Star Trek Into Darkness

Spoilers: They never really go INTO darkness.

"In our darkest hour, when our leaders have fallen, a hero will rise."

Hey everyone, welcome to Thursday's Tagline! Today I will be talking about the new Star Trek film, INTO DARKNESS, which sees the crew of the Enterprise face their deadliest adversary yet, and shout "KHAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!" For those who missed the last Star Trek, it stars Chris Pine as James Tiberius Kirk (Kirk is basically the feather in his cap) Zoe Saldana (who graced my blog in The Losers) also John Cho as Sulu (He's Harold who went to White Castle, forever) Simon Pegg as Scotty (most notably from Shaun of the Dead, and also Hot Fuzz was awesome) Anton Yelchin as Chekov (also appeared in Charley Bartlett) and Zachary Quinto as Spock (though I have a tough time not seeing him as Sylar cutting open people's heads on Heroes) and Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy (last seen here when I reviewed Dredd). Joining them is Star Trek nemesis Khan, portrayed by Bumblebee Cabbagepatch best known for his role on the BBC as Shylock (Benedict Cumberbatch from Sherlock you get it). The movie starts with Kirk getting a serious dressing down from Admiral Pike, before having his command stripped away. Of course that all goes out the window when a whole bunch of stuff gets blown up by Bandersnatch Cumberbuns for reasons that are not immediately clear.

Lost in Space

Set a course for the lame quadrant.

"Get Ready. Get Set. Get Lost."

An unfortunate choice of tagline if I've ever heard one. Hello everyone, I've returned from my week long 'vacation' (I am glad it's over, what an exhausting episode it was x_x) and back with more movie snark. With the release of Star Trek, a movie that by all reports is apparently a good film, I figured I would review a space/sci-fi movie that was NOT good, to hold you over until I can see Into Darkness. Enter Lost in Space, a film I first saw in the theater back in 1998 when I was young and foolish. So very foolish. Starring William Hurt (who regrettably we last saw on the Tagline in my review of The Host) as Professor John Robinson, a scientist leading a mission to journey for ten years in suspended animation to a distant planet, with the intention of linking Earth and this planet via companion hypergates (kind of like the mass relays in Mass Effect I guess?) so that the planet can be colonized. This is to preserve the human race, which has more or less rendered the Earth  uninhabitable from pollution (like in Avatar). The mission is obviously going to be a long (if not permanent) posting, so Prof. Robinson is travelling with his family: his wife  Maureen (Mimi Rogers) his daughters Penny (Lacey Chabert, who was in Mean Girls and provided Meg's voice for the first 13 episodes of Family Guy before Mila Kunis took over) and Judy (Heather Graham, who I don't think has cropped up in another movie I reviewed somehow) and his son Will (Jack Johnson, who did not much after that really). Also joining them is their fill in pilot Major West (Matt Leblanc, of Friend's fame) and a stow-away Saboteur, Dr. Zachary Smith (the great Gary Oldman, here playing for the bad guys).

Week-long Vacation Sort Of!

Hiyo Tagliners!

It had been my original intention to continue regular posts straight through this week, but unforeseen complications leading up to a convention this weekend (Anime Boston, where I will be vending all weekend in the Artist's Alley!) now require me to announce that The Tagline will be on hiatus until next Monday. I actually have some neat stuff in the works for the next few weeks, so in the meantime please bear with me!

-J

Walled In

That is kind of what she looks like yes.

"Some secrets are best left buried."

The same can be said for some movies, but I'll give you no such reprieve! Welcome to Thursday at The Tagline! Today I'm scraping another clod of dirt out of the bottom of the Netflix barrel, this time with a...thriller? No that can't be right, I wasn't thrilled, let's call it the borer, Walled In, starring the spectacularly untalented Mischa Barton as Sam Walczak (that's pronounced WALLZACK so you know walls get it WOW THIS IS A GOOD START) who works for her father's demolition company, and is sent to assess a building before its demolition. The twist here being that the building was the site of a string of grisly murders, presumably at the hands of the 'mad genius' who constructed the building Malestrazza (you know he's bad because he has a kind of bad sounding name) who is presumed dead by the time the movie begins. The only people who still live in the building are an old lady, an old guy, the creepy caretaker who gave me weird incest vibes Mary (Deborah Kara Unger,who was the creepy crazy mom of Alessa in the Silent Hill movies, I guess that's her specialty) and her son Jimmy (Cameron Bright, who was one of the Volturi in the Twilight movies OH NO TWILIGHT ACTOR ALERT). Spooky stuff happens while Sam tries to work, most prominently the weird obsessed attentions of Jimmy, who is clearly not all together, and also other spooky noises or whatever because Sam is apparently scared of the dark, and being trapped in buildings, which is maybe why she blows them up for a living?

