The 100% Positive Movie Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness and Epic

Hi all,

I’ve actually gone to see two movies in one week, which never happens. I didn’t get into that one show, but I certainly performed well. I have been using the Ainsley monologue from Back Story, a dramatic project with characters created by Joan Ackermann and several other playwrights creating scenes and monologues for the two characters. My monologue is from the scene written by Donald Margulies. (He wrote Dinner with Friends, which became an HBO special presentation.) Back Story was a project that premiered at the Humana Festival in 2001. The Humana Festival, by the way, is where such shows as Sunday in the Park with George premiered and is presented by Actors Theatre of Louisville, which has a competitive intern program for which I once considered applying. I have the other audition for the Lunch Time theatre this Sunday.

Back to the movies. I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness on Memorial Day and it was really action-packed and exciting. There were no dull moments in the film. I remember watching Star Trek 4 at the drive-in movie theatre in my pajamas when I was very little. I fell asleep during most films until I was 10. What I remember most vividly is the scary alien probe and I had no idea what was going on. I love Chris Pine as Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Mr. Spock. It’s really fun to see what these two characters were like when they were young and I really like the theme about what a leader must do to protect those under their charge. The choice of Khan as the villain was fascinating. Because Star Trek 2 came out when I was born, I don’t remember seeing Ricardo Montalban play Khan. I wonder if people can really be genetically-engineered to be indestructible. If so, sign me up! I am glad to see older sci-fi series have fresh life onscreen. My personal favorite Star Trek film will always be Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country. I absolutely loved the final line of the film that the future is the undiscovered country. That really fills you with hope.

Yesterday, I saw the movie Epic. I realize that my grown-up self going to a children’s film is silly, but I like children’s movies in general. I appreciate seeing characters who are innocent and not having to put up with the usual great deal of violence and sexual content. I don’t mean to say that these things aren’t necessary at times to tell a story, but when most films and television contain graphic violence and sexual content, it does get old and unoriginal. Well, Epic is fantastic fun and I would love to see more of the characters in sequels and maybe television series. I especially loved the slug, voiced by Aziz Ansari, and his snail friend. (I saw Aziz Ansari in person at at concert that I was ushering, but it was clearly not the occasion to introduce myself.) It was really cool having Beyonce in the movie voicing the really smart, and gorgeously-dressed, Queen. I really want to cosplay the dress she wears. Another aspect of the movie I really liked was that the lead character was not a bratty teenager, but a confused young lady who wants to be a good person. I think it would be cool to voice animated characters. I always wanted to voice those Disney princesses who get to sing.