Movie review: Midnight in Paris
Just a little past my bedtime.
Life is so unfair. The fact is I think Woody Allen is a degenerate creep (and coming from me, that’s saying a lot) and would love nothing more than to trash his latest picture. However, even going into this flick with my hackles pre-raised, it was a funny and charming experience. Woody managed to not insert himself into the film in any way, which I think helped me forget what a perv he is.
I’m not saying the film is a cinema masterpiece. I’m also not a fan of French culture, so the whole “Paris is the most romantic city on the planet” thing is lost on me (if you really want romance check out Bakersfield, California). As far as I can see, the entire city is comprised of cobblestones and murky fountains. However, the film is entertaining and fun, if a little slow at times.
The story is of Gil (Owen Wilson), a Hollywood script writer who dreams of writing a novel and of living in Paris in the 1920’s. He is in Paris with his bitchy fiance Inez (the pretty damned hot Rachel McAddams) and her parents on some kind of ill defined business trip. He feels his contribution to the literary world is less than impressive (and as a movie reviewer who sees a lot of the crappy scripts being churned out of Hellywood I can’t disagree with him) and wants to do more than just be fabulously wealthy. Inez is the 100% stereotypical So Cal materialistic bitch who only wants to spent a ton of money on French stuff (18,000 Euros for a chair? Give me a break) in a desperate attempt to add culture to her bland, pathetic life. At night Gil wanders around the city and, at exactly midnight, is somehow transported to the 1920s.
There he parties with some of the greatest artist and writers of the age, most notably Ernest Hemmingway. Somehow they all speak English, which is convenient as for a guy who has dreamed of living in Paris for years he has done very little to learn French (ever heard of Rosetta Stone?). Some of them are expatriates, but a lot just seem to know enough English to get by. They all seem to spend every night drinking, driving, and smoking. He meets his dream woman (Marion Cotillard, the wife from Inception) and has a sort of romance with her. He also gets Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) to read and critique his manuscript. Meanwhile his fiance is partying with a really annoying know-it-all (doesn’t he realize that I am the final authority on all things cultural?) and his future father-in-law hires a PI to find out where he goes every night in a relatively innocuous sub plot. Paris hijinks ensues, both in the 1920s and present. Gil evolves as a human being. A lot of alcohol gets drunk. A lot of literary references, some subtle, some not so much, get dropped.
The stars. The movie was entertaining and intelligently written. One star. Woody Allen resisted the urge to insert himself into the movie (how many bumbling old timid stereotypical Jewish men can we watch in a lifetime?). One star. Most of the supporting characters were extremely entertaining, particularly Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. One star. The film work was excellent. Paris was shot brilliantly and the lighting really added to the contrast between 1920s Paris and modern Paris. One star. All of the women (except Kathy Bates, I guess) were pretty damned hot. Even the tour guide. One star. Woody never attempted to explain the time travel mechanic, which in another film would probably infuriate me but in this one was pretty much required. One star. Charming. One star. No forced attempt to add entirely unnecessary action or chase scenes to make it more appealing to the morons out there. One star. Overall a good experience. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. While I appreciate having a specific style, if you had not told me this was a Woody Allen film at the beginning I would have known it within the first ten minutes. You can almost hear Woody reading out some of the dialog. One black hole. Of all the characters, Owen Wilson as the protagonist was the most annoying and worst performance. His laid back California dude-bro attitude did not really enhance the character, and in scenes where he was supposed to show some kind of excitement (obviously his most difficult performances) you could almost see him flick the activation switch to go from deadpan to excited deadpan. I find him to be the Ambien of actors. One black hole. The pacing needed work. There were scenes that seemed to drag on at times, and other scenes that ended abruptly just as I was getting into them. Also, the repetitive nature of the night after night party took on a Groundhog Day effect that slowed the film down. One black hole. With the exception of Gil, we never got to spend enough time with any of the characters to really appreciate them, even when it was painfully obvious that the character was really interesting and I for one wanted to learn more. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
Nothing else really hit the irksome category, although I did find the final romance came out of pretty much nowhere.
So a grand total of five stars. Is it fun and worth watching? Yes. Should you see it in the theater? No, unless you really love Paris and want to see it on a bigger screen. Good date movie? Absolutely, as long as your date doesn’t hate Woody Allen for marrying his adopted daughter. If she is cool with him then you could score some points for being sensitive and intellectual. The real question is how will it stand when compared to his other 200 films. Honestly, not particularly well. It’s no Bullets over Broadway or Match Point. I would rather see Sleeper to be honest. In a couple years it will be just another film he did; worth your time, but not worth gushing about.
By the way, I am still trying to get the whole video review thing going, but as usual have run into some technical issues. I think I am going to have to start over. Also I have a huge trip coming up Thursday and won’t have my iMac with me, so it might be a while. Meanwhile I am scrambling to get all the new Star Trek t shirts uploaded, and have gotten into the minor shows like DS9 and Voyager. I might see another film tomorrow and write something, but who knows? I still need to finish all those Star Trek movies.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 5: the Final Frontier
Ah, the faint rotten egg smell of suck finally grows and permeates every pore of the hallowed Star Trek franchise. The movies prior to this one had their issues, but the faint whiffs of lame that wafted off them was nothing compared to the overpowering odor emanating from The Final Frontier. This thing reeked like a giant blender full of dead skunks (movie poster image courtesy, as always, of the Star Trek T shirts category).
To be honest, I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything from this dog. I had to Google Star Trek 5 to even figure out which title this was, and then watch the extended trailer to be reminded of what the damn thing was about. However, that two minutes was enough to unlock the repressed memories and like a recovered experience of childhood sexual molestation the horribleness flooded back into the crappy theater of my mind.
The biggest problem with this film was they let Shatner direct it, as well as having a hand in the so called writing. Honestly, would you take even the greatest NASCAR driver in the world and let him design a car from scratch? Sure, he might have some great ideas as to features you could use, but he just wouldn’t have the engineering skills to build a great car. Shatner’s influence is felt in every vomit inducing scene, with an attempt being made to make him look like he wasn’t a out of shape 58 year old.
Anyway, what was happening in 1989? I was personally in a weird place. You see, in 1987 I dropped out of UC Irvine to pursue a career as a lifetime ditchdigger. I got a job working graveyard shift in a medical lab that could be accurately described as hell. In 1989 I realized this sucked and reapplied to UCI. In June when this movie came out I was still working graveyard and looking for anything to help me escape the horrible life experience. This movie looked like a life preserver being tossed to a drowning man, but when it landed it turned out to me made of lead. That was also the year when I most completely misinterpreted a super hot girl’s interest in me, my family left the house I grew up in to live in a crappy mobile home in Fullerton, CA., and my sister went to live with her super hot friend (who had no interest in me, surprise surprise) in order to graduate high school.
