In an unrelated news, Matt Damon is... saving China from monsters during the building of The Great Wall 1,000 years ago? THE HELL? [link]

It's directed by Zhang Yimou of the Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, House of Flying Daggers-fame, and looks like half the cast are Chinese. So presumably not a Gods of Egypt type fiasco or What All These People Need Is A Honkey narrative. Still. Matt Damon in that outfit! I think they're going for Epic but it mostly looks silly? Given that it's Zhang Yimou, it'll at least look gorgeous.

Gorgeous silly is wonderful!

Movie tie-in question: Can any Buffista who spots the key lime slime twinkies in the wild contact me about the possibility of picking up a box or two and shipping to me? Fully reimbursed, of course. In their infinite wisdom, the nice people at Hostess apparently decided they didn't want to sell to SoCal, or at least not to San Diego. They're on eBay, but none for non-exorbitant prices (or reasonable prices with usurious shipping costs). I really want to try them (and the boy that I currently like is also a big fan of lime - one of the things we've bonded over - and is currently very bitter over the fact that food manufacturers seem to neglect us as a viable market [see also: Lay's special contest flavors] so I'd love to share some with him).

Ta ever so!

Matt Damon is... saving China from monsters during the building of The Great Wall 1,000 years ago? THE HELL?

Oh, dear. Matt Damon still has a mortgage?

But seriously, I suspect it's like that awful John Cusack movie from a few years ago, where he played a Roman centurion. These movies are not intended for a western audience, I suspect.

It's being released in the US next February, though.

I think I've seen those Twinkies around here, Epic. I'll keep an eye out when I go grocery shopping this weekend.

Re: Star Trek Beyond

This movie gave me pretty much exactly what I wanted--seeing the way Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all come together to solve the problem at the end. My movie BroTThreesome. It was both thinky and actiony; it had the wry wit I expect (especially with Simon Pegg being one half of the writing team); it carried the kind of message I'm used to from the earliest iterations of Star Trek; it had NO scantily dressed babes or leering captains (grrrr...JJ, you ass). It had the Jim Kirk I wanted to see in the last movie, but JJ and Orci and team pissed it away. No, I have MY Jim Kirk back--the Kirk from TOS, not the fratboy dudebro they gave us in the first and second movies. Admittedly, in the first movie, it was mildly fun, it's an alternate universe, but he's not Jim Kirk if he holds on to those things past the age of 25.

Things I liked: Jaylah! Keeps her clothes on! Casually pwns the captain's chair! Taught herself English. Listens to "classical" music. Just plain does not take your crap. Kirk's shirt getting ripped. Kirk always looking out for his crew first. Yeah, not a major spoiler, there, but I want people to be able to appreciate the callback without knowing about it first. Keenser and the acid snot. I LOLed. Sulu and Ben and Demora! My heart melted. And I didn't realize that Ben was played by Doug Yung, the other half of the writing team! He was worried that he wasn't as good looking as John Cho, but I'm all like, have you seen yourself? McCoy and his completely sassy self. Too many one liners to coo over, but, it's all there. Also, being an action badass! And a medical badass--cauterizing a wound with a homemade knife? BADASS!

Things I didn't like: Bascially, sidelining Uhura in order to have Jaylah be the "strong" woman. Yeah, she got a little whomp on, and she "solved" the mystery of who Krall was, but I would have liked to see her a little more. I felt they could have given us not necessarily more clues to who Krall was earlier in the movie, but better clues. I just didn't understand Krall's motivation until he did his evil overlord expo dump at the end. Not to say he wasn't an interesting villain with his swarm, but reminded me way to much of Nero and the pre-Borg ship in that they are more-or-less exchangeable.

Things I didn't like, but unrelated to the writing, etc.: Knowing this is the last movie we will see Leonard Nimoy/Ambassador Spock and Anton Yelchin/Pavel Chekov in. I really hope they don't try to recast Chekov for the last movie; I'd rather see them write him as having taken a promotion somewhere else.

They are not recasting Chekov.

But seriously, I suspect it's like that awful John Cusack movie from a few years ago, where he played a Roman centurion.

We saw that recently. It's bad, though Cusack comes across better than Oscar winner Adrian Brody.

I saw the first New Trek movie, I did not see the second one. I may see this one. Is it a rehashed TOS story that they decided to rewrite because they know better? (no, I'm not bitter)

Connie, no, it's not rehashed; it's all new. You can put that last monstrosity right out of your mind.