My first non-music post!

When I started this blog, around 6 months ago, I fully intended it to be a mix of posts about all the aspects of popular culture I enjoy, including games, books, movies, and music, although I sort of knew it would tend to be biased towards music. However, 20 or so posts later I have not got off the subject of music yet, although I have read quite a few books I enjoyed (particularly Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Science'), and have really enjoyed FEAR2 on my PC over the last while, and even seen a few movies, mostly on DVD, and caught up on some TV box sets (special honourable mention for 'The thick of it'); according to the plan, all of the above should warrant their own posts at some stage, when I have got my outpouring of musical musings into some kind of temporary equilibrium (maybe next year....).

Anyway, time to break into the obsessive stuff about alternative country, the Cure, the National, alt-country and the 1980s with my official first movie-related post; it is about Star Trek, which I have recently seen and really enjoyed.



Now, let's be clear, while I fit many of the formal medical criteria for full-blown nerdiness, I was never a Trekkie, and never even that pushed about the series or movies, even to such an extent that I, for example, actually watched any of them. I was clearly a (star) 'War'rior rather than a Trekker (think I just added another tick to the nerd chart there), which leads me neatly to a short diversion in the direction of a pretty cool parody I found (of course) on Youtube (and I really honestly have only the vaguest idea who the Trek characters are, and couldn't name any bar Picard).

So, when I heard they were making a new movie, I was not particularly excited (to say the least) although the involvement of J.J. Abrams did draw more notice than I would otherwise have given the enterprise (deliberately no capital used), as he does bring something quite cool to that which he touches (the Nerdas Touch?); I thought Cloverfield, for example, was overall a very interesting phenomenon from hype through campaign to the final really really cool inclusion in the background of the final shot of something hitting the ocean almost off-shot (putting in something like that which very few eagle-eyed viewers would notice without forewarning or a DVD pause button appeals to my inner fruitcake quite a bit).

Then, the reviews were positive (including my great advisor, Mark Kermode on the BBC) and I decided to give it a shot, bringing my 9-year-old son along for his first big loud movie that featured real people. And we both really really enjoyed it!

This post is beginning to go on too long so I will just fire out some of the things I liked most:

• The casting, which seemed overall very apt, and everyone seemed to sort of fit with my vague notions of what the Star Trek cast made young and cool should look like; Eric Bana kept reminding me of someone, which I eventually surprised myself by concluding was Tom Cruise!


• The fact that everyone basically seemed to be having fun on screen, and in a highly infection way which seeped off the screen


• The scene where Kirk is sort of smuggled on board the Enterprise and MyCoy keeps trying to alternately cause and cure various ailments (numbtongue!) to build a cover story


• The fact that the Enterprise got a real 'Millenium Falcon at the Death Star' moment at the final battle, swooping in to save the day


• The way the movie was stuffed with nods and references for the true fans but not in such an overt way as to (green) alienate the causual viewer (like me)


• The many great lines (I particularly liked Spock's comment on Kirk's surprising comment to offer aid to the villain before his grusome end), 'Who was that pointy-eared bastard?' (Kirk)/ 'I don't know, but I liked him' (McCoy) and the undeniably heroic challenge 'Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mothers and yours. I dare you to do better'.
  

I guess one fitting way to end posts about movies is the trailer (still working out how not to write a post about music), so let's give that a shot:

And there endeth my first movie-related post, although more will follow (eventually).