In the world gas was $.97 a gallon, the USSR admitted defeat and left Afghanistan (good thing we were never in there. Oh, wait), apartheid starts to be dismantled in South Africa, free elections are happening in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Wall falls, the Chinese government runs over students in Tiananmen Square with tanks, the Exxon Valdez dumps 11 million barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, Bush Sr. is elected president, flag burning is legalized by the Supreme Court, Leona Helmsley goes to jail, Toyota launches Lexus, Ted Bundy was executed, Salman Rushdie is sentenced to death for writing a really boring book (some kind of religious thing too, but book critics were harsh in those days), the very first GPS satellites are put in orbit, Game Boy comes out in Japan, the Intel 486 chip comes out, Microsoft releases it’s first version of Office (which I just spent $120 on. Bastards), and the US Goverenment gives $150 billion to failing banks and savings and loans (ha ha ha. $150 billion. Amateurs).
In entertainment, it was mixed. The Simpsons aired for the first time with some episode that at the time ruled but in retrospect are literally painful to watch. Movies were Batman, When Harry Met Sally, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, My Left Foot, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters II, Twins (oh, Arnold), Honey I Shrunk the Kids (was this movie not kind of a death toll for children’s movies to come?), License to Kill, and the Little Mermaid. New Kids on the Block were killing American culture. Other popular music included Duran Duran, Erasure, Prince, Depeche Mode, and Paula Abdul.
Anyway, kind of an up year, in my opinion, if only because I got back into college. I don’t think this film contributed or denigrated the current cultural clime.
The story. Shatner starts off by trying to convince the audience that Kirk can free climb El Capitan in Yosemite, a cliff that is considered extremely challenging even for expert rock climbers. The scene is easily the worst rock climbing scene in cinema history (and yes, I have seen Cliffhanger), and Spocks “rescue” of Kirk when the inevitable happens and Kirk falls Wile E Coyote style suspended my disbelief so high that it if it had fallen it also would have needed a rocket boot powered Spock to save it.
By the way, I’m not kidding about this. I studied physics in college and rate of decent is a pretty simple equation. d=1/2gT(squared). d=distance, g=gravity (in this case, on earth, 32 feet per second, squared), T=Time. El Capitan is 3,000 feet tall. Assuming Kirk was near the top (he wasn’t, but we’ll let that slide). If we plug that in to the equation you end up with a T of 13.69 seconds. It took Spock at least 4 seconds to completely invert himself, and, theoretically, the same at the bottom, leaving 5.69 seconds of time to accelerate and decelerate. The g force for the 2.345 seconds he had to catch Kirk should have bent his spine in half.
Anyway, Spock saves Kirk, leading to a campfire scene so awkward I wanted to stick my head in the flames in order to have the sound of my flesh frying drown it out. Kirk does a bromance monolog about how he can never fail as long as Spock and Bones were around (I guess Scotty was off polishing his widgets or something). They get called to rescue some hostages on the planet Nimbus III (the Nimbus was Zap Brannigan’s ship on Futurama, by the way. Subtle). On Nimbus III they run into Spocks half brother (small universe) who is some kind of full blooded yet super emotional Vulcan (what the hell?) who is on some kind of religious quest to find God (no joke) on a planet at the exact center of the universe. The center of the universe is behind some kind of barrier (no danger there) and he needs a ship to make it happen.
Meanwhile they are being pursued by some Klingons for no apparent reason. I guess they are still pissed about Kirk stealing a ship in the Search for Spock? I really can’t remember. They land on the planet and meet a creature who is supposed to be God, but who needs a ship to escape. Not exactly Omnipotent. The creature goes nuts and Spocks brother has to combat him while the others escape. It’s all kind of a blur at that point. Enterprise shoots the creature, the Klingon ship attacks the Enterprise, Kirk beams to the Klingon ship, some kind of hostage thing happens, and somehow peace reigns once more, with Kirk, Spock, McCoy collecting ticks and chiggers in Yosemite once again.
What it had:
The stupidest looking guns in sci fi history (I’m not kidding on this either. Star Trek has always had guns that look like TV remote controls (or dumber. This is one of my few issues with Star Trek) but these guns look like you made them out of supplies from a plumbing store and based the design on a Super Soaker). Rocket boots. Slapstick (Scotty knocks himself out by walking into a beam. No danger of brain damage there). A really stupid prison break (Scotty “blows a hole in the wall” of the brig, which looks like it was made out of drywall and somehow doesn’t kill or injure the guys inside the very small room. Do the terms “compression” or “spalling” mean nothing?). An emotional Vulcan. A religious Vulcan. A stupid Vulcan. A Vulcan with a forehead big enough to land a shuttle craft on. (these are all the same Vulcan, by the way). The first signs of senility from DeForrest Kelley (watch him at the campfire). A couple of good lines (“Excuse me? What does God need with a space ship?”). In spite of the ego trip, Kirk acting more like Kirk from the series.
What it didn’t have:
A reason to keep me from killing myself. A coherent plot. A clear villain. A prop maker who didn’t ride to work in the short bus. Hot chicks of any kind. An executive producer, apparently.
So, with a couple of decent moments, overall a bust. We will see a ray of hope in the next film but at this point in my opinion the franchise is circling the drain. I need to run but that’s it for now.
Movie Review: Transformers Dark of the Moon 3D
…Or, Transforming a Franchise that Sucks into Something Moderately Tolerable
Do any of you remember a couple weeks ago when I reviewed Super 8 and said the train explosion was so big it would have embarrassed Micheal Bey? I rescind that statement. There isn’t an explosion big enough for Micheal Bey. If he could figure out a way to have an explosion explode he would. I am totally convinced that if he weren’t a movie director he would be a serial arsonist.
Before I get into this review, let me reiterate this point. In Transformers Dark of the Moon EVERYTHING blows up. A snake like Decepticon punches through a corrugated steel warehouse wall. The wall blows up. An Autobot punches a concrete wall. The concrete blows up. A ship filled with giant robots who have no need whatsoever for any kind of atmosphere crashes on the airless moon and in spite of the fact that there is no oxygen present and never will be still manages to blow up in flames. In the world in Micheal Beys head everything is made of plastique, TNT, and nitroglycerin.
Anyway, the movie. Was it better than Revenge of the Fallen? Yes, but that is like asking if losing one testicle in a tragic lawn mower accident is better than two. Better does not equal good. Is it exciting and fun? Yeah, kinda. Are there any problems? Oh, yeah.
The major problem the movie suffers from is the same problem the other two suffer from: too much of the humans and not enough of the Transformers. In my mind the scenes with humans are like the “acting” scenes that clutters up otherwise perfectly good porn. You are there for one thing. I liken the scenes like Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) getting bitched out by his parents for not having a job to the scene expositions you get in video games while the next stage is loading. It can be good if you are into the story, but if not it’s a great chance to use the restroom, get a snack, and return some phone calls. This movie actually has a little more Autobot character development, but like another 30 minutes of goofy Sam-trying-to-make-his-way-in-the-world crap.
