The date was Saturday, December 8, 1979, and my brother and I were standing in a line at the Village Green movie theater that wrapped around the building. Winter hasn’t really begun in South Florida by December, and it was a sunny afternoon, so we weren’t uncomfortable, besides we were waiting to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Nothing could dampen our spirits. Now before you start rolling your eyes let me explain the state of Trek fandom at the time. The Original Series (TOS) went off the air in 1969, and with the exception of a brief foray on Saturday morning television as a cartoon, and some poorly made fanzines that were not readily available to a 15 year old boy in those pre-Internet days, we had seen nothing new from Star Trek. What we didn’t know was that Gene Roddenberry and Robert Justman had been working on bringing Trek back to the small screen with Star Trek Phase II, but then in 1977 Star Wars took the world by storm and Paramount decided they wanted a movie, not a TV series. I don’t really remember when I first saw the now famous rainbow ad for ST:TMP, but I do remember the thrill that coursed through my guts. I memorized the date, scrutinized the magazine racks and newspapers for any mention of the film, and waited. Finally the day came, and my mother dropped my brother and me off at the cinema, and we happily joined the queue.
The lobby was decked out with huge pictures of the new Enterprise including a cut-away poster showing the new interior layout, which I purchased for the princely sum of $5. I don’t think anyone was in costume that day, but I do recall seeing one of my teachers in the crowd. We found seats as close to the center of the auditorium as possible and, again, waited. After what seemed an eternity the lights dimmed, and the greatest event of my life to that point began. The next 2 hours seemed to go by at warp speed as I memorized every square centimeter of that gorgeous ship. To this day I feel that the flyby of the Enterprise that most people think is too long could be longer. I left that theater elated, overjoyed, and totally satisfied. What I didn’t realize at the time, and what took me four more viewings to get, was that the movie was completely lacking in all the things that made Star Trek something other than a hardware expo. I went from joy, to unease, to boredom, to outrage. How dare they give us Trek that was substandard?! I spent the next two and a half decades calling it The Motion Sickness, or The Motionless Picture, and until Star Trek V came out I considered it the worst film ever. (but I still loved the new ship, and built many a model)
Somehow, as the years went by, I grew to dislike TMP less and less. Then, last year, I picked up the special edition DVD at a second hand store and watched it with a more charitable eye. Yes, it is still the slowest moving movie of all time, and yes probably forty-five minutes of footage could be cut out without affecting the story one bit, and yes the script is almost a carbon copy of The Changeling, but all that being said there is a lot to like about the film. The ship was, and still is awesome. The effects were very good for their time, and a lot of what has become standard in the Trek universe was established in TMP (Klingons that look like aliens, the large, glowing warp core, Scotty’s mustache). And though the characterizations were stilted and dull, they weren’t out of character, just boring. Finally, when I was starting to actually like much of the movie, I listened to the commentary track. Director Robert Wise explained a lot of things that softened my view of the film even more. Some of the complaints about the film had to do with it being hugely over budget, but what never made it to the papers was that the money already spent on pre-production of Star Trek Phase II was put under the accounting umbrella of TMP, so more than half of the film’s expenditures had little to do with the movie. They were also saddled with an unreasonable, and non-negotiable release date, and as a result of the special effects companies being terribly behind schedule Wise never got a chance to screen the film to test audiences, or even to edit it much. He literally hand carried a still-wet print to the gala premier. Finally there were many visual effects shots that just never got finished, so a lot of the scenes seemed incomplete. In my opinion the director’s commentary on TMP should be required listening for any true Trek fan. It may not make you love the film, but it might help you hate it less.

