Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness

Readers: if you happen to possess an affection for American cinema as an art form…what are you doing even reading this review in the first place?

You know it's gonna be dire. You remember the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek vehidebacle (term © Fraught Experiments LLC), and you learned to expect more of the same from the sequel's ubiquitous promotional material. You know it's just another schlockbuster (term © somebody else, probably), one which at best—at BEST—possesses a tiny glimmer of ambition and heart.

Let me just nip that optimism in the bud right now. If Hollywood is doomed, as some say, it will be because of movies like J.J. Trek In2 Darkness. The warmest words I have for it is that it seems like J.J. & Co. wanted to appear to evolve their franchise.

I say this because, Into Darkness is arguably about something—intentionally or not. This is notable when we remember that the Trek franchise pre-J.J. had always tried to be about something. Specifically, Into Darkness is about the morality of targeted killings.

Review: Star Trek (2009)

I wasn't really a nerd in school. I had to gain acceptance into their social stratum—I had to work up to nerddom (indeed, I never even played a tabletop RPG until college). This is largely because I moved from city to city and state to state so often that, statistically speaking, at any given point in my academic history I was probably the New Kid.

Table 1.1: School Social Strata ca. Reagan-Bush-Clinton Era

Stratum Name (Descending Order)	Access to Sex, Liquor, or Non-Homemade Drugs	Trek Franchise Investment
JOCKS	Complete	None
JOCK AFFILIATES	Moderate to Extreme	None
JOCK WOULD-BES (& Vo-Tech Hicks, Where Applicable)	Low to High	None
ARTY COOL TYPES	Moderate to High	None to Low
NERDS	None to Low	Low to Extreme
NEW KIDS & UGLIER FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS	None	None to Extreme
UNTOUCHABLES	That's Pretty Funny	Let's Just Say, Probably Writes Letters to Counselor Troi

(Don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this.) You will notice that the second and third columns above represent two major forms of escapism, for members of all strata, from the meat-grinder hellscape of their shared environment. You'll also notice that each of them is roughly inversely proportional to the other. That Star Trek was almost completely rejected by all but the lower strata is, I'm certain, a large part of Paramount's decision to not just reboot, not just reimagine, but thoroughly reinterpret the franchise with 2009's embarrassing film.

Review: Europa Report

My biggest fear about Europa Report (in which a monster is eventually discovered under the ice of the Jovian moon Europa, and don't think that's much of a spoiler, 'cuz it's not) was that it would prove to be fanciful and absurd a la Event Horizon. It's not that I don't enjoy Event Horizon, or sci-fi horror/thrillers of its ilk, but the market's a little saturated.

Moreover, I found Gravity compelling and realistic enough that other sci-fi thrillers will hereafter have a high standard of realism to live up to. This is why I'm reluctant to see Ghosts of Mars even though I know I should for several reasons.

But back to Europa Report. I'm pleased to…um…report that it's not ridiculous. It's got some structural problems, and many of its characters are ill-defined, but I found it engrossing and tense.

Review: Innerspace

Eighties movies run the gamut between "charmingly '80s" and "painfully '80s." Innerspace is kind of all over that gamut, which makes it a densely representative example of '80s cinema.

A thoroughly dopey sci-fi comedy, Innerspace stars Dennis Quaid (who I never realized was so leery) as a hotshot test pilot, shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the ass of a nerdy grocery-store clerk (Martin Short) via a series of improbable circumstances. Quaid establishes communication with Short, and their interactions (during their quest to figure out how to get Quaid out and un-shrunk) provide much of the film's amusement.

Fraught Experiments: YOU'RE 1!

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of this blog's launch! HUZZAH! And what better time to tell you that I'm not going to be posting as frequently for the foreseeable future!

For one thing, October was horror month, so the high number of reviews was a bit of an aberration. Additionally, things are going to get busy IRL for me.

But never fear! The growth rate of my Netflix queues may have slowed, or even plateaued, but they are nowhere near exhausted.