It’s another slow news day, so I’m putting up more posters.

These have been circling the net for a while, but Awards Daily has our first official, high-res glimpse of the posters for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

And I don’t really like them. They’re strangely plain and unattractive. What say you?

Via Ropes of Silicon.

In Contention says it’s not the official artwork for the film but a leaked comp. Still, it looks pretty good.

Here’s the official poster:

I like the first one better.

I’ll be writing a full review for The Dispatch soon, but I want to get my opinion out there just for the record.

I loved Quantum of Solace.

And I say this as someone who liked but never loved Casino Royale the way some people did. But this one bowled me over. Marc Forster’s more lyrical sensibilities bring a fresh beauty the the action sequences (which are stunning), and at times breathtaking. It’s non-stop action, but Forster makes it count. This isn’t a mindless blow-em-up thriller, this is an intelligently crafted, superbly edited, lean, mean piece of work.

I love Daniel Craig’s fallible, brute force Bond, with his carnal sexuality and smoldering, dangerous blue eyes. Movies like this don’t usually do much for me, but Quantum of Solace really got my blood pumping. It’s a strong effort all the way around.

I need to go back and watch Casino Royale again to see if I appreciate it any more now, as I haven’t seen it since it was in theaters. As I said I liked it at the time, but this is the one that has really sold me on the new Bond.

I rarely use the words “kick-ass” to describe anything, because it calls to mind a lower, mouth breather sensibility…but with Quantum of Solace it just fits.

Am I the only one that feels nothing but total ambivalence about this? It just doesn’t do anything for me at all.

Not by name of course, but check out Ebert’s list of rules for film critics, which comes after the uproar over his reviewing a film that he only saw eight minutes of (a controversy I have somehow managed to not hear about until now).

Ebert has several zingers aimed directly at Ben Lyons, who took over his spot on At the Movies, like this one:

Keep track of your praise. If you call a movie “one of the greatest movies ever made,” you are honor-bound to include it in your annual Top Ten list. Likewise, for example, if you describe a film as “the most unique movie-going experience of a generation,” and “one of the best films of 2007, and of the last 25 years,” it’s your duty to put it in the Top Ten of 2007. This is doubly true if you have published two separate lists naming 14 of the year’s top 10 films.

and

Beware of verbal parallelism. Never make a statement such as, “I like women in real life, but I didn’t like ‘The Women’.” Readers may write you sharing that they loved “JFK,” but they fly out of O’Hare.

and

A trailer is not a movie. Thus, when urged to select your “picks of the week,” you must never pick a trailer for an upcoming film. You must actually wait to see the film itself.

Each one being something Lyons actually did. Of course, Ebert is far too classy to call Lyons out by name, but the critique is direct, spot on, and razor sharp.

Lyons has become something of a joke and critical punching bag lately, but for the most part its entirely deserved. Erik Childress’ Criticwatch has made a feature out of the Ben Lyons Quote of the Week, where you will find Lyons gems like:

“It’s really important to tell people to go out and see W. so they can talk about it and have an opinion about it and this freedom of speech of course that allows us to go and talk about a film about a current sitting president.”

and

I’ll admit, one of the things I was most excited about going into Quantum of Solace was the premier of the new trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. I’ve gotten into Star Trek quite a bit in the last year or so, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing the first real glimpse into what Abrams has come up with for his prequel of sorts.

And I came away completely underwhelmed.

I say this not as a lifelong megafan or a drooling fanboy, but as someone who appreciates the vision of Gene Roddenberry and the world he created. And by the looks of this trailer, this is not it.

Abrams has made it very clear in recent interviews that he has no respect for the fans that made Star Trek what it is, or the established universe he is working in. I can respect a decision to not bend over backwards to please the fans and to try to make something that appeals to non-fans as well, but Abrams has all but stuck up his middle finger and yelled “FUCK YOU” to all the fans of Star Trek, while apparently throwing the established canon in the garbage. On top of that, if this trailer is any indication, he has turned Star Trek into Star Wars, and that’s the last thing it needs to be.

Roddenberry’s idyllic vision of the future was about hope, wonder, and the promise of human ingenuity. Action was never at the forefront, even though it often figured in. To forget that would be disastrous. Roddenberry wanted each script to mean something, to have some kind of significance…Abrams seems as if he’s more enamored with space battles and explosions.

The series has gone to the extremes of both directions over the course of its ten films, with the unfairly maligned Star Trek: The Motion Picture being a cerebral think piece akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the last film, Star Trek: Nemesis being a more action driven film, and subsequently becoming the worst entry into the series (yes, even worse than Star Trek V, which I love despite its shortcomings). I’m afraid if Abrams swings too far in the action direction, he’s going to end up with something of the Nemesis variety, or he could find a healthy balance and end up with The Wrath of Khan…who knows?

It may have been different if the trailer had given a better idea of the plot, instead it’s a bunch of quickly edited action shots with little cohesion and a totally out of place robot cop complete with hoverbike.

I’m still looking forward to this, but my expectations have been severely tempered. I’m just hoping that Abrams doesn’t turn Star Trek into something it was never meant to be, and make into an exclusively Abrams project. Like it or not, there is a history here that cannot be ignored, and the vision and dream of a man named Roddenberry, whose name he should not forget.

I’ll hammer out some thoughts tomorrow. I’m going to bed.

Did anyone else find it interesting to see Tom Noonan, who played the original Frances Dolarhyde in Michael Mann’s 1986 Manhunter, playing opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played Dolarhyde victim (and recipient of the famous “do you see?” speech) Freddie Lounds in Brett Ratner’s 2002 remake, Red Dragon, in Synecdoche, New York?

I don’t know, it just struck me as interesting, seeing as how Noonan isn’t seen on screen very often, and I just watched Red Dragon again this week.

“Do you see?”

From The Dispatch:

The interesting thing about the film is that while it begins as just another painfully unfunny comedy, the presence of the children, played by “Superbad’s” McLovin’ Christopher Mintz-Plasse as nerdy teenager Augie and the endearing Bobb’e J. Thompson as the streetwise 10-year-old Ronnie, injects the film with some much-needed energy. Indeed, the two of them are the highlight of the film and make the climactic “World of Warcraft”-esque battle of the nerds a surprisingly touching and funny scene. The problem is it only manages to bring the film up from “D” level to “C” level. There just isn’t enough here to warrant spending two hours on, especially when it’s all been done before, and better, somewhere else

Click here to read my full review.