Is this the new James Kirk? TrekToday reports that Chris Pine (pic from imdb.com) is being courted to play the role in the upcoming Star Trek movie. I’m guessing at the pic because I’ve never seen him before, but according to the article he was in “the 2006 Lindsey Lohan flop” (Just My Luck), and that’s where I found the image.
Nakedly political but still relevant today:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Eg8F3rap4[/youtube]
It’s from Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film The Great Dictator, a bitter attack on fascism and Nazi Germany.
The segment is brilliantly directed. Chaplin begins by looking at the floor, gathering his thoughts. As the character gets into the swing of his speech his eyes raise subtly until he looks directly at the audience. Even though this eye contact is occasionally broken — as Chaplin is supposed to be addressing a gathering of soldiers — it is generally maintained to the finish. Strong stuff said with honest passion.
I saw The Simpsons Movie earlier on but wasn’t blown away.
It was good and I enjoyed it but it just lacked the “wow” factor. It was just a long episode. In fairness, with the series having been on the go for 18 years there was no way it was going to meet the hype.
And, let’s be honest here, when you find the high point of a film is a cameo by your favourite band — in this case Green Day — something’s gone awry. (Incidentally I liked how they used the band’s real names in the credits: Frank Edwin Wright III instead of Tré Cool and Michael Pritchard instead of Mike Dirnt.)
In hindsight I’m not really sure what else the producers could have done. There are certain expectations when one watches The Simpsons, expectations regarding style, humour topics, etc. and this film met those. Unfortunately it didn’t really build on them which disappointed me.
Also, there was very little scope for the auxillary characters. Ms Krabappel and Groundskeeper Willie have no speaking roles as far as I remember, while Comic Book Guy is relegated to two scenes — one of which was a cheesy “life well spent collecting comic books” line.
Come to think of it, the film was one of those that clipped along at a fair old pace without hooking me in. Perhaps the producers were too conscious of the audience being accustomed to a 23-minute show and so ploughed ahead as fast as possible to keep their attention.
Final verdict: a good watch, but not one a film you’d need to see more than once.
A letter from Optimus Prime’s insurance agent to the Autobot commander in chief.
This is a little late, but Wired has a nice story up about a forthcoming film based on Arthur C Clarke’s short story “Maelstrom II”.
It’s directed by Jeroen Lapré and the sole actor is Chuck Marra. It was shot entirely against bluescreen. Check out the article here.
Seems like Industrial Light and Magic might be a cool place to work. Employees can pitch ideas and the company may give them the go-ahead to use ILM resources after hours. Make sense: a happy employee is a productive employee and is more likely to hang around in the long term.
