So, I went to see Miami Vice this evening. They say that the success or failure of this movie will be the success or failure of that eejit face of Ireland in Hollywood. Well I do hope they're not talking commercial success, as the movie knocked the record breaking Pirates of the Caribbean film off the top box office spot. In terms of critical success however, this movie is crap. Really crap.

It's like it doesn't know what it wants to do with itself. Apart from the fact that a lot of the stuff in the trailer didn't make it into the movie proper (ever a bad sign of indecision on the cutting room floor), the movie is heavy on crap dialogue, predictable story, the usual clich馘 Columbian drug crap... and sex. Lots and lots of wannabe sex scenes that don't drive the story forward and which look like they were shoved in after a test audience grew so weary of the film that the producers decided that a bit of titillation every fifteen minutes is required to keep the theatres from emptying before the movie reaches its rather dull and generic gun battle for an ending.

I say said nudie scenes are half-assed as basically that's about all you get - half a bare female rear, the flash of a nipple, a bit of groping and bobs your uncle. It doesn't move the story forward, it's just thrown in for the sake of it.

I'd suggest that instead of going to see this movie you should go out and rent a good action thriller about the drugs trade, preferably with camp Columbian accents featuring apace, and an even better porno flick. Watch them one after another, or stop and start each at the appropriate moments to blend them in. You now have the entire story of Miami Vice done better and with more interesting sex scenes.

If you must go to see this then find a showing that's not packed and go with somebody who has a dark enough sense of humour to be capable of playing wisecrack tennis with you all the way through. This is one of those films that can only really be enjoyed if you have the opportunity to rip it apart with some good old fashioned wit and dry humour.

Check out the YouTube clips below.

href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syzNXZPv65k">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=syzNXZPv65k

href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frp0e3j_b8g">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=Frp0e3j_b8g

The orgy that will be Star Trek's 40^th Anniversary in September is cooking up quite nicely, with Mad Doc pitching in their part by roping in some of Trek's biggest names for the development of Star Trek: Legacy.

The latest news is that all five captions, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer, will feature as voice actors, playing themselves, in the upcoming RTS which bears a striking resemblance to Bethesda's previous Trek outing, Armada. Well, we'll hope it has a little more polish than that.

Also on the Legacy team is legendary Trek writer D.C. Fontana, the woman who started out as Gene Roddenberry's secretary before becoming one of The Original Series' most important scripting figures; acting as script editor and submitting many of Trek's most memorable episodes along the way.

Well, we'll see what happens. We took a look at Legacy back during E3, for your viewing pleasure.

Bethesda really knows how to please the fans. With the 40th anniversary of Star
Trek just weeks away (the first episode of the original series, "The Man Trap,"
aired on Sept. 8, 1966), the game developer wipped out the big guns for the
ailing franchise. And they don't get much bigger than this, as Legacy will mark
the first time the stars of all five Star Trek series have appeared in the same
game. The game, which puts players in the role of a Starfleet admiral who leads
a task force of ships, is being developed for the Xbox 360 and the PC and is
scheduled for take off this fall.

But perhaps even better than having all five captains is the news that acclaimed
Star Trek writer Dorothy "D.C." Fontana is co-writing Legacy. Fontana penned a
number of notable episodes for both the original series, The Next Generation and
Deep Space Nine. In addition, Fonanta wrote the script for the cancelled PC game
href="http://www.twitchguru.com/2006/07/20/the_best_games_never_published/page2.
html">Star Trek: The Secret of Vulcan Fury, which was a heavily hyped and
anticipated title that focused on the wars between the Vulcans and Romulans.
There are few details, however, about Legacy's story. But with all five captains
at the helm for the upcoming game, that's about all that's missing.

But Star Trek is going to need more than just a PC/video game to help bring back
the franchise. Poor scripts and unispired writing, coupled with a puzzling lack
of direction from former producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, has left Star
Trek in worse shape than the Enterprise at the end of of The Wrath of Khan
(speaking of, is that the U.S.S. Reliant in the photo above?). It's been pretty
much all downhill since Deep Space Nine concluded in 1999 (and what a conclusion
that was); Voyager was pretty much a disgrace and Enterprise has some good
moments (mmmmm, T'Pol...) but wasn't able to pull it together before being
cancelled during Season 4. And please, don't get either Aaron or I started about
Star Trek: Nemesis -- that made Star Trek V: The Final Frontier look like
freakin' "Hamlet."

So currently, we're left with no Star Trek TV series other than the fan-created
series Star Trek: New Voyages. Right now, we're left with the rumor-filled Star
Trek XI (that's eleven for all you non-Romans). All that we know is that J.J.
Abrams (TV's "Lost," "Mission Impossible III") is produced the film and may
direct as well. Everything else -- Matt Damon as Kirk? Philip Seymour Hoffman as
Bones? BEN AFFLECK as SPOCK!!!!!! -- is a bunch of Internet rumors.

