Tag: Spock

Obama’s search for perfect ass

With today’s headlines about President Barack Obama, it may be a good idea to hide your puppies.

The President worked out his rage as most people do, with Matt Lauer, concerning the BP oil leak; BP’s CEO, Tony Hayward and the idea that he hasn’t blown up an oil rig off the coast of England with “Fat” Tony stuck inside.

President Obama justified his meetings with experts, saying that it takes a committee to nominate names and assess asses before an ass can be kicked. He added, “This seems to work pretty well for the Pentagon.”

In the meantime, Hayward is still very much physically unharmed by any and all able-bodied U.S. politicians.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Star Trek’

Star Trek feels like a movie motivated by fear. Fear of being too old, to slow, too out of touch. Fear of being too tied to what came before. Fear of irritating old fans. Fear of failing to bring in new ones. And so sometimes it overcompensates, moving too fast, jumping from point to point with barely a pause in between out of fear that its modern, energy drink influenced audience may at some point decide to get up and go to the bathroom. It invents unnecessary plot devices to excuse reinventing the Star Trek universe, just to preemptively shut up those fan-boys unhappy with the change in direction. Yet the irony here is that all of this fear was completely unfounded. This Star Trek works. This idea works. There was nothing to be afraid of and in fact, the whole thing would have only worked better had they simply sat back, relaxed and let things happen. This could have been a revelation, a reinvention of not only the Star Trek franchise but the entire science fiction genre. All the pieces are right there, if only director JJ Abrams and his team had trusted themselves, trusted the fans, trusted their audiences. They don’t, and the result is a movie that’s merely really good instead of genre-changing. Really good is, well really good. In fact I should probably stop kvetching.

This edition of the movie series is a lot of fun. It’s fresh, it’s exciting, it feels young as when the world was new. For the first time in a long time Star Trek truly feels futuristic. Abrams has successfully created an entire world to play around in, a bright and shiny world full of youthful optimism and blinking lights. It’s a Star Trek we’ve never really seen before, a Star Trek done with a monster, blockbuster budget. Abrams takes that world and lets his characters live in it. He doesn’t linger over it or treat it as if we’re seeing something awe-inspiring. This is simply the place where his story happens and within the first five minutes you know there’s a pretty good chance that by the time it’s over, he’ll have changed Star Trek forever and for the better. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Star Trek’