THOR + PILGRIM NEWS

MTV SplashPage claims Thor director Kenneth Branagh has chosen his leading man — Chris Hemsworth, who did a great job playing George Kirk in Star Trek. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Branagh does with this movie. Marvel keeps knocking them out of the park, which is exciting for comic and action fans. Now, if DC could only do as well with a Legion of Superheroes movie — or how about Justice League Europe. Now, we need a comic book movie with humor first (and no, I don’t mean Lobo) + action + costumes — Scott Pilgrim should cover the action + humor well enough (MTV SplashPage sends Clash at Demonhead photo peek). Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’ Malley is on Twitter now.

iDate A LENS FLARE

Some lonelypond style reviews (after the longish Star Trek one); for those not interested in movies or TV, enjoy this cartoon about the perils of literary analysis:

STAR TREK: First, I was wrong about Chris Pine. He did an excellent job as the James T. Kirk the Reboot. Strong acting, with Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and John Cho as standouts. Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike and Chris Hemsworth as Kirk pater added to the heroic gravitas. I do object to the Spock/Uhuru implied romance — she was his student and is in his direct chain of command — as Gayle said, there’s no universe where that happens. Also WAY too many closeups* and apparently a little something called lens flare that even J J Abrams admits he indulged too much in…and i09 with some more behind the scenes info.

I did miss EPIC scope; I think space was handled poorly…when the Enterprise comes up through particles outside of Saturn, I wanted the camera to pull back and for there to be SCOPE + MAJESTY + the BREATHTAKING empty beauty of between the stars. I actually found myself missing the lonely, tiny models hanging on strings from the original series. And I missed the real McCoy. Karl Urban’s voice just didn’t have the range for snarky but concerned, although he had some great lines — or maybe he didn’t have the director to lead him…I think even Nimoy was a hair off; but so very Spock.

So, in summary, sequel, yes, but put someone else behind the camera and lose the frigging flashlight. Fewer closeups, more banter, take some of the action a hair slower and no ice planet Hoth please (people behind me actually yelled “Rebel Alliance” — aren’t shout outs to one treasured science fiction universe enough — I won’t even discuss the villian’s Babylon 5 lifted transport).

Next topic: I actually broke down and watched this week’s Smallville as we’re entering the end game for The Miser and I really needed some action to relax a bit…Smallville is a very serious show and you know how you can tell that? Everyone’s wearing black, everyone, dudes, and they’re all standing (in black) yammering at Clark (in black) very seriously. They are wasting Tom Welling. And where’d the coolest music (when there was no Middleman) on TV go? Boo…Legion seems to be coming back for the finale; I don’t know where they buried Lois and BOO. still the smallest of villes.

iDate a Bad Boy: I need to watch iGo Japan to remember when iCarly movies were funny…PeeWee Babies, couldn’t he have had a fairy or unicorn tatoo; that would have made so much more sense. Bah. Sam and Freddy stuff funny in the first half; Sam and Spencer stuff funny in the second half, so I can look foward to the Double Trouble event, where Jennette McCurdy appears on True Jackson.

Snake and Bacon…my buddy and fellow Gullible and Twitchy animator @pseudochron is a big Adult Swim fan and posted a link to the Snake and Bacon premiere. Random + funny, although it did make me miss the glories of The Tick.

SPOON! And that should tide you over for awhile.

*If you had seen all of their bodies instead of just contorted, angry faces, you would have seen Quinto’s body want to kill Kirk while his face remained impassive half a heartbeat before he did it and you would have seen Pine let him, even though Kirk would have read all the warning signs — and it would have been AMAZING. There’s a reason we have limbs and a torso; they help us express and read emotion, especially the ones we want to keep hidden. Proof that closeups aren’t always the ticket: Spock remembering the destruction of Vulcan — you can see the distance and his incapacity to do anything and it’s one of the best scenes in the movie.

POP CULTURE CATCH UP

Shatner is the only Kirk…yep.

Jonas Brothers show better than I expected (ratings ok); girls strong…a bit too much Nick’s so serious about girls. Mostly harmless.

Caught “The Penguins of Madagascar” tonight — much better animation debut for me than Iron Man…some very funny bits and I like the way the penguins move. But could tire of it very fast. Did make me laugh though.

Also caught first animated clip of The Princess and The Frog on the Disney Channel…looked nice, but thought the frog might have sounded a bit Pepe Le Pew, but too quick for anything to really register…apparently, they’re going to run a preview during this Saturday’s Wizards of Waverly Place. Speaking of Wizards, the silent movie homage this past week was great…more physical comedy, please. And thank you.

iCarly movie coming up (iDate a Bad Boy) and iGo Japan rebroadcast next Monday (5/11)…apparently iCarly is the kid plus tween ratings ruler of the moment. Based on iGo Japan, looking forward to iDate (and I’ll be needing a break from Shakespeare).

