AICN's Knowles, from the advanced screening in Austin this weekend, has what looks to be the very first review of the movie up.

"After the film – the audience was glowing. It was as if each and every last one of us were 3 feet tall, tiptoeing into our childhood living room on Christmas morning and found our heart’s desire with a big bow on it and with balloons! Lots of balloons. This film isn’t a specified fetish film like MONSTERS, INC, THE INCREDIBLES, WALL-E, CARS, TOY STORY, A BUG’S LIFE or even RATATOUILLE. This is a human adventure primarily – without the obvious childhood fetish item. The fanciful elements concern talking dog collars, giant crazy bird critter and a balloon powered floating house. Otherwise – you’re dealing with humans – humans that have been hurt, have desires, motivations and problems. And nothing could be better."

Here is the HD version of the 'bruno' movie trailer (accidentally posted the wrong link last time).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXRoj2Q5pnU

Star Trek has been getting unanimously stellar reviews.  I'm not the biggest fan around, but I was still planning on seeing it; I could never resist a good Abrams/Giacchino collaboration.

Any self-proclaimed Trekkies here looking forward to the film?

Since it's targeting the NON-Trekky audience, naturally that's probably got the hardcore trekkies  blasting away at the film (but they'll still go see it anyways).

I was skeptical after seeing the previews for Star Trek but was gonna see it anyway since I'm a sucker for a big summer movie (most, anyway) and I have faith in JJ Abrams.

After reading the review at Dark Horizons though I'm genuinely excited!  Doesn't make it to Japan till June though

Contrary to Carl's suggestion, I'm hearing very good things from pretty hardcore Trekkies about it. I love classic Star Trek. I think there is no Kirk without Shatner and, well, Shatner is a god among men. So when I first heard of this, I thought it was a pretty horrific idea. On top of that, unlike Adam, Abrams was a turn off, not a turn on.

But the trailers look excellent. I love the look and most of the characters look great. Okay so the guy playing Spock has a squeaky voice without any of the gravitas Nimoy has but Karl Urban seems to be doing a stellar job as McCoy. And I love Simon Pegg.

So I'll definitely be seeing it and hoping for good things.

Try telling that to someone who only knows him from Rescue 911, like me

I wanna see the movie, but I'm no trekkie.

I'll be going, naturally. Used to be a Trekkie... until Star Trek started to suck when DS9 went off the air.

Wow, completely forgot about that! Crazy, I used to watch that all the time.

I watched my second movie of the year, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I have to admit it's a good thing to exist these days, to be able to see this kind of stuff. Two hundred years from now, people will wonder how we suffered through our forms of entertainment, but I'm quite happy with them, despite the limitations. Good news for movie soundtrack collectors: it was awesome. Also, they made a new trailer for Transformers 2 (different from the one available online) and Peter Jackson has something really creepy (or not?) coming out, about some District-9. I was really hoping to see a new trailer for G.I. Joe, but no such photons caressed my retinas.

Never mind two hundred years, I'm certain there will be people who are going to be echoing that sentiment TODAY.  Critics and fans alike are ripping Wolverine to shreds (you saw that coming), with the biggest insult being that it's even worse than X3: The Last Stand.  Now, I'm probably one of the few who enjoyed X3 to a certain degree, and all of the unanimous hate got me even more curious to see this film.

Having come back from it today, I will say that I dug it quite a bit.  It's no masterpiece for the superhero genre, but it's definitely better than X3, and to some degree, as enjoyable as X1 and X2.  Jackman is, as always, in top form as Wolverine, but Schreiber's Sabretooth is just as good.  The two have a terrific dynamic, their rivalry being the heart of the film - and that singularity, to me, made for an engaging drive.  Their established bond during the opening credits montage was superb, and each one of their fight confrontations are excellent.  I liked the Team X story thread, too, even if they did take a fair amount of liberty on its characters and their story arcs.  Some got a far worse shaft than others, while secondary characters like Gambit could've used a bit more screen time.  The CG also looked hokey and obvious at times, even for comic book movie standards; the final cameo toward the end of the film looked particularly awful.

The soundtrack, though highly derivative of Gregson-Williams' other works, accompanies the film well enough.  It's not a particularly memorable score, and with the exception of the main theme heard in Logan Through Time and "I'll Find My Own Way", it's generally forgettable.  I do like how the two tracks juxtapose the minor and major tones of the main theme, though -- and they do play for two of the best sequences in the film.

