Viewed: DVD

I borrowed this movie from my dad when we were visiting over the Christmas holidays. He asked me if I knew anything about it, and I said, “It’s Steve McQueen driving a car.” I had heard of the movie before, as a legend, but all I knew was that it was especially famous for car chases.

The cover of the DVD package shows four cars in an apparent chase. The top blurb on the back of the package says, “NOW-CLASSIC CAR CHASE, ONE OF THE SCREEN’S ALL-TIME BEST.” Well, turns out there’s only one car chase, and it’s only about 10 minutes long, out of 114 minutes total movie time.

Although the car chase is good — up and down the hills, and through the traffic of San Francisco — and I have to give it some credit for being a 1968 flick, it’s not on the same level as the car chases from The Road Warrior or To Live and Die in L.A. (It wouldn’t be fair to compare it to The Matrix Reloaded car chase, as Bullitt is all live action, not a lot of CG.)

Steve McQueen plays detective Frank Bullitt, who, with a team of fellow cops, has the job of protecting a government witness. Sadly, I think modern TV and movies have ruined me for watching this kind of old cop/investigation story. The action is lackluster by today’s grand achievements, and the investigative work is fairly boring compared to modern TV stories like Law and Order and CSI.

So, all in all, it’s not impressive when watched in light of more recent movies. The writing, acting, and cinematography is good (better than decent, possibly better than good) compared to modern fare. But its main genre — action, cop, investigative — is outshone by some of today’s TV shows.

Plus, there’s one little thing that bugged me with this movie. One of the cop partners with Frank Bullitt looks an awful lot like the witness they’re protecting. There was a couple of scenes where it took me several moments to realize I was looking at a different character. And for a mystery/investigative story, with potential for action to break out, those few moments messed up the flow.

Bullgrit

The idea of a Star Trek movie that goes back to the beginning, bringing the characters of Kirk, Spock, and crew back for a new generation sounded, to me, like a great idea. I hated the last couple of ST movies I saw because the stories were so nonsensical, and seemed to ignore the great concepts laid down in the TV series. It’s like the writers didn’t even try to make the plot and dialog logical and believable. And they seemed to throw the ST canon out the window.

But the idea of taking the story back to the original? That, I was looking forward to. See, Star Trek is more than a science fiction show — the stories (at least with The Original Series and The Next Generation) were morality plays, philosophical exercises, and even political commentary wrapped up in a sci-fi presentation.

Sadly, though, now that I’ve seen the latest trailer for this new movie, I see that the setting may be going back to the original characters, but the story is going further into the action adventure genre. Why? This kills the whole concept of Star Trek. Original ST stories were not action adventure romps. Some of the episodes had a bit of action and adventure, but the series wasn’t just a vehicle for fighting explosions. It was a platform for thinking.

The new trailer for the new movie shows nothing but action and action. Driving/flying fast, things blowing up, fighting, and sex. As should be obvious from things I’ve said in my other posts, I’m all for action and adventure in my movies. But ST should be more than that. And there’s nothing in the trailer that even hints at any kind of morality play, philosophical exercise, or even political commentary (although I am very tired of political commentary, nowadays).

So, I’m disappointed. They’ve taken everything good about Star Trek — everything that made Star Trek what it was — and just tore it up and threw it away. The whole Star Trek franchise is dead to me, now.

Bullgrit

Cowgrit took Calfgrit4 out for a few hours Saturday so Calfgrit7 and I could watch Star Wars (A New Hope). Friday night, I told CG7 that we’d do this. He was hesitant. “I might not want to watch it,” he said. “Is it scary?” he asked.

I told him it might have some scary parts, but nothing really scary. And he didn’t have to watch it if he didn’t want to.

When the time came, I told him I was going to watch it and he could watch it with me, or he could go to his room and play with his toys. I didn’t want to stress him. But he seemed excited, and he sat down on the couch with me. He held a clone trooper action figure in one hand and an Anakin Skywalker lego mini figure in his other hand as the movie started.

I read the scrolling introduction text aloud because, although he can read, I wasn’t sure he could read it fast enough and understand what it was explaining. Then Tantive IV rushed through space, followed by the massive star destroyer. Calfgrit7 was immediately engrossed.

All during the movie, he asked many questions. When the story introduced Luke Skywalker, he asked about the order of the films. “This is the fourth part of the story,” I explained, “but it was the first movie made.”

Sadly, he already knows that Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father, becomes Darth Vader. In fact, when Ben Kenobi told Luke that Vader “betrayed and murdered” his father, CG7 spoke up to say, “No, he’s still alive.”

This was the problem I was fearing. He knows so much about the Star Wars story already, but he’s never seen any of the movies. He knows who Yoda is, so he won’t be surprised when he reveals himself to Luke in the next movie. He won’t be stunned by Vader’s pronouncement that he is Luke’s father. He won’t be shocked when Luke tells Leia they are brother and sister. Etc.

But fortunately, there were many things, non-plot things, that CG7 didn’t know. He liked how the Force worked — “These are the not droids you’re looking for.” He had never seen a lightsaber in action. He didn’t know Han was going to shoot Greedo at the table. He had never seen the real inside of the Millennium Falcon. He didn’t realize how big Chewbecca was. He didn’t know how big the Death Star was. He had never seen the starfighters in action. He had never heard what blasters sound like.

He had never even heard what R2-D2 sounds like. When he and Calfgrit4 played with Artoo, they had him talk like everyone else. The beeping fascinated him. He’s now explained it to CG4.

So although the overall story was known and spoiled, it was the minor details that really got his attention. He’s already stated his interest to see the next two movies. But since I’ve seen that the story surprises are already lost, we won’t be in a rush to see them all this weekend. We’ll space them out a bit over the next couple of weeks. Maybe we’ll watch them over Thanksgiving weekend.

Bullgrit

Viewed: DVD

I’ve been a fan of M. Night Shamalangadingdong, (or however you pronounce his name), since Sixth Sense. Although I haven’t seen all his movies, I have liked all the ones I have seen.

The Happening, though, eh, is not all that. It’s not a bad movie, and I don’t feel that I wasted an hour and a half, but it’s not really as good as I expect from M. Night. His movies usually are well thought through, with any plot holes at least concealed. Plot holes in this film, though, stand out.

And how they figure out the problem comes from plants? It’s a leap of logic that I just don’t see how they could figure out. I can understand the florist/botanist guy making that assumption — he’s a bit weird and obsessed — but really, there’s no evidence that plants are the danger.

Every time the characters mentioned plants as the probable cause of the problems, they were standing surrounded by plants. If plants were the problem, you should be dying right now.

But I did like the idea that larger groups of people were in more danger than smaller groups. That was a neat gimmick.

The “almost end,” (before the real end scene), felt tacked on, and unnecessary. The real end scene was a good end.

Bullgrit