One of my Must-Watch summer movies of this year was Star Trek. Ever since I first heard about this “reboot” I’ve been curious to see what it would turn out to be. With J.J. Abrams and friends at the helm, I was bit dubious at first; I’m not a huge fan of Abrams, even though he’s behind some of my favourite shows. I always see him as a hyper-active kid with ADHD, jumping from one project to the other, without caring how to wrap up those projects neatly (see: Alias, Lost). With Star Trek, however, I realized that (unlike with his TV shows) that wouldn’t be too much of a problem: a Star Trek movie would be a self-contained entity and even if there were unanswered questions and cliffhangers, it could never be as “unsolvable” as Lost, right?

Star Trek is set before the original series, featuring the beginnings of Kirk, Spock, & co at the Star Fleet academy. We get to see how and why Kirk joins the academy, and how he ends up on the Enterprise. Likewise we get an interesting glimpse of Spock’s childhood and family.

Abrams delivers a great summer movie, that not only pleases fans and newcomers, but reboots the entire franchise, taking it into a fresh and exciting direction. Some might say the differences between a “remake” and a “reboot” are non-existent, but in this case I truly believe this movie is more than just a “remake”. This Star Trek manages to introduce us to the same characters we’ve seen before in a different new way, yet still stays true to the original portrayals, story lines and cannon. And, to be frank, it’s pretty amazing that they were able to pull that off.

Besides that this Star Trek is the first Trek that’s a “real” movie, delivering an actual cinematic experience. This Star Trek looks and feels like it’s worth seeing in the cinema; it’s visually stunning and it’s got that epic Star Wars-like movie feeling that all the previous Treks were missing. This isn’t just a B-movie-slightly-overbudget-extra-long-tv-episode; this is an actual Movie.

All the actors are great in their roles, some of them freakishly channeling their predecessors. Chris Pine as Kirk captures that same arrogance and charisma that Shatner had, without it going too over the top. He’s got that Han Solo/Indiana Jones vibe going on; on the one side you kind of want to slap him, on the other you can’t help but like him. Zachary Quinto was born to play Spock; he had the toughest shoes to fill (mainly cause those shoes were still half full), but he pulls it off flawlessly. His Spock is cool and logical, trying to keep his human emotions in check, but there are a couple of great moments where we get to see what’s brewing underneath. Karl Urban as Bones gets some difficult lines to deliver, which could have easily gone very cheesy, but he delivers them with pitch perfection. All the other characters have their shining moments, but I still wish we got to see more of them (especially Sulu and Chekov don’t get enough screen time). 

The plot has a couple too many coincidences for me to be completely satisfied by it (I won’t spoil anything here, but if you’ve seen it, just think about the ice planet scenes). It could all be explained away with “fate”, but that feels a bit too lazy for my tastes. For the rest, it felt very much like a first episode, introducing all the characters and setting up the unvierse. Overall though I did enjoy the story, and I can’t wait for the next ‘chapter’.

As I said before, the look and feel of Star Trek is beautiful. The costumes and set pieces are all reminiscent to the older designs, yet slightly slicker and more practical. I loved the CGI worlds of Earth and Vulcan; the architecture was just amazing. Before the screening I had seen a couple of reviews complaining about the amount of lens flares, but these didn’t really annoy me. 

Star Trek is (as I said at the start of this review) one of the MUST-SEE movies of this summer. I got to see it at the Imax, and if you get the chance to see it there, do it. The mega screen is completely worth the little extra you pay for a ticket. Also: whether you’re a die hard fan or someone who’s never seen Star Trek ever in your life, you’re sure to enjoy it (newcomers might not get all the little in-jokes, but those aren’t necessary to make sense of everything). Seeing this Star Trek has gotten me completely primed and in the mood for more. In other words: I can’t wait for a sequel!

May the 4th Be With You! I know, I know, it’s cheesy, but surprisingly today’s actually the first time I’ve heard this joke.