I will grant that there were many flaws in The Motion Picture that had nothing to do with budget or schedules. The uniforms, while functional, were drab and unflattering. The dialogue, while more accurate from a ‘we’re really on a space ship’ sense seemed overblown and stilted. The ship’s interiors were sterile and monochrome, again probably more realistic, but not very fun to watch. And that, to me, sums up the largest problem with the film…it wasn’t fun. I just rewatched the director’s cut this evening. Wise cut it tighter, and the studio used excellent CGI to either finish or put in bits that were either undone, or unaffordable, but the sense of humor and fun that permeated all of TOS just wasn’t there. Roddenberry had brought in a NASA scientist to help make the new Enterprise seem as realistic as possible, and that lead to a kind of clinical sterility that just didn’t fit for Star Trek. All that being said, however, none of the cast behaved in ways that were grossly out of character; they just spent too much time staring at the view screen looking puzzled, and not enough time doing anything interesting.

So, I can forgive Star Trek, The Motion Picture many of its sins because it was the film that brought Star Trek back from the grave, and because even though it was not an exciting thrill ride, and even though it was pretty much a rehash of a much superior TOS episode, it didn’t violate canon, or make anyone do or say anything that was wrong, and it gave us a beautiful new ship to play with. It certainly wasn’t the best of the films, but it was, in my opinion, far and away not the worst.

Marius

For a while now there has been some discussion round t’Intertubes about the relative merits of the various Star Trek films. There is little question that Wrath of Khan and First Contact end up at the top of most people’s list, but the bottom is often a hotly contentious subject. Well pull up some shuttlecraft wreckage and gather round as uncle Marius will tell you exactly why I think Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is the all time worst Trek film.

Let’s start at the beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Now the reasons why this film wasn’t very good are legion, and I shall not go into them in much depth (this time), but its two greatest sins were 1. it was boring, and 2. the character interactions were missing. When I saw TMP for the first time I left the cinema with my head full of the new Enterprise, and it took me four more viewings, again at the cinema as this was long before VCRs, before I began to realize that the movie was all about the hardware. I still love the long, to some overly long, fly-by of the Enterprise, but the rest of the movie is, indeed, dull. That being said there wasn’t anything in TMP that violated the precepts of behavior or character that had been established in the previous fifteen years of television. Granted there was a lot missing, but nobody behaved grossly out of character. Thus the film was not very good as a movie, but as Star Trek it was merely lacking.

The next three films gave us all that we missed back in regard to character interaction and fun plot lines. The Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic was back, and the filmmakers made obvious efforts to redress the sins of the past by giving the rest of the crew significant parts to play. Of course there were missteps and plot holes, but that has always been part of the charm of Star Trek, and while they were careful to not take themselves too seriously, there was plenty of comic relief that was sadly lacking in TMP. Then along came The Final Frontier.

First of all let me say that I have read William Shatner’s books about his experiences making Star Trek, and I don’t buy his explanation that ST:V was ruined by studio meddling and budget cuts. ST:V was ruined by a ham handed director who tried to turn Star Trek into a comic parody of itself. The Saturday Night Live sketch where the Enterprise is turned into a restaurant was truer to the characters than ST:V. Kirk climbing a mountain was fine, but the rocket boots that Spock used were just ridiculous. The whole scene around the camp fire when Kirk and McCoy were trying to get Spock to sing was painful. Spock may be unemotional, but he’s not stupid. He knows more about Earth history and behaviors than most humans on the show, but the concept of singing a round needs to be explained like he’s a three year old? I could see where they were trying to go with the scene, but it just didn’t work.

Then there were the three ambassadors. The human ambassador was fine, but the Klingon and Romulan ambassadors were almost Saturday morning cartoon caricatures. And then there was Captain Klaa (possibly the stupidest Klingon name ever), and a performance that would have made your average Power Rangers villain seem like Laurence fucking Olivier! Actually, now that I think about it, the only performance in the movie that was watchable was Laurence Luckinbill as Sybok. I won’t debate the existence of Sybok as Spock’s half-brother as that is one of the few plot points that didn’t bother me, but Luckinbill brought subtlety and charm to this otherwise cardboard cutout of a movie.

