumps a fence with a sign saying “Particle Physics Laboratory” and falls into a “demolecularizer” that’s just sitting out in the open. Come on. At least in Spiderman 1 Peter Parker has to be given a tour of a laboratory in order to get bitten by a mutant spider. And the emotional crisis which is the centerpiece of the movie doesn’t come from within the hero. Nope, it comes from a bunch of black goo that falls from outer space. In fact, it falls from outer space quietly, on a meteor that nobody seems to notice. At least make an effort, huh? And with a budget as big as Spiderman 3 had, you’d think if Spiderman lost his hood in the first part of a scene, he wouldn’t inexplicably have it back in the next shot.
Which brings me to subtlety. Again, I’m not asking for high film, but when Spiderman, in his red and blue good-Spiderman suit, pauses in front of a giant American flag…ugh. I don’t mind if Peter’s aunt delivers the moral to those of us too stupid to pick up on it for ourselves (and she does), but I’d like the internal struggle of our hero to be less transparent, less manufactured, and more internal. And the dialog a bit more inspired. The special effects also lacked subtlety, by which I mean they were so obviously special effects that I wasn’t engaged in the action, I was just noticing the CG.
Incidentally, I think Toby Maguire knows this movie isn’t very good…I thought I detected a lack of enthusiasm beyond just exhaustion when he came on the Daily Show to plug it earlier this week.
I finally saw An Inconvenient Truth tonight.
I was already somewhat familiar with the science and statistics — I’ve seen the “hockey stick” graphs, and I’ve read Scientific American special issues about energy’s future and the like — and I already acknowledge the importance of addressing the climate crisis and I try (sometimes with more success than others) to do my part. I still found the film compelling. The photographs of disappearing glaciers and the footage of glaciers crashing into the ocean are disturbing and striking, and Al Gore’s lift stunt (giving “off the chart” a literal meaning) drives home the severity of what we’re doing.
The presentation is also surprisingly funny. I’ve always thought the caricature of Gore as stiff and dry was a bit unfair, but that’s his reputation, and of course global warming is all about graphs and statistics — to say nothing of being a not-so-happy topic. It’s not a comedy show, but there are a surprising number of laugh lines.
I think what really made it compelling to me, though, was the personal touch: An Inconvenient Truth is mostly about global warming, but it’s also about Al Gore and global warming. I hadn’t appreciated the depth or strength of his conviction about the importance of getting people to pay attention to this problem before seeing his film. And of course you can’t help but think how different the last six years would have been if Bush’s handlers hadn’t stolen the 2000 presidential election. Scenes documenting the disappearance of glaciers and scenes of Gore accepting the Supreme Court decision both brought tears to my eyes.
It’s interesting to see what Gore’s been doing since the election. I’ve been thinking about him lately — Rabi mentioned seeing him in a post a while back that I now can’t find (said he looked like a bear :-) ), and now seeing An Inconvenient Truth reminded me of a very interesting New Yorker article about him. (Aside: example of an introvert in politics! — and largely successfully.) There’s still chatter on the internets that he might run for president again — I’m inclined to think that’s more wishful thinking on the part of those speculating than a likely possibility, but that hasn’t stopped me from considering how I’d feel about it. But I haven’t reached a conclusion: I think he’d be a good president, but this election cycle I find myself thinking much more about “electability” than in years past.
Returning to the topic, my biggest criticism of the film was that it provided rather little in the way of guidance wrt what ordinary folks can do to help the situation. Not that there’s any shortage of resources out there with suggestions (including the film’s associated website, which I haven’t had time to peruse yet), but it might have been nice to emphasize more what ordinary people can do, both practically (compact florescent lightbulbs, hybrid cars) and politically. (They turned off the projector while the credits were still rolling — the credits had such suggestions.) There’s no question he’s had an impressive effect with this movie, but does he still drive a Cadillac?
But those criticisms notwithstanding, the film is an excellent, persuasive, important piece of work. Everyone should see it.