With Star Trek Into Darkness sitting atop the box office this weekend, cementing this latest iteration of the sci-fi evergreen in the minds of the public, I thought it might be a good time to take a look back at when Star Trek's originals took their final bow. After the box office disappointment of 1989's William Shatner-helmed The Final Frontier (my first theatrical Star Trek experience, which I dissected here), the assumption by many was that the bell had tolled for the cast of the 1960s TV series. Certainly that was my assumption.

And in that pre-Internet wilderness of the late-'80s and early-'90s, I had no window into the behind-the-scenes wheeling-and-dealing by Paramount to ensure that they had some kind of Star Trek product in theaters for the franchise's silver anniversary in 1991 (to put this in perspective, we're now just years away from the fiftieth). Thus, the very first indication I had of another movie Trek in the offing was this wonderful teaser trailer, which I saw in summer of 1991 on the now-defunct Coming Attractions show on the E! channel:

Sarah Polley has been working consistently in film and television since she was a child, and what's most astounding about the multi-hyphenate filmmaker, who spends her days smoothly segueing back-and-forth between actor, writer, and director, is how much enthusiasm she continues to have for the industry as she seeks out new, innovative ways of telling stories.

That enthusiasm is ably reflected in her latest directorial endeavor, the appropriately-titled documentary Stories We Tell, in which she offers a peek into revelations from her own life, using those revelations to make some very piquant observations about human nature. The doc is built on a series of surprises that I won't dare to spoil here, but I will say you owe it to yourself to see it knowing as little ahead of time as possible.

I had the opportunity to talk to Ms. Polley recently, and we discussed the story behind Stories, what moves her to choose the projects she does, and more. Check out the full text of our chat below:

Read my review of 2009's Star Trek here

2009's hugely successful sequel/prequel/reboot Star Trek did a lot more than apply the paddles to the moribund Trek brand after a brief, apathy-induced interregnum. It also opened the franchise up to a wider, more diverse audience than it ever enjoyed in the previous four decades, through ten feature films, six TV series, and mountains of licensed memorabilia. Given that Star Trek practically invented the pejorative perception of geekdom, that's quite the feat, and given that considerable feather in his cap, it's understandable that director J.J. Abrams would leverage that success to go bigger and wider with his follow-up, Star Trek Into Darkness.

What's less understandable is why, given the sky's-the-limit free rein offered by the time-twisting, alternate reality shenanigans of the previous film, which effectively took a phaser-beam to the Gordian Knot of accumulated Star Trek continuity and "canon," Team Abrams instead assembled a patchwork pastiche for their curtain call, one that gleefully scavenges familiar moments from prior iterations of the brand, but with none of the accrued emotional heft. If the previous film was your entrée into the franchise, then you'll likely find this the perfect sequel. But for anyone with any knowledge of or fondness for Trek pre-Abrams, Into Darkness is a decidedly mixed bag that strives mightily to achieve a resonance it hasn't earned.

I saw Star Trek Into Darkness last night and have lots to say, so look for my review of that flick shortly. In the meantime, check out this piece by Matt Yglesias wherein he takes an in-depth look at the various iterations of televised Trek over the years, and makes a pretty compelling argument that it's on the small screen where the venerable sci-fi franchise's goings have been most bold. After seeing the new flick, I can't say I necessarily disagree.

Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg, center) is back from beyond to head the cast of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

This week's upfronts announcing the fall lineups for the various nets have been singularly unimpressive in my view (with last place NBC's desperation particularly apparent), but the one prog that has my antennas up is Agents of SHIELD, the first expression of synchronicity by Disney between its ABC and Marvel appendages. I've been tracking the development of the Joss Whedon-produced show, which brings Marvel's expanded movie-verse to the small screen, for awhile now, but I figured I'd wait until it was a go for a series before I brought it up here, lest it get kiboshed at the pilot stage and we get all excited for nothing.

