This was one of those great dinner and a movie nights. The J. and I met up with the Mini-Ster and Waldorf at La Tavolata for a light pasta dinner and then rushed over to Cinerama to stand in line. This was opening weekend and we knew it would be a packed house. I had been looking forward to this film for some time and while such anticipation can often lead to unrealistic expectations that inevitably fall short, I'm happy to say this was not such the case. Even the J., who was originally reluctant to go, turned to me immediately after the film ended and said, "oooh, we should watch this again."
I'm a fan of J.J. Abrams but not a fawning one. I love Lost and Alias but thought Cloverfield was ridiculous. I felt his take on Mission Impossible was interesting at best ... actually, I thought his casting decision to put in Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain was interesting ... the rest of the film not so much. With that said, I thought his treatment of Star Trek was brilliant. By creating a shift in the time continuum, Abrams was able to recreate the beloved history of Star Trek while not necessarily violating it. In other words, he's making it very clear that while this new series contains the same crew, the Enterprise has come together under very different circumstances. The inclusion of Nimoy as a time-traveling Spock acknowledges the old, canonical history but, again, puts it in the new role of an alternative
I'm really curious what Abrams is going to do for a follow-up. After such a smart reinvention of the franchise, do you continue to move forward in new ways or do you backtrack into more conventional territory?
I really feel bad about admitting that I like this film -- part of me is so sick and tired of the fraternity of Judd Apatow films. I realize that Apatow had nothing to do with this film but it definitely fits into his little cinematic universe of inhabited by half-men, half-children. It's always seemed odd to me how much we enjoy celebrating male characters with sad, pathetic Peter Pan complexes. Is it really so laudable to refuse to grow up and take responsibility? Think, for example, about Dustin Hoffman's character, Benjamin, in The Graduate. Say what you want about cultural revolutions, generational differences, etc. At its core, The Graduate is a film about a guy who refuses to take responsibility for his actions, who refuses to act like an adult. Sure, the world might suck but moping around the swimming pool all day doesn't make it suck any less. As many of my film students have commented: I don't understand what the hell is his problem.
So, now we have films like I Love You, Man. Maybe the one interesting or different aspect about this film is the focus is not on the guy who refuses to grow up but on the guy who needs to loosen up and discover his inner man-child ... hmmm, isn't that the premise of Hook?
Again, I think this is a perfectly fun film and perhaps if it hadn't been for all those Apatow films that came before it I would enjoy it much more.
I've been really bad about keeping up to date with this blog. In order to get caught up, I'm going to make my next few entries rather short. Hopefully, as soon as I'm caught up, I'll be able to put up longer, more substantive posts.
The J. and I took my nephew, Little-A, to see this at the giant IMAX theater. On a really basic level, watching just about anything on a giant IMAX screen (especially in 3-D) is a visceral thrill. So, while I won't say the film bored me, I do think it was pretty run of the mill. I've never been a fan of Dreamworks Animation. Most of their films seemed like second-rate animation made on the cheap for the kiddie crowd: Shrek, Madagascar, Shark Tale, etc. These are all perfectly fine for the primary-school crowd (like my nephew) but there isn't much substance. Pixar, on the other hand, make really great films that appeal not only to children but adults as well.
Dreamworks films are exactly what they are: pure surface. There's no interesting subtext or subtlety. Seth Rogen had a few interesting one-liners but Hugh Laurie was completely wasted in this film. I don't understand why they bothered to get a big-name to play a throw-away role like this.
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