Movie review: Star Trek Into Dullness

I finally got around to watching Star Trek Into Darkness, and I have to say it's probably the worst Star Trek movie I've seen. Even worse than The Final Frontier or The Search for Spock or even Nemesis.

It's just simply a bad movie. There's far too much retreading plot elements from the first movie, and it's so unbelievable that they could remake Wrath of Khan to begin with ... of course, that's about all Hollywood can do nowadays is remake movies.

Did there need to be another major skydive in this movie, too? And while I love Leonard Nimoy, the first thing Alternate Spock does is check with his Real Universe older self and have him break his code against revealing the future (or at least the future as it should've been). Wow, Kirk gets demoted, again? Surprise, surprise. Oh, and of course Kirk had to be shown in bed with alien wenches again, right? And those fucking lens flares! I wonder if McCoy's main job on the ship is optometrist.

There were too many things in this movie that just made no sense. If people can beam over intergalactic distances, why bother with starships? Even Scotty's pissed off about them using his Transwarp equation for that.

Oh, and Khan's blood doesn't just heal people; it can raise the dead. Well, I guess there's no need to worry about the Klingons now. We can just resurrect anyone they kill. The third movie's gonna be might dull. Apparently Carol Marcus will be in her skivvies for most of that film to keep peoples' attention.

Let's poke around and find the good things in Into Dullness:  Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy,  who I swear is channeling the late DeForest Kelley he's so spot on. Simon Pegg was good as Scotty as well. Peter Weller's performance was excellent but completely wasted. The special effects were okay; typically overblown as most "blockbuster"/"tent-pole" movies are nowadays. There comes a point when there's almost TOO much going on in a scene for anyone to comprehend what they should be following for the sake of the story.

Then there's Khan, with the now-officially over-exposed Benedict Cumberbatch. He's great in Sherlock. Hell, he's now more Sherlock than Rathbone and Brett in some quarters (not mine). But he's no Ricardo Montalban when it comes to Khan. He's just too smarmy and there's no warmth in his performance. Montalban's Khan was a complete bastard, but you felt other emotions in him as well. Cumberbatch's Khan is just too superhuman living weapon and nothing else. The exact opposite of Chris Pine's Kirk.

The only real way this movie could've saved itself would've been for Kirk to have remained dead. That would've been a good impetus for any future movies in the series - find a Captain who's not a complete jerk. Chris Pine's adolescent performance makes you wish Bill Shatner would stop by and slap some sense into him. He may have been a ham at times, but at least Shatner could play a goddamn captain. All Pine is portraying is a drunk, sex-crazed, young punk.

If I had to rate this movie with some fanciful ratings system, it would get maybe One Phaser Bank out of however many the Enterprise may have now. A complete letdown on so many levels, it isn't even funny.

However, this is:

***

Now available on Amazon.com:

The Monster Quiz Book 
By Rich Meyer

In paperback and e-book!

Godzilla, Frankenstein, Rodan, the Blob, Bigfoot ... they're all monsters you may encounter in the Monster Quiz Book! 500 questions and answers about monsters of all kinds: Giant kaiju, man-made creatures, monsters of legend, beasts of myth, movie-spawned horrors and even a few you might encounter in real-life! Hours of family-friendly fun with this quiz book!

A lost comic book gem: Sue and Sally Smith: Flying Nurses!

I've read a lot of comic books over the years and I've pretty much read every single genre that's been available on a regular newsstand. One of the more odder ones, at least to me, is the nurse comic. There's been a number of them over the years, usually rather short-lived. The notable exception is Timely/Marvel's Nellie the Nurse, more of a humor/teen-oriented book, that lasted 36 issues. Most nurse comics were variants on the romance genre, many being spawned from those selfsame titles.

Charlton Comics seemed to have a corner on this little market in the sixties. Cynthia Doyle Nurse in Love, Nurse Betsy Crane, Registered Nurse, Three Nurses (and the relationships in the corollary "doctor" titles, like Young Doctor Brent and The Young Doctors), along with the series I'm talking about today, Sue and Sally Smith: Flying Nurses.

