Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

The movie, originally known as the Wrath of Holmes, or How I Learned To Stop Hating and Love The Triblle, ultimately was renamed Into Darkness. I guess this is a reference to certain actions taken by certain individuals throughout the film, and I don't mean those taken by Khan.
To be completely honest, I think we saw a little glimpse of Mr. Abrams Star Wart part 7. At the beginning of the movie when Krik amd Spock get called to Starfleet Command HQ and they are wearing the very militaristic grey uniforms with the officer's hats, I thought, "all we need to see are the plans for galaxy's greatest weapon and it's Star Wars", and I of course meant the Death Star, but as soon as they walk into the Admiral's office we pan along a line of space ships from the current day up to the Enterprise and this monstrous gun-metal grey ship right after it. I was waiting for a fade-out to the Jedi Temple where any Jedi Knight that isn't called by name in the Star Wars movies to be telling a Jedi Master of the same ilk about a rumor they had heard about the Senate building an army.
There were many inside jokes for the Star Trek fanbase, most of which I actually got. Well, I got all that I got and am assuming that there were ones that I didn't get. In fact, every scene that Karl Urban was in was like he wasn't playing Dr. McCoy as much as he was playing DeForrest Kelley as Dr. McCoy, and was very entertaining while doing it. Despite this I didn't really feel like I was watching a Star Trek film. I half expected Tom Cruise or Colin Farrel to come on screen at any moment and introduce the sub-plot that would prove that I was watching just anothyer big budget science fiction film. This is not a complaint. I really quite liked this film. Benedict Cumberbatch acted the crap out of the role of Khan. People had told me that he was so far beyond the other actors, who were not slouching mind you, that it was like a professional in with dinner theatre troupe. I don't think that was far from teh mark. I would love to see him opposite Patrick Stewart - in anything, it doesn't have to be Star Trek related. Maybe they could find a role for Mr. Cumberbatch in the upcoming X-Men film. That. Would. Rock.
The main weak point of this film was the way it used it's female characters. Unfortunately, it used them teh way that classic Trek used famele characters - as scenery and second-class characters. I felt that way about all of the women in teh movie, but the Adniral's daughter, what the fuck? It appears that the whole point of having her in the film was so that she could say, "Daddy, please don't kill them." All she had done before then was make statements like, "I am too a science officer" and "Why yes Captain, I will have sex with you later." An homage to Star Trek is one thing, but this would have been the chance to show us just how important Uhura was in running the Enterprise.

Star Trek: Into Darkness on IMDb

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

My first reaction was, "it was better than the last one I saw with Cameron Diaz in it". Then, I realized that I was thinking of Knight and Day, which I believe had been a Mission Impossible movie until it was disavowed by the Secretary and they were forced to change Hunt's name to Knight. Come on, who are you kidding? We all know who he is.
This movie was more about action and less about well planned out ruses than the others I've seen. Not that this earlier films didn't have their share of action, it's just that it was usually more involved with intricate and clever plans with cool gadgets. I get that the point of this film was that they're all superstars even more so because they had one equipment and logistical failure after another. I just wish that more time had been spent on the rivalry between Hunt's IMF team and Cobalt; less time running and driving through the sandstorm.
This MI film wasn't better than the previous ones, nor was it worse, it's kind of like watching a Bond film - you expect a certain amount of cheese and in actuality look forward to it (Daniel Craig's Bond withstanding). Pegg's character brought more humor to the film, and while that's appreciated, I would gladly trade away some of it for some more high-tech wizardry and tricky spy stuff.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol at IMDb

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

My first reaction was, "it was better than the last one I saw with Cameron Diaz in it". Then, I realized that I was thinking of Knight and Day, which I believe had been a Mission Impossible movie until it was disavowed by the Secretary and they were forced to change Hunt's name to Knight. Come on, who are you kidding? We all know who he is.
This movie was more about action and less about well planned out ruses than the others I've seen. Not that this earlier films didn't have their share of action, it's just that it was usually more involved with intricate and clever plans with cool gadgets. I get that the point of this film was that they're all superstars even more so because they had one equipment and logistical failure after another. I just wish that more time had been spent on the rivalry between Hunt's IMF team and Cobalt; less time running and driving through the sandstorm.
This MI film wasn't better than the previous ones, nor was it worse, it's kind of like watching a Bond film - you expect a certain amount of cheese and in actuality look forward to it (Daniel Craig's Bond withstanding). Pegg's character brought more humor to the film, and while that's appreciated, I would gladly trade away some of it for some more high-tech wizardry and tricky spy stuff.

