February | 2014 | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Cas & Dylan

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

There are not too many surprises to be had in Cas & Dylan, and those surprises mostly come towards the end of the film. For most of its runtime, Cas and Dylan is a reliably constructed old-fashioned odd-couple roadtrip movie. The roadtrip movie is a cinematic staple, and it has attained that status for a reason; it’s a fairly standard format that adapts to fit the actors and characters slotted into the adventure.

In this case, first time feature director Jason Priestley is directing veteran performer Richard Dreyfuss and young up-and-comer Tatiana Maslany. The charming duo give Cas & Dylan a bit of an edge as far as road movie go. The pair play comfortably off one another in fairly stock roles, elevating material that might otherwise seem a little overly familiar or trite. Cas & Dylan succeeds primarily off the strength of its two lead performers.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: cas & dylan, cas and dylan, film, jason priestley, Movie, non-review review, review, Richard Dreyfuss | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Under the Skin

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

Under the Skin exists as a gigantic flash backwards to the atmospheric and moody science-fiction horrors of the seventies. Despite a verbal reference to 2014 and some quick glimpses of posters for movies released in 2012, director Jonathan Glazer has constructed the movie as a throwback. Indeed, Under the Skin feels very much like an even lower key spiritual successor to Nicholas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, except this time it’s the Scarlett Johansson who fell to Scotland.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: aliens, film, jonathan glazer, Movie, nicholas roeg, non-review review, review, scarlett johansson, the man who fell to earth, under the skin | 4 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Allegiance (Review)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Darren

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

Allegiance is a solid episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It just has the misfortune to follow three of the strongest episodes the show ever produced, and to come directly in front of one of the franchise’s better-received “light” episodes. It would be a tough situation for just about any episode, and the biggest problem with Allegiance is that it’s very much “traditional” Star Trek. It’s very safe, it’s very standard, it’s very familiar.

Allegiance is really a bunch of Star Trek clichés put in a blender. A doppelganger arrives on the ship to allow an actor a chance to flex their muscles; powerful aliens are keen to learn a lot about humanity; radically different people work together in order to overcome an obstacle; there’s even a lovely coda on just how well-oiled the Enterprise crew have become. It’s all executed quite well. Allegiance is a charming piece of work, one that feels intentionally light and breezy. It’s just naturally a bit of a step down from the phenomenal run of episodes that came before it.

Yep, it’s a bit of a light week for the Enterprise crew…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: allegiance, Cliff Bole, essentialism, Hans Beimler, Michael Westmore, patrick stewart, picard, richard manning, star trek, star trek: the next generation | 2 Comments »

Jameson Cult Film Club: Jaws & A Talk With Richard Dreyfuss (JDIFF 2013)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

To be fair, this isn’t the first time that the Jameson Cult Film Club have staged a screening of Jaws. The club did a screening of it last year as well, to considerable (and deserved) acclaim. So the visit of star Richard Dreyfuss to Dublin was the perfect excuse to break out the tried-and-tested showing, watch a classic piece of Americana and enjoy a nice conversation between Dreyfuss and presenter Rick O’Shea.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: film, jameson cult film club, jameson dublin international film festival, jaws, jdiff, Movie, Richard Dreyfuss | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Phase II (1978) – Kitumba, Parts I & II (Review)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Sins of the Father represented Star Trek‘s first venture to the Klingon home world, and the franchise’s first truly in-depth exploration of Klingon culture and values. Of course, there was precedent for this. John Ford’s rather wonderful novel, The Final Reflection, offered a glimpse into Klingon heritage and tradition in 1984. However, it’s interesting to think that we may have been offered an on-screen exploration of the Klingon Empire much earlier, had the planned Star Trek: Phase II ever gone to air.

Written by John Meredyth Lucas, a veteran of the classic Star Trek show, Kitumba would have aired as a two-part adventure in the first season of the aborted Star Trek: Phase II series. Not only were thirteen episodes plotted and outlined, most were also scripted – allowing a glimpse at what might have been. An early look at the workings of Klingon culture, Kitumba is obviously radically different from the version of Klingon society that developed and evolved on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

However, it remains a fascinating look at what might have been.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Cold War, John Ford, john meredyth lucas, kirk, klingons, phase 2, sins of the father, star trek, star trek: phase 2, star trek: phase II | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Sins of the Father (Review)

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Darren

Sins of the Father is another watershed moment for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek as a whole. It’s really the first time that the franchise has invested in proper long-form world-building, rather than treating continuity as something that occasionally built up by sheer narrative momentum. It’s an episode that ends on an ambiguous note, suggesting more to come. It’s also an episode that nails down a lot of Klingon culture and tradition.

