MONKEY BUSINESS: Heston, Facebook, and THE OFFICE and 30 ROCK return!

I decided I don't want to be one of those people who always introduces their blogs by calling out what day it is. Yes, it's Friday. But am I going to open with a big spiel about how awesome it is that it's Friday? No, no I'm not.

- Okay, so is it just me or is Facebook getting totally out of control? I mean, I was never too up in arms when they introduced the news feed, but I guess it's just the combo of constantly being force-fed everyone else's status updates and useless crap, and the huge influx of random people joining Facebook that is making it totally insane of late. In the last few weeks, I've gotten friend requests from about 8 people I've either never met or have never talked to more than once. My philosophy is this - if you are going to facebook-friend (yes, that's a verb now) someone you've never met, at LEAST send an accompanying message explaining what your deal is, to assure me you're not some random spambot.

All of the recent facebook-related absurdity came to a head last night, when I received a friend request from ... HYGIENA of Who Wants to Be a Superhero fame. Now, don't get me wrong, I am both honored and surprised that a reality TV star on one of the few reality shows I've ever watched, who I've never met before in my life save the time I walked by her booth at WizardWorld, would decide to add me as a facebook friend. Seriously, it was kind of cool. I mean, the woman was a superhero christened by Stan Lee himself. But, you have to admit, when Hygiena is friending you on facebook, it has to be looked at as something of a jump-the-shark moment for the site, if ever there was one. I mean, good lord, I remember when it was me, a few of my college pals, and nobody over 22 had a clue what this facebook thing was. Ahhh ... those were the days.

So here are my conclusions, or "takeaways" as people seem fond of saying in the corporate world: a.) Facebook is not freakin' linked in. If we've never even met before, then AT LEAST do the courtesy of introducing yourself and explaining why on god's green earth you want me listed among your online buddies. If you're a reality-TV superhero, you are excepted. b.) Yes, it's still very scary that people not of the "Facebook generation" are now so prevalent on freaking facebook. But geez, if your picture is a corporate ID photo or something, I don't think I can be your friend. And finally, c.) for you young'uns out there, I'm not saying that you should become lame and boring just because your boss is now probably on facebook ... but come on, THINK. Do you really want the entire world to know what Desperate Housewive you're most sexually compatible with or whatever? You do? Welllll okay then.

- Man, I've yet to have a chance to bid farewell to the man, myth, and icon CHARLTON HESTON. Now, like many, I have not been a fan of the man's politics since I began to realize that he was a right-wing gun-rights advocate. But also like many, I grew up with Heston's movies and came to know him as one of the first real "movie stars" that I recognized and could pick out in a movie. Of course, this was largely because, pretty much every year as a kid attending Solomon Schechter Day School, we'd like clockwork be shown The Ten Commandments every year around Passover time. I always really enjoyed the movie though, even if it was ridiculously long and we rarely got to watch the whole thing, in large part because of Heston's innate awesomeness as Moses. The guy just seemed like he was some real-life pulp novel character come to life - larger than life in every way, with that unmistakeable line delivery that gave all of his dialogue an epic weight. Suffice it to say, long before Jack Bauer had a virtual trademark on the term "gravitas," Heston was the very definition of the word. Few actor's today could pull off the type of "man's man" roles that Heston regularly brought to life, from Planet of the Apes to Soylent Green to Ben Hur, from El Cid to Touch of Evil to The Omega Man, Heston was, in his prime, the definitive alpha male, the go-to guy when you needed a Last Man on Earth, and a man who truly made you believe that he was hearing the voice of God himself. And who can forget his classic cameo in Wayne's World II? Can't we get a better actor, indeed. So while some may remember him as the guy who wanted us to pry that gun from his cold dead hands, the film fan in me is simply sad that one of the greats has passed away. So get your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape, as I separate the man from the politics for a moment and pay tribute to a big-screen icon.

- Now, as much as I do want to separate the great actor from the controversial politics that later became his trademark, one can't help but think of the ongoing gun control debate in the wake of Mr. Heston's passing. Partly, the issue is also on my mind thanks to a great editorial written by Stephen King in last week's Entertainment Weekly. The main thrust of King's op-ed? That while it's easy to point fingers at the media and the entertainment industry, and critique their roles in real-life tragedies like last year's horrific incident at Virginia Tech, the fact remains: that psycho would NEVER have been able to harm anyone without the aid of a gun. I know, thank you Mr. Obvious, but it's a valid point nonetheless, and worth stating because the NRA crowd tends to blame every conceivable factor OTHER than the guns as contributing to violence. Newsflash: society will ALWAYS have its share of psychopaths - why are we giving them the means to go on mass murder killing sprees?

To read the whole article by the Master of Horror, click below:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20188502,00.html

TV STUFF:

- So last night was huge for fans of good TV. THE OFFICE and 30 ROCK were back, baby. 30 Rock was the TV show that, you may recall, I named as the #1 show of 2007. The comedy was on an absolute tear prior to the Writer's Strike, with its second season leaps and bounds ahead of its first. Some episodes had such nonstop laughter that there was barely time to recover from one joke to take in the next. The Office, meanwhile, had just begun to regain its footing prior to the strike. The season began on somewhat shaky ground, with a string of hour-long episodes that seemed to spread the comedy too thin. However, just prior the Strike the show seemed to take a darker turn, really ramping up the awkwardness level and starting to really get into the warped psyches of Michael and Jan. As I'll get to, last night's ep picked up right where we left off - namely, in a dark and very disturbing place ...

THE OFFICE:

- Wow, last night's ep was the epitomy of strange and disturbing, playing out like a warped version of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? than an episode of a network sitcom. While there weren't a ton of big, laugh-out-loud moments, this was nonetheless a somewhat brilliantly conceived episode, depicting what truly seemed to be the dinner party from hell. As Michael finally convinces Jim and Pam to attend a dinner at he and Jan's house, it's clear that we are about to go down the rabbit hole, so to speak. Overall, this was a funny, tragi-comic ep that really took a turn to the darkside, with Jan fully outed as a complete psycho-bitch and Michael as a whipped lapdog stuck in the relationship from hell. Dwight and Andy gave a few moments of levity / comic relief, but man, there was a whole lot of awkwardness otherwise. I hope that the show doesn't get too entrenched in giving us a weekly mind$#%^ in place of more typical workplace-derived comedy, but as a standalone ep that played like some crazed theater of the absurd play in the mode of Edward Albee, this was indeed something you don't see every day on TV.

My Grade: A -

30 ROCK:

- My expectations and hopes for 30 Rock had been astronimically high going in to last night's return episode, but that was tempered, by necessity, by the fact that I knew that on Day 1 after the Strike, there was no way 30 Rock was going to be quite as good as I wanted it to be gresh out of the gates. So I went into last night's ep with an odd mix of optimism and skepticim. What did I think after having watched the episode? Well, this was a decent installment of 30 Rock, but certainly not at the same level as the instant-classics that made me declare the show the Best of 2007. Firstly, some of the key ingredients to the show's success were either missing or under-represented. Tracy Morgan stole the show whenever he was given a line last night. His uncharacteristic call for everyone to calm down near episode's end was hilarious - unfortunately it was one of only a few lines for Tracy on the night. And where was Jenna? Jane K's loopy starlet has increasingly become one of 30 Rock's highpoints, so she was very conspicuous by her absence. Overall, I think the main plot as well as the subplots just felt a little bland. While Tina Fey's attempts to hide her negative comments towards Jack (that he was a "grade-A moron") produced a few funny moments (loved the little cutaway that compared Liz Lemon to Cathy of comic-strip fame - aaak!), overall it didn't feel substantial enough to anchor an episode. Unfortunately, the two subplots didn't hold up all that well either. The CONCEPT of MILF Island is so inherently funny that it didn't need any truly stellar jokes to make it comedic ... but ... it wouldn't have hurt either. So while I was chomping at the bit to see how 30 Rock would portray this hilarious concept, it surprisingly turned out to be kind of just a blah Survivor parody rather than something totally absurd and hilarious as I had hoped. Next up, there was a lame, ripped-from-The Simpsons subplot of Frank getting his hand stuck in a vending machine ... I mean, seriously? The 30 Rock I know would never resort to such a pedestrian and been-done B-plot. So yeah, all in all there WERE some funny lines - Tracy, Kenneth, and Liz all delivered a few classics. But plot-wise, this was not a 30 Rock for the ages, indicating that it may yet take a few episodes for the show to once again get back into its "Best Show On TV" groove.

My Grade: B -

- Finally, it's almost time for the NBA PLAYOFFS! While things in the East will likely be a snooze-fest until the conference finals, the West is set to explode from the outset this year with teams like Dallas at the bottom of the brackets who are themselves legit championship contenders. Last night, I took in a little NBA action in glorious HD, and man was it crystal clear. Now, as for who should get the MVP award, my pick is KEVIN GARNETT. Here's my reasoning -- KG got traded to the Celtics, and their team had the single biggest turnaround in league history, most of it thanks to the efforts of the Big Ticket. While Kobe is definitely a legit candidate, let's not forget that for the first part of the season, the Lakers were not that great. If anything, the addition of Pau Gasol triggered greater consistency from Kobe, renewed Lamar Odom's energy, and reignited the team as a whole. Kobe was a constant, but was he the IMPACT player of the year? Nope. Now - Chris Paul's numbers are huge, and he is also surely a legit MVP candidate ... but again I think you can look at the way the Hornets play, who their supporting cast is, and look at Paul as more of the bigest cog in that wheel rather than the lynchpin. Meanwhile, KG goes to a new team, turns around the whole franchise, and is putting up huge numbers to boot. The Celtics are THE team in the NBA this season, and KG is their franchise player. This is why he should be considered MVP.

- Okay, I'm out - have a great weekend and ... oh my god, I was wrong. It was earth, all along. Yes they've finally made a monkey - yes they've finally made a monkey - well they've finally made a monkey out of me-eeeeeeeeeee.

CAN'T GET NO ... SATISFACTION! (especially on Mondays ...). SHINE A LIGHT and LEATHERHEADS - Reviewed! And much more!

Back from another weekend, and ready to roll. Well, ready to go back to sleep is more accurate, but whatever. In any case, I had a fun weekend that included a birthday celebration for fellow former page Dan K, as well as a few film viewings, so, let's get down to business ...

Okay, first, some random TV STUFF ...

- Man, how weird was SNL this past weekend? Christopher Walken returned to host, and moreso than any other time I've seen him host, this really felt like an episode of "The Christopher Walken Show" or something, as nearly every sketch seemed tailored to Walken's, um, unique sensibilities. At first, bending the show to fit Walken seemed a good move, as I was cracking up at his totally random monologue and then at his turn as a high school drama teacher who kept changing the lyrics to "Greased Lightning" because they were too dirty. Pretty funny stuff, but from that point on things got more awkward-weird than hilarious-weird. A sketch that cast Walken as an office stalker was really odd but oddly flat, and then sketches that introduced a clan of Walken wannabes and saw CW as a plant expert afraid of plants ... well, they just felt more strange for the sake of being strange than anything else, even if they were speckled with moments of comedy. I definitely let out bewildered mutterings of "W ... T .... F?" more times during this episode than I have at anything SNL's done in recent memory. It was memorable, that's for sure, and at this stage in the game, that's a lot better than the alternative.

