Antichrist

Film review by: Witney Seibold

I think the handle one needs to understand Lars von Trier’s new provocation “Antichrist,” is to realize that he was suffering from severe depression while making it. In interviews, von Trier has said that he made “Antichrist” as a form of (ultimately unsuccessful) therapy, and all the horrific concepts and images in his film spring from that struggle.

“Antichrist” is a sickening, provocative, beautiful abyss of hopelessness. While it’s no picnic to sit through, it’s nice to see an adult horror film that holds the convictions of its nihilism, as opposed to those torture films for kids that seem to be popping up so frequently. I’m not sure if I can openly recommend this film to anyone, as it is so harrowing and brutal, but I cannot dismiss it either, as the power of its violent images and the strength of its ideas are so overwhelming. That the film is beautifully shot, and that von Trier got such wonderfully brave performances from his two actors only complicates the issue.

Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg (credited as only “He” and “She”) play a married couple whose young son recently tumbled out an open window while they were busy having sex. She plunges into a near-psychotic pit of guilt. He is aloof and has a professional view of his feelings; he is a psychotherapist, you see. Rather than working through their guilt in a healthy way, He begins to analyze her, in order to get her to give names to her guilt. This transmutates into a free-flowing exploration of all her fears, and the couple goes on a retreat to their cabin, nicknamed Eden, to explore said fears in detail.

Time is out of joint. She is deathly afraid of all things natural. He begins having… are they dreams?… of violent animals, including a deer that runs while giving birth, and a fox that talks and feeds on its own entrails. The cabin is being constantly pelted with acorns, which fall like rain. He analyzes her further, and She is increasingly uncooperative.

The talks eventually lead to ancient concepts of misogyny, Satan, and the nature of evil (and the evil of nature). The film’s third act is an explosion of torture and sexual violence that is shocking and horrific. There is open damage done to human genitals in “Antichrist” that is rendered in slow-motion close-up detail. Most people will not have the stomach for these later scenes.

Von Trier has always been a dogged provocateur, insisting on keeping film on the edge of its capabilities. He was the one who founded the Dogme project back in 1998, a rigidly guidelined movement that attempted to bring artistic purity back to cinema  . He challenged one of his favorite filmmakers to remake  short film with a series of artistic restriction in “The Five Obstructions.” With “Dogville” and “Manderlay,” he not only incorporated a bold artistic move by exorcizing his physical sets, but made some powerful comments on the fallacy of Christian gentleness and the tenets of American openness. “Antichrist” is his most difficult film to date, and is in keeping with his spirit of taking his audiences to new places.

That said, “Antichrist” does suffer from a lack of focus. All of von Trier’s symptoms of depression are included: a mistrust of arrogant therapists (how can a therapist really understand what you’re going trough?), a fear of the natural world, an inextricable connection between sex and death, the horrors of the human sex drive, and an exploration of misogyny (Von Trier has been accused of misogyny before, and, I think, “Antichrist” is a reaction to that; I don’t think he is necessarily a misogynist). And while the images are powerful, and the concepts make autonomous sense, the connections between them are unclear. I understand his look at grief, at despair, at sexual violence, but I don’t see how one theme segues into another.

This lack of connective tissue may really bother some people, and force them to accuse von Trier of making a schlocky shock film; Indeed, some people have exited the theater after “Antichrist” overwhelmed by the images, and disturbed by the lack of central narrative thrust, feeling the film is an abstract musing on disgusting, horrific human behavior.

This is clearly not an exploitation movie, however. This is a film about the depth of human sadness, a lack of hope, and the internalization of mad hate that becomes a festering self-hatred.

Like I said, no picnic.

Oh God! Mother!

Film essay by: Witney Seibold

Warning: If you have not seen Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” and are unfamiliar with the story, do not read this essay. Most people are familiar with the plot twists at this point, so I feel fine discussing them openly. If you do not know the twists… well, first of all, it’s o.k. to come out from under that rock now, but also the twists should remain a surprise.

The blood in the famous shower scene is reported to be chocolate syrup. Hitchcock felt that Leigh’s screaming wasn’t intense enough, so he had a stagehand turn off her hot water unexpectedly during the shoot. These legends may or may not be true.

When “Psycho” opened in 1960, most cinemas were still showing their film programs on a constant loop that lasted all day. They would show an “A” feature, which was usually the big studio picture on the marquee, a short film, a serial, a cartoon, a news reel, and a “B” feature, often a genre film. Showtimes were almost never posted.

Alfred Hitchcock probably wasn’t the only film director who found this practice repellant. After all, a film writer and director agonizes over pacing, timing, and deliberate plotting, only to have their vision marred by the comings and goings of a noisy audience who were willing to see their films out-of-order. Hitchcock, an auteur if ever there was one, decided to do something about it. Namely, he convinced Universal, the studio distributing “Psycho,” to enforce a new theater policy: theaters were to deny entrance to anyone who came late. Not only did this satisfy Hitchcock’s need to have audiences pay closer attention to his film, but it was a crackerjack ad campaign, leaving audiences in suspense. In the film’s preview, Hitchcock even pleaded with audiences not to give away the film’s ending. “It’s the only ending we’ve got,” he said.

You can watch the preview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-uXsQdZuxo

And thusly, the filmgoing habits of the world changed. After 1960, the come-when-you-will practice began to wane, and showtimes began running in newspapers. It could be argued that it was this practice that allowed audiences’ tastes to develop, and for people to become more savvy to the language of filmmaking.

All film turns us into voyeurs; as an audience, we are the unseen God’s eye that looks over all the characters’ lives. But “Psycho” is the first film (with the possible exception of Powell and Pressberger’s “Peeping Tom”) that addresses the idea of voyeurism to the audience. “Psycho” shows us a few things that films up to that point had never shown: a couple snuggling post-coitally in a seedy motel, a woman casually changing her clothes and revealing her underwear in a non-burlesque setting, a shower scene, a peeping tom (we get to peep on the peeper), and, most notoriously at the time, a flushing toilet. On a certain level, “Psycho” is a lurid and trashy film that seeks to break barriers and reach new levels of mere shock.

Indeed, Hitchcock went to great lengths to make this film look trashier and cheaper than it needed to. In 1960, Hitchcock was already well known for Technicolor blockbusters like “Vertigo,” “North By Northwest,” and the 3-D “Dial ‘M’ for Murder.” He also had a hit TV show, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” With that sort of fame and clout, you would think Hitchcock would shoot “Psycho” with a well-moneyed cast, gorgeous color cinematography, and the high slickness that he was capable of. He chose, instead, to use his low-budget TV camera crew, shoot in black-and-white, built a somewhat cheap-looking set on the Universal backlot (which can still be seen to this day), and keep the camera in close and tight to his actor, making the whole production seem a little bit more down-and-dirty.

“Psycho” doesn’t necessarily read as down-and-dirty, though, as we know Hitchcock so well. It plays more like a wicked wink to the audience. I have the capability to make something huge, Hitchcock seems to be saying to us, but I choose instead to make something that kids with the conventions of the most lurid aspects of cinema. This approach is ingenious, as we are able to get one of the most gorgeously shot movies ever made in the guise of a gory potboiler.

The film is about Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a desk jockey in a Phoenix real estate office. We have seen her canoodling with her divorced boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin), and they have discussed marrying if only they had the money. That very afternoon, a rich southern land baron (Frank Albertson) floats into her office, and waves $40,000 in cash in front of her and her co-worker (Pat Hitchcock).  Marion’s boss asks her to deposit the money in the bank. There seems to be a little internal debate, but Marion instead starts driving out of town with the money and a packed suitcase.

We are firmly entrenched in Marion’s inner world. We hear hypothetical conversations she has with herself, and we see the panic in her face. We may not feel her desperate need for the money (this is right near the beginning of the film, so we’ve only been given the most basic backstory), but we completely understand her decision.

She is accosted by a cop (Mort Mills). The cop is an eyeless brute who quietly gives orders and who seems to be eight feet tall in close-ups. “Am I behaving as if there’s something wrong?” she asks with terrified doe eyes. “Frankly, yes,” The cop returns. The shots of the ever-present cop stalking Marion on the highway, and following her into a used car lot just over the California border are wickedly menacing. Hitchcock himself had a fear of policemen and prisons (he was once forced by a parent to spend a night in a prison cell), so cops in his movies are never seen as heroes or enforcers. They are seen as phantoms and threats. Indeed, the theme of the Wrongly Accused Man being stalked by a relentless police force is a common theme in Hitchcock’s movies.

Marion swaps cars, quickly, and heads out into the California desert. I like the scene in the used car lot. It’s the first time she spends a bit of the money she’s stolen, indicating, once and for all, that she’s beyond the point of no return. By nightfall, it is raining, and she turns off the main highway by accident. She stumbles into the parking lot of the Bates Motel, run by the milquetoast Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).

Norman is polite, awkward, and never gets any business anymore. He’s happy to find a lone customer at his motel. Marion flirts with him a bit, and is invited into his parlor for sandwiches. They have a rather intense discussion about the lives stations. Marion heard Norman’s mother belittling him and yelling at him, and suggests he escape this place. Norman is unresponsive to her suggestions, and even less so to her flirting. What is wrong with Norman? He is twitchy and guarded. He is ultra-polite one moment, and vaguely threatening the next. Perkins gives one of the iconic performances in cinema with Norman Bates. He is creepy, yet fascinatingly watchable.

Marion returns to her room, determined to return to Pheonix and return the money and accept the consequences of her actions. She takes a shower…

Here, the film takes one of the most famous “left turns” in all cinema history. The heroine we have been following for about 45 minutes is suddenly and unexpectedly slain in the shower by Mrs. Bates, Norman’s mother. This is not only a shocking twist in the film’s plotting, but a both narrative leap. We begin to see that “Psycho” is not about Marion at all. It’s not about her theft of the money, her psychology, or even her life. The film is about Norman Bates, the put-upon motel owner with a murderous mother, and the pressures he goes through to cover up his mother’s crime.

