Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Last night I was watching Russell Brand: Scandalous on TV. Basically it was a recording of a stand-up comedy show which he had performed in London last year and he was discussing the various scandals that he had been involved in during the previous year or so. Russell Brand's comedy is not to everyone's tastes but I think a lot of it is pretty clever and often very funny.

After that I watched the 1984 movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, directed by Leonard Nimoy. The film, as the title suggests, is the third one to be spun-off from the popular science-fiction TV series Star Trek (1966-1969). In this film Mr. Spock (played by director Nimoy) has died and his body has been shot into space and landed on a planet which was just used as a test subject for the experimental Genesis Device, which creates life on dead planets. Meanwhile the badly damaged Starship Enterprise is heading back to Earth for repairs. On arrival Kirk (William Shatner) discovers that before Spock died he performed a "mind-meld" on Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) merging his mind with McCoys and that if McCoy and Spock's body are brought back to Spock's home planet, Vulcan, then there may be a way to save him. However, the Genesis Planet is completely forbidden and the Enterprise is being decomissioned, and to make matters worse, a group of Klingons are heading towards the Genesis Planet in order to steal it's secrets. The movie was pretty good, although non-Star Trek fans might find it overly confusing, also if you've not seen any of the movies before its not the best one to start of with. In fact the second, third and fourth Star Trek films are best seen in sequence because they all follow directly on from each other. Fans will probably like it though, and the special effects are really good.

I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday today, and saw that the latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived. The main feature this week was the films of "Old, Weird Britain" about some of the old rituals and rhythms of life in Britain which occasionally cropped up in movies in the 1960s and 70s, and also one of the last in-depth interviews with legendary actor and director Dennis Hopper. My parents both wanted to watch the Wimbledon tennis matches but I just tried to tune it out and read my book.