Paul (2011)

Not counting the franchise films where he plays supporting roles, the last comedy by Simon Pegg was 2009's How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, which I must say was an amazingly shitty movie, so much so that I almost swore off watching Pegg ever again. The abysmal crappiness of this film was compounded by the film immediately before it, 2008's Run, Fatboy, Run - directed by David Schwimmer, whose main qualifications seem to have been that he could show up to the set - this was another turd of a film, though not as bad as the next one. You could see how after watching these two films, in which one of my favorite comedic actors just craps out, why I would be hesitant to watch Paul.
Two factors brought me to this film, to give Pegg another chance. First, I read Nerd Do Well, Pegg's 2011 memoir, and it was funny and was read by Pegg himself. Second, Nick Frost  costars with Pegg in this film and I loved him with Pegg in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
I am so glad I watched this. Ok, to be completely forthcoming, I would have eventually watched it even if I hadn't been heartened by the book, or known that Frost was going to be in it. I just would have waited a couple of years like I did with the pair of craptastic films mentioned at the top.
Is this film as funny or as original as Shaun of the Dead? Yes, I think so. It has very much the same quirky feel to it and a similar type of ending. The supporting cast really makes this film pop just like SotD, in the way that Bill Nighy took the small role of Pegg's step-father and ended up owning most of the scenes he was in, Jason Bateman plays Agent Zoil with the same kind of understated brilliance. These two men are clearly better actors than Pegg and Frost, by which I mean no disrespect, and give their respective movies the push they need to be thoroughly enjohable. I have got to mention two other actors in the film and the surprise performances we saw. Sigourney Weaver is the head of whatever agency is in charge of keeping Paul's secret and is the movie's villain, a role which we rarely see her in and to be objective about it, that may quite likely because she would fall flat with them just like she did with this role. I am reminded of the last time I saw Weaver host Saturday Night Live - it was totally horrible, as he lines were delivered as if she had never seen them before, as she stared at the cue cards in a way that actually made you believe that she had not spent any time rehearsing the skits. Interestingly, the other notable performance is by Kristen Wiig, of Saturday Night Live fame. Fortunately, it's nothing like Weaver's performance. I can't say that I'm that big of a fan of the stuff Wiig did on SNL, some was good, some was bad, but most were not memorable. However, her character in Whip It! was great and she does the same in this film, being a total joy to watch.
Finally, I can't write this without mentioning the elephant in the room - Seth Rogen doing the voice of Paul. If you've read my thoughts on Rogen, you know that I dont' think much of him as an actor, which is not to say that I think he sucks. He does the doofus stoner brilliantly. Unfortunately, that seems to be all that he does. Name one movie for me where he isn't that character, I dare you - even in the Green Hornet for god's sake. His voice works for Paul in that the little alien is a doofus stoner, though I've got to admit it was hard to take at first because Paul is so small and Rogen is so big, Paul is so bald, while Rogen is so hairy. Once I got over that, it was fine.