Speaking of annoying humans, Megan Fox completely flushed her own career by bitching out Michael Bey and has been replaced by the slightly less hot (I really do like brunettes) but less slutty Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who plays Sam’s love interest. It first I thought she was a slightly better actor, but then I realized I was being sucked in by her English accent. The sad fact that anyone with an English non-Cockney accent always sounds better in movies than an American. As the movie progressed I thought she might actually be another human form Transformer like in the last movie as she had a really robotic delivery. Also, her character and motivations to do anything (especially date a whiny loser like Sam Witwicky) are horribly two dimensional, and Micheal Bey might as well be shooting porn with the inventive ways he finds to linger on her body in every scene. I will be the first to admit a little eye candy can add a lot to a movie, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if Micheal Bey were not a movie director or serial arsonist he would be a stalker with a laundry list of restraining orders against him.
Anyway, the story, for lack of a better term. I won’t throw in too many spoilers, but this plot (ah ha ha ha) is so dumb you won’t miss much. Autobots have joined the CIA and are doing covert missions for the USA, or as covert as a 100 foot robot painted bright yellow or red can be. Sam has graduated college and is such a spazmo he can’t find a job (here’s a tip, kids. If you are going to a job interview with a major corporation wearing jeans and a sports coat is a bad idea, even when the job market was good). Somehow he has the hottest girl on the planet in love with him who not only gives him sex but pays all his bills. Over the last couple years of collage he did a transformation of his own, from a kind of cool kid with a cool car into a uptight, whiny bitch with a self important attitude and a tendency to occasionally turn into a loud mouth jerk who thinks yelling will do more than calling ahead. He discovers that the only job an Ivy League graduate can get is in the mail room of an accounting firm (I guess he should have done more internships) in the worst go nowhere sub plot in cinima history. In the second worst go nowhere sub plot in cinema history a fellow coworker (Ken Jeong, Mr. Chow from The Hangover) stalks him and passes on some crotch notes (no joke) about humans being killed all over the world in a homophobic scene that just drags on forever. Anyway, turns out an Autobot ship crashed on the moon and the government knew about it all along. 
They go to the moon and find Sentinel Prime (voiced by the great Leanard Nimoy. Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirts category), Optimus’s predecessor. Robot battle hijinks ensues. Most of the world blows up. Sam’s super hot girlfriend manages to avoid the advances of her boss after he gives her a $200,000 car (isn’t love grand?). Between the Autobots, Decepticons, and human military about 14 of the all time worst battle plans are devised.
The stars. Transformers. One star. Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime. One star. Lots of action (the final battle seems to go for like an hour). Two stars. The action is generally great. Two stars. Great special effects and CGI. Two stars. Super hot girl on screen. One star. Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) as Dutch. One star. Megatron comes back from the dead a third time, looking cooler than ever. One star. Two of my favorite Transformers, Shockwave and Soundwave, show up, although only Shockwave gets what I consider a fair treatment. One star. As worthless as his sub plot was, I always enjoy seeing John Malcovich. One star. They didn’t pull back on the killing Transformers (or, for that matter, civilian humans) although as per usual none of the main good guys died. One star. One decent plot twist. One star. Buzz Aldrin makes a cameo. One star. Total: 16 stars.
Now the black holes. Agent Simmons is back, and twice as annoying as he ever was before. One black hole. A whole slew of unnecessary and ultimately worthless sub plots and minor characters. One black hole. I will award one black hole for every ten minutes I feel the audience was subjected to of worthless human interaction (cough cough filler cough cough). Three black holes. Alan Tudyks fake German accent and dialog made me want to stuff Junior Mints into my ears until I could either hear nothing or suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm. He really isn’t great as a straight man. One black hole. More small (even smaller) really annoying comic relief Autobots who may or may not be based on racist stereotypes. Two black holes (one each). As much as I love explosions, I have to award a hole for overuse of pyrotechnics (you know, there are some circumstances where a robot can punch something and not have it blow up). One black hole. Optimus Prime is less the wise sage and more the bloodthirsty jingoist, and at one point has a little hissy fit and sulks. One black hole. Plot holes you could transport Cybertron through (wouldn’t transporting another planet into orbit around our planet more or less destroy both planets? Why say the Autobots have no way of getting off the planet when just a few minutes ago they flew one of their own ships to the moon and found an even bigger ship? If the Decepticons have been working with humans secretly for decades why did they do nothing to help Megatron the last two times he tried to take over the planet and kill the Autobots? Could they really anticipate him coming back to life three times? If every Autobot is equipped with super advanced rockets and can assault with speed why do they need a human team to sneak in and shoot the big bad thing with a lame human rocket launcher? The list goes on). One black hole. They did that thing that annoyed me so much in Battle: LA where the aliens (or in this case, robots) are unstoppable killing machines at the start but by the end of the film are getting knocked over by human spitballs and bad breath (seriously, a few special forces guys were killing them off left and right. If their plan was to conquer the planet it would seem a well equipped army could really put a hurt in their plans. Also, why is it they can shoot down aircraft with practiced ease but are unable to do anything about a few Tomahawk missiles?). One black hole. If there is one the we all learned from 9/11 it’s that buildings with breaks in the middle have little to no structural stability whatsoever. Apparently Michael Bey and all of his writers have no idea how architecture works. One black hole. There is a decided lack of concern for Sam or his girlfriend, as it is painfully obvious that nothing bad is really going to ever happen to them. This sort of action-without-consequences writing really robs the action of any of it’s punch. I would be more excited by a less epic building collapse if I believed that there was a chance someone important or that I had identified with could die. One black hole. Total: 14 black holes.
In the irksome-but-not-black-hole-worth category I have quite a few. The main one has to do with the treatment of the Decepticon characters. One of the great things about the Transformers cartoon was it really was about the Transformers, not the Autobots with the Decepticons as only their enemies. I mean, each of the Decepticons had a distinct personality that was presented almost as much as the Autobots. Megatron as the ruthless general, Starscream as the cowardly and treacherous second-in-command, Soundwave as the loyal and worthwhile minion, etc. In the movie not only is there no attempt to present any of the Decepticons as more than just spear carriers, they all even look exactly the same (silver and spikes are in this season) and are portrayed as growling, animalistic primitives. Second, there was a pretty serious death that was never even mentioned by the good guys. In fact, there was a scene that could have really impacted the audience and eliminated a lot of the action-without-consequences issues had Michale Bey had the balls to shock the audience, but he wimped out. I’m trying to stay done bitching about 3D, but the 3D effects in this movie did not really add a lot IMO. The sound track was pretty amateurish, with all the subtlety of a frying pan to the face. Also, I should have given them a black hole for stupid title of the movie. Dark of the Moon? What the hell does that mean? It’s not even acceptable grammar. I guess they couldn’t call it Dark Side of the Moon without running into Pink Floyd, but if they had all it would have taken was a little money paid to the band. Might have even helped solved some of the soundtrack issues. Also, what is the deal with Transformers aging? Do they really grow crusty beards and wrinkles as they age or were some of them built looking twice as old as the rest of them? Finally, when did Sam’s chihuahua turn in to a St. Bernard? I guess since his character had turned into such a girly man they felt he needed a more manly pet. Either that or Michael Bey thinks we are all idiots.