John Dies at the End

This might give you sort of an idea.

"Just so you know...they're sorry for anything that's about to happen."

Why hello everyone, it is that time again! Time for The Tagline, time for rambling, and time for a bizarre trip through an incredibly strange movie called John Dies at the End. Starring who gives a crap as everyone (Except for Paul Giamatti, who is a journalist interviewing Dave). Dave is a typical nobody, and his friend John is a dumb nobody, and together, they are no one of importance. UNTIL ONE NIGHT WHEN SHIT STARTS GETTING MAD WEIRD, because they do some bizarre drug called Soy Sauce, which gives them an... expanded view of the universe. Not a good one though. A weird one. A terrifyingly freaky view, of a lot of things you'd probably not care to see. Thanks to that, Dave and John find themselves in them middle of some truly freaky shit, involving body stealing, corpse exploding insects, spirits that make meat-Voltron, world jumping, and a giant, hideous organic machine-god named Korrak. To put it succinctly, this shit is seriously fucked.

The Awakening

Visually grey and yes chilly, and sort
of sleepy.

"All the children are gone... except one."

Heyo everyone, welcome back to Thursday at the good ol' Tagline. Today was damp and gloomy, and so I figured I'd pick a movie that was also those two things more than much of anything else. The Awakening stars Rebecca Hall, who I was just talking about when I reviewed Iron Man 3, as Florence Cathcart, a published author on supernatural hoaxes, who is called to investigate a possible haunting at a boarding school after a child dies. Florence gets to the bottom of the mystery, but in the process, is drawn into something substantially stranger. Ms. Cathcart is alone at the boarding school while it is on break, except for herself, the housekeeper Imelda, Robert Mallory, the man who called her to the school, the groundskeeper, and a boy named Tom, who seems lonely and sort of weird and fixated on Florence in a not strictly normal fashion. What follows is a chilling, visually sumptuous, lithium paced stumble through spooky English Town, at a pace one might generously refer to as glacial.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 is something of an undersell.

"Unleash the power behind the armor."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline! Over the weekend I got out to the theater to see Iron Man 3, and it was quite a time! The movie takes place chronologically after The Avengers (about 6 months I think), and stars Robert Downey Jr.once again as Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man. Tony is a little worse for the wear since his experience in New York, what with almost dying through a worm hole into outer space and all, and is channeling his anxiety into making lots of crazy Iron Man suits. America is threatened by The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley, an expert at playing evil viziers and such) an evil mastermind who is launching untraceable and inexplicable attacks on various targets that seem to hold symbolic meaning, and seems to be winding up to a grand and destructive finale. When Tony's goon of a bodyguard (you know Jon Favreau) is injured in the mix, Tony decides that threatening The Mandarin and giving out his address is a good idea. As it turns out, it isn't the greatest idea actually. Stuff gets blown up, and the game is naturally more complicated than it initially appears. More danger happens, lots of explosions, you know the drill.

Iron Sky

This poster mostly sums up the whole deal.

"Get Ready, The Fourth Reich Is Here."

Hi everyone, welcome to another Thursday at The Tagline! As promised, I bring you both something that is less of a bummer, and also something that is pretty terrible. Today's feature is Iron Sky, a movie that takes place in the future, but involves a little revisionist history. You see, as they saw they were losing the war, the Nazis decided that they would retreat to the dark side of the moon. Where they have remained since then. The movie takes place in 2018, when the lady-strongly-resembling-Sarah-Palin president of the united states sends a mission to land on the moon, to help her re-election campaign somehow. One of the astronauts she sends is actually a black model (because a "black guy" on the moon will look good, isn't that nice?) and when they land on the moon they find... Nazis! They find a Nazi moon base, and that the Moon Nazis are preparing to launch their assault on the Earth, where with their "meteorblitzkrieg" they will purify the Earth and claim it for their Fourth Reich. In preparation for their assault, the Moon Nazis send a vanguard that includes their future Fuhrer Klaus Adler, the black astronaut, who they have turned white, and also Klaus' prospective bride to be Renate Richter. Naturally no one really believes they are Moon Nazis, but that changes once the skies are darkened by their flying saucers and space zeppelins.