Shmee.Me

April 23, 2013April 23, 2013

A Star Trek for the Generations?

Star Trek Generations is the seventh film in the Star Trek franchise, and it serves as the hand off between the original Star Trek cast, and the Next Generation cast. Some say it is the best odd numbered Star Trek movie, and that is probably true, but it is a bit of faint praise.

The film starts out with Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov taking a tour of the new U.S.S. Enterprise B. They are on board as a publicity stunt to send off the new ship and take it on its maiden voyage around Pluto and back home, but as soon as they are underway they get a distress call from a couple of ships that are stuck in an energy ribbon. Kirk saves the people on one of the ships and the Enterprise, but gets zapped by the ribbon in the process. Two of the people they save are our villain Soran (Malcolm McDowell), and Guinan. It turns out the energy ribbon is a place of pure joy, and Soran was not happy to leave. Zoom ahead to the Next Generation, and we find that out Soran (he like Guinan lives for hundreds of years) will do anything to get back in to the ribbon even kill two-hundred million people. This story proves to be the weakest part of the movie.

With this movie I could see that they thought they needed a movie that would bridge the two series together, but they didn’t if it means we have to have a story like this. It is one of those stories that seems okay when you watch it, but it gets worse when you think about it. For instance they say you cannot just fly a ship in to the ribbon, but that is how Kirk gets there, and they say you never want to leave the ribbon and all you will ever do is think about how you want to stay there, but Kirk and Picard do just leave when they decide it is not real enough, so it turns out this movie could have been skipped if Soran had decided just to take a ship to the ribbon and teleport himself in to it, but killing two-hundred million people by collapsing stars is more fun.

Everything else about the movie is fine. The special effects are good and the actors all know their roles backwards and forwards by now, so they all do a great job. It is just a shame they weren’t given something good to do.

I was surprised by this movie because I remember it being awful, but instead it is just mediocre, and brought down by a bad plot, but it does pave the way for one of my favorite movies (not just Star Trek movies): Star Trek First Contact.

April 22, 2013April 22, 2013

What Do We Learn From The Life Of Pi?

Life of Pi is a 2012 film from acclaimed director Ang Lee based of the novel of the same name. It was nominated and won the Academy Award for Best Director. Did it deserve all the accolades? I think so, but the story itself left me a little cold.

The film starts out with a writer asking Pi Patel to tell him his story, so that perhaps he can turn it in to a book. The writer hadn’t heard the story before, he had just been told by Pi’s uncle that it would make him believe in God. Pi then begins to tell him his life story, and of course how he survived a trip across the Pacific Ocean in a life boat with a tiger named Richard Parker.

This film is beautifully shot, and the special effects are amazing. It makes you believe that Pi is indeed in a boat with a tiger. Which he was not because putting a kid in a boat with a tiger I am sure would brake more then a couple laws, and there a ton of just great show piece effects shots in this movie besides the boy and the tiger. If you have a Hi-Def TV then you need to watch this movie just to see some of the things they bring to life.

The actors all do a great job in this film, especially Suraj Sharma as the Pi on the boat. He conveys the loneliness and the resilience of the stranded young man, and since he is most of the movie, his acting is just as important as the effects are, if not more so.

Which brings me to the part of the movie I am not so sure of. We were promised that this story would make us believe in God, and as a believer in God I don’t need much help, but reason to believe is lame. <Spoiler> The real story is that he was on the boat with people, and the cook brutally murders a sailor and Pi’s mother, and Pi kills the cook, but since the story Pi made up was better, then we should believe in God. I Think that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. God is able to get you through real hard times, not just help you cover up the truth with an amazing lie </End Spoiler>.

This movie is still an amazingly filmed piece of art even if the thesis behind it is deeply flawed, and if you have a good Hi-Def TV it is amazing to watch. Ang Lee proves once again that he is among the industries current greats.

April 19, 2013

Bruce Campbell Vs The Army of Darkness!

The Army of Darkness is the third film in the original The Evil Dead franchise. It is Sam Raimi’s dark comedy send up to A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court. Is it as good as the classic Evil Dead II? Yes it is.

The plot continues after Evil Dead II. Ash defeats the Demon at the cabin then is sucked in to a worm hole and ends up in the past. He then has to help the people of that time ward off The Evil Dead.