So, a grand total of two stars. At least they stayed positive. Will you enjoy it when you see it? Yes, probably. The more you can turn off your thinking brain and just use the stem the more you will like it. See it in 3D on the biggest screen you can find. I just don’t see this thing doing much in repeat business. By the way, there is supposed to be something after the credits, but after 157 minutes of mass explosions I had reached my sensory saturation point and bailed. I’ll YouTube it in a month.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 4: the Voyage Home
Another decent Star Trek film. Remember last post when I said that Klingon ships were second only to the Enterprise itself? Well, in this one Kirk and crew get to fly around in one. (Voyage Home image courtesy, as always, of the Star Trek T Shirts category).
Anyway, Nimoy was approached to direct the 4th film after his success on the last one. He came up with a pro environment story with no real villain. Paramount brought in the great Nick Meyer to help write parts of the screenplay. The film came out in November of 1986 and was generally a success.
What was happening in 1986? Well, I was a senior in high school and the first glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel made it slightly more bearable. However, the year before I had broken my kneecap, which pretty much took me off the wrestling team, which I loved and was pretty much the only slice of cool I had in my high school experience. I also managed to develop type 1 diabetes (the kind you get from genetics, not from being a fat bastard), which was hugely complicated, dangerous, and squashed my original plans to join the Marine Corps after graduation, something I had wanted to do ever since I was a kid. I was past the suicide planning freshman and sophomore years and the homicidal “I’m going to kill everyone in my school and stand around laughing while the parents came to claim the bodies” junior year (one of many dark periods of my life). I was feeling as good as I ever was in high school, and the only thing I was doing was cutting a little. In an ironic blast from the past the US bombed Libya, Chernobyl blows up, the first bits of Glasnost happens, Halley’s Comet approaches and fails to blow up the planet in spite of many doomsday predictions, seven million Americans hold (hopefully recently washed) hands in the “Hands Across America” event, an earthquake in El Salvador kills 1500, Ollie North gets caught in the Iran-Contra Affair, Mad Cow Disease is identified in the UK, Mike Tyson becomes heavyweight champion of the world, the smoking ban is lowered on all planes, trains, and buses to much whining from nicotine hounds, space shuttle Challenger blows up (I cried) and leads to a number of really bad jokes (I laughed), Intel releases the 386 processing chip, the worlds first laptop comes out, and the nicotine patch was invented.
In movies it definitely wasn’t the great year 1984 was. Besides the Voyage Home, the only movies really worth noting were Alien (Sigourney Weaver in her underwear!), Platoon (not TOO depressing), Top Gun (adrenaline fueled recruitment movie), and Crocodile Dundee (suddenly Australia seemed cool). In TV the A Team, Cheers, and Magnum PI were on the good side, but on the bad side we had Growing Pains (groaning pains), Murder She Wrote (how many murders does a writer encounter in a life time? Also, why didn’t one of the hundreds of murderers she ran into just put a bullet in her?), Remington Steele (pretty boy solves crimes before becoming 007), and the Cosby Show (Bill Cosby shows us how be be good parents. Actually helped drive home how messed up my own family life was, so thanks Bill). Music more or less sucked. Pet Shop Boys, Culture Club, Madonna, and the Bangles (Walk Like an Egyptian) to name a few.
I’d like to say culturally we were ready for another Star Trek film, but by then it was pretty much a franchise and the studio was going to crank out a sequel if the entire planet were about to fall into a black hole.
Anyway, Kirk and crew are headed back to Earth to pay for the crimes they committed resurrecting Spock. They are headed to Earth in their stolen Bird-of-Prey but it’s 2286 and time for the human race to pay for past sins, specifically in the extinction of the hump back whale. This is less like delivering a message as it is having the message and six of his friends come over to your house and beat you with sand filled rubber hoses. An alien probe comes to Earth looking for the whales and is going to more or less wreak the planet until they are found. Apparently the sound the whales makes travels through the airless void of space and is picked up by the aliens. Kirk and crew decide they can travel back in time and scoop up a couple. They land in San Francisco, where the more or less abuse the timeline and completely ignore the temporal prime directive. I’m no scientist, but I would think doing stuff like kidnapping whales (with tracking devices on them), giving some local yahoo the secret of transparent aluminum, and taking a whale biologist forward in time just might have an effect on the timeline. Talk about the Butterfly Effect. Anyway, awkward people-from-the-future-trying-to-fit-in hijinks ensues. Chekov asks around for nuclear wessels. Spock acts spacy and disjointed. McCoy has a fit about the primitiveness of 20th century surgical techniques. Kirk insults the Mormon church. Scotty turns into the temporal rogue planetoid (and is the size of a planetoid) and more or less hands out advanced technology left and right. Chekov, forever the show whipping boy, gets run down by military police and ends up in the hospital, just like on the show. Sulu manages to figure out how to fly a Huey helicopter. I guess all that time spent flying around space with no gravity teaches you a lot about dealing with the most complicated flying machine of our modern world. Whales get tracked down by the chip in their heads. They get dumped off in the San Francisco Bay (just a few miles from my house) and everything is hunky dory.
What the movie had:
Spock with more than two speaking lines. A lot of really good humor. All the rest of the original crew. Some headache inducing time paradox questions. Time travel as a plot device. The line “nuclear wessels”. A Klingon Bird-of-Prey. Whales. A court martial.
What it didn’t have:
Cool space battles. Aliens. An epic fight scene. A hot Vulcan girl (or any other hot girls, for that matter).
Like the last movie, this one raised some serious questions for me. For example:
If Kirk sold off his antique glasses in the past and then reacquired them again in the future, where did they come from originally? Were they the spontaneously manifesting plot device? Also, if they more or less gained 300 years every time they went through the cycle, wouldn’t they eventually just be a small pile of decayed metal dust and ground up glass?
How exactly did Sulu know how to fly a Huey? I’m not kidding, a helicopter is godawfully complicated, and hovering carrying huge loads is one of the hardest things to do with one. If you took a modern pilot and transported him 300 years into the past, putting him in a clipper ship he might be able to figure out how to pilot in a given direction, but the finer aspects of navigating reefs and so one would most likely be beyond him. Also, wouldn’t he need to show a pilots license of some kind when they rented it?
I get that they dropped the plexiglass plates into Bird-of-Prey with the helicopter, but how did they get it into the craft? Did the Klingons build a huge cargo bay or perhaps retractable sun roof into their ship, or did Scotty rip the roof off the ship and then later rivet it back on? Also, once they got the plates into the ship, how did they maneuver them into place? Each one of them should have weighed several tons. For that matter, what part of their plan required them to be able to see the whales during the 40 minute flight from Earth to future Earth? Couldn’t they have just used steel plates and not had to deal? If it were me, I would have welded the cargo bay shut and just parked the whales in there, not having do deal with any of these weird materials at all.
