Moon

Read the rest of the Moon movie review.

As an introduction, I am a Star Trek fan. I am not, however, a Trekkie. I don’t dress up, I don’t know the science behind warp drive and I can’t speak Klingon. I make fun of Trekkies, but I also have enjoyed all of the television series save for “Enterprise” and most of the movies. I watch both Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at least twice a year, and I am slugging my way through the original series, of which I haven’t seen every episode.

Read the rest of the Star Trek movie review.

Now, you might have caught the extended preview of the prequel Caprica while watching the series finale. I keep going back and forth, and this preview swung me back to the “I don’t know” category. The show looks like it could be good, but the preview was poorly manufactured and failed to create much excitement. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Or will we?

Watch the first seven video clips from Caprica now:

If you can’t wait that long, Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.0 comes to DVD on January 6th.

Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.0 begins with the return of Starbuck, who was assumed dead. Her return is regarded with suspicion, as her death was witnessed and the logical assumption is that she is indeed a Cylon. But Adama puts his faith in her anyway, and lets her set out with a crew of dedicated soldiers to search for Earth, something she realizes she has been dreaming about since she was a child.

Other storylines continue the revelation of the Final Five Cylons, whose destinies are yet to be determined. The defintion of what it is to be human is explored in greater detail, especially when the Cylons fraction, causing a civil war. Adama, President Roslin and others find themselves forced to make a huge leap of faith: join forces with one faction to eliminate the other, all in the quest to discover Earth.

BSG: Season 4.0 is as rich as the other seasons, and its character and story developments continue to expand our expectations and make us question what is right and what is wrong. At the same time, the show also presses further on its ideas of destiny and fate, something I’ve never really liked, at least not when the production is otherwise grounded in reality. While it works, the show’s mysticism continues to irk me some.

Every episode comes with a series of deleted scenes, and also included is the one-off BSG movie Razor (strangely with different, rather rudimentary font and packaging compared to the rest of the discs). Special features include those previously included on the Razor disc that was available to own last year, and a bunch of featurettes and video blogs. The featurettes found on disc four are pretty interesting and include each actor’s perspective on their characters. The Music of Battlestar Galactica is surprisingly funny. I didn’t watch all of the video blogs.

This DVD review is pretty useless, as fans of the show no doubt already have preordered Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.0 to own. If you haven’t watched the show, you have to start from Season One, Episode One. BSG is one of the best shows ever made.

The show is a masterstroke of action, espionage, betrayal, alliances, love, relationships and, perhaps most importantly, social commentary. It took a great sci-fi premise and turned it into something more, a drama with complicated, interesting characters that just happens to be set in space. It’s a shame that some people still shrug Battlestar Galactica off as a sci-fi show, because even though it does feature an “alien” race, space battles and [admittedly, not-so-great] fate stuff, it is grounded in reality more than most shows.

So, when Sci-Fi Channel announces that they have ordered 20 hours of Caprica, the new original series spin-off of Battlestar Galactica, I should be thrilled, right? Wrong.

Sure, Caprica may be better than most shows on television, but:

1. It’s going to be set on a planet, before any wars. Dramas are all well and good, but without the Cylons, this sounds a little too far removed from the Battlestar Galactica we know and love.
2. It’s going to have different actors and characters. Can the writers strike magic twice?
3. It’s about two human families competing against one another. Didn’t Shakespeare already write a masterpiece with this concept?
4. The show will, eventually, lead to the first Cylon war, right? I sure as hell hope so. But how many seasons is it going to take to get there?
5. From the first minute, it is going to be compared to Battlestar Galactica. And it just can’t be as good.

Again, Battlestar Galactica: Caprica could be very good. Still, it’s not going to be as good, so it’s setting itself up for poor comparisons. Beyond that, there is going to be so few similarities in terms of characters, plot and so forth that those wanting more BSG may be disappointed.

I love the drama and social dilemmas that are raised in BSG, but I love the balance it has with some kick-ass Cylon action. Without that balance, will I be that interested in watching a space drama that’s not set in space?

Of course, I’m still going to watch it. What do you think?

Aside from the super-cheap robot outfit, the 1951 film has surprisingly excellent visuals, as minimalistic as they are. The spaceship still looks great, as do the laser effects. Furthermore, the story still holds its own, supported by quality acting and a well-written screenplay.

