Serious Movie Lover

STAR TREK (2009/ DVD) What better way to celebrate the 4th of July weekend than to watch one of last year’s best and most entertaining movies under the stars. For me, that opportunity presented itself as part of “Movies on the Mountain” at the Taos Ski Valley, featuring a free showing and all the popcorn you could eat. Yum. Quite a set-up with an inflatable big screen and excellent projector all hooked up to a PC with the high-def DVD. Unfortunately for the event’s sponsors, the DVD took to “freezing” (so familiar to me from numerous Netflix rentals) about half way through the movie. In fact, the freezing occurred right at the point where the plot thickens and the audience begins to have to PAY ATTENTION to the time traveling/alternate reality elements of the movie—not a high point for me, as I recall from seeing it last summer in theaters, but a necessary move in order for Leonard Nimoy to make his appearance as well as to introduce us to Simon Pegg as Scotty—love him! Plus, as all who saw the movie last year know, Nimoy needs to help young James T. Kirk get with the program and develop his true friendship and life-long partnership with Spock. What could be better, I say again. Love this movie. Three cheers for J.J.Abrams and especially for his perfect casting: Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Pinto as Spock (one of the inspirations for the film I understand), Eric Bana as super bad guy Nero, Karl Urban as Bones, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, John Cho as Sulu and fabulous Simon Pegg as Scotty. If you never saw it, be sure to rent it now and watch it on the biggest screen possible….under the stars, if you can swing it.

Grade: Big A One of my favorites from last year.

BTW: Happy 4th of July to all two of our readers.