I wouldn’t have posted anything about it, but I came across these posters from Disney for the Disney Star Wars Weekend. Apparently May the 4th isn’t the only “Star Wars Day“, another one is also on May 25th, in honor of the release date of the first movie. During that week Disney has a special Star Wars event at their Hollywood Studios theme park, with special shows, presentations and appearances of Star Wars actors. 

Now for this weekend Disney has got a couple of posters to promote the event. I found this one the cutest (and funniest):

Check out the other three posters at /Film.

The last time I saw a movie in 3D was 4 years ago at some cheesy theme park attraction, where you got visually assaulted by biting snakes and roller-coasters. I’ve been meaning to see a “proper” 3D movie for some time now, but some of the produced stuff still looks pretty gimmicky (like Journey To The Centre Of The Earth). Coraline, however, was something I was really looking forward to and it was only on the day of the screening itself that I realized it was in 3D. Cool!

Coraline is about Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning), an adventurous girl who moves with her parents to a new village and into a weird, creaky old house, called the Pink Palace. Both her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) don’t have time for her and Coraline keeps herself busy by visiting the Pink Palace’s other inhabitants. Downstairs is taken by an eccentric duo of bickering old performers, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French),while upstairs is the amazing Bobinsky (Ian McShane), a Russian circus star with performing mice. But then Coraline finds a door to a parallel world, where everything is strangely idealized with doppelgangers of everbody she knows.

I’ll start things off with the 3D. So far all 3D movies (and photos) I’ve seen have all used the standard one-red-glass-one-blue-glass type of glasses (from which I always got pretty dizzy). This movie however was in RealD; you get a different type of glasses (polarized, light beige for both sides) and the projection feels way better. There were some shots in the movie that just looked amazing! And unlike what I saw from Journey to the Centre of the Earth, the 3D effects in Coraline weren’t for the sake of 3D (as in: the writers didn’t go: “ooh, let’s add a dinosaur, cause that would look so coool in 3D!”). 

Coraline is directed by Henry Selick, who previously directed The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. The style looks pretty similar to those two, yet still having very much an ambience uniquely it’s own. While it looks animated, everything is stop-motion, but shot in 3D. There are quite some beautiful scenes, but my favourite’s got to be the trapeze scene; it just seems like a dream sequence (which it kind of is).

The strength of the movie mainly comes from it’s great ensemble of characters. Coraline is an interesting and likable character, and you understand the reasons behind everything she does. Her normal parents are boring and have no time for her and you can see why she’s so charmed by the attention of the Other parents. The Other parents are creepy from the start, with their button eyes and eerie perfectness. Mr Bobinsky, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are all weird characters in the real world and their Other world versions are even stranger.

Story wise I wasn’t too impressed. I know it’s meant as a kids film, but I wish there was a bit more depth and explanation to the story. I loved the whole set-up; the weird characters, the other world and it’s inhabitants, but I would have loved to see a more satisfying wrap-up.

Coraline is a beautiful movie and definitely one you’ve got to see in the cinema in 3D. The characters are all intriguing and different than anything you’ve seen before. Tip: stay seated until after the credits, there’s a little tidbit (really tiny) after it. 

Coraline – Release Date: 8 May UK

I haven’t done a Trailerrific post in a quite some time now, so I thought I’d start that up again. This time around though I wanted to change the format. Instead of featuring a list of all the trailers that came out, I’ll devote an entire blog post to just one trailer.

I came across a review of Moon some time ago and it just looks intriguing. Here’s the description from Apple.com:

It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped messages are all Sam can send and receive. Thankfully, his time on the moon is nearly over, and Sam will be reunited with his wife, Tess, and their three-year-old daughter, Eve, in only a few short weeks. Finally, he will leave the isolation of “Sarang,” the moon base that has been his home for so long, and he will finally have someone to talk to beyond “Gerty,” the base’s well-intentioned, but rather uncomplicated computer.

And here’s the trailer:

The more times I see the trailer the more closer I feel I get to figuring this movie out. My tip: if you want to be surprised, don’t watch the trailer too often (or not at all 😉 ).