Nerd Do Well

Nerd Do Well
by
Simon Pegg
read by
Simon Pegg

I don't much go in for autobiographies. Well except for anything by Frank McCourt. Or "Bossypants" by Tina Fey. Or the Bill Clinton book. Okay, so maybe I do go in for autobiographies, but they're a small proportion of what I read or listen to. Okay, I admit that I liked the Hillary Clinton book, too, the one where she reads it. I guess Sarah Vowell's books are as much autobiographical as they are historical. Okay, maybe I am a fan of memoirs, at least by savvy sophisticated authors; I liked John Stewart's book too.
I've been a long-time fan of Simon Pegg, so even if I wasn't a fan of this form, there is a good chance that I would have checked it out, especially knowing that he was reading his own book. I heard interviews with Pegg on NPR when this book first came out and expected I was going to mostly hear about first breaking into television and how much he hated the new Star Wars movies, and probably a couple of silly jokes along the way. Well, I did get all of that, but in less depth than I was expecting, but the trade-off was that he told a lot more about himself than just those brief moments. In actuality, this book was much like Fey's "Bossypants", both in scope and in voice. From the outset, Pegg makes it clear he's not going too deep into his personal life, nor is his goal to talk ill about anyone else he's met along his path. He remained true to his word. There are two notable differences from the format that Fey took,though, one brilliant, one not so much. The first and brilliant difference is the story of Simon Pegg superspy and his android "man" servant in their efforts to save the world from annihilation. Very funny. If this was a movie - a James Bondesque spoof type film, I would so be all over watching it - especially if Pegg wrote and starred in it. The other, not-so-brilliant difference, is that Pegg doesn't share any of the non-positive times of his life. I don't know what kind of hardships the man has gone through, one could hope that they were few and far between, but other than mentioning that it took him a while to get how the whole stand-up comedy thing worked, we get nothing. From a writer as talented as Pegg, I expect that he could make any incident either touching or funny (or both). It would have been nice to hear a little more on the years it took him to break into the business. What was he doing while he was waiting for his various breaks? He mentions being lucky to get some or most of his opportunities, and luck implies that what he was doing wouldn't have gotten him the success he now enjoys without some type of intervention. I think the success would be more appreciated by us fans if we understood better how it was deserved. Now, I'm not saying that I want to hear how the man was down-and-out, addicted to smack, ready to kill a junky for his next fix - I have no reason to believe he lead that kind of life at all, I just want to know how he dealt with rejection of scripts or how it took him years on the comedy circuit to get noticed, that kind of thing.
I guess the short-comings of the book really set me up to get his next book where he promises to fill us in on what we missed out on in this book. When, that comes, I will eagerly await the audiobook, hopefully read by Pegg and to hear the further adventures of Pegg and his android "man" servant.

Run Fatboy Run (2007)

Women's clothing store security guard, Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg) left his pregnant girlfriend, Libby (Thandie Newton) at the altar five years earlier. Doyle is a loser who wishes he could get another shot at Libby. It's not until he meets her new boyfriend, Wytt (Hank Azaria) that he realizes that he might not have any more chance at getting together with her.
In a move of jealousy driven bravado, Doyle matches Wytt's claim that he can run a marathon and in fact will run in the upcoming marathon which Wytt is training for.
No one believes that Doyle can do it, except for his best friend Gordon (Dylan Moran) and his landlord (Haresh Patel). The two believe in him even when he has given up on himself.
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I really wanted to love this film. I go out of my way to watch Simon Pegg - I've been a big fan since Spaced. And with his buddy being played by Dylan Moran, whom I've been a fan of since Black Books, I thought this would be an even better than usual film. Did I mention that I am usually entertained by Hank Azaria, with Simpson aside, I love as the Blue Raja in Mystery Men? But this film never really found it's footing, couldn't keep up the pace, got winded - insert your own running pun of choice.
The film had funny moments, but it was cliched and not very consistently paced, not to mention it was a bit schizophrenic as to which type of film it was going to be - light romantic comedy, buddy film, touching family comedy, morale-driven comedy. Did I mention that the script was cliched? You know how this film is going to turn out as soon as they are done with the setup, maybe even before them. That's okay in a comedy, but I shouldn't be able to predict the lines, and I definitely shouldn't be able to predict when Moran is going to appear pantless in a scene.
To be absolutely frank, Azaria was phoning in a lot of this lines, and there were a couple of scenes where Pegg and Moran did the same. When that happens in a film, the only person to blame is the director, which in this case is first-time David Schwimmer, better known as an actor. In my opinion, it would have been better with Schwimmer and Azaria switching roles - not because I like Schwimmer better than Azaria, au contraire - I think Azaria could have been a better director, and then when the American runner character turns out to be a real dick, I would buy that better from Schwimmer.
The bright spot in this film is Thandie Newton. She's consistently on as the straight / love interest / object of desire. The kid, Jake, played by Matthew Fentox was pretty good to, and worked well with both Newton and Pegg.
My advice? Watch the opening flashback sequence and then fast forward between Pegg and Moran's antics. Or better yet, pull out your copy of Shaun of the Dead and watch that instead.