I wrote about this down thread, but De Palma talks about the ending in the new documentary. I don't want to say it was Cruise's idea, but he did have a huge say in it.

In the recent documentary, De Palma talks about the impossibility of making that movie. It was Cruise's first time in the producer's chair; he thought the title was cool and wanted the movie to be all about him. In order to placate his star, De Palma came up with the idea of killing the team up front and turning the…

You've heard that before? I thought I'd had some kind of cosmic moment of insight. Dammit. Still, I'm interested in reading a more articulate version of the idea.

You know @Cookie_Monster, I wrote a piece about this new series last week and how it's essentially a new and very different kind of moviemaking—that Star Trek has so deeply penetrated pop culture and beyond that these movies aren't reboots or even traditional entertainment; Chris Pine is playing Shater playing Kirk,…

Better yet, he could just cast it. He's preternaturally good at assembling actors for iconic roles, but the rest is all mystery-box hype.

I'm not going to argue that some of the spatial geography and narrative continuity was blurry. But the propulsive momentum of the whole thing makes quibbling seem pointless; even if the movie moves too quickly for it to take in some of the details, it's still a helluva ride.

@malcolmgreen is right. I (unfortunately) sat toward the back of an IMAX theater and the interior geography of the Enterprise-attack sequence was a mess. But the cross-section stuff alone makes up for it.

I said this earlier but I think the Franklin's design was supposed to be a TOS Romulan Bird of Prey/upside-down Reliant hybrid in the mold of the Bakula series. I dug the cylindrical, red nacelles but thought the rear of the saucer was way too busy. I don't know why they needed to refer to that show at all—it blew the…

Like a lot of aspects of this deeply self-reflexive reboot series, the song "Sabotage" is a nod to Trek's place in pop history. Specifically, William Shatner's odd pronunciation of the word.

The octogenarian sitting next to me actually threw up her arms and headbanged along to the song. I feel like moving an old lady to dance to the Beastie Boys is a pretty good measure of quality.

When I think about Beyond, I'm not sure the Enterprise's "bigness" is a pointedly overlooked element or a missed opportunity. Lin played with scale and space and, like I said earlier, seemed appropriately enamored of the ship. (Twice, the camera swooped over Federation-ship saucers, and those two tracking shots…

Lin actually seemed to get that perspective twists the ship's design—that accentuating certain elements distorts its makeup. But he ran with that, "deconstructing" it and taking it apart like a little kid monkeying with his Erector Set.

I felt like this was the first movie in the reboot series to show genuine affection for the ship and its peculiar design. Lin seemed to have a blast tinkering with framing the thing, splitting it into cross sections, or hitching his camera to it at odd angles. (That ingenuity comes through best in the 3D version,…

The one about misusing your cable package? Because I did the same thing.

I'd forgotten about that.

It's funny.

Life is meaningless? Kiarostami's movies would like to have a word.

TASTE OF CHERRY has a "fuck you" ending?

Strange about the sketch-spanning outbursts last night. Could anyone make out what was being said?

John Clayton is good but his best are Hail, Simon and Fantastic Mr. Jerry