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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a review by dfmorgan

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Year: 2009
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, Heath Ledger
Overview: Directed by visionary genius Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus features Heath Ledger in his last role, plus a stellar cast including Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is an immortal who leads a travelling theatre troupe. Their props include the 'Imaginarium' - a mirror doubling as a magic doorway into a world that makes your wildest dreams a reality.

Parnassus's immortality has come at a price however - he will lose his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) to the Devil himself (Tom Waits) unless he persuades five more souls to lose themselves in the Imaginarium. "A wild and wonderful fantasy" - Alan Frank, Daily Star

Watched: 27th Mar 2010
My Thoughts: Ok a strange film but then again not. Terry Gilliam in a weird phase, been there before and will be again, but making an excellent film which in places was very Pythonesque, not too sure if that is good or bad. There will be nuances and depths that I have missed in this first viewing, one thing you can't do with a Terry Gilliam film is to remove your brain and let it rest on the side, but hopefully they will appear and clear when I rewatch this in future. The basic premise is the usual fight between Good and Evil represented here by Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) as the Good and Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) as the Devil. Both these came over well and with good support from Verne Troyer, Andrew Garfield and Lily Cole as Doctor Parnassus's troupers.

One of the main talking points about this film, also heavily touched upon by Terry Gilliam in his introduction to the film, was the fact that Heath Ledger died before his role had been completed. Three other actors, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, stepped in to save the film by taking on the uncompleted parts which luckily were those that involved Heath Ledger stepping into the Imaginarium. Did that work? I have to say that to me it appeared that yes it did work, I presume though that Terry Gilliam and his co-writer had to amend their original scripts to cater for this but it came over well.

My Rating: Overall a 4

Dave

(From Dave's DVD/Blu-ray Reviews on March 28th, 2010)

Star Trek (2009), a review by Tom

Title: Star Trek
Year: 2009
Director:
Rating: 12
Length: 127 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.40
Audio: English: Dolby Digital TrueHD, English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital Surround, French: Dolby Digital 5.1, German: Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1, Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: Commentary, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish

Stars:
Chris Pine
Zachary Quinto
Leonard Nimoy
Eric Bana
Winona Ryder

Plot:
"STAR TREK is a burst of pure filmmaking exhilaration and an irresistible invitation for fun." The cocky, renegade James Kirk (Chris Pine) and the equally youthful half-Vulcan, half-human Spock (Zachary Quinto) are among the young members of a fledging Starfleet crew, and about to launch the most advanced starship ever created: the U.S.S. Enterprise. During their incredible galactic voyage of exploration and discovery, they will encounter the evil Nero (Eric Bana) whose mission of vengeance threatens all of mankind. With both the blockbuster-hit film and all-new special features on this two-disc Digital Copy Special Edition, you will journey behind the scenes and immerse yourself in a thrilling, action-packed Star Trek universe, as you have never experienced before!

Awards:

Scream Awards	2009	Won	Best Cameo	Winona Ryder
Scream Awards	2009	Won	Best Director	J. J. Abrams
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Ensemble
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best F/X
Scream Awards	2009	Won	Best Science Fiction Actor	Chris Pine
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Science Fiction Actor	Zachary Quinto
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Science Fiction Actress	Zoe Saldana
Scream Awards	2009	Won	Best Sci-Fi Movie
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Scream-Play	Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Supporting Actor	Leonard Nimoy
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Supporting Actor	Simon Pegg
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Best Villian	Eric Bana
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Breakout Performance-Female	Zoe Saldana
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	Breakout Performance-Male	Chris Pine
Scream Awards	2009	Won	Fight-to-the-Death Scene of the Year	"Kirk vs. Spock":
Scream Awards	2009	Nominated	The "Holy Sh%t!" Scene of the Year	"Space Dive onto Orbital Drill":
Scream Awards	2009	Won	The Ultimate Scream
Teen Choice Awards	2009	Nominated	Choice Movie - Action Adventure
Teen Choice Awards	2009	Nominated	Choice Movie Actress - Action/Adventure	Zoe Saldana
Teen Choice Awards	2009	Nominated	Choice Movie Fresh Face - Male	Chris Pine
Teen Choice Awards	2009	Nominated	Choice Movie Rumble	Kirk vs. Spock
Teen Choice Awards	2009	Nominated	Choice Movie Villain	Eric Bana
World Soundtrack Awards	2009	Nominated	Film Composer of the Year	Michael Giacchino

Extras:
Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Outtakes
Scene Access
Star Trek: Countdown (Comic)

When I first heard about the idea of making a Star Trek prequel movie years ago (the talk was about a Star Trek Academy movie), I was shocked that they even considered something like this. I wanted further TNG movies or DS9 movies. But after the failure of Nemesis and the new Enterprise series, I didn't want any further movies.
When then again came up the topic of a Star Trek reboot movies years later, I was all for it. Now was the right time for it.

