Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule previews the summer movie schedule. “But even with the proof, in Star Trek, that my expectations could be so fundamentally off-base, it’s still hard for me to get excited, as Entertainment Weekly insists I should, about this summer’s big-ass slate of films. I thumbed through that 'Summer Movie Preview' issue with 'all the buzz on over 80 new films' and was bored stiff by the time I turned the page into the month of July. Really, am I supposed to care that Stephen Sommers, perpetrator of Van Helsing, has a new action blockbuster based on a toy I was bored with in 1967? Am I supposed to get all squirmy with excitement at seeing shots of a sweaty Megan Fox intercut with heavy-metal images from Michael Bay’s new movie about toys I was at least 15 years too old for when they were first popular? And despite my fondness for McG and the first Charlie’s Angels feature (about as zesty and giddily exciting as any pre-fab confection could be), that new Terminator movie just looks so goddamn glum and desperate, and overly familiar.”
GreenCine Daily’s DVD of the Week is Wise Blood. “Otherworldly in its characterizations (did I forget to mention the naïve, hyperactive 18-year-old obsessed with both a shrunken mummy and some guy in a bear suit?) but too sad or realistically perverse—even during a violent act late in the film—to be written off as a grotesque carnival, Wise Blood is not the tale of redemption or maybe accidental martyrdom that the final scenes superficially symbolize. It's about the powerlessness of existence, which is both as terrifying and absurd as that sounds.”
Beyond the Multiplex argues the importance of the original Star Trek. “For me, Star Trek and the Rolling Stones, as much as they might appear to be polar opposites -- one supremely American and the other English, one Apollonian and optimistic, the other Dionysian and pessimistic -- were the cultural phenomena that made the pre-punk-rock early '70s tolerable. A person interested in those things was, prima facie, not interested in Donny Osmond or Happy Days, had conceivably read a book not required by teachers and furthermore could plausibly have access to decent weed.”
At Scanners, Jim Emerson ponders whether one bad shot can ruin a movie. “I'm not among those who think the final shot of Hal Ashby's Being There takes a marvelously sustained balancing act and kicks it to the ground. But I can understand how somebody might feel that way. But how can just one bad decision -- maybe on screen for just a second or two -- deflate a full-length motion picture? Well, roughly the same way a pinprick in a balloon can, I guess. It can puncture the thin membrane that's sustaining the thing. Without shape and purpose, there's nothing to keep it aloft any longer.”
Finally in List-o-Mania, Spoutblog offers 10 Lost Theories Inspired by the Movies. Back to the Future Part III, anyone? “When that bright flash of light ended the episode, the Losties trapped in 1977 were returned to the present time. Or, that’s what a number of the show’s fans are predicting today. But if anyone’s been paying close attention, they’ll know that Lost has taken some cues from the Back to the Future franchise this season. So, logically, by looking at that trilogy, we know that Lost must have its denouement in the 1800s, just as the BTTF series does with Part III.”
