Time marches on, and technology sometimes races. The publishing platform we've been using for "In the Dark" has been switched, from Awareness to the ever-so-popular (too popular?) WordPress.

The final review in this series is the one published last week for "Away We Go," the Sam Mendes film based on a Dave Eggers story. Bonus for current subscribers: That review is not available on our new blog address.

On the other hand, that new address has a review of "Public Enemies," the Michael Mann gangster movie about John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis. Which this one doesn't. Like I said, time marches on.

So henceforth if you want to keep following please update your bookmarks, favorites link or behavior pattern to check out inthedark.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/ , or the RSS link to inthedark.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/feed/ .

See you on the other side.

-- Christian Kallen
Healdsburg, Calif.

Dave Eggers has a pretty good reputation among this generation of writers, based in part on his funny if overlong (and audaciously titled) "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." His wife is also a writer, Vendela Vida, author of three books including another well-titled tome, "Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name." Together, they've collaborated on the story for the new Sam Mendes film playing at the Rialto Lakeside, more succinctly titled "Away We Go."

They are all doubtless talented, Eggers and Vida and Mendes. The film they've created is full of fine performances as well, from a supporting cast that includes Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels, Catherine O'Hara and Maggie Gyllenhaal among others. And the two leads are portrayed by Josh Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, he of television's "The Office" and she - well, it hardly matters what else she's done (though we'll get to that in a minute). Maya Rudolph is the main reason to see this movie, and it's reason enough.

"Away We Go" is essentially a road movie, about a young "f***ed-up" couple, Burt and Verona, who live in a beat up shack in Colorado with a cardboard window and faulty wiring. When she becomes pregnant they begin to wonder, somewhat belatedly (six months in), where they're going to raise their child. So they visit first one distant relative then another, one distant friend and a closer one, looking for the right fit. Where will it be? Phoenix or Tucson? Montreal or Miami?

The road movie is a staple in American cinema, and when paired with young love it sometimes turns savage ("Bonnie and Clyde" comes to mind, or "Sugarland"). The only savagery here, fortunately, is an embarrassment of bad behavior by their friends. If you've seen the previews you've seen the highlights - Janney's a holy terror of outrageous remarks, Gyllenhaal a self-righteous kook, O'Hara and Daniels smug and uncaring parents.

There are two things that came to mind in watching this film. Point One, what a slew of self-absorbed characters this is. The people Burt and Verona encounter on their odyssey are caricatures - they are almost entirely the manifestation of whatever cliché gave them birth. And the many scenes that show our young couple's encounters with them turn into exercises in buffoonery.

Which is not to say the movie is without laughs, or pleasures - Janney is a crack-up, putting the uptight press secretary of "West Wing" leagues behind her. (Jim Gaffigan as her long-suffering and slightly paranoid husband is great, too.) But the film is less a movie than a comic book - Mad Magazine, in fact. It has that juvenile disdain for grown-ups which that cult rag does, or did - perfect for the sub-adolescent, but somewhat tiresome in the long run. (Running time: 97 minutes.)

It reminded me less of any Mendes films - "Revolutionary Road" or "American Beauty" - than it did "American Splendor," about oddball cartoonist Harvey Pekar. It even looks like a cartoon, somehow (and its press ads are drawings, not photographs) with its crayola colors and buffoonish characters. (Eggers is a former comic book artist, inking something called "Smarter Feller" at some point.)

Okay, now Point Two. The biggest question I had is, what does Verona see in Burt? With that smeary beard of his, Krasinski is a completely unconvincing insurance salesman, despite his Casey Kasem imitations on the phone. (This isn't a spoiler, it's in the first five minutes.) Okay, so he loves her: but is that really enough? He struck me not as charming, but perhaps only slightly less goofy than, well, Goofy. Gangling, uncoordinated, socially incoherent, deliriously innocent. And he's never, ever without his black-rimmed glasses - well, perhaps in the very first scene, but we don't see his face. (Now that's a spoiler.)

Then there's that single reason to see the movie I mentioned. Maya Rudolph is the solid core of this movie, and her presence infusing the film with dignity and purpose beyond its due. She's got Earth Mother down pat, but it's not a formulaic portrayal, but complex and moving. She is luminous, at once the center of the universe and a lightly comic presence. No wonder it's a road movie: anybody would be a fool not to go to the ends of the earth for her.