Marion’s murder scene is, indeed, one of the most virtuosic pieces of filmmaking of the decade. Shot without any dialogue, we see Marion return to her room, repack her suitcase, fold the stolen money into a newspaper, we see Norman peeping at her through a hole in his office wall, we see her strip, get in the shower, we see Mrs. Bates enter with a large kitchen knife, we see the murder, we see Norman discover the body, we see him clean up the blood, pack all of Marion’s things and her corpse into the trunk of her car, and we see him trying to sink the car in a local swamp. In a few minutes of largely silent film, we have shifted “Psycho” from a routine thriller to a chilling and engaging psychological study, we have seen the narrative shift from a hero to a villain, and we have managed to see one of the most shocking and frightening sequences from any film.

After this, Norman’s life become besieged with interlopers. Thanks to the theft, a private detective named Arbogast (Martin Balsam) is hired. He teasm up with Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) and Sam Loomis (whose name, I should point out, was reused in John Carpenter’s classic “Halloween”). He scours all the local motels, eventually finding the Bates Motel. Arbogast questions Norman and clearly has the upper hand in all conversations. The interplay between the two is tense and incredibly well-written. When Arbogast sneaks into Norman’s house to question Mrs. Bates, he meets a fate similar to that of Marion. The cut over Arbogast’s eye is more shocking than any bucket of gore from any given modern day horror flick.

Eventually Lila and Sam head to the Bates Motel as well, seeing as Arbogast has not returned any calls yet. At this point in the film, we begin to see that it’s only a manner of time before Norman Bates and Mrs. Bates are caught. Thanks to a conversation with the local sheriff (John McIntire), Sam and Lila learn that Mrs. Bates had a funeral a few years back. Hm… Is Mrs. Bates still alive? Whom did they bury all those years ago. Is the woman who says she is Mrs. Bates an imposter? When Sam and Vera arrive at the Bates Motel we know that the truth will finally come to light, and the audience is, with hope, shaking on the edge of their seats. Will Mrs. Bates kill Vera and Same as well? We’ve been forced to lose hope for Marion, but perhaps the villain and villainess will be apprehended.

And what is the truth? The figure we’ve glimpsed in doorways wearing a dress and wielding a knife is none other than Norman Bates himself, suffering from a psychotic break where he believes he is his own mother. He keeps the poorly-maintained corpse of his mother around the house, treating her like she’s still alive.

Wow. That is amazing. Especially for 1960. This is a conceit that has been ripped off dozens of times by dozens of lesser films. I wish I could have been one of the audience members in 1960 when the film came out and experience that twist afresh. Sadly, I am too young.

The film then has a hugely unnecessary scene in which a shrink (Simon Oakland) explains explicitly what we already understand implicitly. This scene grinds on and on, explaining and explaining until we’re not interested anymore. It’s the one misstep in an otherwise impeccable film.

And yes, I say the film is impeccable. Every single shot is needed, and, the shrink scene notwithstanding, nothing is extraneous. How clever of Hitchcock to make a film purporting to be a lurid potboiler, and giving us one of the most technically marvelous and masterfully crafted thrillers in history.

“Psycho” made Janet Leigh a star, earning her an Academy Award nomination. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe, and a Laurel award. Hitchcock was also nominated for several awards, as were the film’s photographers. The film was an enormous box office hit, and remains, to this day, a seminal tentpole of the genre, and is taught rigorously in film classes. I think I still have my copy of the shower scene’s original storyboard somewhere. Hitchcock always felt that storyboarding a scene was far more interesting than actually shooting it, so he spent more time planning shots than actually shooting them. It was largely this process that gave his films such a strong, professional air.

Here were two unsung heroes in the film’s earnings, though. The first is, of course Anthony Perkins, whose iconic and creepy performance has influenced the performance of every single film psychopath since. He is weak and mealymouthed, yet brutally terrifying. He is not seen as calculating, and we fear him. And he is, strangely, pleasant to be around. There is a childish innocence behind the murderous rages.

The other unsung hero is the film’s famous composer, Bernard Hermann. He was the one who composed the famous screeching music during the stabbing. The entire score is, uniquely, performed on stringed instruments. No brass, no percussion. Just the loud, slipstream song of violins and violas and cellos. This is a classic example of less being more. Has the film had a more bombastic score, many of the thrills may not have worked. Indeed, the early scenes of Marion in her car are only a shot of her and Hermann’s score. We are lost inside of her, thanks to the music.

In 1998, Gus Van Sant attempted to remake “Psycho” in color, using Hitchcock’s original storyboards, and changing only the slightest details. Van Sant is a good filmmaker, and was bold for making such a strange experiment. The experiment, most would agree, was largely a failure. Somehow Van Sant’s modern sensibilities felt more like sterile homage than a new interpretation of an old thriller. I admire the 1998 version, if only to show that filmmaking styles and trends have changed so much, that working in an old idiom may not work anymore; a new thriller can imitate down to the last afterthought, but the thrill comes from the unexpected, and a film has to do something new to really catch one’s attention.

I saw “Psycho” again recently, on the big screen. The audience was mostly young people who likely knew all of the twists and details, and indeed would even recite certain lines of dialogue they deemed their favorites. The audience was in silent awe for most of the film, and left the theater disturbed and moved by Hitchcock’s wicked little killer. If any film holds up upon repeat viewings, and will continue to be shocking, scary, wicked and fun throughout the ages, it’s “Psycho.”

Halloween Costume Etiquette

By: Witney Seibold

Halloween is creeping up on us, and it’s been making me think of a list of rules I’ve been meaning to compile for a long time.

Every Halloween, no matter where I go – to a party, to West Hollywood, to a movie – I spot too many people sporting what I consider to be “cheats:” Lame costumes that smack of panic, excuses, and a general lack of Halloween Spirit. Costumes ought to be about the joy of the masquerade and the wicked fun of a holiday centered on fear, make-believe, monsters, candy, and bacchanalia. For me, Halloween has always been a fearfully joyous walpurgisnacht of horror movies, parties, and a celebration of autumnal exhilaration. It shouldn’t be an excuse to try on a stripper outfit and parade your crappy-beer-chugging, slutty sorority-house ass all over creation.

Here then, is my list of rules for proper Halloween costume etiquette.

1) “Sexy” costumes. Sexy nurses. Sexy cops, sexy shepherdesses, sexy Alices, sexy Dorothys, sexy “kitties,” etc.

Not a costume.

It’s fine if your costume is sexy. Heck, I encourage it. If you’re a smoldering witch in fishnet stockings, a half-naked Tank Girl, or Cheetara from “Thundercats,” then by all means, own it. But what I object to are the young ladies who find the tutu-style skirts, stockings, low-cut, cleavage-revealing blouses, and platform-high heels, and try to pass them off as Halloween costumes. You may think you are dressed as a kitty or as Alice, but don’t be fooled. You are really just dressed as a stripper. Stripper ware is fine for a strip club, but on Halloween, it’s out.

What’s worse, is when people decide to dress as something that would be legit otherwise, and tack the “sexy” prefix onto it. Too often have I overheard “I’m going as Dorothy from ‘The Wizard of Oz,’… but SEXY Dorothy.” Groan. You took a perfectly fine costume and robbed it of all its character. Good job. You are not in disguise. You are using my sacred Halloween traditions as a mere excuse to be slutty, and shake your moneymaker for fratboy douchebags. You can do that at Homecoming. Try to come up with something more creative.

Addendum: If, however, you have a “sexy” costume that has a modicum of creativity involved, then you’re o.k.  I have seen people dressed as sexy Freddy Kreuger before. That’s fun. Sexy Dorothys are a dime a dozen, but if you find three friends and have sexy Scarecrows, Tin Women, and Cowardly Lions, then you’re starting to pass into acceptable. I saw a sexy Spider-Man once. A friend of mine once proposed a sexy Skeksi. Oh, man, if anyone had the gall to do that, they would earn my undying praise.

2)      “Wacky” clothes. This is one for the aforementioned fratboy douchebags.

Fellas, if it’s Halloween night, and you still haven’t come up with a costume (and shame on you for not thinking about it until now), throwing your shorts over your head and wearing a brassiere over your shirt does not count as a costume. “I’m crazy underwear guy!” No you’re not. You’re an annoying, uncreative fratboy douchebag.

Pulling on your wackiest shirt, wearing your clothes inside-out, and stuffing a roll of socks into your fly do not make you funny. It just makes it look like you don’t care. If you just want to go to a wild party and get drunk, throw one of those sacrilegious costume-free parties at your own pad. Don’t subject us true believers to your five-year-old-playing-dress-up attempts at being clever.

Addendum: Also not allowed is wearing your girlfriend’s clothes. Unless you are a specific female character, or really go all out like those glorious WeHo drag queens, going in women’s clothing is just plain lazy. However out-of-character it may be for you, merely dressing in drag is way less daring and fun than you think.

3) T-shirts that say “This IS my costume.” You may not be enthused about the holiday, but these t-shirts smack of too much cynicism. Trust me, it’s more dignified just to not have a costume at all.

These should be banned

4) Puns. I’ve seen people who dress up as nightstands, and claim to be “one-night stands.” Or girls who put on a pink slip, and claim they are a “pink slip.” Puns make you groan when spoken aloud. When they’re cute visual plays on words in your Halloween costume, they’re nearly unbearable.

Credit for the accoutrements, but still a pun.

If you’re dressed as a piece of furniture, that’s enough. “What are you?” “I’m a dresser.” That’s a perfectly acceptable answer.

Unless it’s really, really clever pun, try to stay away.

5) Santa Claus. Dude, you’re two months early. Easter Bunnies are also out.

For Halloween? Really?

6) Your work clothes. If you go as a nurse for Halloween, but you are actually a nurse, then you are not in costume. You are on the clock. The same goes for UPS delivery guys, fast-food-joint employees, the clergy, doctors, Boy Scouts and even cops. I know that you may feel that you are in “costume” when you are serving the people, earning your salary, but it is, in actuality, just a uniform. Uniforms are out. “I’m a Burger King employee!” Yes you are. Now where’s your costume?

