Category: Review

As Lost is winding down, I’m getting more and more concerned that there isn’t enough time to answer the questions in the queue. The fact that the show continues to pose new questions rather than resolving long open questions is what is so exasperating. And this concerns me because I’ve been watching for 6 seasons looking forward to some resolution. I fear a failure to follow-through on that resolution could be permanently damaging to my ability to commit to a TV show. Or maybe that’s a good thing – it will certainly free up some time.

A couple of Lost theories for now – I’ll add more as they occur to me.

I’m not going to get into how Flash Forward pales in comparison to Lost but I will say that it does have a neat premise and it does have (ahem) flashes of brilliance. The final scene in the most recent episode: Demetri got a message from D. Gibbons in 1991. Neat.

Here’s my theory: D. Gibbons is actually Simon Campos who went back in time. That’s how Simon’s designed were created in Somalia before he came up with the idea. And that’s how he knew that Demetri was going to be watching that videotape – because Simon was standing next to Demetri when he did. I know, another easy out with time travel – I am sick of it too. But at least the way this one is (I believe to be) revealed is pretty cool.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad is a documentary that follows a heavy metal band named Acrassicauda based in Baghdad, Iraq. The band is like Metallica (but with a bassist who is integral like Burton was) yet their home environment is very different, of course, and that’s part of what makes this documentary so compelling. When they did perform during the time of Saddam Hussein’s reign, they were forced to preform songs with lyrics in support of the Saddam regime. And they were constantly under suspicion of “worshipping the devil” – perhaps not that different than Americans’ fear of hard rock in the 1980s except instead of being labeled as freaks and feared, for Acrassicauda in Iraq it meant continuous thread of execution by the government.

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Is anyone else watching Lost and getting the feeling that the conclusion isn’t going to be satisfying as we had hoped? As the series is winding down, I’ve been hoping that the large queue of unanswered questions would be answered and that all of them would make me go “ohhhh” or “oooo”. So far, in this final season, I’ve gotten a few questions answered that made me go “huh” but for the most part, I’m feeling like there will ultimately be a disappointment.

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I’ve been watching a lot of DVDs recently and haven’t gotten around to writing about any of them. Here’s my reviews for In The Loop, (500) Days Of Summer, Frost/Nixon, The Hangover, and The Hurt Locker.

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What could be better for those of us who enjoyed Battlestar Galactica? Better insight into the Cylon’s reasons for war and a Cylon origin story!? Count me in! And then out.

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I got out to see a movie! That’s the big news, I guess. And for the big event of an outing why not see the big event movie of the season?!

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I’m both a little surprised that I’m watching as many new shows as I am and that many of them are actually good.

Glee has really surprised. Tracy said we should record an episode to see what it is about. But we’ve gotten hooked. I have a feeling that this one will burn out faster than Ally McBeal, but it’ll be fun until it jumps the shark – maybe before the end of the first season, but definitely before the end of the second.

The debut episode of Modern Family was packed with laughs. I liked Ed O’Neill in the jogging suit being mistaken for a mallwalker. His stepson is adorable with the poems and songs. The bb gun gag was funny. But the funniest bit was when all three families came together to meet the newly adopted Lilly. The hilarity was sublime. One of the new dads doing the Lion King entrance was only topped by the lines “turn it off!” “I can’t, it’s who I am!”. The second episode wasn’t nearly as funny. I sure hope they can recapture that first episode’s clever writing going forward.

Bored To Death was just plain lame. I don’t know, maybe it has an ultra-cool mellow vibe I’m not getting. Maybe you are supposed to be high when you watch. Don’t know, don’t care. Yawn. Jason Schwartzman has done better before and hopefully will again. And Ted Danson was so much better in Damages. I dropped this show from the DVR right away.

The Good Wife could turn into just another legal drama but it started off strong. Julianna Margulies plays a politician’s wife who returns to work as a lawyer when her husband ends up in prison. In the first show, you got a sense for the challenge she is in for – dealing with a mother-in-law, kids, husband in prison, workplace competition, and the normal legal drama challenges of getting to the bottom of a case that needs to go to trial. The show has a great cast including Margulies, Christine Baranski (always a favorite of mine), and Josh Charles (a favorite of mine since Sports Night). Whether each episode can deliver the same impact of the first seems doubtful but I’ll keep watching hoping it will.

I’m feeling a little – no a lot – overwhelmed at Ken Burns’s new National Parks documentary. I like the National Parks and Ken Burns is a talented storyteller. So far, the intro was nice. But 45 minutes in, I feel like the show is just getting underway. At 12-1/2 hours it’s going to take a long time to get through all that.