I only remember seeing Rudolph once before -- I don't usually "Saturday Night Live," not since Belushi died, but I understand she's a regular. In the ill-fated Mike Judge film "Idiocracy" she played the other time traveler - Luke Wilson is the first - an average woman sent 500 years in the future. She seemed out-of-place as an inner-city streetwalker, really, even more than the role suggested. And aside from a few reaction shots she failed to make much of an impression beyond the physical. (Can't fault streetwalkers for wardrobe.)

The theme of "Idiocracy" was that while the smartest among us keep putting off having children until they're ready, and then only have one or two, the rest of the human race will just keep pumping out brats as fast as biology allows. Eventually the species will become overwhelmed by stupidity, so dumbed down that today's average guy will be a genius a few centuries hence. (A profound philosophical observation from the creator of "Beavis and Butt-head," I know.)

The funny thing is, this argument is made almost verbatim about two-thirds of the way through "Away We Go." One of Burt's college friends (nice turn from Chris Messina, the stoner son from "Humboldt County") observes that his mid-30s wife has had 5 miscarriages. They've waited too long to have children, while "a million 14-year olds get pregnant every year."

I guess what this all means is that "Away We Go" finds its inspiration in strange places - 50s comic books, road movies, Mike Judge, and the ballads of Alexi Murdoch (soundtrack album available from Amazon).

Maybe the disappointment of "Away We Go" is realizing our reduced expectations from the next generation of artists, the crème of the literary thirty-somethings, as much as the reduced expectations our young couple faces. At the end of the movie, they are somehow taken care of, finding their way Home as if by magic. Or contrivance.

HAVE YOU SEEN MY LUNG?

I think I lost it last Tuesday in the Petaluma Boulevard Cinemas at a showing of "The Hangover."

I bought my ticket hoping I would laugh despite my loathing of dumb jokes, sketch humor and what passes for a comedy lately. I am happy to report to In The Dark that, yes, I laughed so hard, I nearly lost a lung.

I laughed because of natural dialog and pretty good timing. The editing wasn't bad, either.

And I hate Vegas. Hate bathroom humor. Hate Hollywood funny.

Maybe I laughed so hard because I always thought boxer Mike Tyson was a pug puppy cuddling sort of guy.

(Certainly David Sedaris suspected!)

I can barely drive now if I flash on the scene when the drug dealer and groomsmen discuss why roofies are called roofies when really, they should have been called floories or better yet, rapies.

A friend of mine said she didn't enjoy "The Hangover" because it included such concentrated passages of irresponsibility.

Maybe that's what I liked most about it. Maybe I needed a vacation from being careful and thoughtful.

Who knows? Maybe I should consider a real trip to Vegas.

Maybe I'm overdue.

- The Girl in the Red Velvet Seat

The biggest surprise of the recent release of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," with Denzel Washington and John Travolta, isn't in its plotline or the differences with the 1974 original. Rather it's in its box office: the film ranked third in its first week, behind the second week of "The Hangover" and the third week of "Up."

When a major studio summer action release with not one but two reliably bankable stars can't overtake a cartoon and a goofball comedy with Ed Helms, something must be going on. What that is beats me. The end of the knowable reality? The decline of cinematic civilization? The rise of Ed Helms? Danged if I know. Not my job. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

As directed by Tony Scott, a reliable action producer-director ("Top Gun," "Crimson Tide," last year's "Déjà Vu") and brother of Ridley Scott (a better list: "Alien," "Blade Runner," "Black Hawk Down"), the movie is packed with zippy camera work, vertigenous helicopter shots, loud noises and shock cuts that keep the audience on the edge of its collective seat. There's some humor in the script, and the performances are reliable and entertaining.

Conceptually, the idea that a hijacking of a subway could take place, let alone work, is given the same skeptical eye it earned in the original: Those guys are in a tunnel under the city of new York, how do they expect to get away with it? By stroke of good fortune, the 1974 original version was on cable last weekend, so watching them in relative close proximity affords audiences the chance to compare the two. (There was also a 1998 television version, with Edward James Olmos and Vincent D'Onofrio, but this I haven't seen. Anyone?)