The word that SHIELD is a go for series came down this week, and with it we got the above still, plus the extended teaser below. Heading up the show is Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) the fan-fave character who heroically met his end in last summer's Avengers (apparently the concept of death is just as elastic in the movie-verse as it is in the comics). This teaser gives us a good sense of what the show is going for, plus we also see another Whedon regular, J. August Richards, apparently playing Marvel hero Rage. Hopefully he's not the last secondary hero we'll see turning up in the skein, due to debut this fall. Check out the vid after the jump.

Heh.

Arab-American Actually Kind Of Enjoys Always Having 2 Bus Seats To Self

CHICAGO—While stressing that racial profiling is degrading and has made his life more difficult in a great many ways, 29-year-old Egyptian-American Tarek Yasin admitted to reporters Monday that he does sort of enjoy always having two seats to himself when he rides the bus. “Sure, it’s insulting when people take one look at me and then walk to the other end of the bus, but after a long day of work, it is kind of nice to be able to stretch out a little bit,” said Yasin, adding that since the Boston Marathon bombings on Apr. 15, he hasn’t once had to sit next to someone else during his daily commute. “Even when the bus is full, just the sight of me standing in the aisle is enough to make people get up and move, so I always wind up with a seat. Ignorance, fear, racism—these are horrible things, but at least I get to sit down and take a load off.” Yasin, who has been an American citizen for over a decade, added that he also gets the locker room at his health club to himself “just by showing up and setting down [his] gym bag.”

Marking another meaningless milestone here at Zaki's Corner this morning, as I hit 500 followers via the official Facebook page. Just so it's preserved for posterity...


If you haven't already, make sure to click over to FB and hit "like." 1000, here we come!

After last week's piece on Knight Rider, I thought I'd celebrate Mother's Day by looking back at another show about a talking car -- one with a premise so perplexing and nonsensical that you start wondering what strain of what controlled substance was being partaken of when it was conceived (and where you might find some). My Mother the Car is a short-lived sitcom that aired on NBC from 1965 to 1966. In case you're wondering what it's about (if the title doesn't give it away, that is), watch the opening credits below and see if they don't fill in the blanks:

Filming commenced a few weeks ago on Fox's sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which picks up a decade after the viral conclusion of 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and finds ape leader Caesar leading his colony of intelligent apes while the remnants of humanity struggle to hang on. As you can imagine, I'm suitably stoked for this one, especially when you consider this'll be the first actual, honest-to-goodness Apes sequel in more than forty (!!) years, remakes and reboots notwithstanding.

With a cast that includes Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell as the humans, and Andy Serkis and Judy Greer doing mo-cap duty as the the apes, this one looks promising, though it remains an open question whether new helmer Matt Reeves will lead us to the nuclear apocalypse promised by the 1968 original. You can see Fox's logo for the new flick above, which cements its place as a the Memorial Day heavy hitter for next summer, which in turn cements the renewed franchise's significance (something I take an inordinate amount of pride in, as if I had anything remotely to do with it).

I'd been half-mocking the title on the MovieFilm show for the way "dawn" only incrementally advances the bar from "rise", but upon reflection I like the (unintentional?) comparison with Dawn of the Dead, and how that took the opening chords of the zombie apocalypse begun in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and turned it into a full-blown sonata. As always with these things, especially a big franchise flick (and a Fox franchise flick at that), things could take a wrong turn very quickly, but one of the first set pics we've gotten sure fills me with confidence. It's spoilery as all heck, so I've placed it after the jump:

After four wildly different tries at bringing F. Scott Fitzgerald's much-admired tome The Great Gatsby to the silver screen, I'm starting to think it may simply be unadaptable. Maybe the acknowledgement of such will keep hubristic filmmakers like Baz Luhrmann from dusting off the text every few decades to try, try again. The book, a mainstay of Honors English classes across the country, retains much of its appeal thanks to its vivid depiction of the roaring '20s and the simple poetry of its central arc, and the inability of Hollywood hands to properly crack it remains something of a head-scratcher to me.

The most "recent" celluloid adaptation of Gatsby, 1974's Jack Clayton-directed Robert Redford starrer, is almost forty years old, and while it was beautiful to look at it was absolutely stultifying to sit through, with Redford and Mia Farrow making for an ill-fitting romantic coupling, and a severe lack of dramatic urgency hobbling the proceedings as the plot sauntered through its paces. In crafting his re-adaptation (co-scripted with Craig Pearce), it's as if Luhrmann looked at the dull Clayton version, noted the lack of energy, and made a concerted effort to err in the exact opposite direction.

