[Movies] Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

I'm pretty sure this was the first Star Trek movie that I consciously remember watching, which is somewhat ironic since this is the last movie to feature the cast of the original series. That didn't make the movie any less special - in fact it played a big role in how I formally got started as a Trekkie. And thus I suppose this movie will forever play a special role in my geek heart.

And what's ironic is the fact that I don't remember watching it in the theater. I distinctly remember it as a home video or perhaps something showing on a channel like HBO or some other movie channel. I find this ironic given how the year of release was well within my movie-watching age. Then again, I don't think I was a Trekkie yet.

As a "last" movie, at least for the TOS crew, this was a pretty good way to go out. It was a satisfying story with some great action, a good villain and still a lot of good fun. The movie was definitely tailored to deliver a message of one crew making way for the next - in this case the TOS crew leaving the franchise behind and leaving the TNG crew to later on fill the movie void.

[TV] Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 1

I'll admit that I remain both a Star Wars and a Star Trek fan and I continue to patronize both franchises whenever possible. I guess I just have a love for science fiction stories, space opera and other ways to celebrate the amazing potential of the far-flung future.

Although these days it seems almost impossible to ignore the continue expansion of the Star Wars media empire as it tries to secure itself in the consciousness of hundreds of new fans pretty much every single day. Thus we've experienced all of the movies being re-released in one form or another (with the prequels now joining in the fun with the addition of 3D), the creation of multiple cartoons and TV shows and countless books, comic books, toys and what have you.

That was always the biggest secret of George Lucas - being able to master the art of movie tie-in marketing while telling a great story. And now we're all doomed to remain trapped within his vision of the Star Wars universe as no human being on the planet may be spared from the glory of his creation - or at least that's how it seems to me at times. Especially with how their recent efforts seem more and more focused on children and other such "new markets" that they're clearly trying to tap to keep the stories alive.

[Infographics] The Truth About Tech

In a somewhat timely fashion given the recent news about the working conditions at Foxconn, the Chinese company responsible for the production of many of Apple's most popular devices such as iPhones and iPads. I received notice about this particular infographic by Masters Degree Resources as an email lead and it seemed interesting enough to share.

Now don't get me wrong - I recognize how pretty much all of the manufacturing industry gets accused of unfair labor practices at one point or another. And this condition is not limited to any one industry - it seems to apply to any situation that involves using as many people as possible to create as many goods as possible for as little cost as possible. That's just your classic equation for human abuses right there.

So for the full infographic, just click past the Read More cut below:

[Books] In The Company of Cheerful Ladies (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Book 6)

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of books have become the sort of light, comfortable reading that's nice to return to at the end of a busy day. As much as these books are about detectives, the cases tend to require more common sense that formal forensic reasoning. Thus the stories do maintain a nicely feminine feel to them somehow and yet they're penned by a man. Go figure.

However these are practically just serial novels - quite indulgences that start out okay, move right along through the cases featured in the particular book and then move on. And while the characters do evolve over time with events like marriages and deaths in the family, these changes tend to not have too much effect on the narrative flow as a whole. There is definitely continuity across the titles, yes, but at times one can't help but feel that we're not seeing parts of the narrative that we may be expecting should naturally follow.  Or there are those moment when the characters just seem to tell us what's going on and what they're going to do next instead of investing in the pages for us to see how it all unfolds.

But these books do try to maintain a lighter town through a sense of brevity, so I suppose you just need to play along for now.

[Movies] The Hunger Games (2012)

I've often made reference to what I call the "post Harry Potter era" of movies, where successful young adult novels are fated to become the next big Hollywood blockbuster. Some folks hit it big with classics like The Chronicles of Narnia while others don't manage to get past the "pilot" movie like The Seeker: The Dark is Rising or The Spiderwick Chronicles. The point is studios are constantly on the look-out for the next big hit that will take advantage of the youth market in a cross-media marketing bonanza that is bound to make some executives very, very happy.

Thus at the same time it feels like there are so many authors who have begun to write with movies in mind instead of just focusing on the content. I won't name names just yet, but there are definitely a number of cases where you know the author is trying to create his or her own cash cow instead of just creating a fun adventure to follow along with.