If they brought forth two whales, a male and a female, in order to propagate the species and keep the aliens from destroying the planet, aren’t they all worried about the third generation being all inbred weird finger mutant babies when the brothers and sisters mate? Also, what if the two whales have all male of female kids? As my PHD geneticist friend tells me, any species that is reduced to even a couple hundred specimens is effectively dead from a genetic point of view. I mean, a couple hundred years down the road wouldn’t the aliens be like “Wow, these whale calls we are getting sound kind of weird and disjointed. They all sound of inbred.” Sounds like a temporary fix to me.
If the cloaked Bird-of-Prey is approaching the whales and those whales are being hunted by whalers, why was it necessary to decloak the ship to scare the whalers and piss on the temporal prime directive even more before transporting the whales on board? Couldn’t they have just transported the whales on board and left the whalers going “Hey, where did those whales go?”?
If the whales were moving at speed when they transported up onto the ship into the small tank wouldn’t they have kept their momentum and bonked their heads into the front of the tank? Plexiglass isn’t that strong. Also, shouldn’t they have been totally freaked out and gone into a massive thrashing fit, possibly injuring each other?
Scotty puts the formula for transparent aluminum onto the computer screen and then (apparently) labels it “Transparent Aluminum”. The plexiglass sales guy takes one three second look at it and has a spontaneous orgasm. Is he a super genius in chemistry and strength of materials and can interpret that stuff instantly? Wouldn’t he want to test it before giving away tens of thousands of dollars worth of plexiglass? How does he know that Scotty isn’t some kind of industrial spy and just gave him a formula that the patent office is three days away from awarding to DuPont? Or for that matter just threw a bunch of random chemical crap on the screen?
Can anyone walk into an emergency room and take over the surgical theater for a critically injured person, asking for stuff that doesn’t really exist yet and bitching out the doctors present for their primitive techniques? Don’t any of the other doctors or nurses more or less know everyone who works there? Also, wasn’t Chekov a prisoner of the Marines who captured him? Wouldn’t they want to at least speak to McCoy first before granting access to their suspected Russian spy?
Anyway, the list goes on. Still, in spite of the weird holes in the plot and the never ending questions, the movie was fun and enjoyable. In retrospect I found the pro environment message pretty didactic and annoying, and the lack of anything action related can make for a slow movie. However, I loved it because was the movie that was most like the TV show. They had a goal. There were weird complications that required unusual stuff (like collecting radiation from nuclear wessels). Some humorous moments. Kirk being Kirk. Spock being Spock. All around a nice flashback episode.
That’s it for this one. Before I go I’d like to mention that I saw a great Tron tribute video by a guy named Anthony Scott Burns called Tron Destiny. Worth checking out IMO.
With luck next post will be a modern movie (couch cough Bad Teacher cough cough). I’m looking forward reviewing the new Transformers movie too, but have heard some negative reviews so my expectations for Michael Bey remain at my usual level. See you soon!
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 3: Star Trek the Search for Spock
OK, Spock is dead, and fan boys across the planet (like me) are crying about it and demanding something be done. Nimoy has said he want’s to put Spock behind him and move on with his life. How, then, do you get him back in the saddle? (Search for Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T shirts category).
Simple. You offer him a chance to direct the movie. That’s pretty much what Paramount did. They gave Nimoy his first chance to direct, and to be honest, he did a pretty damned good job. I mean, this wasn’t the best Star Trek movie, but I see that as more of a limitation placed on him by the script than anything else (yes, I am that film critic. The one who craps all over every movie he sees until he is confronted by one done by someone he likes and has to find every excuse for them).
Actually, that’s not exactly true. Nimoy got kind of excited about Spock after seeing the TWOK and was gung ho to do the next movie. He himself suggested directing it. Kind of risky on Paramount’s part, in that now you have a director you literally cannot fire.
So what was going on in 1984? I was just out of my first horrible year of hell (I mean, high school). I remember one thing and that is we went to this movie in the back of a pickup truck (on the freeway. God I don’t miss the 80’s). With us on that trip were no less than three girls who were all kind of cute, at least one of which I think in retrospect kind of liked me. My natural awkwardness and inability to talk to women was able to prevent me from gaining some joy in my teenage life. Movie tickets cost at most $3. Ethiopia faced massed starvation and spawned any number of the least sensitive jokes of all time (“What’s the fastest animal in the world? An Ethiopian chicken.”). The Ethiopian tragedy also gifted us with Band Aid and the massive Do they Know it’s Christmas, a chance for every lame pop singer to stroke their egos and look good. AT&T is forcibly broken up (and yet, I am still paying them). We had the first ever (and very cool) untethered space walk. The first ever MTV Video Music Awards starts off, ringing like the death knell over music culture. It was kind of a banner year for movies. In addition to the Search for Spock, Ghostbusters (Sigorney Weaver!, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, The Terminator, and the highly underrated Romancing the Stone all came out. Magnum PI and the A Team were hot. With the exception of music (“Wake me up, before you go go!”) things seemed pretty cool and upbeat. The world wanted new beginnings, and the Search for Spock fit right in.
So Spock placed his soul (his katra) in McCoy just before dying in the last movie. McCoy is haunted by his spirit and they have to get to Vulcan after learning they made a major blunder dropping Spocks body off on the planet rather than returning him home. I guess checking on crewmembers religious beliefs wasn’t high up on Kirks priority list, although you would think he would have done a little more for his best friend. They go back to the Genesis planet where they discover the planet is more or less breaking apart. Spock’s body has mysteriously disappeared out of the coffin, although his Vulcan e coli or whatever have evolved into giant banana slugs. Other stuff happens. The Klingons kill Kirk’s son David. A teenage Spock Pon Fars the hell out of Saavik (played by a young, thin, and super hot Kirstie Allie. What is it about women who are willing to dress up as Vulcans that drives me crazy? I still think about this one girl I met at the Star Trek convention last year. It doesn’t help that, in addition to being super hot, she was also super cool). After years of blue balling himself and coming within a hairs breath of it Kirk finally gets to complete his self destruct sequence for the Enterprise. The crew escapes in a stolen Klingon ship (it’s hard to beat the Enterprise for coolness, but the Klingons have always given them a run for their money).
What the movie had:
The original crew. The return of Spock (although he doesn’t actually appear until the end and only has a couple speaking lines). Modern Klingons. Enterprise blowing up. Planet blowing up. The death of Kirks son, so he wouldn’t be around to clutter up the next few movies. Implied hot Vulcan sex. Effects on par with TWOK. Giant banana slugs with teeth. A clever ploy.
What it didn’t have:
Nicholas Meyer, the writer of TWOK. He stormed off in a huff over the changes the studio forced upon him in TWOK, including the coffin on the planet scene. A rational explanation as to how Spock’s body reconstituted itself (more on that later). Spock playing Spock.
