Tag: Zachary Quinto

Review: Snowden

“No matter who you are, you’re sitting in a database just waiting to be looked at.”

By virtue of clicking on the link that led you to this review, you’ve contributed to the massive amounts of data that is being collected about you. Your search histories, your credit card purchases, your Über rides, your PokémonGo checkins, and your emails all form a digital fingerprint that indicates to a data collector who you are and what you might do. It was an awareness that the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US was collecting this data on millions that led Edward Snowden to blow the whistle on the agency, and covertly release top secret information to the media.

Previously the subject of the award-winning documentary Citizenfour, Oliver Stone’s fictionalised account of Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) attempts to uncover the reasoning behind his actions. Opening in Hong Kong in 2013, we follow Snowden’s military career, as CIA boss Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifan) takes him under his wing. During this time, Snowden forms a relationship with girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley), and ultimately reveals government secrets to a trio of journalists (Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkinson).

The bigger question of whether Snowden is a whistleblower or a traitor is never questioned by Stone’s biopic. Establishing the lead as a patriot through some heavy-handed dialogue early on (“I don’t like bashing my country”), a portrait is painted of a man who was frustrated at his ability to do a job in a post-9/11 world where information is king. “Terrorism is the excuse,” we are told. “The only thing we are protecting is the supremacy of your government.”

Gordon-Levitt disappears entirely into the role of Snowden, convincingly earnest and pragmatic as both a true believer and a paranoid informant. His body language carries a quiet confidence that comes with intellect, and a flightiness that follows excessive access to knowledge. The trio of journalists are bang on the money, with Wilkinson in particular spookily accurate as Scottish Guardian journo Ewen MacAskill. Woodley, in the key role of the real-life Mills, works with a light-touch script for some force-fed emotional moments. Yet she is far less perfunctory than Nicolas Cage in a bizarre pseudo life coach role, with actual dialogue that includes “You did it kid!”.

The technical aspects of the film sometimes fail the lofty messages, perhaps a indicator of the budgetary constraints Stone faced. Much of the film is spent inside the Hong Kong hotel room that served as the setting for Citizenfour, robbing SNOWDEN of the global scope it espouses. At other times, Rhys Ifan menacingly looms over Gordon-Levitt on a video screen like something out of Brazil. Stone is known for his long films, and while this clocks in noticeably shorter than JFK or Nixon, the meandering narrative could still do with a damn good edit.

One of the ironies of SNOWDEN is that the eponymous figure repeatedly warned of the dangers of making him the figurehead of the movement, rather than focusing on the bigger issues he actually revealed. Blending fact with a little bit of fiction, the bigger picture is where the strengths of Stone’s film lie, reminding us that the right to question leaders is one of the cornerstones on which the US was founded (even if those leaders did keep slaves at the time). At the very least, you’ll probably be placing tape over your device’s camera about now.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2016 | US | DIR: Oliver Stone | WRITERS: Kieran Fitzgerald, Oliver Stone | CAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Scott Eastwood, Timothy Olyphant, Rhys Ifans, Nicolas Cage | DISTRIBUTOR: Buena Vista International (AUS), Open Road Films (US) | RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 15 September 2016 (AUS), 16 September 2016 (US) [/stextbox]

September 12, 2016
Review: Star Trek Beyond

An old-school approach to Star Trek that wastes little time in bringing the action, even if it does keep the crew of the Enterprise apart.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, one of the most unique franchises in terms of the sheer variety of TV series, feature films and other media. STAR TREK BEYOND is the third film since J.J. Abrams rebooted the original characters in 2009, and for this milestone year action director Justin Lin has taken the characters back to basics. The balance mostly works too, with the recent films having mostly been about the immediacy of the moment.

Picking up three years into the U.S.S. Enterprise’s historic five-year mission, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is mulling over a Vice Admiral’s position while Spock (Zachary Quinto) considers devoting his time to rebuilding Vulcan. However, when the crew is attacked by a mysterious wave of hive-like aliens led by Krall (Idris Elba), they are forced to leave the ship and survive on a distant planet. Thanks to Scotty’s new friendship with alien Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), they must work together and defeat the seemingly unstoppable menace.

“Things have started to feel a little episodic,” muses Kirk in a contemplative opening about the monotony of space. The winking reference to the television origins of the characters acknowledges two simple truths: that there has been a fair amount of ground already covered by the hundreds of hours of serial drama already made, and that these newer film entries will never be satisfied with the repetition of cerebral space exploration. So STAR TREK BEYOND wastes very little time in turning into a full-blown action film, igniting the ship and placing every crew member in peril.