Unfortunately, for a 26-year old, this sci-fi movie is just a tad boring. OK, maybe boring isn’t the right word, but the movie is so dialogue-driven that there isn’t much excitement. People who grew up loving this film – my mother included – will scoff at such rstrongarks, but The Day the Earth Stood Still was clearly made in a time before sci-fi films about aliens threatening to destroy the world needed to be rich with excitement. This is all fine and good, but I was expecting something a little more… animated.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a good movie, but if you didn’t grow up enjoying the film, it might come off as a little dated.

It starts off a tad weak, looking like a new trailer for Fast and Furious as someone races across the desert – toward a massive cliff – in an apparent chase. At the last second, the car swerves and the driver is thrown from it; as the car plummets over the side, the driver – a boy – manages to scramble to safety, his legs dangling over the precipice. His pursuer asks his name, and the boy stands up defiantly and blurts out, a little too loudly, “James Tiberius Kirk.” Oh shit, it’s the Star Trek trailer!

These kind of intro scenes, featuring a boy version of a known character, can be at times jarring. Especially spliced and diced for the trailer, hence taken out of context, the scene comes in as a little underwhelming, mainly due to the forced announcement of the character’s name. Minor details, though.

We are immediately thrust into a series of montages – in other words, the trailer is more an extended teaser than anything else – of Kirk and Spock pre-Enterprise days, and at the building of the Enterprise. Then comes the action, and there’s lots of it: creepy looking villains, space battles, giant monsters and more. This is clearly going to be a darker Star Trek, and J.J. Abrams has taken it a little closer to the Star Wars world in terms of action, which is good as that, in my opinion, has always been an argument against the Trek franchise (you look at Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Wars, which essentially came out around the same time, and you tell me that one doesn’t have action sequences that are 20 years beyond the other). There’s also a little more emphasis on sex and sexuality in the trailer, which adds a bit of spice to it all.

At the same time, there are plenty of items to ensure Trekkies that the world isn’t completely being f**ked up; the sounds, the spacecraft and, hell, even Zachary Quinto as Spock look like they were pulled from the old series, only improved. The big question mark will be how the rather odd cast – namely Chris Pine – holds up to the rabid comparisons that are sure to follow. That may be make or break for the Trekkies.

This trailer, which really is just a long teaser, does a good job of setting the stage, giving us a bit of footage and a feel for the action, and making Star Trek, perhaps for the first time in several decades, appeal to broader audiences. It isn’t perfect, and I don’t think it has that “blow ‘em away” feel that I was hoping for, but it’s a great first step.

A survey conducted by Bellevue, Wash.-based movie website Movie-Source.com found that among seven recent and upcoming horror movies to be released in the fall or winter of 2007, Aliens vs. Predator Requiem, a sequel to the 2004 box office hit Alien vs. Predator, did not rank highly among must-see horror films.

The survey, conducted in October 2007 and based on 1,543 responses, compared Aliens vs. Predator Requiem to anticipated films such as 30 Days of Night, Saw IV and Stephen King’s The Mist, as well as Rogue and The Signal, two films that were later pushed back to 2008. The Mist received a whopping 37% of first picks when asked which horror movie respondents would like to see most, and 30 Days of Night followed up with 27%. Saw IV was third with 20%.

Of the top movies selected, only Saw IV was a box office success; both 30 Days of Night and The Mist failed to meet expectations. Saw is already a proven franchise, yet one that has fans sharply divided, which would account for less people voting for it but more going to see it.

So what does this all mean for Aliens vs. Predator Requiem? With only 8% of people anticipating this film most and some of the more highly anticipated horror movies failing to deliver in box office revenues, it will most likely operate like Saw IV on a lesser degree. The Alien and Predator franchises have built-in audiences that will go see the movie no matter what, and, like the Saw franchise, fans are bitterly divided. Of those surveyed, 47% consider the original Alien vs. Predator either a “Spectacular piece of filmmaking” or “a fun ride”, while 53% consider the movie “not so good” or worse.

The survey was conducted on InstantSurvey (http://www.instantsurvey.com).

I am assuming Connelly will plays Reeves’ mother and Bates the love interest. Wouldn’t that be a sight.

Anyway, I’m writing this post so I can research a picture of Jennifer Connelly to put on here, but come to think of it, where has Kathy Bates in for the last several years? Sure, she shows up sporadically, but how come she hasn’t done some big drama recently? She is one of the most talented actresses out there. Hell, do Misery 2 – I’d go watch that.