This is the first Star Trek movie that generated some serious questions in my mind with regards to continuity (and probably paved my path to becoming an amateur movie reviewer). First of all, Kirk is really broken up about the death of his son (and in later movies is even more upset about it) but as far as I can tell he only knew the guy for two weeks or so. In the TV show Kirk had crewmembers he had known for years die horrible, horrible deaths (remember the Devil in the Dark?) and didn’t even blink an eye. Secondly, if the cold germs or whatever in the pod with Spocks body were super evolved into giant banana slugs by the Genesis effect, why would it just regenerate Spock in his original form? Shouldn’t he have been a super evolved Vulcan? Or, for that matter, if they sent down his body shouldn’t each cell have evolved into something, possibly resulting in billions of super evolved Spocks? Also, what did young Spock eat? To grow that fast he must have eaten about 10x his weight every day. For that matter, if he speed grew up from a baby who kept him from running off a cliff or what have you? Even with my parents protection I managed to injure myself pretty much every day as a kid. Sure Spock is half Vulcan, but he’s also half human, which in broader terms is half stupid. Also, assuming the planet had evolved an abundance of fruit trees, how did he feed himself as a baby? Also, according the scientist involved in the project there would be only plant life on the planet. So what did young Spock do for protein? Seems the only sources of protein would be giant banana slugs and his own corpse. Shouldn’t he have been suffering from serious malnutrition? Also, if he had never seen another creature in his life when the crew showed up why did he hide from them? Wouldn’t he just see them as some kind of moving plant? Is there any chance Saavik got pregnant and there is a son of Spock running around?
The list can go on, but I will spare you. Overall I would say this was a decent film, and a nice bridge from the end of the series in the last film and the rest of them. The only problem is that this is the last film where you see Kirk as a moderately believable action hero. Last movie saw the end of Spock as we knew him, and this one we see the end of Kirk. From this movie forth he would still do stuff in an action way, but it would take on a Mork from Ork comedy element. If you don’t believe me go back and watch the fight scene from Star Trek Generations. Like I said, decent film. Just not the best.
Star Trek movie retrospective Part 1: Star Trek the Motion Picture
Like I said yesterday, while going through images for a ton of new Star Trek T shirts I came across shirts for every Star Trek movie made to date, including Generations. It seems to me as time and movies progress they are less like true Star Trek movies and more like lame Hollywood crap marginally inspired by Star Trek. The last few movies managed to both suck and blow, which is such a strong contrast to the Wrath of Khan it’s almost as if the more recent films were made by (non Federation) aliens of some kind.
I thought I would put my feelings down on this blog by doing a modest retrospective of each movie and what was going on at the time. These are not formal review, as I haven’t seen most of these recently enough to give them any kind of fair treatment. This is a simple overview.
So, Star Trek the Motion Picture. The year is 1979 and Star Trek has been retired for 10 years. Paramount was working on a new TV series called Phase II (given that the majority of weak stories from the first series were in season 3 (cough cough Abe Lincoln in space cough cough) I don’t know if trying to continue the stories with the same cast would have done much). Roddenberry had campaigned for a movie, but the studio was convinced lightning would strike twice with TV. Then E.T. made a ton of money and all of a sudden the brainless apes known worldwide as studio executives decided it might be worth trying.
The script was actually a rewrite of the pilot script for Phase II, which kind of explains a lot. Also, the special effects weren’t done in what could be termed a timely manner and the final cut left the editors studio just a few days before the debut.
So it’s 1979. Margaret Thatcher is elected prime minister of Great Britain. Sony releases the Walkman to massive success. The first snowboard is invented. The staff of the American embassy is Tehran is taken hostage. The USSR invaded Afghanistan, where they would eventually get their ass kicked. The Who has a concert in Cincinnati and 11 people are killed in the ensuing riot. Saddam Hussain takes power in Iraq. France is hit by a tsunami. Sid Vicious died. The YMCA sued the Village People for obvious reasons. And the Bee Gees hit number 1 with Love You Inside Out.
Also, at this time I was grinding my way through Mrs. Lovemark’s 5th grade class and slowly coming to the realization that my social life was probably going to suck compared to most of my “peers”. As you can see there was a moral and cultural hole in American culture and my personal life, and we all needed something to fill it.Star Trek attempted to fill that gap with this film but, in my opinion, failed.
Let’s talk about what Star Trek the Motion Picture had:
William Shatnar in a body stocking. Spock. A super hot bald chick. A horrific transporter accident. The original cast. Some decent 1979 era special effects. The Enterprise. Did I mention the super hot bald chick?
Here is what it didn’t have:
Action of any kind. A coherent plot. An understanding of astrophysics (Voyager 6, in the couple hundred years since it’s launch until the aliens found it, would have a best been ten light years from Earth). A decent costume designer (what part of Shatnar in a body stocking sounds like a good idea on any level?). Emotion of any kind, except, ironically enough, Spock (Decker and Kirk arguing about command of the Enterprise does not count). Any real sense of story or accomplishment.
Yes, this was mediocre. However, it grossed enough worldwide to justify a sequel, which is of course the fabulous TWOK. I will talk about that in the next post.
This movie was important as a stepping stone towards the continuation of the franchise. I don’t think any of the TV shows would have arisen had this movie not paved the road to some of the good films. In that regard, I like this movie a lot. Just not in a hurry to see it again.
Ugh, I just found out something depressing. That super hot bald chick was an Indian actress named Persis Khambatta. If you think she was hot bald, check her out with hair. Anyway, I just discovered she died in 1998 at the age of 50. Ironic that she was 17 years younger than Shatnar and he is still going strong. Now I’m depressed.
As a weird side note, I remember reading the book adaptation of this movie. The one thing that struck me was that the hot bald chick (her screen name was Ilia) was a Deltan. That race generated sexual pheromones that were supposed to drive human males crazy, so the subplot was all the humans trying to not lose it. Given that they were all wearing body stockings it seems like the chance of an embarrassing uniform accident would be considerable.
By the way, I have made friends with some of the people at TheStream.TV. They do original internet TV with a definite nerd bent, and are having a big release event coming up. Check it out. I have seen some of their geek shows and it is pretty good. If you look carefully enough you might see actual footage of me expressing my opinion on some popular comic book characters at one of the comic cons I did earlier this year. I haven’t watched much lately as my sound card has died again and I can only stream stuff in my iPhone.
On a completely related topic, I am getting my new iMac tomorrow. I am so excited. Talk to you soon.
Nerd Dating: the greatest date ever-movie night in Part 7 the arm move
OK, you’ve set up the date, picked a movie, and are ready to watch the movie with your amour. The question that arises is if and when to put one arm around the girl.
This is really a puzzler, to be honest. Given the fact that you are on hopefully your 3rd, 4th, or 5th date (by the way, never try to make movie night your first or second date. It will fail miserably, and if she suggests it it means she has the “let’s-be-friends” main gun locked and loaded) and she is willing to sit on a couch in a dimly lit (by candlelight or just the screen glare) room with you very strongly suggests she is comfortable enough with you to get a little closer. However, don’t forget one of my earliest dating lessons: as much as women want to be in a relationship and this particular one may or may not like you, they are skittish on a level that makes deer look like sea turtles and are eagerly searching for an excuse to dump you and run.