The UPS Man: Fetish Object

Addendum: If, however, you go dressed as a UPS man, and you have never worked for UPS, then you are wearing a perfectly acceptable costume. Especially seeing as UPS men are the object of many fetishes. Girls in Boy Scout costumes, and boys in Girl Scout costumes are also o.k. Provided you’re not just pilfering your sibling’s closet.

7) Swimsuits, pajamas and robes. Bikinis and Speedos are out. You may have a really nice body, and you may have spent a good deal of money on body glitter, but, nonetheless, a swimsuit is not a costume. See my complaints in the “sexy” section.

Your pajamas may be really cute or really hot, but Halloween is not the time to show them off. Unless it’s at the sleepover after the party.

Your robe is what you wear after a shower. It’s just more clothes. Time-inappropriate clothing does not make them a costume. Era inappropriate clothing is another matter.

Un-augmented Pre-fab costumes. Every costume shop in the country makes a good deal of money from pre-fab costumes in bags. If you want to go as Superman, it will be all the more impressive if you try to assemble it yourself. If you buy a pre-fab costume, and then supplement it with other items, then you’re o.k. But just buying a costume in a wrapper and throwing it on offends my creative spirit.

Officer sexy. ... Sigh.

If you’re under four years of age, pre-fab costumes are fine.

9) Characters from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” This is actually just a rule for L.A. natives, or natives of any town with an active “Rocky Horror” shadowcast. If you want to go as Dr. Frank-N.-Furter, just join Sins o’ the Flesh, and audition. You could conceivably go as Frankie every Saturday.

If you are from a small town that has no Rocky cast, then these costumes are fine.

10) Repeats. This is not so hard and fast a rule, but more of an encouragement. If you’ve already gone as something, try not to ever go as that thing again. If you’re improving it each time you go as that thing, that’s fine. If you’re thin Elvis one year, and fat Elvis the next, that’s fine. You can go as the living and dead versions of the same person, that’s cool. If you’ve been the same thing for more than four years, though, try to move on.

Addendum: If you were, like me, the type of kid who occasionally wore costumes to school just for fun, then your Halloween costume should not be any of the things you have already dressed as. However, if you were the kind of kid who came to school in costumes just for fun, then you were probably, like me, a dorky theater kid, and you would already know the niggling fine points of Halloween costume etiquette.

Do: Wear your costume to school, on the bus, to work, to every party.

Don’t: Take your costume off halfway through the party. Unless you’re getting some action. Then be sure to put it back on when the afterglow sets in.

Do: Act in character.

Don’t: Act embarrassed over your choice. Own in.

Do: Give good treats.

Don’t: Give sucky treats.

Do: Be polite to the person giving you candy. Say “thank you.”

Don’t: Spray shaving cream, egg, or otherwise “trick” the houses who have already locked up. TPing is a little better.

Do: Carve a pumpkin.

Don’t: Not carve a pumpkin.

Do: Compliment people’s jack-o-lanterns.

Don’t: Smash a pumpkin. Ever. No matter what Billy Corgan says.

Do: Agree to take your little niece or nephew trick-or-treating.

Don’t: Take candy before they do.

Do: Trick-or-treat for as long and as late as you can get away with it.

Don’t: Act pissy if you’re turned down for being too old. Be graceful. If a house is closed down at 8:30, then it was you who was too late.

Do: Watch scary movies on Halloween nights.

Don’t: Watch romantic comedies on Halloween night.

Do: Try to frighten little children when answering the door (“Boo!” will do nicely. Or a slow creaky door-opening, with a creepy boogieman hiding behind it).

Don’t: Try to emotionally scar little children when answering the door (Pouring blood on yourself or them is not o.k.).

Do: Give extra candy to the kids in costumes you especially like.

Don’t: Give any candy to cynical teens without costumes.

The Series Project: Star Trek

Film article by: Witney Seibold

I have admitted in these hallowed Internet pages that I am a hardcore Trekkie. So hardcore, in fact, that I say “Trekkie” and not “Trekker.” I feel “Trekkie” is reserved for the true, nerdy, diehard Trek fans, while “Trekker” is a revisionist term for nerds who are trying to deny their nerd-dom.

Good God, I’m uncool.

But knowing that has not diminished my love for “Star Trek.” I grew up watching the original series with my family, and, later latched onto “Star Trek: The Next Generation” throughout my teen years. I watched “Deep Space Nine” and “Voyager” for as long as I could, but by then, I was in college, and regularly watching television shows was a difficult thing to do, what with my ancient Greek history, Shakespeare, and newfound virginity loss taking up most of my time.

(I also watched “Enterprise” and, yes, the animated series on video. Yes. That hardcore)

But I was still first in line to see just about every single one of the “Star Trek” feature films.

Where do I begin with these films. I think a friend of mine (Hi, Nicole!) put it best when she explained that, even though they feature all of the TV show’s original actors, and even though they are written by the same people who wrote the TV shows, they are still, at the end of the day, not canonical.

Keep in mind, it was Trekkies who invented the concept of sci-fi canon, long before comic book fans infiltrated Hollywood, so claiming these movies to be non-canonical is a bold statement. Here is the thinking behind that statement: “Star Trek” is a series about exploration, in the old-fashioned, Classical sense; it was meant to invoke not just the adventure of “Wagon Train,” but the fresh, new scientific thinking of Voyage of the Beagle. It was a show that explored sociology, egalitarianism, philosophy, economics, and politics all in the guise of cheesy, low-budget science fiction TV. “Star Trek” opened the doors, but it wasn’t until “Star Trek: The Next Generation” hot in 1987 that the concept really took off, and became smarter than they were in the 1960s. The movies, in contrast, were all billed as grand action/adventure opuses; they were now escapism. I imagine, as the first movie was made in 1979, that all of this was a reaction to the popularity of “Star Wars.” People did not want any introspection or heaviness or moral questions in their sci-fi anymore. They wanted slam-bang action scenes where “good” and “evil” square off. Hence, the movies, while being “Star Trek,” perhaps take place outside of “Star Trek.”

But this is just a nerdy argument which is largely insignificant to those who do not regularly pay attention to any of the TV shows. I will now take you through the movies film by film and see what we can discover.

The world of “Star Trek” can be summed up as follows (for those of you needing a quick pop-culture primer): It is about 300 years in the future (400 for the NextGen crowd). The Earth is united peacefully with other worlds under a futuristic UN-like society called The United Federation of Planets. The heavens are being peacefully explored by starships manned by Starfleet. Starfleet is run kind of like the Navy, but is not interested in military conquest. There are alien races interested in conquest (Klingons, Romulans), and Starfleet occasionally engages in battle, but, for the most part, are on missions of diplomacy, scientific study, unification, and rescue. The ship we will follow is, as we all know, The Federation’s flagship, The Enterprise.

I find it kind of odd that, in the “Star Trek” universe, Earth is peppered with different languages and cultures and races, but all the alien species all seem to be of the same race and same language and same government. Perhaps that’s just to make things clear from a storytelling perspective; when Klingons show up, you know they are bad; there’s no arguing as to whether or not they are the “good” or “bad” type of Klingons.

Also important to the “Star Trek” ethos is how functional the technology seems. While faster-than-light travel, universal translators, gravity generators, and teleporters are all far-fetched fantasy technologies, the shows’ writers went to great lengths to make sure that they sounded like they’d work. It was all multisyllabic nonsense, but when I head Geordi LaForge ranting about a failure in the inverse phase inducers, I kind of believed that there could be an Enterprise somewhere.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

“Star Trek” had been off the air for a decade, and series creator Gene Roddenberry was preparing for a follow-up series called “Star Trek, Phase II.” Paramount head Michael Eisner proposed that the story intended for the “Phase II” pilot be used to make the long-awaited “Star Trek” feature film. The result is “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” directed by Robert Wise, that man behind “West Side Story,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Sound of Music” and “Star!” You would think with such a pedigree, this would be the perfect way for “Star Trek” to be taken to the big screen. The result is, however, a strange affair.

James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is now an admiral in Starfleet, and no longer in command of his old Enterprise. Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is a captain, and no longer goes on missions. Ditto for cranky medical man Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Chekhov (Walter Koenig), Sulu (George Takei), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and engineer Scotty (James Doohan) are all still serving. I feel silly having to list the characters in “Star Trek.” Aren’t they all well-known by anyone with a TV? For the completists: Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and Dr. Chapel (Majel Barrett, Roddenberry’s wife) have also returned from the series.

Scotty has been retrofitting the Enterprise, so it looks a little different from the TV series. It is now commanded by Capt. Willard Dekker (Stephen Collins) who looks forward to command. Also on board is a hot bald chick named Lt. Ilia (Indian model Persis Khambatta) who has been having an affair with Dekker. When a colossal cloud is spotted floating through space on a collision course with Earth, Starfleet asks Kirk to take command once again and see what’s what. This big cloud has been physically absorbing ships, and is probably as big as the entire solar system.

The Enterprise, stocked with familiar faces (and that Dekker fellow), enters the cloud and manages not to be absorbed. Ilia, however, is somehow kidnapped, and her brain in replaced with a computer. She has been transformed into a robotic emissary of the thing at the center of the cloud, an entity she’s named V’Ger (pronounced Vee-Jirr).

There are endless scenes of The Enterprise floating through the cloud. There are a few introductory scenes of psychedelic wormholes and colorful warp speed. There is an early scene in which someone dies in a transporter accident. In another scene, Spock takes a space suit with a rocket pack, and floats out into space to confront the cloud by his lonesome. With a few plot-unconnected scenes, and weird, abstract imagery, Wise was clearly trying to mix the Classical nature of “Star Trek” with the groovy grandeur of “2001: A Space Odyssey” (notably, the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” portion). I suppose this works for a few bits, largely thanks to the bombastic musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. For the most part, though “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” can be trying at times.

Eventually, The Enterprise does make it to the center of the cloud. It turns out that V’Ger is actually an old data-collecting satellite from Earth. It’s original name? Voyager 6. It turns out that it has been collecting information for the last few hundred years, and has been improved by unknown alien hands, and, as a  result, grown into the giant absorbing cloud it now is. Even though Ilia has been made into a robot, she still manages to feel love for Dekker, and The Voyager wants to help mankind absorb the information is has been sent out to collect, and make them evolve. That’s really kind of cool. Dekker volunteers for the process, and, with Ilia in his arms, evolves into light.

