More Bacon than the Pan Can Handle

Yes, although I was writing out each day of my vacation, and how awesome they were, I quickly tired of the play-by-play, so I bailed on it.  Deal.

The rest of the vacation was a great time.  Although the weather was uncooperative, we found plenty to do to occupy our time, and made the best of what we could.  There were a few breaks in the rain to catch some sun, and I managed to get a bit of color even without the beach days I was hoping for.  I also got to rock some killer sushi, so that worked out as well.

While riding out the increment weather, I decided to take a trip to Seminole, and check out the new Terminator joint.  For those of you completely in the dark, it's the one that came out last weekend, and although it hefted a fair margin of the box office, it still got crushed by Night at the Museum 2.  I'm telling you guys, never underestimate the draw of American history at the box office.  People LOVE stuff like this, and kids absolutely lap it up.  I'm in the same boat, these movies are all gold in my book, but I wanted to wait on NatM2 until I can see it in IMAX.

Brief aside - Syracuse is home to the MOST (Museum of Science and Technology), which is in turn home to the Bristol Omnitheater.  This is one of the first IMAX movie theaters in the region, which is great for the museum.  Unfortunately, as its an older projector, it lacks the equipment needed to show feature-length films, so it's uncommon for the theater to show the big blockbuster movies.  At the same time, it's unlikely they would be willing to pay for the reels to do so anyway, especially for movies like Spiderman or what have you, since they have no real educational value.  It is a museum, after all.  Still, they are proud to be showing NatM2 in IMAX, which is a great step in the right direction.  I think should they open the gates to more of these kid-friendly movies, there could be real interest in it here, as the nearest feature IMAX theater is hours away.  In a time when the museum needs the attention the most (no pun intended), they could really benefit from the draw these films could provide.

Anyway, on Terminator: Salvation, I've this to say - it was a movie.  And really, that's the best I can do for it.  While I did enjoy the film, it wasn't as revolutionary as T2, but it wasn't the trash heap that T3 was, either.  I'm glad they've breathed new life into the franchise, and Christian Bale is easily the best John Connor we've seen, but there wasn't a lot to cling on to in the movie.

First of all, I went into Terminator with relatively high expectations for the cast, but pretty low expectations of the director and effects.  I'll make no apologies about the fact that I have literally no respect for the directorial prowess of McG - and it only has a bit to do with the ridiculous moniker he's labelled himself with.  Seriously, man.  You're a professional.  At least pretend you have some credibility.  You're resume certainly isn't doing that for you, Mr. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.  At least Demi Moore looked hot in it.  So, I went in expecting a weakly driven plot and some mediocre special effects, but looked to Bale et al to make up for it with badassery.  What I got was a contrived story, with extremely cliched plot points, filled with really well done effects and direction, and mediocre performances.

Wait, what?  Yes, I said it, McG actually has a worthwhile credit to his account after T:S.  The movie looked great, with the exception of a few small CGI flaws here and there, but they were easily overlooked as the rest of the film was excellently shot, rendered, and toned.  The actors' performances overall were fine, although there were plenty of "Batman Voice" moments for Bale, and there was a real slippage of accents for Sam Worthington (who played the actual lead role of Marcus Wright).  It was quite obvious that while Bale has a mastery of dialect - I've seen him do a variety of accurate accents in other films - that Worthington hasn't quite gotten his American down yet.  The Australian slips back through.

These quibbles aside, the real sticking point of the movie for me was the absolute deluge of cliches in the movie.  It was near impossible for me to overlook the obvious foreshadowing points along the way (Your heart is sooo stroooong), and the characters' motivation - aside from survival - was completely absurd.  Moon Bloodgood's character in particular left me wondering "why would she even care?" about a hundred times.  By the end of the movie, I was simply no longer capable of believing that the characters gave a shit about each other at all, with the exception of John Connor trying to save Kyle Reese, in order to assure his own survival in the past-future(?).  I'll leave the time travel paradoxes out of the issue, since it's always been a problem with the franchise, and if you really want to complain about that, you probably shouldn't be watching the movies.

And yet, even with all these issues, I did enjoy Terminator, in the sense that I was entertained for 130 minutes.  After leaving the theater, I realized that I would have a difficult time really describing my opinion on the movie, since there wasn't much to it.  It's another of those franchise films that feels like a plot mover - it's a means to facilitate the next sequel.  Frankly, I've had enough of those movies at this point, and I'd like to get to some real story.  There's no money in real endings, though, so I don't know why I would expect to see one.

