The fourth film that we showed at this year’s EZ Viewing movie-marathon was Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and we wrapped up the evening with Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run).

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home – We screened Star Trek II two years ago at EZ Viewing II (the year I highlighted my favorite movie sequels) and Star Trek III last year, so how could I not complete the mid-series trilogy by including Star Trek IV in this year’s EZ Viewing??

Following Kirk and crew’s mutiny and theft of the Enterprise in Star Trek III in their attempt to find and revive Spock, the opening of Star Trek IV finds Kirk and Co. still stranded on Vulcan, preparing to face the consequences of their actions. The Enterprise has been destroyed, and they don’t know if they have careers in Starfleet to return to. Spock is alive, but struggling to fully piece together his memories and personality. But the gang is spurred into action when a mysterious alien probe threatens all life on Earth, seeking a species of whales that has long-since been extinct.

Star Trek IV was, until this year’s new film by J.J. Abrams, the most financially successful of all the Star Trek movies. And it was by far the most popular outside of hard-core Trek fandom. If you’ve seen only one Star Trek film, this is probably the one you’ve seen. There are a number of reasons for that, I think. This is a much more accessible film than most of the other Star Trek movies. Much of the story takes place on Earth (in what was the present day when the film was released back in 1986). There’s a pretty simple (but still compelling) hook to the story – go back in time to find humpback whales – that I think is easier for general audiences to grasp than a lot of sci-fi elements of aliens, politics, etc.

The environmental message, I think, also enabled this film to be successful with a broader-than-usual audience. Many of the episodes of the original series dealt with difficult issues (such as racism, class struggles, involvement in foreign countries, etc.) – sometimes subtly, sometimes not. But the allegorical nature of classic Trek was sort of abandoned by the film series (not entirely mistakenly, in my opinion) in favor of more exciting action/adventure. Star Trek IV, though, gets back to those sorts of ideas, and that added a depth to this particular endeavor (bet you thought I was gonna say enterprise) that captured people’s attention.

Finally, Star Trek IV is by far the lightest, in tone, of all the Trek films, and I think people found that to be very appealing. After all the death and seriousness of Star Treks II & III, Star Trek IV is really just a romp – the producers set out to make what is pretty much a Star Trek comedy, and to a fairly surprising degree they succeeded. It’s a pretty funny film. (As opposed to, oh, I don’t know, the wince-inducing attempts at humor in the dreadful Star Trek V.)

OK, I’ve talked about why general audiences responded to Star Trek IV in far greater numbers than the other films – but what do I think of it? I think it’s great! I do tend to prefer my Star Trek to be SERIOUS (which is why II and VI and my very favorite Trek films – and don’t think that I won’t be showing VI next year, by the way!!), but Star Trek IV is so much fun that it’s very hard to resist.

Here’s what else the film has going for it, that I haven’t mentioned yet:

I. This is the only other Star Trek film that Nick Meyer, who wrote and directed Star Trek II and Star Trek VI (hmmm, didn’t I just mention that those two are my very favorite Trek films??) was involved in. Meyer scripted almost the entire back-in-time portions of the film — which makes up about 3/4ths of the movie, at least. (His first line is the film is the wonderfully snarky “Judging by the pollution content of the Earth’s atmosphere, we appear to have arrived in the latter half of the 20^th century.”) And Meyers’ involvement clearly shows in the final product. He has an understanding of – and love for – these characters that is unmatched, and he gives every character a key role in the unfolding story. He is also able to very effectively include a LOT of humor without turning the film into a farce (cough Star Trek V cough).

2. This film is unique among the Trek films (and frankly, among sci-fi and adventure films in general) in that there is really no villain. There is the threat of the alien probe that sets the story in motion, but that’s it. There’s also no fighting and, unless I’m mistaken, not a single shot is fired (by any starship, or by any character) in the entire film. Pretty neat.

3. Although this film was designed to be easily accessible to Trek newbies, it doesn’t dumb itself down and ignore previously-established Trek continuity and character arcs. Quite the contrary, the film is filled with little touches that long-time Trek fans can appreciate, such as the continuing involvement of Sarek, Spock’s father (and the callback to the father-and-son’s decades-long feud which was a major story point in the Original Series episode “Journey to Babel”). I also am always tickled by the opening scene where the Klingon ambassador angrily swears to the Federation Council that “there will be no peace as long as Kirk lives.” That scene has almost nothing to do with the rest of the movie. But its presence shows that the filmmakers were interested in exploring the repercussions of Kirk & co.’s actions in Star Trek III (rather than ignoring them, which would have been the easier choice)… and, of course, there is terrific pay-off to that moment two films later, in Star Trek VI.

Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run) — I reviewed this film not too long ago on the site, so you can click here for all the details.

So that was EZ Viewing IV!  Can’t wait until next year!

The third film we screened at EZ Viewing IV was A Mighty Wind.

A Mighty Wind is another fine film that I have a distinct memory of seeing for the first time (when I caught a sneak peek here in Boston) – although I have seen it many, many times subsequently!!

Businessman Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban, so great as wimpy NBC executive Russell Dalrymple in Seinfeld) decides to put together a memorial concert for his father featuring as many of his dad’s favorite folk musicians as possible. As he sets out to recruit the “talent,” what follows is a delightfully bizarre and wonderfully entertaining tour through the universe of folk music and the many, um, let’s say “quirky” folks who inhabit it. The world of folk music isn’t something that was necessarily crying out for parody – but that might be part of what makes A Mighty Wind so memorable.