The space scenes are visually stunning, albeit chaotic and stomach churning in the ubiquitous 3D. Lin is ironically on firmer ground when he plays with gravity on the wonderfully Escher-inspired Yorktown space colony, and there’s a gorgeous climactic sequence of Kirk and Krall engaging in zero gravity combat. There’s a current of tension that runs throughout the film, clashing with the fertile groundwork laid down about Kirk’s early mid-life crisis, and as such the film functions best when it abandons the contemplation completely.

Yet for a film that has an underlying message of the strength of unity, it certainly spends a lot of time keeping its principal players apart. Bones (Karl Urban) and Spock make a wonderful team-up as usual, and co-writer Simon Pegg builds upon the heroic Scotty persona from Star Trek Into Darkness, even if some of the other cast are rendered perfunctory by the introduction of Jaylah. However, there are also frustratingly few scenes where the entire crew comes together as one, a reality of the perils of ensembles whose individual stars have risen significantly since the first entry. This unnaturally elongates the otherwise straightforward narrative to the point of frustration at times.

Even with some of these quibbles, STAR TREK BEYOND has some amazing world-building and visuals that continue to give the series a terrific energy. The attempt at an old-fashioned focus on character definitely gives it some of the flavour of the original ‘Trek series, even if it lacks the nuanced approach that has been a staple since Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s as if they tried to combine Insurrection with the action elements of First Contact. The direction of the film franchise is unclear, especially with the untimely death of actor Anton Yelchin just prior to the release of this film, yet Star Trek itself remains in safe hands with the launch of a new ongoing series next year and inevitable sequels. If this is to be the last of this era of the rebooted film universe, then it definitely goes out with a bang.

STAR TREK BEYOND is in cinemas on 21 July in Australia, and 22 July 2016 in the US, from Paramount Pictures.

2016 | US | DIR: Justin Lin | WRITERS: Simon Pegg, Doug Jung | CAST: John Cho, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 122 minutes | RATING: ★★★

July 18, 2016
‘Star Trek Beyond’ engages with Australian posters

We swear we aren’t becoming a Star Trek fan site, but there’s so much news happening at the moment, between news of the new television show and this year’s film, STAR TREK BEYOND. Paramount Pictures Australia has sent us over a pair of local posters for the latter, which have a classic dynamic feel to them. They aren’t quite the same as the Star Trek: The Motion Picture posters, although a version did surface online that was almost identical in style to the 1979 poster.

STAR TREK BEYOND is next instalment in the globally popular Star Trek franchise, created by Gene Roddenberry and reintroduced by J.J. Abrams in 2009, returns with director Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious franchise) at the helm of this epic voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her intrepid crew. In STAR TREK BEYOND, the Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test. It stars returning cast Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Idris Elba, Karl Urban and new addition, Sofia Boutella.

STAR TREK BEYOND hits cinemas in Australia on 21 July 2016 from Paramount Pictures.

May 25, 2016
‘Star Trek: Beyond’ trailer puts the crew under attack

The trailer to the highly anticipated third film in the Star Trek revived series, STAR TREK BEYOND, has been launched online. Directed by Justin Lin, it hits cinemas in Australia on 21 July 2016 from Paramount Pictures.

STAR TREK BEYOND is next instalment in the globally popular Star Trek franchise, created by Gene Roddenberry and reintroduced by J.J. Abrams in 2009, returns with director Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious franchise) at the helm of this epic voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her intrepid crew. In STAR TREK BEYOND, the Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.

It stars returning cast Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Idris Elba, Karl Urban and new addition, Sofia Boutella.

May 21, 2016
Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

As the crew of the Enterprise travel into darkness, audiences can rejoice that Trek is back and it’s brighter than ever.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: J.J. Abrams

Writer: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof

Runtime: 132 minutes

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Peter Weller, Anton Yelchin

Distributor: Paramount

Country: US

Rating: ★★★★½

More info
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When J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek in 2009, it was a time of mixed emotions for fans. It was almost sacrilege to suggest that Captain Kirk could be recast, let alone sidelining over forty years worth of television and film history. Yet time’s a revelator, and Star Trek can now rightly be considered a genre classic in its own right, proving that it’s possible to have your geek cake and eat it too. The sequel doesn’t simply have the first instalment to live up to, but is now the sole torch-bearer of a franchise that has spanned 29 seasons of television and 11 other feature films. Star Trek Into Darkness thankfully shines bright enough to make the whole world unabashed Trekkies.

After breaking the Prime Directive on a pre-industrial planet and revealing the Enterprise to its primitive natives, James Kirk (Chris Pine) is demoted from Captain and has his ship taken away from him. His first officer and sometimes rival Spock (Zachary Quinto) is reassigned to another ship. However, when John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a terrorist from within the Federation, launches an attack on Starfleet itself, Kirk and his crew must lead a manhunt into enemy space and uncover things that should best remain hidden.