In a way, it’s the logical conclusion of a narrative style that has been building since The Enemy and The Defector earlier in the season; creating a sense that The Next Generation isn’t just the story of the crazy adventures that or crew have week in and week out, but a window into a much larger fictional universe. There’s a sense that the adventures of the Enterprise are set against a much larger and vaster universe, and Sins of the Father really gives us a glimpse at that.

It broadens the scope of The Next Generation, in terms of subject matter and also in terms of narrative possibilities.

Picard gets his Palpatine on…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: duras, khitomer, Klingon Empire, klingons, kronos, qo'nos, romulans, ron moore, ronald d. moore, ronald moore, sins of the father, star trek, star trek: the next generation | 1 Comment »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Q-Squared by Peter David (Review)

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Q-Squared is probably Peter David’s most ambitious Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. “Q-Squared is almost my challenge to the reader to keep up with me,” he boasted in Voyages of the Imagination. Essentially a meditation on reality and free will within that construct, Q-Squared is a breathtakingly confident endeavour. It’s an interesting reflection on the potentiality embraced by The Next Generation, the broadening of the franchise’s perspective to embrace the best of all possible worlds.

Q-Squared hit stands in early July 1994, just over a month after All Good Things… brought the curtain down on The Next Generation for one last time. It’s tempting to look at the two stories as companion pieces. All Good Things… is an exploration of the time that the crew spent together – jumping backwards and forwards to trace our heroes over the course of their lives. In contrast, Q-Squared jumps sideways – looking at what might have been, or what could have been.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: crossover, dimensions, jack crusher, jean-luc picard, pad, peter david, q, star trek, star trek: the next generation, time, timelines, Trelane, Yesterday's Enterprise | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Last Days on Mars

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2014.

There’s very little original to be found in The Last Days on Mars. Ruarí Robinson has constructed a gigantic homage to science-fiction horror, taking great pride in setting up the familiar clichés and working through the obligatory tropes. There are any number of shout-outs and references built into The Last Days on Mars, so much so that the film seems to struggle to stand on its own two feet.

At the same time, there’s an undeniably trashy charm to The Last Days on Mars. There’s a sense of Robinson’s abiding affection and enthusiasm for the conventions he evokes, the movies he homages. Nobody watching the film will confuse it for a trailblazing or original piece of work; however, it works surprisingly well as a gigantic tribute to pulpy science-fiction B-movies.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, horror, Ireland, jameson dublin international film festival, jdiff, last days on mars, Movie, non-review review, review, science fiction, the last days on mars | 3 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Offspring (Review)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Darren

The Offspring is an absolutely wonderful piece of Star Trek. In many ways, it is a spiritual successor to The Measure of a Man, the breakout show of the second season. (This similarity was one of the factors that led writer and script editor Melinda Snodgrass to harshly dismiss it as “fairly obvious and tired and stupid” in Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages.) Sitting between two of the more epic and sweeping stories in the third season, The Offspring is a touching little story about parenting and childhood, and a nice character episode for Data.

It remains one of the most touching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation ever produced, and a fitting debut for both future staff writer René Echevarria and soon-to-be-prolific Star Trek director Jonathan Frakes.

Building a loving family…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: androids, beloved, brent spine, Data, Jonathan Frakes, lal, Michael Piller, nineties, Offspring, René Echevarria, rene echivarria, robotics, ronald d. moore, star trek, star trek: the next generation, Television, the offspring | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Last Generation (Review)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films.

The Last Generation, a five-issue miniseries written by Andrew Steven Harris and illustrated by the wonderful Gordon Purcell, feels like a companion piece to Harris’ Alien Spotlight: Borg issue. Both are essentially stories about the morality of using time travel to re-write history, and both can be read as a reflection on Star Trek continuity as a whole.

Published from November 2008 through to March 2009, The Last Generation feels like something of a preemptive rebuttal to JJ Abrams’ May 2009 reboot of Star Trek. Much like Alien Spotlight: Borg before it, it feels like a conscious attempt to vindicate and validate the franchise from the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation onwards.

Given the fact that the “reboot-in-all-but-name” back-to-Kirk nature of Abrams’ film was openly discussed well ahead of the release, it’s hard not to read The Last Generation and Alien Spotlight: Borg as protests against the decision to set the clock back on the franchise and start with Kirk yet again.