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I was actually a bit disappointed in the makeup job on Rachel Nichols. Probably the ONLY way they did not improve on the original. Green skin, red hair? C'mon, 40 years later, they can do a better job than that.

BTW I didn't even notice Diora Baird. Where the hell was she at?

As someone who is not a Trekkie in the slightest (though I used to be related to Leonard Nimoy by marriage), will this film make any sense to me?

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I think this movie was meant to be "trek for the masses"

My friend said that she was laughing a lot harder and seemed to 'get' more than the people next to her, but that her extra enjoyment was more of a bonus for the franchise fan rather than points that were necessary to the plot of the movie.

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Keep on rockin' in the free world!

Yes. It's not a prequel, it's a reboot. The whole series is starting from scratch. Sure there are some homages to the original series but nothing that requires anyone to have seen even five minutes of any previous Trek incarnation.

I must also commend Eric Bana, whom I've always felt apart from his great performance in Black Hawk Down usually exudes about as much personality as a park bench. He's awesome in this flick, and obviously having a lot of fun with the role, giving Trek something Trek rarely has had in 40+ years of existence--a kick-ass villain.

Eric Bana was amazing in Munich.

Baird didn't make the final cut, and although Nichols looked slightly lame in green, she's a knockout and the scene in her quarters was funny. Also when she turns around when they get their marching orders, and she's all bubbly and excited, that was funny.

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A shame she wasn't in it--I'm sure we'll see her deleted scene on the DVD, which I'm getting for sure. Oh well, the part gave her an excuse to show off her fantastic rack in magazines, which is what she does best.

Haven't seen Munich, forgot all about that film. I'll have to add that to my list.

Two things this film did that I failed to mention before are two things Trek rarely did in 40 years was have me on the edge of my seat (the sky dive fight scene was incredible) and create actual drama. We had never seen Kirk's parents on screen before and yet we're actually moved by their single scene together.

I'm not a conventional Trekkie--I liked the original series and thought Deep Space Nine was by far the best incarnation, but while I liked TNG I thought it was vastly overrated. Absolutely HATED the technobabble aspect of the show, something this new film does away with almost entirely, and also disliked Voyager and Enterprise.

Nice to see the "even-numbered" Trek film curse has been lifted. But I suppose that may have been broken previously by Nemesis. That one was so bad it nearly killed the franchise.

Reading a bit about Transformers 2 and getting sort of excited, but it's really sounding like there's a pretty large risk of sequelitis here. They went so minimalist on the robots themselves in the first film (and took some flak for it), but with the broadened budget and no need for an origin story, it sounds like they're doing the typical sequel thing and flying too far back the other way with lots of new characters doing more complex stuff. Is this going to be nothing but a CGI-fest, or are they going to be able to reprise the nice balance that made the first movie work?

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I think about 50% of the reason I loved the first Transformers movie was the fact that the designs of the characters were amazingly detailed and hell, they even brought back Peter Cullen to reprise the voice of Optimus Prime. Oh, and Megan Fox was nice to look at too. That being said there was plenty wrong with that first movie. With a lot of those factors, Fox notwithstanding, pretty much not in its favor I have a feeling this movie's gonna blow big-time. Michael Bay doesn't do well with sequels. Bad Boys was actually an enjoyable movie. Bad Boys II had about twice the budget and it definitely showed...unfortunately it was an overblown piece of crap. I'm afraid that'll happen here too. I'll certainly watch it in the theatres, but like G.I. Joe, it's not one I'll be getting my hopes up for.

Speaking of a whole new level of suck, did anyone else sit through the GI Joe trailer?

If it hadn't said "GI Joe" at the end, would you have had a freaking clue what it was?

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Word, Amber Heard is going to be playing Chenault in The Rum Diary. That movie better finally come out!

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One of the few I have yet to read... how is it? I like the manic flavour of some of Thompson's other works. I always finish a book inspired to go out and do something exciting and reckless (like take on a giant Derby hat), but the feeling usually passes after an hour or so.

