An important lesson is learned about always watching a trailer before seeing a film.

Not to say this film was bad.  Just that I walked in expecting to see a chick flick with lots of people coming to terms with stuff and instead got a documentary designed to make me feel guilty for living in a 1st world country and for being a man.

As an extremely regular movie goer I have memberships to pretty much every theater reward program out there.  Typically this gets me cheap popcorn and the occasional free movie ticket but a couple weeks ago it spat out a free pass to see this movie.  I am if nothing else cheap, and giving me a free pass to a new screening is akin to waving the red flag in front of the bull (although I will admit on the rare occasion that I see a film for free or early I tend to start of more kindly disposed to the film (to any Hollywood marketing firms out there that was a less than subtle hint)).

Girl Rising is a documentary about the importance of educating girls and young women in third world hell holes.  As a marketing tool I will have to say it is shockingly effective as I am now an advocate for this.  No joke I am going to try to scrape together a few ducats and send it to the charity behind this thing (and if you knew how I live you would understand what that means.  My life savings is in t-shirts right now and my business is not exactly capable of doing more that buying me the occassional quesadilla from Burrito Ole’.)  Showing real people in real situations is always more impactful than all the fake tears and stuntmen Hollywood can through at us, and when those real people are cute little girls from across the globe it will pull at your heartstrings with monster truck force.

During the course of this film I felt a wide gamut of emotions.  I felt fear for a couple of the girls who were honestly in danger, rage and helplessness in the face of others who were raped or sold (if you don’t feel an urge to punch the first six men you come across after listening to a 12 year old Egyptian girl talk about being raped and then married off a year later you are not human.  Feel free to leave the planet by the quickest method available), and happiness and exaltation for the girls who managed to succeed and excel through education.  I have spent most of my life pretending to be Spock emotionally (DJ Spock image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category) but this film blasted through my defenses like a bullet train through a paper towel fence.

The overriding message is that educating girls in Third World countries is an extremely powerful tool for helping not only the girls themselves but the world in general.  Educating girls will grossly benefit the countries GNP, cut down immensely on rape, human trafficking, death from childbirth, overpopulation, and reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS.  This is all in addition to the massive personal benefit to the girls in question.  It shows this presenting short vignettes about 9 different girls from 9 different countries.  Some of them are stories of girls finding an education in spite of the cultural and economic issues facing them.  These are the happy stories.  Others are about girls who can’t get an education due (and in some cases it is illegal for them to do so) and the horrible things that happen or face them because of that. Each vignette is followed by very interesting statistics on how education can benefit these girls.

I was going to give a quick rundown on each of the girls but halfway through it decided one sentence descriptions does not do them the justice the deserve.  I will just say it’s worth your time to see each one, even if some of them will have you clawing your own face off in frustration.

I am not going to bother with my usual stars/black holes rating system.  I called this blog a review for lack of a more descriptive term but this film can’t be reviewed by normal means.  It is not a traditional film.  Is it powerful?  Yes.  Will you want to do something at the end of it?  Yes.  Will you feel good afterward?  Depends on which story you want to focus on, but knowing that for every positive one there are probably thousands of negative ones probably not.  Not all movies are about feeling good.

The part of this film that I had the hardest time was waiting for the denouement.  As a patron of the Hollywood movie set I spent most of the movie waiting for Jason Stratham to break in with a sub machine gun and rescue each of them but you know what?  That sort of hero doesn’t exist in real life.  The actual heroes are regular people like you and me who take a stand and do what is within our means.  I don’t usually do this sort of thing but I invite each one of you to visit Girl Rising, the website of the organization that put this film together, and do whatever you can to help.  If you have money send money.  If you don’t then try to watch the film or social media the crap out of them.  Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is you kids are doing these days to get the word out.  I am not much of a social activist and I hate this Jerry’s Kid’s style telethon BS intensely but if you saw this film you would understand why I now care (and if you know me you know how little I care about almost anything).  Please do what you can.

