Star Trek (Movie)
Tagline: After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organisation, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.

I walked into the cinema ready to looove Star Trek. I adored the previous instalment and am a fan of the franchise and Zachary Quinto. (Chris Pine was surprisingly good in Unstoppable, but his Captain Kirk is rather bland next to Quinto’s Spock.) So my disappointment was great when the film turned out to be soppy, a tad lame and decidedly sexist. The women, when they do have their five minutes on screen, are one-dimensional and employed purely as eye candy. I do not object to the odd bit of eye candy thrown my way, but at least give the female characters some depth and a lot more screen time. I mean, you’re working with Zoe Saldana, FFS!

Gone Girl (Literature)
Tagline: There are two sides to every story.

The one advantage of having the Kobo app on your Samsung S3 is that you always have it with you. So when Gone Girl grabbed me, I could read in the queue at the bank, waiting to pick up the wife, or whenever I had five minutes spare. (My battery did die at one point, so I was forced to sit next to the closest plug with the charging phone in my hand.)
The story is brilliantly put together. It is told from two vantage points and you don’t see any of the twists coming. What starts out as a chronicle of a marriage falling apart (and the two differing views the couple have on their marriage), soon turns into a suspenseful thriller of sorts.

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (Documentary)
Tagline: A documentary that follows the Serbian performance artist as she prepares for a retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Marina Abramovic is an enigmatic human being. Her art is controversial, unsettling and brilliant. The doccie covers the six months leading up to her controversial retrospective at MOMA. As most of her work is performance-based she solved the problem of filling the gallery for three months by training other performance artists to re-enact her older performances. She had to focus on her own piece.

She decided to sit in a chair for every hour that the gallery was open for the duration of the three months without talking or moving. (She was 63 at the time.) Gallery-goers could then take turns to sit opposite her. They could sit for as long as they wanted. Marina would wait for the person to be seated, focus herself, look up and look that person in the eye.
The results were breathtaking. Watch the doccie.

True Blood Season 6 (TV)
Tagline: No one lives forever.

This series is seen by many as a “guilty pleasure”. It certainly is raunchy, dramatic and out there, but it has some of the funniest / most vulgar / cleverest one-liners ever delivered on TV and yet it surprises with moments of immense depth and humanity in every episode.

Alan Ball, screenwriter and creator of note, and supposedly the heart and soul of this series, has unfortunately leftTrue Blood after five seasons. We will have to see if his absence is felt.

Rumour has it that a major character will die this season …

New series (TV)

Ray Donovan
Tagline: Ray Donovan, a professional “fixer” for the rich and famous in LA, can make anyone’s problems disappear except those created by his own family.

Geez, sit back and hold on to your horses when you watch the pilot for this show. Showtime, which also gave usDexter, Homeland and Shameless (need I say more?) is at it again, making gripping TV. The characters are complex, strangely likeable and a little more than dangerous.

Liev Schreiber, as usual, does not disappoint as the quiet, brooding and compelling title character! (He’s not awful to look at either.) You’re kinda waiting on the edge of your seat for him to gooi his toys and when he does, you’re sorry that he did.

Another highlight is the always perplexing Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan, father of Ray, Bunchy and Terry, who has just been released from jail and has to make up for lost time. Watch out for the scene where he dances around his hotel room, clad in only a bath towel, and joined by a hooker. Hilarious.

Under the dome
Tagline: An invisible force field descends upon a small town in the north-eastern part of the United States.

Stephen King wrote the novel, he’s co-producing the series and it stars, among others, cult actor Jeff Fahey! (OK, OK, no one under 40 will probably know who that is. Even though Robert Rodriguez knew why he should be in Machete.Google him.) The pilot is certainly entertaining enough. I’m guessing it will be the kind of series you watch on the Sunday night of a particularly wild weekend.
Watch out for the cow scene.

Jeanette Winterson – Why be happy when you could be normal? (Literature)
Tagline: This book is the story of a life’s work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a tyrant in place of a mother, who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the duster drawer, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in a northern industrial town now changed beyond recognition, part of a community now vanished; about the Universe as a Cosmic Dustbin.

I’m not the read-out-aloud type. I don’t post literary quotes on Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads either. But with this book I have not only read it out aloud to the wife and posted excerpts on Facebook, I have also gone to the trouble of phoning people in the middle of the night and sending out little titbits via Whatsapp.

This book has a quote/passage/chapter applicable to almost everyone I know. From an old man growing old but not up and your home being your “heart of the real” to why beating a child will achieve nothing.
I am in awe.

Karin Preller
There’s nothing I can say that will capture the work of Karin Preller. Make an effort to go out and see her paintings. You will not be disappointed.

www.reneywarrington.co.za

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Reeltime Movie Column