My Grade: B

- Last night's KING OF THE HILL was definitely a mixed bag. I definitely agree with the review over on The Onion's AV Club that the ep started off slowly, but took a pretty interesting turn later on that shifted the premise into much more fertile territory. Basically, the episode started out as a kind of run of the mill look at how Peggy decided to hire a troupe of actors to help her sell an an unattractive house, much to Hank's chagrin, of course. Pretty standard stuff for KOTH ... But things picked up when it was revealed that, carried away with her runaway success as a real estate agent, Peggy sells HER OWN house while caught up in all of the commotion. This definitely raised the stakes of the episode, as Peggy had clearly crossed a line and Hank had legitimate reason to be upset with her. Often, Peggy's incompetence goes unnoticed by her family, so it was interesting to see her screw up in a way that so directly pissed off Hank. In any case, the ending was pretty clever, with Hank being forced to betray his reputation as an impeccable home-owner by deliberately rigging his house so it would fail an inspection. Of course, the house is so ingeniously messed with that the inspector fails it, but later gives a knowing aside that it would take one hell of a home-owner to so craftily fail an inspection, thus preserving Hank's reputation. Classic KOTH, helping to save an episode that had been pretty bland up to that point.

My Grade: B

- As a sidenote, congrats to KING OF THE HILL for being renewed by FOX for next season for a limited run. While this season so far has been a bit up and down, it still feels like there's plenty of life left in the show - I mean, we've barely even seen any plots yet that deal with Lucky and Luanne's recent marriage, a subject rife with comedic potential. So congrats to KOTH - the underdog show that keeps on ticking!

- And all I can say is, I am lovin' my new HD setup. Sure, my selection of HD channels is currently somewhat limited, but this weekend I watched some quality NBA action in HD, and the difference as compared to what I was used to was night and day. And man, TNT was running the Lord of the Rings trilogy all weekend, and I just kept flipping back to the channel to take in a few minutes of one of my favorite epic film sagas in glorious hi-def. Okay, yes, I realize I am a giant nerd but dammit all, I freaking love those movies. "We must cast the ring into the fiery chasm from whence it came!" YES.

- I am also taking advantage of some pretty cool HD-only channels such as HDNet movies, in conjuction with my new DVR'ing capablities. Example - a quick browse through the channel listing showed me that a movie classic I'd been meaning to check out, Bonnie and Clyde, was playing on HDnet Movies in a few days' time. Set the DVR, and soon enough I can watch a classic movie in HD at my convenience, free of charge. I know, many of you are saying "no duh Danny, welcome to 2008." And to all of you I say, quiet down and let me enjoy my moment of HD / DVR happiness.

- As for BONNIE and CLYDE ... awesome movie. 'Nuff said.

Okay ... saw two movies this weekend so let's get to it.

SHINE A LIGHT Review:

- Shine a Light, the latest from Martin Scorcese, is basically a tribute to the staying power of The Rolling Stones and the remarkable fact that, here in 2008, the band is every bit the rock n' roll tour de force that they were 40 years ago. Essentially a straight concert film with a bit of documentary thrown in for good measure, Shine a Light captures the Stones during a series of benefit shows, put on by none other than former prez Bill Clinton. It's interesting - the venues aren't huge, the crowds aren't fanatical, but Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and co go out and perform every song like they've barely missed a beat from their 60's heyday. More than anything, the film is an ode to Mick Jagger's unflappable energy. He dances around the stage with such manic force that you come away thinking he should be put in a lab and studied by scientists. How can any 60 year old man go out there and dance and sing like that?

Judged on its merits as a concert film, Shine a Light mostly, well, rocks. Like I said, even old standbys like "Start Me Up," "Can't Get No ... Satisfaction," and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" are performed with maximum energy, soul, and bravado, with Jagger flailing his hips, kicking, busting a movie, and belting out the lyrics like a man posessed. There are some great guest stars who show up as well to spice things up. Jack White, Christina Aguilera, and Buddy Guy (especially Buddy Guy) all contribute to some powerful duets with Jagger. These are really some great, iconic performances of some hits, some rarities, and some covers - so much so that a purchase of the soundtrack album is now strongly under consideration.

I guess where the film left me a bit frustrated was that it hints at a larger sense of context and story, but never really delivers on that potential to be not just a concert film, but a real look at the Rolling Stones story. Scorcese juxtaposes the modern-day show with vintage interview footage, and its fascinating to see from-the-vault clips of Jagger and co as twenty and thirty year old rockstars speculating on their future as a band. I would have loved to see more of that. The essential message seems to be that after all these years, the band is still pretty much truckin' along, Jagger not much different at age 60 than he was at age 20 except that, now, his brand of sex drugs and rock n' roll has become such a part of the pop culture that he's shaking hands with presidents and making documenatries with Martin Scorcese. It's all kind of a light, breezy affair, a congratulatory celebration of a band that's made it this far and is somehow still vital, still goin'. On that count, it's a fun film filled with great music and some off-the-chain performances - it's just that it kind of teases you with glimpses at the past, at the backstory of the band, at their rise to fame and ups and downs and place in pop culture history -- but the film never really dives too deep in that regard. As I said, it's a light, breezy celebration of a movie, complete with Scorcese on camera in full-on mug mode. And, some of the film's most potentially interesting moments, like The Stones doing a meet and greet with the Clintons, are pretty much presented as is. It's left to us to think "hmm, this is quite a meeting of the minds" and "I wonder if Bill is really a big Stones fan, and there's no way that Hillary is, is she?" Again, the irony of the torch-bearers of sex drugs and rock n' roll being so chummy with the political establishment is left for us to ponder.

So as a concert film, Shine a Light rocks. The smaller venue makes it a film less about the fanbase of the band and more simply about the band themselves. You see how they work as a unit, how their energy levels vary wildly - whereas Mick is a freak of nature, Keith is a walking "this is your brain on drugs" ad. What Scorcese does though is he strips away a lot of the context, giving us a bare minumum of historical footage so that we can marvel at the band's longevity and staying power as we see them, past middle age and still putting on a hell of a show despite all logic dictting that they should long-since have been broken up, washed up, and irrelevant. In the end, it's only rock n' roll.

My Grade: B+

LEATHERHEADS Review:

- Leatherheads was a movie that struck me as clearly having gone through development hell. It tried to be a sports flick, an old-fashioned screwball comedy, a Coen Bros.-esque postmodern twist on the screwball comedy, and a romance flick all in one, and as you can probably predict, the result is a film that doesn't particularly excel in any of its chosen genres. Luckily, the movie has a pretty likable cast, and a solid enough foundation, that it's an enjoyable ride in spite of its various problems. But it never quite clicks in a way that allows it to be anything more than a decently entertaining movie.

Leatherheads is most interesting when it sticks to its central premise - the tale of how professional football transformed from a small-time, backwoods sport into the beginnings of the bigtime world of glitz and glamour that the sport is known for today. If the movie has stuck to its guns and focused in on being a sports-comedy, it could have worked. But instead, the movie glosses over some of the historical context, and becomes less about football and more about the efforts of twin leads George Clooney and John Krazscinksi (of the Office dame) to win over a plucky reporter played by the only mildly-appealing Renee Zelwegger. The movie develops into a cat and mouse game of one upsmanship, and it tries its damndest to be cute and funny. But the level of wit present never comes close to being as clever as it wants to be, and the dialogue is pretty labored and rarely is it especially snappy or funny. The Coen Bros. this ain't.

Luckily, the film has a really fun cast. Clooney just kind of shows up here, both as an actor and a director, but he does a decent enough job of carrying the film and is mostly pretty likable, as an aging footaballer making a last-ditch effort to revitalize pro-football, which is suffering at the hands of the much more popular college version of the game. Enter John K., who plays a college star whose early entry into pro football gives the league a sudden infusion of fans, and begins elevating the game into equal parts sport and showbiz. John K does surprisingly little here - he basically shrugs and grimaces his way through the film without changing much of his usual Office M.O. But as I was saying, it was great to see the likes of the ever-reliable Stephen Root and Jonathan Pryce, who lend a touch of comedic flair and dramatic heft to the proceedings, respectively. While I don't thin kthis was the best work of anyone in the cast, it was, certainly, a talented and very watchable group that was assembled.

The biggest problem here? The movie just wasn't very funny, and for a movie that tried very hard to elicit chuckles, it was especially noticeable. Clooney has shown excellent goofball timing in movies like Intolerable Cruelty, it's just that here, the material was fairly flat, and everything had an air of being re-written, re-touched, and dumbed-down. This would have been okay, I guess, if it presented an in-depth look at the evolution of football, or had some real dramatic chops. But as it is, the movie tried so hard to be goofy fun in the manner of vintage comedies that it chose to live or die by its humor. Again, luckily, the cast and general good-natured style of the film made it much more likable than it had any right to be, but in the end it never quite added up to anything more than decently entertaining.

My Grade: B -

Alright, so long for now. Back soon with more words of wisdom.

Want an M&M?

Friday, how thou art glorious. Very happy that the weekend is finally here, after a loooong week at work and a definite lack of sleep. So, last night was fun little get-together as a big group of former NBC pages gathered at Ernie's mexican restaurant in North Hollywood for a bit of food and drink. Since this blog really kind of began as a chronicle of my new life as an NBC Page, I always feel a bit compelled to talk about Page-related stuff here. It was definitely interesting, as even though many of those assembled last night are people who I'm still friends with or still see regularly, the whole evening definitely had a kind of high-school reunion vibe to it for some reason. I guess it's partly because there is now that bit of divergence among the former pages, where while everyone generally keeps in touch ,even if only as Facebook friends or whatever, there are certainly little cliques of people who remain friends and hang out. Plus, career-wise, I think that people are now getting into that stage where, while once everyone was shiny and hopeful about a kickass Hollywood future, now many are either out of a job, in a job they don't like, or in a job that is okay, but not exactly what they forsaw for themselves. It's funny because people have kind of, in parallel, moved away from the stage of "check out my cool awesome job" to "man, working sucks." I guess it's that whole quarterlife crisis thing? It's like those assistant and coordinator jobs seem great at first, and it's nice just to have a salary, but then it's like "okay, so this is what I'll be doing for ten years before I get a promotion?"

Anyways, enough with my slightly-too-emo rantings.

It's the weekend, baby.

Kicking Ass with KICKASS, and lots more.

What's up, loyal readers? Man, this has been a nutty week. Lots of craziness at work, to the point where by the end of each day my brain is 100% fried. It's a terrible feeling. Like, yesterday I really needed to go grocery shopping, and just removing myself from my new couch (!) was like this huge process. I kept wanting to do some writing, but I sat staring at my computer screen and was pretty much just numb. Ahhh, I need a vacation. Or something.