I always say thanks for reading at the end of my blogs, but this time really thank you for reading.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  Comments on this cause or movie can be put here and off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to david@nerdkungfu.com.  Thank you again.

Dave

Back in November I did my Top 10 Worst TOS episodes list to complement my 10 Best list.  I received a number of comments with people either agreeing or disagreeing, which as a Star Trek fan I am always glad to see and debate.  My number 4 was the Enterprise Incident and to my surprise I had one reader take issue with that.

To be fair to the reader he wasn’t so much endorsing the Enterprise Incident as questioning why I would list the Alternative Factor as a better episode.  At the time I had mentioned my liking of Lazarus and anti-Lazarus fighting forever in the corridor between universes.

I have been watching the whole series over again while working on a new Warhammer army (and if any of you are Warhammer players you can expect to see it at the Alamo GT in Nov.).  When I watched the Alternative Factor I realized that the reader who commented on it had some very valid points.  It really was full of massive plot holes and dumb science.  However, last night I watched the Enterprise Incident and that has firmly cemented it’s position in my list.

At this point I am ready to forgive the episode for the Romulans all speaking perfect English since, as another reader pointed out, pretty much every race in Star Trek speaks flawless English (even though Spock comments on how unusual it is for the aliens to speak English in Bread and Circuses).  My original point about crew members of the Romulan star ship not recognizing a fellow shipmate still stands.  The thing is after watching it again I have a ton of new reasons why this episodes sucks.

First of all, I’m going to give massive hell to the props department for being to lazy or cheap to make up two more Romulan Bird of Prey models, forcing them to use the Klingon ships they happened to have lying around.  The excuse they gave was cursory at best, and just made them look dumb.  Also as a kid I had a Romulan ship model that I liked a lot.

Second, Kirks plan was to get surrounded and captured by the Romulans???  Wasn’t it established in Balance of Terror that no contact had ever been established directly with the Romulans and then later in the Deadly Years that Romulans never take prisoners?  What if the Romulan commander had opted to just obliterate the Enterprise and then sift through the wreckage for anything useful?  If a ship came into my territory in a suicidal manner I would have to assume they had some massive technological advantage and nuke it at range.  Also what is the deal with the Romulan commander offering amnesty for the crew as they were simply following Kirk’s orders?  Doesn’t sound much like Romulans to me.

Third, Kirk has Spock induce a death-like trance so good it fools the Romulan doctors.  They send his body back to the Enterprise.  If you follow the history of Romulan/Federation contacts this really is the first time humans and Romulans have met face to face.  What if the Romulan commander had opted to put Kirks body through a thorough post mortem in hopes of learning some natural weakness and sent his remains back to the Enterprise in a bucket?  Sounds like what they would do, and is definitely what I would do in their place.

Vulcan death grip???  How dumb do you have to be to fall for that?

Finally, Kirk manages to bluff and karate chop his way to the cloaking device.  He steals it and transports back to the Enterprise (by the way, don’t transporters have a hard time going through active deflector shields?  Hasn’t that been established in like 100,000 episodes?).  Kirk gives Scotty 15 minutes to hook it up to the ship to get them out of there.  The Romulan commander finds out almost immediately and does…nothing?  What if she had called the Enterprise and said something like “You have stolen our cloaking device.  I will give you 30 seconds to transport it back to our ship.  For every second you are late, I will kill you.  Oh, by the way I’m going to execute Spock too.”  That’s 15 minutes of waiting for the Enterprise to escape.  Also, Kirk was betting a lot on Scotty being able to hook it up to the ship.  What if the Romulans were using DC and all the Enterprise outlets were AC?  Also, at the start of this fiasco he didn’t know that the Romulans didn’t have a way of defeating their own cloak.  Not exactly a calculated risk

Oh, yeah.  They also manage to transport Spock back on board at the last second (deflector shields again).

Oh, well.  Even a bad Star Trek episode is better than watching the Kardashians bimbo their way across LA.  The Romulan logo shirt is from the Star Trek t-shirt category by the way.