Sally and Sue are nurses in the Emergency Corps, working out of Morse Medical Center in the United States. They're highly-trained individuals; besides being nurses, they are also expert parachutists, as most of the stories in the series seem to involve them parachuting in to some place fairly inaccessible by any other means. No reason is given why a doctor couldn't jump down to these places with them. Unfortunately, before I got this one, there were no issues of this series available on the internet, so I have no idea about our heroines' history or background. From this story, it's obvious that they have the general "Peace Corps" mentality of the era for those wanting to help the disadvantaged and underprivileged in other countries. Luckily, they don't try to bash you over the head with jingoism while carrying out their duties.

This series has become my new "holy grail" of comics, as I am now duty-bound to find all seven issues now. I just acquired the final issue of the series, #54, today off of eBay, and have scanned it up for your perusal.

I believe the cover is by Dick Giordano, inking himself.  The interior artwork is obviously inked by Vinnie Colletta.  "Joltin'" Joe Sinnott also provided pencils for this series earlier on, and he may have also done the pencils for this, but it's hard to tell with Colletta's inking. 

This one goes out to my pals, colleagues and general crazies over at the Charlton Arrow on Facebook! Enjoy!

Story #1: The penultimate tale of our two adventurous nurses: 

 

Someone who did this page was only working for the five bucks a page Charlton allegedly paid. I mean, couldn't those sound effects have been a bit more stylish?

 Story #2, the final tale of Sue and Sally Smith. 

I'm only posting the stories featuring the stars of the comic here. This issue also contained the requisite bits of filler: A four-page story about a girl who liked classical music but didn't care for "the Twist" her little brother enjoyed, the standard two-page text feature to meet postal requirements ("Planet Plague"), and a one-page examination of "Wilderness Scout" Kit Carson, which has been featured in a few Charlton issues over the years. 

I Blame Society for Making Me Create These Bad Covers

Please forgive me. I was led astray by baaad people. 

The Killers - the comic book!

In the spirit of Charlton Comics' David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, and Partridge Family titles from the early seventies, here comes: The Killers!

Not Quite the Avengers #100

I've been posting these on Facebook lately, so I thought I'd post a couple here. Just a little Photoshop work to pass the time as I procrastinate doing actual stuff that might be useful.

First up, two versions of The Avengers #100:

The Avengers meet the Avengers.

And, apparently a little later, the other Avengers assemble!

Hard to work this one up effectively, since there are so few pictures, color or otherwise, available of John Steed's first three associates (David Keel, Martin King and Venus Smith). 

That's all for today, folks! Hope you enjoyed 'em!

Now that's what they call Rock: The Zombies in Concert

My wife and I just got back from one of the single best concerts I've ever had the privilege to see: The Zombies at Penn's Peak, outside of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

As is usual with Penn's Peak, the opening act Et tu Bruce was a bit of a letdown, no matter the line-up (featuring the son of original Zombie Chris White). Their music was interesting, but I really couldn't define what sort of style they were going for. And there was this woman named Jo providing back-up vocals that really dragged the performance down with a lack of personality. She did play the cowbell masterfully in the final number, I will admit.

The Zombies played a variety of songs from their original albums, solo work and their newest album, Breathe In, Breathe Out. They did all their big hits, naturally, along with a vibrant set that showcased the fifty years of history the band encompasses.

The legendary Odessey and Oracle album was represented quite well, as "A Rose for Emily", "Care of Cell 44", "I Want Her, She Wants Me" and, of course, "Time of the Season" were performed in as a suite of songs.

I'd have to say the highlight of the concert for me were Colin Blunstone's performance of "Old and Wise", a song he sang on the Alan Parsons Project album Eye in the Sky. Most people know that the Project was primarily a studio creation, having only performed live in its original incarnation once. To hear one of their songs, and such a poignant, beautiful tune as it is, performed live brought a tear to my eye.

Rod Argent's hit (with the band Argent) "Hold Your Head Up" got the crowd on its feet (though really, most of the band's songs did that). He even made a point to explain that the chorus was indeed "Hold Your Head Up, Woman", no matter what nearly every lyrics engine tells you.