Moon – Release Date: 12 June (USA limited), 3 September (Australia), not yet announced for Europe or other countries

I Love You, Man stars Paul Rudd as Peter Klaven, a real-estate agent who has just asked his girlfriend Zooey (Rashida Jones from The Office) to marry him. After overhearing an awkward conversation of Zooey and all her girlfriends about him, Peter realizes he doesn’t have any guy friends to be his Best Man for his wedding. To rectify that situation, he asks the help of his gay brother Robbie (Andy Samberg from Saturday Night Live) who helps him arrange man-dates to find that new best friend. They all fail miserably though and Peter is about to give up, when he meets Sydney (Jason Segel from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and How I Met Your Mother) at an open house.

Even though Judd Apatow had nothing to do with I Love You, Man, I’m guessing people will compare it to Apatow’s previous movies, like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Knocked Up. It does fit in that range of comedies though and it’s not that hard to see why people place those movies in the same group: they star the same set of familiar faces (Rudd and Segal) and feature a refreshingly new premise. In this case, that premise of the film is the “bromance” between Peter and Sydney and how difficult it can be as an adult to find new friends. It has all the trappings of a regular romantic comedy (they meet, they go on a first date, there’s a montage of all the fun things they do together, they have a fight and break-up, then get together again) without the actual romance part. And it works. 

Paul Rudd and Jason Segel both turn in a great performance and their bromantic chemistry on screen is believable. Rudd’s character is charming as the perfect boyfriend, who always put more time into his girlfriends than into his friends. He knows what to do and how to act around woman. But now that he has to find a best friend, you realize how awkward and hopeless he is around men; he has no idea how to connect on a guy-to-guy level. Sydney, on the other hand, is the complete opposite: he’s macho, self-confident and has always had guy friends. Together, these two characters form a great on-screen duo, supplying us with some hilarious situations.

Besides the two main characters, there is a great supporting cast. Rashida Jones is adorable as Zooey; her character stays calm and collected through out most of the movie, and it gives us a nice break from some of the whiny “wife”/”girlfriend” characters there are out there. Andy Samberg is brilliant as Peter’s gay brother, although I wished they had given him more screen time. I loved the characters of Jon Favreau (Barry, the always grumpy husband of Zooey’s best friend) and Thomas Lennon (Doug, the gay man-date that Peter goes on); they both added some great scenes.

My only peeve with this movie were with some of the jokes/scenes. Now I get that this is a comedy and not every joke will be to everyone’s liking, but I didn’t laugh as much as I expected (let’s put it this way: I laughed more at the screening of 17 Again with Zac Efron). Early in the movie there’s a projectile vomiting scene (no, I’m not kidding here), which was just way too gross, and went on too long (the scene, not the vomiting). There were more scenes where you “got” what the joke was, but nobody in the cinema was laughing. Maybe it’s just not my type of humour, but I was disappointed that it wasn’t as funny as it could have been.

Stars Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones, Jaime Pressly, Jon Favreau, Andy Samberg, JK Simmons, Thomas Lennon, Andy Samberg, Jean Villepique, Rob Huebel
Written by John Hamburg & Larry Levin
Certification UK 15 | US R
Runtime 105 minutes
Directed by John Hamburg

This review was cross-posted on Screenjabber.com.

I try to go with an open mind into any movie I see; how can you really judge a movie without watching it first? Despite that though I do catch myself disregarding movies, because of the first impressions of the plot or the actor. I had that here with 17 Again: a starring vehicle for the new Disney poster child Zac Efron, with a Freaky Friday twist? Nah, not for me. And yet surprisingly it was.

In 1989, Mike O’Donnell (Zac Efron) is the star of his high school basketball team, with a bright future and a college scholarship almost in his grasp. He throws it all away though when he finds out his girlfriend Scarlet is pregnant and asks her to marry him. 20 years later Mike’s (now Matthew Perry) life is falling apart: his marriage to Scarlet is on the brink of a divorce, he’s got no real relationship with his teenage kids and he’s living with his high school nerd-turned-billionaire best friend Ned. But Mike gets a second chance when he is magically transformed to 17 again.