Hmm, mentioning my new couch has made me realize that I've barely talked about me at all of late here on the blog. And what good is a blog if it can't be filled with every who-gives-a-crap detail of my life? Haha, okay, well, I won't totally bore you to death, but since I've already annoyed my friends and coworkers with this stuff, I might as well put it here too. Basically, I have been trying to make some very exciting (well, to me) upgrades to the ol' apartment of late. Gone is my old LL Bean couch, and in its place is a shiny new, and, much more comfortable sleeper-sofa. The new couch is a few inches longer, which is perfect as I can now lie fully outstretched on it without my feet going over -- a necessity for any true-blue couch potato such as myself. In any case, its very comfortable and is a big upgrade. Since I live in a studio apartment, any change in furniture is a bit traumatizing, as it changes the whole look of the place. Luckily, I am over my initial minor-trauma and am now pretty well-adjusted to the new look of my apartment. Let's call it Danny's Apartment 1.5. Or even 2.0, if we're feeling ambitious. New couch, new TV ... is this a sign that I'm moving up in the world? Most likely, no, but one can dream.

What I am realizing is that, since I am a big collector / accumulator / person who refuses to throw stuff away ... my studio apartment is getting really full. I already have more DVD's than I have room to store, my closets are all full ... Oh well, one step at a time. One step at a time.

- So, NBC announced its fall lineup, much earlier than is customary for the big networks. But, f course, this year is different thanks to the Strike, and while there are surely tons of cost-saving measures that make this new process advantageous, I can say that for us on the peripheries of the network, it's a lot less fun. Basically, when NBC announced its Fall Schedule, I got my info about our new shows the same way as everyone else -- going online and reading Ain't It Cool and Variety and the NY Times. I've barely seen any of the scripts for the new shows, and have definitely not seen any footage (and may not, as the late production schedules and lack of a real "pilot season" means that first episodes will be ready-for-viewing much later than is typical). So, when it comes to: what do I think about the new NBC lineup, I have no idea as of yet because I don't know anything. But yeah, like everyone else, I'm dying to know what exactly an Office spinoff looks like.

- As part of my new HDTV setup, I upgraded my cable to include HD channels (though Charter's selection kind of sucks right now), as well as built-in DVR. Finally, right? So I'm still playing around with recording seasons and series, but yes, I have finally entered the 21st century. Like I said, I'm movin' on up. Now I seriously need a PS3.

- Nothing to really talk about in terms of TV. Next week, THE OFFICE and 30 ROCK return, praised be Jeebus. I am dyin' for some more LOST though.

- One big TV news item is that longtime SMALLVILLE showrunners Gough and Miller have apprently left the show. I think that, overall, these guys deserve a ton of credit for creating a show with a great premise that really helped inspire the whole "the hero BEFORE they were a hero" genre, and paved the way, IMO, for shows like Heroes to have a place on network TV. Now, on the other hand, Smallville has undeniably been a show that's never quite lived up to its potential. Furthermore, over the last few years the show's quality has steeply declined -- forcing fans to endure endless runs of lame dialogue, week after week of characters being possesed or personality-altered, Lana being turned into a witch, Lana in general, and just an overall lack of real forward momentum or epic storytelling. Yeah, I've praised the show in recent weeks, citing a string of fun, big-event-style episodes that helped reignite some of my flagging interest in the show. But would I welcome some new blood to help end the show in style? Yes I would. Here's hoping that this next season of the show is its last, but that it's a fun, inspiring, epic adventure that delivers one hell of an ending.

- Speaking of Superman-related letdowns, DC's COUNTDOWN seems to get more godawful by the week, even as it jets towards it conclusion, after nearly fifty weeks of lame storylines, lame characters, and a plot that can only be called one giant, pointless cluster$#%*. I read this week's issue baffled at the sheer ineptitude of what I was reading. How did this happen? How did creators like Paul Dini and Keith Giffen allow their names to be put onto such a meandering, aimless piece of crap? Look, I am usually one to find the brightside in any given book ... but this has been 50 weeks of garbage ... I think it's fair to ask what gives.

- Now, on the other side of the coin, all hail Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly for the work they've been doing on ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, a series that with each and every issue gets better and better, each story a self-contained mini-classic in its own right, and even more impressive when looked at as part of the larger tapestry of the series. This book has proved the perfect venue for Morrison's out-there ideas and imagination, and Quietly's subdued but ultra-expressive art is a 100% perfect match for the quirkiness at hand. A must-read for Superman fans, All-Star Supes is awesome.

- One more comic to talk about: Mark Miller's much-hyped mature-readers series, KICKASS. After hearing so much about it, I picked up the first two issues and gave it a read. The verdict? Well, hard to say definitively this early in the game, but there is most definitely a spark here. The kind of spark that you see in a series like Y: The Last Man, or Preacher, or Supreme Power. A spark that indicates this COULD be the next great comic book. Basically, it's the premise that makes it so darn intriguing from the outset. A depressed and restless teen, firmly planted in the "real" world, has a pent up desire to throw caution to the wind, throw on an old scuba diving suit, and go out on the streets and, well, be a superhero. So he goes out, gets more and more into his whacked-out idea, and proceeds to quickly get the living hell beat out of him by a group of thugs. Within one issue, our "hero" is in a hospital bed, barely alive. But in issues #2, after months of healing, he tries to dispense some vigilante justice again - he just can't shake that crazy superhero idea of his. This time, he is once again beat up and humiliated, but somehow, he puts up a pretty good fight. The twist? a bunch of onlookers watch him, someone records the whole thing, and this being the "real" world - the video, of course, finds it ways on to YouTube. What happens next? I literally have no idea. But I haven't been this excited to find out in quite a while. The series, if nothing else, feels totally fresh and new, and I think what makes it so exciting is that I have no clue where Millar is going with this. Sure, there are some hints dropped and some foreshadowing of what's to come. But man, this one is going to be a ride - I can 100% see why this book was immediately optioned by a major studio to adapt into a feature film. This one has "make into a movie" written all over it. Highly recommended that you get on board.

- Alright, I am out of here for now. Now where's that old scuba suit ...

It's April 1st But I Ain't Foolin' -- a review of AMERICAN ZOMBIE.

And a happy April Fool's to everyone. So far today I've tried convincing unsuspecting friends that:

- I am a time-traveller from the future.
- I was bitten by a strange dog and now think I might be becoming a werewolf.
- I was recently married and divorced and have been taking it very hard.

Oy ......

- So, man, what is with the rut in movies lately? It's hard to believe it's already April and aside from a couple of badass action-flick throwbacks in Rambo and Doomsday, there's been very little in the way of quailty cinema so far this year. Wasn't it only a few months ago that we were overwhelmed with an overabundance of great movies? I can only hope that Forgetting Sarah Marshall will be a top-notch comedy when it's released in a few weeks, because lord knows we need one.

That being said, the current movie rut has given a bit of an opportunity to seek out some lesser-known releases and give them a shot. One such small-release movie that I saw this past weekend was an indie mockumentary called American Zombie.

AMERICAN ZOMBIE Review:

- One of my favorite niche genres in film has always been the mocumentary. Mostly, this is because of the brilliantly hilarious work of Christopher Guest, who made three instant comedy classics in Waiting For Guffman, Best In Show, and A Mighty Wind. Similarly, I've always loved the combination of horror and comedy - whether its Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, the Simpsons' Halloween episodes, or even The Munsters. There's just something about mixing creepiness with comedy that goes down smooth. So I was definitely curious about American Zombie, a mockumentary that imagines a world in which the living dead are essentially just another minority in the melting pot that is America. They're dead and they're proud of it, and they just want to be looked at as normal people, just like you and I, albeit with slightly rotting flesh. Of course, some normals have the sneaking suspicion that their zombie neighbors are hungry for more than just equal rights. Some believe that just as in the movies, the zombies are a dangerous lot intent on snacking on humans whenever possible. So which is it - are the zombies just average joes, or vile monsters? Documentarian Grace Lee sets out to answer this question, and the result is an entertaining though slightly uneven film that, if anything, is a clever send-up of documentaries and the lengths they'll go to to paint a fair portrait of their subjects.

The background here is that the real-life Grace Lee is a noted documentary filmmaker who, in the past, has mostly tackled very serious subjects, often making films with strong social causes. It's interesting then to see her take that same type of formula and apply it to a movie that in execution IS a serious social documentary, but in reality is a tongue-in-cheek parody of the genre. In the movie, Grace Lee plays an exaggerated version of herself - the mind behind the documentary, intent on creatign a fair portrayal of Southern California's local zombie population. John Solomon also plays himself, a kind of Mulder to Lee's Scully. He is intent on exposing the truth rather than simply being fair. His suspicions? That zombies are in fact flesh-eating monsters who are a menace to society. Soon enough, it becomes clear that, as normal-seeming as the average-joe zombies that we follow around appear to be, John's suspicions, repeatedly rebuked by Lee, are more than likely correct. But in the name of doing right by this supposedly oppressed minority, Lee insists that they paint a rosy picture of their undead subjects.

It's a really interesting premise, to be sure. The various zombie subjects that we meet are all pretty fascinating characters. Particular standouts include Jane Edith Wilson as a passive-aggressive zombie who bottles up her rage at with her obnoxious neighbors, and Suzy Nakamura as a scrapbook-obsessed, socially-awkward shut-in whose zombie status is the least of her problems when it comes to finding a man. One problem though lies in the fact that the acting is a bit uneven. Grace Lee and John Solomon do a good job playing fictional versions of themselves, and Lee is pretty effective at playing things totally straight no matter how absurd they get. But while the two aforementioned zombie actresses are pretty good, some of the other zombie characters are a bit up-and-down.

Part of the problem is that Lee never seems quite sure how funny she wants her movie to be. While this is clearly a comedy and a parody, things are often played a little too straight. The stretches of flatness are compounded by the fact that only a few of the actors are really able to make their lines work with the type of self-mocking with required of this type of film. People like Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, and Parker Posey come to mind as actors who can totally nail the deadpan, mock-serious tone I'm thinking of, and it's why Christopher Guest uses them over and over. Because Grace Lee doesn't have quite the same knack for comedy, her humor often gets buried ... no pun intended. You can also see her weaknesses as a *fictional* filmmaker exposed. Unlike in a real documentary, this type of crazy horror premise requires a little thought put into the whole mythology aspect of its universe. When did the zombies first begin to rise? How were they accepted? How do they seem to be a mystery to so many people when they work in convenience stores and factories? I mean look, it's a comedy, I dont' need a whole bible detailing the history of the zombie uprising -- but this movie's zombie-centric premise raises a TON of questions that are never really addressed, and for that reason there's often huge logic gaps in the narrative, which is where they ultimately become noticable and distracting.

As the film progresses, there's a gradual shift from pure comedy to horror, and I give Lee credit in that she does a great job of shifting the atmosphere from farce to frightful, to the point where, when the $%#* really begins to hit the fan, it is genuinely pretty disturbing and creepy stuff. Still, the tonal shift does kind of highlight the fact that for all of its potential, this is a pretty uneven movie that, like I said earlier, never seems quite sure what it wants to be or what point it wants to make. The fact that Lee applies the template of her more serious documentary films to an over-the-top, fictional concept in zombies makes for an inherently cool premise, rife with potential for hilarity and horror. And while it's a fun, enjoyable, at times funny, at times creepy flick, it never quite realizes that full potential. Still, in a spring season filled with generic lameness at the box office, you can't go wrong with a little dose of zom-com quirkiness. If it's playing near you (likely only if you're in LA or NYC), or when it comes out on DVD this summer, give it a shot.