By the way, Jodo, if you stayed for the end credits, which epilogue coda scene did you get?  I got the <marked for spoilers>..... Logan trying to remember in the bar one.  Though I think I would've wanted to see the..... Deadpool is really still alive one more.

Now they're tacking on varying scenes onto the end of film reels after the credits roll?  That's a new approach..   

Hell, once all films are digitally transmitted to theaters as data, they could REALLY get creative and randomize bits and pieces of footage so that you'd have to watch it repeatedly to see all the scenes...

I saw the same one (would've preferred the other as well) and I think more people are keen to what's happening (with additional footage). Very few people walked out before the credits were completely finished. I've now made it a habit to remain in my seat until the very end.

  What I enjoyed the most about the film would reveal too much, but I will comment it had something to do with psychology. (Isaac Asimov created similar situations in his Foundation novels, but they were much more clever, naturally.) I'm not familiar with the comics or cartoons with Wolverine, so the movie is the definitive version, from my point of view. As an analogy, imagine an immortal person that lived through the age of the dinosaurs (ignore the fact that humans had not evolved yet). While most people would regard the film Jurassic Park as a definitive source of information concerning dinosaurs, the immortal would probably find it full of flaws. So, the comic book fans are like the immortal. They have information that regular people do not have.

Are you sure it wasn't the same as this new one that just went online a few days ago?
http://jalopnik.com/5234950/new-transfo … n-high+res

I don't get too impressed by movie trailers that often anymore but OH MY GOODNESS.  If M.Bay has stuck to his promise of not including the best stuff in his trailers then at the very least we are gonna have some amazing action and visuals.

Yep, that was the one. It was much more intense on the big screen, though. I guess the word "exclusive" is going to drop from our vocabularies in the near future, as the internet has pretty much everything. (I feel fortunate to have lived in the pre-internet days, so at least I can know the difference.)

Heh, check out The Onion's report on Star Trek:

Trekkies Bash New Film as 'Fun, Watchable':
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/t … =a-section

Those fans at the beginning of the clip were probably real. At my workplace, we had something called a "comic-con" a few years ago and the people looked just like them. I've heard reports of people that wear costumes when they see movies and that bothers me, much more than living in a condo with brown recluses. (At least, I understand spiders. I'm not sure if someone has written a book about the biology/behavior of people that wear costumes of fantasy/sci-fi characters.)

I used to find that odd too but then I thought about sports fans who wear team shirts as everyday wear and the Trekkies doing their thing among their own kind seemed far more sane by comparison.

As for the Onion vid, it's funny but I find myself sympathising with the Trekkies.   You can make a film fun and exciting for the masses with young sexy actors and loads of action, danger and explosions but that isn't always a good thing in my opinion. It certainly won't be when they inevitably remake 2001 with the cast of High School Musical getting blown to safety by slow motion explosions.

Bruno.

I do want to see Terminator Salvation even though T3 bugged me in many ways.

I like that analysis. I'm going to tell some people I know about that (and really annoy them). It'll be great fun!

Since cosplay is a huge thing in Japan, I'm sure there's lots of Japanese literature on the subject.
I'd be surprised if there wasn't any English literature on it either, or at the least a translation of Japanese studies.

I'm kinda wary but kinda intrigued how the new Star Trek movie will pan out.  I'll be finding out Wed night tho, I have a movie premiere pass.hehe

edit: forgot the Onion piece on it was already posted

Went and saw Monsters Vs Aliens last night. I wasn't particularly impressed.

Since I missed Borat in theaters, I'll be sure to catch Bruno on the big screen this time.  Should be a laugh-riot; nothing beats a good, collective audience who's in on the game. ;)  I'm trying to avoid reading or watching anything about the film, though; I want those vignettes to be a complete surprise.

I'll probably do a pass on Monsters vs Aliens, as it didn't seem to pan out as well as Dreamworks' "no charge for awesomeness" Kung Fu Panda.  Talking of which, if you were gutsy enough to pony up for MvA, you owe it to yourself to check out Panda if you haven't already.  (And Bolt, too, while you're at it.)

We wait with bated breath on your verdict!  Did you go IMAX for this one?

I'm on target for the first Saturday showing.  Not IMAX, sadly, but digital cinema, which should still be dope.

