Star Trek (2009)

JJ Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield) directs the latest Interpretation of Star Trek, which goes back to tell the early days of Captain Kirk and how he became captain of the USS Enterprise.

The new film ignores some Star Trek canon while explaining some lore that was mentioned, but never explored, in the original series. It also has a quite a bit of Star Wars about it, especially the time spent on the young Kirk that makes him seem like Luke Skywalker, complete with noteworthy father. The film moves at quick pace, despite a few unnecessary scenes and unwarranted action, and is a much needed reimagination of a franchise that has drifted aimlessly at the cinema.

Chris Pine captures the rebelliousness, bravado, and sexual energy of William Shatner in his portrayal of Captain Kirk. Karl Urban plays Dr McCoy as cantankerous, and works with Pine to bring back the humour and humanity of the original series. Zachary Quinto’s Mr Spock is smug and arrogant, as opposed to Leonard Nimoy’s approach of subtlety and cool detachment, and fits uncomfortably in the cast. Simon Pegg’s arrives late in the movie as the wise cracking Scotty, and wastes no time establishing his character. There is even time to give more character to Uhuru, Chekov, and Sulu. Eric Bana makes another appearance in a blockbuster as he pops in and out of time as the bad guy, Nano. Star Trek is a big budget, action movie that remembers that characters drive a movie, not effects.

Eye Of The Beast

We reviewed Eye of the Beast sometime back, but I felt it was probably time to add my two cents to the mix."It's not nearly as bad as sebastian makes it sound". There, I've said it... Oh god, does this make me Margaret to his David now?? Either way, here's the trailer... see what you think.

Book Of Blood (2008)

The unstoppable force that is Clive Barker returns again with an amalgam of two stories from his collection, Books Of Blood.

Professor of the paranormal, Mary Florescu, teams up with a medium, Simon McNeal, and heads to the scene of a bloody killing. What follows is a typical haunted house story as science versus things that go bump in the night. Unfortunately there is not enough science or bumping and it is all quite boring until the dead appear (and, even then, the interest generated is low and brief, but not in a good way like a Brazilian bikini). The house is an intersection between the highways of the dead and living, and the dead need a canvas to tell their stories. A human canvas. What happens to McNeal is more interesting than what happens in the house, but that doesn’t mean it is very interesting.

Barker produces Book Of Blood and his touch always helps to bring a bit more darkness and dirty sex to proceedings, but not enough to save the movie from dullness. Barker’s Hellraiser is a great example of spooky proceedings in a house. Book Of Blood is not.

Religulous (2008)

Bill Maher is a comedian and television star who is known for sociopolitical jokes and observations. Religulous has Maher teaming with producer and director Larry Charles (Seinfeld, The Tick, Borat, etc) to travel around the world and talk to the religiously inclined. The title of the movie provides a clue of what is to come, ie religion is ridiculous.

Maher visits a variety of religious leaders and believers to ask about their faith, and provoke them with logic and reason and historical/scientific facts. It doesn’t take much to upset the faithful, as their beliefs cannot hold up to any kind of rigorous, or even common sense, evaluation, and they don’t want to deal with that reality. Some of Maher’s subjects are tolerant, some are easily riled, and others seem oblivious to what is happening. Maher’s style is a touch too confrontational to inspire trust in his subjects, but that doesn’t stop the interviewees from providing incriminating examples on the dogma and hypocrisy of faith. I wonder what it would have been like if Maher had the gentle and amicable approach of someone like Louis Theroux. All you have to do for illuminating viewing is let the fanatics talk and they will make themselves and their beliefs seem ridiculous.

Nothing Maher does is new, but any effort to expose religion as farce is a good antidote to the constant propaganda of religions being a “good” force. Noone Maher talks to is convincing as to why their god exists or why their religion is right. Maybe that is the editing, and maybe that is the way it is. I don’t think it was the editing, they all seem delusional. The statistics and comparisons Maher uses are good, but the faithful have no interest in understanding where their gods come from or how their religion evolved.

The movie is unlikely to change your mind about god and the church, but it might convince you that you have seen the light and provide an assortment of laughs and shocks at what some people believe.

Smash Cut (2009)

Low budget film maker Able Whitman (David Hess from The Last House On The Left and Zombie Nation) is constantly derided by audiences and critics for his unrealistic horror movies. Whitman seeks solace in a strip bar (Ass Menagerie) and then crashes his car on the way home killing his stripper companion (the imaginatively named Gigi Spot).

A stroke of genius, or desperation, leads Whitman to use the dead stripper’s body as a prop in a movie, bringing a level of realism to his films that people respond to positively. Success comes at a price, and Whitman has to keep killing to satisfy his fans and producer, Philip Farmsworth Jr (Michael Berryman, from The Hills Have Eyes and The Devil’s Rejects, in an amazing wig).

