Finally saw the Star Trek reboot, finally saw Inglourious Basterds.
The movie that opened this summer alongside the film that closed this summer, seen in one weekend. Both are excellent films, but for extraordinarily different reasons.
Inglourious Basterds will be the classic, while Star Trek will probably become the next dull movie franchise in the coming summers. But as summer movies, these both succeeded at what the movie market needs right now, which is damn good entertainment.
On Star Trek:
Art by my Friend Natalia! You should check out here gallery!
(Um… in case the link with the picture doesn’t work, http://theartslave.deviantart.com )
1) Has anyone else noticed that we can’t have straight-up action movies anymore? It’s all action movies-cum comedies. Of course, I couldn’t figure out if we were laughing because it was funny or we were laughing because it was Star Trek. The thing is, this is happening in a lot of movie franchises, such as Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and, well, Star Trek.
2)The Fandom, She Grows. From my own reaction, but also from my friends, the Reboot has created so many new trekkies. It helps that the Original Series is now on Youtube and SyFy has been showing some of the various series as well. I can’t speak for what the fandom was like before, because I never had personal friends who were trekkies, but it seems to have grown a little. Who knows, maybe I’m just seeing people who have always liked Star Trek before really freaking out over this? But I think not, or at least, not entirely.
Is this important? It depends on who you are. Obviously to my Trekkie friends, yes, it’s all really important. To me? It’s interesting, but because the end of the reboot is entirely cruxed on the belief that we’ll be getting a sequel, this isn’t going to be a classic. Outside of the new trekkies, there will be those who will love it now, hate it six months from now. That’s sad because it’s excellent, but movies don’t have as much staying power in the public psyche as much as we might like.
Inglourious Basterds
1) It flails around and screams “TARANTINO!” from the top of its lungs. But it works, because that’s how Tarantino movies work. I really liked it. I feel like it’s one of his strongest films to date. Everything ties up in a very bloody, historically inaccurate way, but it has that possibility of existing in the future as a classic.
2) Staying power: Not a movie you forget easily. Again, pretty much a trademark of Tarantino projects. The staying power reflects with, a) me waking up this morning and remembering some Brad Pitt’s dialogue from the last scene, but also b) this is a movie that can have people still talking about it ten years from now.
3) It’s shot beautifully. There were a few great scenes where I was dragged out of the story going “That looks really cool. Most of the time I don’t notice these mise-en-scenes unless they are really eye-catching, so worthy of note.
4) Yes, I am a language nerd: When the characters were French, they spoke French! The German soldiers spoke German! The English and Americans… well, so it follows. I love that the languages were matched for once. It was important to the plot and it worked and damn it, things like having people speak their own language makes me happy! Word to those with bad-eyesight though: because of this, it’s very subtitle heavy.
5) Why I liked it: It’s fun. It’s World War II, but it’s a revenge story– unlikely, coincidence prone, but good to watch. Funny in parts, an example of shock-value in others.
So the door opener and door closer for summer movies are worth a watch if you haven’t seen them, especially if you feel like autumn has come too soon.
