Here they are!

My favorite movies of the past year. I still have a few I want to watch, so (thorughout January) I reserve the right to juggle.

1. Star Trek – Wonderful adaption. The best adaptatiotns remain just faithful enough to the source material, but still manage to offer up a few surprises. By far the best Star Trek movie of the bunch, but a potent adaptation in its own right.
2. Inglorious Basterds – Fun to watch, fun to mull over. Once you see it, it’s hard to understand why all WW2 pictures don’t end this way. Now one of my favorite Tarantino pictures.
3. District 9 – I loved the inventive transformation of the main character. An ugly little man becomes a humane alien.
4. Sherlock Holmes – Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law have a lot of chemistry as Holmes and Watson.
5. Fantastic Mr. Fox – Subversive little movie with a lot of heart. I liked the father son relationship. I liked how the boy struggled to be seen by his Dad. I liked how Dad was blinded by his own needs. But most of all I liked watching these characters make the best of their own limitations. “Cluster-cuss!”
6. Hurt Locker - The most powerful scene shows Sgt James (Jeremy Renner), who has just returned from a horrifying tour in Iraq, wandering through the supermarket with his wife, staring at a wall of cereal, just before he reenlists. Fascinating portrayal of a smart guy who really has no clue what’s motivating him.
7. Avatar – Beautiful movie, engaging if familiar story.
8. Watchman – Bold and original.
9. Julie & Julia – Meryl Streep is so much fun to watch. Stanley Tucci is a joy.
10. Taken - An episode of 24 but with Liam Neeson.

I loved the original Star Trek. The spin offs in the 90s and more recently have been great to okay, but nothing comes close to the nostalgia I feel for the original.

Although the new movie is very faithful to the spirit of the original, there’s a nice tension and complexity between Kirk and Spock that wasn’t in the TV series. I love the new depth breathed into the old characters. I enjoyed some of the visual salutes, especially Captain Pike and his wheelchair at the end. It was just a great movie night all around.

All the old incantations were spoken: 

• I’m a doctor, not a…
• She can’t take it…
• Fascinating…

Just before Christmas, I joined a health club and started a rigorous weight reduction program. I’m thirty-five pounds lighter than I was in December.

Where did it all go?

Fitness centers are strange places. This one has dozens of sexy young trainers all dressed in the same uniform (dark blue sweat suits). It’s also a very big club, with long, double-wide corridors that seem to go on endlessly. As you walk from one huge room to another, all the trainers smile their big toothy smiles and nod their handsome heads.

Sometimes, striding through the club, it feels as if I’m stuck in an episode of Star Trek.

My daughter cracks me up.

She is eight years old and sometimes gets mixed up about things, but just blusters her way through. Lately she has been getting Catholicism and Star Trek confused. Sometimes she gives me the Vulcan hand greeting — palm up, fingers splayed — lowers her voice to a deep gravely tone and says, “Peace be with you, Daddy.”