The Source

this week I went to go see the movie the Reaping and, instead of reviewing a specific DVD, I'm going to review my first impressions of an IMAX theater.

Now in theaters, The Reaping, the new Hillary Swank movie. Now, in general I am not a big horror movie fan. I do enjoy a thriller that is done right, such as Psycho which is obviously a classic that I think is clearly a thriller and not a horror film, such as The Ring, which I believe falls squarely in the middle of horror films.

There are more horror films being made today since maybe any time since the Hammer films in the late fifties and early sixties were so popular. This has to be because, in general, horror films follow a specific formula. This isn't a flaw in the genre itself, it is just that most people making horror films nowadays don't care to spend the time it takes to really make something good. (I will say though that I enjoyed the Ring, the first one, the second one wasn't very good)

the reason I say all of this is that because of the current popularity of horror films, a lot of movies get billed as "horror" when actually they are more of a thriller, perhaps with some supernatural elements. Some movies even get billed as horror when they really aren't anything more than straight science-fiction (see Pitch Black from a few years ago, but that's a review for another time )

The Reaping is one of those movies. Yes, it does have a few elements of a horror movie (the slowly building music, the sudden loud sound designed to make you jump) but it doesn't really need them. It's a solid storyline that is acted out very well by everybody involved. It borrows some things from other movies such as the seventh sign, but still keeps itself original enough so that you don't feel like you are just watching a story that is being rehashed. Parts of it are predictable and there are a couple of points where the story seems to take a leap from one point in the story to another, and that may have been a problem in editing. And this puts me off on a short rant.

There's this desire in Hollywood to edit every film down so that it is as close to two hours as possible so they can squeeze more showings into a theater each day. It's very difficult to get a two hour 45-minute movie two or more evening showings in any given theater without giving it more than one screen. Now, I know not everybody is the same as me on this, but I am a fan of longer movies, if the story line merits a longer movie. If the story line is good enough, I WANT the director, writer, editor and studio to put those three hours on film and tell me a great story, not cut it down by a third just so you can get more showings in and hopefully make more money. I am also perfectly happy with a one hour and 27 minute movie if that is all it takes to tell me the story. I think that so many people in Hollywood are focused on making as much money with every movie as possible that, unfortunately, a lot of movies are made simply because the studio knows they're going to make some money in DVD if nothing else. I have nothing against everybody trying to make money on something, but if that mantra starts affecting the quality of the work somebody's putting out, then somebody needs to take a step back, take a breath, point at a story and say "that's a piece of crap, maybe we shouldn't throw some teenage stars into it and try to make some money" or even better "that's a fantastic story... let's make sure we tell it right" (see the Lord of the rings trilogy)

Anyway, back to The Reaping. Overall, I think this is a good movie. Not necessarily great and I think it had the potential to be better than it was. I would say if you have the opportunity to see this as a matinée on the big-screen, it's worth the price of admission. It won't be a huge loss if you don't get to see it until DVD, but it's definitely worth at least a rental when it moves to video.

Now, onto my first impressions about an IMAX theater. I had never really been to an IMAX theater before this past week. I am pretty sure I saw some sort of educational/documentary film in an IMAX theater somewhere in Florida back when I was younger and on vacation, might have even been in Disney World. But, I had never seen an actual major motion picture prior to this past week.

I'm sure all of you know what an IMAX theater is, but for those of you who don't here's a brief summary. Basically, they are the largest screens able to show high quality movie projection. This isn't a drive-in theater screen with the standard film projected onto such a large-format that there is a little bit of fuzziness around the edges. IMAX movies have to be shot on a completely different kind of film. Your standard major motion picture is shot using some form of 70 mm film, the frames for IMAX movies are over 10 times that size. the screen is 80 ft. high and stretches from one end of the theater all the way to the other, the very ends of it actually wrapping around the edges of the theater.

There's also a remarkable sound system. I'm not sure if its standard for all IMAX theaters, the promo before the movie seems to indicate that it was but I haven't done the actual research yet. The sound system is 12,400 W of digital sound and is completely immersive, much more than even your standard Dolby Digital surroundsound that most theaters use today.