The age transformation gimmick has been rehashed so many times in Hollywood: kids wanting to be older, adults wanting to be young again, we’ve seen it all before. Freaky Friday. Big. And now 17 Again. Add to that plot lines borrowed from other ‘teen’ movies, like the Back To The Future “must not attract the family member” and you’ve got a movie that reeks of unoriginality. Regardless of that though, 17 Again is a funny and entertaining teen movie.

As much as I hate to admit it, that mainly comes because of the likability of Zac Efron. In all previous movies I’ve seen with him, he comes off as a little too charming, a little too smug; I never got why so many teenage girls were so hysterical about him. But with 17 Again his charisma carries the entire movie. Zac Efron just charms the socks off of you and you can’t help but like him.

The rest of the supporting cast are great too. While Matthew Perry doesn’t get that much screen time, it’s his performance at the start of the movie that makes you begin to care for the character of Mike. Most scenes with Mike’s best friend Ned are hilarious: he has the best pop culture one-liners, his entire house is full of geeky memorabilia, his wardrobe is outrageous and his antics to woo the high school headmistress are awkwardly funny. There’s a brilliant scene at the start of the movie where Ned and Mike have fight with Ned’s Lord of the Rings and Star Wars props. Leslie Mann is great as Scarlet, although she doesn’t get as much comedy time as we’ve seen from her in previous movies.

The only drawback I had with 17 Again is it’s wrap-up. After the predictable reveal, the movie ends pretty quickly, giving almost no screentime to the stories of the other characters.

17 Again is a light funny movie, which deserves a wider audience than just hysterical Zac Efron devotees. Yes, teenage girls are going to love it, but there’s more in this movie that will attract others too. I was expecting a movie I’d hate, but instead I discovered I actually did enjoy it. 17 Again never reaches the heights of teen classics, like Mean Girls or Clueless, but it’s an entertaining 102 minutes and well worth paying a cinema ticket for.

This review is cross-posted on Screenjabber.com.

Stars Colin Firth, Catherine Keener, Hope Davies, Willa Holland, Perla Haney-Jardine
Written by Michael Winterbottom & Laurence Coriat
Certification UK 15
Runtime 94 minutes
Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Following the death of their mother in a car accident, in which they were involved, Kelly and Mary leave America with their English father Joe (Firth) to live in Italy for a year. Via an old girlfriend from college, Barbara (Keener), Joe has been offered a job at the university in Genova as a teacher. The city of Genova provides a fresh start for Joe and his two daughters, but Mary, the youngest, is haunted by nightmares and keeps seeing the ghost of her mother wandering the streets.

Genova is a small production, directed by Michael Winterbottom of 24 Hour Party People and A Mighty Heart fame. In typical Winterbottom style, the film is shot with a hand-held camera, giving a realistic view of the cozy, yet simultaneously claustrophobic narrow streets of Genova. There’s a whole “documentary” vibe going on, and you almost feel as if you’re not looking at actors playing out a story, but actual people just being followed by a camera.

This all creates one of the most true to life film versions of a present day Italy I’ve ever seen. Everything feels genuinely Italian; from the old man who sells them their new apartment to the umbrellas on the beach to the conversations about being Italian the students are having. It all feels real. But there’s one problem I mainly had with Genova and that’s its plot. Here’s a story about a daughter wracked with guilt over the death of her mother, because she caused the car accident. You can see her older sister blaming her for it, while realizing that’s too much weight to put on her young shoulders. Then you keep wondering whether or not the father actually knows the details of that accident, but you keep thinking somewhere deep down inside he is blaming that youngest daughter too.

The whole movie feels like a buildup to one huge gigantic scream-fest family-drama climax… which never happens. There’s a scene which is meant as a “climax”, but it doesn’t even come close to what that buildup promises. After investing 1.5 hours into these characters, the movie just fizzles pathetically out, leaving you no closure. If only it had ended differently, ’cause then I think I would have recommended this little movie to everyone I know. How it stands now though, it just feels like a waste of time. If you like Winterbottom’s films or lifelike documentary-style dramas, give Genova a go. If not: avoid at all costs.