It’s a grand ending that is seen as corny by almost anyone who watches it. But we hit all the Trek bases. Grand-scale philosophy, humility in the face of the vastness of the cosmos, and some cheesy pseudo-scientific rigmarole. It’s not a great movie, but it should not outrage the Trek fans.

We’ll have better movies, though. As seen in…

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Directed by Nicholas Meyer (“Time After Time”), this is widely considered to be the best “Star Trek” movie. With a tight story, a taut climax, and some interesting technology, I can agree.

Chekhov and his new Captain, Clark Terrell (Paul Winfield), are investigating the Seti-Alpha system, searching for a lifeless planet on which to try out a new device called The Genesis Wave. This is a fission-type wave that can, in a single blast, terraform an entire planet and make it habitable for humans. The wave will also, however, wipe out all pre-existing life on said planet, so Starfleet is being careful not to wipe out even the tiniest microbe.

While investigating on foot, Chekhov and Terrell find a crashed ship called Botany Bay. Aboard is Khan Noonian Singh (Ricardo Montalban), an old general leftover from Earth’s eugenics wars, and who previously appeared on the old TV series. In his episode, he agreed not to start a war if Kirk allowed him his own planet. Kirk fouled up, though, and accidentally send him to a desert world where he has been living like an animal with his other genetically enhanced buddies for the past few decades. He is Khan, and he is wrathful.

He puts worms into the ears of Chekhov and Terrell, which wrap around their brains and makethem go nutty, and make them serve Khan. Khan hijacks their ship, and goes looking for Kirk.

Kirk, meanwhile, is concerned about aging, and has to wear reading glasses. I guess future technology can’t fix eyeballs. He has been corresponding with an old girlfriend Dr. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and her twentysomething son David (a blonde-‘fro-sporting Merritt Butrick). Carol invented the Genesis wave, you see, so we’ve got some connection. You get no points for guessing right away that David is actually Kirk’s son.

There is also a new character: Lt. Saavik (Kirstie Alley). She is a Vulcan like Spock, and wants to serve on The Enterprise. She and Spock have some amusing conversations about humans, and it is revealed that Kirk cheated on a vital test at Starfleet Academy when he was young. Kirk, you see, was one of the youngest people ever to serve as a Starfleet captain, and is considered a hero in Starfleet circles, despite being something of a hayseed.

Anyway, through some subterfuge and manipulation, Khan manages to lock up the Enterprise, steal the Genesis device, and leave Kirk and Co. stranded on a planet. Chekhov is set free from the influence of his worm, but Terrell kills himself. It’s during this scene that Shatner yells his immortal line: “KHAAAAANNNN!”

Eventually, Kirk and co. manage to make their way back to the locked up Enterprise, even though the ship is damaged, and has no sensors. In this beleaguered state, the crew must stop Khan. The shootout in the nebula, with both ships injured and blind is, for lack of a better word, stellar. Eventually, Spock must fix a vital part of the ship by exposing himself to a lethal dose of radiation. He manages to fix the Enterprise just in time for them to blow up Khan. Khan, with his dying breath, engages the Genesis wave and creates a planet.

Spock’s death, for a young Trekkie boy, can be devastating. His funeral is enough to make one misty. His body is left on the newly formed Genesis planet. This is a dignified end to a famous pop culture icon.

Overall, “Star Trek II” is solid sci-fi adventure. It’s engaging, manages to have action, and even has big science question lurking around the edges with its Genesis device. If the series continued on this tack, with death and life and dignity lurking about, then we would have had some wonderful films.

Sadly, as for Spock’s death, well… he got better. As seen in…

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

This film was directed by Nimoy. It’s interesting to see what the actors do when they direct “Star Trek” movies, as we get their own personal view as to what Trek is to them. To Nimoy, they seem to cleave closest to my own view of what Trek is; space opera. When Jonathan Frakes directed some of the later films, we see that Trek is a rollicking action franchise. When Shatner directs, well, it’s all about Kirk, of course.

The Enterprise is stolen by its own crew to head back to the Genesis planet where a strangely insane McCoy has told them to go. Kirk has figured out something weird with his brain.

You see, at the end of “Star Trek II,” Spock did a patented Vulcan mind meld with Dr. McCoy. It turns out that he was actually shunting a condensed form of his own consciousness into McCoy’s brain. And, since his body was on a planet being grown from scratch by the Genesis wave, his body was brought back to life. First as an infant, but one that grew quickly (he is played by five different actors in this film, eventually settling back on Nimoy).

His body is discovered by Saavik (now played by Robin Curtis, who is fine, but is still jarring to see after Alley), and he is protected on the planet. Why not beam him up to the Enterprise? Well, the Enterprise is under attack by a revenge-bent Klingon named Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), who also wants to kill Kirk for some personal slight in the past. We have never seen this character before, though, so we have to take his word for it. It’s thrilling to see a great character actor like Lloyd speaking Klingon with such conviction.

It is learned that the Genesis device made an unstable planet, though, and the life begins to fluctuate, the weather changes drastically, and it’s not long before volcanoes begin randomly appearing across the landscape. The Enterprise is infiltrated, and, since it was only the dozen of them on board, the crew has no choice but to blow it up with the bad guys on board. In the scuffle, Kirk’s son is killed. D’oh.

Eventually, though, the good guys make it to Vulcan in the Klingon ship left behind, and they reunite Spock’s new body with his old stored mind out of McCoy’s head. They enlist the help of some stolid Vulcan elders.

This film isn’t really majestic or awe-inspiring or even all that thrilling. It’s got some weird stuff in it, actually, as when Kruge is attacked by a 7-foot-long microbe. The film seems to serve only as a way to bring Spock back to life. It’s like a stop-gap between the last adventure and the next one where we have to explain why a certain character has returned.

And in that next film, we’ll have the biggest money-making hot of the franchise.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Also directed by Nimoy, this film is the funniest and silliest of the series. It has the dated environmental hot button of saving the whales, time travel, swearing, and punk rock. Despite all this, though, “Star Trek IV” is way fun.

So, since they blew up the Enterprise in the last film, and Spock is back to normal, it’s time to return home in that stolen Klingon ship. When they arrive back to Earth, they disover that the planet is in deep doo-doo. A giant phallic ship (or perhaps it’s just a giant space-dwelling alien) has begun emptying the planet’s oceans, searching for its kin. Its kin, our intrepid crew discovers, is the humpback whale, a species that went extinct hundreds of years ago. We modern-day men were such assholes. They have no recourse but to travel back in time (!) and bring some whales back.

It’s been said many times in the “Star Trek” universe that time travel is impossible. The only way to do it would be to travel as speeds so fast that time would reverse. This is, scientifically speaking, at least accurate, as any teenager even remotely familiar with Einstein knows. They whip themselves around the sun, using the gravity of the orb, and find themselves in 1986. There’s a surreal CGI sequence to illustrate how unlikely time travel is, but it reads less like “2001” and more like… well, “Star Trek IV.”

The Klingon ship cloaks itself (Klingon ships have the ability to turn invisible), and our crew goes out into the world of 1986 to seek whales. Spock hides his pointy ears under a fashionable headband. Sulu and Scotty go about trying to build a tank that can transport whales on a starship. Chekhov and Uhura seek nuclear materials to power the wekened ship (time travel is not easy). Kirk, Spock, and McCoy go after the whales themselves.

This is a good film, as far as treasure hunt films go, and seeing our crew interact with modern-day people, while undignified, is a hoot. It’s fun seeing Spock give the Vulcan neck pinch to a punk rocker on a buds in San Francisco. Stupid? Yes. But fun.

The film’s one weakest point comes in the form of the love interest. Jane Wyatt plays a whale biologist named Amanda whom Kirk must seduce in order to kidnap the whales. Wyatt is a capable actress and her character is smart. Well, she’s smart for the first half of the film. Then she becomes grating and wise-cracky. When it comes time for our crew to return to the future, she asks to come with. Will she go? Will she not go? Maybe.

Yes, they return with the whales, introduce said whales to the space monster, and all is well. But wait, how did they return to the future? The same whip-around-the-sun trick will only take them further into the past, right? Well, this part of the science is severely fudged. And, in such a breezy film, I guess it can be excused.

Trek IV is not very smart, but way fun, and told efficiently with Nimoy’s ever-more-capable direction. But if you want dumb…

Star Trek V: the Final Frontier (1989)

Hoo boy.

So if Nimoy sees the series as an adventure series that occasionally taps larger questions, then Shatner sees the series as, big surprise, being all about Kirk. As a homey, summercamp, joyous comic adventure. Which clashes severely with the usual earnestness of the series. There’s an early scene in “Star Trek V” in which Kirk, McCoy and Spock, on shore leave on Earth, are gathered around a campfire attempting lamely to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” The scene probably only occupies a few minutes of screen time, but is so embarrassing, that it seems to stretch on into hours.

Shatner has the dubious distinction of directing what is widely considered to be the worst of the “Star Trek” movies, and boy is this one ever strange, dull and dumb. Get this story:

A remote desert outpost on a remote planet is chosen as the secret meeting ground for some kind of secret summit between the Klingons, the Federation, and the Romulans. David Warner plays the human. I don’t think the meaning of this summit is entirely important, as the storyline is quickly dropped when we meet a Vulcan named Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill). Sybok kidnaps the three diplomats, and demands that The Enterprise be sent to save them. At the end of the fourth Trek movie, The Enterprise-A was introduced, which looks a lot like the old one, but a little niftier. Kirk and crew must cut their shore leave short, sneak aboard the Enterprise-A, and rush off to the rescue. The Ship is not really done being built, though, and there’s still not a complete crew aboard.