Thanks for reading.  I saw Cold Light of Day yesterday and should have written it up today, but that movie has caused an advanced state of apathy in me.  I’ll write it up tomorrow.  Also I’m kind of fired up about Star Trek right now.  I’m grinding through the horrible 3rd season and feel the need for an outlet and you, my beloved readers, are it.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu (act now to be my 167th follower!).  If you have a comment on this episode or my issues with it feel free to post here.  Any off topic questions or suggests email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

I have been watching all the old TOS episodes while working on a new Warhammer army and the other night had the privilege of watching this one again.  I have been rather put upon by this experience in seeing old episodes that I thought were at least OK and realizing with my more mature eye and a couple years of movie critic work that some of them aren’t quite as awesome as I remember them to be.

This one, however, is every bit as amazing as it was the first time I saw it and then some.  I made this my number 6 on my top 10 best TOS episode list and honestly after seeing it again would bump it up a few slots.  The story itself is wonderfully inventive and complex, but more importantly it is one of the greatest episodes for delving into Kirks mind and sense of duty.  He has to make one of the worst decisions ever but does what his duty requires rather than what his heart wants.

I read a while ago that there is a theory in the Trek universe that the reason Kirk is such a man whore in all the remaining episodes is his one true love will always be Edith Keeler.  While watching this episode I payed particular attention to his actions and  I would have to say I agree.  This is one of the few times he uses the L word and really seems to mean it.  However, I have my doubts that the writers of the series really put that much thought or planning into it.  That being said I note that Kirk manages to avoid romantic entanglements with alien women for 16 full episodes until the Gamemasters of Triskelion, so maybe there is some merit to that theory.  I would like to think so.

The thing that struck me the hardest while rewatching the City was how absolutely stunning Joan Crawford was as Edith Keeler.  I have never been a big fan of hers, but seeing her with her sophisticated accent makes me want to find a time portal back to 1967 to meet her.  Star Trek never hesitated to hire the hottest women in this or the next universe, and they really struck gold with this casting.  I remember liking her as a kid, but now as an adult I am totally captivated.

The City on the Edge of Forever is understandably one of the most critically acclaimed episodes, and won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1968.  The story was originally written by Harlan Ellison, a science fiction writer who bitched heavily about the major rewrites that happened to his story.  Apparently he originally had some kind of drug ring on board the Enterprise causing madness which Roddenberry wisely refused.  However, he got the writing credit and in 2009 sued for royalties from the episode, which sounds a lot like having your cake and wanting to eat it too.  A settlement of some kind was reached.

Anyway, if you are new to Star Trek and think a few of the first episodes are kind of dumb I think it OK to skip ahead to this one and have your concept of space drama re-imagined.  The image I got from the Star Trek T-Shirt category.  It was one of the most popular sellers at the recent Star Trek Convention with good reason.

Warhammer this weekend, so I don’t know if I will see a lot.  There is a new Jet Li movie I am excited about so maybe I will find the time for that.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  Post any thoughts on this episode here.  If you have off topic questions or comments feel free to email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Thanks for reading.  Talk to you soon.

Amazing Dave

Back in November when I did my 10 Worst Star Trek TOS Episode list I included my list of bad ones.  One of the episodes that slipped my grasp was the Alternative Factor.  One reader commented and called me out on it.  At the time I said I had a liking for Lazarus and anti-Lazarus fighting for eternity between universes.  However, I have been rewatching the TOS episodes and last night got up to the Alternative Factor and have had to reconsider my position on this one.

Basically this episode is the first to have Season 3 sized plot holes but was barely into Season 1.  The science was about as dumb as possible.  If anti-Lazarus was made of antimatter wouldn’t he be annihilated as soon as he came into contact with matter from our world?  The matter humans are comprised of changes every minute.  If anti-Lazarus ate or drank something what happened when he went home?  Wouldn’t his stomach contacts destroy the universe?  Is it only the exact molecules that destroy each other?  How does that make sense?