Now I first feared that The Hunger Games books would be something along those lines given how quickly they became popular. I'll admit that the book snob in me avoided the hype initially, but in time I had to pay attention to the fact that the movies were receiving critical acclaim and thus perhaps there was more to it than that. And given how much I enjoyed the books, I was pretty concerned about the quality of the inevitable movie adaptation.

No matter how good the book is, it is always possible to come up with a completely lame movie based on it. Sad fact of life these days.

[Movies] In & Out (1997)

In 1994, the movie Philedelphia helped return the fact that gay people exist in terms of the consciousness of popular media. The movie wasn't the first major movie to discuss LGBT themes, but it certainly was a major moment especially given the attention it received at the Academy Awards in terms of nominations and a few actual awards for Best Actor and Best Original Song.

There's something about such moments that leads to more and more LGBT-related concepts creeping into popular media, as is oddly evidenced by the creation of comedies that try to tackle the subject. And whether or not you want to recognize such movies as key moments in LGBT history, you still need to acknowledge that they had some impact on things on the whole.

I saw this movie well before I understood what being gay meant or even before I realized that I was gay myself. But I'd be crazy to say that the movie didn't help things along in the long run, especially when I did start thinking about my sexual identity and where exactly I fit in the world. And so the movie still deserves it's time in the sun.

[Movies] Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Success is a mixed bag of tricks, really. On the one hand, you get a lot of praise and recognition for a job well done. On the other hand, expectations are raised and any future projects require you to at least match but preferably exceed your past endeavors. And that's a fairly difficult standard to live up to, especially since how people perceive your creative output can often be very different from how you see it. And even as the content creator, the whims of the people take precedence.

The Star Trek movie franchise reflects this rather well, and perhaps this explains the perceived "curse" related to the pattern around the quality of the movies. Then supposed rule of thumb is that the odd-numbered movies tend to be worse than the even-numbered ones, and maybe it's not because they're actually bad but more like the others were much better in comparison. Thus you get a natural cycle of "good" and "bad" which just follows the flow of elevated happiness with one movie and a sharp comparative shift in the next one.

Not that I can fully defend this movie versus all the others. Even I have my fair share of issues with the core plot of this movie and their silly little search for God, but what else can you do,  eh?

[TV] Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003-2005)

The Star Wars Expanded Universe has certainly grown into unique and rather interesting as the Star Wars franchise has expanded its reach to include books, toys, comics, TV shows and so on. And what makes it more interesting is how most of these seeming deviations are actually considered to be canonical in terms of the internal consistency of the overall universe, which says a lot about the continuity teams that manage the whole creative process across the various Star Wars properties.

Sure, the continued expansion of the Star Wars media empire really just drives new revenue as it touches new media formats, but that's just how the business goes. And for Star Wars fans like myself, the payoff isn't too bad since it means we get more stories involving characters we love (and a few stories for characters we pretend don't exist).

This particular venture really stood out for me, probably because I'm quite the fan of Genndy Tartakovsky and his previous endeavors like Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack. Applying his particular creative vision to the Star Wars universe just made sense to me and I'll forever respect this particular animated series above many of the other Star Wars properties.

[Metro] WTF Is Up With McDo?

For the most part, I think it's safe to say that I grew up with McDonald's, like many other kids my age. It had always been a bit of a treat for us in the family and admittedly it was a cheap source of decent enough food - the true model of the fast food empire.

A McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But over the years, prices have continued to go up while the quality of the products have diminished. Have you seen the size of a Filet-O-Fish sandwich? How does something that tiny compare in terms of monetary value to the also-shrinking McChicken? I suppose you could argue that at least the Quater Pounder should have a consistent amount of meat involved, but the burger alone now costs over P100. The Big Mac is a joke, the Cheeseburgers are now way overpriced and the Burger McDo just confuses me to no end.

I think the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the relatively recent revamp of their breakfast menu to include the use of the supposedly better English muffins that just translated into something that was smaller, dryer and at times chalky. And the McDonald's breakfast was the only part of their menu that I absolutely loved without fail - McMuffins hold a special place in my heart! But now they're broke too and I don't see the point any more.

