Asking the Wrong Questions

One interesting aspect of our current era of cinematic universes and mega-franchises is that the stories behind the scenes often feel more interesting, and more dramatic, than the ones on screen. I like most MCU movies, but I'd pay a lot more than a movie ticket's price to know the answers to questions such as why Patty Jenkins was fired from Thor: The Dark World , or what the creative differences were that led to Ava DuVernay leaving Black Panther . And when it comes to Star Wars in the Disney era, these questions feel even more urgent, because the decisions being made are so much more baffling. Is it really possible that one of the hottest IPs of the century, the potential cornerstone of an empire of spin-offs and merchandising opportunities, was written in a method not unlike the party game where everyone writes a sentence in a story, folds the page down, and then hands it to the next person? I'd give a lot for a record of what went on in the meetings where the shape of...

A few weeks ago, someone on my twitter feed joked that soon, we'd be inundated with a million reviews and thinkpieces about The Force Awakens all starting the same way--with a recitation of the author's personal connection to Star Wars , how they first encountered the movies, what their emotional reaction to the prequels was, and what place the franchise holds in their heart.  This threw me, because it made me realize that I honestly have no idea how I feel about Star Wars .  I don't love it.  I don't hate it.  I can't be indifferent to it--no person who comments on pop culture, and particularly geek culture, can do that.  When I searched my heart for the feelings about Star Wars that were uniquely and untouchably my own, all I found was a big question mark. So I went back--for the first time in at least a few years--and rewatched the original films (I didn't bother with the prequels, because I know perfectly well how I feel about them--they're awful, an...

It's only the middle of June, but if there is, this year, another moment of unintentional comedy as richly hilarious as the putative climax of J.J. Abrams's Star Trek Into Darkness , I will be very surprised.  Going into the movie, I didn't expect that I'd find it funny.  Abrams's 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise left me genuinely outraged , and its sequel seemed to promise more of the same.  Perhaps because the film has opened so late in Israel, however, I've had the time to realize that more of the same isn't so bad.  It means that I knew what to expect (and what to steel myself against): a barely coherent plot, some fun but ridiculous action scenes, an approach to the original series and its appeal that runs the gamut from incomprehension to outright contempt, a vehement need to undermine and dismantle Vulcans despite the fact that the two films' best character, Zachary Quinto's Spock, is one, a borderline erotic fixation with Chris Pine...

After the appetizer , the deluge.  This post doesn't even cover all of the shows that premiered in the last week.  It leaves out the interchangeable lawyer shows ( The Defenders , The Whole Truth ), the forgettable cop shows ( Chase , Blue Bloods , Law & Order: Los Angeles ), and the lamentable comedies ( Better With You , Raising Hope , Running Wilde ).  Which is not to say that the shows I am going to write about have won my heart, or are even going to get the chance to do so.  Though I will probably keep watching at least a few of these to see if they get better (and am still watching Nikita for the same reason, though increasingly asking myself why I bother), there's been, as yet, no Good Wife this season, no show that came out the gate completely irresistible (though Terriers , which has maintained its promising blend of well-crafted characters and slightly sleazy mysteries into its third episode, comes closest). Boardwalk Empire - This is probably a ca...

A few more interesting links and then I'm done with this movie, I swear. Adam Roberts hits it out of the park with his review .  The whole thing is quotable and also very funny, but this is the point that floored me, which hits on something that niggled at me throughout my viewing but which I wasn't able to put into words: Trek09 is a text so absolutely incapable of representing a collective—a functioning group, a society—that it strays into rank idiocy. It is teenage wish-fulfilment bang-zap-frot fantasy all the way through. But (and this, I’d say, is what people celebrating the Star Warsification of the Trek franchise in this film, are missing) precisely what made Trek so notable in the first place was its creation a communitarian world. Not an ensemble cast all vying for screen time; a knit-together group of people. The Star Wars universe is an open-ended, malleable space for individual adventure. The Trek universe is about having a place. It is, really, about belonging. So...

One of the ways in which this summer's testosterone-heavy action-adventure flicks are falling short of last summer's crop is that they're not generating nearly as much, or as diverse a range of, discussion.  I mean, The Dark Knight alone kept the internet going for weeks.  This year, the consensus establishes itself pretty quickly--by the end of its opening weekend, everyone knew that Watchmen was a faithful adaptation, but perhaps a little too faithful for its own good, and that was that.  When it comes to Star Trek , you've got a whole lot of people who liked it, and a few like me who didn't, but everyone seems to have pretty much the same reasons for their opinions.  Here, however, are a few posts that make interesting points or make them particularly well. Niall Harrison and I are pretty much opinion-twins when it comes to this film, which happens so rarely that it's noteworthy in and of itself.  He makes a surprisingly rare comparison between the film a...

You couldn't say that I've been looking forward to the new Star Trek film. When it was first suggested, the very concept of a reboot going back to the setting and cast of the original series conjured up images of extruded Hollywood product: conventionally attractive actors, the women skeletal and painstakingly permed, the men shiny and boyishly handsome, buckets of money poured into special effects that add up to a film that looks like every other special effects extravaganza of the last half-decade, a few callbacks and famous quotes to appease the diehard fans, and lots of pop music on the soundtrack. Then J.J. Abrams got the directing gig, and I threw my hands up and gave up on the whole endeavor. Abrams is not entirely talentless, and he's produced a few fine hours of television in Alias and Lost , but as a storyteller his palette is extraordinarily limited, and as a director he was responsible for Mission: Impossible III , a jangly, underwritten mess with not a shred ...