First off, the casting. The deskbound hero in 1974 was Walter Matthau, the lumbering Everyman, and the villain the sinister Englishman Robert Shaw. Matthau as Zachary Garber is given virtually no back story, but he's given something better: the worst clothing ensemble a hero has ever worn in a motion picture - at least it gets my vote. A yellow, orange and green plaid shirt (is that flannel?), set off by a bright yellow tie. What were they thinking? This is so ugly it immediately brings him down to our level, and maybe a step or two below.

He is also casually but harmlessly racist, at least in the context of the early 1970s. He calls a group of Japanese transit officials he's taking on a tour of the Transit Authority control center "monkeys," thinking they can't understand English anyway. When it turns out they can it's supposed to be a joke, and the joke's on Garber.

Later, after incessantly calling a police captain he's met only on the phone "Sir," he finally meets the captain and finds he's black. Another big laugh, presumably. But shouldn't he call a police inspector "Sir" anyway? The implication is, not if he's black, not in 1974.

Moving forward, Denzel Washington's role as Walter (not Zachary) Garber is given plenty of back story - too much, some might think. And the Japanese that Matthau took on tour? Turns out Washington may or may not have take a bribe from some Japanese subway manufacturers in Tokyo. Interesting recycling of themes, that.

In today's movie, the overt racism is replaced by ethic identity, as the loyal Brooklyn Irish subway driver is replaced at the help by the Puerto Rican criminal, and the police hostage negotiator (John Torturro) is repeatedly called a "greaseball" because of his Italian last name.

Something strange happens with another character as well, the gang member known as "Mr. Green," a former subway driver recruited for just that skill. In 1974 Martin Balsam took the role, playing the part with a head cold that eventually gives him away. 35 years later, the part is played by Luis Guzman, who instead of a cold for some inexplicable reason has a large white bandage across his nose. What is it about law-breaking subway drivers and noses?

In 1974 Robert Shaw's Bernard Ryder is a tense, calculating British mercenary apparently bored enough between imperialist escapades to hold up a subway. His motivations are opaque, his manner cold. Ultimately his dénouement is oddly unsatisfying, and it comes 20 minutes before the finale of the film.

John Travolta, on the other hand, is anything but cold. When he's silent he smolders, when he's talking he's loud and profane. In fact he delivers such a plethora of profanities (to be sure, the entire cast is less than polite) that I again wondered if the Church of Scientology gave points for curse words. (Similarly Tom Cruise's portly, and profane, producer in "Tropical Thunder.") And, like a good modern villain, he has a shady past not as a mercenary but a stock market trader.

There are other similarities whose differences are intriguing: the ransom money is $1 million in 1974, but had risen to $10 million in 1994's TV version (according to IMDB). Here, the $10 million ransom is but a down payment on a far larger take engineered by bad guy Ryder, who has a more modern perspective on the big rip-off.

The biggest difference is not just of scale, but of tone. The 1974 movie is a heist film, building up the suspense along with human interest. This summer's movie is almost entirely visceral, delivering us loud noises, thundering trains, multiple car crashes - the police car carrying the ransom money from the bank crashes once in 1974, three times in 2009 - and graphic killings. And its undercurrent of the terrorist threat makes it even more contemporary, for what that's worth.

Suspense vs. thrills, tension vs. terrorism. But the question remains: What makes them think they can hold up a subway train in a tunnel under New York City, and get away with it?

After seeing "Terminator: Salvation," the latest incarnation of the Terminator series, it's pretty clear this narrative has become bankrupt and insipid, drained of reflection and humor in an orgy of noise and pointless action. Maybe it's just director McG's fault - his "Charlie's Angels" films were similarly pointless - or maybe it's that any Terminator film without Arnold Schwarzenegger has no implicit merit.

Even the once-promising Christian Bale, usually an interesting guy to watch even when swaddled in Batclothes, expends too much serious energy in this mess (though he disappears for the middle half of the movie, while we follow cyber-hunk Sam Worthington around). Can't the guy crack a smile, or tell a joke? Sure, he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders, or at any rate the survival of the human species. But first off he should be entertaining, goddammit, I paid good money for this movie!