The final two songs were again special: One of the Zombies' hardest-to-find songs, "Just Out of Reach" was played; This song was one of two featured in the Otto Preminger movie Bunny Lake is Missing, a classic thriller/whodunit with Lawrence Olivier, Kier Dullea and Carol Lynley. (My thanks to Jon Pike for intriguing me enough about this film back in our college days to make me hunt it down.) The concert closed with, of all things, a George Gershwin song from 1936. "Summertime" had been intended as the first Zombies single way back when, but was shelved for "She's Not There". A classy number to end a very classy, professional and obviously fun concert for audience and band members alike.

No pictures this time around, since I thought I'd try the camera in my new TracFone. Unfortunately, the camera in a new TracFone sucks for actually taking photos. Luckily, it's cheap for what we use it for. Y'know, as a phone.

Next week, we're raring to go for the Happy Together Tour, which features Chuck Negron (of Three Dog Night), Gary Puckett, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere and the Raiders), the Union Gap Band, and the Turtles, complete with Flo and Eddie!

Kneel Before Zon!

One of the new big things that a lot of the fear-mongers have focused up lately is the fact that Amazon, on their forums and in e-mails, have stated that a reader doesn't have to read a book in order to review it. As if there weren't already far too many things the Evil 'Zon was doing to stick and twist the knives into the backs of independent authors.

Well, it's true. And that's a fact that's not just true for Amazon. It is a fact for ANY review, ANYWHERE. How do you prove someone read a book? Should they have to take a test on what they read? Y'know, like we often had to do in grade school. Well, at least my classes did. That and book reports. Oh wait, a book report is kind of a review, too, isn't it? With a lot more spoilers we actually expect.

At least Amazon has a differentiation between verified sales and people just wandering to the site after <shudder> reading the book at a library. I guess those folks shouldn't have the ability to leave a review in a perfect world. Bad enough those cheap bastiches didn't buy the book to begin with right? Oh crap, I think my Overdrive loan is almost up! I better go check...

Nope, still got a week. Anyway, if the people are upfront and honest by saying "Well, I didn't read this book, but I am making this comment because <insert reason here>" or "I read the preview and it didn't inspire me to read the rest. This is why <insert reason here>", I don't see the problem. It is an honest evaluation of their feelings on the book in question, and why they are making that particular statement at that particular time.

Authors have got to remember one thing: Reviews are NOT for authors. Reviews are for other people - potential readers, potential users, potential customers. They are paeans to quality or warnings for dreck. Some folks make them humorous, some detailed and sophisticated, some just emulate Frankenstein with a "Book good! or "Book bad!" Most potential customers know how to take what is written in reviews with a grain of salt.

If I see a book with nothing but five-star reviews, that smells of yesterday's fish. If I see fifty five-star, a smattering of two- to four-stars, and six one-star, then I can actually gauge what's going on in a book. There's at least a few people who weren't reviewing out of some sort of obligation or agenda.

No one likes everything, and consequently, everything is not liked by everyone. If an author can't understand that fact, they would be better off in another, less criticism-driven profession. Everyone's got a book in them, they say. But not everyone has the skills to get that book out to the masses properly. It's a sad truth; not every writer out there now should necessarily be a writer. I think You've got to have a few chops in order to get the job done. I think everyone should at least try once, but to make sure you have your head and ego about you before you make that decision to hit the publish button.  If you don't, you are just opening yourself up for disappointment.

One way to avoid bad reviews is to write better. Forget the politics, forget the bullshit and WRITE! It's a great thing to learn by doing and it won't cost you a bloody cent!  Rather than wasting your time worrying about bad reviews (or bad reviews that the Evil Zon is foisting upon you, of course), try perfecting your craft a bit more and then try publishing crap that doesn't have a bloody agenda beyond entertaining, informing or selling books! That's what you're doing this for, isn't it?

I've gotten bad reviews. I've left bad reviews. I've gotten glowing reviews and left the same. I've gotten some reviews from people who obviously didn't read my book. Oh, it cut me so deeply to the heart. Not.  Guess what? I don't let it get to me. Why? Because in the long run, it's not all that important a thing. I could get all bitter and vindictive, but then when would I find the time to be a proper smart ass and wiseacre?   That's a word that really needs to come back into common usage. Along with the name "Gertrude." It's a fine name. It's got character. I had a chicken with that name when I was a lad.