Star Trek: Into the Darkness, In my opinion, very entertaining film for both trekers and noobs alike!

Well with all the bantering happening with all the changes Disney has made (and is still making) with various Star Wars projects, most of them being cancelled incidentally, many are questioning what Disney’s angle with all of these various takeovers that are happening, first with Marvel, and now more recently with Lucusfilm (there’s already an article about this, so please check there first. I might do a "part two" of that topic later on). But back to the topic at hand - JJ Abrams sequel to the re-launch of the Star Trek series, “Star Trek: Into the Darkness.” 

I must say this was a very well made film. It was entertaining, surprising, a lot of inside and more obvious jokes, and plenty of action with good CGI that wasn’t over the top. Much like its predecessor, this film kept with the alternate timeline created in the first film. However while doing so, they re-told one of the classic tales from the original Star Trek series in its own unique way. 

As a long time fan of all of the Star Trek franchises, I’m glad they kept to the originality of the series, while at the same time developed new and unheard of sequences that was never in the original series. But again, this is a different timeline from the original; therefore you can experiment with many different aspects of the story without it looking like a re-hashed variation of the original, which is why I love this concept of an alternative past. By the way that too is also a staple of Star Trek, the space/time continuum theory, which works well with this series.

Django Unchained and the sad decay of genteel etiquette

The American interpretation of slave management was a brutally violent enterprise. The facade of civility was exactly that - a pathetic attempt to cover, to sanitize, the pall of violence that hung over daily life.
 
Django Unchained did a great job of capturing the awkward frailties of trying to be genteel and, at the same time, so cruel. Both Don Johnson as Big Daddy, and Leonardo Di Caprio as Calvin Candie, very deftly captured the nuances of the internal conflict.

Life's Hoppin' Bob and Django Unchained's Stephen: Understanding the Uncle Tom complex

Have you ever heardd someone ask why Black people can't "unite" like other cultures, or why there is so much violence within the Black community (I will not digress to observe that there is inner-racial violence in any criminal element, such as Italian on Italian or Japanese on Japanese, except to say that the Black community does not hold a patent on the phenomenon).

Hoppin' Bob from Life, and Stephen from Django Unchained, bring to life characters who, on the face of it, seem particularly reprehensible but, on closer examination, are very understandable and, perhaps even, sadly sympathetic.

Well, almost.

Star Wars vs Star Trek, or Potential new sci-fi Mashup?

So, as many of you know now, a few months ago, the Disney Company bought the rights to Lucasfilm for a little over $4.05 Billion US. According to several sources, this will give Disney the ownership but not control over the Lucas brands and letting them create what they want…hopefully. And with this purchase, they plan on creating a new trilogy for Star Wars starting with an episode 7 in 2015. 

At first I was a bit scared with this, considering its Disney and all and was afraid that they would cute it up much like many Disney films. Then I was reminded that Buena Vista, a bi-company of Disney, are responsible for making many other films that aren’t exactly up to Disney ratings (P.G. or lower) such as the Kill Bill series, and many of the current Marvel movies , which by the way Disney also bought the rights too as well. Hmm...They certainly are buying their share of the entertainment pie, and then some...aren’t they? 

The Length of Movies: Longer than necessary, or Post Modern Impatience?

Happy New Year everyone. Looks like this will be the first new entry for the new year.. This idea came to me when watching a news segment on BBC news regarding the length of many current films, compared to films of the past. 

Traditionally, most films are precisely or just over the 90 minute mark. Lately with more current films however, have been known to go over that time, in some cases between 100-125min in length. 

Cloud Atlas: Simple message for a very complex film

First of all, apologies for not getting this review out sooner. It’s been rather hectic with work and day to day living and all.

I had to admit, when I first heard of this film being debuted at the 2012 TIFF, I was sceptical on how it would be. I had heard it was based on a well known novel, but one I had never read before. Then I heard it was directed by the Wachowski bro…er, the Wachowski’s, the creators of “The Matrix” franchise. Since they are known to be very picky on outside products to base their films on (in this case this novel), and the fact they every film they made so far has been very visually stimulating and unique, it was no surprise to me that this was one of the main films I wanted to see at TIFF.

Flashpoint, Toronto and the character of Setting

 
Flashpoint is a hit show both here in Canada as well as in the USA, and its Toronto setting is a part of its success. But, what took so long for Toronto to be front and centre?

Setting is an important part of story-telling. Setting is often actually a form of character, and certain stories can only be told in certain settings, because the character of setting impacts the story.

For some strange reason, Toronto had yet to be embraced as a setting in which a compelling story could be told...but I've never understood why. Thanks to Flashpoint, however, those days could finally be over.