Of Arclight, Spaceships, Monsters, and HD-DVD

I saw Cloverfield this evening with Will and Holland... and it's one hell of a movie. I really liked it, it has certainly resonated with me... look for my extended look sometime tomorrow.

But there was one major disappointment; the new Star Trek teaser was supposed to screen before the film, as J.J. Abrams produced Cloverfield and is directing Star Trek, and companies Bad Robot and Paramount made both. But, for whatever reason, the Arclight Sherman Oaks decided to be the only theater I've heard to not show the teaser.

Those of you who have known me for a while are sure to know the depths of my Trek fandom. The technical manuals, Omnipedia CD-ROM, movies, soundtracks, bootlegged VHS of the TV shows. I'm a wicked fan. Hell, I had a half-birthday type party for the December release of Star Trek VI. So, between that, and my respect for J.J. Abrams' many projects, it's safe to say I'm excited for the Star Trek reboot.

And they didn't show us the goddamn trailer.

There's a YouTube version out there, which I refuse to look at; I want to see this for real. My hope is that, tomorrow, they release it at the official movie website (which looks pretty neat, by-the-by) in QuickTime HD, so I can kick the file to my AppleTV and watch it on my television. It won't be the same as seeing it in an Arclight theater, but it's better than nothing.

Also, on the topic of things that annoy me, the Stardust HD-DVD menu sucks hard. Unimaginative, boring, and repetitive, it's the antithesis of the film itself. In 1998, I could understand bad DVD menus; ten years later, I expect a much better effort.

But on the plus side, I got to see a trailer for the aforementioned horror film The Ruins, directed by Bowdoinham's own Carter Smith. That was cool.