Parker walked in the other night and announced he wanted to watch Star Trek V, so we sat down and over two nights did just that. I was reminded again that parts of this movie are really pretty good, especially when you've seen a younger Kirk so that this midlle-aged guy makes more sense. It just has some achingly bad scenes, and suffers from grotesquely bad production values at times (shuttle bay, special effects in general, and the end scene in the "ribcage"). But I can't say that Shatner's direction was bad - the movie has some of my favorite visual images, the music is terrific, I like the actors... it just is very uneven. But I kept finding myself watching the beginning and for twn or fifteen or twenty minutes wondering why I thought this was a bad movie. Then the "beans and borbon" joke comes and I remember.
