One blog. Two opinions. One zillion films.

Tam, the International Film Academy kindly invited me to sit in on one of their sessions. In a typical town moment, I was assigned to photograph the very building where they meet. The White Buffalo Club’s meeting room is sleek and somber, a movie set of a room I’d like to use if we write a scene into Killpecker! of high level intrigue and cunning.

I took a few shots, stood there listening to Prof. Gail Segal, and in 10 minutes learned so much I fell into a deep funk because I could have used some of that knowledge thus far in building Killpecker.

So I’m going to try to fly-on-wall Wednesday (yeah, sure: I’ll work overtime failing to keep my yap shut). Gail will be cuing up portions of 70s classics, working toward an examination of Michael Mann’s Collateral, which eased my mind. I feared I was being fabulist by regarding Collateral as one of the most mesmerizing American films ever.

More later.

Dav-

Hanging with the prequel crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise made me wonder, “Is this what it’s like to be back stage with your favorite rock group?”

Star Trek is great. A romping ride, start to finish.  The exceptionally well chosen ensemble of newbies was genius casting.  Every major character is engaging.  Enticing and entertaining blends of the original television series personalities with hip new psyches.   Somewhere I saw the movie and its cast described as a cosmic “90210.”

These space cadets have much more class.

As a kid, I watched Star Trek and had fun doing so; the Tribble episode (you must watch!), perhaps the series’ best-known, is the one I remember most clearly.   As a pre-teen I was caught up in the crew’s chemistry, all the sexy clothes, Kirk’s handsome command of his ship, and the Barbie hairdos.  I never became a Trekkie, but I could become a Neo Trekkie.

It would help to be familiar with the original series before seeing this movie, but it’s not necessary.

The movie is the story of James T. Kirk’s rites of passage, and early on I was a bit worried I wasn’t going to like this arrogant, self-absorbed hot rod Kirk.   That all faded away, however.  He grows to become the rightful occupant of the captain’s chair…and one of my favorite quips from the film is Spock’s early warning to Kirk: “Out of the chair.”

Spock in love.  Love that Spock is in love.  This is a fabulous Spock.

I mentioned to you that one of the film’s most notable effects was seeing those gigantic, lurking structures through the Midwest’s agricultural mist.   Very cool, but also very suggestive of monster oil derricks.   A warning, of sorts.

Quick take on aesthetics: Loved ‘em, but I can’t shake the weird look of the baddie Romulan space ship.  It looks like the drek I pulled out of my bathtub drain last week.   It looks like my hairdryer exploded.   A messy, black tangled metallic mess. Like a shredded tarantula.

Probably just what the filmmakers were shooting for.

I’m just enough of a tomboy to really get off on well-written male jousting camaraderie barbs.   Sequel, sequel!

Tammy. Are you ready to sit still for a while?

Big fun, this Star Trek moving picture item. In fact, I bet that the less of a Trekkie you are, the more fun you’ll have. Early on, the movie’s less-than-sacrosanct intentions are clear when one of the franchise’s catchphrases, “live long and prosper,” is delivered not as a bromide but as a dis.

For my money, the best of all the Star Trek movies is Galaxy Quest, a hat-trick of a movie. It’s a parody, it’s a valentine, and it has its own air-tight perfection. This new Star Trek nearly matches Galaxy Quest in sheer self-awareness. For a while there I thought the Requisite Cosmic Thingamabob — “Red Matter” — was going to be a cheeky homage to GQ’s RCT, “Omega 13.”

The secret to Star Trek’s entertainment showed up the big screen before the feature even started. Half of the trailers concerned the destruction of Earth. (Fingers crossed for a Barbie cameo in that headache-inducing G.I. Joe contraption.) Michael Bay is squeezing out another Transformers doohickey. Mention Bay and I think of one thing, that beautiful, poignant and all-too-true love song from Team America: World Police:

Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?
I guess Pearl Harbor sucked
Just a little bit more than I miss you.

Michael Bay makes movies for saps, poor self-deluded males who need to indulge in two hours of surreptitious violent prowess. J.J. Abrams, who directed Star Trek, is Bay’s direct opposite. Abrams came to the project after making TV a somewhat smarter place. He likes graceful puzzle-stories and he likes the way humans interlock — as opposed to being exploded — when they grapple for position. Star Trek is so good that you forget that no matter where Abrams takes us in space, it’s always sea-level Earth gravity; and that although Romulans can destroy entire planets in jiffy, their henchman prefer to go mano-a-mano armed with giant can openers.

Tammy, are you ever coming back? Is your Floridan-baked self suddenly too good for our continually dank Spring weather? Are you mocking your fellow J-holers?

Anyway, back to work. There is impetus. We finished an edit of Killpecker! to submit to Wyoming Tourism’s short film contest. We decided to keep the funniest clips under wraps for now, hawking the more Wyo-centric stuff. If we don’t win the 25 grand, it may be because of we imply that women from Savageton and Pleasantdale (real Wyoming towns a few miles apart) got into fistfights over who was the center of Wyoming’s huge hasps industry (probably not true).

We named this cut Killpecker: Origins. Because we are nothing if not with-it.

Just checked Google Analytics. Our yappy blog is growing, hit-wise. Gone are the days when the bulk of the hits came from either of us trying to post. Now to pepper sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB with our very existence.

Oh. A movie. Surely you’ve seen State of Play by now. I mean, you’re a writer. This movie is about how a dogged journalist works hard to throw the light of day onto corruption involving a United States senator and billions in defense monies. To quote Stephen Colbert, “You know. Fiction.”

It’s actually a pretty good movie. Credit a decidely un-vain Russell Crowe and a most intelligent director, Kevin Macdonald. He directed the finest mountaineering feature yet, Touching the Void, and the extraordinary Last King of Scotland. Macdonald keeps the movie’s many moving plot parts in sync, and I must admit the swan-song tone — is investigative journalism dead? — got to me. Doubt if David Gregory’s tweets will make up for the loss.

If I made ads for State of Play, I’d place a yellow starburst in the upper right corner reading: 25% MORE DECEPTION THAN MOST LEADING THRILLERS! It’s, um, layered. Not that it’s bad; it just starts to sag toward the end. Luckily, Jason Bateman shows up as a greasy fixer and shocks the thing back to life. I’m still laughing at his “garage” line (I won’t give it away, it’s worth the price of admission.) Wonder if the line was ad-libbed. A movie journalist should investigate that.