I’ve been looking forward to Watchmen for months. Ever since seeing that first trailer, I’ve been psyched to watch this movie. I’ve never read the graphic novel, but every comic book geek I know has been declaring their love for Watchmen for ages. 

Here’s a bit of backstory first. I hadn’t read the graphic novel before watching the movie. I had bought it quite some time ago, but just never got around to picking it up and actually reading it. Eventually I just decided to go see the movie first and read it later. Then I got the invite to the bloggers screening, while I already had booked tickets to the IMAX. So I thought I’d go see the movie at the bloggers screening first, then read the novel and then see it again at the IMAX.

So this review is mainly written from the perspective of someone who hasn’t read the comic before the movie, but (because I’ve read a bit of it by now), can kind of compare how the two relate. I won’t be giving any spoilers at all about the plot, just general remarks of what I found of Watchmen.

Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternative reality, where super heroes are real, America has won the Vietnam war, and Nixon has been elected to a third term. When a retired superhero is murdered, the members of his former team try to uncover why someone is targeting costumed heroes.

Now most of the time with the movies that I come to love, I get a sort of a high during the movie; your heart beat races, you’re holding your breath during key scenes, you get that roller-coaster ride, exhilarating feeling and the entire time you’re just amazed and awed at the things happening on the screen. Once out of the cinema, you’re just geeking out over the things you’ve just seen and keep replaying it over and over again in your mind. And you’re itching to jump right back into the cinema and see it all a second time. Depending on the movie, this “high” can last a couple of hours, or even a couple of days. Sometimes you only get them during a couple of scenes or key sounds (one that comes to mind for me was the transforming sound in Transformers). (sidenote: I really would like to know if other people get these type of highs too; most friends I’ve mentioned this too look at me as if I’m completely crazy)

So did I get this with Watchmen? During the movie itself not a single time. Heck, even during the discussion with the other bloggers afterwards that feeling was still missing. No, it came way later on the tube ride back, that I really started thinking about the movie and since then my mind keeps going back to it. I still can’t put my finger on what it is exactly, but since starting with the graphic novel I’m realizing it’s more about the concepts within the movie (and the graphic novel) than the actual movie experience. It’s not that it’s a bad movie (although some of the bloggers at the screening may disagree), not at all, but here it’s not about the visual effects, the acting, or even how the story unfolds on screen or how much you care about the characters. It’s about the questions and issues the story raises and how you start analyzing the movie and its characters.

That being said though, the visual effects, the acting and everything all do work in this movie. Yes, there is a lot of CGI, but from the start you’re transported to this other world and, just like with 300, there’s a surreal fantastical feel to this world you’re seeing. The actors are all perfectly cast, even more so after reading the start of the graphic novel; some of them are are eerily similar to their paper counterparts. From what I’ve seen of the graphic novel, the scenes too are uncannily lifted from the pages, with details such as background posters and graffiti being copied to a T. 

I think Watchmen is truly a movie you’ll have to see twice. Or you have to have read the comic book beforehand. For someone watching it for the first time, you do have a feeling you’re missing information and that you have to piece stuff together. It’s just simple things like realizing what the name is of each character, and what everyones relationship is. I think (although I haven’t gone a second time yet), a second viewing would help a lot. I can’t wait to see it again at the IMAX tomorrow.

This is a movie you have to see in the cinema. With all the different opinions about it already floating around, you’ve got to see to create your own. You might end up hating this movie, you might end up loving it. But however you end up feeling about it, Watchmen will make you think.

Week 4: Life isn’t measured in minutes, but in moments.

I managed to get free tickets to this movie for a couple of weeks ago, but I was feeling too sick to get out of bed that day (plus the screening was at 10 in the morning, so not exactly my favourite time of the day). I was gutted I couldn’t go, but I finally was able to catch this movie before the Oscars. 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is (of course) about Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), a man who is born old and is slowly aging backwards. Set in New Orleans, it tells the tale of how Benjamin deals with his extraordinary life and the people he meets.