A McDonald's McChicken sandwich. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So now it's a lot easier to opt to go with better-tasting meal options at Jollibee or the ultimate burger experience for me which remains to be Burger King. Hell, I enjoy the food at Tropical Hut a heck of a lot more than McDonald's now! I'm not expecting some fine dining experience the few times we opt to indulge in some fast food - something that thankfully we're doing a lot less these days. But I am expecting good value for my money and these days it seems like all they can do is increase the prices of their products and continue to find ways to cut costs, cheapen their products and generally change the entire McDonald's experience.

So goodbye and good riddance McDonald's. I'm definitely not going to patronize your business any more. And that's despite the fact that I work at night in  a call center that just so happens to have a McDonald's branch attached to it. And you all know just how hard it is to find food in the wee hours of the night.

Besides, Jollibee Delivery takes my credit card, hehe.

[Books] Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy Book 1)

For movies, I don't often rely on awards shows to determine my movie selections since I often find that the winners don't always represent movies that I actually enjoy watching. However when it comes to books, I admit that I pay a bit more attention with an author gets recognized, especially in the realms of science fiction and fantasy. It's funny how I see these two mediums so differently - might just mean I'm quirky or that the Oscars are broken. Take your pick.

I noticed this book when it managed to get itself a Hugo nomination despite it seeming to be just another zombie book. And seriously, we've reached a point when media companies are trying to include the zombie concept in just about any genre, thus resulting in a lot of weird mash-ups that we probably don't need. And I'll admit that I've ventured into some of these mash-ups out of sheer curiosity with rather mixed results.

Feed stood out since it did manage to get a nomination for the Hugo Award for Best New Novel - and I really respect the Hugo Awards. So when a decent enough deal came up for me to pick up the Kindle version of this book, I was all over it - and definitely happy that I did so.

[Movies] ÜnOfficially Yours (2012)

I don't want too many Filipino movies - it's just not something that I've gotten used to doing. My family never really got into it and I guess it carried on into my adult years. And I have watched the occasional movie here and there when one or the other stands out, but that isn't something to take a lot of time out for.

It's not like I particularly hate local movies - I just rarely find a reason or inclination to do so. But then I used to say the same thing about romantic comedies and you know how that has turned out because of my partner Tobie's efforts. And now that our other boyfriend Prince is part of our lives, it looks like my movie options will continue to expand.

So one weekend when Tobie was out of the country, Prince and I opted to go on a little movie date and he asked us to watch this particular movie. I had my doubts of course - this kind of lifelong bias that I have isn't something that goes away overnight. But this movie was more entertaining that I ever expected it would be and I will state that I actually enjoyed it.

Yay to broadening ones horizons.

[Pink Scene] The Sunday O Divas

 As a one of those relatively luckier call center professionals who always gets weekends off, Sunday nights are what you could truly consider to be my "complete" rest days. As much as I don't have work on Saturday nights, the fact that I'm still a the office as late as 10am sort of kills the feeling that Saturday is part of the weekend. I end up spending most of the day asleep or I force myself to stay up for this geek even or another. Thus Sundays are really the days I typically look forward to the most since I truly get to rest and relax before the work week resumes.

And thus the reason that Sunday nights have almost always meant O Bar Ortigas nights for me since a night drinking, dancing and drag queens always seems like a great way to cap off any weekend. And Sunday nights had never quite been the same ever since we started to see the Sunday O Divas perform regularly.

To be fair, the Sunday O Divas do have some rotations in their roster, but you will see certain familiar faces almost always taking the stage on a Sunday night. And these ladies really bring a certain degree of class and artistry to their performances that really help them stand out. As much as any night at O Bar with the various drag queens is always fun, there's something about the Sunday group that really takes things to the next level.

So let's take a quick look at who you might expect to see on a Sunday night...

[Movies] Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

We finally get to one of my favorite Star Trek movies in the entire movie franchise. Sure, I gave high marks for The Wrath of Khan, and it's hard to argue against the quality of that movie. However this movie stands out since it's the one that just felt like it had the most fun despite tackling a pretty serious (and still somewhat controversial) issue at its core. A rather tall order for any production, what more for a movie franchise that often gets dismissed as something for geeks who live in their parents' basements or something.

