I don’t consider myself a Trekkie, but I loved Star Trek growing up. I watched Star Trek, faithfully watched The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and I’ve seen nearly every movie, but I never identified with it like I did Star Wars. (I don’t think I’m alone in this.)

When I first started seeing previews of the new Star Trek movie, I was hopeful. But I thought that it would too easy to mess up. After hearing glowing reviews from friends – especially Kenny’s take on it – I had to go see Star Trek. I shouldn’t have doubted J.J. Abrams.

Star Trek was, in a word, awesome. The visuals were amazing. The story was well thought out. Newcomers to Star Trek can watch it and not feel lost. It was an incredible retelling and reimaging of the series. As far as continuity is concerned, I think the story handles deviating from the original series very well.

This is one movie I definitely want to see again. And, I’ll be getting it on DVD when it comes out. Yeah, it’s that good.

Right Where It Belongs V.2

(First things first: Sorry for the shakiness.) I shot this at last night’s Nine Inch Nails concert at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth, GA. The show was epic, to say the least. The song is Discipline off of their latest album, The Slip. See http://theslip.nin.com for more info.

NIN’s “the slip” is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license. This video, obviously, falls under the same license. Enjoy!

1. List your top ten favorite films (in no particular order).
2. If you are tagged, you have to post and tag 3-5 people.
3. Link back to the one who tagged you.

Before I begin, I should clarify things a bit. I love a lot of movies. Narrowing my favorites to just ten was a challenge in and of itself. This list represents movies that I love and would watch (and have watched) over and over again. And now, in no particular order, are my Top 10 Favorite Movies.

• Braveheart – I love the storyline here and the fact that it’s based (loosely) on fact. Everything from the action scenes to the music made this movie for me.
• Dead Poets Society – I love this movie and the whole idea of going against the grain, being different, etc. Robin Williams was great.
• Dogma – I love how this movie challenged the idea of Christianity/Catholicism in its current form.
• Matrix – The trilogy as a whole was an awesome story. The first movie was the best of the three, but I loved the entire trilogy + Animatrix.
• Gladiator – Russell Crowe was awesome in this movie. The storyline was great. The cinematatography was absolutely beautiful. The score was excellent.
• Clerks – I’d include almost every Kevin Smith flick on this list if there was room to spare. Clerks started it all.
• Star Wars V: Empire Strikes Back – I’d be remiss if I didn’t include at least one Star Wars movie on this list.  Vader reveals he’s Luke’s father. We meet Yoda for the first time. It was a great frickin’ movie.
• Office Space – Required viewing for our office; any office, for that matter.
• Idiocracy – One of the best movies of our generation, I kid you not. It’s a flawed movie, no doubt, but brilliantly executed. I’m scared at the thought of how our society is going to be 500 years in the future, and I think Idiocracy nailed it on the head.
• Event Horizon – When I first saw Event Horizon, I expected it to be a traditional sci-fi movie… I never expected the horror element. That twist made me fall in love with the movie. When it was first released I saw it 6 times in the theatre.

Tag you’re it: Josh Wilkerson, Wyatt, and Patrick.

I caught an early preview of Iron Man (My Rating: 10/10) last night with my two brothers, Robbie (one of my brother’s friends) and Josh Wilkerson over at the Regal Cinemas Exchange 20. (8:10pm on DLP) The movie was, in a word, awesome. I’m not going to spoil the movie, as many have probably not seen it yet but here some general thoughts I had on the movie:

• Robert Downey, Jr. was born to be Tony Stark. Seriously. They could not have chosen a better actor to play the man. He nailed it.
• While much of the tech was unrealistic, they still made it all seem very plausible. (Think Batman Begins.)
• Gwyneth Paltrow was great as Pepper Pots.
• I will be seeing it again. It’s one of the best comic-based movies I’ve seen.

Hello-
First of all, a sincere THANK YOU for the response to Ghosts. We are all amazed at the reaction for what we assumed would be a quiet curiosity in the NIN catalog. My faith in all of you has been restored – let’s all go have coffee somewhere (my treat)!

Today we announce the expansion of the Ghosts project into the visual world. This record began as an experiment with us using sound as a means to describe visuals. Early in the project we thought it would be interesting to see what the community could create / collaborate on as a reaction to the music we were making. We wanted to keep the canvas as blank as possible for you, hence the lack of descriptive song titles and the primarily textural artwork and packaging.