I'll say this -- if they can get all the captains together for a game, then by
God, they should be able to get a decent TV series back on and make a good Stark
Trek XI.

Hey, it's Michael Bay. What did you expect?

Anyway, href="http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=37687">SciFi.co
m snatched a few details about the forthcoming film, some of which I find
depressing and sacrilegious (the film will show head Decepticon villain Megatron
as a plane instead of a giant, menacing gun).

Again, it's Michael Bay. Not only is he ruining film as we know it, but he's
also f---ing with my apartment search. And that simply will not do.

Anyway, I'd like take this opportunity to declare the 1986 film "Transformers:
The Movie" as one of the greatest animated features of all time. You simply
cannot beat what was then top of the line animation and a voice acting cast that
featured Orson Welles (in his last role), Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, Eric Idle
and Robert Stack, coupled with a sountrack that features Weird Al yankovic's
"Dare to be Stupid" and Stan Bush's immortal power ballad "The Touch." I'm
getting goosebumps just writing about it.

You got the touch...you got the power....

The Emmy's got into a bit of hot water over a spoof in which Conan O'Brien is involved in a plane crash. The spoof comes a little uncomfortably close to the Comair Flight 5191 crash which left 49 people dead in Kentucky. "In no way would we ever want to make light of this terrible tragedy," the network said in a statement. I trust they wouldn't.

However, what if the Kentucky crash hadn't happened? Then it would be alright to do this spoof? No problemo, so long as nobody has had a rough encounter with gravity recently? Would the network have apologised if the spoof had been aired a little closer to the Pulkovo Airlines crash which left 170 people dead only five days earlier?

If we're going to pony up and apologise for doing a spoof then we either shouldn't have done it in the first place, or else we should take a look at what we apologise for. To use another industries example, if a game is found among the possessions of a murderer then the developers either shouldn't have made the game, or else they shouldn't have to apologise for it. Take your pick, but making something that won't be acceptable to the general public on one very unlucky day of the year either means you shouldn't make that thing any day of the year; or else you shouldn't have to make apologies for it at all.

The award winning documentary "9/11" by French filmmakers Gedeon and Jules Naudet and retired New York firefighter James Hanlon, all of whom were with a New York fire crew on September 11^th 2001 (and one of the cameramen actually in Tower 1 when Tower 2 collapsed), has been prevented from airing on a number of CBS affiliates due to swearing in the film.

This perhaps marks a rather low watershed - the film was due to be aired at 8pm across the country, but after a campaign from Christian family pressure group the American Family Association it was decided by many affiliates not to show the film. I might take issue with this, if you please.

Airing profanity for profanities sake before the 10pm watershed in the US is not acceptable. In the case of this documentary however, I daresay it is warranted, even if kids are watching - indeed, I daresay that children too young to now remember September 11^th 2001 are the best audience for this film. The swearing in it is not gratuitous. It is human nature, and the swearing is "mostly by fire fighters" - That is, the chaps who ran into the burning buildings whilst everyone else was running out.

To censor or simply not air this documentary in a popular time slot because the men on the ground didn't have the good taste to say things like "Ohh my word, we appear to have been accosted by some rogue trouble makers" instead of "Holy fucking bananas some bastard just flew another goddamn plane into the goddamn tower" is stupid Political Correctness nonsense. Even moreso perhaps coming from an organisation like the AFA, whose other issues of the day include telling us how Ford's 11.6% drop in sales probably has something to do with homosexuals.

I think that we can make exceptions to strict watershed rules in the case of documentaries. Indeed, in the UK you will sometimes news items and documentaries with profane language shown in the middle of the day. Why? Because these things need to be seen. "9/11" is not a film about swearing fire fighters. It's a film about a day that needs to be remembered. Concentrate on the latter, not the former.

It was one of those seminal events to which you can pinpoint exactly where you were when you heard the news. I recall waking up early on Sunday morning, switching on the TV and flicking through the breakfast programs. They all seemed to be talking about someone in particular, but I couldn't figure it out at first, between the sleepiness and all the mentions of "She was..."

Then, I think it was on ITV, they said it. "If you're just joining us, we have some terribly sad news. Diana, Princess of Wales, has died in a car crash in Paris." Talk about a ton of bricks falling on your head.

The week that followed was quite an interesting one. Whether you believe the outpouring of national grief that followed the death of Diana was sincere or not, it sure was a spectacle. It had everything: A fairytale that had gone wrong, ending in tragedy, flowers building up outside of palaces and then - to cap it all off - what appeared to be an icy Queen sitting on her Scottish estate refusing to say or do a thing about the whole affair.