Boo negative stereotypes!

I felt this movie had a great balance of the kind of drama and humor that pretty much defined the original TV series. And these are rather diverse elements to juggle especially when the director not only has to direct his peers of many years but also himself, what more with the kind of pressure studio executives bring in the equation as they push how far the movie can go to meet their financial objectives.

The general internet consensus tends to agree with me though in terms of how popular and successful this particular Star Trek movie remains to be. It's most probably because of the lighter tone and how it appeals to more than just the core Star Trek fan base. Managing to achieve that particular objective certainly helped things along. I'm sure.

[TV] Transformers Prime: Season 1

I've been a Transformers fan for most of my life, however my fandom has never been the type to make me blindly love anything with a Transformer stamp on it. I think I learned to be a bit more discerning about my Transformers selections after realizing just how ridiculous the Action Masters line of toys was.

In recent years, the Michael Bay influenced movie franchised has really been a sore spot for me. Initially I was happy that they finally created a live-action movie. But once the euphoria passed, we fans were left with a very weird movie story line that just got increasingly worse as additional sequels were released. And in this post Michael Bay era of Transformers, one can't help but notice the influence the movies have had on the aesthetic of the various spin-offs shows and comic books even.

Now I'm not exactly a G1 purist, but I'll admit that I'll always favor that aspect of the franchise given it's the one I grew up with. Later incarnations of the Transformers have been a mixed bag for me such as how I enjoyed the Beast Wars timeline but found the whole Armada arc a bit too weird for me. And for one reason or another, I never bothered to get into Transformers Animated. I should probably try it out sometime.

But let's get back to this latest show, shall we?

[Gaming] The Final Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter Tally

That's all she wrote, folks! After what could be termed as one of the most interesting Kickstarter campaigns yet, the folks at Double Fine Productions ended their KickStarter project to create a classic point-and-click adventure game ended with over $3.33 million in pledges despite only having a goal of $400,000.

The deal was definitely a record-breaker by many standards. It reached its original goal within the first 12 hours and holds, the record for raising the most funds within 24 hours. The 87,000+ backers have helped this project become the most supported Kickstarter project ever AND they've also raised the most funds ever. That's a lot of serious love for adventure gaming.

Image via Wikipedia

If anything, this just goes to show that the classic adventure gaming genre is not dead and fans like me are not alone in this big geeky world. Beyond that, we've also tapped a potentially new and highly disruption distribution model that puts the power back in the hands of the creative teams and brings them closer to their end users instead of dealing with the fluff and pomp of the distributors.

And it's not like we're pirating the game or anything - backers like me have just paid for a game that doesn't exist yet. But because of the strength of the concept and the credentials of the creative team, we're all fully behind this project and can't wait to see what they come up with.

And if this game turns out to be as cool as we all hope for it to be, then we're definitely going to be really, really happy, plus a new adventure game is bound to be just around the corner...

And yes, this geek is extremely happy and proud to have participated in this momentous gaming undertaking. And I can't wait to see what the final product will be like!

[Comics] Ozma of Oz (Marvel)

Like many kids of my generation, my parents had made me watch the 1985 Disney live-action movie Return to Oz - which probably turned out to be a lot darker than they had anticipated. Then again, my family celebrated the fine art of scaring children without traumatizing them as best demonstrated by the original stories of the Brothers Grimm and so on.

That 1985 movie had borrowed heavily from the same book that was a basis for this limited comic book series. And I guess that's part of the reason this comic endeared itself to me so much.

In fact, this was actually the first of the Marvel Oz adaptations that I read and thus triggered my looking for all the prior books as well. These comics tend to scratch a particular itch we feel for the Oz brand of stories and magical fiction. It's an odd balance of the whimsical, the fantastical and the scary. After all, this is the same series that includes wicked witches, flying monkeys, and dreaded Wheelers balanced on separate wheeled limbs. Ah yes, those damned Wheelers will forever hold a special place in my memories after that movie.