My Grade: B

- Alright, that's all for now. Well, except for the news that I just got a big promotion, and am now sixteenth in line to run NBC.

April Fool's.

I mean, um ... okay, April Fool's.

Whoooo! Smallville, Simpsons, and a final curtain call for The Nature Boy.

Man, somehow it's been a whole week since I last posted here. Well, no worries, as I'm here, I'm back, and ready to roll.

To start off, some TV Stuff. True, there's been a distinct lack of bigtime television programming of late, with Lost off the air, The Office and 30 Rock yet to return from the strike, and Jack Bauer not poised to return to save the world until the fall, and even then only for a one-shot special. However ...

- SMALLVILLE has been on a bit of a streak of late. Okay, the show at its best still can't really touch the likes of a Lost, but considering how much of a rut it's been in for much of this season, I feel like the last two episodes have definitely stepped up the game a bit. Thursday's ep, which featured a pretty intense showdown with James Marsters as Braniac, also showcased some really great performances by Michael Rosenbaum and Jonathan Glover as Luthor Jr. and Sr. respectively. I liked that there was finally a clear status-quo explanation given of Lionel's recent erratic behavior, and I also really like that Lex has pretty much dived headfirst off the deep end. There's no messin around anymore - the guy is evil with a capitol "e." I also enjoyed the fact that for once, the episode had a really nice sense of scope. Similar to the previous week's ep, things just felt "big." Sure, some of the epicness was diminished a bit by the lame, Scooby-Doo dialogue between Clark and Kara ("Gee-whiz, you mean Braniac is pure energy? Then he must have a power-source!") Still, it was a pretty cool scene when Braniac flew Kara up into outer space to some unknown destination, hinting at some unforseen danger yet to be revealed. That's what I want in a Superman tale - vile villains, epic scope, huge stakes, bigtime heroics. Was this a masterpiece of TV drama? No. But was it the second episode in Smallville in a row that really entertained and captivated me from start to finish? Most definitely.

My Grade: A -

- Now, I've read a few decent reviews of last night's SIMPSONS and KING OF THE HILL episodes. To me, I have to say that both were, if anything, somewhat low points in the season for each show.

As far as KING OF THE HILL goes, I just found the story to be pretty all over the place, and with Kahn as the central character, we got a pretty boring "Kahn tries to prove himself to condescending authority figure" stock storyline that, to its discredit, felt like many other episodes we've seen before, despite introducing an all-new character in the form of Kahn's father-in-low. There were some good one-liners -- Dale's remark about stealing another man's signature kareoke song was particularly funny -- but the main plot, as well as the Bobby-Peggy B-story, never really grabbed me.

My Grade: B -

Similarly, THE SIMPSONS had a few funny quips (Homer: Stop talking, boy. That's the TV's job.), but the plot, about Lisa becoming a ballet dancer, and then in turn struggling to ward off a smoking habit, felt utterly disjointed and was mostly just, again, boring. Toss in a go-nowhere B-plot about Homer's secret beef-jerky making, and you have the makings of a stinker of an episode. Even worse, I smiled at first seeing that the ep was including a parody of Roy Scheider-as-Bob Fosse from All That Jazz. Only problem was -- there was no real parody included. The character didn't have a single memorable joke or clever riff. Sadly, even an ending that saw Bart don a Mexican wrestling mask couldn't save this forgettable episode.

My Grade: C

- Now, I will confess here on the blog that, Sunday, a few friends and I gathered to watch the WWE's annual extravaganza - WRESTLEMANIA. This year's event was mostly notable for a single reason, and no, it was not the fact that boxing champion Floyd "Money" Mayweather would be competing in a cross-promotional bout with the gigantic Big Show. No, for longtime fans, the real draw of this year's WM was that it was all but guaranteed to see the final match in the storied career of "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair.

Now, it's no secret that I have been a huge Flair fan for years. How can anyone who calls themeselves a man not admire the self-styled "kiss-stealin', wheelin'-dealin', limousine-ridin', jet-flyin' son of a gun." The man who "styles and profiles." The originator of such classic catch-phrases as "To be the man, you've gotta beat the man," "What's causin' all this?", "Space Mountain may be the oldest ride in the park, but it's still got the longest line," and of course, "WHOOOOOO!" Flair has always had one of the greatest, larger-than-life personas of anyone in sports or entertainment, and is one of the greatest, most emotional talkers in the history of the wrestling biz. Many of his promos are legendary. His feuds with the likes of Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race, Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Terry Funk, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and more, are classics. He led one of the most infamous stables of badass tough-guys in the Four Horsemen. And aside from all that, he is one of the all-time great mat wrestlers - a man who few doubted when he said he could carry a broomstick to a great match.

So yeah, we all got a bit emotional last night, when Flair stepped into the ring with another legend in Shawn Michaels. In the storylines, a loss would force Flair to retire as an active ring competitor. But in reality, we all knew that this was probably it. In a sport where few things are ever really final, this one was probably about as final as one can get. Afterall, the man is pushing 60. It's amazing what he can still do at his age and it's a given that he is endlessly entertaining on sheer charisma alone. But at some point, reality sets in, even in a business built on unreality. The good news is that the match was a classic. Michaels, in his forties, has the the ability at this stage that Flair once had to carry anyone to a classic, to accentuate their strengths and hide their weaknesses. And Michaels worked like crazy, breaking out flipping moonsaults through tables and all manner of bigtime maneuvers, while working with Flair to tell a story in the ring that packed in a ton of emotion, heart, and drama.

The finish of the match was a classic. Throughout the bitter back and forth fight, Michaels had a few opportunities to put Flair away, but hesistated - he couldn't bring himself to once and for all put an end to Flair's legendary career. With each hesitation, a desperate Flair would capitalize, swinging the momentum in his favor. Finally, with each man wobbly, an all out brawl ensued, with Flair hitting a flurry of his trademark knife-edge chops, each one producing a loud "thwack!" that echoed across the arena, each one inciting the capacity crowd to let out enthusiastic cries of "Whooooo!" But with a sudden blur of motion, Michaels stopped Flair cold with a devastating, out-of-nowhere superkick to the chin. Flair went down, as did Michaels, exhausted. But Michaels was soon back up, as Flair slowly crawled to his feet. Michaels was poised and in position for one more superkick, one more dose of "sweet chin music." If Michaels hit that one final kick, there was no doubt - the match was over. With tears in his eyes, Flair rose to face the inevitable. But Michaels, also tearing up, once again hesitated to pull the trigger. "Come on!" yelled Flair, waving his fists defiantly. If nothing else, he wanted Shawn to bring it, to bring his best, his A-game, even if it meant the end of everything. The camera closed-in on the Heartbreak Kid. "I'm sorry," he said. And with that, he unleashed one final blow to Flair, that knocked him out like a light. One, two, three. Hit Michael's music, that was all she wrote. All that was left was for Flair to get back up one last time, to acknowledge the crowd, all standing and applauding, one last time, and make the long, slow walk back to the dressing room.

So yeah, regardless of what else was on the card, it was a memorable night for all of us fans of The Nature Boy. For one last night, he was "The Man."

And with that, I'm out. Whoooooooo!

Writing a Blog then Fondling a Sweater: a Wet Hot American Purim, LOST, Smallville, and MORE

Hola, amigos. Ahhhhhhh I hate Mondays. Luckily, it was a fun weekend for a number of reasons. I'll recap a bit in a second, but first of all I need to wish my friend Alessandra a speedy recovery, after a truly horrific hiking accident that she was involved in last week. Luckily, she is recovering and in amazingly good spirits all things considered, so I am just happy that she is okay!

So, here's one cool event from the weekend that I thought I'd share - as all of you readers know by now, as I repeat this ad nauseum, I'm a huge fan of THE STATE, and all of its various comedic offspring, from Stella to Wet Hot American Summer to The Ten. The other week, I was unable to attend a VERY rare live performance by a re-united State, that occured at the UCB Theater here in LA. I was very disappointed, but there wasn't much I could do. However, this past weekend saw yet another State-related event here in LA - a little shindig known as Wet Hot American Purim. It was a movie screening / Purim party all in one. I would have been happy just to see one of my all-time favorite comedies, Wet Hot American Summer, with a captive audience and get in a little Jewish culture on the side. But, to my surprise, the event got an added layer of coolness when David Wain, Joe Lo Truglio, and Margarite Moreau from the film, along with a few other crew guys, came out to introduce the movie and take a few questions from the peanut gallery. Awesome! In any case, it was so cool just watching the movie with about 100 fellow fans. It really is just brilliantly funny from start to finish, and definitely elevates random, absurdist humor to an artform in a way that few other comedy troupes can do. So yeah, that was cool.

- And by the way, a belated Happy Purim to my fellow members of The Tribe, and hope those who celebrated it had a good Easter as well.

In other news, I have finally entered the world of HDTV, as I took the plunge and purchased a 32" LG set for my apartment. I'm having my cable upgraded this weekend, so I've yet to really see the full capabilities of the set, though thanks to an internal tuner I've checked out a few HD channels over the airwaves, and been impressed with how clear some of the shows look in high-def. I also connected my trusty PS2 to the set via a newly-purchased set of component cables, and this is where things got really cool. Most PS2 games I tried out looked extremely impressive with the component cable, especially one like God of War which support progressive scan and widescreen. Now, the main drawback of using the PS2 with this new TV is that as a DVD player it's less than ideal, and is definitely not upconverting anything to higher resolutions like many newer DVD players do. So while newer films look pretty good, some older movies do look noticeably less defined and sharp than they did on a regular old tube TV. Anyways, I welcome any suggestions on improving picture quality, and now I am just really antsy to try both an upconverting DVD player as well as, eventually, a Blu-Ray player and see how the image quality varies. My current thinking is to hold off for the June-launching 80 gb PS3 that is set to include a bundled copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 (a must-have for me), as well as, finally, a Dual Shock 3 controller. Since the 80 gb systems have backwards compatibility with PS2 and PS1, I've got to think that that, as opposed to the currently available 40 gb system, is the way to go.

Okay, so I never really got to talk about some of the big TV events from late last week, so, here we go ...