That being said, it is also likely she expects some action and would be disappointed if you didn’t try something. The first step is doing the old “arm around the shoulder” move. How best to accomplish this? And when is the best time?
In my experience, you want to get your arm around her before the movie even starts. This establishes the tone (something I like to talk about in my movie reviews) of the evening from the get go. The safest way to do it (you wimp) is to sit on the couch before she does with space on either side and put one arm up on the top of the couch. She knows what you are doing and if she is into it will sit in the crook of your arm without hesitation. Normally at that point you lower you arm gently (<–important) onto her shoulder. Odds are you will both share some kind of meaningful look or something and start the movie. If she is not into it she will sit on the other side and you can start enjoying your new friendship.
If, on the other hand, she beat you to the couch, or you just brain fizzled or chickened out, and the movie starts without you accomplishing this otherwise trivial goal, you are in trouble. If there is one thing girls hate on a date it’s the scent of awkwardness, and you are stuck hip deep in the awkward swamp. Here are a few ways to get around it.
The yawn-yes, this is really, really dumb move straight out of Happy Days. That’s why you don’t do it seriously. You so over exaggerate it that it will be obvious that you are making a joke. With luck she will laugh and let you proceed.
The creep-I don’t actually recommend this one, as it can be as creepy as it sounds. This is where you try to casually work your arm over the top of the couch and over the course of a couple hours lower your arm onto her. In addition to being kind of creepyish (think boa constrictor stalking it’s prey) it also looks extremely timid and ball-less. However, if you could accurately be described as timid and ball-less, or you have pretty much run out of options, than roll with it.
The break-this is where you get up to use the restroom, and when you return you just slide your arm around her like it was there before. This takes a little practice in order to make it look natural and not like a WWE move, but it can work very well. Unfortunately it is also the technique most likely to get you kicked out or punched, so be sure you know what she is about before you go for it.
The ask-this is one I have had decent success with. This is where, as the opening credits are rolling, you look at her in the eyes and say in your most sincere voice “Would you mind if I put my arm around you?” Most women are touched by this. Also, if they have been kind of waiting for you to do something it will be a relief for them to have you finally get it going. This also works really well if you are dealing with a woman who would describe herself as a feminist. She will appreciate the respect you are showing her (I guess. Who knows what really motivates woman, anyway?)
Rather than try all of these in the course of one evening, I would suggest picking one main and one backup and making those your thing. Pick the ones that seem to fit in with your personality and/or the personality of the girl you are dating. Good luck, and remember that if she is with you alone she wants to be there with you.
So this week I have been cropping images of a ton of new Star Trek t shirts and was struck yesterday by how many good and bad movies that franchise has spawned. By that I mean one great one, two mediocre ones, and a whole passel of garbage. Anyway, while cropping the image for Star Trek Nemesis it occurred to me that it would be fun to have a retrospective on my feelings for all the Trek films in order and what significance they had in my life. I think I will be starting that up tomorrow. I will have more dating stuck in there too as well as a couple more movie reviews. I don’t know if it will suck or not, but I will enjoy doing it. Talk to you soon.
Dave, where the hell have you been?
I just looked at my last post and realized it has been a full week since I did anything. I apologize to those of you who are avid readers and want to hear my words of wisdom each day. To the other 99.999% of you I will just say I have been really busy with the Star Trek show we attended this last weekend. Even now I am scrambling to fold and sort t-shirts, but wanted to at least make a prairie dog-like appearance and let my beloved readers know I am still shuffling on this mortal coil.
The show I went to was the San Francisco Star Trek convention, and let me say it exceeded all my expectations, both in sales and in fun. It’s a smaller show and I thought it would be kind of slow, but it was popping the whole time. I met some amazing people, saw some decent costumes, and finally discovered a way of displaying t-shirts that I like.
I find these shows to be especially cool in that I really enjoy hanging out with the true fans, if you know what I mean. Sure you meet cool fans at shows like Wondercon and so on, but you also get a lot of dross wandering in off the street. You have to be truly dedicated to travel to a Star Trek show, and it feels good to be in a room where 100% of the people with you are into the same thing you are. I think it an interesting case that one of the best selling t-shirts from the show was this United Federation of Planets (from the Star Trek T shirt category) rather than one of the character shirts, as only a true fan of Star Trek would even recognize this logo. Very cool.
So this week I will do a post each day. Tomorrow more dating advice. Tomorrow night I think I will see Battle: Los Angeles so you can look forward to a review for what I hope is a great movie Wednesday. I need to blog a lot over the next two weeks as I will be working hard to get ready for Wondercon in early April and will start having a hard time finding time after about the 27th. More on that show later.
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 13: interpreting photos
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, but if you are clever, it can actually be worth 1001-1010 as you glean little insights into the personality, sense of humor, fitness, motivations, and general suitableness of your prospective procreation partner.
Picture with a cat (or cats). If this is a guy, either he thinks this is really clever and funny or is something that rhymes with “Tin the Bloset”. If the first he could be a great guy to date, but you will never ever know for sure which of the two he really is. If this is a girl first of all go back and reread my “More than two cats” rule for dating women. If she is shown with only one or two cats then you can explore further, but know that she has probably made her cats her substitute children in a way that will absolutely drive you nuts at some point.
Picture from high school. Unless this person is actually 18 years old, steer clear. Either they have hit the wall so hard that they have broken through (with their face) into new, unexplored territories of ugliness and this is the last time they took a good photo, or they were one of those super popular kids in high school who now feels a desperate desire to go back in time to when they were cool again. If they only included the high school pic in addition to some more recent ones then it is probably is the latter case, but even then you will soon become thoroughly sick of stories that all start with “This one time in high school…” Take it from me (the bitter troll that I am), if you took the total sum of all your accomplishments, parties, and popularity you had in high school it has the value of a wad of used chewing gum at the bottom of an empty grande latte cup from Starbucks the day after you graduate. Move on.
Girl in group shot with other girls cheek to cheek. This inevitably means sorority girl (or the junior college or GED equivalent). It also generally means she likes to party and wont have a real problem sleeping with you. If she does love to party go back and look at the guideline I did for “Love to Party.” Otherwise, as long as you aren’t a hard core GDI you should be able to date her and have fun, although I would not be surprised if she turned out to be a little shallow.
Guy in group shot doing the “hang loose” symbol with one hand, beer in the other, and his tongue out trying to touch his chin. Frat boy. I don’t know why it is, but every frat boy I have even known has a biological imperative to turn profile, do the hang loose (thumb and pinky extended to the max), and stick out his tongue whenever they are in a group and someone points a camera at them. They all have hundreds of these photos and love to post them on profiles in an attempt to show you what kind of a fun party guy they are. If fun for you is watching him get hammered every night at the sports bar down the street with his Greek friends, than by all means go for it. Also, most of these guys have a hat on backwards. Not sure I understand the motivation there.
