The Star Trek TV show was an important step in the evolution of science fiction, a post-Cold War series that offered a hopeful future, a future where race, creed, religion and gender were irrelevant and that even aliens from other planets were accepted as equals. The TV show spawned additional series, along with ten feature films, but things had become rather grim and the campy humor and brash personalities of the Star Trek universe had become tired cliches held together with duct tape and old tropes.
That's why in 2009 when wunderkund director J.J.Abrams released the "reboot" film Star Trek, it was so well received. We all still want to believe in a future that's better then the present, we all hope that the human race is going to create harmony, even if there are weird alien races in the mix. The film did very well financially, with domestic grosses topping $250 million.
Star Trek Into Darkness takes place a few years after Star Trek ends, opening with a cartoonish sequence where Spock (Zachary Quinto) risks his life to prevent a nascent civilization being destroyed by a volcano. When he ends up stranded in the fiery caldera it's up to Kirk (Chris Pine) to violate the ever-important Prime Directive by revealing the ship to the locals in order to rescue Spock. But Spock has also violated the Prime Directive himself by interfering with the natural progress of the local tribe. Not good.
Back on Earth, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) later gives them the bad news: Kirk is suspended from Starfleet and Spock is reassigned to a minor space mission as consequence for violating the rule that Starfleet holds highest in its code of conduct.
In a sea of bland lookalike films, the brash, electric new production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's landmark book The Great Gatsby is an art deco dream of the 1920s, fueled by too much gin and too many sequins. It is an astonishing film, as much a reminder of the magic of cinema as it is an ultimately tragic love story.
After the narrative train wreck that was Iron Man 2, I was curious where the story would take us with inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) in the Marvel universe. Last time he was on screen was the terrific The Avengers, where his sarcasm and narcissism was balanced by having other characters share the screen, but in Iron Man 3, it's all about Tony.
There are two fundamental problems with the action "comedy" Pain and Gain: First, Michael Bay is the wrong director for this sort of material, and second, whoever cast the likable Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in the film made a terrible mistake. I like Wahlberg and Johnson, and that's the problem: In the film the criminal masterminds they portray are such losers that it's just wrong to have these two popular actors in these roles.


Magicians are a funny lot. Awkward, often unpopular kids who found a creative channel to gain popularity and hopefully reduce the daily pummelings from the school bully. It's tough to be a kid, and if you're dorky young Burt (played as a child by Mason Cook) it's a daily nightmare, sprinting home after school to unsuccessfully avoid your tormentor.





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