Smarter critics than I might point out the relative dearth of yin energy in this film - the initial Terminator movies featured the Sarah Connor character, played by Linda Hamilton (they were also directed by James Cameron, who knows a thing or two about action movies - about cinema - that McG will never learn). It's a good point: after all, the role of women in the evolution if not survival of humanity is necessary, isn't it?

Here we have Moon Bloodgood, who looks good in fatigues but is an unconvincing actress, and Helena Bonham Carter with a shaved head, but there's no real feminine heart in this film. Lots of machines, lots of noise, lots of fireballs, lots of CGI, but no heart.

Well, that's not quite true. There is a loving look or two passed between Bale and Worthington, and the pixie energy of Anton Yelchin as the young Kyle Reese (the other main character in the first Terminator movie) is welcome. But then there's this mute psychic child cliché (Jadagrace) lurking about, and unstoppable machines which can somehow be stopped, and tidy little nuclear blasts that never hurt the heroes, and, finally (and gratefully), an Arnold-model Terminator in CGI.

Compared to the new Star Trek, this is an abject waste of time and the death-knell for a once promising series. If there's yet another sequel - and of course there could be, unless attendance for this one drops off a cliff, which it should - I don't plan on spending another dollar on it, much less ten.

In the beginning was the word. In Dan Brown's books, as often as not, that word is a secret - one upon whose revelation the plot turns.

"Angels & Demons" is the second of Brown's mystico-consipiracy books to be filmed, following "The DaVinci Code" (2006, though this book was published earlier than DaVinci). Like its predecessor, the story turns on the gradual disrobing (if you will) of a commonly held belief down to its naked truth: avaricious, cunning, deceitful, even murderous. It's great stuff for a thriller, whether in book or movie form: Fast paced to the point of relentless (don't these people ever eat? Sleep? Pee?), piling surprise upon shock, breathtakingly compelling, and somewhat silly.

This time, Robert Langdon - Harvard University's most famous symbolist, or cryptographer, or symbolic architect, or whatever he is - is already in the doghouse with the Catholic Church over his previous escapade (presumably that DaVinci business). He's summoned to the Vatican upon the sudden death of a popular, liberal pope, modeled on Pope John XXIII.

Naturally the Vatican's higher officials look down on Langdon as a mere "symbologist," somewhat hypocritically: after all, the first scene shows the desecration of the papal ring that marked the deceased pope's authority, and what good are all these golden trappings and velvet robes and wooden crosses without the symbolic cosmology they represent? But Langdon is not here to investigate the pope's death, which at this point isn't even being questioned, but to explain a mysterious message that portends the return of an ancient enemy of the Church itself: the Illuminati.

Ah yes, our old friends the Illuminati, perhaps the least secret secret society in the world, aside from the Bohemian Club. As with The DaVinci Code, author Dan Brown pillages the periphery of pop history to come up with this conspiracy skulking on the fringes of public record. For the DaVinci book, Brown borrowed heavily to the point of litigation from the 1982 Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which tells the story of Jesus' presumed progeny and its supposed influence on European history.

For Angels & Demons, Brown could have used any number of pulp paranoid sources, including probably The Illuminati Trilogy, a mock conspiracy novel perpetrated by Playboy editors Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson . He would have found what most conspiracy theorists know, that the Illuminati were founded in May 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, making Italian sculptor and architect Bernini (1598-1680) an unlikely member. Of course there's no reason to let facts get in the way of delusion - quite the opposite - and some would trace the history of the Illuminati into ancient Egypt, if not to the stars.

The Illuminati, and their brethren in the Freemasons, have popped up in Hollywood movies before, such as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" and the "National Treasures" films with Nicholas Cage. These last are pretty much a blatant attempt to siphon off from the DaVinci franchise some of the paranoid thrills that comes from reading between the lines of history, though anything with Nick Cage qualifies as "guilty pleasure" anyway. (Conspiracy alert: Why is Jon Voight in all three of these films? I'm just saying . . . )

All that aside, I have to say that "Angles & Demons" is a better movie than "The DaVinci Code," perhaps because expectations were not as high. Tom Hanks seems more comfortable in the role (I would have preferred Bill Pullman, but that's just me), adding a bit of cockiness to the role missing the first time around. The script seems sharper too, probably due to bringing in David Koepp to support Akiva Goldsman for a dream team of blockbuster scribes.