Whitman’s actions attract the attention of the Gigi Spot’s sister and journalist April Carson (Sasha Grey from Homo Erectus, Ass Eaters Unanimous 19, Grand Theft Anal 11, and Gang Bang My Face) who goes undercover as an actress.

Smash Cut wants to be a homage to the works of people like Herschell Gordon Lewis, (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs), who has a small part in the movie, but it needs a little more humour, or a smarter idea, to become a cult piece in the new millennium.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

Ray (Chris O’Dowd from The IT Crowd and The Boat That Rocked), Toby (Marc Wootton from My New Best Friend) and Pete (Dean Kennox Kelly from Shameless) spend a lot of time in the pub discussing their ideas for movies and life and quite often the subject is time travel. Ray and Toby like to consider themselves imagineers, but Pete just calls them nerds. Imagineering takes a diversion in to reality when chrononaut (that’s what informed nerds call a time traveler) Cassie (Anna Faris from Scary Movie and The House Bunny) appears and sets off a chain of events that leads to the three friends traveling forward and backward in time from the hotel bathroom, and experiencing thrills and chills and death and destruction along the way. Most of the trouble encountered stems from an editor (a time traveler that wants to change history) trying to kill the threesome.

FAQATT covers familiar time travel ground as scenes are played from different perspectives as the travelers try not to encounter themselves as they jump through time. It is a smartly crafted movie that is also awkward as it shifts between being clever, being a comedy, and being quite grim. The melding of these styles makes for unevenness as the film struggles to find a rhythm. Watchable, but not an equal to Red Dwarf’s science fiction comic coherency.

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Sam Raimi will be forever loved for giving us the Evil Dead series. That series is so good he is even forgiven for the atrocious Spiderman films he also directed. And that takes some forgiving. Drag Me To Hell sees Sam returning to the horror genre, but it is not a glorious return.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) upsets an old woman, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), who curses her. Christine may or may not be imagining horror and seeks help from a clairvoyant, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), who just happens to not be a fake. They band together and seek the help of Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza). There is not much in the way of suspense or thrills or plot, but there are a few amusing scenes (usually involving special effects that almost look 3D) before the neat ending. It might have helped if the movie was a lot shorter as there is too much superfluous story and not enough imagination.

Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Clive Barker is a horror writer with many film adaptations made of his work, some of them good some of them not so good. Midnight Meat Train falls in to the latter category, but at it least contains the usual elements of his work – mystery, violent killings, and unearthly monsters.

Photographer and aspiring artist Leon (Bradley Cooper from Alias) becomes suspicious of people going missing on a late night train and decides to investigate. His enquiries lead him to a meat packing plant and a mysterious, well groomed man (Vinnie Jones from Tooth & Nail, Hell Ride, The Condemned) who looks to be a killer. Leon and his girlfriend, Maya (Leslie Bibb from Iron Man), eventually find themselves on the train and discover the reasons for a century of killings.

The film is nicely directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus) who brings a Japanese feel to this story from Barker's Books Of Blood, but the movie is let down by too much unconvincing CGI and a slow, clumsy script that can’t maintain suspense or momentum.

Dead Like Me: Life After Death (2009)

Dead Like Me was a tv series that ran for 2 seasons (2003 – 2004) and introduced us to Reapers, the collectors of souls of the newly departed.

Ellen Muth is George (Georgia Lass), a young woman cut down early in life thanks to the toilet seat from an exploding space station. George does not pass to the afterlife, but becomes a Reaper (ie a Grim Reaper without the grim) under Rube Sofer (Mandy Patinkin). Reapers live on Earth and are responsible for directing the souls of the dead to the afterlife. The series explored George’s reluctance for her job, her ongoing employment (since reaping does not pay) at Happy Time, the lives of her fellow reapers (who all have issues), and the effect of her death on her mother and sister.

The movie starts with George’s dry, raspy narration and with Rube (who has moved on) being replaced by Cameron Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) who encourages his team of reapers to live it up a little. The usual premise of the show, and even the plot of Kane manipulating the reapers, is overshadowed by the relationship between George and her mother and sister. I found that angle in the series uninteresting, and having more of it here didn’t impress me. The lives of the reapers and how they do, or don’t do their job, holds more value for me. Life After Death is a nice way to wrap up the series, but lacks the spark that the series (especially Season 1) had.

Live Forever

2001 Maniacs (2005)

A bunch of unlikeable Yankees on their way to Spring Break in Florida take a detour and find themselves in Pleasant Valley, a southern town who are “celebrating” an historic Civil War event. Mayor Freddie Kreuger (aka Robert Englund from Nightmare On Elm Street and Zombie Strippers) makes them guests of honour and they soon find themselves seduced and killed by various gruesome means. Never before have I seen men with such ugly teeth and women with such ugly breasts. This remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 2000 Maniacs is not very good, but at least the killing starts quickly and some of the deliberately politically incorrect jokes are fun.