Girl in group shot where she is the hottest one. This girl is kind of a user and also has some self esteem issues. She will most likely only be friends with women she thinks are less attractive. All things are relative, but usually they are pretty hot and extremely well groomed. They also tend to be pretty shallow and a little overbearing. Odds are she is looking for a guy to hold her purse while she shops, so if you feel like you have an overabundance of machismo go for it.
Girl in group shot where she is obviously NOT the hottest one. This can be two different kinds of women. Either she is a fairly cool girl who is OK with her appearance or she is a walking, talking doormat. The first one can be very cool to date as they are interesting and opinionated. However, they also tend to do stuff like get sick of washing their hair and cut it all off with clippers. The second girl as been thrown on so many grenades by her girlfriends that she will probably be remarkably easy to date. However, you will constantly be attracted to her friends and there is a reasonably good chance one of them might fool around with you just to reassert who the Alpha female is in her circle of friends is, so dating her can lead to some serious drama in spite of the fact that she herself is low drama. Both of these girls are pretty low maintenance, in my experience.
Guy in a football uniform. This is always a high school shot (guys who played football in college generally don’t have to go online to date) so all the things I said above about high school photos apply. However, this is a special case. This guy desperately wants the world to remember that at one point he was an athlete. However, they inevitably have gained about 50 pounds since then and the closest they have come to participating in sports in trying to sink wadded up paper in a trash bin. If he were still in shape he would have a current shot of himself playing volleyball or something.
Girl in a cheerleader uniform. This is the female version of the guy in a football uniform, with the added need to show you that at one point in her life she was hot enough to be a cheerleader. The one difference is once in a while you can get a woman that shows herself as a college cheerleader too. Everything I said about the football guy applies here, plus she is probably much higher maintenance to date than most women.
That’s it for today. More on this tomorrow. 
Yesterday’s question, second fiddle Riker verses the extremely lovable Chief Engineer Montgomary Scott, has caused me a lot of angst. I really, really want to say Scotty would kick Rikers ass, being a real man and all, but I can’t help but think that Riker is taller with greater reach and seems better trained. However, Scotty worked in an environment where violence was more common (he did throw the first punch in the Trouble with Tribbles) and probably has a lot more actual fighting experience, so I am going to make myself happy and go with him. The problem is I don’t believe it enough to put money on it. It would be a close one. (Riker image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirts category).
For today I present something that seems really obvious until you think about the kinds of fights he has overcome with his brain: who would win, Batman versus Darth Vader? Think about it for a while before answering.
By the way, if you like my writing and are looking for someone to write blog articles or other online content I am willing to do some contract work. Check out some of my product descriptions on the commercial site. Email me at [email protected].
Video game review: Halo Reach
So this girl that I am seeing (I think. Things are a little ill-defined at the moment. I, however, remain ever hopeful) invited me over to play some video games on her 360. She had a pile of choices but what caught my eye was her brand new copy of Halo Reach. On my old Xbox I played the original Halo until my thumbs cramped up. I played Halo 2 as well, but got sidetracked by something else that shall go unnamed but rhymes with Borld of Torecraft and more or less gave up on consul gaming along with most of the rest of my life for a few years.
Anyway, Halo rocked. Amazing first person shooter with a great story that shifted back and forth from alien military sci fi battle to survival horror game depending on if you were fighting the Covenant or the Flood. Controls were always very good and extremely intuitive, and a minimum of quick time events to bog the game down.
Halo Reach more or less continues the fine traditions of all the Halo games, except it is a prequel, set prior to the Terran/Covenant war. Still, you are fighting the Covenant, alien religious fanatics who show up in a variety of shapes and sizes. That actually brings up one of my few complaints about the game. The enemies are still the same Grunts, Elites, Hunters, Brutes, and shield guys. There seems to be some variety in the weapons and there appears to be at least one new Covenant vehicle that is pretty cool, but it’s the same guys all over again. At one point it looked like we had a whole new huge alien to fight, but then we are told by the omniscient narrator (which is either an AI or one of your squad mates. I’m still not sure) is a native creature of the planet and after we kill the two they never show up again. Another complaint is that somehow, while we only finished about 3 and a half chapters, we never once saw a ring world of any kind (the inspiration for the name), so personally I find calling it Halo quite a reach (ha ha me so funny).
Anyway, overall totally fun to play. I’ll let the stars and black holes tell the story.
First the stars. First person game play is seemless and really clean. No clipping or stuttering of any kind. Of course this is what I would have to expect from an Xbox game of any kind, but still really impressive. Three stars. The graphics are are really amazing. Two stars. The sound track is really, really good. Two stars. The story is pretty good too. One star. You can customize the colors of your armor (the girl who I was playing with went, with my encouragement, with all pink, turning into the Pepto-Bizmol warrior) and, if you play enough, buy custom armor. One star. Ghosts are still really fun to drive around in. One star. The enemy AI is really smart. One star. The PvP element (we only played it for a little while, long enough for her to kick the crap out of me. Not that I feel emasculated or anything) seems really clean as well. One star. Lots of cool weapons to play with, with no obvious best choice. One star. Total: 13 stars.
Now the black holes. No Flood. One black hole. The Warthog vehicle still drives like a giant Dachshund (wiener dog) on crystal meth. One black hole. There is a long, mandatory outer space fighter craft battle that seems to go on forever and is both unnecessary and kind of mediocre. One black hole. Somehow I can be shooting guys through the scope of the sniper rifle at max range and they can turn around and hit me with a plasma pistol with hardly any effort. One black hole. Same Covenant mobs. One black hole. Total: 5 black holes.
That gives us a total of 8 stars, an excellent score. They also added an achievement system and game credits that can be used to buy new armor or whatever, but I was torn between calling those a star or a black hole. Basically, if you see someone online who has all the most expensive custom armor options you immediately know two things: (1) he is probably pretty good and will be wearing your skin as a trophy in a few seconds and (2) he has absolutely no life. I would highly recommend buying this game and playing it if you are a fan of FPSs and have a 360.
As for yesterdays question, Sulu with a foil against Worf with a Bat’leth, I think this is honestly would end in a draw with both of them dead (Sorry, Gina. Also Spock would figure out a way to beat Data. Maybe not directly physically, but didn’t you see the episode where he shut down all those androids by purposefully using illogic? Spock’s mind is about 1,000 times more dangerous than his physical prowess). You see, a foil is much, much faster than a Bat’leth, so I believe Sulu would be piercing Worf’s brain in the first second of the fight. However, by that time Worf would have already started the downward killing stroke and Sulu, with his foil firmly embedded in Worf’s cranium, would not be able to deflect it. If Sulu did not go for the killing stroke right away I would bet on Worf, as the foil does not have the strength to parry a Bat’leth stroke. (Sulu image courtesy of the Star Trek T shirts category)
However, what I think would be a more interesting battle also from Star Trek would have to be Worf with his Bet’leth versus Kirk armed with a Vulcan Lirpa. Who would win?