IMAX theaters are not nearly as easy to find as your everyday movie theaters. I did not even know we had one in this part of Pennsylvania until I stumbled across it during an Internet search looking for showtimes for some other movies. I saw a listing for an IMAX theater just outside of Pittsburgh, about 60 mi. away from me, and had to take a trip out to see it the next day.

The only movie playing in the IMAX theater was 300. I had already seen this movie and, if you've been reading the blog, you know that I really liked it, but didn't quite loved it. It didn't overwhelm me the way that I had hoped it was going to and it seemed like there was a bit of that movie magic missing, I just couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.

Well, it was good enough that I had to see again for the IMAX experience and it definitely paid off for 300. Everything on the screen is so large and so sharp that during some of the battle sequences you really can believe you're right in the middle of it. The sound system was perfect for this movie, when the Persian army of one million men is first approaching the Spartans and the ground is shaking, you can FEEL the ground literally shaking. The size and clarity of the video combined with the devastating sound system, in my opinion, gave the movie what it was lacking on the standard screen with the standard sound system.

Now, does this make it a better movie? I don't think so. The movie is still fundamentally the same, but seeing it in this format made the experience of watching the movie better. I do plan on seeing a number of additional movies in IMAX over the summer. Spiderman 3 leaps to mind (I think the swirling effect of the Sandman will be most impressive on the screen). Transformers is another one... I mean, they're supposed to be 50 and 60 ft. robots! What better way to check them out then on an 80 ft. screen. If it's done right, it could be fantastic.

I can't see any reason to see many movies in an IMAX that are not slated to be "blockbusters". There's really no need to go see something like the pursuit of happiness or anything along those lines in a theater like this, I can't imagine what the theater would add to it and I think there might even be the possibility that it would actually detract from a movie that is not designed to blow you away with action.

I'll keep you updated with reviews of every movie I see in IMAX, and let you know if it's worth the extra cost (in my area anyway, the tickets for the IMAX theater was about 30% more then the tickets to a regular theater)

Next week, plans are to see the movie Pathfinder, but may wind up seeing something else if the opportunity arises!

This week I went to go see the movie Premonition in the theaters and spent some time going over one of my all-time favorite television/movie series, Star Trek

Currently in the theaters

Premonition: Sandra Bullock stars in this thriller/mystery about a woman who is living the days surrounding the death of her husband out of order. She wakes up in one day is Friday, her husband is dead, she wakes up the next day and it is Monday, husband is alive. She is the only person aware of this phenomenon and she basically starts questioning whether she's losing her mind or not.

I did not really like this movie. There is never any reason given as to why she is living these days out of order, and while they make it a point to show her trying to keep track of what happened on what day, she never relives any single day more than one time and really nothing that she learns comes into play in any significant way. It's actually a pretty boring movie overall that, for some reason that we the viewer are not aware of, the director decided to shoot these events out of order.

Now, this can work in certain situations. Pulp fiction was a great movie that was shot out of sequence, but it works even if there is no specific reason given as to why you are shown these things out of order. You learn one thing about a character in events that might be occurring before something that you've already seen, which gives you a new perspective on the earlier scenes. There is none of that in Premonition

Having strange time occurrences happening to characters in a movie without ever giving a reason for why they are happening can also work. Groundhog day was a really fun movie that worked really well even though there is never any specific reason given as to why Bill Murray's character is living the same events over and over. You can see the adjustments the character makes, the changes in his personality every time he goes through the same day. Again, there is none of this in Premonition .

Overall, there's no reason to see this in the theaters and there's definitely no reason to rush out and grab it on DVD. If you're a really big Sandra Bullock fan, it might be worth eventually owning on DVD just to add your collection, but other than that you can catch this on cable someday

Out on DVD

Here's a quick review of each of the Star Trek movies to date. If you're a Star Trek fan you probably already know, but if you're not you might not have yet had then they are in the process of making a new Star Trek movie. I'm a little concerned because the basis of the movie is it's going to be prequel to the original series and show you how Kirk and Spock originally met each other at Starfleet Academy. The potential problems with this are huge, the primary concern being that they're going to need to find actors to play a young Kirk and a young Spock. These are two iconic science-fiction characters and there's really no way to think of either of them without envisioning Shatner and Nimoy playing them. But, only time will tell. Here's my recap of the Star Trek movies so far:

