Oh thank heaven, it's the end of 2007

Sorry for the lack of posts this month. Here's hoping for more time to post stuff in 2008. Then again, with my dissertation looming, I'm not sure if that will happen. But that's why we celebrate the new year, to establish unrealistic goals for ourselves.

Anyway, here's hoping everyone has a great 2008! Happy New Year!!

Browns bummer

The magical year in Cleveland sports came to an unfortunate end yesterday as the Browns missed out on the playoffs thanks to the Titans defeating the Colts. Granted it's the Browns' fault for not winning last week, but it still hurts to have to watch another team determine your team's fate. This is pretty much the definition of a bittersweet season as the Browns far exceeded everyone's expectations and we should be happy with that, but you hate being the only double digit winning team not to make the playoffs.

Now as we head into the offseason, the team faces a lot of big questions; namely what to do at the quarterback position. If they can resign Derek Anderson, it seems like he should remain the starter. Then again, his performance in that important game against Cincinnati makes me wonder if he's got what it takes to win the big one.

Even though the Browns won't make the playoffs, I can take solace in the fact that spring training is only a month and half away. Seeing the Tribe in Florida will eliminate those winter blahs right away.

All That's Gold Isn't New Again

With a free afternoon, I went with my sister to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I saw the first film in theaters and enjoyed it, while my sister only saw it for the first time a few weeks ago on TV. Interestingly enough, we both left this movie with a similar opinion; the film is pretty comparable to the original, but that isn't necessarily a glowing review.

What worked in the first one, remains in Book of Secrets. Namely, the escapism the film provides in proposing wild ideas of treasure and conspiracies and then letting the heroes struggle with bad guys to prove it's true. Nicholas Cage, once again playing Ben Gates, works as the treasure hunter who always has the answer to the puzzles that have been unsolved for centuries. Justin Bartha, as Gates' sidekick, Riley, once again provides most of the decent one liners.

Since we're dealing with a sequel, that means the addition of new cast members. Dame Helen Mirren (who must have accidentally stumbled onto the set of this Bruckheimer film) is along this time as Gates' mother. Her scenes with Ben's dad (played by Jon Voigt) are a lot of fun and provide some freshness to the film.

I mention freshness because this film delivers a lot more of the same. In essence, the film is a simple "find clue, decipher clue, get chased, repeat" formula. Sadly, this time around there was more of a focus on the chase aspect, which left less time to decipher clues. While in the original, the main characters actually struggled at times to understand the clues, in this one the answers came a little too quickly. Considering that the treasure they were seeking was supposedly so grand (it ends up paling in comparison to the one they found in the first film), the clues used to conceal its location didn't seen that difficult.

The fact that this sequel breeds a strong sense of familiarity wouldn't be that bad if not for the few things that they opted to do differently. Given that the plot was the same basic idea, they tried to flesh out the main characters more. For instance, we learn at the beginning of the film that Ben and girlfriend Abigail (Diane Kruger) are having relationship issues. Their bickering and eventual reunion are an unnecessary diversion in the film. They also include a few scenes to imply that Riley is unhappy with his sidekick status. These add nothing to the film and only slow things down. People come to see these films because they like a good treasure hunt, not because they have any emotional investment into what happens to these particular characters. In fact, with all due respect to Diane Kruger, the National Treasure franchise may have been better off taking an approach like the Bond films or Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels where the focus is on the action and the hot girls are interchangeable.

Since they seemed concerned with developing characters, I would have liked for them to do more with Ed Harris', who plays the film's antagonist. The film never takes the time to have us understand his motivations. If it's to simply find the treasure, why does he involve the Gates family? If it's to ruin the Gates' family name, then why give Ben such a great opportunity to discover the truth? The underdevelopment of Harris' character is connected with the films flaw of properly explaining the connection between the Lincoln assaination and a hidden Native American city of gold.

The flaws of the film, great as they may be, as easily to overlook, however, because the film remains a fun ride. Seeing Ben and company globetrotting while trying to uncover secrets of our nation's past makes for an entertaining couple of hours. The film does not bring anything new to the table, but then again, not all movies should. This is an easy must-see for those who enjoyed the first film. And for those that haven't, this is still probably your best bet for decent popcorn fare at the cinema right now. Enjoy going on another treasure hunt, just don't be surprised if the map looks awfully familiar. Grade: B-

Merry Christmas

I probably won't be on my computer over the next few days, so I just wanted to send warm holiday wishes to all of my readers out there. I hope Santa is kind to all of you. If you in the Ohio area, I look forward to getting a chance to seeing you over this holiday break. And if I don't, I hope you get a chance to enjoy the time off.

As for me, I got my Christmas present early this year as I just receivied notice that one of my papers has been accepted at the Kern Conference on Visual Rhetoric. The conference will be in Rochester, NY next April. I submitted this paper individually instead of as a panel, so its acceptance is even a greater honor. You don't understand how pumped I am over that news.

Anyways, enjoy the holidays and be safe!!

This week in frivolous lawsuits...

Case #1: Woman sues The Price is Right - Apparently, the car this woman won on TPIR in 2004 turned out to be a lemon. Why she is suing the game show when it's the dealer's responsibiilty to give her a new car is beyond me.

