Last night, Conan O'Brien had J.J. Abrams on his show to talk about Star Trek Into Darkness, among other things of course, and at one point the conversation turned to Alice Eve and her brief, yet exceedingly stupid and gratuitous, underwear shot in the film. (Conan's stance: "I didn't personally see what the fuss was about, myself — I was quite happy about the scene.") For those of you who haven't seen the film, Eve plays Carol Marcus, a purportedly brilliant scientist who teams up with Kirk and Spock et al. At one point (I think it was an action scene, but the whole film is kind of a big clangy blur to me right now) it becomes imperative that Marcus change her outfit, and does so while Kirk watches, then is offended by his ogling. It lasts less than five seconds but the outcry over it on the Internet has lasted a lot longer.
After announcing his leave of presence, Roger Ebert passed away today in Chicago after a long battle with cancer. It's a sad day for movie geeks, writers, and New Yorker caption hopefuls. Bust out your old Mad magazines and dim the lights. See you at the movies, Mr. Ebert.
Here is a crowd-sourced Dunder Mifflin ad that will air during the Super Bowl in Scranton, and only in Scranton.
• Oh, and hey guys, got any hot sexy plans this weekend? Maybe gonna eat some poached veal with Larry King? Wear something trampy on your date with a pickup artist skeeve in a rape van? No? You could always try this online dating service that uses humans instead of algorithms if you’re interested in capturing the sensation of being set up by your “fabulous, drunk aunt.” Or you could save the $99 and just ask your own fabulous, drunk aunt for the hookup. Fabulous, drunk aunts have been making it happen since two-thousand-never.
Yeah, Inception bwaaaangs could make just about anything seem hella dramatic, but the trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness — J.J. Abrams's follow-up to his 2009 smash-hit big-screen reboot of the franchise — provides some pyrotechnics even with the sound off. A villainous Benedict Cumberbatch provides the voice-over and all the plot explanation we need: He was wronged, he's here for vengeance, let's get it popping. And then it's all a giant blur of guns and fire and face-kicks and shrieks and a cliff jump possibly nabbed from leftover Lost footage and dudes running through windows, and then, bwaaaaang, a spaceship crashing to Earth. By the way, the name of the villain that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing hasn't yet been revealed. If they're still sussing that out, I think one good option would be "Benedict Cumberbatch."
How does one go about making something modern? It’s rarely as simple as updating the threads and snipping the telephone cords; not all stories can be unstuck from their time. So what’s the secret? Is it swapping some genders and boosting the adrenaline? Is it raising the (wooden) stakes by adding vampires and stovepipe hats full of CGI? Or is it finding the sweet spot between making people laugh and making them furious? The hidden trap of remakes and reboots often lies in the trappings; the more time one spends tweaking the context, the harder it is to hold on to whatever it was that interested us in the first place.