If Star Trek was Abrams distinguishing his Starfleet from the established continuity, then Star Trek Into Darkness is about deconstructing it. Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof’s script takes what we know about the universe, and tears it down into tiny pieces, laying them out on display for examination. With these raw nerves exposed, Abrams takes his distinctive visual flair to them and remixes it into something that is partly familiar but largely disarming. What will surprise fans and followers is how much of some key original stories have found their way into this film. Even more surprising is the direction that they are taken, reworking them into a narrative that almost resembles elseworlds fan fiction. Much could be said about the sometimes heavy-handed references to real-world terrorism, but here it’s sci-fi at its most capable: offering to show the layers of the issue’s complexity in a safe ‘other’ world environment.

If a tribble of a quibble is to be had, it’s that some members of this wonderful cast don’t have enough time on screen. The difficulty with Star Trek‘s ensemble has always been one of equal camera time, and traditionally this has been divided between Kirk, Spock and “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban). However, as soon as someone as charismatic and commanding as Cumberbatch joins the cast, the mix becomes a little less even. Yet he commands every moment that he is present, and is perhaps one of the best villains that the franchise has had to offer. There are a lot of moving pieces in this film, and some are easy to lose track (trek, even?) of. For instance, Scotty (Simon Pegg) has his own little sub-story, but it also results in the character being largely underused for much of the film. This is perhaps unsurprising given the darker tone of the film. New cast member Alice Eve (as familiar name Dr. Carol Marcus) has a mostly perfunctory role, although it also wouldn’t be Trek without some sexual temptation for the captain. Indeed, there’s a scene where he quite literally gets two lots of tail.

Yet what sets this apart from the Trek films that have come before is the sheer scale of the piece. Abrams uses every inch of the screen, signing it with his trademark lens flare whenever the frenetic pacing threatens to not cause a seizure. It’s as if the absence of any Trek from our screens, big or small, has been keenly felt and condensed down into a single feature film. Star Trek may have been in our lives since 1966, but Star Trek Into Darkness is firmly a movie of the now, and it is magnificent.

Star Trek Into Darkness is released in Australia on 9 May 2013 from Paramount.

May 9, 2013
Review: Margin Call

The first great film to follow the global financial crisis follows a superior cast through a nail-baiting night in big business.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Margin Call (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: J.C. Chandor

Writer(s): J.C. Chandor

Runtime: 106 minutes

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci

Distributor: Becker Film Group

Country: US

Rating: Highly Recommended (?)

More info

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Given the widespread impact of the current economic crisis around the world, it is baffling that more fictional treatments of the subject haven’t already taken place. With the exception of the lacklustre Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the little-seen The Company Men and the documentary Inside Job, the film industry has probably been too busy checking their bottom line to worry about insights on The One Percent and their far-reaching influence on the lives of the majority of the planet. With writer-director J.C. Chandor‘s debut Margin Call, recalling David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross in both theme and quality of casting, the people who set the rules around the money that makes the world go around can be found in the crosshairs.

Set during a 24-hour period during the early days of the financial crisis, a group of people at a large investment firm rapidly uncover everything they knew collapsing around them. The firm begins a round of brutal mass redundancies, including the long-serving analyst Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), who hands over a file to newish employee Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) as he is being escorted off the premises. Keen to apply his rocket scientist brain to the problem, he soon discovers that the entire formula the company has been basing its dealings on is bursting at the seams, bringing the company to the point of collapse. The problem is passed up the line from supervisor Will Emerson (Paul Bettany), to the mainly reasonable Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), the slick Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), the cold Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) and ultimately the enigmatic CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), who travels by helicopter. Their actions ultimately decide the fate of the economy.

In this relatively brisk film, a layered character-based approach is taken to analysing the causes of the financial crisis, and this is devastatingly effective. In what is essentially a dialogue-based piece, Margin Call manages to avoid many of the more obvious stagey moments of an ensemble piece, and despite the size of the cast, character details emerge and each of the group has a textured moment or two. Kevin Spacey, for example, is allowed to break out of his Swimming with Sharks persona to just be a nice guy with a dying dog. One of the best films made on high finance, and a compelling character drama in any genre.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Balancing a giant cast with a difficult subject, Chandor makes a stunning debut in this superior character study of an economy in crisis.[/stextbox]

Margin Call is released in Australia on 15 March 2012 from Beck Film Group.

March 14, 2012
New Behind the Scenes Video from Star Trek Sequel Set

A few days ago, we posted some photos from the set of the Star Trek sequel from J.J. Abrams. Now thanks to SplashNewsOnline, we get to see a behind the scenes video as well. If you can excuse the really annoying voice-over, which tries to paint this as the Federation’s Funniest Home Videos, this gives life to the scene and gives us no doubt that Benedict Cumberbatch is the bad guy. Or just a bit stroppy.

Very few details have been released about the notorious secretive Abrams’ follow-up to his first hit, but Roberto Orci and co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof are the writers behind the film.