Unfortunately there are no IMAX showings of Star Trek west of Toronto, Ontario.  balls I say! balls!  Anyways, I thought J.J did a bang up job.  If you really want to get the full experience I definitely recommend reading the 4 issue Countdown pre-movie comic that sets up Nero's character and motivation, because you barely get any of that in the film.  Pine's Kirk is way sexed up, Zachary Quinto does a great job as Spock.  Everyone else (Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty, Uhura) has their moments in the film too, so everything rounds out quite nicely (although Anton Yelchin's portrayal of Chekhov is a little on the meh side for me).  I'll definitely be picking this one up on Blu-ray.  I'll hold off on getting any of the previous movies on Blu-ray tho until they do the Next Gen ones too.  I picked up Star Trek original series season 1 on blu-ray tho, can't wait to try that out on me 7.1 sound system.

I think Paramount will probably want to make more movies off this base, but they'll have to be up to the caliber of this movie... another movie like Insurrection or Nemesis just won't cut it now anymore.

Just on the Star Trek movie Blu-rays, word is that the current transfer of some of them is pretty bad (I think it was IV, V and VI in particular). I saw some horrendous shots from VI that looked like plastic. Severely DVNR'd.

Though it could well be a long time before we get anything better.

Yeah, I had already read the plot synopsis on Countdown, but I'll probably pick it up if I end up liking the film.  Definitely seems to hit on a very crucial component of Nero's story arch; seems a shame they merely gloss over it in the actual movie.

New trailer for Terminator Salvation, dubbed 4 Minute Clip.  For all intents and purposes, though, it is a trailer - and a nice, beefy one at that:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/terminatorsalvation/

Also, here's the early review that Jay alluded to in the May '09 Purchases thread.  Beware of a few minor spoiler sections, and one major one:

http://www.aintitcool.com/talkback_disp … node/41017

The general feeling is that it's going to be a pretty good popcorn flick; lots of action, though paper thin on character development.  The reviewer also states that the sting will be felt with the new PG-13 rating.

I'll make a note of it.

PS: Anyone know the name of the DDR song that plays during the Monsters vs Aliens 'dance pad' scene? It reminded me why I love European pop-techno.

Just came back from Star Trek.  It was very, very awesome indeed.

Really loved how the coming together of the USS Enterprise was handled; the entire cast was terrific, and they all had pivotal roles that really sparked that necessary group dynamic.   Quinto's Spock and Urban's McCoy were particularly great; Urban seems to have gotten Bones down to a tee.  Also, I liked how..... Nimoy's role wasn't simply cameo fodder, but instead served to further along a crucial plot point.

I was especially surprised (and delighted) at how much humor was imbued into the movie, resulting in a more lively script.  It definitely smacks of that witty-banter Abrams touch.  And the music.  Damn, the music.  As Wanderer states, it probably won't ever happen, but I'd love for them to release a complete score.  If I wasn't smitten with Giacchino's new main theme before, I certainly am now; there are some really nice reprisals that didn't make the soundtrack release, and its contextual use overall borders on pure epic.  Nero's theme is deliciously villainous, too, and has creeped up on me exponentially.   

If there's a negative in the film, it's as James said: Nero's backstory and his motivated conflict with Spock doesn't come across as well as it should.  I'll be picking up the Countdown comic series to gain some more insight, but it's a shame they couldn't flesh it out a little more in the film.  One more thing that felt slightly out of place was the implied relationship between..... Spock and Uhura.  I know they were aiming to strengthen the idea of Vulcan/Human relations, but were they ever an item in the original series? 

Also, was it just me, or was there an absurdly excessive use of the lens flare effect?  Even during scenes that didn't involve gazing out to space, like indoors with no windows. o_O

The film definitely went over well with my audience. (Heh, there was an isolated incident where the movie stopped short for a good eight second, and some guy in the audience yelled out, "Captain, we've lost transmission!", eliciting laughter from everyone.)   I'll likely see Trek again before its theatrical run is up.  It's a hell of a lot of fun, and really makes for fine cinematic viewing.

if you love lens flare and are on facebook, try up up down down left right left right B A enter.

JJ Abrams did say he did use too much lens flare in the movie (it was in one of his interviews but I don't remember which one.)

I'm going to see the film on Monday (can't wait!) and I've heard that the soundtrack release is a disappointing representation of the score (as I expected). Right now, I'm listening to it over and over again so I can catch (and better appreciate) the cues in the film.

(Wow, that Facebook lenflare thing is COOL!)

what, facebook stole the konami code?? and it doesn't even give you 30 more contacts?