So Lazarus is a crazed madman who has already expressed a desire for critical components of the Enterprise’s warp drive.  Why didn’t Kirk just throw him in the brig, or at least put a guard on him?  Instead a complete stranger has free run of the ship, and gets to hang out in the rec room listening to crew members discuss dilithium crystals.  Had Lazarus been under observation the crew might have noticed how he kept phasing in and out of reality every time the universe went on it’s freaky binge.  Given that knowledge I think Kirk would have not been remiss dropping him into the nearest black hole.

Why, exactly, did anti-Lazarus have to fight Lazarus in the corridor between universes forever?  You can’t tell me it’s because of the balance of atoms or something like that.  One of them had a bandage that the other did not, so there is no way the atom count was accurate.  Why couldn’t Kirk have just executed Lazarus (the crazy one) or rendered him unconscious, tied him up, and tossed him into the little ship?  Anti-Lazarus could have just hung out on the other side and blown up his own ship, then went home to market his own line of facial hair products.

Speaking of just knocking Lazarus out, at one point Kirk and Lazarus struggle as Kirk tries to pitch Lazarus into the gateway.  That’s all fine and well, but Mr. Spock and two red shirts just stand there fully armed watching.  What if Lazarus had been secretly trained in martial arts and tossed Kirk in the door again, or just gotten lucky and gouged out one of Kirks eyes?  Spock could have nerve pinched him out, cuffed him, and tossed him into the corridor.  Also Kirk takes his sweet ass time nuking the ship from orbit.  At any second Lazarus or anti-Lazarus (or both) could have come rolling out of the gate and destroyed the universe.

I don’t know.  Is it worse than the Enemy Within, my number 10 worst episode?  I guess not.  The science is not as horrible, and at least they tried to address some interesting ideas beyond the duality of man.  However, Kirk did not get to demonstrate his range of acting ability as he did in the Enemy, so from a cinematographic point of view maybe.

One thing is for sure.  This episode would have to murder a bus full of orphans and nuns to be considered worse than Spock’s Brain, so as bad as it or any of the other ones are at least it has that going for it.  (Spock’s Brain image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category)

Today is cheap movie night, so I will try to see Hit and Run tonight.  It’s the new pretty boy Bradley Cooper movie, but apparently it was done semi-independently so I am curious to see what comes of it.  Look for the review tomorrow.  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  If you have any thoughts or comments on this post feel free to make them here, and if you have any off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Dave

I’m not the fanatic Dave is, but when I saw the recent reboot for Star Trek a big question popped into my head.  Here it is:

If the Romulans could go back in time to destroy Earth and Vulcan as revenge for their own planet being destroyed, why not just to to Romulus and warn them of the impending doom headed their way?  While there they could have given the Romulans their ship, giving the Romulan Empire a technology edge that probably would have let them conquer the Federation.  Then, by the time the super nova hit Romulus they could all be living on Earth.  It’s not like they were worried about destroying the time line.

Dave says time travel is a hard plot device to use competanly, and I’m starting to see what he means.  I still enjoyed the movie, but this is kind of dumb.  This image I got from Dave’s Star Trek t-shirt collection.  He has a ton.

Jason

So I have been posting odd movie questions lately and wanted to ask this one because I know it will bug the hell out of Dave.  He is a screaming Star Trek fan.  Here it is:

If Genesis caused the germ cells on the Spocks coffin to hyper evolved into giant mutant worms in a few hours, why would it cause the highly radioactive cells of Spocks body to simply create a new Spock?  Shouldn’t his body have either evolved into a billion other weird little creatures?  Or hyper evolve into a super advanced Vulcan?  Or since he was all radioactive and the DNA probably all messed up into Spock with like eight arms (Octospock)?