Anyway, they meet up with this Sybok character, and we learn that he is Spock’s estranged half-brother. Sybok, however, did not choose the way of most Vulcans, choosing instead to indulge his emotions, and become a sort of hippie-feelgood cult leader. In trying to rescue the diplomats, Sybok manages to make his way aboard the Enterprise-A, and take over the ship. Sybok has a strange psychic ability to “cure” people of all their negative emotions, and all who undergo his “treatment” are shiny and happy and complacent. We even get to see Sybok try to “cure” McCoy and Spock, but he is not entirely successful. Kirk points out that his pain and negativity are a vital part of his character. He should know. Remember that episode with the Evil Kirk?

Why does Sybok want a starship? He wants to fly to the very center of the galaxy, where the Garden of Eden is said to exist, and is the physical home of God. Yes, they actually bothered to go there. In the TV series, there would have likely been a theological discussion, and God would have remained in the abstract. Shatner, perhaps bothered by this ambiguity, decided to put God on the screen.

There are some dumb “comic” moments in this film. Indeed, Shatner seems determined to make the film into a comedy. Scotty whangs his head on a bulkhead. Spock has a pair of goofy hoverboots. Sulu and Chekhov fake wind noises into their communicator. And how could we forget that golden campfire scene?

Sybok manages to land on the planet at the center of the galaxy, and he, Kirk, Spock and McCoy make their way to a strange stone alter where God appears to them. God look a bit like a curlybearded Burl Ives, which is, let’s admit it, how we all pictured God. God demands a starship. Kirk, finally thinking clearly, has the good sense to ask why God would need a starship. It turns out that this being is not God, but a powerful alien creature who has been imprisoned at the center of the galaxy, and needs a starship to escape. The creature was fine letting these people believe it was God.

The Enterprise manages to catch wind of what was going on down below, but manage to get the transporters working long enough to rescue our heroes. The God alien and Sybok end up destroying one another. Oh, and there was a subplot I forgot to mention. There was a Klingon named Klaa (Todd Bryant) who was trying to kill Kirk this whole time, but eventually fails and has to apologize to Kirk for trying. One of the film’s final scenes is the Federation and Klingons having drinks together.

Sigh.

Klingons used to be tough and honorable and mighty and wicked. Now they are drinking buddies. Issues of God and theology used to be dealt with in terms of reason and faith, not slam-bang battles and silly aliens. Kirk and crew used to be the best of Starfleet, and in this film are demoted to buffoons and comic avatars of their former selves.

Ultimately, “Trek V” is a curiosity in the series. It’s like the series took a brief break to be as goofy as possible, and will get back on track I the next film. With a subtitle like “The Final Frontier,” I assume that the studio wanted to stop here, but “Trek V” was such a bomb at the box office, Paramount had no choice to make one last film In order to go out on a high note. And it’s a good thing too, because the next one is quite excellent.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

“Trek VI” is probably one of my favorites in the series. Nicholas Meyer is back to direct, and he weaves a tale that is part murder mystery, part political allegory, and part assassination thriller. In my opinion, this is probably the most solid film of the series, and probably represents the spirit of “Star Trek” the best.

Kirk, now a captain again, is back on board his beloved Enterprise. Sulu is also a captain, and in command of a ship called The Excelsior. All the rest seem to be back in their places. Also on board is a comely Vulcan officer named Valeris, and who is played by Kim Cattrall. The film’s action gets started when a Klingon moon is nearly obliterated in a tragic mining accident. Yeah, the entire moon blows up. This so damages the Klingon Empire, that they finally try to reach out to their old enemies, The Federation, for aid. This film was made in 1991, so all of this is clearly a Cold War metaphor, with the Klingons standing in for the Russians. The metaphor is, however, handled with tact, and isn’t made too obvious. Much of the film’s first act is Kirk’s reluctance to accept Klingons into the Federation (Klingons killed his boy), and political talks of how the Empire will transform politically.

A lot of non-Trek types have complained about the slow-moving, talky that are central to “Star Trek.” Like the technobabble, though, I see this as an indispensible part of the Trek universe; it lets us know that an alien Empire could possibly exist, and the makers have given thought to their politics and sociological know-how.

There is a dinner on board The Enterprise where we meet Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner again) and his bulldog underling General Chang (Christopher Plummer). The Klingons and the humans discuss Shakespeare and drink illegal Romulan ale. The film’s subtitle is a reference to Hamlet, and is described in terms of not knowing the future.

This cautiously optimistic idyll is interrupted by a late-night photo torpedo attack. The Klingon ship is fired upon! By The Enterprise? Perhaps. And, while the Klingon ship is damaged (the gravity turns off), two masked assailants beam on board and start killing Klingons, among them Chancellor Gorkon. Kirk and McCoy beam over once the mayhem has abated, and try to save the chancellor’s life, but are unable to. This destroys all hope of peace between the Klingons and Federation, and may even point to war.

Kirk and McCoy, after a specious trial (and a cameo from Michael Dorn), are spirited off to a frozen Klingon prison planet, which looks less like a prison, and more like a cave. The rest of the Enterprise crew must work furiously to investigate who fired upon the Klingon ship, who beamed aboard the Klingon ship to perform the assassination, and why they did it. There’s a lot of sneaking an subterfuge. There’s an amusing scene where Uhura must talk to Klingons in their native tongue, but has to use old books and papers, as the Universal Translator will be recognized.

Eventually Kirk and McCoy are rescued thanks partly to a shape-shifting prisoner named Martia (supermodel Iman), who intends to kill them perhaps, and the cunning of Spock and company. They all come to conclusion that the Klingons have a ship that can fire when it is cloaked, were trying to frame the Enterprise, and ultimately wish to kill the president of the Federation (Kurtwood Smith).

This film is, like I said, solid. It’s almost like a sci-I version of “The Manchurian Candidate.” The story may be hard to follow at times, but it moves quickly, and is, actually, well acted. This is also the last of the “Trek” films to feature the original cast, so, as a sendoff, “The Undiscovered Country” is melancholy, inspiring, and pleased. The credits feature the signatures of all the main cast members. Had this been the last Trek film, it couldn’t have ended on a better note. They didn’t bend over backwards to please the fans (despite some cute inside jokes and cameos). They didn’t become too involed in their own mythology; they knew that we knew these people for decades. They merely had the good taste to let the films retire with a workable and wonderful piece of filmmaking.

But in 1991, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was rolling high, and, in its own way, far more popular than the original “Star Trek” series ever was. It seemed fitting and inevitable that the next Trek movie feature the characters from NextGen. And so we have…

Star Trek: Generations (1994)

Directed by TV director David Carson.

I have to admit that, despite being unpopular amongst fans and non-fans alike, I’m very fond of “Star Trek: Generations.” I realize this is largely due to nostalgia, and the fanboy thrill of seeing my favorite TV show adapted into a movie, but I still dig it nonetheless. I feel “Generations” is the most Trek of the Trek movies; the spirit of the TV shows seems to come across the strongest in this seventh feature. The ships are real and workable, and the sets are larger, prettier, the lighting all the more professional, the special effects gorgeous. When I couldn’t tune in the TV shows while I was at college, my old tape of “Generations” was given a workout; I have seen this one many times.

That said, there are some serious problems with “Generations,” not the least of which being all the screentime devotes to “passing the torch” crap. You see, this is the first film to feature Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the Enterprise-D. This film takes place 90 years after the last film, and all of the original crew (with the exception of Spock) is dead. To some, this first cinematic foray by the “Next Generation” crew was the first true indicator that “Next Generation” had become to dominant force in the “Star Trek” universe, for those of us who had been watching the show for seven years, that had already been clear. But the filmmakers, I think, wanted to appeal to the former crowd, so they bent over backward to get Kirk and Picard on screen together, helping each other in a fight, killing off Kirk, and letting Picard assume the mantle. Never mind that the mantle was already his.

So here’s the story: Kirk, Scotty and Chekhov are the guests of honor at the testing of the newly built Enterprise-B, helmed by Capt. Harriman (Alan Ruck from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”). The ship unexpected is called to rescue a vessel that is trapped in a colossal negative space wedgie. Amongst the rescued are Dr. Soren (Malcolm McDowell) and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg). The rescue goes well, but Kirk is killed by the wedgie.

Fast-forward 87 years to the familiar faces of the Enterprise-D. They art Capt. Picard, Cmdr. Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes, a soap actor), the blind engineer Lt. Cmr. Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton from “Roots” and “Reading Rainbow”), the android Data (a very good Brent Spiner), Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), the half-psychic counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis from “Death Wish III”), and the Klingon Worf (Michael Dorn), who is promoted in his opening scene.

The Enterprise-D is a much different place than the old Enterprises. The old ones resembled steel submarines, or perhaps army barracks. There was something rough about them, even as the actors became themselves more plush. The Enterprise-D is a relaxed place. It’s practically a cruise ship. They are stocked with a lounge, holodecks (which created holographic environments), and carpeted floors.

Capt. Picard is in a lurch, as his brother and nephew have recently died in a fire, and he begins to realize he’ll never have a family of his own. Data, in a kind of unnecessary subplot, commits a faux-pas at a party, and asks that he be given a special chip that will allow him to feel emotions. This subplot has a lot of potential, but the scenes with Data are played mostly for laughs.

The film’s action begins when the enterprise, investigating a murder, witnesses an exploding sun. They find that Dr. Soren, still around after all these years (his species is very long lived), has been destroying stars, using the Klingons’ help to do it. After some investigation, they find that Soren has been eliminating the stars’ gravity to steer the course of the same colossal negative space wedgie we saw the film’s beginning. Guinan explains to Picard that the wedgie is called The Nexus, which can scoop people up bodily, and, essentially, allow them to live out their most dear fantasies.

If Soren destroys the next star he intends to, a pre-industrial society will be wiped out.

There’s the second biggest flaw of “Generations.” The planet at stake is, to our eyes, a theoretical one. We know that there are millions of lives at stake, but we never see them on their home planet. If the planet at stake had been, say, Earth, perhaps this would have been more exciting. An unseen, unknown race of people is fine academically, but not very exciting dramatically.

Anyway, Picard and Soren eventually end up on the same planet together, have a fistfight, but Soren manages to destroy his star, killing the million and the Enterprise in the process. He and Picard are swept up into the Nexus.