I've logged more than twenty-five years of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and yet somehow I managed to never notice the bizarre, crazypants way Number One (a.k.a Commander Riker, a.k.a. actor Jonathan Frakes) sits down. Guess that's another symptom of Gene Roddenberry's utopian vision of the future. Watch and be amazed. Or at least amused.

From Monday's Daily Show, Jon Stewart demolishes the collection of cognitive dissonance that is the annual NRA convention. First part below, second part after the jump. Hoo-boy, this is a good'n, so enjoy.

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Don't know how I missed posting this one. As part of the Star Trek Into Darkness marketing push, Spock future and Spock past (I leave it to you to determine which is which) teamed up yet again to appear in this fun spot for Audi. I especially like the callback to Leonard Nimoy's '60s-era LP "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."

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David Hasselhoff and the real star of the show

We begin today a semi-regular Nostalgia Theater series-within-a-series where I look back on a property that's maintained a pop culture half-life that's inversely proportional to any actual quality it embodied. I speak of Knight Rider, the 1980s action/adventure series whose popularity made it the leading edge of a boom in similar "super vehicle" shows that briefly littered the broadcast nets in the mid-'80s. Those shows, like Street Hawk and Airwolf, will no doubt get their turn in the spotlight in due time, but for now let's cast an accusing glance at the thing that got the whole trend started.

First airing on NBC in fall of 1982, Knight Rider was created by Nostalgia Theater mainstay Glen A. Larson as, per the writer, a modern age iteration of the Lone Ranger. Only with a talking car instead of a white horse and/or Indian sidekick. Oh, and with David Hasselhoff instead of the Lone Ranger. I'd go into a long schpiel about the concept and mission of the show, but I think the opening narration (by actor Richard Basehart) from later seasons does most of the heavy lifting in that department, so I'll cede the floor. Take it away, Richard:

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and his better half

Read my 2008 review of Iron Man here

Read my 2010 review of Iron Man 2 here

Read my 2012 review of The Avengers here

I have to admit, as a fan of the comic book incarnation of Iron Man going all the way back to the early '80s, I can't help feel a bit of a fanboy thrill at how swiftly -- and how thoroughly -- the character's filmic success has made him not only one of Marvel Comics' top-tier heroes, but also one of the most prominent characters in all of pop culture. So much so that the onset of his third solo cinematic escapade has been greeted with the kind of pomp, ballyhoo, and anticipation that would have seemed unheard of (and sort of hilarious) just a few short years ago.

My friend Wajahat Ali interviews Farea Al-Muslimi, a US-educated Yemeni citizen who's seen his village decimated by an American drone strike. Powerful stuff that's well worth your time to read.

In yet another example of how much the folks at Warners are bending over backwards to distinguish the upcoming Man of Steel from 2006's non-starter Superman Returns in the hearts and minds of viewers, we have this new poster for the much-anticipated opus, which is as action-oriented as the previous flick's "Superman as Jesus" poster wasn't. Thrill to the new poster below, yawn to the old one after the jump:

Bruce Bartlett offers some thoughts on income inequality and political inequality, and the unfortunate intersection of the two.

The laugh quotient at last night's White House Correspondents' Dinner, with an especially weak comedy monologue from Conan O'Brien, was pretty low, in my opinion, but this did give me a chuckle:

Continuing my on-and-off theme of the last month of examining the omnipresence of dinosaurs in kidvid (as opposed to the limited presence of Dinosaurs in primetime), this week I look at Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, which briefly aired on CBS during fall of '93 as adventure 'toons aimed at young boys were garnering renewed attention by the broadcast nets thanks to the recent, stratospheric success of both Batman: The Animated Series and the animated X-Men over on Fox Kids.

