Letterboxd — Your life in film

I'm going to miss these flesh-stretching sessions, my dear.
-Ad'har Ru'afo

Star Trek: The Next Generation had a hard time shedding it's television roots in their first feature film, Generations, but seemed to get the right footing in it's followup First Contact. Unfortunately they couldn't keep that momentum going as Insurrection feels like a TNG tv episode that just won't end and really highlights the weaknesses of this cast of characters for feature films.

The story is flat, the production…

They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here!
-Picard

This is much more like it. After directing several episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, Jonathan Frakes makes his feature film directing debut for a franchise that he'd been working on for almost a decade. He knew the characters, he knew how to work with a budget constraint and hopefully he…

Star Trek by numbers?

We get a "Dammit Jim.." From Bones,

Scotty just stopping short of "She canna take it Captain.",

Lots of "Illogical's",

A "Phasers to stun."

Klingons,

A "Space, the final frontier",

Lots of teleports and Warps,

Even a Vulcan Death Grip.

And you know?, I don't remember the first one being like that.

It's pretty lucky then that all of the above are rather awesome. Then you add a brilliant baddie and a truly astonishing final half…

I don’t like the Star Trek franchise. I think it only fair I make that clear from the very beginning.

JJ Abrams’ first stab at this never-ending series re-energised the creaky Enterprise crew and delivered an accessible and breezy blockbuster in the process. This bigger, darker (well it is in the title after all) sequel is a natural progression delivering the same frenetic action, sparkling chemistry and dubious plotting as we have come to expect from practically every Abrams production.…

There's never been a correlation between the name Roland Emmerich and subtle. I doubt there ever will be, and those brave enough to sit through his world ending explosion filled popcorn guff can truly say they've been treated to some amazing eye candy short on anything else.

Emmerich isn't big on character development. He really doesn't have to be as all of the crash bang wallop assailing your senses is meant to take your attention from the fact that any…

Part of Humble Beginnings

Judged separately from its historical context, 'A bout de souffle' is a film that at first glance seems shallow and uneven. And while that may certainly be the case for the plot and the narrative structure, it is what it represents that makes Godard's debut so extraordinary.

This is an act of rebellion. An attempt to change the face of cinema by creating something that takes all the rules of filmmaking adhered to thus far and…

Absolutely loved this picture.

Remember it well from the time it was nominated for an Academy Award. Even fragments of the trailer still linger, but I had never sought out to see the film.

Happy that I have had that opportunity now. Echoing other critics this does feel like a 90s version of "Chinatown" (1974), with its onion like plot and movement through time. Unlike the Polanski film, this picture is not shot as beautifully, but definitely equals Robert Towne's…

Obviously taking inspiration from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing '82, the Robert A. Heinlein novel The Puppetmasters, etc, and adding a 1990s high school spin, The Faculty plays into all the tropes of high school hierarchy and formulaic sci-fi horror...to great success.

I am not necessarily aware of how or why I have not seen The Faculty until now but as the old phrase goes, better late than never. With a great cast (John Stewart[!], Elijah Wood[!]) and…

Recommended to me by just about everyone I know who saw it, Berberian Sound Studio came with high expectations.

Set in the 70's, following a sound recordist (?) / technician for an upcoming Giallo, it's nothing short of staggeringly brilliant in regards to just how technically proficient it is. The fact you never see the film they're making at the studio, you only see Toby Jones' character recording the sounds for it, it mimics Giallo's perfectly; like how you'd never…