This is what some are calling the Green Catastrophe. I think it is a thing of pure beauty and wonder, and should be hung in a gallery. Or perhaps at the White House. Maybe we could blow it up 1000% and place it on the top of the Washington Monument. Maybe that’s too far. In any case, if you don’t know what this image shows, click on it and read the article.

As an American who prefers real football to the American version (alternatively called Armored Wankball or Handegg), I am quite pleased with today’s England/USA World Cup match result. Maybe you could tell from my post? This actually puts us into a better spot than I was expecting for the first round. Of course, when we are eventually knocked out (as we always are), my allegiance shifts to England, then if needed to either Italy or Germany depending on who is still in it and various factors. I think I’m most pleased, however, that many of my countrymen finally seem to care about the sport.

I love Shatner and I love Conan. But in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Of course, Kirk is great in his own way, and I absolutely love almost everything I’ve seen William Shatner in. Janeway is a good captain in her own right as well-especially in the later seasons, and Archer…well, I like Scott Bakula most of the time, let’s leave it at that.

The only captain I never really had an opinion on was Sisko. This is because my parents didn’t really like DS9 when it was on, so I never watched it. After having watched the entire series later in life, I can understand why; it is a much more adult-oriented series, with many mature themes, including the Dominion war and at least one “Torture O’Brien” episode per season. However, having seen the entire series now as an adult, I have to say, I enjoy the more serious themes and the continuity of the story. It is a very different series than TNG, but still Star Trek.

Which is all to say, I developed a new-found respect for captain Sisko. This summer, as I watch through the episodes again, I am struck again and again by Avery Brooks’ portrayal of the character. His voice is absolutely captivating, which is not surprising considering that he is an incredible singer. While Patrick Stewart may have a monopoly on the cultured, diplomatic side of captaincy, Avery Brooks has the riveting, commanding side just as well. I often find myself remarking, “How can he be such a badass all the time?”

Now, I wouldn’t go so far to say that Sisko has superseded Picard as my favorite captain-I still feel a great deal of nostalgia for TNG-but I would say that he’s at least a second favorite. The only thing that disappoints me now is that I’ve seen all of the episodes already.

I must note, however, that I recently discovered something amazing about Avery Brooks that raises his awesomeness in my estimation a thousand-fold. According to the Star Trek wiki, memory alpha, when speaking about an episode of DS9 that he directed, he used a beer metaphor:

“I guess it was over the top. But what is over the top, after all? If you’re having a pint of Guinness and you see the foam pouring over the top, you think, ‘That’s great!’ But in a television episode, there’s this concern about action being too large. It all comes down to rhythm, and whether a scene has it or not.”

That gains him a vote for awesome in my book any day.

Just around the corner in the sports world, however, is a world I am eminently familiar with. That’s right, it’s NBA Finals time, and lucky for me, my team is also in the finals here. I’ve been a Lakers fan since before birth (this is a hereditary thing), and watching the NBA Playoffs is an annual must for me. With the Lakers just one game from the title, I am understandably excited. If they do win, this year will pretty much have turned out to be the exact opposite of last year in terms of my sports teams victories. Unfortunately, it looks like the Clare inter-county hurling team aren’t doing so great this year, though. Oh well, I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

The action was mind-blowing, the plot was solid, it looked absolutely beautiful, but Sci-Fi is character driven, and this movie came through in spades on that department. Chris Pine played the perfect brawling, womanizing, brilliant Kirk. Zachary Quinto not only looked spot on Spock, the writers did a great job portraying his internal conflict between Human and Vulcan identities. Look, I could go on, but all the actors did an incredible job. Simon Pegg deserves special mention, as he played a perfect Scotty-a brilliant engineer and physicist with a touch of humor.