[Movies] Justice League: Doom (2012)

JLA: Tower of Babel and Identity Crisis were two major DC comic book events that really did a lot of further develop Batman as a character. Beyond his obsessive quest for justice on behalf of his murdered parents and him representing what is essentially the peak of human capability, the comics explored his rather Machivellian methods and followed them to their logical progression. It has been said many times before that Batman shares many traits with the unstable villains he hunts down in Gotham. Those comics explored that concept, as does this movie.

Some might argue that Batman is a paranoid freak at times - one who finds trusting others very difficult and prone to preparing for the truly worst situations that no one thinks about on their own. And all this is probably true given his history, but this does not make him any less the hero that he is. I wouldn't even go as far as claiming that he's an antihero or anything silly like that.

Batman remains one of the most logical heroes out there, always prepared to make the truly tough decisions as needed in order to save innocent lives or generally for the sake of the greater good. It's just rather tricky to figure out what good Batman is fighting for at times given his habits of keeping things to himself. And this movie helps paint that particular picture of Batman, which truly does make for interesting viewing.

[Pink Scene] O Bar's New Summer Look for 2012

Malate Entrance

For "regular" readers of this blog, you'd already know that my partners and I tend to be regular patrons of O Bar whether Ortigas or Malate. What can I say - I enjoy a good drag show when I'm out with friends and the music - especially at Ortigas - is right up my alley. And considering how O Bar was also instrumental in helping me and Tobie find Prince, then all the more I'm going to continue to be quite the happy customer.

Recently, O Bar Malate closed shop few a few days to implement renovations that have given the bar more of a summer feel. And with O Bar Ortigas extending its operating hours to include Tuesday nights starting March 13, 2012, it looks like they too have followed suit with some changes of their own in a similar style.

[Movies] Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

It's curious to think that at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, actor Leonard Nimoy (who plays Spock) decided that he was done with the franchise and thus the story was written to remove him from future film endeavors. And yet after the movie came out, he had a change of heart and not only agreed to reprise his role as Spock, but he also wanted to direct the next installment of the series.

In some ways, you could say that Nimoy started the trend of Star Trek actors stepping up to the director's plate whether in terms of the feature-length movies or even the individual episodes of the later incarnations of the science fiction franchise.

It's quirky to consider how among Star Trek fans, there's a general consensus that the odd-numbered movies tend to be the ones that are perceived to be "worse" than their even-numbered counterparts. Of all the movies, this one probably stands to differentiate itself from its brethren, at least in my opinion.

I'm not saying that this was an amazing movie or anything like that. But it's certainly better than how many folks generalize it to be.

[TV] Merlin: Season 2 (BBC)

Having watched the first season of Merlin, you'd think that I'd quite while ahead and stop watching the series. But given that I already have copies of the first four seasons just lying around the apartment, I figured that I might as well take the time to work through them since I had already done the digital acquisition work. Why waste decent content, right?

And if anything, it does give me something to post for a review today. Just don't expect a terribly positive one.

Merlin is a weird show. It's designed to appeal to younger audiences while still somewhat satisfying fans of sword & sorcery shows who have nothing else to watch with the loss of shows like Legend of the Seeker. Some compare it to the Arthurian version of Smallville or something, which is kind of weird to think about.

But despite the many, many, many deviations from the original stories of King Arthur, the often modern-thinking woven into the stories and the dizzying plot lines, the show is oddly appealing. Sort of like a train wreck that everyone has to stop and watch since there's not much else to do. Weird.

[Geekdom] How I Learned to Respect Batman

As a kid, I first got into comics through Spider-Man, since he seemed like the perfect example of the nerd being granted new strength and abilities, thus somehow vindicating his being an intellectual. I probably didn't think of it in precisely those terms, but on many levels I could relate to the character. And I stayed true with Spider-Man for many years, at least up until The Clone Saga sort of ruined him for me.

Like any other kid, I had know about Batman for quite a while. I had watched the old Super Friends TV show. I had caught re-runs of the 1960's Batman TV series starring Adam West. And I had watched the Tim Burton Batman movies, although the folks didn't let me watch every single part of the them the first time around. But it wasn't until may pre-teen years that I finally got around to reading the Batman comics themselves, and that really changed my outlook of the guy as a character.

And oddly enough, I have my mom to thank for this.