The sequel, as you can tell from the photos, has begun shooting and is set for a 3D and 3D IMAX release in 17 May 2013 from Paramount.

Exclusive: Behind The Scenes Of Star Trek 2

February 28, 2012
Update: First Star Trek Sequel Set Photos Show Cumberbatch, Quinto and Saldana

MTV has posted the first three photos from the forthcoming Star Trek sequel, with a title that is yet to be announced by director J.J. Abrams. We suspect that the title may give away a major plot element, so fingers crossed that it’s all about Harry Mudd.

Update: Thanks to ComingSoon.Net and PopSugar, we now have a bigger collection of set photos. They start to tell a distinct visual story, and include some of the stunt doubles.

The two initial photos show Uhura (Zoe Saldana) battling Benedict Cumberbatch, and Spock (Zachary Quinto) going Vulcan on the same. This more or less confirms the rumours that Cumberbatch was going to play the villain in the film. Either that, or he is just really disliked by the rest of the cast and these are candid shots.

Very few details have been released about the notorious secretive Abrams’ follow-up to his first hit, but Roberto Orci and co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof are the writers behind the film.

The sequel, as you can tell from the photos, has begun shooting and is set for a 3D and 3D IMAX release in 17 May 2013 from Paramount.

February 25, 2012
Review: What’s Your Number?

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”What’s Your Number? (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Mark Mylod

Runtime: 120 minutes

Starring: Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Zachary Quinto, Andy Samberg, Ari Graynor, Martin Freeman

Distributor: Fox

Country: US

Rating: It’s Your Money (?)

More info[/stextbox]

‘Romantic comedy’ has become a bit of a misleading label of late, with the romance being synonymous with foreplay as the focal point of the story. Gone are the days in which a romantic encounter atop the Empire State Building would suffice, or a cross-country trip between two mismatched soul-mates would result in true love, with everything from No Strings Attached to the identical Friends With Benefits attempting to stick a square peg into the mainstream’s all-too-willing hole. Not for nothing either: the success of risqué comedies Knocked Up and Bridesmaids have established the public’s craving for something they can enjoy with their best mates and their favourite squeeze equally.

In What’s Your Number?, based on Karyn Bosnak’s novel 20 Times a Lady, Ally Darling (Anna Faris, Yogi Bear) breaks with the latest in a long line of bad relationships and discovers, in the pages of a women’s glossy magazine, that she has slept with more men than double the national average. Concerned she will exceed twenty lovers without ever finding “the one”, she enlists the help of the promiscuous Colin (Chris Evans, Captain America: The First Avenger), who lives in the apartment across the hall. In exchange for using her apartment to hide out from his endless string of morning after girls, he aids her in tracking down past lovers in the hope that one of them will be what she has been looking for.

Every romantic comedy has a conceit that needs to be overcome. Without these arbitrary rules, there would be no conflict and the two people on the poster would probably get together in the first reel. What’s Your Number? has the particularly obnoxious setup of using the number of sexual partners a woman is “supposed” to have before finding the true man. The aim appears to be to present Ally Darling as a modern woman, fully in control of her destiny, but just blind to the fact that she has always been best when beating her own drum. That’s not the euphemism you think it is. Instead, before Ally comes to her final and inevitable realisation, it is almost as though the film is punishing its lead for having a less than “virtuous” history. Is that really the message behind this film? Too much sex might stop you from bagging a man? Indeed, several gags about worn-out vaginas seem to subtly suggest so.

Anna Faris continues her trend of spotty film role selections, despite the fact that we know she is capable of so much more from Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation and her appearances on TV’s Entourage. Here she does nothing to redeem the endless parade of Scary Movie films or rom-coms that someone in her talent agency needs to be shot out of a canon for. Meanwhile, genuine megastar Chris Evans, fresh from Captain America and soon to return to the role in The Avengers, is too good for this slender material. Is he still paying penance to Fox for the Fantastic Four films? That said, his previous experience doesn’t go entirely to waste. Shots in which he wears little more than a hand-towel are sure to please all the right demographics.

It’s not a complete disaster, with a handful of genuinely funny lines throughout. One of the best Twitter jokes to grace the screen comes in Ally’s enquiry to Colin as to the location of her coffee pot. “I broke it. If you were on Twitter you would know that already,” comes the knowing reply. Of course, this is all ruined by Ed Begley Jr’s role as a Twitter obsessed father, who perpetuates the bad rep that Tweeters get. It’s the dick jokes that are the real zingers, including a bit from Anthony Mackie as a closeted ex with political aspirations, but as with many recent rom-coms, it falls short of genuine edge with its reliance on coy winks over outrageous zingers.

[stextbox id=”custom”]What’s Your Number? is a question that should be answered in single digits, although if nudge-nudge-wink-wink references and naked Avengers are a thing, this is your movie.[/stextbox]

October 13, 2011