Okay, so it wasn’t a perfect movie-the science behind most of it was at best shaky (a supernova threatens to destroy the universe, everything they did with black holes), but having read the prequel comic, I found I was able to suspend my disbelief rather readily. Several people around me complained that the movie was about half made of lens flares, and that anytime there was a window, the light became blinding. I noticed this, but it didn’t bother me as much as it did others.

So, really, I urge you to go see this movie, even if you don’t like Star Trek. Hell, you should go even if you DO like Star Trek.

The first, I saw appended to the movie Cloverfield, and to tell the truth, it was the only reason I went to see that movie (I usually like horror, but the ridiculous unsteady cam made me physically ill). This first trailer, though woefully low on substance, made me rather excited, especially with the voice over by Leonard Nimoy. Later, when the second trailer came out, I was ecstatic that we actually got to see pieces of the movie, though this experience was marred by my having to get used to the new Star Trek universe-the new bridge, as somebody put it, looks like an apple computer threw up all over the place. Still, Zachary Quinto looks a dead ringer for a young Leonard Nimoy, and Simon Pegg is Scotty-these are very good things.

I hope you understand now when I say that this trailer blew the other two out of the water. I will not try to describe it, just go watch it. You will not be disappointed.

I started with Silent Movie, not knowing what to expect. Immediately, however, I knew it was going to be good. The main characters are Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, and Dom DeLuise. When they drove up all crammed into the front seat of the little yellow car, I knew this movie was going to be awesome. I was not wrong.

When Mel talks to the studio owner (Sid Ceaser) trying to pitch his silent movie (which we are to assume is the one we are watching), the owner refuses to produce it and says “Slapstick is dead.” Then he falls into his chair, which falls over and zooms across the room through his desk to impact on the far wall. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. In the same scene, when the owner says that Mel can do the movie, Mel says “When the guys hear about this, they’ll flip!” And they actually flip, several times.

There’s so many awesome things in this movie (such as Marcel Marceau, the famous mime, saying the only line, playing pong on the hospital heart monitor, Marty Feldman’s entire scene trying to get onto the elevator, “would you mind dancing with a mild-mannered pervert?”, the wheelchair race scene, the comically oversized bottle of booze Mel obtains from the liquor store, “He is truly the lord of the winos”, the poster for Young Frankenstein at the theater, the simple undeniable fact of Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman, this list could go on forever). This film proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that slapstick is far from dead, it is hilarious. I highly recommend it.

Alright, Star Trek writers, producers, and director J.J. Abrams, I’m okay with you re-doing the whole concept, starting with a new storyline, in fact I’m in favor of it. If the Star Wars prequels (and pretty much any other prequel film) taught us anything (that wasn’t destroyed along with the brain cells we all lost watching them), it’s that going back to a series to do a prequel after a long time is not, strictly, a good idea. So, I like the fact that you’ve made it clear that you’re not doing a literal re-make.

That said, I do expect respect for the shows and movies that came before. The Original Series may not be my favorite, but it was a truly great and groundbreaking TV show. Something like forty years later the themes of many of the episodes are still relevant, interesting, and most importantly entertaining. Mr. Abrams, you’d be lucky to make a movie half as good as my father’s Star Trek.

And based on your big line from the TV spot, you’re headed down that dark path; forever will it dominate your…
Wait, wrong one.
Ahem:
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!

NB: Okay, so maybe I didn’t dissect it as such. I always hated biology, anyway. Maybe I can stick it in a particle accelerator.

My reaction: “Oh, he means ‘Trials and Tribble-ations,’ from season 5, that’s a great episode.” Yes, I said that out loud. I think I get geek points for that.

This man turned out to be no less than Lenoard Nimoy and he was carrying a copy of the new movie. Which he let the shocked and awed audience view in its entirety. I stopped reading the article there, because it went into spoilers, but suffice to say, I was speechless. As a fan of Star Trek since…well, literally as long as I can remember (one of my earliest memories is watching TNG), I am excited about this new movie. If they’re confident enough to do something like this a month before the movie comes out, that can only bode well.