Inside the Nexus, we see that Picard’s ultimate fantasy is having a family, and that his nephew is still alive. Since there is no time in The Nexus, he’s able to talk to Guinan who was inside all those years ago. She hook him up with Kirk, also in The Nexus from about the same time. Kirk’s ultimate fantasy is from his past, when he owned a cabin in the woods, cut wood and made toast and had a dog. Is it me, or so these captains have some pretty limp fantasies? How come there are no hero fantasies? No adventure fantasies? Is having Christmas with the family and riding a horse really the pinnacle for these men?

Picard convinces Kirk that “making a difference” is more important that living in heaven, so they leave the Nexus together, and manage to confront Soren again, this time before he destroyed the star. The time travel conceits in the film are clever and have no technological loopholes. Farfetched, but convincing.

In the consequent fight, Kirk is killed, but Soren is stopped in the scuffle. Kirk’s last words are: “It was fun.”

Oh, and, above, the Enterprise has been battling a Klingon ship, and managed to crash on the planet. The Enterprise-D is out of order, although the crew is all safe.

There’s not a lot dramatically to recommend this film, but, like I said, it’s the most in keeping with the spirit of the show. A lot of people didn’t like the lack of slam-bang action in the film, especially with the death of a beloved pop culture icon like Kirk (who has the good taste to stay dead, and not be resurrected in the next film). Fot theose itching for action, the filmmakers responded by making…

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

This here's a phaser.

This film involves action, time travel, the origin of Starfleet, James Cromwell, and, the cold-hearted race of machines called The Borg. The film was directed by Jonathan Frakes, and it’s shiny and brisk, and loved by many. It was the first Trek film to get a PG-13 rating.

I think this film is an effective action flick, and clever enough, although the filmmaking strikes me as a bit shoddy. Plus, Picard begins to behave in a truly strange way. In the TV series, Picard was once kidnapped by The Borg, and assimilated into their collective mind, forced to act as their captain. He has nightmares in this film reminding him of his experiences. He is full of uncharacteristic rage. When The Borg, for some reason, attack Earth, the new Enterprise-E joins the fight. They manage to destroy the Borg ship (which looks like a giant cube made of car parts), but a Borg shuttle manages to escape and, get this, travel through a time hole. The Enterprise follows it, and find themselves a few hundred years in the past, when Earth was recovering from WWIII, and Zefram Cochran (Cromwell) was about to invent the first faster-than-light spaceship. Accordingg to Trek history, when he takes this new ship for a spin, it attracts the attention of some aliens, who land on Earth, and bring about a new era of universal understanding and planet-wide peace and enlightenment.

Cochran showed up once before in the original TV show, and was played by Glenn Corbett.

The Borg attack old Earth, and nearly destroy the first faster-than-light ship. The Enterprise crew disguise themselves, and beam down to Earth to meet Cochran, and convince him to rebuild the ship. Cochran is actually an irascible alcoholic with no historical aspirations; he cares more about nude women and money. Cromwell, like in every role he plays, is very game and very good. The crew keeps their identities and agenda secret for about ten minutes, and then spill the beans to Cochran about his place in history.

Meanwhile, some Borg manage to sneak aboard the Enterprise, and start assimilating it, making it a Borg ship. Picard, Data and a few others fight the Borg on board, but do nothing to stop them. The Borg have an ability to adapt to weapons and integrate people and technology seamlessly into themselves, so it’s a losing battle. Even Data is kidnapped.

In a surreal subplot, Data meets the Borg Queen (the creepy Alice Krige), who grafts flesh onto him, and seduces him. Data is briefly convinced to join the dark side. Wait… A queen? With conversational powers? And sexuality? But I thought the Borg had a machine-like group consciousness, where no one individual had an identity. Evidently, “First Contact” changes the rules a bit. The Borg are now run like a beehive with queens and drones and a power structure. What’s more, they are sweaty and malevolent and animal. In the show, they were cold and uncalculating, focused wholly on the task at hand, and indifferent to the people around them. In this film, they bear grudges, scheme, growl, and have sexy robot chicks to seduce androids.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like the old version much better.

Anyway, Picard manages to face the Borg Queen, and destroy her. LaForge, Riker, and Troi manage to help Cochran build his ship (on the maiden voyage, he plays Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride”), and, at the film’s end, we meet the Vulcans. Having foiled The Borg’s plan to rewrite Earth’s history, The Enterprise heads back to the future using the same time hole (?) the Borg did. Picard has a single line of dialogue where he posits that the future they know will be there when they return. What? That’s a fast-and-loose approach to causality. But never mind. This is an action film with a quick plot and lots of fighting.

I don’t like the look of this film, I don’t like Stewart’s acting, and I don’t like the way The Borg were altered from the TV version. It is, however, a fun movie and just Trek enough to be interesting.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Also directed by Frakes, this film skirts dangerously close to “Trek V” as one of the goofiest of the series. It, again, deals with the fate of such an insignificant people, that it’s hard for us to care about them. That the people’s lives aren’t even in danger is the main plot hole in this one.

So There’s a planet out there inhabited by a species called the Ba’Ku. Something about this planet has allowed the Ba’Ku to live hundreds of years without aging, and are happy and healthy and youthful 24 hours a day (or however many hours a day is on this planet). The Federation is observing this planet using invisibility suits (!), and Data. Data goes a little bonkers one days, and The Enterprise is called in to rescue him. They find that The So’Na, a cousin race of the Ba’Ku, and led by a mutated F. Murray Abraham,  have been secretly planning to kidnap all of the Ba’Ku, and steal this Eden-like planet for themselves, all under the auspices of The Federation (represented in this film by Anthony Zerbe).

The Enterprise crew, though, in rescuing Data, have become good friends with the Ba’Ku. Picard falls in love with a hot fortysomething woman (Donna Murphy), and Data befriends a young boy (ugh). What’s more, they all begin to feel friskier and more youthful. Troi and Riker take a bath together (they once dated). Worf gets zits and wants to eat raw meat. LaForge grows his eyes back. The scenes of them behaving youthful are supposed to, I think, be funny, but they’re largely just silly. Although, I will admit I liked the scene where Picard and Worf sing Gilbert & Sullivan to Data.

Anyway, the entire crew learns that the So’Na will not just kidnap the Ba’Ku, but will destroy the planet in order to bottle its healing powers. It seems to me if the Federation has a planet with healing power that it would already be a center for medical study, or the homebase for the Federation; it wouldn’t be this cloistered-away secret. But the Prime Directive prevents people from interfering in yadda yadda yadda. The crew’s only recourse is to stage an insurrection, and stop the bad guys themselves.

It seems to me like there’s little at stake hear. The lives of a couple hundred immortal hippies are not even at risk. Why do they need to be relocated? Why can’t people just go to other parts of this planet? Why do the So’Na need to destroy anything. This thing labors under its own plot, and is punctuated by stupid cutsey one-liners that Trek has always steered clear of.

Data has been equipped to serve as a flotation device. That’s a little funny.

“Insurrection” made little money, and the makers of the franchise needed more action to get audiences back on track. Hence…

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Directed by Stuart Baird (“Executive Decision” and “U.S. Marshals”), a Trekkie himself, this is probably the slickest, and least Trek of the Trek films. It looks like a standard Hollywood action film, and less like a space opera. Now that we’re 10 films into the series, though, all bets are off. It was announced that this was going to be the final NextGen Trek movie, and they turned out to be correct. This film blatantly imitates the bests elements of parts II and VI, trying to add some series-capper moments that play less dramatic than they should. Unfortunately, the result is unimpressive.

The story: The Romulans, an old nemesis of the Federation has suffered a coup at the hands of the Remans, a sister race of psychics, previously consigned to hard labor. The uprising was lead by a young human named Shinzon (Tom Hardy from “RocknRolla,” and the upcoming “Bronson”), who is on Romulus for unknown reasons. This Shinzon chap asks to meet with Picard in person, so the Enterprise and crew must oblige.

Troi and Riker have finally married, and there’s an elegiac feeling amongst the crew; they know they won’t be together much longer. On the way to meet Shinzon, the crew find another Data-like android (also Spiner) named B-4. B-4 is a prototype with no memories or experience. B-4 serves little plot function, unfortunately.

Anyway, Picard and Shinzon meet face-to-face, and Shinzon revelas that he is actually a clone of Picard, and plans on using a nasty doomsday device to destroy Earth. He also uses his psychic aide (Ron Perlman, still recognizable under punds of makeup) to invade the thoughts of Troi. The Enterprise won’t stand for that, and the last part of the film is a hurtful, blind battle in a nebula, just like in “Trek II.” Eventually, Data throws himself through space and blows up the ship himself, sacrificing himself to save Picard. I imagine the death of Data is supposed to parallel the death of Spock, but this film doesn’t get dramatic enough for us to feel it. We’re left with the hope that B-4 will become the next Data.

“Nemesis” was decent, but largely forgettable. It tanked at the box office, breaking the “even-odd” pattern of the Trek movies (even numbered movies tend to do better, odd numbered ones do not). I like the film, myself. I liked Baird’s sacred treatment, and I liked his attempts to really bring the series to a close. He wasn’t as successful at doing this as Meyer was with “Trek VI,” and it’s kind of embarrassing that the series ended with more of a whimper than a bang, but I was grateful for it.

So, I guess that’s it. The series is retired.

Oh, wait… Someone else wanted a go.

Star Trek (2009)

So earlier this year, a man who had nothing to do with any of the Trek shows or movies, TV producer and film director J.J. Abrams (“Mission: Impossible III,” “Lost”) wanted to “reboot” the franchise himself. By 2009, the last “Trek” TV series, “Enterprise,” had gone off the air, all of the Trek makers had given the series a final rest, and we Trekkies were learning to move on.

Abrams, decided to restart things in a more modern idiom with a new “Star Trek” movie that followed the lives of Kirk and Spock and all the rest, but when they were young and sexy. I won’t say too much about this film’s story as I have already reviewed it. The review can be found here:

http://witneyman.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/star-trek-2009/

I feel that this film is the most exciting and best looking of any of the Trek films. It’s slick and fast and finally has a budget large enough to encompass the physical vision of the future that the series always wanted to show. I enjoyed watching it, and though it was a decent sci-fi thriller.