As in most of director Ron Howard's movies, the cast is A-list, and there are lots of familiar faces here, including Stellan Skarsgaard, Ewan MacGregor and Armin Mueller-Stahl (from "Eastern Promises" of a couple years back). And the climactic fireworks scene is cosmically satisfying, a nice expression of Hollywood FX and ergot intoxication.

Quibbles? I have a few. One is Ayelet Zurer, who plays the femme du jour in this film, an Italian nuclear physicist whose experiment with anti-matter at CERN gives the plot its MacGuffin. Zurer's star is slowly rising - she was in Spielberg's "Munich," the pointless thriller "Vantage Point," and the melodrama "Fugitive Pieces" which premiered at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival last year. (See this earlier blog, with photos of the lovely Ayelet.)

She does a nice job here, but - what is a woman doing following Robert Langdon into the most secret recesses of the all-male Vatican Archives without so much as a driver's license check? (Had they done so, they would have found that Zurer is an Israeli, making her doubly dangerous in these cloistered halls.)

Then there's the plot, which zooms us from cathedral to catacomb, fountain to obelisk, each a way-station on the so-called "Path of Illumination," each the scene of a dastardly murder. They always arrive, just in time to get their location shots in - as if the notoriously impenetrable traffic in the streets of Rome parts, like the Red Sea, to perpetuate the plot.

The other thing is that troubling symbol of the Illuminati, which pops up several time: the eye in the pyramid. It's on the Galileo manuscript in those Vatican Archives, and on the floor of a Renaissance chapel, to name two. Gotta dollar bill? It's on the back of that, too - the Great Seal of the United States, founded in 1776 . . . the same year as the Bavarian Illuminati.

But the story doesn't, as they say, "go there." Perhaps they're leaving mere domestic paranoia to the "National Treasures" franchise, and focusing this series on the historic culture tours of Europe's capitals. Or perhaps they're saving the best for next: Dan Brown's newest book, due out in the fall, is called "The Lost Symbol," and it takes place in the heart of Nick Cage country - Washington, DC.

And just what do you suppose that "lost symbol" is?

All the hullabaloo over Hulu and YouTube has obscured one important trend in media: Documentary films are becoming increasingly common, and popular. You can't exactly blame Michael Moore, much as some would like to - Best Documentary Oscars have been given out since 1942. And early classics of the genre bear some surprises as well: 1925's epic Grass, about the annual migration of the Bakharti of Angora, Turkey, was directed by Merian Cooper, the same guy who gave us King Kong just 8 years later.

All of which is a long way of getting around to Rivers of a Lost Coast, a documentary that should be particularly close to our hearts here in the North Bay. The film (opening next week at the Rialto Lakeside, and playing now in special one-night screenings in Oregon) brings to life an era not that far in the past that is nonetheless like another world - a world where thousands of fly fishermen crowded the shallows of coastal waterways from Santa Cruz to Arcata, wading into waters so swarming with silvery salmon and steelhead that the fishermen were convinced their bounty could never, never be exhausted.

How wrong they were. Through little fault of their own, the once-abundant fisheries of the Klamath, Smith, Eel, Russian and San Lorenzo rivers collapsed in a relatively brief period of time. Now instead of millions, scant hundreds of wild anadromous fish (those which hatch in fresh water, reach maturity in the seas and return to reproduce in the gravel beds where they birthed) make the migration to natural spawning grounds. In 2008, as the film's closing titles tell us, state and federal fish agencies required the complete closure of recreational and commercial fishing on the coast, for the first time in over 150 years of regulation.

Rivers of a Lost Coast tells this story, from the glory days of the 1940s and 50s to the explosion of fly fishing's popularity in the 1960s, and the sudden evaporation of the fishing industry in the 1970s. The reasons for this collapse are but briefly explained: loggers decimated the hillsides and erosion poisoned the streams; so-called "100 year floods" changed the lay of the riverbeds in 1955 and 1964; dam-building by the Army Corps of Engineers choked off the spawning grounds from their progeny; and finally the drought of 1976 that dealt a deathblow to the North Coast fisheries. Even the wine industry of Sonoma and Mendocino doesn't escape blame, as the vineyards sucked up groundwater and reduced Russian River flows.