The “mockumentary” format has become a bit overused in recent years, but there does not exist a greater master of the format than director/writer/actor Christopher Guest, and in my mind A Mighty Wind is the pinnacle of his work. (Let the debates begin!!) Much has been written about the improvisational manner in which Guest and his actors find the characters and the shape of their films – the result is a film that is filled to the brim with indelible comedic performances. And what an ensemble of actors Mr. Guest has assembled: Harry Shearer (the voice of Ned Flanders, Montgomery Burns, Waylon Smithers, Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Rev. Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Rainier Wolfcastle, and so many more on The Simpsons) , Michael McKean (spreader of a vicious rumor about Larry David on last season’s finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm), Eugene Levy (American Pie), Catherine O’Hara (SCTV), Jane Lynch (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Role Models, Talladega Nights), Parker Posey (Superman Returns), Fred IWillard (Anchorman, Wall-E), Ed Begley Jr. (The Pineapple Express, hairless Stan Sitwell on Arrested Development), Jennifer Coolidge (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me), Larry Miller (a familiar face from so many comedies, but I’ll always think of him as the overly forward doorman on Seinfeld), John Michael Higgins (Walk Hard, deadpan attorney Wayne Jarvis on Arrested Development), Paul Dooley (spymaster Enabran Tain on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), and so many more.

There are so many pleasures to be found in this film. The fanatical happiness of the New Main Street Singers. The reunion of Spinal Tap (Shearer, McKean, & Guest), albeit now in the form of a group performing an entirely different form of music! (Though who wouldn’t have killed to hear the Frontiersmen cover “Big Bottom??) Fred Willard’s catchphrase. Ed Begley Jr.’s constant use of Yiddish. The flashbacks to Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban)’s sheltered youth. Eugene Levy’s Shatner-esque pauses. I could go on!!!

I’ll be back here tomorrow to discuss the fourth and fifth films from this year’s EZ Viewing!

The first two films shown at EZ Viewing IV (my annual movie marathon) were: Star Wars: A New Hope — The Adywan Fan-Edit and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.

What is the Adywan Fan-Edit of Star Wars?  It is, bar none, the very best version of the first Star Wars film (I refuse to refer to it as Episode IV) that I have ever seen.  FAR better than the DVD version released by Lucasfilm in 2004, and far better than ANY of the other versions that have been released on DVD/VHS/or any other home-media format.  I wrote a lengthy piece about this fan-edit last year — click here for all the details of this amazing fan-edit.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels – Director Guy Ritchie has had a hand in some sub-par films recently (although his latest project, Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr., looks promising), but we shouldn’t let that cloud the greatness of his debut feature.

Four friends Eddie (Nick Moran), Soap (Dexter Fletcher), Tom (Jason Flemyng, seen most recently in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Bacon (Jason Statham, who these days is a big action star in films like The Transporter) find themselves deeply in debt to East End gang-boss Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty) after losing a fixed card game. Rather than lose any fingers to his menacing enforcer (Vinnie Jones), they concoct a scheme to steal the money from another group of thieves who are themselves planning to rob a small drug-dealing operation. Things don’t go well, of course, and events quickly spiral completely out of control.

I still remember the first time I saw this film. I was blown away (and still am, to this day) by the deftness with which Ritchie juggled an enormously complex plot filled with scores of bizarre characters whose stories would weave in and out of one another. Most of all, I was dazzled by the wonderful, rat-a-tat dialogue which was so funny and so distinct. The word-play comes fast and furious, and the cockney slang that all the characters breathlessly spew out gives the film a flavor all its own.

In his review from 1999, Roger Ebert described this film as “Tarantino crossed with the Marx Brothers.” That’s a wonderful description, and pretty accurately assesses the way the film combines a noir-ish crime-caper plot with a madcap sense of humor and whimsy. This film is a riot.

Check back tomorrow for more EZ Viewing IV fun!

This past weekend my wife Steph and I hosted our fourth annual EZ Viewing movie marathon!  (Click here for more info on last year’s EZ Viewing III.)

This year’s selection was:

Star Wars: A New Hope — The Adywan Fan-Edit

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

A Mighty Wind

Star Trek IV

Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run)

A fun mix, huh?  So, why did we settle on those particular movies?

Check back every day this week to find out more about my love for each of those five films!

This past weekend my wife Steph and I threw our third annual EZ Viewing movie marathon.  This has become a yearly tradition for us, in sort-of celebration of my birthday.  (I was inspired by the idea of aintitcoolnews webmaster Harry Knowles’ annual 24-hour Butt-Numb-A-Thon, about which I’ve been reading for years.)  During EZ Viewing we screen five films, using a projector to create a “big screen” effect.

Here’s this year’s selection:

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Glengarry Glenn Ross

Iron Man

My Blue Heaven

Star Trek III

An eclectic mix, to be sure!  But all five are movies that I absolutely love to death, (and several of which I’ve written about on this site before).  Getting to watch them with my friends on a big screen was a blast.  Can’t wait ’till next year!!

I’ve got a lot of blog posts to catch up on in the coming days.  I’ve seen a bunch of films, new and old, over the past few weeks that need reviewing, and I also have some fun links to share with you all.  So I’ll see you right back here tomorrow, OK?