When those skeins rocketed Fox to the top of the Saturday AM ratings heap, CBS, which had been the longtime ratings leader until it was deposed by this upstart, hit the development trail to seek out similar untapped action/adventure fare. They found

You wouldn't know it, but the next Thor movie is due out this November -- just a few short months away. With Iron Man 3 hitting theaters next week, much of the Marvel hype has understandably focused on Mr. Stark's opus, but we're now starting to see some of that spotlight shine on Asgard's favorite son, starting with the teaser poster to the right, and the trailer below for Thor: The Dark World.

As you can see, most of the heavy hitters from last time are back, with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, and Tom Hiddleston alongside Chris Hemsworth as the titular titan. Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor, stepping in for Kenneth Branagh, seems to have infused the proceedings with an approach that's certainly appropriate to the title. As you know, I dug the first Thor, and I dug The Avengers, so I see no reason to think this won't be in the same vicinity qualitatively. Check out the vid after the jump:

Tips For Passing Gun Control Legislation

Geez, they make it sound so easy...

- Write gun control legislation. Pass gun control legislation. 

- Before voting on gun control bill, try, if you can, to remember any recent examples in which guns - have been used to kill innocent people. 

- Acknowledge that it’s going to be hard to buck the pressure of the high-powered gun lobby, but not that f***ing hard, dumbass. 

- Consider if overwhelming public support for a particular measure is something you want to be associated with or not. 

- Inform your decision by researching whether guns are good or bad when placed in the wrong hands. 

- Muster everything that’s left in your black, desiccated heart to do something that might actually be of service to someone other than yourself. 

- Carefully assess the other side of the argument wherein mentally unstable people can buy weapons at a gun show with no problem whatsoever, and then realize there is no other side of this argument. 

- Put on your stupid little suit, run a comb through your greasy hair, go to the U.S Capitol building, pick up your fancy little gold pen, and pass a f***ing gun control bill.

Dean Obeidallah explains how it is, in fact, possible to be a Muslim and also hate terrorism.

When it came time to record the big 20th episode of the  MovieFilm Podcast, Brian was too busy earning a living to join us, but Joblo.com News Editor Paul Shirey gamely jumped in at the last second to pinch-hit, joining Zaki and Sean for an in-depth discussion on the estimable ouvre (however that's pronounced...) of one Thomas C. Mapother IV, a.k.a. Tom Cruise. In addition to talking up Cruise's newest opus, big budget sci-fi'er Oblivion, they also delve deep into his catalog of successful and not-so-successful entries, and attempt to divine how (and why) the one-time Jerry Maguire has had such a consistent track record at the global box office for more than thirty years. The gang also goes gaga over the extended trailer for much-anticipated Superman reboot Man of Steel, wonder if there's an audience for the newest iteration of The Lone Ranger, and asks what the heck is going on with Amanda Bynes. There's plenty more than just that, though, but you'll have to stream or download the show via the link to catch it all. Also, as always, remember to write a review or rank us on iTunes, and hit "like" on our official Facebook page!

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As we know, the 1980s was a time when G.I. Joe and Transformers ruled the roost when it came to boys' kidvid, but that didn't stop a whole lot of challengers to the throne from popping up and attempting to dethrone the co-kings. For example, there was M.A.S.K. and C.O.P.S., not to mention Bionic Six and Centurions, all of which found some degree of success with their piece of the pie. Another, less successful example, which came and went briefly between fall of '87 and spring of '88 was Dinosaucers.

Combining kids' well-established love of dinosaurs with the toyetic "good guy team vs. bad guy team" dynamic that pretty much typified most boys' fare of the era, Dinosaucers was a marketer's dream come true. But what probably sounded like a great idea at the pitch stage (conceived by Michael Uslan & Ben Melniker, the duo whose biggest claim to fame is a producing credit on every single Batman feature from the '80s on) faltered a bit when it came to actual execution (by animation house DiC -- yep, them again):

In the wake of this week's breakneck news out of Boston, from Monday's bombing to today's arrest of the alleged culprit, we have a helpful list of "10 Essential points about the Boston Marathon bombers, Islam, and America" from Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. Well worth your time.

