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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Fine Old Roddenberry Seed

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JJ Abrams' Star Trek (Paramount, 5.8) is a lot of things, and all to the commercial good. I wasn't moved to the depths of my soul, but it's not supposed to make you want to hug your children or find God or cry. It's supposed to engage and arouse in a half-spiritual, half-popcorn sense, and provide a sense of familial warmth. And avoid being too labored or ponderous. It's supposed to just zip along and keep the ball in the air while fortifying that good old positivist Trek attitude. And that it does.

I went to last night's all-media expecting to smile now and then and shrug my shoulders and say "whatever." I've never been a big Trekkie type. But I came out feeling surprised and moderately pleased. I expected to be somewhat irritated by it, and this didn't happen. I was nodding to the Paramount publicist after it was over. "Not bad, not bad at all," I told her.

Star Trek is an efficiently made, intellectually game and tightly constructed movie-movie that's closer to the spirit and intellectual vistas of the original mid '60s Gene Roddenberry TV series than any of the feature film versions.

If you're a serious Trek-hound this should be heartening news. The original show was about facing issues, exotic realms, positivism, intellectual engagement, echoes of social concerns and various matters of heart and spirit. Abrams' Star Trek is largely an origin story so there's no time or inclination to get into trippy-ass material, but I could easily imagine this new crew -- Chris Pine's James Kirk, Zachary Quinto's Spock, Karl Urban's "Bones" McCoy, Zoe Zaldana's Uhura, Simon Pegg's Scotty, John Cho's Sulu and Anton Yelchin's Chekhov -- grappling with some intellectually propelled, philosophically profound plots and themes in future outings.

With economy, scope and moxie, I mean, which is certainly what Abrams delivers here.

In fact -- and I don't want to say this in the wrong way -- Abrams' Star Trek is a bit like a super-expensive, hyper-cranked, widescreen pilot for a new Trek series that just happens to be playing in theatres. I'm just saying it is what it is. Abrams would be the last guy, I imagine, to say it's in the realm of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that's cool by me. I imagine it'll be cool with everyone. Star Trek doesn't have a high-falutin' sense of itself, but it doesn't go the lowball route either.

Pine is certainly a younger, cockier and more brazen incarnation of Cpt. Kirk, but at the end of the day he shows balls and conviction and steadiness under fire -- the essential qualities of any leader. I was a little put off at first by his surfer-dude, motorcycle-mechanic, Luke Skywalker by way of a Southern Californian stud-lifeguard mentality, but at least he's his own guy. There's very little Shatner or Jeffrey Hunter in him.

Quinto is a superb Spock -- focused, steely, unflappable. (And with a spiritual/ romantic/sexual component this time!) And Urban -- my third favorite character -- is a sharply drawn, aggressive, compassionate fellow to have on your team. He's no stooge.

I felt after seeing early footage last December that Yelchin could've toned down the Russian accent but I got used to it after a while. Pegg's Scotty is amusing in a sort of loudmouth-Brit way. The attractive Zaldana does a fine job of inhabiting a secondary character who happens to look great in underwear.

My all-time favorite Trek film is still Galaxy Quest, which made me feel the current in a way that none of the William Shatner-Leonard Nimoy movies did. (I don't care if it was a spoof -- it got what the whole Trek culture is about.) But Abrams' version runs a close second.

Star Trek pissed me off only three or four times, and trust me, that's almost a kind of compliment. It can't be be easy to assemble a nifty sci-fi adventure flick and make it all hum like a single organism, and this has certainly been done by director Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

I'll list my three or four complaints in a subsequent piece. There's plenty of time. I can't sit here and write this thing indefinitely.

All right, I have time for one beef. I didn't much care for Eric Bana's Cpt. Nero, who seems to have been told to scowl or at least look really pissed off in each and every scene. Villains don't see themselves as villains when they look in the bathroom mirror. They see themselves as guys doing what they have to do in order to protect their own and/or exact vengeance from their enemies. They see themselves, in other words, as good guys forced to respond to special circumstances.

My misfortune was sitting next to a guy who laughed and went "whoo-hoo!" at almost everything that happened. I glared at him three or four times and then gave up. He thought it was hilarious when Pine bumped his head on the ceiling of a galactic transport. And I hated the spazzy sound of his laughter -- "Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!" I despise people who over-react to films, who show any level of disproportionate enthusiasm. I should have just moved. The guy had a 1959 flat-top haircut with whitewalls on the side. That was a tip-off right there.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on May 1, 2009 at 8:46 AM

comment #1

Josh Massey says ...

