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Dec 16 02: party; party; party; movie; party; dinner
It’s been a busy weekend. Three gatherings yesterday (the swim team, Todd Cooper’s 40th, Sari Pessah’s birthday), followed by a screening of Star Trek: Nemesis, OxyMoron’s holiday gathering, and dinner with Lynne-Paul-Erika.
Whew.
notes on Nemesis
Loved the Trek movie. My memory of Wrath of Khan is vague enough that I can’t say whether or not Trek X is just a remake of Trek II. All I can tell you is that I thought it was really fun. There was lots to like: Scenes on Romulus, with quasi-Imperial-Rome architecture and Groovy Prosthetic Foreheads! A scene-chewing young villain with pouty lips and vaguely ridiculous irridescent body armor! Ron Perlman unrecognizeable under a latex head! Troi actually being useful to the furtherance of the plot! Fabulous ship design! Things blowing up!Downsides? Well, it was not a good movie for the intrepid Crusher Clan. Dr. Beverly gets, like, one big scene—and if you’re paying attention you’ll notice that it contained a Major Scientific Error and she had to re-record her dialogue in ADR. Wesley’s cameo, in which he got to explain what he’d been up to since he nipped off to Dimension X some years back, ended up on the cutting-room floor. Guess we’ll have to wait for the DVD for that one. Oh, and Brent Spiner has a musical number.
Still, it has what is without question the best Scene of Starships Shooting at Each Other I’ve ever seen. I was literally at the edge of my seat. My review? Fun fun fun. It will doubtless pale in comparison to Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which we’re seeing on Wednesday. But for now, it’ll do just fine.
story, not allegory
Incidentally, did anybody see Viggo “Aragorn” Mortensen on Charlie Rose the other night? Neither did I. But apparently he wore a “No Blood for Oil” t-shirt that he made himself, and spent much of the interview talking about how upset he was that people were calling LOTR:T2T a compelling piece of pro-war propaganda. And that Tolkien would feel the same. The Times has an article that discusses this further; not a great article, but interesting nonetheless. You may need to register with the site to read it (there’s no charge).Ah, Viggo. Come over to our house and we can talk politics all you like.