The Queen is a film about this week in history, exploring the British Monarchy in one of its darkest moments since the abdication of King Edward VIII to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. It explores Her Majesties mindset, her duties and the role of government - the very earliest days of Tony Blair's, for that matter - in one of the worlds older and more formal institutions.

I have to say that, for me, The Queen has marked the ending of the summer blockbuster season (of which there were few this year) into the Autumn season of thought provoking, interesting pictures. The only thing this film asks of you is that you know something about the death of Diana - not a whole lot more than just about everyone in the western world who lived through those events would happen to know.

The film is not biased - not Royalist, not Republican in its outlook. You bring to the table your own views on the monarchy, and if they happen to change during the portrayal then so be it. The only facet of society to which the film is really cynical is the British press - portraying Diana as a manipulative bimbo one day, hounding her to her death in that Paris underpass and then putting her up on a pedestal after her death.

Bottom line: Go see The Queen. It's out in Britain, and will be out in the US of A at the end of September. It's funny, it's thought provoking and you leave the picture house with something for your mind to chew over.

Here's what the head honchos at MTV had to say:
"The acquisition of Harmonix will deepen MTV's connection to its audience via
on-line, mobile and console music gaming, and expand the relationship with both
labels and artists through the creation of games based on classic songs as well
as future album releases," said MTV president Christina Norman in a press
statement. "Harmonix's technology allows everyone to pursue their rock and roll
fantasies, even people like me, with more musical ambition than actual talent."

"The acquisition of Harmonix advances MTV Networks' strategy of connecting with
target audiences by creating immersive, multi-platform environments that extend
to every device they use," said Judy McGrath, chairman and CEO of MTV Networks,
in a press statement.

Is MTV ready to be a big time game company? Well, it certainly needs a new
avenue because the network doesn't show videos anymore (as I pointed out in the
above column) and its reality TV programming is - how do I put this gently? -
complete and utter dog poo. In the column last month I wondered if a company
like MTV, which was producing crap content in one medium (TV) could branch out
and produce excellent content in another medium (gaming). I'm not sure if we'll
have the answer to this one for a while, but it will be interesting to watch
considering that MTV Networks is going with a convergence strategy.

MTV now has Atom (which boasts AddictingGames.com and Shockwave.com gaming
sites) as well as Xfire, the popular online gaming communication application,
which has more than 5 million registered users. With the addition of Harmonix,
which has Guitar Hero 2 coming out this November, MTV will have a formidable
gaming presence on which to build. But how in the world can MTV match up its
gaming strategy with its TV shows like "My Super Sweet 16" and "Pimp My Ride"?

For more on Guitar Hero, check out David Konow's story on href="http://www.twitchguru.com/2006/03/01/guitar_hero/">TwitchGuru.

"It is true. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. I am about as excited as I can be.
I saw what he can do and he is extremely enthusiastic about playing Stark. I can
say with absolute certainty that there is no better choice. The humor and
emotional dimension he brings truly raises the bar on this project. Get ready."

Yeah! Right on, Favs!!!

Personally, I love Downey. Troubled as he may be, he's fantastic actor, maybe
even a brilliant one. "Natural Born Killers"? Brilliant. "Chaplin"? Outstanding.
"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"? Superb. And he was great on "Ally McBeal," too.

Oh God, did I just write that?

Sure did. Moving on. I'm intrigued to see what Downey can do as a superhero in a
comic book movie. It's about time he gets a leading role in a movie that can be
a bog hit and showcase his talent. Maybe this will be Downey's "Pirates
of the Caribbean," I don't know (personally, I always Downey was better than
Johnny Depp, but anyway). Not to make light of Downey's past struggles with
substance abuse, but I can't think of a better actor to play Stark, the
alcoholic billionaire and industrial genius who becomes Iron Man (if you recall,
the longstanding rumor was that Tom Cruise would play Stark). Plus, I think that
Favreau is the kind of director that can make it all work -- the acting, the
action, the humor, the CGI and the character drama. "Made" is one of my favorite
films, and "Elf" was susprisingly funny.

Of course, I'm a little worried that we won't see enough of Downey because he
may be hidden behind CGI armor for a lot of the film. And I don't like the fact
that Favreau has said the current "Iron Man" script won't really deal with
Stark's personal demons, which is part of what makes Iron Man such a compelling
superhero (an orphaned boy genius with a damaged heart who become a an alcoholic
billionaire weapons developer for the U.S. government). In any event, kudos to
Paramount, Favreau and Downey for pulling this one together. It could be the
best casting decision of the year.

March 2, 2005

Rep. Mark Foley
Member of Congress

Well, how about that. It's not known how big a Trek fan Foley is; the former
Republican member of the House of Representative has checked himself into an
alcohol rehabilitation clinic, and will probably be out of sight for quite a
while. In addition to being an avid Star Trek supporter, Foley ironically was a
former co-chair for the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and was
one of the leading activists against child pornography in Congress.

