Terminator Salvation also opens with a text crawl that recapitulates information we don’t need to know. In fact, it restates events that we already saw in Terminators one through three, and the rest of it is restated in expository dialogue only minutes into the film. The text crawl of T4 assumes two things: 1.) We’re really dense, and utterly incapably of tracking basic plot points along with the film, and 2.) None of us has seen a Terminator film before. Evidently because an audience shelling out greenbacks to the fourth film in a franchise is rarely familiar with the movies that preceded it.

The crowning irony of this year’s reboot of the Star Trek franchise (hereby dubbed ST09) is that J.J. Abrams deliberately set out to make the film even more mainstream, citing the Star Wars films as immediate reference points, despite the fact that for years, the Trek franchise has been desperately moving toward the mainstream on its own. With Abrams at the helm, Star Trek has come full circle in its continuing voyage through modern media, originating in television, moving to film, then relaunching television spinoffs, and finally, respawning as an exclusively film franchise, but the economy of Abrams’s fleet, efficient TV style butchers the wonder and awe of Star Trek on a fundamental level.

What if the movie a person credits with turning him- or herself into an authentic film buff is the single most influential film on that person’s aesthetic taste? It may be that a person is unable to cite a specific motion picture — after all, one’s passionate love affair with cinema isn’t usually something that occurs overnight. Real, lasting love grows over time. So arbitrarily picking your current all-time favorite just won’t do for this thought experiment. No, if you can’t recall a specific film, I suggest that the pentecostal movie is the one that you loved most as a child. For me, Disney’s The Black Hole, for all intents and purposes, is my own personal Rosetta Stone of aesthetic taste.

To be a Trekkie, you must first be “well adjusted,” have no issues. You should be respectable; you probably have a degree in dentistry, psychiatry, education, medicine, or pet acupuncture. You must be what others might call “too normal.” As such you must be a steady person who pays their bills, is scrupulous about regulations, never drives faster than five miles above the limit, is civil without loquacity,  brings the low fat reduced sodium pretzels to pee wee soccer, and probably takes the trash out on time most Monday mornings.
Wake …

A surprisingly sturdy, mildly provocative 105 minute movie is hiding somewhere in Watchmen’s gangly two and three-quarter hours running time. Dense with shockingly unnecessary exposition, this story about the nature of heroism and identity indulges in a great deal of introspective character study between bouts of flamboyant brutality and fleeting moments where director Zack Snyder’s technical prowess and filmmaking ambition coincide. As a messy, sprawling adaptation, the product of marketing, focus-testing, and the instincts of a young would-be visionary still learning his craft, the inchoate professionalism of the production serves the film’s gargantuan ambitions and readymade stature, rather than completely defeating it. From the perspective of the film’s own history, it is a miracle that it got made at all.

All you need to know about the book, you can pretty much surmise from the title. There’s this world, and it’s in the shape of a (wait for it) ring. A group of aliens discover the world and assemble four adventurers to explore it.