Even though I was all for it, I was going into it was some trepidation. The trailer hadn't really convinced me yet. But I was positively surprised by the movie. They managed to make a reboot with the possibility to explore new directions, but they didn't ignore the past movies. Having Leonard Nimoy as the old Spock from the previous timeline's past in it to bridge the gap was the only move which probably could pull that off.

The new cast is perfect. The new Spock is a dead-on young Leonard Nimoy. The new Kirk has the spirit of Shatner's Kirk, but they thankfully chose to not imitade Shatner's delivery style. That would have come across as a Shatner parody instead of a new incarnation of Kirk. Simon Pegg as Scotty was alright as was the other supporting Enterprise crew. The new Bones is the one who surprised me the most. When I first saw him, I did not think that he was right for the role. He didn't look anything like DeForest Kelley. But his McCoy was dead-on.

But the movie also has its problems:
- I didn't like the "Star Wars" sequence on the Ice Planet, where Kirk is chased by a monster which in turn is caught by an even bigger monster. Also it is just too much of an coincidence, that Kirk is jettisoned to only a short walk away from where the old Spock is marooned.
- I didn't like it, that the kid Kirk is driving a vintage automobile. This scene is what bothered me most in the trailer. And the Nokia phone was the most grinchworthy moment in the entire movie.
- I didn't like it, that again the Romulans where the villains (like in Nemesis), but at least it was understandable, because we knew from TNG that the old Spock was involved with Romulans the past few years.
- Overuse of lens flare in the bridge scenes. Is the bridge supposed to be a light show, or what?

Also there are some moments, which bother me a little, but they do count as character flaws and not movie flaws: Like why did they give the charge to the redshirt guy and do not have one themselves? They didn't know who will survive the fall, so they should have planned to have backups. And am I understanding it correctly, that because of the stupidity of the redshirt, Vulcan was doomed?

A few references to past movies, that I remember now while writing the review:
- Kobayashi Maru: We learn in Star Trek 2 that Kirk is the only one ever beating the test scenario. Shatner was also eating an apple telling about it, like Chris Pine did while taking the test.
- The Vulcan school: The computers on which the kids take the tests are similar to the computer Spock did tests on in Star Trek 4
- The "friends" speech by Spock. First spoken in Star Trek 2.
- Spock also chose to not complete the Kolinahr in Star Trek 1.
- Spocks parents where first seen in the TOS episode "Journey to Babel", but were also part of Star Trek 4. His father was also in 6.
- I also got a kick out of Leonard Nimoy declaring "I am Spock" in the movie. Which is the title of his autobiography.
- Old Spock giving Scotty the formula which Scotty would have invented later himself is reminiscent of a scene in Star Trek 4.
- Nero is using the same creatures to extract information from Pike as Khan did in Star Trek 2. Would have been fun though, if we would have gotten an updated "ear-invasion" scene, instead of putting it in the mouth.
- Sulus experiance in hand-to-hand combat is of course a reference to a scene in a TOS episode, where we see Sulu fencing.

Rating:

(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 22nd, 2009)

Ghost Whisperer Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

13. FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD GHOST
A new neighbor moves in and requests Melinda's aid in ridding the place of an uninvited spirit.

My Thoughts:
This is a pretty good episode... but not one of my favorites. I found the story to be just a little bit disappointing.

14. LAST EXECUTION
After a spirit follows Melinda home, she discovers he is looking for his troubled daughter who's been having serious problems since his death.

My Thoughts:
Once again not a favorite episode. But a decent one... pretty much a standard story. Didn't keep my attention as much as I would have liked.

15. MELINDA'S FIRST GHOST
Melinda must reconcile with her own mother before she can save the spirit of a young girl, the very first ghost she ever saw!

My Thoughts:
Now this is an exceptional episode.... I enjoyed every second of it. I really liked how it touched on how young Melinda was when she first started to see ghosts and how it was handled at the time. This has to be one of my favorites.

16. DEAD MAN'S RIDGE
Andrea enlists Melinda in finding a missing friend who disappeared while on a hike.

My Thoughts:
This is another episode I really liked a lot. Andrea got a real taste of what it is like to be haunted in this episode. And I loved her reaction to the whole thing.

(From Ghost Whisperer Marathon on August 2nd, 2008)