It is amazing how this franchise changed from movie to movie. The first movie is a straight up horror movie, all be it a low budget one. Then second one blends in humor with the horror, and Army of Darkness is a straight up dark zany comedy. I hope that the new franchise follows this path because it is one of the better trilogies ever made.

Sam Raimi must love old school special effects because he uses them all in this movie: stop motion, puppets, overlaying two sets of film, and almost any other technique you can think of, and it gives this movie a very old school swash buckling feel, and it is wonderful.

Bruce Campbell is his usual jerky hero, and he had perfected it by this movie, and plays it so well it was a shame they never made another sequel, as of yet that is. The rest of the cast does their job well, but they are pretty much just reacting to the amazing Bruce Campbell.

Of the three movies Evil Dead 2 is still my favorite, but Army of Darkness is a close, close second. It is also the reason I forced myself to sit through the new Evil Dead movie, so I could have a chance to see Bruce be Ash one more time.

April 17, 2013April 17, 2013

Star Trek Looks for The Undiscovered Country

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country came out in 1991, and is that last film featuring the complete original crew. The sixth film was going to be a reboot of the franchise, but fans and the original cast wouldn’t let them. Though as we know they would reboot the series with the 11th film.

The movie starts off with the crew of the USS Excelsior led by Captain Sulu being caught in an energy wave caused by the Klingon moon Praxis exploding. This moon was the Klingon’s number one energy source. With this information the crew of the soon to be decommissioned USS Enterprise are called into a top secret meeting and are told by Spock that the Klingons can no longer afford the cold war they have been having with the Federation, and need to create a lasting peace, so the Enterprise is sent out to guide a Klingon ship to Earth for peace hearings, and as you can guess things don’t go as planned.

After the disaster that was Star Trek V, this movie was an excellent way to send off the original cast. It has a very Star Trek story about the galaxy becoming a better place through peace, and they get to show the audience something new: like the Klingon Home World, and a prison mining camp, and Kirk gets to be Kirk by fighting aliens and making out with alien ladies, so kudos to Leonard Nimoy for coming up with this story.

They had all sorts of fun with the casting by working Worf (Michael Dorn) and Christian Slater in to the movie, and one of the greatest Star Trek villains of all time Christopher Plumber as General Chang. He like Khan loves to quote Shakespeare and blow stuff up. It is wonderful. I can only hope that they have Benedict Cumberbatch quoting Shakespeare in the new movie because that is what good Star Trek villains do.

For some reason I thought William Shatner directed this movie, but he did not. Thankfully the director was Nicholas Meyer who also directed Wrath of Khan, and helped write The Voyage Home, so if you are thinking he was involved in all the good early Star Trek movies, you would be right, and it is a shame they didn’t just get him to do them all.

This is one of the few truly good Star Trek movies that is also just a good movie period. If you want to watch a good movie with the original cast, watch this movie or Wrath of Khan, and I am sure you will have a good time.

April 15, 2013September 9, 2013

Did Argo Deserve Best Picture?

Argo is a Ben Affleck directed film from 2012 based on the Iran hostage crises in the late 70’s and early 80’s, but not about the hostages at the embassy, but the six that escaped. The film won best picture in 2012, but did it deserve it? Probably.

The film starts off explaining the political situation in Iran (crappy), and then moves to the Iranian militants invading the US embassy. During the turmoil six people escape and hold up at the Canadian ambassador’s house. Soon US officials learn of the escaped six and start to come up with plans to get them out of the country, but the best bad plan they can come up with is to create a fake movie, and scout Iran as possible location and use the six embassy workers as the scouting crew.

The way Affleck blends the movie with old stock footage makes this movie seem like real life, and since it is based of true events it kind of is. There have been outcries from Canada, and the escapees themselves because the movie minimizes Canada’s role in the rescue, and the last pulse pounding scenes of the movie are exaggerated to say the least.

The acting in this movie is excellent, with the best parts going to John Goodman and Alan Alkin as the Hollywood producers as of this fake film. I am sure that since they have been in the industry so long it was fun for them to play old industry insiders playing Hollywood for suckers by planning a film that was never going to happen, and they add a sense of fun to an otherwise tense picture.

This movie was exciting to watch, and I think everyone involved did a great job. I would love to see an actual documentary of what really happened with these six people stuck in a hostile land.