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Rum Diary is a personal favourite. Hunter was really young when he wrote it, and it shows. By the time the Fear & Loathings came out he had already calcified his defiant personality, but with Rum he's still cultivating it. He still has a bit of uncertain emotional passion here beyond sado-masochism. It's about uncomfortable transitions and feeling like you've made a big mistake. As an exuberant youth he felt he had already pidgeonholed himself to a life of mediocrity.

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Heh, I can relate.

Sounds good, I'll probably pick it up. I really enjoyed his book on the Hell's Angels, and his short stories (Kentucky Derby had me crying, I was laughing so hard) and, of course, Fear and Loathing is a classic. Johnny Depp seems to channel the voice of Dr. Thompson so well, so I can't wait for another movie!

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Keep on rockin' in the free world!

Drag Me to Hell

As a fan of the Evil Dead franchise, this was more than satisfying. Sam Raimi with a budget in his horror films gives you the ridiculous, over the top sound editing to build up suspense, but the hilarity of it all brings you right back down to earth and keeps you entertained.

Favourite quote: "I had a cat..."

I'll give this one 3 1/2 pucks... definitely worth your time in the theater. Bonus hilarity points for the overzealous Mac product placement they put with Justin Long's character.

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Injustice? Cobain died and Eddy Fucking Vedder lived to haunt us with his shitty fucking voice, trite lyrics and his Eddy Vedderness.



- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Heard a lot of good things about that movie... Metacritic gave it an 83, which is as high a rating as I've ever seen for a modern horror movie.

Up

Pixar does it again. I wasn't crazy about Wall-E like a lot of other people, I actually liked this one a whole lot better. Far better characters and far funnier moments. I also loved the 3-D insofar as they didn't rely on cheap gimmicks like things coming out at you and what not.

Four pucks.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Just because you have a $150M budget to make a movie and another $100M+ to hype it worldwide doesn't guarantee it will be well be well-received by critics, but who cares when you pull in almost that much worldwide in your first week...

Here's the basic plot...






... Now that that's out of the way, here's Michael Bay's winning recipe:

• Mininum three parts Megan Fox running on sand in slow-motion towards the camera with random exploding bits behind her
• Ten parts of various alien robots tearing each other apart
• One part robots assembling themselves from parts of other robots in a rather homo-erotic way
• Dash of random chihuahua humping a bulldog
• One dollop of unexplained hot female Transformer giving oral - badly
• Unnecessary scene with Mrs. Witwicky getting stoned from eating hash brownies
• Save money by reusing same desert set from Transformers I and calling it Egypt

Throw this in a giant Transformer-sized Cuisinart and hope for the best. Think Baywatch with less skin meets Independence Day. And hope your audience has a lousy understanding of geography.

Unfortunately, it seems Megan Fox' tats and approaching mid-20s have resulted in Bay having to show less and less of her... Gone are the scenes of her stretching out showing off her amazing sweaty abs and replaced them with her in white pants looking rather large on that big screen... Sigh...

It's escapist entertainment in its purest form; I wouldn't go so far as to say its a 35/100, but it's not the best movie this summer either.

(Barely) three pucks out of five. Wait for it on video. And hope Megan Fox shows more skin in the Special Features.

Yeah, the notion of the "Egyptian-Jordanian border" was a new one for me. Or, alternatively, I'm very curious how a group of unmarked cars and passengers without passports made it from Egypt into Israel, across Israel, into Jordan, and back, all in a span of, what, half an hour?

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dude, its a movie about ALIEN ROBOTS!! leave the realism at the door! the movie was fantastic! better then the first! the opening scene with Mega Fox was worth price of admission.

If your going to dicect the movie, at least do it in a nerdy way, and you would realize, Megatron lord, Unicron, was a whole planet that sucked up the atmosphere, or lack of it. Not some Octopus looking thing that was a Honourable Prime at one point!!

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"if your parachute doesn't open up while skydiving, don't worry, you have the rest of your life to figure it out"