- LOST last week presented the story of how long-lost character Michael, who has now assumed the alias of Kevin Johnson, went from departing the island with Walt to showing up as Ben's resident spy on Charlie Whidmore's freighter. Overall, I thought the episode was suitably intense, and presented some very interesting broader questions about who in our story is "good" vs. who is "evil." There were some fun moments thanks to the return of Tom / Mr. Friendly, who has always been a great antagonist and the Other who you'd most like to punch in the face, aside from Ben of course. One thing I thought was interesting was how the flashbacks in this episode were framed under the guise of Michael relating his story to Sayid. Previously, the flashes have always had an almost mystical quality to them, playing off the show's theme of variable timelines and of interconnectedness across space and time. I found it interesting that this week really played around with the usual narrative conceit of not framing the flashbacks with any kind of real storyline-derived justification. Otherwise, it was an interesting episode, though not a truly memorable one in the vein of the Desmond-centric ep from a few weeks back. While I had hoped for that kind of episode, since this one was also written by Brian K. Vaughan, this was definitely more of a standard "fill-in-the-blanks" episode that had minimal forward momentum. Still, what forward movement there was was almost jarring in its abruptness. We had Sayid rashly decide to out Michael to the captain of the freighter, and then, Alex, Karl, and Rousseau brutally attacked while out in the woods, with Karl and possibly Rousseau bitin' the big one very suddenly. The ending, while certainly jaw-dropping, did have a slightly tacked-on feel, and the question of whether the three were set up by Ben, attacked by other Others, etc., is interesting but ultimately kind of frustrating in its open-endedness. Am I psyched for the next batch of episodes in late April? Hells yeah. But has my enthusiasm dwindled a bit since my excitement for the show reached its peak with that Desmond episode? Yeah, it has. While the last few weeks of Lost have been pretty good, they've yet to match that same high.

My Grade: B+

- Now, I have to say I was almost shocked at how good this past week's ep of SMALLVILLE was. I realize that my evaluation of the previous week's Pete Ross ep was probably a bit forgiving. In retrospect that episode was pretty retarded in a lot of ways. But, I feel pretty confident in saying that Thursday's ep was actually a legitimately excellent episode of Smallville, even by Season 1 - 4 standards. It just had a great, bigtime feel to it, with the threat level of both Lex and Lionel really ramped up to the point where it finally felt that Clark was facing some serious villainy. For once, the show had a lot of great nods to its own past continuity, from the Dr. Swan references to the acknowledgement of Lionel's less-than-honorable history with Clark. On top of that, the ep just had an overall epic feel to it. I was commenting to the G-Man that from start to finish, I really toke note of this episode's great, movie-like cinematography. From Clark trapped in that glowing green cage, to Kara's last minute rescue, to that ominous shot of Lionel standing atop his fallen adversary ... this had all the makings of a classic Superman adventure story - great villains, fun action, high-stakes, and lots of built-in drama. I can only hope that the next few weeks' worth of Smallville maintain this same high level of quality.

My Grade: A -

- Good to see PRISON BREAK is definitely coming back for Season 4. I know the show has its detractors, but for those of us who are loyal viewers, the show seems to just get better and more involving each year. Especially in the absence of 24 this year, PB has been the best true action-adventure show on TV.

- Now, my two pet causes for on-the-bubble renewal are these: MISS/GUIDED and ALIENS IN AMERICA. I think it's a pretty safe bet that TERMINATOR will be back, so I'll leave that one alone. But Miss/Guided, for one, has so much potential. It's really a shame that it was pretty much burned off by ABC, as I could see it really catching on with the right marketing. We'll see what happens. Now, Aliens In America has done pretty poorly, ratings-wise ... but, so has almsot everything on The CW, a network that can't seem to do anything right. CW needs to establish a better night for its flagship comedies. Its shows have a lot of potential teen-appeal, yet they always seem to be matched up against other young-skewing shows. Come on CW, show that you can actually nurture a show into a hit, for once!

Alriiiiiiiiiight, I'm out for now. Hope to get on a better blogging streak soon - so stay tuned.

The blog gets a DOOMSDAY device! Doomsday reviewed, WizardWorld LA recap, and MORE!

Ahhhhhh why is it Monday? I could use another few days of weekend but here I am, pluggin' away and soldiering on. Luckily, I had a really fun weekend that was certainly one for the books. Firstly, good times on Friday celebrating the birthday of fellow former page and current Ellen staffer D. James. Second, this weekend was my FOURTH annual go-around at Wizard World LA. Yes, fourth! Wow - to think that four years ago, four fledgling NBC pages, united by a shared sense of geekiness, ventured down to Long Beach for Wizard World on one of my first true LA adventures ... crazy! Now we're four years older, not much wiser, and still pretty geeky (hopefully endearingly so), so it was fitting that the ol' crew got together for one mo' adventure.

The show this year at the LA Convention Center was a bit scaled-back from years' past. There certainly was a slight lack of big-time panels this year - no Kevin Smith, no big movie trailer premieres, no big TV show presentations with full cast and crew present. However, the upside was that the show this year had a pretty laid-back feel - not too crowded, with a relatively small show floor that could be navigated with relative ease. We went to two panels - the first was okay - it was a presentation by Lucas Films / Lucasarts that I was hoping might have some interesting new footage to show from Indiana Jones or somesuch coolness. The highlight turned out to be appearances by Seth Green and the other co-creator of Robot Chicken, who had some cool stories about their love of Star Wars and whatnot. Otherwise, what we got were rehashed footage and trailers from Indy 4, the new next-gen Star Wars videogame, and the upcoming Adult Swim CGI animated series. The second panel we attended I actually really enjoyed - it was a bunch of film and TV screenwriters who specialize in genre projects - guys behind things like Smallville, Battlestar, and upcoming film adaptations of The Incredible Hulk, Y: The Last Man, Teen Titans, and Sgt. Rock. Very, very interesting stuff, for sure, and a lot of good advice was dispensed throughout the panel.

As always, we saw a lot of cool celebs: Summer Glau, Seth Green, Milo V of Heroes, hardcore legend Mick Foley, Mr. Monday Night Rob Van Dam, Christy Hemme, the entire cast of Who Wants to Be a Superhero, and a number of others. Particularly cool was that my friend Seth, whose AIM screenname is a reference to Foley's trademark Mr. Socko, got to do a meet and greet with Mrs. Foley's Baby Boy, including a great photo op with the hardcore icon-turned-NY Times bestselling-author.

As usual, we try to cap off the night with an appropriately cool movie. Luckily, Universal just released a new genre action-adventure, Doomsday, and was holding a free employee screening that night. We went into the film not necessarily expecting much, but, well ... read for yourself:

DOOMSDAY Review:

- Sometimes, a movie comes along that isn't going to be a critical favorite, that isn't going to really win over a large portion of the movie-going public, and that isn't going to tear it up at the box-office. But sometimes, there comes a movie that despite all that, well, for a certain segment, a certain demo, it simply pushes the right buttons, and delivers exactly as it should. much to my surprise, Doomsday was just such a movie - one that delivered exactly what the doctor ordered, as a no-holds-barred sci-fi shoot-em-up that pulls no punches and is the kind of absurdly over-the-top free-for-all that they just don't make anymore. To get more specific - it's been a fun several months for those of us raised on 80's action movies. Last year around this time, Tarantino and Rodriguez unleashed Grindhouse - a flawed but fun-as-hell tribute to hardcore action flicks. Only a few months ago, we got a new Rambo movie that reminded what made those simpe-but-efective action movies of days gone by so memorable and beloved. Now, there is Doomsday - a movie that is essentially a loving homage to cinematic days gone by, but in its own right is one of the craziest, over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall action flicks to come along in years.

The quick n' dirty version? I'm going to throw out some references for you - if these things get your cinematic spider-sense tingling, then run, don't walk, to see Doomsday: John Carpenter, Escape From New York, old-school James Cameron, Aliens, Highlander, Paul Verhoeven, Robocop, Mad Max, and The Road Warrior. In short, Doomsday takes the best of these films and creates a rip-roaring post-modern mashup. If you're the kind of person who wonders why action movies have gone the route of safe, paint-by-numbers PG-13, mass-produced Hollywood "blockbusters," then look no further. Doomsday is a return to the glory-days of 1980's-style B-movie hardcore action, right down to the post-apocalyptic gangs of cannibalistic, mohawk-clad punk-rockers.

However, what makes Doomsday work so well is that while on one hand it's a clear tribute to movies like Escape From New York (there's even a character named Carpenter), it's also a very slick reinvention of the post-apocalyptic genre. You know you're in for something different when our female heroine, played with a badass screen presence by Rhona Mitra (think Snake Plissken meets Lara Croft), removes here Plissken-esque eyepatch and inserts a prosthetic, high-tech eyeball that doubles as a surveilance device. The other thing that makes this movie so intense is simply that it has some of the best damn action sequences I've seen in a long, long time. Early on in the film, when Rhona and her team of commandos breaks into quarantined Scotland, in hopes of figuring out how there are still surivors within the city from a thought-to-be 100% deadly virus, the team is attacked by a band of post-apocalyptic punks in one of the most insane action set pieces I've seen in years. Up to that point in the film, I wasn't sure quite what to make of what I had seen. But after I finally exhaled after several minutes of nonstop craziness, I looked up at my friends in the theater to see if they were all as giddy as I was. They were - and rightfully so - from that point on we knew that, thanks to director Neil Marshall and his obvious penchant for high-octane action, we were in for one hell of a ride.

And things never let up. The movie opens with a methodical intro that lovingly pays tribute to Escape From NY, complete with 80's-style vector computer graphics displaying a map of the quarantined areas of Great Britain. We are introduced to Mitra's character - a sullen emo-girl who escaped walled-off Scotland as a girl, and was scarred by the forced separation from her mother. We meet Bob Hoskins, who is great as a gruff government official who knows that when it comes to the impending search-and-rescue mission, Mitra is the only woman for the job. But man, after the aforementioned big action set piece, it's pure adrenaline rush. We get a crazy rock n' roll stage show, a girl-on-girl sword fight (!) that ends in shockingly brutal fashion, and an absolutely insane chase sequence as Mitra and co attempt to escape from the Jonny Rotten-esque leader of the survivor's faction.

And that's just for starters ...

What happens next is jarring, but fairly awesome nonetheless. We learn that while one group of surviving Scots has become a Mad Max-style clan of road warriors, a second faction, under the wizened rule of Malcolm McDowell, has embraced their medieval roots and become a clan of castle-dwelling, aromor-wearing, horse-riding knights! Yes, you heard me! Suddenly, Doomsday becomes a medieval action flick a la Excalibur, as Rhona faces off against a mace-wielding black knight in hand-to-hand combat and gets locked up in a castle dungeon. Finally, to cap things off, as the various factions go to war, we get one of THE craziest car chases I've ever seen in a film.

If all this sounds cool, then you'll really like Doomsday. Like I said, if the idea of an insanely brutal take on 80's sci-fi action flicks, mixed with a modern-day badgirl protagonist and Wachowski-worthy action choreography makes you giddy, then you are likely a soon-to-be-fan of Doomsday, a cult-classic in the making.

Yes, the plot can be all over the place, Rhona Mitra's acting is occasionally spotty, and sometimes the movie may even be TOO absurdly violent for its own good. But the best compliment I can give to Neil Marhsall and to the film is that, when the DVD is released, this is a movie that can sit on a shelf next to the likes of Escape From New York, Aliens, Robocop, and The Road Warrior. With all the talk of remaking movies like Escape From NY and Robocop, in what would surely be watered-down versions of the originals, I hope Hollywood is looking at this one and realizing that this is how it's done. The next-best compliment I can give is that, unlike most movies in this genre ... I would actually welcome a sequel, no questions asked! Appropriately, a phrase used by a man who once called himself a road warrior may be most fitting to describe Doomsday - and it's the reason I'm going, perhaps, against the grain and giving it such a positive review. The phrase? "Ohhh, what a rush."