Star Trek: the motion picture. The original big-screen appearance of the starship enterprise. Even though the entire plot is virtually just a bigger version of an episode from the original series, all of your Star Trek fans were ecstatic to see their beloved show resurrected on the big-screen. The movie was very faithful to the original series and characters. And the Klingons! Holy cow! They are not just human appearing with goatees anymore! This movie did create the appearance that so many of your next-generation fans came to recognize as a Klingon. You need to own this one as much for what it represents as anything.

The wrath of Khan: in my opinion this movie set the standard that all other Star Trek movies had to live up to. They take a fantastic character from the original series (scores in my top five all-time best bad guys) and puts him on the big-screen. All the favorite characters are back, some great space battle scenes and Khan is awesome. It also kicks off the "Star Trek trilogy" that runs through the next two movies. Not to mention, Spock dies?

The search for Spock: whew! I knew Spock couldn't really be dead! Well, OK, he was dead, but with the transfer of his memories to McCoy... and the Genesis device... and, well, there's a lot of very sci-fi things that had to fall into place and they did! A nice follow-up to wrath, plus Kirk loses his son which plays into a future movie regarding his hatred of the Klingons and the enterprise gets destroyed! Not to mention, Spock is reborn!

The journey home: of course there had to be a time travel movie somewhere. This might be the most fun of the Star Trek movies. Sure, the Earth is facing destruction by some alien force, but when isn't it? Lots of really great little interactions between characters, everybody makes it home happy in the end, the world is saved and the new enterprise is revealed. Also, listen to the PA system in the hospital when they are trying to just to Chekov

The final frontier: what the... what happened?? There's really no need for this movie. None of the characters are really true to form, and except for one short scene giving you some background into Spock and McCoy, there's really nothing of interest. Even the background into Spock doesn't affect him the way that it should. Sure, the idea of trying to "find God" not any spiritual sense, but in a physical, material way is interesting, but I it never really works. If you just need to have every movie so that your collection is complete, I totally understand. Otherwise, this movie doesn't require purchasing

The undiscovered country: I really liked this movie. A legitimate mystery, a conspiracy, some good character development and a really nice ending for the crew as a whole. This sets up a lot of things in the next-generation about how humans and Klingons became allies.

Generations: the first of the next-generation movies. The main purpose of the movie is to hand the baton from Kirk over to Picard and from one crew to the next as far as motion pictures go. I have a few problems with the movie: the enterprise gets destroyed... again, and is not nearly as dramatic as the first time. Kirk Dies, which is OK, but it's the manner of his death which bothered me. Not nearly as heroic as it should have been. Overall though, not a bad start to the next series of movies.

First contact: fantastic movie! Some really great scenes with Jean-Luc, decent character development all the way around, and they took a great bad guy (the Borg) from the television series and bring it to a marvelous close. A great take on a big character in the Star Trek universe, Zephrem Cochran and lots of secondary characters making little appearances. This is far and away the best of the next-generation movies.

Insurrection: why? Why take a race that nobody really knows anything about, throw them into a conspiracy with the Federation involving characters that nobody really knows anything about, and have it all focused around a planet that... nobody really knows anything about?? Throw in some limited character development and a fairly lame plot device to get Warf back onto the enterprise again from deep space nine, and you have a reasonably bad movie. There's no reason this could not have been a regular episode. If you already owned the final frontier, and I'm sure you'll need to purchase this one as well to complete your collection (I did), otherwise not a good movie.

Nemesis: oh, the pain! Data dies... in extremely disappointing fashion, we find another, earlier version of data on a planet... somewhere, for some reason. The enemies are stereotypical, oh, there's a big twist, the main enemy is somehow DNA related to Jean-Luc, through cloning, Riker is marrying Deanna all of a sudden... all in all, I just don't like this movie. Yes, I know, I own it! A very disappointing ending to the next-generation series of movies.

And there you have it. Next week the review will most likely be of the Reaping, unless I wind up seeing something else