mjh's blog

A very interesting analysis. I’ve been tempted to revisit various StarTrek series (except for the awful first). Each had innovations and interesting characters, as well as characters I hated. I mostly daunted by the time commitment. Life is short. Keep moving.

Now, "Voyager": in praise of the Trekkiest "Trek" of all | Balder and Dash | Roger Ebert by Ian Grey

As we mourn Abrams’ macho Trek obliteration, it’s a good time to revisit Voyager, at once the most Star Trek-ian of accomplishments and the most despised object of fanboy loathing in the franchise’s nearly 50-year history. From 1995-2001, it offered American audiences something never seen before or since: a series whose lead female characters’ agency and authority were the show. It was a rare heavy-hardware science fiction fantasy not built around a strong man, and more audaciously, it didn’t seem to trouble itself over how fans would receive this. On Voyager, female authority was assumed and unquestioned; women conveyed sexual power without shame and anger without guilt. Even more so than Buffy, which debuted four years later, it was the most feminist show in American TV history.

Voyager wasn’t some grrl power screed in Starfleet regalia. The ideas and emotions it explored were very much in the Star Trek wheelhouse; it just came at them from a fresh–and to some

Now, "Voyager": in praise of the Trekkiest "Trek" of all | Balder and Dash | Roger Ebert

I didn’t want to like the Hunger Games, partly due to its popularity and partly due to dystopia-fatigue. (Let’s imagine a better future for a change.) At the start, the movie looked like an update to Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery set in modern day Appalachia. When the setting changed to Tim Burton’s vision of Oz, I rolled my eyes. However, I was won over by the actors who were actually incredible in their roles. I didn’t recognize Elizabeth Banks. Stanley Tucci was phenomenal. I don’t like Woody Harrelson yet he overcame my dislike. Jennifer Lawrence is solid and credible, as are all the rest.

Kudos to the set and costume designers. It’s not easy to visualize future fashion, even if it’s a mild stretch from modern-day parties in LA or San Francisco. What’s old is new again though never quite the way it was. I was fascinated by one character’s beard, of all things.

I still dislike the underlying premise. I distrust Hollywood portraying a world of haves and have-nots, at least one in which the have-nots overcome. Hollywood produces our bread and circuses. Can we trust them more than we do the Koch Brothers? Oh, but why worry about that when we can talk about the upcoming sequel.

From Hark Tsui, the director and producer of Inspector Dee, and countless others, and featuring Jet Li, whose IMDB profile lists 45 movies, this movie has its moments. After all these years, I’m surprised to see new weapons like the daggers with hooks that cause them to spin around and fly off in new directions, often pulling out another dagger, sending both flying. Or swords that shatter into spinning boomerangs. Like Inspector Dee, FSDG features several very interesting looking actors — compelling figures. I especially enjoyed the Tartars or Mongols (identified as both) whose faces are covered with tattoos. As in many of these films, there may be more powerful females than males, certainly no fewer. And lovers are brooding and doomed to separation. If you think two guys sword-fighting inside a tornado must be the end, there’s another half hour after that, with a few surprises, even. Not that I’m recommending this movie.

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011) – IMDb

Set three years after Dragon Inn, innkeeper Jade has disappeared and a new inn has risen from the ashes – one that’s staffed by marauders masquerading as law-abiding citizens, who hope to unearth the fabled lost city buried in the desert.

Director: Hark Tsui

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011) – IMDb

I made the wrong choice of watching a dull, ponderous sci-fi-ish movie called One Day Like Rain. Instead of watching this film school exercise (C-), read the Rumi quote the title is drawn from. I shall spoil this 90 minute waste of time for you: moody adolescent girl uses "physics and chemistry" to grow crystals in her parents’ garage and concocts a liquid from said crystals that causes hallucinations, catatonia, and, in the case of her best friend, death. I don’t follow the leap from there to the end/beginning of the world and rain on troglodytes on Mars (owing something to the rock monster in the original StarTrek). A troupe of surprisingly eclectic bibliophilic homeless people figures in, somehow.

In the end the moody girl has sex by the lake with her boyfriend, beginning or ending the world; "this is what the garden was for." Only a horny teenaged boy (redundant) could ignore her coital soliloquy (the third recitation of Rumi). All I could think about is how her boyfriend, twice as tall as she, must be humping her knees for their face-to-face missionary lovemaking. That tells you something about how riveting this movie is. Even the cameo by Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network) as the 20-year-old virgin brother was disappointing. At least, he didn’t confuse screaming with acting, favoring perplexed silence (as in, “how will this help my career?” — he may be the only one whose career didn’t sink after this). Five minutes of rain yesterday exceeded the best 5 minutes of this movie, if you can find that many. It is fitting that the stars all wink out near the end — the perfect metaphor for a zero star movie. Please don’t watch it.