My Grade: A -

Haha, okay, let's see what kind of response I get to that one (and let's see if I feel the same way a few months from now). But there you have it, folks.

- In any case, that's about all I've got for now. In terms of TV STUFF, I really enjoyed last night's KING OF THE HILL - a funny episode about a family-improvement guru whose advice leads Peggy to change the Hill family for the worse. I also am finally trying to finish up the run of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. This is a show that I'm happy to say really improved as its first season progressed. I still need to watch the S1 finale, but the episodes leading up to it have really been entertaining.

- I'd also encourage everyone to check out Miss/Guided on ABC, which I believe premieres this week. I reviewed it waaay back over the summer and it was up there amongst my favorite pilots that I saw during that period. Judy Greer is a natural comedic talent, and she takes what could have been a cheesy premise, about a high school guidance counsellor trying to overcome her years as a high school geek, and makes it into something very funny and entertaining.

Alright, now I've just got to survive this Monday. To quote Doomsday ... Goin' to be rough? Rough enough.

Gettin' LOST. Plus: Smallville, and The Big Lebowski on my blog!

What a long, strange week it's been. I don't know about you, but I am more than ready for the weekend. It should be fun times, with a few birthday celebrations, and, on Saturday, our annual trip to Wizard World LA, a mecca for all things ain't-it-cool. As always, I try to cap off the day's events with an appropriately geek-friendly movie, so this year it's looking like the crew and I will hit up a free screening of Doomsday, which basically looks like Escape From New York with Lara Croft subbed in for Snake Plissken - aka, a potentially old-school style good ol' fashioned B-movie. Hopefully it's at least decent, we shall see.

Speaking of 1980's classics ... rumor today is that there's talk of remaking ROBOCOP. All I can say is: DO NOT REMAKE THIS MOVIE, perhaps the greatest action movie ever made. Unless they somehow found a way to do a true sequel, WITH Peter Weller, there is no point in a remake. I mean, is no classic sacred? Between this and the long-gestating Escape from NY remake ... I for one have had enough. How about some NEW ideas, people. Leave the good stuff well enough alone.

- One shout-out I have to give is to a really great new website that I have been singing the praises of for a long while now. The site is Hulu.com, and everyone should run to check it out. And not only because it was co-founded by NBCU and my department has had a big hand in shaping the site. Seriously though, I was pretty skeptical about Hulu at first, but when I begin using its beta I was totally won over. In short, the site lets you watch free, streaming episodes of TONS of TV shows from NBC, FOX, SciFi, USA, and many more. From current hits like The Office, 30 Rock, Heroes, Prison Break, The Simpsons, 24, and Chuck, to classics like Arrested Development, Buffy, old-school SNL, and more - you can watch FULL episodes of the shows, for free, and then you can even post them to your blog or MySpace page or email them to your friends. I mean, on my MySpace right now, I have a ton of full episodes posted for all to watch. I even have the entire film of THE BIG LEBOWSKI posted right there. And, what the hell, I'll post it here too. My blog can only be that much cooler for posting the funniest movie ever made directly on it, right? Yer darn skippy. So anyways, check out Hulu, catch up on your favorites or discover something new, and post the Natalie Portman SNL rap, the 90's episode of The Simpsons, or, dammit all, the entire Big Lewbowski on YOUR blog, and be cool like me.



Okay, about last night's LOST ...

- For me, this episode had some great stuff, but overall I came away feeling a bit annoyed at the pointlessness of the Jin flashbacks. To me, the timeline teases are a lot of fun ... when the end reveal actually means something. But here, the Jin cutaways, which seem to have been flashbacks but at first passed themselves off as the now-typical flash-forwards, seemed to exist only to tease us, the viewers, and say "Ha-ha, we got you - they can't be flash-forwards because in the future, Jin is D-E-D dead. Suckers." Now, who knows, at some as-of-yet undetermined time there might be some huge payoff to the whole wonky structure of this episode. But I'm sorry - to me that's weak. Yes, Lost is a serialized show that is increasingly consumed in large chunks on DVD or via download ... but the primary format of the show is still weekly, episodic storytelling. Lost is always at its most frustrating when a random mystery is introduced without the promise of a payoff. If you look at the masterfully done Desmond episode from a few weeks back, what worked so well was that we got some intriguing new questions posed to us, but at the same time, the episode had a central storyarc that culminated in a highly satisfying ending. In this episode, there was ... nothing. Just a random collection of disparate elements. Sun is off the island, one of the Oceanic Six. Okay, cool. She's having her baby. Great. And she visits Jin's grave. Okay, interesting, now all of the Jin flashback (?) scenes we've seen have either been rendered a moot point or else are part of some huge time-anomoly plot point that we can't yet even comprehend. But essentially, nothing really happened that drove the story FORWARD. It's all about forward momentum, people.

But okay, I'm painting a pretty bleak picture here when in fact there was a lot I enjoyed in this episode. Namely, the stuff on the ship was pretty much uber-cool. From Zoe Bell wrapping herself in chains and plunging straight to Davy Jones' locker, to Michael revealed as Kevin Johnson (one of my all-time fave basketball players!), these were the kinds of pulpy-cool mysteries I could sink my teeth into, and most importantly, are intrinsically tied-into the PLOT of the show, rather than seeming to just mess with us for the hell of it (i.e. the whole "Jin is alive, no, just kidding, he's dead!" thing). Everything with Desmond, Sayid, and the freighter seems to really be clicking, and moving at a fast pace. We know Whidmore's involved. We know people on the boat are going crazy, and that Ben seems to be the one who engineered the fake crash site that made the outside world believe that everyone on Oceanic 815 was dead. All good stuff, all very cool - if only we could focus more on this stuff, and not the increasingly tedious "Who are the Oceanic Six" thing. Now next week, the Michael-centric episode looks to be pretty badass, and I think that one will be really satisfying - plus, it's written by BK Vaughan to boot, so you know it won't disappoint.

As for this week's - it had some cool moments, particularly with the ship stuff. And don't get me wrong, there was some real emotion in the Jin-Sun drama, particularly the stuff on the island. Jin's talk with Bernard was great, really compelling stuff. And the intrigue between Juliette and Sun, and her outing of Sun's past affair, was pretty intense, no doubt. It made for, all in all, a pretty great episode of television. My main frustration is the fact that in this episode, the flashes were used less as a means to peel back the layers of the onion, and more as a hype-machine that feeds into the whole fan guessing game of "who lives, who dies, who gets off the island." Personally, it means nothing to me just knowing that Jin is apparently dead. I want to know why, how, when. Without the promise that those answers are forthcoming, I was left with something of a bad taste in my mouth, despite the fact that overall this was a pretty strong episode.

My Grade: B

- So it's not even in the same stratosphere as Lost, but I'll give a lot of credit to last night's episode of SMALLVILLE. We got a really nice, entertaining episode that brought back the Pete Ross character, showed off the darker side of Lex and of his father Lionel, and showcased Chloe, reminding us why she is consistently one of the show's most reliably-interesting characters. I thought the conflict with Pete and Clark was handled pretty well, and it was nice for a character to FINALLY call into question why Clark has been so trusting of Lionel of late. In Lionel, we have a character whose motives have never quite been clear, who at one point seemed to have jumped to the side of good but in the end it was never 100% apparent. Suffice to say, I am glad to finally see Lionel hopefully on the path to once again being flat-out EVIL, especially in light of the fact that Michael Rosenbaum is only scheduled to be on a limited number of episodes next season. My biggest complaint is that after eight years, it's about time that clark actually grows a set and stops doing stupid things in the name of protecting people. When he's now driven two women into the arms of Lex due to not trusting them, it's about time he realize what's up.

And finally ... will this show STOP using the device in which people blatantly walk into other people's high-security homes, offices, or other dwelling places as if they were hopping over to the local McDonalds?!?! I mean can you imagine the conversations at the front gate of the Luthor mansion? "Hey I'm here to see Lex. He's tried to kill me and banned me, but I don't think he'd mind if I storm up to his office and demand to know the secrets behind his latest schemes." "Um, go ahead, Sir."

The show has a ton of inherent flaws in its retarded logic and conventions, but as far as latter-day episodes of Smallville go, last night's had some good stuff, some good momentum leading into next week's, which looks to be a big one, and some cool twists on the whole Clark / Lex / Lionel dynamic.

My grade: B

Alright, almost time for the weekend, so I'm outta here for now. Back next week for some political discussion, movie news and reviews, and more.

10,000 BC - Mammoths! Tigers! Aliens! Oh my.

Hey everyone - surviving another Monday? Had a fun if not very random weekend, but what I'll share with you now is a review of the latest big-time blockbuster hype-fest, 10,000 BC. Enjoy, fanboys. 10,000 B.C. - Review - The fun thing about the movies of Roland Emmerich is that, you've got to give the guy credit, he always shoots for the moon. Unlike some other directors who are all about being cool, hip, and edgy, seemingly every movie that Roland makes seems to earnestly be trying to be a big, old-fashioned, Greatest Movie Ever Made. The problem is that the director's grand ambitions are often matched up with fairly awful scripts, and when that happens, the result is something like 10,000 B.C. - a movie that, visually, is huge and sweeping, but is, ultimately, kind of gloriously braindead. Maybe that's why these movies are perhaps best enjoyed when one is twelve. I often tell people that when, as a preteen, I first saw Independence Day on one sunny summer afternoon, I was totally enthralled, and quickly deemed it the greatest movie ever. Would I say that now? No, definitely not, even if I still have an ID4 T-shirt that was once my most prized piece of clothing in seventh grade or so ... But still, there is a certain cheesy magic to Independence Day that has been missing from most of Emmerich's subsequent films. For all it's corniness, that movie had fun, had humor, had memorable characters, all wrapped around exciting drama and an uber-threat of aliens hellbent on the destruction of the human race. As a movie to satiate the action-movie fantasies of your actual or inner twelve year old self, you really couldn't ask for much more. Now, 10,000 BC comes along and it has, on the surface, that same type of over-the-top premise that is the kind of stuff that blockbuster movie fans can't get enough of: ancient civilizations, mythical beasts, and cavewomen. What more can one ask for? Well - a plot and characters, for one thing. Every character in this movie is as cookie-cutter as can be. Honestly, The Smurfs had more well-defined characters than this movie, and about the same male-to-female ratio. It's almost understandable why our hero would traverse many lands to find his lost love - she is, apparently, the only female under 75 in their entire tribe. What a catch. It's pretty absurd - for all the expectations one might have about this movie having some epic plot, the whole thing is remarkably simplistic -- it makes the plot of Conan The Barbarian look like Ulysses. Basically, an evil tribe somewhat akin to the ancient Egyptions, who may or may not be aliens (really), and who are called "4-legged demons" because (sooo exciting) they ride horses, storm our little village of dreadlocked cavepeople, kill a bunch of dudes, and kidnap a bunch of others, including the one girl who our hero is really into. So the one caveman then goes with his older mentor (who you know from Scene 1 will die melodramatically sometime before the final act), recruits a bunch of people from other tribes (they find kinship despite being different races! Awwww ...), and leads an assault on the evil alien-Egyptians, who are up to really bad stuff, such as building giant pyramids and ... stuff. Can you tell that this is all pretty Shakespearian? I guess the biggest sin of this movie, as many have pointed out, is that, surprisingly, pretty boring. Many of Emmerich's movies have that same "blissfully retarded" thing going for them, but at the least they've had some semi-spectacular action. This one has tons of talking, and the dialogue is mostly ver, very painful. In an attempt to sound gravitas-infused, the narration by Omar Sharif says things like "and the white rain fell across the mountaintops" in an attempt to sound profound. Um, it's snow, dude. Just say it. But yeah, this movie has a ton of talking. Conan the Barbarian had little talking, and that helped make for a great, atmospheric film. This one is all about talking, and all about walking. And yet, unlike, say, Lord of the Rings, all of the walking and traversing in this movie never alludes to any real sense of scale or scope. Seemingly, our band of revolutionaries goes from frozen tundras to arid deserts to dense jungles in the span of a few hours, with little sense that these guys are on a glove-trotting journey. Another big weakness is the total lack of cool villains. In 300, Xerxes was one hateable, effeminate bastard. Who wasn't eagerly awaiting for Leonidas to strike down that pompous jerk? 10,000 BC's villain is mostly unseen - an 8-ft tall maybe-alien guy who basically does nothing and gets unceremoniously struck down by a single spear to the chest (huge spoilers, I know - sorry!). There's also some random stuff about a magical sabretooth tiger, an old witchdoctor woman named Old Mother, who the movie cuts to like every 5 seconds for no good reason, and oh yeah, these giant ostrich creatures who look EXACTLY like the raptors in Jurassic Park except slightly bird-ier. It really is like Emmerich took his plot and visual inspiration from a bunch of movies like Conan, Jurassic Park, and 300, and just mashed everything together into one giant mess of a movie. You'll get a few cool f/x shots, one or two fun moments ... but this movie is just so all over the place and weirdly paced. Plot elements come and go, the art design is completely sporadic, and the world it creates - a confounding mix of history and legend, has no real consistency and never immerses you the way it should. I'm still interested enough in Emmerich as a filmmaker that I'd love to see his epic visual stle paired with a truly great script ... but until that happens, he seems to only be descending ever deeper into his own unique style of sometimes-amusing but ultimately headache-inducing brand of mediocrity. My Grade: C - Alright - I'll leave you to chew on that for now. Now, what the heck is 2012?

