David Ward

Clooney, like Brian de Palma or George Lucas, is well known for borrowing liberally from other sources and movies he reveries. The question is, can he create something new from old sources. In this case, he cribs elements from 2001( minimal dialogue and explanation) On The Beach ( the basic structure of the film) and adds some seasoning from newer films like The Martian and Gravity ( which he co starred in.) The results are 50 50. While many people will crab about it's pace and lack of focus on deeper character understanding, what is appreciated is a sci fi film short on excess action but long on mood, and a sense of quiet emotional dread and human hope. Try it and see, then find someone else who saw it and have a conversation about it.

My wife rarely likes action movies, but she wanted to watch this one. With the main characters being 2 women ( one of color) and also two gay men who are not stereotypes. Plus, a plot that actually takes a fantastic premise and makes it believable and acknowledges consequences to everything, including the nature of being immortal. This is a good way to spend a few hours.

Easy prediction. Chadwick Boseman will win best Supporting Actor this year. Not just because he is gone and the Academy likes to honor posthumously ( which it does) but, because his performance is utterly devastating. To have his career end with this film is triumphant but it makes you miss him and his lost potential all the more.

After I discovered the source material was a graphic novel the jump cuts through time made more sense. But,with more films being based on graphic material, the danger always is let's recreate the style of the book and sacrifice cinematic coherence. The film is a whirlwind of fast kinetic cinema images, but when it settles down to human storytelling it goes static. Rosamund Pike is a great actress and she does great work here.but she's asked to do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the film together.

Have been watching bits of it on YouTube, haven't done a full episode yet. Technically it's brilliant, rivaling even the set recreation in the DS9 "Trials and Tribbleations" episode. Lights, sets music, everything is spot on. From an acting standpoint, this show would make a great object lesson in how different actors approach the same character. Michelle Specht comes off best, partly because there are no preconceived notions of her character. Not only does she nail the 60's style actress glamour,she also gets the style of acting while giving honest depth to the role. The other actors do well but none of them quite reach the levels of charisma the original series actors had. Vic has Shatner's physicality down pat, but lacks Shatner's swagger and unpredictable energy. There's a little sense of the show kind of trapping the new actors. Since it's such a faithful recreation of TOS, the expectation to duplicate original performance hamstring the actors. Say what you will about the Kelvin timeline movies,( and I know many of you hate them but I don't,and I'm a first generation Trekkie having seen Spock's Brain" on NBC primetime at 9 years old, and getting hooked for life) I also worked on ST The experience In The 90's and was the director of the original walk around cast) the actors of that iteration were allowed a little creative wiggle room to interpret their characters. But all this is quibbling, the Continues episodes are great fun and do fill in story gaps that fans have imagined for many years. May everyone who put the work into creating it Live Long and Prosper!