All in all, it was a fine movie.  As summer approaches, I wonder how many more "I liked it because I shut my head off" movies I'll be able to take.  Hopefully just enough to get me through September, and into Oscar season.

This week, I'm hoping to catch Night at the Museum, and when it hits this weekend, Pixar's new one, Up.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Family and Reboots

Sunday was Mother's Day, which means a few things in my world.

1. I would be spending some amount of time with my family, which can be a good thing, or a not so good thing, depending on the mood of the players involved at the time, and what's going on in their lives.  More on this in a moment.  This time, it meant brunch at my Uncle's.
2. I would be spending some amount of time with my girlfriend's family, around dinner time.  This is nice, as it allows me to interact with her on a level that is reserved for those we feel most comfortable with.  I'm not completely at ease around them yet, as I've only been to a couple holiday events, but it's getting there.  Consider it a work in progress.
3. I have about three hours to kill after leaving ma familia and before heading to Jen's.  Jen is my girlfriend, by the way.

Before I get into the events of the day, let me give you some background on my family.  We're an Italian family, straight out of the 1950s.  My parents are still happily married after 35 years, as are my father's parents, who are both in their mid 80s.  It's a picture straight out of Pleasantville, which made it an incredibly warm and welcoming environment to grow up in.  Unless it wasn't.  Like any family, there are times when we just do not get along.  Most of these have to do with one of three things:

• My Aunt being neurotic, and the rest of us calling her on it.
• My father and his brother being on opposite sides of an argument
• My brother.  Period.

As much as I love my brother, he's the epitome of the black sheep.  Covered head to toe in tattoos (not that I'm against that, being only slightly behind him on that road), living in a perpetual state of summer vacation.  Still, he is one of the most compassionate people I know, when he can get out of his own way.  He's seeing a girl now who brings that out of him, which I like a lot, so it's a bit easier for me to handle him for more than a few minutes at a time.

You've got to understand, we spent our childhood hating each other.  Not disliking, HATING.  We were frequently in need of forcible restraint to keep us from hurting each other physically.  It was out of control, and I honestly don't understand how our parents dealt with it.  It must have been exhausting for them to work all day and come home to deal with us.  But, as we both got older, we managed to find some common ground, and now I can happily say that while we don't always see eye to eye, we've managed to find ways to accept each other.  Sappy, I know.

The point is, Sunday was a good day.  We all had brunch at my uncle's, and then sat and talked for a bit, before heading our separate ways.

Tony (my brother) and I decided to check out a matinee of the new Star Trek movie in the three hour window, while Jen went home and caught up on sleep.  Apparently, girls aren't that interested in Star Trek.  Who knew?

There's obviously been a lot said about the movie already, since we're days past the opening weekend.  The word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive, some critics calling it "This year's Iron Man."  I'm not sure what they mean by that - whether it means it's this year's "Geek Movie" to make a bunch of money, or if it means its the genre film that actually turns out to be good, who can tell?  I know this much - I enjoyed it very much.  While the film starts off slow, with the campy dialogue that we're all so familiar with from the original series and first few films, it quickly picks up steam.  Once the plot really started moving, as Kirk begins his schooling at Star Fleet, the film won me over.  I was hooked, and along for the ride.  There were only a few complaints I had, and contrary to popular opinion, the lens flares weren't it.

• I was disappointed by the "Three Years Later" that immediately followed Kirk's first meeting with Bones.  I turned to my brother and said "I want to see the movie we just skipped."  I'm concerned that now, since we've established these characters and the actors playing them, that the story in any subsequent movies will be forced to move forward, and we've lost the opportunity to show Kirk at Star Fleet Academy.  It's too bad, because it has a real Ender's Game quality that has a lot of potential.
• Eric Bana's character, Nero, doesn't really fit the mold of the dangerous villain.  He's the captain of a mining ship, certainly, but even being pissed about his situation (no spoilers), it seems like he's harboring far more resentment than he really should be.  He holds Spock responsible, but that just seems short sighted to me - it's not like he had any real control over the situation that caused his resentment.  His anger seems misplaced.  Maybe it's just Bana's acting that's the problem.

I don't want to nitpick too much though, because I really did like the film.  I'm by no means a trekkie, really I've only seen some syndicated episodes of TNG and Voyager, along with watching the movies, more out of a sense of geek obligation than any real love for the material, but I think this cast, with JJ Abrams at the helm, could reasonably put out a number of movies and I'd be in line to see all of them.  They've got a great chemistry, and I'd love to see more.