Ugh, I hate over-reactors. Seriously. It happens much more frequently in screenings, like somebody thinks the director might be sitting nearby and wants to voice their approval as loud as possible.

Posted by Josh Massey at May 1, 2009 11:02 AM

comment #2

Gordon27 says ...

I didn't know people who weren't Trekkies would know who Jeffrey Hunter was [at least, with regard to 'Star Trek'].

Posted by Gordon27 at May 1, 2009 11:07 AM

comment #3

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

I'm not a Trekkie either but the film looks spectacular. Glad you enjoyed it. Looks like I will, too.

Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk at May 1, 2009 11:07 AM

comment #4

corey3rd says ...

I'd be careful about talking about Roddenberry's seed - since he was boffing most of the actresses that appeared on Star Trek. If they ever want to clone Gene, they can find plenty of genetic material on his office's sofa.

Posted by corey3rd at May 1, 2009 11:08 AM

comment #5

Mark says ...

8% of over-reactors are know-it-all nerds who must project that they "get it". The rest are all high, and are usually calmer by the 3rd act.

Posted by Mark at May 1, 2009 11:09 AM

comment #6

Alan Cerny says ...

No love for KHAN, Jeffrey?

Posted by Alan Cerny at May 1, 2009 11:10 AM

comment #7

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Good stuff. Can't wait.

Wells, did you see this on IMAX?

Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey at May 1, 2009 11:14 AM

comment #8

Jeffrey Wells says ...

The IMAX screening is next week. I saw it on 35 mm on 42nd Street. Is there a site that has a photo roster of Roddenberry's alleged conquests? A lot of the guest-star actresses on the old '60s series were fairly hot.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at May 1, 2009 11:17 AM

comment #9

Mark says ...

BTW, in Jeffrey's treatment for the Bernie Madoff story, does Bernie see himself as a type of Robin Hood where is wife=the poor?

Sometimes villains are just driven by money and power, and are well aware that they're the bad guy.

Posted by Mark at May 1, 2009 11:19 AM

comment #10

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Khan is very decent film. No big problems with it. I just feel that Abrams understands and takes things closer ti the old Roddenberry vibe than the Shatner-Nimoy films did,.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at May 1, 2009 11:19 AM

comment #11

Mark says ...

...":his wife..."

Posted by Mark at May 1, 2009 11:20 AM

comment #12

George Prager says ...

This review convinces me that STAR TREK is worth seeing, even if I have to go to a mouse-ridden multiplex at 11am.

I once had to go to a LOST & FOUND screening on the Upper West Side. Of course there was a guy sitting in front of me who thought that everything out of David Spade's mouth was the funniest thing ever said by a human or nonhuman.

Posted by George Prager at May 1, 2009 11:24 AM

comment #13

Circumvrent says ...

I hated the sound of his laughter -- "Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!" ...The guy had a 1959 flat-top haircut with whitewalls on the side.

I hope I'm not the only one picturing Wells sitting next to Paulie Walnuts.

Posted by Circumvrent at May 1, 2009 11:25 AM

comment #14

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

"And I hated the sound of his laughter -- 'Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!' "

Yeah, isn't that the most annoying kind of laugh? It's even worse than the slightly less common "mfaodsfds-odslfmsdfd-maduosufd!".

The press won't stop hammering about the pig flu, the economy sucks, and even by your own (uber-grouchy standards) this movie works pretty efficiently as a kickoff summer tentpole showcase (no, I'm not going to count Wolverine). Why shouldn't this guy be able to enjoy himself seeing this a week early, albeit in his own non-conventional, louder-than-normal (which I suspect you're exaggerating) way?

Part of the entire appeal of the summer moviegoing season is watching expensive pictures with an already receptive -- if not downright excitable -- audience. You know, if people really bother you this much, you could always wait until this hits Blu-Ray.

You're a real creep sometimes.

Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum at May 1, 2009 11:30 AM

comment #15

Neil Miller says ...

Right on, Mr. Wells, right on.

You and I don't always come down on the same side of things, but here we stand. I for one couldn't agree more with you when you say that the film is delivered with "moxie." As well, I felt that the casting was oddly spot on. As it turns out, first impressions can be deceiving. Who knew that Karl Urban had that spirit of Bones in him or that Simon Pegg would be able to channel James Doohan so perfectly, if only for a few brief moments.