"Rabbit again?" LOST - Reviewed!

On last night's LOST ...

So like I said yesterday, it was pretty inevitable that last night's LOST would feel like a bit of a comedown after last week's *ridiculously amazing* episode. In addition to the mere difficulty in following up that creative triumph, this one had a few things potentially going against it from the outset ...

The first problem is Juliette. At first, she quickly became one of my favorite characters on the show - she was skillfully portrayed by Elizabeth Mitchell, mysterious, intriguing, and that first flashback episode of hers helped to give her a really interesting backstory to boot. But over time, she went from intriguing to annoying. That constant smirk, the constant switching of allegiances, the never knowing what side she was on to the point where the character became a total cypher, the forced tension between her and the other castaways, and the half-hearted romance with Jack that never quite felt right. It all added up to turn Juliette into a bit of a mess.

Then there is the whole problem of The Others. Let's face it - Lost has often been at its most absurd when it tries to delve into the dysfunctional society of those mysterious island-dwellers who for some reason refer to themselves as The Others. I mean, the whole concept to me has always been one of the show's lamest. And after all this time, it's still a bit confusing who these guys even are. When we first saw them, they seemed to be a kind of tribal group that was overtly evil. Then they were just these yuppie intellectuals living in suburban-style houses and having book club meetings. Then there are one or two of them who seem to have some kind of supernatural bent - Ethan Rom's superhuman-seeming abilities, and that other guy who apparently doesn't age. Curiouser and curiouser. Now, the Others appear to be a strange mix of intellectuals, scientists, James Bond-style villains (hello, Patchy), and hired muscle. Then further complicating things, we had that one Ben flashback ep where we saw the Others in conflict with a second group of island inhabitants - The Hostiles. Suffice to say, the whole Others myth-arc has been one of the show's strangest and most confusing so far - so while some of the individual characters are cool, it's all a bit headache-inducing.

That said, last night's ep was a solid look at Juliette's first few days amongst The Others, one that further painted her as kind of enigmatic and manipulative. Within days of arriving, she's already sleeping with the one married guy on the island, and already doing the whole vulnerable / don't mess with me passive-aggressive thing. The one big takeaway from all this is the new insight into Ben's relationship with Juliette - we see that he is scarily obsessed with her, and we are offered more proof that no matter what his status as "good guy" or bad guy", Ben is undeniably one creepy, manipulative, and at least somewhat evil dude.

In the present day - this episode really suffered from some muddles storytelling. After last week's episode, in which Faraday went all-out to help Desmond, it was annoying to have he and Charlotte thrust back into the role of potentially untrustworthy adversaries. Unless I missed something - we never found out why the Tempest station was about to release deadly gas all over the island, how Faraday knew about it, and what it was he did to stop it. Furthermore, given that a bunch of deadly toxin was about to be released, why didn't Daniel and Charlotte just explain what had to be done, rather than sneaking off? Basically, a lot of the conflict in this episode felt pretty forced, and even the basics of what the characters were doing, and why, never felt very clear. I mean - why was Juliette supposed to stop them? Why did she ultimately decide not to? And um ... how did Ben send a spectral version of one of The Others to Juliette to enlist her help - and why did Juliette even consider helping him in the first place at this stage of the game?

There just seemed to be a casualness to this episode that saw it kind of nonchalantly gloss over a lot of plot and character points. I'm hoping future episodes might help to clarify some of what we saw here ... but all in all there were way too many "huh - wtf?" moments.

Still, give huge credit to Michael Emerson as Ben Linus. He was superb in this episode - funny, creepy, and the recipient of all the best lines. He made that final moment of the ep - what could have been a very nothing cliffhanger - into a fairly chilling endnote, with Ben now set free and apparently in some type of alliance with Locke. I was also intrigued by the scene with Whidmore - although I hope he is fleshed out more than simply being the cliched businessman who wants to exploit the island for his own benefit.

In any case, there were some great performances here, and some great scenes. But after last week's intricately-plotted but masterfully-executed episode, it was a shame to see Lost regress a bit back to being too messy for its own good.

My Grade: B

- Alright - here's hoping for a fun weekend - back next week for more, until then - PEACE.

An Unstuck-In-Time Review of Last Week's LOST, Brother!

So I never got to talk about last week's episode of LOST, since, well, I didn't get a chance to actually watch it until last night. Now, I usually hate when an episode of a show gets a ton of hype and I'm forced to go into it with raised expectations rather than simply with a blank slate. But a number of fellow Lost fans yelled at me that I HAD to watch this ep ASAP, that it was one of the best of the season if not ever, etc ... I was getting a little annoyed, but went in optimistic anyways, as the episode had all the ingredients to be a good one: Desmond-centric, some big-reveals, time-travel ...

So bear with me, pretend, say, that I've gotten a bit unstuck in time and that my conciousness is hurtling between this week and last week. Whoah - it's last Thursday - a time when Barack Obama was sitting pretty, Patrick Swayze was just another washed-up actor, and I was actually in New York City freezing my ass off. Hmm, it's suddenly a bit colder, but anyways, about that episode of LOST ...

And ... holy crap -- now that I've seen it, I'm a believer. "The Constant" was an incredible episode of TV. Someone hand Henry Ian Cusick an Emmy ASAP. He's made Desmond Hume into one of the show's true standout characters - his intensity, likability, and pathos as a character has made him a universal fan-favorite. Everyone I talk to says the same thing - they love Desmond, and I can't really argue, brother.

And how about Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday? Just awesome.

Really though - this episode had two great things going for it aside from some superb performances. First was the mind-bending unstuck in time storyline - it was masterfully handled, really well-edited, and intricately crafted. We got some really cool insights into the way the island works, it's history (the Black Rock journal), and some new clues as to what role the Whidmores and Hanzos of the world play in this whole crazy scheme. Plot-wise, this one jsut hit all the right notes, taking pieces of Slaughterhouse V, Back to the Future, and much of what makes Lost itself great and combining all of the disparate pieces into one brilliant tapestry.

Secondly, this was far and away the most emotionally-affecting episode of Lost since, well, maybe ever? Certainly, in terms of getting us invested in a romantic relationship, this one was tops. But what really got me was how the emotional punch just kind of snuck up on me thanks to how brilliantly Cusick helped to get us wrapped up in Desmond's story. By the time we got to that climactic scene of him calling Penny from the boat, eight years after he had obtained her new number ... well, let's be honest, who among us wasn't a little choked up? Suffice to say, it's quite a feat for an episode to be jam-packed with geek-friendly time travel and scifi goodness, yet also be a legitimate tearjerker, to be this unabashadly romantic.

So man, this ep is going to be a tough one to follow up tonight. But regardless, the Lost crew can take pride that in "The Constant," they've crafted another bonafide classic, brotha.

My Grade: A

Back in LA and Ready to Rock

... And I'm back in LA. After a long day of travelling on Monday, it's back to the grind, baby. The flight from Hartford actually wasn't THAT bad, just very long and drawn-out, as I went from Bradley airport to Nashville, to Las Vegas, and then finally to Burbank. Luckily, none of the flights was full, so most of the way I got to stretch out a bit, make a large dent in The Stand (finally!), sleep, and not worry too much about being squished. It was nice to escape the biting New England cold, though it does make you realize how relatively boring the weather is here in LA.

Anyways, every time I go home and then return to CA, I always come back feeling momentarily refreshed and refocused, and then I feel like I go to work the next day and am pretty quickly sapped of all that surplus energy and can-do attitude, as I remember that all those great things I've planned on doing are in fact competing for time with a demanding job that requires a ton of focus and energy each day, but also has me sitting in front of a computer for long, headache-inducing periods. Not to complain too much, it's just a continual effort to come home from work each day and be motivated to do all of the many things I want to do that don't have anything to do with my job.

So here is a little reminder to myself: go get 'em!

Meanwhile, while I figure out the rest of my life, here's some non-me-related stuff to chew on:

- So what does it take to put away the Clintons? Last night I was really hoping to see Obama deliver a knockout blow to Hillary, and now it looks like we're in for one of the most drawn-out primaries of all time, one that could extend all the way to the Democratic Convention. It just frustrates me to hear some of the pundits create these little sound-bytes that don't really make sense - ie that Democrats are having "buyer's remorse" when it comes to Obama, etc. Um, it's not like people are voting and then taking back their votes, and it's not like all voters belong to some hive-mind that thinks as one, either. The most telling thing is the document that Tim Russert cited last night from Obama's own campaign, put out months ago internally and then leaked out, that predicted down to a state what has happened thus far in the primaries, with one exception I believe. In any case, while the headlines go to Hillary today, in terms of delegates won it's still a decent lead for Obama. Unfortunately, it's now going to be an even more protracted battle ...