So here’s the plan: we’ve teamed up with YouTube to host a “film festival” around Ghosts. The concept is for you to take whatever tracks you feel inspired by from Ghosts and create what you feel should accompany them visually. You will be able to see all of the submissions, and a team of us (including me) will be sorting through them and setting aside ones we feel are exceptional. Eventually (within a couple of months?) we will present a virtual “film festival” with me and some special guests presenting selections of your work.

This isn’t a contest and you don’t win elaborate prizes – it’s meant to be an experiment in collaboration and a chance for us to interact beyond the typical one-way artist-to-fan relationship. We’ve discussed some interesting ways this could go, including multiple installments of the online “film festivals,” to broadcast TV specials, to a one-time live performance of the entire Ghosts record with your visuals involved. It really depends on how this progresses and develops.

We are all very much looking forward to what you come up with, and hope you enjoy the experience. Visit our YouTube channel for information on how to participate.
TR

View more of the photos I took on Flickr. I took around 800 shots total, but scrubbed a lot of the pics that were screwed up one way or another. Some of the best shots can be seen in the Flickr slideshow.

For my first concert, this was definitely the way to go. Matchbox Twenty, Mute Math and Alanis Morissette rocked the Philips Arena. Our seats were phenomenal. Section 117 Row B was located just to the side of stage left. We could see everything, and being slight above the floor crowd enabled me to get some pretty sweet shots.

CAUTION… Don’t read any further if you don’t like SPOILERS. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Just got back from a midnight showing of Cloverfield. Gotta say… I loved the movie, but it felt like it ended sort of abruptly. (It’s only 84 or so minutes long.) There is so much going during the movie that time seemed to go by way to quickly. The whole thing was very surreal. The first-person camera brought you right into the action. At times, the jostling was nauseating, but it brought you that much closer to the action.

The crowd at the theater was larger than I had expected. The flick got a lot of laughs from the character “Hud”, who’s the flick’s main cameraman. His commentary injected a lot of humor in an otherwise messed up situation.

The flick left me with more questions than answers, but I guess I’m okay with that. Hell, I’ve stuck with Lost for three seasons, I guess I can forgive Cloverfield with leaving a lot unanswered. It did get me thinking though… I mean, monster movies are complete works of fantasy, but what if something like that were to happen to us? We’d be helpless.

Anyways, it’s worth checking out.

“Sunday, Bloody Sunday”, by Saul Williams

• Nathan’s not dead. His body was infused with Adam’s blood. Considering it healed him so substantially, it’s within the realm of possibility that he’s gotten some of Adam’s regenerative abilities as a side-effect.
• Peter’s going to go ballistic. Moments after his brother is shot, he’ll storm out of the press conference to chase down whomever was responsible. He’ll probably end up using his powers in front of the reporters… e.g. he’ll bend time/space and the jump will be detected in a milli-second of footage from the press conference.
• Sylar’s going to find more like-minded people bent on the world’s destruction and/or the destruction of heroes… He might even hook up with Adam (who isn’t dead).
• Nikki’s not dead. She’ll be pulled from the fire, burnt to a crisp like Nathan was… Mohinder will end up going back to New Orleans and will heal her (assuming there’s any of Claire’s blood/antidote left)…
• HRG is not Nathan’s killer, though it seems most plausible.

Those are just some of my theories regarding Volume 3 of Heroes. What do you think will happen when Heroes returns?

It’s hard to believe that the Nintendo Wii came out a year ago today. I initially wrote off the console as a child’s toy, but I’ve grown to love it more than any other gaming console I’ve owned. What I love most about the Wii is its ability to engage non-traditional players. Whether you’re six years old or ninety-six, the Wii isn’t intimidating.

Nintendo: Bravo for making a console that has succeeded in bringing gaming to a new level. Happy Birthday.

Check it out, download it for free – as in beer – and if you think it’s worth it go back and drop a few bucks for it. You won’t be disappointed.

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.Exciting times, indeed.posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM.

In other news, his last label-backed album “Year Zero Remixed” will be out November 20th. Rock on, Trent. Rock on.