Jon Stewart played whack-a-mole with the Senate's disgraceful vote on gun control on last night's Daily Show, devoting three segments to the issue. Not really much I need to add beyond my piece from yesterday, but check out Jon's take in part one below, and the other two after the jump:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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It says something extraordinarily shameful about our polity when even a toothless, watered-down attempt at gun legislation such as the one that went before the Senate yesterday couldn't even get a vote. This legislation, featuring as its centerpiece a wishy-washy, "better than nothing" attempt at expanded background checks negotiated by two conservatives (Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Pat Toomey), was foiled -- like so many bills before it -- by a Republican-led filibuster, this one joined by four Dems and powered by a disinformation campaign from, who else, the NRA.

I don't know if this defeat signals the death knell for some meaningful attempt at addressing this very real problem, but it sure does make it a lot harder to feel like our so-called representatives are truly representing us when something like expanding background checks for gun buyers, which has better than 90% support

I saw the latest trailer for director Zack Snyder's Man of Steel last night on my phone while waiting in line to get into a screening of Oblivion. It blew my mind on a little handheld thingie, so I can only imagine how it'll play on the silver screen. I will say that, with each new assemblage we're getting from this flick, I'm feeling more and more confident that the WB has a winner on its hands. Lots of new footage here, with plenty of dialogue from Russell Crowe's Jor-El, and a genuinely poignant exchange between young Clark Kent and Kevin Costner as his foster father Jonathan.

Also, while I'm not 100% certain, I'm pretty sure this trailer gives us our first real taste of composer Hans Zimmer's new Superman theme, which has the unenviable task of standing in for John Williams' iconic score. And, I gotta say, not bad! As you know, I was initially reticent about getting yet another depiction of Superman's origins to add to the multitude of tellings it's already gotten, but seeing this, it becomes clear why the filmmakers felt it necessary to go back to formula and re-ground this most iconic of heroes for the modern generation. They already had my money, but this makes me even more willing to hand it over:

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel has been detained at Guantanamo without charges since 2002. He documents his experiences in an emotional op-ed, written via his lawyer, for the New York Times.

Nearly ten years after the Matrix sequels hit theaters and killed off almost all interest in that franchise (but not by me, dammit!), Hugo Weaving reprises his iconic Agent Smith persona for this TV spot singing the praises of GE technologies. Given Smith's role in the films ("Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet"), I'm struggling a bit with the subtext when he talks up the lifesaving advances GE has made in hospitals. But hey, the Wachowskis did sign-off on this, so maybe they're having a private larf while they cash that fat check:


(Source: Bleeding Cool)

Jack Warden (L) and John Rubinstein (R)

Crazy Like a Fox ran on CBS from 1984 to 1986, and it typifies the by-the-numbers, "programmer" style of TV we saw too much of in decades past. That said, it's not without its charms. Near as I can figure, the pitch went something like this: Crusty old school P.I. Harry Fox (multiple Oscar and Emmy nom Jack Warden) teams up with his wiener of a lawyer son Harrison (John Rubinstein) and they have wacky hijinks every week as they solve crimes. That's pretty much it. Hey, it was the '80s, when you could get an entire series out of "William Shatner as a cop." Presumably, the combination of logline-plus-star were enough to not only get the show greenlit, but also make it a decent-sized hit -- at least initially.

As we talked about last month, the realization has slowly dawned on the GOP's current power brokers that, thanks to the changing demographics of the modern day electorate, they can no longer shrug their shoulders at the various minority groups they've made it their business to marginalize for the past, oh, fifty years or so. In an attempt to begin some of this outreach, Senator Rand Paul hit up historically black Howard University to make the case for why African-Americans should mark "R" on their ballots. As Jon Stewart explains, it didn't go particularly well:

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With Man of Steel counting down to its mid-June bow (just two short months away!) we're now getting more info on the much-anticipated Superman reboot, with WB prexy Jeff Robinov talking up its place as the lynchpin for a shared movie universe for the DC heroes to inhabit a la Disney's Avengers movie-verse across town. Say Robinov to EW (for the cover story in this week's big "Summer Movie Preview" ish):

“I think you’ll see that, going forward, anything can live in this world...[Nolan’s] Batman was deliberately and smartly positioned as a stand-alone. The world they lived in was very isolated without any knowledge

Chadwick Boseman as baseball legend Jackie Robinson

42 is an exceptional story told unexceptionally. As a depiction of the trailblazing story of Jackie Robinson, who shattered the color barrier for professional baseball (and really for all pro sports), its subject matter is worthier than its execution. Then again, that's not necessarily a fault of the movie, per se. Jackie Robinson is a revered figure (and rightly so), thus it has to be some kind of a crime that the last time his life was given a filmic translation was more than sixty years ago, when Robinson was not only alive, but young enough to play himself.