In the face of these catastrophic events, the obsessions of a relative handful of fly fishermen, whether or not they played by catch-and-release rules, seems irrelevant. Briefly touched upon are the mysterious fishing trawlers, long thought to be from Japan, that appeared off the California coast in the 70s and 80s and all but scooped up incoming salmon and steelhead before they could even reach the rivers.

Don't expect a how-to on fly fishing as a sport - if it's instruction you want, try a sports store. Instead, we meet the fishermen themselves, either in first-hand interviews or archival photos and footage with commentary. By far the most interesting is Bill Schaadt, who lived in a shack in Monte Rio practically buried in the found leavings of civilization: old bike parts, dish drainers, whatever he would pick up from the banks of the Russian River that no one else wanted.

He also apparently never purchased any fishing gear in his life: his entire kit was used, from rod to reel, line to lure, tattered and cobbled tackle that nonetheless served him to become the "guru of fishing," the best the era ever saw. "He had no family, no job, no new car. All he had was fishing," one contemporary recalls.

Schaadt's counterpart is Ted Lindner, his contemporary but the white knight to Schaad's black sheep - quiet, professional, resourceful. Their stories, like the others in Rivers of a Lost Coast, are told in an assemblage of photographs, home movies, magazine and newspaper clippings, and anecdotes. Justin Coupe and Palmer Taylor, the directors of the film, have done a great job of finding this material, and as research and rights are the core of the modern documentarian's challenge, they've done their job well.

Some of the footage is astounding: one clip shows what must be a 50-pound salmon torpedoing at surface level near the mouth of the Russian River, its surge creating a wake almost big enough to surf. It looks primal, unearthly, more like a danger from "Dune" than a prospect for dinner.

Despite the wealth of information and visual riches of the film, perhaps art direction has had too much say in the film's look. The design can and does overwhelm the story at times, with animated postcards, artificially degraded footage, gratuitous if not distracting special effects. Paired with the insistent, hypnotic, ultimately numbing music (from co-director Taylor), the film's aesthetics sometimes overwhelm its subject.

The memories and comments of the interviewees -- such as the artist and author Russell Chatham, Disney movie composer Mel Leven, or fisherman Tom Ugrin, who keeps his hands busy constantly making flies while being interviewed -- illustrate the story at least as well as the jazzed-up archival art. Their recollections of the amazing feeling of connection with the muscled vitality of these fish, or the sheer abundance of salmon who pulsed through the rivers, generate emotions we can only appreciate second-hand.

Ultimately, the deterioration of fly fishing in the northern counties is a tragic story; even though there is still catch-and-release fly-fishing in our rivers, it is almost entirely for hatchery fish. As narrator Tom Skerritt says at one point, "The elder generation eventually turned away from the coast. The sport was left to younger anglers, unburdened with the pain of casting to memories."

Still, the old-timers are never quite ready to give up. Smith River activist Ben Taylor weighs in toward the film's conclusion, "Maybe I'm a voice crying in the wilderness, and there's not much wilderness left, but I'll keep on crying as long as I'm around."

The new "Star Trek" attempts to revive, for the umpteenth time, the oldest and most successful science fiction franchise in media. And it succeeds: it's a fine old time at the movies, whether you're intimately familiar with the characters or not.

If you've never heard of these people - Sulu and Scotty, Kirk and Spock - then one must wonder under what rock you've been hiding for 40 years. And why.

The original TV series debuted in 1966, though its "five year mission" ran for only three years, despite Emmy nominations and some critical success. But it was in syndication that the show really took off, gaining new fans with each minor market it played. Not to let an opportunity slip by, the producers - including series creator Gene Roddenberry - eventually introduced five additional TV series, one of them animated.

It was resurrected, with its original cast intact, for not one, two, or three, but six feature films, and then four more with actors from the descendent TV series "The Next Generation." (Although the Star Wars franchise often gets more media worship, the dismal quality of its sequels past the original three movies and the absurdity of its animated spin-offs shouldn't be coddled, regardless of how many adorable Wookie action figures are merchandized.)