While we are on the subject, it is shown that Spock’s new body was growing up from a child, which really implies that at some point it was a baby.  What, exactly, did that baby eat or drink?  If it grew up so fast it must have been eating like 10 times it’s body weight every day.  Grass?  Since there were no animals on the planet that would imply no need for the plants to evolved into something edible.  I didn’t see a lot of water around there too.  Even if he did find edible grass and rocks to suck on wouldn’t he have suffered from massive malnourishment?

I love this question.  The image I found in Dave’s Star Trek collection.  He has like a million Star Trek t-shirts.

Jason

SPOILER ALERT: the boat sinks.

So I did see this last night and yes, the girl I saw it with teared up.  Fortunately I had just recharged my robot batteries and managed to escape without being too affected by it. (If you want to see me cry like a baby show me the last 10 minutes of the Wrath of Khan.  Spock’s death scene hits me like nothing else.  TWOK image courtesy of the Star Trek T-Shirt category)

I have long avoided seeing Titanic for a laundry list of reasons.  At the time I didn’t know James Cameron from Adam and had no idea what a talented film maker he was.  Also I had issues with Hollywood pretty boys like Leonardo Di Caprio and did not want to support them.  Finally, I had a problem with Hollywood using the tragic death of 1500 people to sell a love story.

Time makes fools of us all, however.  Avatar made me a James Cameron fan.  Granted he doesn’t make the greatest stories, but he makes incredibly effective films that tug at your heartstrings.  Watching him in Inception has made me a fan of Leonardo, and I have since watched and enjoyed him in films like Shutter Island and J Edgar.  And finally seeing Hollywood take the great tragedy of my time, 911, and turn it into a cheesy story in Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close had more or less hardened me to the exploitation of tragic events that happened decades before I was born.

I am not going to go into the story.  If you are like me and haven’t seen it yet I’m sure the story of love found and lost (as told by Shakespeare) has filtered into your subconscious.  Either that or you live in a cave somewhere.  Nor am I going to do a formal review as it  would be a pointless waste of time.  The movie is nigh flawless, and except for a couple issues with some forced dialog I really couldn’t find any black holes that would not be total nit picking.  The story was seamless, the acting superb, and all the characters believable and cool.  I am especially a fan of Billy Zane (see him in Demonknight if you have not).  The chemistry between Leonardo and Kate Winslet is very real and makes for a great love story, while the tragic ending is like a punch in the stomach that somehow feels good.  Plus we get to see Kate Winslet topless.

I will say that unless the original film was a Hanna Barbara cartoon the 3D did absolutely, 100% nothing.  If I hadn’t gotten up to use the restroom I would have totally forgotten about the bad fashion decision on my face.  3D sucks, and post production 3D (15 years post production) sucks even more.

I couldn’t even come up with some funny questions like I did with Harry Potter.  I do have some but most of them make sense.  Like, for example, in the unlikely event I were ever to set foot on another ship (watching this movie has cured me of that desire for life) and there were not enough light boats, I think I would have grabbed a fire axe and cut enough deck material to make some kind of floatation device.  Kate ended up an a big piece of wood.  Also, why were crew members given seats on the boats in order to row when there were any number of able bodied male passengers who might have done it?

Actually I do have one funny question.  It is navel tradition that the captain of a ship be the last man off and should go down with the ship.  If you were given captaincy of a ship you would know that.  Why then would you be OK with being on a ship that did not have enough seats for everyone?  If you have 2,800 passengers and enough lifeboat seats for 2,799 people guess who gets the short end?  Of course, this movie is a study in the error of hubris.  This is why no ship since has been called “unsinkable” and why I don’t use phrases like “safe”, “that should work”, or “a good idea”.

Anyway, I did enjoy this movie, and if you are a stick in the mud like I was for years I suggest you get over it.  However, the 3D is more or less worthless so I think it OK to see it on a larger TV.  On the other hand a lot of the shots were pretty impressive so maybe it’s worth the headache (literally).

Thanks for reading.  Not a lot out right now that I want to go see, but I will find something to write about tomorrow morning.  If you have a comment about this review feel free to post it here, or follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  You can email me with specific questions or suggestions at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Talk to you soon.

Dave