Thus in an attempt to participate in more local blogging events, I'm writing this entry as part of Fully Booked's The Dark Knight Reborn Blogger's Challenge, which I think counts as my first attempt to enter a local blogging contest. If anything, the topic seemed appealing enough and I think this might be a fun writing exercise as a whole. And with DC Comics artist David Finch arriving in the country this month, it seems like a cool idea to "join" the celebrations in this way.

[Books] Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate - Book 1)

In recent times, I've become quite the Kindle Daily Deals junkie. It's not like I always buy the book being offered on sale - I still have fairly discerning geeky tastes in books. However it has led me to try more books that I would not have normally picked off the shelf on my own since the pricing seemed too hard to resist. I mean come on, books for as low as $0.99 - $1.99 are pretty ridiculous indeed. That really does a lot to push a title past my personal purchasing threshold with a minimum amount of guilt over the purchase.

Another thing that always gets me (with respect to books) are the allure of any series of books. You see, any reader such as myself will always feel the need for continually acquiring new titles to read. And thus any book presented to be part of a larger series becomes instantly more attractive since it means that the reader is assured of something to look forward to as each new title is released. And yes, this does means sometimes we get stuck with some pretty crappy books, but that's life for you.

So this book blipped on my radar when I finally caught it as a daily deal. It promised some steampunk-style action complete with vampires and werewolves. So that along made it a pretty good deal.

It didn't immediately highlight the fact that the book was also designed as a romance, but thankfully I'm gay enough to enjoy that sort of thing.

[Entertainment] The Movie Industry Is Killing Creativity

I didn't watch the Academy Awards this year. In fact, I haven't been watching the awards show very much in recent years, period (and this is despite my love for movies). If anything, at least I make the time to watch the Tony Awards - their performance numbers are a lot more entertaining after all.

A movie so silent, most haven't heard about it

This year the big dramatic winner (more or less) was probably The Artist, that silent French movie that most of the folks who tuned into the Oscars probably haven't seen for themselves. Heck, I haven't seen it and the only way for me to have possibly seen it before the awards night would have been to source a pirated copy of the movie on the internet. But I do my best to respect potentially good movies, and that means waiting for their local cinema release, which can certainly take a while.

The year before that Best Picture had gone to The King's Speech, yet another movie that I have yet to see. The year prior saw The Hurt Locker winning, which thankfully Tobie and I had managed to catch on some limited run that just so happened to involve some of the theaters in Cubao.

In recent years, it seems that the movies that we actually get to see in theaters don't often become the big movies under consideration for all the big awards when the time comes. In fact, we're lucky to even catch these movies at theaters when you'll have maybe one cinema showing the movie in question while four more feature the latest Michael Bay style explosion-filled, CGI bonanza flick.

This is why we are getting a Transformers 4

We all know very well that the movies that get the most love of the distributors around the world aren't the ones who get acclaims from critics. Instead we get the ones that stand the biggest chances of drawing in larger crowds due to a familiar concept being present such as with movie adaptations of popular books, because the promise big stars or huge special effects budgets or simply because a number has been added to the title to indicate it's a sequel. Hollywood and all the other studios, after all, are still business who will put their money behind the movies that promise the most potential profit.

And thus that's where all the budgets go in terms of marketing, press events and red carpet debuts. Hollywood decides what movies offer the least about of risk for the greatest amount of profit and throw all their cards there. And I know I use the term "Hollywood" rather loosely - I might as well be saying the movie industry as a whole, quite frankly.

This leaves the independent filmmakers to do their best to make the rounds of the film festivals in the hopes of generating interest for their pet projects since the big studios will rarely risk time and money on such endeavors. This is the movie industry that believes we're idiots who only want to see big, noisy movies that require 3D glasses because they're cool (and they can charge higher ticket prices). The truly creative ones coast through largely unnoticed until the end of the year when the awards season begins and then finally they Oscars will help the Best Picture winner and few others.