In evidence of the complexity of the series' energies and the affection its fan have for it, the sophisticated yet artificial language Klingon has been created - one which doesn't have a word for "hello," according to a recent article in Slate.

The new movie, the 11th in the franchise, ranks damn near the top in quality. It's hard to keep a series going when its original stars are dying off, or dissolving into self-caricature. (Charming self-caricature, perhaps, Mr. Shatner, but there you go.) So the trick is somehow to resurrect the series with a new, younger cast, playing the same key roles that made the original Star Trek such a font of inspiration. With its time-warping story, light touch in dialogue and apt casting, the new "Star Trek" succeeds. (For a slideshow of the new cast, check out this article in the Press Democrat.)

Especially noteworthy is Zachary Quinto, as the young Spock. His idea of impassive is, by comparison with that of Leonard Nimoy, relatively hysterical - he shows too much in his eyes, and we never for a minute believe that logic is his first master. Still, it's a strong performance from an actor once best known as Adam Kaufman on "24," he wears the ears well, and he has an enviably unmistakable name.

Chris Pine, on the other hand, is not so blessed. Distinguished neither in name nor looks, he nonetheless passes muster as James T. Kirk as a young man - more impulsive, more pugnacious, less paunchy, and still with a randy eye for the comely alien. His swagger grows on you, just as did that of his predecessor in the part.

As directed by J.J. Abrams, the movie zips along from action sequence to something approaching slapstick without difficulty. Abrams, remember, not only gave us "Lost" (and keeps giving it to us, even though we're not sure why), but "Mission Impossible III" as well. And while the action too often explodes into chaos and cacaphony, there's unmistakable charm in some scenes, such as the one where Bones keeps giving Kirk shots to counteract the effects of the shot he just gave him.

Sure, the producers are setting us up for a second generation of sequels, but we don't mind in part because of the strong supporting cast. Zoë Saldana is perfectly poised as the smart, sexy and willful Uhuru (the mystery of first names among the familiar characters becomes a nice plot device). John Cho, a surprising choice as Sulu given his previous over-exposure in "Harold & Kumar" movies, is tidy and effortless in the role.

Russian-born Anton Yelchin out-Chekovs Chekov with spontaneity and humor, and Karl Urban is a sturdy Bones McCoy. Simon Pegg, who was so great in "Shaun of the Dead," is the new Scotty - a star in his own mind, he teleports easily into this one.

Speaking of teleportation, we should consider the plot, if only to tip our hat to the villain, the sinister Romulan Nero. Chris Eric Bana brings it to the role, complete with bad-guy facial tattoos, bad-guy glowers, and bad-guy sadism. Somehow he's been transported back in time through a black hole (thank God for sci-fi) and is bent on wreaking vengeance on Spock and the Enterprise.

This time twist, with its attendant implausibilities, nonetheless works to justify the resurrection of the original series, with its archetypal crew - now as young men, just setting out on their voyage "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."

That it's now Leonard Nimoy who invokes these lines at the end of the film is just right, elegantly lassoing us happily back into the closed universe of Star Trek.

You've all heard the expression. It's usually grumbled by some discouraged painter, playwright or poet who can't stand the heat of disapproval, or disinterest. It's something like saying "Nobody understands me," or "You just don't get it."

Sometimes, maybe that's true. Great artists have been misunderstood in their lifetimes Van Gough sold one painting, Kafka one story. And sometimes, maybe the public gets ahead of itself. Michael Bolton, anyone?

Years ago - you're not asking, I'm not telling - I was film critic-in-residence at the Santa Cruz Good Times, a weekly entertainment rag whose unofficial motto was, "No News is Good News." Restaurant openings, entertainment listings, the latest hot bands, community theater: this was the stuff of Good Times, not city council meetings, endangered wetlands or business on-the-move columns.

I had what I thought was the best beat of all, going to screenings of blockbusters before they opened and confidently expressing my uneducated opinion for the masses to read on Thursday morning. (Nice work if you can get it.)

