The Star Trek 2009 Reboot

Maybe I've been watching too many movies that are over 50 years old lately, movies that were actually filmed on a sound stage with things like scenes and dialog. The original Star Trek television series was like that since computer graphics and advanced special effects didn't exist yet. And while there were special effects in place for the 6 movie Star Trek series that began in 1979, varied drastically when it came to quality.

The 2009 Star Trek reboot with an all new cast (except the return of Leonard Nimoy) is a different kind of Star Trek altogether. It is a special effects geek fest, digitally charged, rapidly cut and edited, and meant to inflect new life into a deteriorating franchise heading to towards being irrelevant for a modern audience. I saw the 2013 Star Trek: Into Darkness when it came out earlier this summer. When that movie came to video, some bright guy thought of bundling Into Darkness with its predecessor in a single package for one low price (about 25 bucks). I actually thought I had seen the 09 Star Trek film but apparently not when I plopped in the blu-ray player today to watch with my father-in-law earlier today. The confusing time bending story that more blasted on the screen rather than play had him bailing out about an hour into the film to take a nap. I stuck it out to the end and generally thought that it was good film that told the origins of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the major Star Trek characters but could have done a few of the plot points much better than what came out in the finished product.

But director J.J. Abrams gave the franchise what it needed and brought it up to date to what the current movie viewer wants from a space movie - special effects, special effects, and more special effects that tell an interesting story without being laughably silly. If you like that kind of thing, Star Trek 09 fits the bill - wish it was about 20 minutes shorter though.

A Look At The Dark Side - Rear Window

What did people do around the house before there was television to watch at night? Perhaps sit in an apartment by a window that overlooked a courtyard filled with other apartment windows and each window had its own story to tell. What if one of the stories going on through one of those windows is murder? Rear Window about voyeurism pure and simple. both the entertaining side and its most unseemly side. Due to a fractured leg and confined to a wheel chair, Jimmy Stewart gets up close and personal with his neighbors but the stories are from a distance, enhanced through binoculars and a huge telephoto camera lense. Whatever he doesn't know about the lives of his neighbors he just fills in the blanks. Lives out of context. But when one of the neighbors acts suspiciously like he murdered his invalid nagging wife, the voyeurism steps into the direction of a murder mystery.

Stewart gets Grace Kelley and Thelma Ritter as his girlfriend and nurse to do his leg work. He calls on the services of a police chum to serve as the go-between with the cops as the mystery unfolds. Rear Window is a film by Alfred Hitchcock. A film about voyearism would most likely be looked at as an underbelly unsettling type of film. In the hands of Hitchcock, Rear Window is a masterpiece for taking the unseemly topic and adding black comedy, drama, sadness, tragedy, suspense, and in the end, a mystery. Every life is a story. Hitchcock allows glimpses of everyone's story whether real or imagined.

I'm not a fan of Alfred Hitchcock. The films he is most noted for - Psycho or The Birds, I find too disturbing to enjoy. But I have enjoyed Rear Window several times through the years. Sometimes unsettling paintings on museum walls are works of art as well. Rear Window is a work of art by a master craftsman.