Anton Yelchin – Memphis Flyer

It ain’t easy being a Trekkie.

From the beginning, we’ve been an aggrieved bunch. The fandom coalesced in 1968, when NBC threatened to cancel the original Star Trek after two seasons, prompting a “Save Trek” letter-writing campaign organized by sci-fi zines and word of mouth. It worked, but the third season had fewer classic episodes, which led to Trekkies discovering their other favorite pastime: Complaining about Star Trek.

In the 1970s, as Trekkies were successfully lobbying to have the first space shuttle named Enterprise, they backed series creator Gene Roddenberry’s quest to create a new series. After the tremendous success of Star Wars, those ideas were transported onto the big screen for 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Trekkies were gleeful, because not only did they have new Trek to watch, but, since many found the film to be ponderous and self-important, they also had new stuff to complain about. For director Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 sequel, The Wrath of Khan, the haters were drowned out by the cries of Trekkies grieving for the death of Spock. When the franchise (and Leonard Nimoy, who had his own love/hate relationship with Trek) gave them what they wanted and brought Spock back to life in the third installment, Trekkies declared that “odd-numbered Trek movies are always bad.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987, and for the first two seasons, Trekkies, who were tuning in religiously every week, hated Captain Picard. Then he was assimilated by the Borg, and everyone decided they had always loved him and please don’t take him away. And so it went for 25 seasons of four consecutive spin-off series until Enterprise went off the air in 2005 just as it was getting good.

Sofia Boutella (left) as Jayla and Simon Pegg as Scotty in Star Trek Beyond

At this point, it probably will not surprise you to learn that I was less than impressed with the two J.J. Abrams-directed reboot films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Sure, they looked good, and the new crew, led by Zachary Quinto as Spock, was well cast, but the writing—done by the same team who wrote Transformers—was just downright stupid. Abrams ditched Roddenberry’s techno-utopian humanism in favor of post-9/11 paranoid cynicism. The tenor of the times was not a good fit for Trek.

So it was with considerable trepidation I approached Star Trek Beyond. Abrams jumped ship for Star Wars, but his replacement is Justin Lin, best known for three Fast & Furious movies. The screenplay is by Simon Pegg, the comedy writer behind Shaun of the Dead, who is also returning for his third go-round as Scotty. Pegg’s script elevates Star Trek Beyond to the best Trek movie since 1996’s First Contact. Chris Pine’s rendition of Captain James T. Kirk has been the weakest link in the rebooted cast, but in the film’s opening scene, when Kirk’s diplomatic mission spirals into farce, Pine finally finds the handle on the character. Later, when a a rescue mission to an unknown planet turns into an ambush, the Enterprise crash lands, scattering the crew. Pegg’s script pairs off Spock and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), giving the two frenemies some great scenes together as they fight for survival in the alien wilderness. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) both get meatier roles, and Idris Elba provides a credible villain with the fascist space vampire Krall.

Chris Pine as Captain Kirk

While the character moments are the best parts, Trek has never looked better. The frontier of the Federation doesn’t simply resemble rural California, and the gravity-bending design of Starbase Yorktown is an instant classic. The second-act space battle between the Enterprise and a swarm of Krall’s drones is visually inventive and harrowing. But, as the film progresses, Lin’s tics resurface. He puts Kirk on a motorcycle, his nervously roaming camera becomes tiresome, and he fumbles the climax, which seems to be on loan from Guardians of the Galaxy.

What Pegg and Lin get right is the sense of camaraderie among the diverse crew. Star Trek Beyond carries Roddenberry’s conviction that we can solve our problems by sticking together and applying equal parts compassion and logic, and its optimism is catchy.

There’s nothing a group of musicians love to do more than swap stories about bad gigs. The guitarist got drunk and puked onstage. The promoter was a crook. A brawl broke out. But in the long and sordid history of bad shows, I dare say none comes close to what happens to the punk band the Ain’t Rights in director Jeremy Saulnier’s new film Green Room.

When we meet the Ain’t Rights — Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) — their tour of the Pacific Northwest is already faltering. After a disastrous afternoon show at a pizza parlor in Seaside, Oregon, the band figures they’ve hit rock bottom and decides pack it in and go home. But to get back to the East Coast, they need money, and the pizza parlor gig only paid out $8 each. The mohawked promoter, Tad (David Thompson), feels guilty and sets them up with a show at a club 90 miles away where his cousin works. “Just don’t talk about politics, and you’ll be fine,” he warns.

As with everyone else who has ever told a punk band not to talk about politics, his warning falls on deaf ears. When they arrive, they find that the venue where they’re booked is not so much a punk club as it is a white power movement compound hidden in the middle of the Oregon woods. Naturally, they open their set with a cover of the Dead Kennedy’s “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” which is certainly the punk thing to do, but not the best choice in terms of long-term survival. Still, by the end of the set, they seem to have won over the crowd and are feeling pretty good about the situation until they return to the green room and find the lead singer of the headlining band standing over a dead girl with a knife in her head.

Callum Turner,Anton Yelchin and Alia Shawkat in Green Room

At this point, Green Room shifts gears from Decline of Western Civilization in the PacNor to a claustrophobic cross between 12 Angry Men and Assault on Precinct 13. Just when it looks like things can’t any worse for the band, Saulnier pulls the rug out from under them again. What could be worse than being locked in a room with a murderous, 250-pound neo-nazi named Werm (Brent Werzner) by a pack of eerily disciplined skinheads? How about when Darcy, the leader of the skinheads, shows up, and it’s Sir Patrick Freakin’ Stewart. Darcy calmly takes command like the evil Mirror Universe version of Captain Picard, and the casual brutality of his evil is bone chilling. He effortlessly throws the police off the scent and proceeds to clean up the mess left on his property with the help of a squad of “red laces,” as skinheads who have killed enemies of the movement are known. As the band tries to escape first the room and later the club, they discover the secrets Darcy has been hiding, which explains why he is so eager to wipe out the witnesses.

As you would expect, Stewart’s chilling precision is the film’s acting highlight. Shawkat as the cool-girl bass player sporting an ever-fashionable Dead Kennedy’s logo shirt and Imogen Poots as Amber, a local punk desperate to escape the skinhead underground, outshine their male compatriots, most of whom read as transparent murder fodder or inhuman killing machines.

Green Room is billed as a “horror thriller,” and Saulnier, whose previous work was the acclaimed indie Blue Ruin, can throw a jump scare with the best of them. But there’s quite a bit of 1970s-era hostage movies like Dog Day Afternoon in Green Room‘s DNA, so I would hesitate to call it horror. The director’s primary concern is ratcheting up the tension, one excruciating turn at a time. His most effective weapon is his grungy sound design that he uses to incorporate wailing feedback as a plot point and the goopy plop of a disemboweling for shock points. The director clearly has a broad knowledge of and affection for this musical milieu, which makes the whole proceedings feel more real and grounded and helps audiences gloss over the occasional logical lapse. Green Room is punk as hell, and it makes me eager to see Saulnier’s next outing.