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Reviews
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Pretty average. Not really Trek.
Pretty average I have to say. The tired old 'save the Earth from aliens' theme. I have to say that Star Trek films always fall on their face even though they can be quite entertaining because they are invariably fail to distill the essence of what Trek should be. Read the Wikipedia page about Star Trek and watch the Voyager TV series to get a feel for what I mean.
The enduring popularity of Trek is due to the underlying mythology which binds fans together by virtue of their shared love of stories involving exploration, discovery, adventure and friendship that promote an egalitarian and peace loving society where technology and diversity are valued rather than feared and citizens work together for the greater good. Thus Star Trek offers a hopeful vision of the future and a template for our lives and our society that we can aspire to.
24 Wochen (2016)
Looks interesting.
James Woodall wrote: "Julia Jentsch, another on-screen and on-stage favourite in Germany, is a celebrity stand-up comedian who finds out, some 20 weeks in, that her second child will have Down's syndrome and holes in his heart. Bluntly, to abort or not to abort is the dilemma at the film's heart — and this might touch, though not overtly, on historical memory of Nazi policy towards the handicapped. That is not what the film is about, but, giving nothing away, it grips like nothing else I've seen in German cinema in the past decade. Tough, searing stuff indeed." ('What is a serious film festival doing opening with Hail, Caesar!', The Spectator, 20/2/16).
Age of Tomorrow (2014)
Unintentionally funny.
Interesting in that it makes you think about why it was so bad and other films are so good. It seems to me that the screenplay was the main problem as it could have been a hilarious spoof with a good writer, in which case the amateurish production values, direction and photography would be largely irrelevant or even help it.
The best part was seeing Robert Picardo from Star Trek: Voyager where he did a great job as The Doctor, while the worst part was seeing him in such a poor film. Picardo had an unintentionally funny line: "We're being told, from the sheer size of it, on impact, nothing will live." I and my friend burst out laughing. How did he keep a straight face?
Gayby Baby (2015)
Superb look at a same-sex parent family.
Much of the film consists of the day-to-day domestic activities of same-sex parents and their children, which does not make for riveting drama, but the vibrant personalities of the children (who are the main focus) and the loving attention to the detail of their lives keeps it afloat.
The purpose of the film is to help normalize same-sex parent families (thus the push to have it shown in schools), and let us hope more such films follow that help normalize polygamous families and incestuous families with two or more closely related adult partners like two sisters.