Star Trek. J.J. Abrams. 2009.

I’ve seen this before, but I only saw like 7% of it. I mean, it’s in 4K now, so all those new pixels!

That said, I remember exactly nothing of this movie, so I do not have high hopes. I do remember really liking Star Trek Into Darkness (a movie all people hated), so I’m somewhat hopeful.

[time passes]

Aargh. It’s an origin story. I really don’t understand the obsession filmmakers have with origin stories. We like these characters because of what they do once they’re those characters. We do not need to know what Captain Kirk’s stepfather was like to enjoy (or not) him firing off some turbo lasers at some Klingons. Why not just drop us into where the fun is: The action? It’s what Star Trek did originally, and it worked well.

I mean, we didn’t need to see Captain Picard’s childhood to enjoy TNG, did we?

And this is kinda annoying in other ways, too: Abrams is really fond of 1) horizontal lens flares and 2) shakycam. And I loathe 2).

But: When they finally get to the Trekkie action (after spending a boring 40 minutes on the origin stuff), this is really fun.

Oh! Nimoy! I had completely forgotten that he was in this. I’ve read two of his autobiographies. I Am Not Spock was good, and so was I Am Spock. (You see a certain theme in the titles. It’s subtle.) He seems like a smart cookie and a cool guy.

This is a proper Trek movie. It’s got everything a Trek movie should have. If it didn’t have the boring half hour I would have given it top grade.

La Carrière de Suzanne. Éric Rohmer. 1963.

I’m reading a collection of articles from Cahiers de Cinema, and Rohmer is one of the peeps involved with that magazine, which makes this even more interesting. I mean, to me. It’s a movie just made just a few years after the articles I’ve been reading…

And this is obviously a very… er… early movie. His second? It’s made with amateur actors and without sound (added later in the studio) and it’s short, so this is a very low budget movie.

But it’s so charming. Everybody’s smiling!

It’s also really uncomfortable to watch. It feels like too real. The story’s kinda nasty. I mean, it’s about a total asshole, a nerd, and an awkward girl, and it’s just painful. On purpose.

L’amour l’après-midi. Éric Rohmer. 1972.

I was going to watch yet another movie from the box set of public domain movies from the 40-ish, but I just couldn’t face it, so here I am watching a movie from mah (current) favourite, Éric Rohmer.

His movies are just so… I think I once called them “pedestrian, but in a good way”? That is, they’re all “Bonjour, ça va?” They feel like a version of boring actual life, but fun. I can’t watch his scenes without smiling.

But this isn’t one of his better movies. It’s basically a Magic Pixie Dream Girl movie, and it’s not very subtle about it. I do love the parade of turtlenecks (very funny), but the further along we get in this movie, the less it’s holding my interest.

But then the movie bounces back and sort of approaches Rohmer’s ineffableness (that’s a word).

Weirdly enough, this movie was called Chloe in the Afternoon in the US, which is oddly reminiscent of Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7. OK, that’s not weird at all.