And then there is Shatner’s handling of the rest of the crew. Chekhov and Sulu were pretty much ignored, but Scotty’s portrayal as a clueless, bumbling martinet who only thinks he knows his way around the ship was not only annoying, it was infuriating. And all I can say about Uhura’s desert fan dance is WTF? I think Nichelle Nichols is a lovely person, and was still quite handsome in 1989, but the best diversion they could think of was to have a 57 year old woman do a fan dance? Not only was it incredibly stupid, it was insulting to all of the women who grew up respecting Uhura for not resorting to using sex as a means of forwarding her career. Compare her work in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock with Mr. Adventure in the Star Fleet transporter room to this farce of a diversion.

Yes, there were a few good moments in this crapfest of a film, but “Please sir, not in front of the Klingons”, and “Excuse me, why does God need a starship?” are not enough to save this sinking turd. Taken just as a movie I rank it right up there with Mansquito or Jaws 3 in its amateurish lack of quality and substance, but as Star Trek this film was an insult to the fans, an embarrassment to the actors, and a festering blemish on the greatest Science Fiction series to date.

In my opinion, of course.

Marius

This is an easy one to review because it’s a movie that didn’t need to be made.  What could have been a cool and different take on a true horror classic ends up as a weak, half-assed and unimaginitive rehashing of the original.

Where to start with the problems?  First off, I was expecting a narrative starting with Freddy as the friendly gardener of a pre-school who starts getting a little too close to the kids.  Knowing it wasn’t going to be a straight prequel, more of pre-flambe Freddy  would have been nice, instead of mostly the same little flashbacks we were given in the originals.  We know Jackie Earle Haley is a good actor, just watch Little Children. Why not let him shine without the makeup for a little while, show Freddy grappling with his poor choices, maybe slowly unraveling under the weight of his own mental issues and the anger and tension building between him and the parents of the kids?  Why not get into the story of the glove; how did he build it, what was it for, etc.  Just a couple of things Freddy fans would’ve eaten up.  We know Haley can be scary, just watch the Bad News Bears and fear for your lunch money.  (Or I guess Watchmen, too)  Give the guy something more than 20 generic one liners to work with.  Not in this Nightmare.

The rest of the cast is completely forgettable.  None of the characters or the actors who play them stand out or garner sympathy at any time.   All I was hoping for was some creative kills, which is half the fun in horror movies, but instead got an hour and a half of this: “Wah, we’re having nightmares,” Nancy draws, jump scare, Freddy makes sparks with his glove, a kid gets slashed.  A lot of the scenes are similar to those in its predecessor, like the bathtub, and the bodies flying around the bedroom, to name a couple.  Why tribute scenes though, when you won’t even give the original Freddy a cameo?

And what about this newfangled Freddy?  No more wisecracks means no more personality, which was what made Freddy a standout from every other horror villian to ever carve up a teenager.  I guess he’s a bit darker because of that, but why not show how sick this guy really was?  Why not show the photos that prove what a monster he was in life?  Not until the final fight do we even choose a side as to who the bad guys here really are, which emotionally leaves us hanging.  Is it the pitchfork and torch wielding parents?  Is it the kids who were lying about Freddy?  Or is it actually Freddy?  The answer is obvious and insulting and changes nothing.  If they had laid the blame for Krueger’s revenge on someone else, maybe you have a nice twist, but it remains old (Freddy) hat.  Another thing about Freddy that bugged me was the makeup.  Yes, Freddy was burned alive, but in making Haley’s face look like an actual burn victim, all I felt was pity for the guy because it looked too real and horrific.  Not scary, but horrible.  The original  makeup was a stylized, horror version of a burn victim, which made it work.  The new Freddy looks like a real burn victim dressed as Freddy for Halloween, which isn’t scary, but actually kind of sad.  Go ahead and Google “Not everyone who gets hit by a drunk driver dies” and take a look at the PSA poster and every time you see this new Freddy, you’ll just think of this.  I’d post it in this article, but it’s more graphic than anything in this movie.

