Star Trek (2009)

Recently Artie starred in a community performance of The Odd Couple. It's a fun show (and TV show and movie) and has one of my favorite in-context lines: "You leave me little notes on my pillow. Told you 158 times I can't stand little notes on my pillow. 'We're all out of cornflakes. F.U.' Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!" Exact quote courtesy of imdb. I have a new fave from Star Trek: "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" Which brings me to Spock. This is Spock's (Zachary Quinto, whom I loved to hate as the evil Sylar in NBC's Heroes; I had given up on Fox's 24 before his 23 episodes--Adam Kaufman was his character's name for those who were more loyal than I) movie. James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine, the guy with the hilarious wig in Bottle Shock, also seen in romances like Just My Luck (2006) and Princess Diaries 2 (2004)) was the cute hot-headed hunk who got the job done, and the child Kirk had some fun stunts, but Spock was the one with depth, angst, and character development. Quinto was more than up to the task. Anton Yelchin (if you didn't watch Showtime's Huff, do rent it--Yelchin played Hank Azaria's adorable son Byrd; won a Young Artist Award for Hearts in Atlantis (2001), and I also liked him in the excellent movies Fierce People (2005) Alpha Dog (2006), and Charlie Bartlett (2007)), who, despite his Russian name and birth, moved to the US at 6 months and had no discernible accent in any of the previously mentioned work. But as Chekov in Star Trek he affected complex and, to my ears, believably thick Russian-accented English. His accent was matched when Simon Pegg joined the action as Scotty (AKA Montgomery Scott). Pegg, about whom I wrote in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, is not Scottish, he's English, but he hammed up his Scottish accent to great comic effect. Pegg, who won several awards for writing and starring in Shaun of the Dead (2004) brings comedy to everything he does. And it was nice to see him NOT be the dumb guy for a change. Most of you probably know Leonard Nimoy (the original Spock) has a cameo. As an acrophobic, I couldn't help but notice how many fights took place on precipices. And lots of stuff got blown up! J.J. Abrams directed and, with his Lost (ABC) partner Damon Lindelof, produced. Philip, Tyler, and Chris advised us to see this one first of the action movies out at the time. Thanks, guys, you were right!