To say the least, this could be the movie that makes Star Trek a living, breathing culturally relevant entity again -- or at least, a kid can dream, can't he? :)

Posted by Neil Miller at May 1, 2009 11:33 AM

comment #16

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to CitizenKanedfor ChewingGum: You weren't there. You should have heard this asshole! He fluttered with laughter when Chris Pine bumped his head! That''s not funny. Only dweebs laugh at stuff like that. In fact, anyone who laughs loudly at any actor in any film bumping his/her head is to be regarded askance.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at May 1, 2009 11:35 AM

comment #17

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Okay. Well, maybe he was high.

You've really never laughed at Leslie Nielsen bumping his head into shit in the Naked Gun movies? Never? Come on. Own up.

And who was that dweeb i heard laughing at that Bigfoot video the other day? Sure wuzzn't me.

Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum at May 1, 2009 11:45 AM

comment #18

mccool says ...

You didn't like the constant scowling , yet if I recall you liked Wahlberg's performance in Departed?

I think your problem is more with Bana and you're looking for reasons to validate it...

You sound like Ward Churchill. As Mark says, sometimes bad guys are bad guys. Sometimes they relish it. Or sometimes people are angry or pissed off. Maybe someone pissed on his corn flakes. Angry and pissed off people tend to scowl.

Posted by mccool at May 1, 2009 11:46 AM

comment #19

winstonsmith says ...

i sure hope there's no jeffrey hunter in chris pine's performance, since hunter didn't play kirk.

Posted by winstonsmith at May 1, 2009 11:47 AM

comment #20

DavidF says ...

Worst over-reactor every? I sat in front of a guy who verbally winced EVERY TIME someone got shot in Saving Private Ryan. Suffice it to say I wanted to hurt him long before the opening scene was over.

I glared a lot and at the end of the movie turned to him (seated beside wife and child) and just said, "You might want to have that checked out."

And, man, I really wanna see this flick.

Posted by DavidF at May 1, 2009 11:48 AM

comment #21

Gordon27 says ...

"You didn't like the constant scowling , yet if I recall you liked Wahlberg's performance in Departed? "

Are you suggesting that Wahlberg was the villain of 'The Departed'?

Posted by Gordon27 at May 1, 2009 12:17 PM

comment #22

corey3rd says ...

JWW

Not sure of a complete list - but Gene was boffing Nurse Chapel and Uhura. He had a spyhole in his office door so he could see if his wife was in the reception room.

Strange to think that Gene and Shatner were studding it up on the Desilu lot at the same time Bob Crane and Richard Dawson were also rocking their trailers on the Hogan's Heroes set.

Posted by corey3rd at May 1, 2009 12:23 PM

comment #23

Ryansi51 says ...

I don't know if "strange" is exactly the word i'd use corey... awesome comes to mind.

how about eddie murphy with a bed in his office at paramount. you just don't get that lack of subtlety anymore.

Posted by Ryansi51 at May 1, 2009 12:31 PM

comment #24

Gordon27 says ...

Corey - that might sound confusing, because Chapel was eventually his wife too, but they only got married after the original series was over. Roddenberry was married to somebody else for 20 years before that.

Posted by Gordon27 at May 1, 2009 12:33 PM

comment #25

mccool says ...

gordon, no....was trying give evidence that Wells' real issue is with Bana, and not the disposition of the character. Wahlberg was pissed off and brooding throughout the Departed without any real motivation ... and he received a lot of praise from Wells.

i don't know if his character was a villain. You could make the case he was a pretty rotten guy, a hot-headed reactionary who drove DiCaprio's character to the brink of a breakdown. Then there's the vigilantism and all of the ethical issues surrounding that. He certainly wasn't a hero.

Posted by mccool at May 1, 2009 1:07 PM

comment #26

Nilco says ...

Who are you to say what's "disproportionate enthusiasm"? The guy might've been high, or just having a fine day. I'll not pretend I've never been annoyed by someone laughing. But I file it away under my hang-up and move on. I don't despise them and their haircuts.

And I would rather catch a solid popcorn flick w/ flattops ready for a good time then a room full of stifled critics reloading for their blogs.

Posted by Nilco at May 1, 2009 1:16 PM

comment #27