A few months ago I railed at the the Senate's toothless attempt at filibuster reform, which really did nothing more than preserve the same broken status quo that we've been dealing with for several years now. While Harry Reid as given assurances by Mitch McConnell that yes, his people had changed, and they'd only deploy the filibuster in extreme circumstances, that all turned out to be so much Charlie Brown v. Football.

And so, after an unabated string of 'busters in the new session has threatened to gum things up even more than usual, Reid is now threatening to deploy the so-called "nuclear option" -- a rules change mid-session -- to dispatch the filibuster once-and-for-all. Do I think anything of the kind will actually happen? Nah. Don't make threats you don't intend to follow through on, Harry. And we all know this is one threat you don't intend to follow through on.

In this episode of MovieFilm, the gang share their thoughts on the global blockbuster G.I. Joe: Retaliation and lionize the late Roger Ebert. In addition, we use the occasion of Jurassic Park's twentieth anniversary re-release to reminisce about Steven Spielberg's modern classic, opining on why it still matters even after all these years. But that's not all. You'll also hear the varied reactions to the first trailers for the upcoming The Wolverine and 2 Guns, plus the usual batch of Listener Letters and Hollywood Headlines and more. You can stream the episode below, or download at the link if you prefer. Like we remind you with each new ep, make sure to write a review or rank us on iTunes, and hit "like" on our official Facebook page!

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With Jurassic Park back in theaters, I thought I'd dig up a different artifact from the early '90s that saw humans interacting with prehistoric monsters, though admittedly without the added "oomph" that cutting edge CGI technology offers. But first, a little context. Back in the early '70s, kidvid producers Sid & Marty Krofft served up Land of the Lost, a live-action NBC Saturday morning series about the Marshall Family who, while on "a routine expedition" are spirited to an alternate dimension populated by dinosaurs and other creatures. Catch the intro below:

Whenever I post a clip of Bill Maher, I always have to couch it by saying that I tend to disagree with the outspoken comedian just as often as I agree with him. With that disclaimer out of the way, I do think he totally bullseyed it on the final segment of last night's Real Time while discussing his ongoing beef with Libertarianism, a political philosophy that's gotten some renewed face-time lately thanks to the prominent advocates like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul.

I've often spoken on this site of how I had some initial enthusiasm for Libertarianism in my younger years (I even flirted with voting for Harry Browne in '00). But like Maher I've moved to the opposite side of the issue as I've seen the reality of what the movement -- which has long since been swallowed up a by a coarser version of Ayn Rand's Objectivism (as opposed to a less coarse version?) -- would end up meaning in real terms for actual people. Here's the vid of the segment:

Here's Roger Ebert from fall of 2011, at that point almost a decade into his long struggle with cancer, acutely aware that he was nearing the end of his journey:

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

And later in the piece:

“Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

More here. One only hopes to face the end with such serene clarity at the moment the inevitable occurs.

When director Steven Spielberg's dinos-on-the-rampage blockbuster Jurassic Park first hit the screen twenty years ago (I'll let you process that number for a second, along with the resultant reality of how much older you are since you first saw it) it was a legitimate phenomenon. A true game changer. To everyone but me, that is.

My clearest memory of sitting in that theater two decades ago as a know-nothing thirteen year-old is of watching for the first time and being...unimpressed. No, seriously. Now, part of that is because I waited until the movie was playing in second-run theaters before I finally saw it, so the hype machine had long since built it up into something it could never hope to measure up to, but part of that was just from being an adolescent know-it-all trying to be cooler than the cool kids.