Here it is, folks... my very first guest post! (And there was much rejoicing... yaaaaaay!) Thanks to my good friend John Swinconeck for contributing to my humble blog. Enjoy his take on a couple of the notable big screen events this summer.
Movie merits of ‘Star Trek,’ ‘District 9’
Well, the summer movie season is at last behind us. It’s time to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, napkin up the blood and entrails, and take a look at the damage done. A quick look at movie grosses on Rotten Tomatoes reveals, none too surprisingly, that the top films of the summer were sci-fi adventure. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was the highest grossing popcorn flick over the summer. (Interestingly, the amount of money it took in, over $400 million, is inverse to its mere 19 percent ranking on the tomato meter.)
I confess I didn’t see Michael Bay’s tribute to gigantic digital explosions. Summer was a busy time of year for me, as I was occupied by all manner of sock-drawer sorting. Also, teaching my parakeet not to defecate on my arm is quite involved (he still has a long way to go). Plus, I was real busy sorting my collection of DVDs and rating songs in my iTunes library. So you see, there just wasn’t time to watch the runny, fecal splatter of Michael Bay’s latest cinematic abomination.
Star Trek was the fifth-highest grossing film, taking in over $257 million, making it the most financially successful film of the venerable franchise. It has a 95 percent freshness rating, although it was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who also wrote the Transformers film, leaving me scratching my head so badly that large clumps of scalp and hair have fallen out, revealing large patches of pink, suppurating tissue and the occasional glimpse of bone that is my skull. Perhaps I should call my doctor.
My sock drawer sorted and my parakeet sequestered, I managed to see Star Trek twice. Once was in a regular, Ma & Pa humble theater with stadium seating and booming digital surround sound. My other screening was much more recent, in the film’s second run in IMAX. You need to see it in this format. Only IMAX, with its enormous screen and crystal-perfect picture, reveals every detail of Zachary Quinto’s five o’clock shadow and the mole near Chris Pine’s ear.
Paramount had a lot riding on director J.J. Abrams’ reboot, and the results paid off spectacularly. It’s not perfect, and Roger Ebert’s C+ rating resonated with me (I had read his review shortly before going to the IMAX screening). This film doesn’t strictly adhere to Star Trek creator and noted philanderer Gene Roddenberry’s vision, wherein the Enterprise’s crew was more likely to mentally out-maneuver the god-like aliens that were frequently adversaries. Abrams’ vision is louder, more flashy. A lot less talk and a lot more frying of Romulans using 13,000 instances of lens-flare. Still, it was fun to share an adventure with these familiar characters again – revisiting the Enterprise’s bridge was like coming home for us Trekkies (Side note: Trekkies who insist on calling themselves Trekkers ought to just give up the ghost and refer to themselves by their proper name: douche bags.)
It’s no surprise that Star Trek, Transformers and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Jingoism did so well over the summer. These are big, slam-bam films with hefty promotional budgets that carry on a franchise.
The dark horse sci-fi film of the summer was District 9, an allegory against allowing mid-level bureaucrats to get too close to the giant crickets segregated in a Johannesburg slum. You’ll just find that he gets some form of alien barbeque sauce squirted in his face and before long he’s growing a freaking lobster claw out of his shoulder.
There was some mild debate when the film finally opened in South Africa in August over its apartheid analogy. District 9 deals with forced segregation and the forcible removal of alien refugees from their camp, and recalls the forced relocation of black South Africans from the real-life District 6 area of Johannesburg during apartheid.
By no means was it a perfect film. However, any work that stirs debate over its message, or delivery thereof (as opposed to debating the merits of public Autobot urination) deserves credit. Like Star Trek, it was worth seeing twice.
Live long and prosper, and don’t tinker with the special sauce.
John Swinconeck is a photographer and writer. His music blog should be read religiously at thefiver.net.
No comments:
Post a Comment