Let’s start with the bad stuff: the plot. Almost everything comes together for this movie, except for the story, plot, screenplay, whatever you want to call it. Unexpectedly enough for a movie about a man aging backwards (which hasn’t been done before, right?), the plot seems all to familiar and nothing seems original. A couple days after watching it Cristiano showed me this video which highlighted all the similarities between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Forest Gump (beware there are spoilers in it). No surprise, cause it turns out they’ve both got the same screenplay writer. 

The story aside though, the rest of the movie looks pretty amazing (let the discussion begin: can a movie still be amazing, if the story sucks?). I loved the cinematography; there are multiple shots that are just beautiful. For me, it was worth seeing in a cinema for those shots alone (sidenote: the photo below is not one of the ‘amazing’ shots).

And then you’ve got the visual effects. I knew there would be some outstanding effects to create the whole “old” Brad Pitt and “baby” Brad Pitt etc, but there is just so much more beyond that. Take a look at the Science Behind Benjamin Button website and you’ll see just how much has been created from scratch. Unlike with other movies though a lot of the effects here are elegantly integrated into the scenes and most of the time you don’t have a feeling you’re looking at something “fake”.

The acting is great, but I’m still conflicted about Brad Pitt’s Oscar nomination. How much of the Benjamin Button character comes from his performance? It’s his facial expressions in the entire movie, but the rest of the characters body movements are delivered by several other actors. Plus it’s the work of all the visual effects artists to merge everything together. So how much of Benjamin comes from Brad?

While I did like this movie, I don’t have a feeling it will stay long in the IMDB Top 250. Give or take a couple of years (months even) and it will be replaced by something better. Still, it’s a pretty picture and it’s nice to be able to watch at least a couple of these Top 250 movies in the cinema.

Next week: In Bruges

Week 3: The screen’s master of suspense moves his camera into the icy blackness of the unexplained!

Writing these 52 Movies blog posts has proven to be quite a challenge to me. I think the problem lies in how I approach them. In my normal movie reviews I tend to avoid spoilers at all costs, mainly trying to give an overview of what type of movie it is, so that readers can determine whether or not it’s a movie they’d enjoy. Should I stick with this format for 52 Movies? Or should I be more spoilery and start a discussion of what I liked/disliked of the movie? 

This week’s movie was Psycho, directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. I’ve seen some of Hitchcock’s movies while growing up, but somehow I never got really into them. I’ve been meaning to watch more of them now and the 52 Movies challenge finally forces me into finding and watching them.

The first thing that came to mind after watching Psycho was regret that I hadn’t seen this when I was younger. For starters, you can easily see that Psycho was the inspiration for so many movies, I just wish I had seen it before all of those. Besides that, I knew how it ended beforehand and I wonder if I would have been able to predict it myself (I think I would have).

I loved watching this movie from a film making perspective. You kind of take for granted how some shots are taken, cause nowadays so much more is possible than in the time of Hitchcock. Even when you disregard all CGI, blue-screen and visual effects, the technology and maneuverability of cameras are way more advanced nowadays, making some of Hitchcock’s shots all the more remarkable. Take for example the below screenshot from the famous shower scene:

For this shot to work and for the camera to survive, the water has to spray past/around the camera. If you’d recreate this with a tiny handheld camera this would already be pretty tricky to do, but can you imagine how this was done with the lumpy, big cameras of that era? Answer: the shower head was specially created for Pyscho and actually has a diameter of 1.8 meters (six foot). Pretty nifty, right? And you can find more of those type of creative cinematography in this movie, once you realise what the limitations of those times were.

The small quibble I had with this movie is it’s pace. It’s a tad slow for my generation (and younger) who are used to much faster plot developments. I’m not saying it should move faster, but it’s pretty difficult to get into if you’re used to quicker fare than this. That being said though, don’t let that fact put you off. Sit down and watch this movie, cause in the end it will be worth it.

Conclusion? Everybody must see Psycho at least once in their lives and parents should force their kids to watch this before their teen years (it’s way less bloody/creepy/gory than anything that passes for horror nowadays, plus it’s part of required movie history and education). 

Next week: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button