The problem is, it’s just not “Star Trek.” This is a version of “Star Trek” for people who know the names and images of the show, but not the details, or the general dramatic thrust. It’s repurposing the Trek characters for non-Trekkies. This film was loved pretty universally, however, by both the non-Trekkies it wanted to grab, and the old Trekkies ready for something new. Also, Abrams has an enormous cult following thanks to his TV series “Lost,” so he already had a built-in audience ready to love it.

I think I may be the lone detractor for the 2009 film, but it doesn’t have the awe or mystery or politics or philosophy that the original films had. Abrams tried to make the series fast and hip and young and sexy. And he was successful. The problem with that is that Trek has never been young or hip or sexy. It’s been old and stuffy and classical. It’s been poetic and theoretical. By making it all about the energy and angst and youthful struggles of the characters, you have indeed made it more exciting, but, I feel, the original spirit has been intentionally jettisoned.

Series overview:

Trekkies invented the idea of sci-fi canon, so it’s odd to see the film series from that perspective. We still get a sense that the world of Sstar Trek” is bigger than the movies we’re seeing, but the films shift tone so frequently, it’s hard to tell the nature of that universe from any given single film. If seen as a bunch, we begin to see the universe for what it is, but if you were to sit and watch a single “trek” film, you’d need a good one (II, VI, and VII) to get a solid idea of it.

All in all, the “Trek” movies offer the space opera genre its strongest, and perhaps defining films.  Overall, the awe and myserty are impressive, despite the fact that about half of them are not that good.

A Trekkie friend of mine (Hi, Nicole!) one posited that none of the films are canon, and each one should play like fan fiction that just happens to come from Gene Roddenberry and the Trek creators. I can see that this is a good approach. That way, you’ll be less hung up on the ideas of continuity, and just have a wild Trek-related time.

Will there be further sequels? Perhaps, and they’ll all be told from the new story arc, and with the actors, from the Abrams version. I’ll likely see them, but my heart still belongs to the older Trek movies, and likely always will. They made me think of the future in practical terms, and had me dreaming of space-faring technologies. The new one, not so much. But I’ll still want to see this big, exciting fanfic Trek for myself.

A Serious Man

Film review by: Witney Seibold

Dybbuk: The dislocated soul of a dead person in Jewish lore. If you invite a dybbuk into your house, you and your family will be cursed.

The Coen Bros. new film, “A Serious Man” plays like a situation tragedy. Like a sitcom version of the book of Job. A slapstick rendition of Ang Lee’s “The Ice Storm.” A Todd Solondz film without the bile and disgust. It’s a litany of suffering where you’ll laugh more often than wince. The film’s hero, Larry Gopnik, a Jewish mathematics professor living in a Minnesota suburb in 1968, is a decent fellow who does nothing wrong, and watches panicked as his life crumbles around him for no good reason.

I’m not Jewish, but one thing I understand about the Jewish faith is that there is a strong sense of karmic retribution involved: if you commit a misdeed, your father will be visited by misfortune. If you have no father, the misfortune visits you. You are encouraged to go to rabbis and not to shrinks.

“A Serious Man” is, I slowly and hesitantly admit, is one of the best films of the year. Despite is bleak subject matter, it’s a fascinating drama, and nearly hilarious at times. And it is without that obnoxiously whimsical ironic melancholy that infects hipster films of the day; it is a film made by experts operating within their own idiom. And, Hashem knows, the Coen Bros. have paid their dues time and time again. They are now making a personal film in their own idiom, and coming out way ahead.

The Coens have always worked better in tragedy than they have in comedy, and with “A Serious Man,” they are allowed to stretch in both directions.

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a nebbishy mensch living in the Jewish portion of his Minnesota town. He gives lectures to his students about The Uncertainy Principle, and gets to say things like “If you study hard enough, you’ll know just that this can’t be understood.” Bad things start to happen to Larry, nothing of which is his fault. His wife (Sari Lennick) is leaving him for the annoying calm Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed). His son (Aaron Wolff) is about to have his bar mitzvah, but an only smoke weed and complain about TV reception. One of his students, a Korean named Clive (David Kang) is trying to blackmail him into a passing grade. He is up for tenure, but an associate keeps hinting that he may not get it. His wife’s gambling-addict brother (Richard Kind) is a deadbeat and is sleeping on his couch.

Larry is torn apart by these small trials which are adding up to a life of panic and chaos. He seeks aid from his local rabbis, but they are of little help. One is about 20 years old, another tells a vague story about a dentist finding a message on the back of a goyim’s teeth, and the third, the elder rabbi of his temple, is, well, he’s unavailable.

The heroes of Coen Bros. movies are rarely the instigators of action, instead occupying an almost Dickensian place of observation; all the action occurs to them and at them. Larry Gopnik is no exception. He feels trapped by his circumstances, and is unable (not unwilling, mind you) to commit any actions that may free him. That the film’s ending feels abrupt and apocalyptic is only in keeping with the spirit of the film.

Stuhlbarg is a theater actor who has been starring in TV and films for the last decade, but is not an actor you will recognize. After “A Serious Man,” you’ll keep an eye out for him. He is flustered soul, and his performance allows us to feel Larry’s pain without actually being stung.

Is Larry doomed? Did he commit sins? What in Hell is going on? “A Serious Man” is a comic journey of confusion and hurt, and is unique.

Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story

Film review by: Witney Seibold

Anyone who has seen Eddie Izzard’s standup will likely remember him. He’s the very, very British bloke wearing a frock and makeup, quietly ranting, almost off-the-cuff, about small things like beekeeping, groceries, and the British Empire. Sarah Towsend’s “Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story” encapsulates the man’s life in an intelligible and fascinating way. It does tend, mind you, to stray into aggrandizement at times (during which you may begin to question the need for an Izzard doc in the first place), and has some cutesy animations that it would have done better without, but manages to capture Izzard’s creative process, and , more importantly, his decades-long struggle into the spotlight.

Izzard did not come to his fame easily. He tried and tried and tried again. A lot of his stuff wasn’t funny. He went to several school, and entered comedy contests and festivals and lost them all (one year was to Fry & Laurie, Tony Slattery, and Emma Thompson, so I guess that couldn’t be helped). He took to performing slapstick bits in public squares on a unicycle. He tried high-concept public theater, like a condensed, outdoor version of “Ben-Hur.” That sounds funny, but Izzard claims it wasn’t.

Izzard’s childhood was spent at boarding school, military academies, and traveling about (he lived in Yemen and Belfast, amongst others). His mother died of cancer when he was 6 years old, which is probably the worst age at which to lose your mother. Not that there’s really a good age for it. He was not angsty or dissatisfied, but he was bored by his surroundings, preferring nightclubs and roadwork over his small hometown.

No biographical documentary would be complete without at least one revelatory moment, and we get a rather private one with Eddie, where, weeping, he talks about his need to impress his lost mother with his performing.

Any fan of Eddie Izzard will need to see this film. Not that it provides a key to his soul, but it does remind people how rare an “overnight success” really is. This film should be devoted to hardworking comedians everywhere, and should serve as a reminder that for every 100 goofy street performers you see, there are 100 dreams of fame. And, just maybe, there is one who will achieve that fame, and become one of the decade’s most beloved and idiosyncratic comedians.

Bright Star

Film review by: Witney Seibold

If I were to tell you, in a theoretical capacity, that Jane Campion was making a film about the romance between the doomed young John Keats and his one true love Fanny Brawne, you would instantly form a film in your head. The film that Campion ended up making is exactly the same as that film you pictured. It is melancholy, a touch melodramatic, had plenty of angsty moments of romantic chest-pounding, and overflowed reams of significant-sounding quotations.

Actually, I think I’m being a bit unfair. That description doesn’t capture how mature “Bright Star” is. In period romances, there seems to be a tendency to over-dramatize the material. i.e. Every pond shimmers with warm orange sunlight. Every sky is full of gorgeous glowing clouds and a flock of quietly honking geese. Every outfit is immaculate. Every image is Romantic-with-a-capital-R, and every story beat is predictable. “Bright Star” steers away from that. It doesn’t do the opposite by muddying things up (which would be just as phony; see Joe Wright’s “Pride & Prejudice” for that), but rather gives the Romantic Melodrama a much-needed realist bent; When we see Fanny playing amongst the butterflies which she has captures and set free in her bedroom, the film is very careful to immediately cut to the butterflies’ corpse begin swept into a dustpan.

For the most part, the film plays like a brief biography you get at the beginning of a Keats volume: “Keats had an intense affair with a woman named Fanny Brawne, but was in debt, and, due to failing health, had to leave the country. Despite financial help from poet Charles Brown, his health continued to deteriorate. He died in Italy in 1821. He was 25.” We never hear what happened to Fanny in those descriptions. Campion tells her story from Brawne’s perspective.

Keats is played by Ben Whishaw from “Perfume,” and gives a wonderful performance that is human and believable. Brawne is played by Abbie Cornish from “Somersault” and “Stop-Loss” and also manages to make a fashion-obsessed, nineteenth-century twentysomething seem like someone we can relate to without stooping to modern-day mannerisms. Brawne spent her days designing dresses and going to parties and waiting to marry into money. She falls in love with a few lines of Keats’ poetry, and they soon develop a regard. Keats is being supported and protected by his drinking buddy Brown is played by Paul Schneider, and is terrific. Brown is the kind of lacerating wit which, he hopes, tears down at least one soul a day. But, y’know, in a friendly way. Keats and Brown have ambitions to write a grandiose poetic epic, but Keats quiet demeanor is enough of a distraction without his enamored coming around.

I liked how subdued and mature this film was. Most period romances have the lesson that the heroines were ahead of their time, and if they were only living in modern times, then they could marry whoever they like, and class structures be damned. This one lets us know that the characters are instinctively bound by class structures, and are no beholden to a modern sensibility. Dare I say, it seemed historically accurate.

Unfortunately, that didn’t make “Bright Star” that much fun. I was never bored, mind you, but I wasn’t heartbroken or in love either. I felt more educated than moved. Which can be fine, but, I don’t know, like the star-crossed bright ones, I longed for more.