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, the Congressional letter of support obviously didn't save "Enterprise,"
which was cancelled after four seasons last year. Yes, indeed these are dark
days for Trek.

For answers -- or at least some opinions and suggections on possible answers --
I go to one particular source: Filmfodder.com, .
If you do watch the show, then do yourself another favor and check out
Filmfodder, a great pop culture and entertainment site (which I wrote for in the
past on a few occasions). Filmfodder's master and commander Mac Slocum does one
hell of a job staying on top of all the rumors, casting news, Web site stuff and
other junk that makes up the "Lost" universe. And his "Lost Blog," which
features an amazingly detailed summary of every episode the day after it airs,
is a true delight. A lot of other Web sites and magazines have caught "Lost"
fever and done their own blogs and episode guides, but I still think Mac's work
is head and shoulders above the rest -- well written, insightful, hilarious, and
irreverant. I read the "Key Points from..." episode summaries, even if I've
watched the entire episode already, because you never know what other people
might pick up on in a show as complex as "Lost." So if you're a fan, give it a
look. It's great stuff.

Check out Key
Points from "A Tale of Two Cities" on Filmfodder's "Lost Blog."

If you happen to be into this sort of thing then you could have picked yourself
up a model of the Enterprise D, used in the opening shots and "Generations", for
a mere $576,000. Too rich for your tastes? Then perhaps the USS Excelsior would
be more to your taste, at $110,000? No? Alright, well how about Kirk's jacket
from "The Wrath of Khan", at $17,000.

Jeez, you are a hard sell. Alright then, two tribbles, a bargain at a mere
$4,000. Come on, you know you want to.

Alright, so the market value of Star Trek memorabilia is not in question. What I
don't get is why auction houses always put such low estimates on this sort of
stuff - the Enterprise D model I was touting to you for $576,000 looked more
reasonable at the $25,000 - $35,000 that Christies was estimating. The whole
three day auction fetched more than double what was expected. It seems that
either the auction houses are very, very conservative; or they know just how
much news they can drum up with "An item expected to go for X fetched X, Y style="font-style: italic;">and Z this weekend..."

Pssht, PR tactics.

This year's guests also includes Academy Award-winning writer William Goldman
("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men"), Brad Bird
(creator of "The Incredibles" and "The Iron Giant"), David Ayer (writer of
"Training Day"), Tony Gilroy (writer of "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne
Supremecy"), and writer and director Neil Labute ("Nurse Betty" and "In the
Company of Men"). Past guests have included Paul Attanasio ("Donnie Brasco" and
"Quiz Show"), "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon, David Koepp ("Jurassic Park" and "War
of the Worlds"), John August ("Big Fish"), Andrew Kevin Walker ("Se7en"), and
story guru Robert McKee, just to name a few.

What is Screenwriting Expo 5 (now in its fifth year) all about? Basically, the
event is for aspiring screenwriters and includes classes and networking events
as well as wise words from leading Hollywood scribes such as Stone, Goldman and
others. TwitchGuru's writer David Konow, who has contributed to Creative
Screenwriting, explains:

Yes, you will hear some of the biggest scribes in the biz tell you how good
screenwriting has gone down the toilet (Goldman says every year is the worst
year yet for storytelling, and he's said it every year he's attended), and
you'll get the impression that no matter how high up the Hollywood food chain
you are, getting a good movie made is pretty damn hard to do. As Attanasio said
at the 2004 Expo, when he got his first major screenwriting assignment for Jerry
Bruckheimer, "It was hard, I didn't know what I was doing. It's hard now and
supposedly I know what I'm doing!"

But don't let it discourage you. If you have good ideas and want them to one day
reach the screen, take it as a call to arms. Shane Salerno was one of the
youngest writers to speak at the Expo in 2004 at 31 years old. He'd already been
a professional writer for close to a decade (his credits include "Breakdown,"
"Armageddon," and the remake of "Shaft"). "You can really do this," he told the
audience of screenwriting hopefuls during his Q&A session. "I didn't go to a
major college [actually, Salerno didn't go to college at all], I didn't
have family in the business, I was raised by a single mom, and we were not in a
high income situation. I didn't know anyone in the city of Los Angeles, so don't
allow that to be a barrier for you. There are wonderful undiscovered writers out
there writing in garages and basements that are better writers than the best
writers in this business. I hope you don't let anything stand in your way
because there's a lot of bad movies out there. We need you, we need your voices
very badly."

TwitchGuru will be in attendance to see what some of the top writers and
directors have to say about the current state of film and television.

For more information, go to href="http://www.creativescreenwriting.com/">http://www.creativescreenwriting.co
m/ and href="http://www.screenwritingexpo.com/">http://www.screenwritingexpo.com/ iv style="clear:both; padding-bottom: 0.25em;">