I do think that Obama's speech last night, while good, needed to focus in a little on Hillary and the issues of the campaign. It kills me when people say Obama isn't a policy person, as in all of the debates he's talked over the issues in great detail. But it's true - his speeches tend to be big-picture, and it's not the issues that even need to be talked about, necessarily, but his opponents. Hillary has gotten in some ridiculously biting jabs at Obama of late - especially her "3 am phone call" shot at him - a line that seems to be crying out for a rebuttal. I'm not asking Obama to take cheap shots, but, I wouldn't mind seeing Hillary get a bit of her own medicine either.

- So let me talk for a minute about SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. It's amazing how the show is getting all zeitgest-y again, despite the fact that its political content of late hasn't been all that funny or smart. I mean, the two debate sketches they've done so far have been inarguably weak, and the weirdest thing is that Hillary is almost benefitting from the fact that the sole okay thing about the sketches has been Amy Poehler as Clinton. Meanwhile, Fred Armisen is playing Obama as a near-mute Muppet - why, I have no clue. I sometimes like Armisen, but I have no idea what he's trying to do with his Obama - is it some meta-commentary or something? Just a bad impression? So strange ... but in a weird way it's almost hurting the real-life Obama because he comes off as so lame in these sketches. I'm not trying to overstate the reach of SNL, but in this age of YouTube, who knows how many people actually watch these sketches.

- And there's a good transition into TV STUFF ...

- While I'm talking about SNL ... I feel like since the strike the show has been decent but still very inconsistent from sketch to sketch. It's funny how the strengths of the show have changed so much from a few years ago. It seems like the political and pop cultural stuff has been the weak link, while the highlights have been the more random bits of humor, the digital shorts, etc. There's a lot of talent in the cast - but only Daryll Hammond is still leftover from the previous era where he's a guy that can do the impressions needed for political and pop culture parody. The strongest members of the cast, like Andy Samberg, Kristin Wiig, and Bill Hader are clearly more comfortable doing the weird, random stuff than they are with parody - and hence the highlights of SNL the last few weeks have been things like the "Grandpa" digital short or the Kristin Wiig-as-hot-air-balloon-saleswoman sketch. Still, the show at least feels like it has a pulse now, and it is slowly gaining that must-watch feeling, even if only one or two sketches a night are worth talking about the next day.

- I still haven't seen the two-part SARAH CONNOR finale, but man, I watched the two prior episodes on my flight back from CT, and for the first time I found myself getting really into the show, as in, I was eager and excited to see how the season wraps up, and was just generally pumped about the show. Up until now, it's been uneven at times - you could feel it trying to find its legs. Now, a lot of that potential seems to finally be getting realized. Good stuff.

- I also still haven't seen last week's LOST. I know - must watch ASAP.

- I thought all three of FOX's Sunday night animated shows were decent. There seemed to be a trend of all three telling solid stories but skimping on the laugh out loud moments. THE SIMPSONS had a pretty decent Departed parody - it was a well-done episode that felt a bit old-school in how relatively down to earth and straighforward a story it told - just not many big laughs to be found. Similarly, KING OF THE HILL had a nice little episode, but after the last few weeks of great KOTH eps, it felt a bit run of the mill, and a riff on the tried-and-true Hank-as-gullible-citizen theme. FAMILY GUY took the long-running Brian-in-love-with-Lois storyline to its logical extremes, while still manageing to avoid the essential problem that Brian is, in fact, a dog, so him having a relationship with Lois would be slightly strange, even for Family Guy. Anyways, it was a decent ep, again just lacking a lot of really funny moments to compliment the dramatic arc. So yeah, "B's" all around.

My Grades: Simpsons: B, King of the Hill: B, Family Guy: B

- As for FOX's newest sitcom, UNHITCHED ...? The less said the better. Just terrible on all accounts - cliched, unfunny, and a waste of some decent talent like Rasheeda Jones. It's shows like this that remind us why the sitcom is essentially dead.

My Grade: D -


Alright, like I said, back to the grind. But even as I sit tied to a desk, bleary-eyed from the everpresent computer monitor, I must remind myself that yes, I am ready to rock, and possibly, to roll. Sayonara.

From BLOOMFIELD by-god CONNECTICUT: S'no Business Like Snow Business

Today I slept late, drove through quiet New England streets past snow covered fields, had a piping hot slice of East Coast pizza, and basically just relaxed. Tommorow I head back to the craziness that is LA, but for one weekend, at least, I was cold - yes, had a sore throat - yes, but I was able to enjoy the kind of peacefulness that only comes from getting away from the day to day and, even if only for a little while, throwin' my cares away.

Okay, so I'm probably romanticizing a bit, but it's more fun to write with a bit of romanticism so bear with me. In any case, it was a good weekend here in CT. To update from my last post - the latter part of my time in NYC was jam-packed. Thursday morning (and I do mean morning) kicked off with my NBC team giving our little presentation to the rest of the Digital Distribution unit. I got in a few choice remarks, so hopefully I made a good impression. But the highlight of the day, at least the work-related highlight, was that the top dog himself, Jeff Zucker (Jay-Z) spoke to our group. It was pretty interesting to hear what he had to say, and I really enjoyed hearing him speak.

But man, even though we only had a half day of meetings, I was completely wiped out by 1 pm or so when we wrapped. As most of my colleagues immediately headed for the airport, I packed up my things, checked out of the Westin Hotel in Times Square, and tried to figure out my plan for the rest of the day. It was still freezing outside, so I wanted to see and do a lot but with as little walking outside as possible. After a quick lunch, however, I was able to make a very exciting trip ...

One of my friends from BU, Mike D, is now in the awesomely cool position of being a writer for one of my all-time favorite humor publications / websites, The Onion. This is especially cool as Mike was a fellow writer for Overexposed, BU's student sketch comedy group, and then both of us went on to intern for Late Night With Conan O'Brien in the summer of 2004. So it's great as, not only do I read The Onion daily, but oftentimes I'll come across an article or two that clearly shows the signs of being Mike's handiwork. In turn, Mike, a very funny guy, has been a longtime reader of this blog, and has even managed to convert a few other staff members over at The Onion into regular readers. Suffice to say, this is very flattering and makes me all the more self-concious that most of the time this blog is pretty much a haphazardly-written, rambling, incoherant mess. I mean right now, it's 1:30 am on the east coast, I'm doing some laundry, checking my flight itinerary for tomorrow, realizing that I rarely spell "tomorrow" right on my first attempt, and pretty much hanging my head in shame at how lame this blog is. So I am honored that anyone who works at a prestigious publication like The Onion would bother reading. Then again, some of my "Lost" reviews are pretty good stuff ...

Okay, getting to the point - Thursday afternoon, I got to visit the hallowed halls of THE ONION! I met a few of the writers, discussed a little TV with Mike, and realized that The Onion has somehow become a haven for young BU alumni. Who woulda thunk it? Anyways, it was definitely a lot of fun to check out the offices, so thanks to Mike D for showing me around - I will try to keep this blog up to quasi-Onion standards, write the occasional tribute to 80's WWF wrestlers when appropriate (those are popular, apparently ...), and be that annoying guy who sends links to every funny Onion story to all of my friends and coworkers.

And one final word / cheap plug. You may have seen a new hardcover book put out by The Onion called Our Dumb World. Well, said book is co-written by the aforementioned Mike D, and from what I hear, it's hilarious! No, I haven't read it yet, but that will soon change as I was lucky enough to get a free copy from Mike. However, I am so sure that it's amazing that I'm going to do my first-ever preemptive review and give it an "A" sight unseen. It's that potentially good. Seriously, I plan to talk more about the book here soon, but you don't need to take my word for it (take THAT, Levar Burton), go buy it now - available at bookstores everywhere!

Okay, so ... after my trip to the Onion, I was cold and tired and went back to the Westin hotel, where I was no longer a guest, and sat huddled in their lobby for a bit like some poor homeless person. Luckily, I would soon be rescued from my plight by Kate the Great, one of my favorite people, who, somehow, I haven't actually seen in probably about 3 years. Ridiculous, I know. But we finally met up and had a fun dinner and great conversation, as is always a given whenever I hang out with Kate. From there, I took a taxi down to Brooklyn, as Erica C. was nice enough to let me sleep on her couch before I headed to CT the next morning. Though her cat was slightly (okay, make that very) scary, it was all good ... the only problem was that I slightly overslept the next morning, and had to take a mad-dash taxi ride through NYC in order to drop Erica's keys off where she works, at the EMI offices, then from there head to Port Authority to catch my scheduled bus to Hartford. It was funny - as I was waiting outside of her apt. for the cab to pick me up, two black cars simultaneously pulled up to the curb, with both drivers yelling at me to get in. I had no idea what was going on, but one driver flashed me his Continental ID and told me the other guy was just trying to steal his business. Apparently I got in the right car, praised be jeebus. Luckily I had this insane taxi driver who bobbed and weaved through traffic like a man possessed, and got me to Port Authority with minutes to spare. I hopped on the bus just in time, with my one regret being that I was starving, as I'd had no time to eat anything. Some higher power (I reckon it was Mayor McCheese) must have been watching over me though, as I fell asleep on the bus, only to be woken up by the driver telling us that we were running early and were therefore making an impromptu stop at Mickey D's. I don't know if I had ever been so excited to see the Golden Arches.

Anyways, I made it relatively safe and sound to CT, though I was already beginning to feel a bit sick from the cold and lack of sleep combo. I tell ya, the nonstop, on-the-go lifestyle has its perks, but overall it's not for me. I like a lot of sleep, a comfortable bed, and the reassurance that my own well-stocked fridge is nearby. Friday night, my brother - in from Beantown - along with my parents and grandparents, gathered for our traditional Friday night Shabbat dinner. My mom insisted that it be a surprise that my brother and I were both home, so we hid upstairs until my grandparents got up to the kitchen, then gave them the big reveal. After dinner, both my brother and I were toally wiped - by the time I suffered through a Utah Jazz game at Matt's insistence, I was done.

Saturday, me, Matt, and my dad shipped up to Boston. We visited my other grandmother (Dad's side), who recently moved into a new convalescent facility in Boston. She was very happy to see us so I'm glad that we got to squeeze in that visit. Then, I saw my brother's latest BU-issued apartment, on Buswell St., not far from the apartments I had on Aberdeen and Beacon. We had dinner at one of my old South Campus-area favs, Chef Chang's. It felt like only yesterday that me, Aksel, and Chris were sharing a meal there, but the Orange Chicken was still as tasty as I had remembered it. It was cool walking around the South Campus area a bit - seeing the ol' landmarks and realziing that not much had yet changed since my days as a Terrier. In any case, we drpped Matt off, drove back to CT, and by that point I was REALLY wiped. Which probably helps to explain why I did little today other than sleep late, make a quick trip to Simsbury in order to pick up a shirt or two from Bob's, and eat a tasty chicken sandwich at Red Robin.

Now, I've watched the FOX Sunday night lineup, written the token blog entry from CT, and done a little laundry (not an easy task in my house, where my dad keeps that washing machine runnin' 24/7). There's nothing left to do but pack up and call it a night.

Until next time, CT. Until next time ...