Trailers Galore

Thursday December 13, 1:52 p.m.

Still no snow out there and we're approaching the midway point of December. Would like at least a White Christmas or failing that a White Doomsday on the 22nd. The snowsweepers were probably having orgasms last Sunday when they got onto the roads to get rid of some sleet...that's how desperate it is.

Went out to the local walk-in clinic to get that free flu shot with Mom. Not a problem....just fill out a form (since it was our first time there), show the OHIP card and get the needle. We did our due diligence and waited 15 minutes just to make sure that neither of us were going to start convulsing; I felt a bit warm but nowhere near what the average mug of beer does to me. The Star was free today as well; nothing wrong with that....considering that I never got that with the far thinner "The Japan Times" back in Ichikawa.

I'll be out all day tomorrow....rather nice since I now have my work and personal life under the same roof. I'm going down to The Distillery district near Parliament and Front Sts to take a gander at this Christmas Market that's been there for the past few weeks. The event will be closing up shop on Sunday. I'd been hoping that there would be snow by now, but since that won't happen anytime in the next few days, I'm gonna head on down and take some pics. Maybe pick up a fruitcake or if I'm very lucky, a Baum Kuchen. Baum Kuchen is basically a giant iced roll cake that is far more well-known in Japan than in Canada...used to buy the convenience store version a fair bit on the way home from work.

There is a bakery right on the Ginza that I used to see during my strolls on the main street on a Sunday when it was closed off to vehicular traffic that made Baum Kuchen in the display window. Someone had the foresight and the equipment to film it above.

In any case....trailers. I'm off to see "The Hobbit" tomorrow with The Anime Court. But I've already seen a couple of trailers that will be preceding the main feature via the Net. Both movies I will be anticipating with some enthusiasm.

Of course, being a semi-retired Trekkie (i.e. I actually did get a life of sorts), I was keen on seeing what this "Star Trek: Into Darkness" was all about. The 2009 feature was a big success to the movie-viewing public at large, and more polarizing amongst the Trekkies....so I guess J.J. Abrams' take was the anti-"Star Trek V"...but I enjoyed it as being a far happier lark than the funereal final flight of "The Next Generation" crew a decade ago, even though the story of Jim Kirk's fasttrack promotion was hilarious at best. However, the trailer for the next entry with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto looks like it's veering truly into "Dark Knight" darkness. Not sure if Benedict Cumberbatch (any distant relation to Englebert Humperdink?) is playing a souped-up Khan Noonien Singh or Gary Mitchell with a Patrick Stewart fetish, but it appears Abrams will be doing some more sacred cow slaughtering. Considering that this cast is the first "Star Trek" crew that has never come up from television and that most likely they probably won't wanna do 6 films, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the beloved characters get phasered out (et tu, Pavel Andreivich?). There are swan-diving starships but didn't see any space scenes in this trailer. Maybe they've still yet to be fashioned out in post or Abrams is holding his cards close to his chest. Apparently, tomorrow before "The Hobbit", there will be a 9-minute prelude concerning this movie. Just hope that it's not like the thing that came out for "Tron: Legacy" a couple of years ago.

Then, there is "Man of Steel" under Chris Nolan's aegis. Several years back, I'd seen "Superman Returns" with Brandon Routh, and felt underwhelmed although a bit of that nervous rationalization crept in just like when it had when I finished seeing "The Phantom Menace" (that was....kinda good, wasn't it? Well....wasn't it?). It looks like Nolan and Zack Snyder may be taking a few pages out of "The Dark Knight" playbook here as well. Certainly, having Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent answer of "Maybe" to young Clark's "Should I have let them die?" has got me intrigued. And then there is the poster of Superman being led away in handcuffs with a military squad surrounding him. The marketing folks are working this, people. I also read that the John Williams' theme will not be back, but then again, I think the producers are going for a completely clean break from their predecessors.

Not a huge Tolkien fan, although I did see all of the original trilogy for "Lord of the Rings". Case in point, the only thing that got my blood even remotely racing was reading that Sylvester McCoy (the 7th Doctor Who) was in "The Hobbit".