Does the problem have more to do with the movie makers or those who patronize theaters? It's hard to say at this point - sort of a chicken and egg scenarios. When we go to the theaters, the selection of movies available reflect the opinions of the distributors and the studios. And given those choices, we look for the one we're most likely the like - often the ones we know the most about. These are the sequels and remakes or the ones that got a lot of media coverage. The other movies aren't ones we don't necessarily like - people just don't know enough about them to make a truly informed decision about them. And these are often the critically acclaimed ones that just don't get the marketing support - like when Crash showed in local theaters for a week in the middle of the year and yet went on to win Best Picture come the next Oscar season. Then suddenly every single theater had Crash playing as if it was the first time for them to do so.

I don't have a clear solution for this problem. I want us to vote with our wallets and only pay to see the movies that are truly good. But in a world where theaters force you into deciding between the lesser of two evils, what movies do we watch instead? If we don't watch movies in theaters, revenues drop further and the studios start slashing budgets even further, thus further adding to the number of sequels and remakes since they're less risky investments. If we do watch the movies that are there, we reward the studios for their market research and encourage them to make even more of the crap movies that they've been making. It's a vicious cycle.

We need to take a stand for better movies. Perhaps crowd-funding services like Kickstarter will become the new avenue for supporting independent filmmakers and ensure they continue to be funded to make the kind of movies that we actually want (and deserve) to see. Perhaps it's time to cut out the studios and the distributors entirely and try to engage filmmakers more directly through the power of the social internet.

Or maybe I'm just ranting form the comfort of my desk without any clue of what I'm talking about. That's life for you.

[TV] Queer as Folk (US) Season 5

Wow, another "series" of blog reviews finally comes to a close with this review of the last season of Queer as Folk. Sure, the show ended pretty much 7 years ago, but it doesn't make it any less important in terms of our shared queer cultural history of sorts. It's a show that won't necessarily become something that everyone will love, but it still deserves to be watched at least once to see what the fuss was about.

Plus for many young queers, it was a big leap forward in terms of cementing the idea that there is a gay community out there that deserves recognition in popular media. It was one of the first shows that really tries to tackle a lot of the more serious LGBT issues out there and until today you can still find folks who quote the show or cite it as a reference of sorts.

I admit that on a personal note, I "grew up" as a gay man with this show. I can't say that I necessarily learned all the "right" lessons from this show and the aspects of gay culture it tended to popularize, but it did open my eyes to many different aspects of gay life and helped me find characters that I could associate with or relate to, one way or another.

[Movies] Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

The original Star Trek TV series had very strong Western story elements at its core. Here you had a lone ship exploring the new frontiers of the galaxy in an effort to meet new civilizations and explore strange new worlds. Thus he parallels between Star Trek and the pioneer days of the "old West" are easy to draw.

And yet when Star Trek finally started to explore the strange new reality of the movie world, they lost a lot of that fire and spirit of adventure with a rather cerebral story and glacial pacing at times. This time around they opted to change things significantly with this sequel by trying to return to the action and adventure that has been at the core of many of Star Trek's original TV episodes.

And for the most part, I think it worked.

This sequel is often touted as one of, if not the best of all the Star Trek movies that have been released thus far, and I find it harder to argue against that point. The movie just wonderfully managed to balance the diverse elements that factored into the production to end up with a story that just worked on so many levels. With strong characters, generally impressive acting, and good old fashioned action, the end result remains pretty impressive until today.

[TV] The 2011-2012 Season Continues to Disappoint

What's with all the crap TV these days? Seriously.

I'm not that difficult a geek to please, when you get down to it. I admit that I actually felt that Dollhouse had a lot of potential. I concede that I watched all 18 episodes of Caprica even though it got yanked off the air before SyFy could finishing broadcasting all the episodes. And I even watched the entire first season of No Ordinary Family, as bad as that was. So I'm not all that rigid when it comes to my TV watching, really.

But as of the Fall 2011-2012 TV season for US television, I seem to be finding it harder and harder to stay tuned in for a lot of the newer shows that stepped up to the plate to try their luck. And typically I try to see shows all the way to the end of their pilot seasons in order to give them a decent enough chance of proving their worth.

But starting with some of the shows that debuted last year, I've actually reached that point where I decide to actually quit a TV show mid-season since I can't stand it anymore. And I'm not totally alone in my thinking - my partner Tobie agrees with my line of thinking.

So what's up with TV now? Let's dig through the debris, shall we?