A lot more could’ve also been done with the nightmares.  In the original movies, Freddy would craft awesome and crazy dreamscapes, situations and ways of morphing himself to really prey on the fears, addictions and personalities of his victims which made him even scarier and seemingly more powerful.   In this remake,  it’s mostly just Freddy in his boiler room with his glove.  With all that can be done with CGI these days, this film is a pretty analog affair.  The two effects I will give credit for are the hallway of blood, which was a nice mix of real and CGI and Nancy falling through it and coming out clean.  These effects were very cool and what this movie needed more of.   If Freddy is the dream master, let’s see where his twisted mind can take these kids.  Freddy should not be boring and predictable and deserves more than having his audience trying to stay awake like the faux-teens of Springwood.  Hardcore fans of the original Nightmare On Elm St. series are best to skip this for fear of burning disappointment.
-Jay, Masters Of None

As you know, I am a newspaper reporter. Over the past couple of months, I have covered events as diverse as health board meetings, student science fairs and attempted robberies. It’s a busy life, and an eclectic one, but once in a while, an assignment comes along that really lights my fires.

Like the time I was sent to interview a flying serial killer.

I don’t get to actually see him fly, because his studio is kind of small, and he’s not really a serial killer — he only plays one in the movies. But he does make a table levitate for me. It’s fun watching my very tall photographer duck as the table swoops around his head. The outtakes from his camera show a lot of shocked expressions, on his face and mine.

The flying man is Peter Loughran, the Master of Illusions. He’s a Canadian magician, actor and illusionist who, most of the time, works behind the scenes. You’ve seen his large-scale and small-scale illusions on Las Vegas stages and in the shows of some of the top performers in the field, including Criss Angel. But Loughran works on his elaborate magic closer to my neck of the woods, in a nondescript building on the shores of a cold lake in central Ontario.

Inside that nondescript building, though, magic is found. Swords hang from the walls. A bleeding, dripping severed head sits on a shelf. On the wall is a huge poster of Loughran in midair; he invented and sells a device called The Elevator, which allows users to levitate, even when surrounded by a crowd. In other words, flying.

He won’t tell me how it works. In fact, he can’t say much about his work, as it has to remain a secret. At one point, I try to jot down some observations from a secret formula pinned to the wall; Loughran points and my pen vanishes. Luckily, I have another.

The reason I’m here in Peter’s lair, with a photographer, is to talk about Plaster Rock. It’s a new low-budget horror film that was shot in December in New Brunswick, Canada. Loughran plays a key role in the film, as a mysterious magician/villain who prowls the remote forests of Plaster Rock.

“How were you cast in the film?” I ask.

“Well, they needed an actor who could also perform magic, as that’s a part of the character,” he says. “And they needed someone who could double as the magic consultant, and assist with special effects and makeup.”

In other words, it’s a pretty narrow field for casting agents. As soon as the producers started asking around within the illusion community, Loughran’s name kept popping up.

Within days, he was out in the snow, filming the movie. It will be released this spring, with a gala launch in — where else — my living room. No, actually, it’ll be in Las Vegas.

Plaster Rock is loosely based on a true story about a murder case from the 1930s. Adapted to modern-day, the film tells the story of a group of young people on a cross-country ski adventure race who run afoul of a black-cloaked figure who lives in the forest and can disappear in a cloud of smoke. This is, as Loughran calls it, micro-budget horror filmmaking … in other words, right up my alley.

There are days when I thank my assignment editor profusely.

Kennedy, Starbase 66

Visit the Master of Illusions

See the Plaster Rock trailer

Note: Thanks to Global Universal Pictures and Peter Loughran for the photo.

The makers of Tron 2 are raising the bar for nerdgasmic marketing events. Check out the video in the “Flynn Lives Meet-up” post for proof. I think the line “I’ve been waiting since I was 12 to play Space Paranoids and there it was” says it all. These guys know their target demographic like the back of their hand.

At 4pm EST today, tickets are being released through the Flynn Lives site for some kind of secretive IMAX pre-screening events worldwide. Nerds in the know will be on that.