That does it for now…good night.

P.S. On a me note, I miss having the Blink Kitty Love site to mess around with lyrics and music and such…started the redesign, Tammy took over and it’s pink…oy.

BIG BANG BOOM

Catch up on TV reviews:

Big Bang Theory continues funny — although I am disappointed that Leslie dumped Howard…guess they’ve decided the boys just shouldn’t date for any length of time.

SciFi ran a Eureka marathon and we caught the Best in Faux episode…still fun, but still not as chock full of quirky goodness as the first season. New episodes coming in July and there’s a Eureka comic out there…

Sonny With A Chance also continues funny…always enjoy a good ensemble comedy with physical flair.

Wizards Of Waverly Place (the brain switching episode) made me cry with laughter — great funny, physical stuff from Selena Gomez….movie should be fun.

The Earth Day episodes on Nick were interesting. I thought the iCarly one was very funny and took an interesting tack by pointing out how difficult it can be to judge what’s actually going to help. True Jackson didn’t really pound the green message but was a fairly good mix of silliness and laughter. Greg Proops always turns in an excellent comic performance.

Hatching Pete was not a big hit…Jason Dolley went up a few notches on my can handle a romantic lead chart, but the directing did the story no service…for a movie with so much action, the camera moved too much…I think you can have a choice, move the actors or move the camera, but unless you’re really good, do not attempt both.

Finished watching the Wonder Woman DVD…visually very very nice, but I thought the voice talent and script weak…Hades reminded me way too much of the villainess from The Little Mermaid and I was very glad I had rented and not purchased.

Caught the first half of the new teen Iron Man show On Demand. Didn’t enjoy it…not fond of that style of animation.

Star Trek getting the big culture buzz (FT bio of J J Abrams, big Entertainment Weekly article this week) but I still have my doubts about Chris Pine as Kirk. He seems to lack physical and command presence; Kirk isn’t a smolderer. Pine was cast in The Princess Diaries 2 to be less commanding than Anne Hathaway and I think Gary Marshall’s instinct have been proven to be spot on more often than not. What comforts me is that I saw a meet the characters promo on Nick and McCoy seems to have retained his wry sense of humor and Abrams has done an INCREDIBLY good job casting actors (yes, even Zachary Quinto — did you not see him go gay and bitchier and funnier than Tori in So Notorious) who can do comedy — banter and flirting of all kinds is essential to the Star Trek universe in any reboot.

I think that’s enough for now — lunch is calling…well, it would be if I knew what it was…

GO GET FREE COMIC BOOKS ON SATURDAY (5/2); it’ll be fun.

TREK

Starfleet cupcakes(and I don’t mean Uhura) + Empire link that means Trek might achieve opening weekend status. In six months or so, hmmm, I will be needing that break from iambic pentameter.

YES, THE SCI FI GEEK ALWAYS LEAKS

Caught the tail end of a Dr. Who this morning — Shakespeare both nearly destroys and probably saves the universe — with witches, because who can’t have enough MacBeth references –and realized what I don’t like about the modern Dr. Who take — they’re a bit twee about working British history in — how cutesy can we be about Shakespeare, Queen Victoria, Dickens…name your historical figure/period…and what is twee, another one of those fancy words? No it’s the perfect word: (definition thanks to Merriam-Webster.com; if you want the racy ones, check out Urban Dictionary yourself) “chiefly British : affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint ” so I stand by my word — it’s very very twee to have Shakespeare save the world with a Harry Potter spell…and if they’re not being the “T” word, there are DALEKS. Now, Daleks are great and wicked scary, but a person can only have so much salt shaken into their science fiction diet.

And yes, the early years of Dr. Who could be clunky and everyone in the universe occasionally seemed to be RSC trained actor with the big voice, but there was a level of visual imagination that now seems to have reversed, going from a macro universe to a micro fitting of the Doctor into British History. And it’s too large a dose. I miss the Brigadier.

Next grump: Star Trek…everybody’s on about the “bromance” potential of the new Spock and Kirk (and “bromance” is a word we can do without — Entertainment Weekly called it “bromantic” and it took me a moment to realize it was nothing at all related to the word bromide — stick to mutual man crush if you must, at least that doesn’t sound chemical or like anything I might catch)… I have no objection to the Spock-Kirk heroic support system, but one of the reasons I loved the original Star Trek was for the McCoy-Spock mutual snarkiness society and so far no one seems to have remembered that existed. Kirk always got the alien babe; Spock and McCoy were too busy keeping the house from falling down while he was off being heroic, house being the Enterprise.