You know before the show begins that you’re going to have to keep watching a show like Flash Forward to see what happens. Sure, you may find yourself begrudgingly hooked (like on a season of “24”) but you may also find that it turns into a rewarding 42 minutes (like “Lost”). So far, I’m not getting the annoyed sensation that comes with an episode of 24 – more like the sense of “oh, good one!” that comes with an episode of Lost. I loved the fact that security cameras caught one person moving during the “blackout” in the first episode and found a mysterious second guy in the second episode. Sure, it’s contrived that they were able to find the security tape and yes it’s implausible that a web site is able to successfully create a “mosaic”. But any show that employs Sonya Walger, Jack Davenport, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Alan Ruck, John Cho, Seth MacFarlane(!), and Joseph Fiennes is going to get a little leeway to make it’s point. Now if only I could figure out why Charlie was so freaked about Dylan being in the hospital…

Inglourious Basterds is most definitely not a movie for those who like their movies to be historically accurate. It’s more like WWII fan fiction. It could have been named something like “A Better Way for Hitler to Have Died”.

However, the movie is great fun for those of us who can leave the historical concerns behind and simply consider it entertainment. Admittedly, it is tough to laugh at scenes born out of elements of genocide and religious persecution. But Tarantino was careful to set up the scenes so they were either cartoonishly ridiculous or satisfyingly vengeful. Consider it like Pulp Fiction but set in the period of Hogan’s Heroes and including some of HH’s absurdity.

Christoph Waltz has gotten a lot of press and for good reason. His portrayal of SS officer Landa was crazy good. Again, not necessarily historically accurate, just fascinating to watch. Of course, Tarantino’s dialog is certainly to be credited here too. SS officer Landa spoke the same kind of dialog as Jules or Vincent only instead of talking about Cheese Royale and quoting Ezekiel, they were talking about strudel and hidden Jews. But back to Waltz: his acting in English, German, French, and Italian and portraying as vivid a character as had been constructed was definitely a highlight of the movie.

Pitt’s character annoyed me at first. Sure he had some great lines like “we’re going to be doing one thing and one thing only: killing Nazis”. But the character seemed too much of a caricature. Eventually, you kind of got in the vibe, though, and that extreme hillbilly thing became an important element in the climax – one word: bonn-jerr-noh.

Other colorful characters like the British General (Mike Meyers!), the “Bear Jew”, and “Stiglitz” – who had his own Jackie Brown-esque mini-Jewsploitation film in the middle of Basterds – were great fun too. The movie only started getting too silly (“too silly!” and in danger of being shut down by Graham Chapman) when Goebbels and Hitler arrived at the premiere in the climax. It was okay when the fiction focused on characters that we didn’t know but when characters entered that we know didn’t do the things shown in the movie, it does bring down the entertainment value.

Rating: 8 (out of 10)

Like when a band wants to get back to basics and releases an eponymous record, Fast & Furious is the 4th Fast And Furious film. Apparently, the creators thought the franchise got went a little adrift with the last installment (get it? A-Drift? okay, nevermind), they wanted to reboot the sequel with original actors and bring the action back home.

What really got me excited about seeing this movie, though, was the trailer which showed an oil truck highjacking taking place at highway speed. Very cool. That scene turned out to be the opening scene of the movie except in the full movie version, there was a little more fluff and the scene didn’t feel as tight.

It was good to see the original cast on screen (note, it’ll be impossible to not reveal any spoilers when describing the movie, so you’ve been warned) even though they are never on screen together. I did sort of like the concept of trying to bring down the drug ring, that Letty was involved in working for the FBI, that Brian was now an agent who bristles at playing by the book, and that Dom was still Dom. And I liked how the movie resolved the issue of Dom and Brian racing against each other early in the movie – Dom wins dirty, Brian doesn’t get in, so Brian has another driver arrested on a trumped up charge just to get him out of the race, Brian gets in.

But I also had a lot of problems with the story. Killing off Letty was obviously a major plot driver, but taking her out of the movie early on was a mistake – it should have been a character less important to the franchise that died and fueled the revenge. And with Letty out early on, they should have used Mia more but all she did was pout and carry groceries, not getting behind the wheel until the final scene. I thought the tunnel idea was fun but way, way too long (for a scene that lasted that long with cars driving that fast, the tunnel would have had to have been about 10 miles long – that’s probably about 20 times longer than any drug runner would be willing to dig a tunnel).

The story went off the road about the time that Dom was sentenced. Here’s what should have happened: The judge starts off with the same line about Dom did good by saving Brian’s life but that Dom had led a life of crime. Then, instead sentencing Dom to life in jail, the judge says that Dom is sentenced to work for the FBI, using his talent to help Brian catch more bad guys like they just did. Add a line like “As judge, I know this is a risky move and one screw-up and you’ll end up in jail but it’s more important that we get more of the really bad guys off the street” to cover the shakey premise and you’ve got yourself a sweet setup for the next movie, should there be one. Now Dom and Brian have to work together or Dom goes to jail for life. Couple that with Letty having still been alive and the movie could have ended with a similar driving scene, all 4 lead characters driving their own cars and the others that they’ve met along the way joining them in a chase to get the next bad guys.

Rating: 5 (out of 10)