Nowadays, things a little different. Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, even Gene Shalit became household words, their opinions respected or dissed by television audiences everywhere. Every town has its film critic, every opinion is fair, and any movie is fair game.

Since I'm doing this column pretty much as a labor of love - I even pay for my tickets, just so's you know - there's no reason I can't share the love.

Did you see "Star Trek" already? What do you think?

Was "Sin Nombre" what you expected?

Is "Obsessed" really the best movie out there?

If you've ever wanted to do a film review, write it up and send it in. Click on this link and email me your review, thoughts, insights or even criticism of a movie currently playing, either in local theaters or coming up on TV or cable.

It's not a contest. If it's well enough written, we'll publish it in this blog. Honest. Critical consensus be damned.

Before I left Santa Cruz, I tried something similar, opening up the paper to film reviews from anyone. We had only a dozen people respond, maybe half a dozen reviews. But there was really only one "writer," who delivered a thoughtful, well-crafted film review. I handed her my job when I moved on.

Her name was Lisa Jensen , and last I time I looked she still had the job. And she's an even better writer.

Movies will do that to do.

The presses churn, the rollers spit out the newsprint, the headlines scream. It's the tableau from dozens of newspaper movies dating back to the silent era, but it's in danger of becoming the stuff of nostalgia. Scratch that: it IS the stuff of nostalgia, and whatever game effort State of Play makes for its relevance, the scene is the closing credits, not the opening.

The tension between the blogger and the journalist is one of the key themes in this new film, directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck. In a way it's a false tension - the unkempt, middle-aged reporter Cal McAffrey (Crowe) is a dogged knight upholding the traditional techniques and values of the journalistic trade, while the petite, youthful Rachel McAdams (you'll recognize her from Red Eye) is a blogger -- the horror! -- of the new and well-funded internet division at the "Washington Globe." But the plot concerns a Blackwater-like paramilitary company that's on the verge of taking over domestic security and imposing private sector control on American democracy.

Now I ask you: what is the real story? No matter how much the press wrings its hands over the dumbing-down of journalism because of bloggers, the real danger is if the big stories don't get covered, or perhaps more accurately uncovered. And even though the editor Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren, what are all these Brits doing in this movie about American journalism?) actually says "The real story is the sinking of this bloody newspaper," it seems short-sighted.

Granted, newspapers are in real trouble. I don't have to tell that to you, astute readers of the ever-thinner Press Democrat. But less well known is the evident privatization of the country by the moneyed few, a trend - nay, a conspiracy - documented in Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine," apparently one of the sources for this narrative.

The Blackwater stand-in is called PointCorps, but like its model its net worth has skyrocketed following the Iraq invasion and the war on terrorism, and it too offered "security services" in New Orleans following Katrina. The Green Zone is not just a safe neighborhood of Baghdad behind the protective wall of armed protection; it's the safe haven available anywhere for the people rich enough to buy it.

So, that's where the "State of Play" should have gone - indeed, that's where it is headed, convincingly, for the first 100 minutes. Then, all but inexplicably, it turns into a much sorrier story, about suspicion in romance, and loops back on itself, ending pretty much where it begins.

White knight Rep. Stephen Collins (Affleck) heads a committee looking in to PointCorps's dealings, but the murder of his lead researcher (with whom he is having an affair, of course) puts his crusade in doubt. When it turns out that gruff reporter McAffrey himself had (is having?) an affair with Collins' own wife (Robin Wright Penn) it substitutes convenient plot twist for genuine development. (Along the way we're treated to a creepy-funny performance by Jason Bateman, of "Arrested Development," as a fussy PR agent.)

The viewer - at least the viewer sitting in my seat - is able to stay about ten minutes ahead of the movie, and the only surprises are the ones that, upon reflection, really don't make any sense. Still, it's good to see some of these political issues up on the screen in general release, even if they seem just a year out of date. It's been a big year, after all.

Back to the blogger vs. reporter story. This movie seems to believe in the urban myth that there's some sort of tension in newsrooms between old-fashioned reporters and the online department, for which there is scant evidence. And the newsroom is portrayed as a crowded, messy place with outdated computers, harried editors and stacks of yesterday's papers strewn about.

Have you seen the PD newsroom lately? It's not that crowded.