How many times have we all uttered that phrase when we hear of the next reboot or remake coming out of Hollywood? An American Werewolf in London; Short Circuit; Poltergeist, Logan’s Run…how many more of our treasured memories are they going to destroy? I know I’ve been guilty of saying such things more than once on Starbase 66, and in ‘real’ life, but I’m starting to think that we are aiming our vitriol in the wrong direction.

When we interviewed Herb and Harrison Solow last year they both said something that took a while to sink in. In both conversations the question of the apparent addiction to crap in Hollywood was brought up, and they both pointed out that if people wouldn’t buy tickets to such things, then film makers would stop making them. We are like the bloated, stuffed to bursting patron of the all-you-can-eat buffet who, after gorging himself, shouts insults at the chef on his way out to his minivan. We decry the multi-million dollar detritus being foisted upon us by Tinsel Town, yet line up like the sheep we are every time Michael Bay or James Cameron squeezes out another formulaic blockbuster. Continue Reading…

You might have been looking for a penetrating sociological thesis on Man’s descent into primitivism, a master class on the Noble Savage mythos, a stirring epic portrayal of human will thwarting dystopian odds.

Other post-apocalyptic tales just didn’t meet your vaunted criteria. You tried A Canticle for Liebowitz and found it academic. McCarthy’s The Road too modern. Logan’s Run, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451 — all too mainstream. Akira too abstract, Planet of the Apes too kitsch.

And so you turned, breathless and flushed with excitement, your body awash with adrenaline and literary lust, to  A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell.

Continue Reading…

What happens when you rip off the Flash, cast the talentless son of an A-list actor, mix in a washed-up Baywatch hottie, pervert science, and slap Stan Lee’s name on the entire low-rent mess? It’s called Lightspeed, and before it hit Netflix it was a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie. Yes, Simply Syndicated friends, I am picking the low-hanging fruit this week. Continue Reading…

Imagine a story set during the American Civil War, where Napoleon races to recover Darth Vader’s lightsaber from Hitler’s clutches in order to stop Genghis Khan from invading Robinson Crusoe’s island.

That wasn’t exactly how The Scorpion King 2 went, but close enough.

The 2008 skunk stars a Power Ranger, a UFC wrestler, and a Bud Bundy look-alike. They dress like thugs from Tupac’s California Love video and explore the ancient world.

Problem is, director Russell Mulcahy shows just as much disregard here for time, space, and cannon as he did two decades ago making Highlander 2. And it’s less forgivable because the source material isn’t nearly as epic or beloved.

Continue Reading…

It was freshman year, and in our dorm room Ryan Vai was rifling through his VHS collection. Imagine a mustachioed A.C. Slater look-alike with a longer mullet, a muscle-shirt, and parachute pants. Envision him pumping a mini-head-bang as he rocked himself over to the VCR.

“Dude, this is gonna be sweeeeet,” he crowed, eyes wide, fist in the air, slapping a copy of 1998’s The Big Hit into the machine.

The next 91 minutes were a particularly heinous breed — a vapid action flick that forced me at gunpoint to actually like it despite having so, so, so many shortcomings.

On the good side: After missing Hard Target (starring Wilford Brimley!) and Face/Off, this is how I was finally introduced to John Woo (who produced, but didn’t direct The Big Hit). Kids, trust me when I say Woo-ist fight scenes changed everything. They’re all about gymnastic use of the set and short cuts, and without them there would be no The Matrix. If nothing else, watch the opening fight sequence from seven minutes in until the 15 minute mark.

On the bad side: The Big Hit proved a less intelligent precursor to The Transporter with less charisma, more caricature, too much Marky Mark, and not enough Lou Diamond Phillips. And for what was billed as ostensibly an action film, the fights are few and far between, supplanted with awkward and unfulfilling black comedy. It misses bigger than it hits.

The plot: Assassins-for-hire pull a kidnapping on the side, only to discover their target is god-daughter to underworld boss Avery “Captain Benjamin Sisko” Brooks. To escape Brooks’ wrath, Lou Diamond Phillips (cunningly named Cisco — a DS9 homage?) frames Marky Mark for the kidnapping and goes on a murderous spree. Meanwhile, the Japanese kidnappee suffers Stockholm Syndrome with Marky Mark, who is already engaged to Christina Applegate and has a baby mama on the side. Hijinx ensue.

