Do Mandroids Dream of Electric Blue Smurfs? Aeon Flux Review, Why You MUST Watch Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, and More!

And thus the almighty weekend comes to a close, and a week of more manual labor, long hours, and general insanity beckons. And so it was.

Some fun times this weekend, though my Friday was shot due to extreme fatigue brought on from a crazy day at work of moving boxes, relocating the contents of whole supply cabinets, and numerous errand-runs done in the rain. Not a fun day, and I barely made it through the unrelenting afternoon, and it all caught up to me at about 6 pm and I was just plain done for the night. Oh well, Saturday was fun (if a little bit crazy ...), and tonight I got to make up for Friday and head out for some good Italian food and a viewing of Aeon Flux. Yeah, you heard me.

So before the week starts, a few thoughts on the world of entertainment ...

TV STUFF:

VERONICA MARS - This past Wednesday's episode was awesome! This season is getting better by the week, and is now shifting into high gear, layering mystery upon mystery, and twist upon twist. The show is almost in danger of becoming TOO dense, with so many subplots and just so much going on ... but for now, it is kicking ass, and for the last few weeks has definitely been, dare I say it, the BEST show on TV, bar none. The Logan vs. Weevil stuff is getting so intense, both actors deserve a lot of credit. The bus-explosion mystery is evolving very nicely, and the vice-principal stuf fin this ep was just grin-inducingly awesome. "You've been reading Machiavelli over summer vacation." Awesomeness. And hey, this show is quickly becoming the king of killer cliffhangers (literally!), and this week's was another big one. And oh yeah, this ep even delivered a pretty cool ALTERNATE ENDING for online viewing, and is actually letting viewers VOTE on which one they prefer. Pretty cool, very innovative, and that alternate ending provided yet ANOTHER shocking twist that could totally throw the season for a loop if it comes into effect. Veronica under arrest for MURDER~? I say it's almost a little TOO much, with all that's going on in the show, but that's why it's an alternate ending, I guess. Anyways, this show is brilliant, if you don't watch it then you need to tune in now. This is the ultimate depiction of high school as a conspiracy-laden hell, and it's got mystery, action, humor, smarts, character, and style. My grade: A

- No new FOX stuff tonight, except King of the Hill (still the most consistent, heart-filled, earnest comedy on TV), which was taped by me and will be watched at a later date, along with last week's OC and Reunion.

IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT!

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY ----------

Watch ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT ON FOX TONIGHT @ 8pm! This could very likely be one of your last chances to see it on TV. To see what now? Only the BEST TV COMEDY OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS! So please WATCH, tell your friends to WATCH, tell them to tell their friends to WATCH, because who knows, maybe an osmosis effect will occur and everyone will watch and FOX will take notice and hold off on pulling the plug on this brilliant show. Sure, chances are slim, but there is always hope! What other show features a a teenage boy in love with his cousin, a fugitive father who hires a stand-in to make appearance at family functions, an attorney named Bob Loblaw played by Scott Baio, David Cross as an ambiguously gay idiot, self-mocking narration by Ron Howard, or Charlize Theron as a British spy?!?! This show has the best cast, the smartest writing, and the funniest gags of ANY show out there. TRUST ME. Just watch.

Speaking of Charlize ...

AEON FLUX REVIEW

Oh man, remember when MTV was COOL? I do. I remember in middle school turning on some MTV and seeing videos from Tom Petty and Aerosmith and Weezer and Green Day and Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots and Metallica. I remember seeing a new type of sketch comedy in THE STATE. And I remember late nights of flipping on MTV just to see what was on, and coming across wierd, subversive, trippy stuff that pretty much blew my mind. Sure, there was Beavis and Butthead - that's a given - a pretty hilarious classic that was underappreciated for its genious in its time. But then there was Liquid TV. There was crazy, intense, underground comic-book and anime inpired fare like The Maxx and The Head and most of all, Aeon Flux. AEON FLUX was pretty much just about the coolest, most freaked-out thing ever. There was a scantily-clad dominatrix chick, before such things were all the rage, doing backflips and kicking ass in an anime distopia, getting into all kinds of suicidal and homicidal adventures. Back when MTV was at the height of its coolness, Aeon Flux was THE coolest thing it had going. It was like a videogame acid trip that made no real sense but still assaulted your senses and undeniably ROCKED. So yeah, basically, there was no way Hollywood could NOT screw this one up. And all signs pointed to this one sucking beyond suck, as it was not even screened for the press, and the few early reviews were godawful. But then I saw a few positive reviews here and there, notablyon Ain't It Cool News, and thought, hmm, may not be so bad afterall? In any case, my curiosity factor for this movie was extremely high, as I have a huge love and nostalgia for the old-school animated Aeon Flux.

And no, it was definitely not terrible. It even had moments of awesomeness. Overall though, this movie had a lot of flaws that kept it from being great scifi. This is definitely no BLADE RUNNER (yeah right, no movie is), no Dark City, and no, not really as good as Gattaca either. It does borrow from all those movies though, cobbling together bits and pieces from a collection of other scifi stuff to assemble a story for Aeon - something that the animated series only hinted at but happily did without, instead reveling in its illogic and randomness. And maybe this movie could have used less story and more of that animated energy. More style and less substance. Yep, you heard me. Because while Charlize Theron as Aeon does a decent job of emulating the stylized cartoon she is based on, the movie often looks like something that a bunch of fanboy friends shot in their high school soccer field rather than a big budget sci fi movie. Sure, some shots and a few sets are pretty cool, but the quality is not at all consistent. This movie just didn't look RIGHT to me. On one hand you have some futuristic, trippy stuff going on. On the other hand you have everything shot in bright light and in mostly very simple, conventional Hollywood action movie ways. I almost think Iwould have preferred if this had been all crazy-acid-trippy like Tony Scott's recent DOMINO. Basically, the full on freakiness of the original Aeon Flux series seemed trapped and struggling to get out of generic Hollywood scifi action move # 5,739. Sure, there were moments. The old man who was the Keeper of everyone's DNA - weird and surreal like something Peter Chung might have thought of back in the day. Aeon's escape from her prison cell and cool shifting between spacial realities ... Coolness. Her knock-down, drag-out fight with a female pursuer, that saw Aeon grab the woman's earring with her tongue and proceed to rip it out of her assailant's ear ... pretty damn kickass. The rest of the movie ... the tired political power-struggle subplot, the non-chemistry between Aeon and Trevor Goodchild, the random action scenes that boiled down to lots and lots of bullets being fired and not much else ...? Not so much. Overall, this movie is in fact worth seeing, especially on a big screen where you can get lost in the futuristic world and just enjoy the ride. You could do a lot worse and its at the least an entertaining film, with some cool visuals, some interesting ideas, and some intriguing concepts to mull over. But does this EVEN HOLD A CANDLE to the animated series it's based on? Hells no. So check out the newly released animated Aeon Flux DVD, and be reminded of what COOL is, of what ARTISTIC VISION is ... and I'll give you a hint, it's NOT always what Hollywood thinks. My grade: C+

Well, I have more to write, more to say, and more to do. But time is limited and I'm already looking at T minus 6 hours of sleep before I have to wake up for work. Dammit!

Looks like I'll be dispatching my clone to go to work for me ...

Until then I'll be singing the body electric