The Informant!

Film review by: Witney Seibold

I love movies about people who behave compulsively. Gamblers, sex addicts, thieves, mysophobics (that’s fear of germs and filth). Mark Whitaker (Matt Damon), the main character of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!,” is a compulsive liar. That he is a pleasant, squeaky-clean, all-smiles kinda guy only complicates the issue, and only makes “The Informant!” all the more amusing. This is a funny, breezy movie. It’s Soderbergh in the same goodtimes mode he was in when he made “Erin Brockovich” and the “Ocean’s” movies. And it’s about a compulsive liar who informed on a price-fixing scheme of a food manufacturer in the early ‘90s. It takes a filmmaker with gumption to make such subject matter seem fun. Soderbergh, I think, pulls it off.

Mark Whitaker works for a company called Archer-Daniels, Midlan, ADM for short. When he finds that a saboteur has contaminated his lysine stores, he calls the FBI, represented by an excellently put-upon Scott Bakula. When the FBI taps his home phone, Mark ‘fesses to knowledge of a price-fixing scheme to keep corn prices high. The FBI put a wire on his, and he recorded thousands of hours of tape over the span of two years. He eventually was able to secure evidence to zing the bad guys.

Oh, but what a chore it was. Mark was never really forthcoming, and constantly seemed distracted. It was like pulling teeth getting him to tell the whole truth. The conversations between Whitaker and the FBI are frustratingly amusing, and play like comic slow-burn lazzi. We hear Whitaker’s continuous interior monologue, and he is more concerned with small details like tie-patterns and German vocabulary than he is about, well, much anything else. Whitaker’s quotidian preoccupations are the place from where much of the film’s comic power grows.

Eventually some other truths come to light (which I won’t reveal in case you don’t know the story), which paint Mark in a new light, and you begin to see the true pathology of his lying.

But don’t be mistaken; “The Informant!” is not a dour tragedy of addiction or obsession like, say, “Owning Mahowny.” This is a comedy, through-and-through, and a very funny one at that. The Herb Alpert-esque score (featuring kazoos. No lie. Kazoos.) may strike one as precious, but I found to be the ultimate mood setter, and the solid performances across the board really pushed it along. There are even some amusing cameos along the way.

I highly recommend “The Informant!” It’s funny, audacious, penetrating, and light as a feather. It’s like a slapstick version of “Network.” Like a ZAZ parody of “All the President’s Men.” That it’s a true story only makes it all the better.

We Live in Public

Film review by: Witney Seibold

Many people, on occasion myself included, have declared that the Nerd has taken over the world. With the proliferation of computer technology, the growing subculture of so-called “gamers,” and the popularity of comic book material in mainstream Hollywood blockbusters, what was once relegated to the socially awkward, unintentionally virginal, snickering marginalized specialist has become de rigueur, and even expected by the common man. The Nerd has become the rich hero, and, in the last decade, they have been granted a level of social and financial power unheard of in the late 1980s, when we Nerds were taping “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and memorizing facts in our heads, rather than on our ‘blogs.

One of the Nerds with such power, and the subject of Ondi Timoner’s new documentary “We Live in Public,” is a man you may have never heard of: Josh Harris. Harris was one of the hotshot computer programmers who helped shape the Internet and what it was to become back in the early ‘90s. He earned millions of dollars during the Internet boom, and even had theories about the future aof human communication which are turning out to be true. He was ahead of the curve; people scoffed at him when he said that everyone would think of themselves as a celebrity when the Internet invades homes, but just take a look at the big-headed, narcissistic, insistent self-importance of a Twitter or a Facebook or a MySpace (or a Friendster, to recall the first one that started this mess), and you’ll see that he was right.

Josh Harris, trying to look tough.

Harris even had his own network for a short while, bring the people TV-style shows on the Internet before technology really allowed for high-quality streaming video. He though he could put CBS out of business. His descendants may seem destined to do it. His most ambitious project (one that Timoner was around to film) was a 1999 “social experiment” he called “Quiet! We Live in Pubic.” Harris seemed unclear himself on what he was doing, but his experiment was based on the theory that in the future, everyone will want to be a celebrity so badly, that they will willingly remove all limits of their own privacy. He gathered about 100 people in an underground bunker, where they were given capsule-style sleeping arrangements, free food, free drink, and free utilities. They all had to be interviewed by a Stasi-type psychiatrist, and they had to, on film, confess all of their past transgressions. They had no doors on their showers of bathrooms. Most dangerously, they were given free access to firearms. Each capsule was equipped with a TV that allowed you to see into any other capsule.

The scenes from this experiment are haunting and, strangely, predictable. When people know they are being watched, they will not withdraw, but act out. People tried to be the starts of the day. They would perform, have sex, shower, eat and drink outwardly. I think this would have been a more interesting experiment had people not been constantly rattled by booze and gunfire. Eventually, the bunker had to be closed down by the police, as it was feared Harris was leading a millennial death cult.

Harris tried the experiment again a few years later with a “We Live in Public” website, on which he and his then-girlfriend wired their apartment with cameras, and lived under constant observation. This is trying on their relationship. Some of the things Harris does are shameful and telling, and should not be witnessed by others.

We eventually see Harris living in hiding in Africa, running from debts, and severing ties from his family. How bad did it get? When his mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, rather than going to see her, he sent a videotape wishing her a fond farewell. The phrase “socially awkward” doesn’t begin to describe how alienating that must have felt.

Harris had millions of dollars at one point, and blew it all on parties and cults and weirdo social experiments that revealed more about himself than they did about any sort of human condition. Timoner posits that Harris was just trying to create an ersatz family in the form of Internet strangers, and tried to complete a strange familial fantasy given to him y reruns of “Gilligan’s Island.” To me, “We Live in Public” is a dissection of what happens when the Nerds, used to be marginalized, are given too much power too quickly (one could point to live-action version of “Transformers” as a further indicator). Harris was a computer kid, raised by TV, whose idea of a stirring press conference was to show up as a foulmouthed clown named “Luvvy.” He earned millions. He blew it.

Harris is not an evil man, but seems like an innocent out of his depth. “We Live in Public” is fascinating, raw, amusing, and, despite some cutesy animations, fascinating to look at.

Singapore Sling (1990)

Film review by: Witney Seibold

Daddy mummy sodomy

“Singapore Sling” is one of the most brutal, sick, unpleasant, and stomach-churning films to be made. That it is artfully shot, well-acted, philosophically poignant, and mannered only seems to add to the discomfort levels. There are no films like this one, and, should you decide you have the stamina, I encourage you to seek it out. It plays like a combination of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “Grey Gardens,” with  sexually torturous hints of “Last Tango in Paris,” with a few dashes of noir-ish “Sunset Boulevard” narration.

Directed by the late Greek filmmaker Nikos Nikolaidis, who has made cult classics like “See You in Hell, My Darling” and “Eurydice 2037,” “Singapore Sling” follows a mother-daughter team who live in a decrepit mansion in the middle of what looks like a South America jungle. The mansion is heavily decorated with lace, pillows, and flowing tapestries. It is an overstuffed, overmoneyed place. You can practically smell the orchid perfume. The mother (Michele Valley) is a painted ghoul who barks orders, likes to repeat herself in French, and may or may not have a penis (!). The daughter (Meredyth Harold) talks like a baby, and frequently sneaks off to the attic to smoke cigarettes and masturbate in the lap of her dead father, mummified. Together, they play gross incestuous sex games, often with costumes, and always involving role-playing. The daughter spends a lot of time narrating to the camera, and she shares that she and mother have killed a few people and buried them in the garden.

The first shot of the film is of the mother and daughter in a rainy grave, wearing raincoats and lingerie (sans panties), dragging a disemboweled victim into the soggy hole. Werner Herzog has said that cinema has run out of original images. The sight of these nearly-nude women dragging a corpse into its grave is, I think, an original image. These women get naked an awful lot.

Into this psychopathic idyll stumbles a man (Panagiotis Thanasoulis) searching for his lost love. He narrates like a noir antihero, and is bleeding from an injury, the nature of which we never learn. The mother and the daughter drag him inside, tie him up, figure he’s looking for his lost ladylove, realize that they have killed the woman, nickname him “Singapore Sling,” and proceed to play dangerous sexual mind games with him.

The games are not, however, of the sadistic “Saw” variety. Indeed, the daughter seems to oscillate between posing as the man’s ladylove, actually believing she is the ladylove, and secretly asking permission to be herself again. Harold’s performance is bold, fearless, and disgusting. It’s rare to see an actress so committed. When she giggles, we don’t see a generic movie killer or artificially terrifying monster. We actually sense the mental illness glinting out of her eyes. In one scene, she sneaks into the man’s bedroom, and, while raping him, reassures him, coos, berates him, insults him, and then gags herself to vomit on his face. The pacing of the film, Harold’s performance, and the unbalanced black-and-white aesthetic give this scene its own sick, interior logic.

There’s a lot of vomiting in this film. There are a few dialogue-free meal scenes in which the mother and daughter scoop piles of revolting-looking food into their mouths, and then puke right back onto their plates. It seems unclear at first what’s going on in these horrid scenes, until you realize that they mother and daughter are playing a sort of juvenile gross-out game. Nothing between these two women is not a challenge.

The man (and none of these characters have names), thanks to his injury, and his bizarre surroundings, soon begins to play along with these often nude and super-libido-ed women. His ultimate goal is, of course, revenge for this woman’s death, but, it seems, he can only kill these women if he manages to become like them. When he starts having sex with the women, we actually can sense his own breakdown, rather than being outraged at his lack of gumption and loss of goal. We begin to ask questions about identity. Can madness be transferred?

I was wincing throughout this film. The images are pointedly revolting, and stand as a challenge to anyone who wishes to view it. Know, though, that it is not merely standard gross-out fare like “Pink Flamingos,” or “Saw.” No. It is an edgy and terrifying horror film about the power of madness and the aesthetics of interior chaos. It’s not the least bit pleasant, and may seem confusing at times, but it’s a journey that an interested party may not regret taking.

If you were grossed out by this review, do not see the film.