Keeping it real: Now I love the depravity of gritty crime flicks that glorify the anti-hero. I mean, hey, Goodfellas is my favorite movie, with a certain Mario Puzo adaptation in a close second place.

But this is no Godfather, and Mark Wahlberg is no Al Pacino. We don’t get truly complex or sympathetic characters suffering the consequences of their lifestyle. The assassins of The Big Hit are con-men, damnedable killers with no remorse, compulsive liars out for themselves and only themselves, cheaters who murder friends on a whim and routinely dispose of bodies in the bathtub.

To be fair, writer Ben Ramsey seemed to understand all this, sprinkling the script with self-deprecating plot devices. For instance, there’s a fake movie-within-the-movie called Taste the Golden Spray. There’s also a way to block the trace that’s tracing the trace on your phone call — the fabled Trace Buster Buster Buster. These are blaring sirens screaming out, “Hey, dudes, we know this plot is ridiculous! It’s just an excuse for some jokes, a hot Asian chick, gratuitous shots of Christina Applegate’s ass, and some tight gun-fu!”

The talent: It’s not often you can say the character with the most depth in a given film is played by Mark Wahlberg. For every Boogie Nights there’s a Planet of the Apes — or worse, The Happening. But his Melvin Smiley is just complex enough to drive along the absurd Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner-meets-The Replacement Killers hybrid plot. He’s the hitman with a heart of gold, ripped off more or less from Grosse Pointe Blank. He’s clearly the best killer of the bunch, but fixated on getting everyone to like him (even his victims). To balance his good guy/bad guy double identity, and to put up with the manipulative women in his life, he constantly guzzles antacid. It’s a fun but wet character.

The more talented Lou Diamond Phillips plays his nemesis, who I’ll grant is less complex but far better acted. Cisco is a sleazy, lazy, egotistical foil for Wahlberg. There’s too much Butabi Brother moron in Cisco for him to ever come out on top, and you can see every maniacal little thought jumping out his beady eyes. It’s the prominent and cheap-looking gold crown that’s constantly flashed in Cisco’s evil smiles that seals the role.

There’s only one other actor worth writing about — China Chow as the cute schoolgirl kidnappee, Keiko. That’s her real name, by the way, though it’s hard to believe. China Chow. Yeah. Right. She’s hot in her little plaid skirt, and the film’s makers swear up and down she’s supposed to be in college, and not high school. There’s no statutory stuff goin’ on here, officer. Nope.

This was Chow’s acting debut (she was previously a model), and though she was just fine there’s little else on her filmography. The most notable appearances are a one-off on That ’70s Show and a voice job on one of the Grand Theft Auto games.

Do as I say, not as I do: Yeah, The Big Hit is one of my guilty pleasures, but it’s the cinema equivalent of the swine flu. Just because I’m sick doesn’t I should spread it to you. Its 5.8 rating on IMDB seems innocuous enough until you consider the 38 percent grade on Rotten Tomatoes. Matter of fact, the Interwebz seem split on this one, with reviewers of all ilks calling it either 1) one of the worst abortions ever churned out by Hollywood… or 2) the best of the Woo-inspired brainless shoot ‘em up flicks best viewed while under the influence.

The dollar signs tell the same story. The Big Hit opened at number one on a bad week in April, raking in just over $10 million. It was gone in a matter of weeks, making $27 million (barely twice its budget) before disappearing into obscurity. As far as the 1998 box office goes, it was a nothing — not even in the top 50 of the year.

Personally, I think it’s all about inebriation and age limit. Ideally, you’ll enjoy Marky Mark and the Assassin Bunch as a 16-year-old boy who’s brand new to R-rated action. If you’re of legal age, you shouldn’t watch without a great deal of Jack Daniels for backup.

~ Jason