A cold Budweiser can be refreshing, but not if you don’t like the taste of Bud to begin with.

And I can’t think of a better person to give the Star Trek reins over to than J.J. He’s a moneymaker who is respected and trusted not only by the industry (because he always delivers the goods), and not only by scholars (because of his consistent innovation in television and film narrative discourse), but by the fans, who trust him with their franchises and sci-fi/alternative narrative type stories. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Handing the “Star Trek” franchise over to Abrams is like putting PeeWee Herman in charge of the State Department (although he might do a better job, come to think of it, than Condie Rice and her cadre of dingbats).

I posted my response to “300″ on my blog so I’ll just refer you to:

http://cliffjburns.wordpress.com/spleen/

Nuff said on that front…

I’d consider myself a serious film fan– I could talk with you on nearly any international cinematic topic over the last 100 years– and I LOVED 300, really liked Beowulf and really liked Cloverfield. I also enjoyed Spiderman 2 very much.

300 is like Citizen Kane in many ways– aesthetically, both borrow heavily from comic books (or rather, comic books borrowed heavily from Citizen Kane’s unique shot framing and composition). Both films have had a large impact on the films that followed (300′s legacy is yet to be determined, but it will certainly become apparent in the next few years).

And for the record, it’s really not “safe” to mock anything you haven’t seen because, no offense, you really have no idea what you’re talking about. I mean literally, you haven’t seen it, so how could you possibly know a thing about it? I don’t know what “hype” you’re referring too– this movie was not that heavily promoted or buzzed about, there are no hollywood stars in it, it’s not a franchise or tentpole film.

Just because it features CGI, it’s a bad film? How can you make a blanket statement like that? Hell, Lord of The Rings won Best Picture and that was like 50% CGI.

1. Lost is one of the most influential and innovative television programs of all time. Without a doubt. Not because of the action, not even because of the story– but because of the way the story is told. The way the epic story unfolds by going backwards and even forwards in time, is revolutionary for television.

2. What’s wonderful about Cloverfield isn’t the story, or the CGI– hell, the best moments of the film are before the monster is even visible. What’s so cool about Cloverfield is the WAY the story is told. No monster movie has ever been told from this perspective– the mode of narrative discourse is from the point of view of these random New York 20-something’s on their home video camera. And to be fair, have you even seen Cloverfield? How can you knock something you’ve never even seen (for the record, its much more like Godzilla than King Kong, which is about the human/monster relationship; this movie is about survival).

Good to hear from you again, Cliff.