Variety review of Star Trek

Apparently I just missed it - just went looking at their website, and it turns out they already posted it on 22nd! So here it is, as promised:

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940096.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

Posted: Wed., Apr. 22, 2009, 2:17am PT

New U.S. Release

Star Trek
By TODD MCCARTHY

( The credits )

Blasting onto the screen at warp speed and remaining there for two hours, the new and improved "Star Trek" will transport fans to sci-fi nirvana. Faithful enough to the spirit and key particulars of Gene Roddenberry's original conception to keep its torchbearers happy but, more crucially, exciting on its own terms in a way that makes familiarity with the franchise irrelevant, J.J. Abrams' smart and breathless space adventure feels like a summer blockbuster that just couldn't stay in the box another month. Paramount won't need any economic stimulus package with all the money it'll rake in with this one globally, and a follow-up won't arrive soon enough.

"Star Trek" here joins the James Bond series as the long-term '60s franchises that have been most successfully rebooted, although the current accomplishment is the more surprising since, after 10 films and a succession of TV series, "Star Trek" was widely thought to have exhausted itself. While respectfully handling the Roddenberry DNA, Abrams and longtime writing cohorts Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have transferred it to a trim new body that hums with youthful energy.

( Read more... )

Getting excited yet, strawberryelfsp? ;)

Watch out - Machete is coming!!!

Many thanks to trailer_spot for pointing this out to me:

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=24657

24 April 2009
Machete Is A Go For Rodriguez
And he'll re-do Predator as well

You may remember this stonkingly good trailer from the Grindhouse experience. Well, prepare to see a full-length version, with the news that Robert Rodriguez is finally moving ahead with his much-mooted Machete film. That's due to start shooting in June, Rodriguez co-directing with his editor Ethan Maniquis.

The story, in case you're in work and can't watch the above trailer, sees day labourer and ex-Federale Machete (Danny Trejo) hired to carry out an assassination, but double-crossed and left for dead. He goes on a quest for revenge against the man responsible. We can only hope that they keep the, "This time they fucked with the wrong Mexican" tagline.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez has also finished a script for Predators, the proposed relaunch of the Predator franchise. Note the "s" on the end of that name; this isn't a simple remake, it seems, but a take on the franchise that involves multiple dreadlocked freckly-faced polyjawed hunters. Let's hope it is to Predator what Aliens was to Alien, and not just another disappointing Alien Vs Predator-alike mish-mash of ideas.

But before he does any of this, Rodriguez has to finish work on Nerverackers, a futuristic sci-fi thriller due out in 2010. So now that we've got a better idea of his dance card for the next couple of years, which are you most looking forward to?

Helen O'Hara


I can't wait to see this! *bounce*