Two weeks into the season and already I’ve seen the summer movie of the year. Hell, the movie of the year in general until something comes along to challenge the throne.
Any fan of Alias or Lost knows that Star Trek director J.J. Abrams is a master of genre storytelling. It never fails when I’m watching those shows that I check the clock and realize there’s only five minutes left, usually when I assume I’m at the halfway point. He has a gift for pacing that makes even the dialogue scenes fly by at warp speed.
And now he has brought that gift to a high-risk, high-profile reboot of a beloved sci-fi series, and he hasn’t missed a beat. Star Trek is as fast, funny, thoughtful and exciting as any of Abrams’ TV successes, with eye-popping big-screen special effects to boot.
I hold out hope for Matthew McConaughey. 
Every time I see an X-Men movie I spend the next several days pondering which mutant power I’d most like to have. Shape-shifting, perhaps, which could come in handy in any number of circumstances. Invisibility… definitely a contender. Telepathy would certainly be intriguing.
It’s always strange to watch a film set in a place or milieu with which you have intimate familiarity. I remember seeing the Kevin Costner thriller No Way Out when I lived outside of Washington D.C. and the whole crowd murmuring when he hopped on a non-existent Georgetown Metro stop.
Monsters vs Aliens contains an interesting mix of contradictions. It’s shot and animated using up-to-the-minute technology but in the service of a decidedly old-fashioned story; it’s steeped in the 1950s B-movie tradition, but its premise is decidedly feminist. Even the use of 3-D technology is complex, simultaneously reaching back to the gimmicky 3-D films of the 50s while hoping to pull modern audiences away from their computer screens and back into theaters.
Meet Me In Montauk 