Case #2: Couple claims Heroes ripped them off - Apparently, this husband and wife team claim that they came up with the whole 'artist who can paint the future' concept. Don't worry though, the judge has already thrown this case out.

Case #3: Bodybuilder slaps Conan O'Brien with lawsuit - Apparently, a former Mr. Olympia competitor is upset because of a joke Conan did where he used the bodybuilder's image in a a fake Christmas card depicting Clay Aiken saying "All I want this year is a White Christmas...and a black bodybuilder". If I was the bodybuilder, I would have been thrilled Conan didn't make any meathead or small testicle jokes.


So which is lawsuit is the most ridiculous???

A whole lotta noise

After a disasterous week, school-wise (which still isn't over unfortunately) I needed to take a break, so I caught a late show at the budget theater and saw Shoot 'Em Up. In one way, it was probably an excellent movie at this point, because the film was anything but cerebral.

I knew going in that the drawing point of this movie was the unapologetic shootout scenes. And for the most part, they delivered. This movie is chock full of ridiculous gunplay and violence. On top of that, they are all done in a highly stylized manner that is not seen in most films. As impressive as they are, they can only take the movie so far. Anybody can sit in their basement thinking up unique ways to shoot at people while defying the laws of physics. But if you have nothing to hold those scenes together with, then they are wasted. In the case of this movie, what connects those action scenes together is a bunch of eye-rolling coincidences that are supposed to be considered plot points.

If you don't know at this point, the "premise" of the film is that Clive Owen plays a mysterious man, named Mr. Smith, who happens to run into a pregnant woman who is being hunted by hitman. The woman is killed, but not before giving birth to a boy, who Clive Owen decides he must protect while taking out the mother's killers. The rest of the movie then is a bunch of *surprise* shoot em up scenes between Smith and the bad guys. Oh yeah, and he finds Monica Bellucci, playing a hooker, along the way and has her help him watch the baby.

The reason why the bad guys - led by Paul Giamatti, doing his best to ham it up - want the baby dead is utterly preposterous, but I suppose it doesn't matter in a movie like this. Although it really should considering that we're watching Smith go to these extreme lengths to save it.

I'm not surprised that this movie did poorly at the box office. I cannot imagine any woman who would want to see this movie. They would all be horrified at all of the scenes in which the baby is in harm's way while Smith and the bad guys shoot it out. You would think that you would get desensitized to it after a while, but with the way they continue to amp up the violence throughout the movie that each scene is just as jarring as the first.

This movie reminded me in a lot of ways to another violently graphic film this year, Smokin' Aces. Both films gave off the appearance that they had a unique story surrounded by even more unique violence. But in each case, they were more content with firing off their weapons then having anything to say. Unlike the wounds of the victims of this movies, the story remains skin deep.

If you're in the mood for blood lust, this movie will easily satisfy your appetite. For anyone looking for a more fulfilling experience, you're better off looking elsewhere. Shoot Em Up is nothing more than a showcase for boys and their toys. Consider this one a major disappointment. Grade: C-

Lost Season 4 trailer

If I didn't have these damn papers to write, I would spend time breaking down each scene frame by frame. But since I have to be a "good student", I'll leave that up to the rest of you.

Enjoy!

Will Ferrell is a basketball player

Here's the trailer for Will's latest comedy, Semi-Pro:



The trailer had its moments and I'm likely to go see it, but after watching it, I couldn't help but be reminded of this clip from South Park:

And we're off...

The Oscar race is officially underway, although some would argue it began the moment Ellen DeGeneres said good night at last year's show. Anyways, the reason why the most consider the race to have begun now is because the first credible year end awards were released. Just for comparison sake, four of last year's five Best Picture nominees were listed as one of the top films by this organization. Here are the individual awards they gave, along with their list of top films...

Best Film: No Country for Old Men

Best Actor: George Clooney (Michael Clayton)

Best Actress: Julie Christie (Away From Her)

Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)

Best Director: Tim Burton (Sweeney Todd)

They also listed ten other top films from 2007. Here they are in alphabetical order:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bucket List, Into the Wild, Juno, The Kite Runner, Lars and the Real Girl, Michael Clayton, and Sweeney Todd.

First look: Pineapple Express

Here's a four-minute sneak peek at the new action comedy film, Pineapple Express, which is due out next August. I've never been big on films that deal heavily with drugs, but anytime you've got Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow involved in some capacity, I'm at least moderately interested.

New Joker pic

I'm so glad this movie is not going to be affected by the writers strike. 8 months and counting...

Lost without Lost??

If you've been struggling these past six months without any new episodes of Lost and can't bare the thought of waiting another 3 (or more depending on how the strike plays out), there may be a little hope for you. The show is currently releasing webisodes on a weekly basis. These are short movies which give a little bit more info on our favorite castaways. These aren't deleted scenes from old episodes, but rather new content which is meant to fill in some holes about these characters. There are currently two up, one involving a Jack flashback and the other related to Hurley. They aren't much, but I guess they are better than nothing. I believe new ones will be posted every Monday. You can view them here: Lost webisodes

Oh, the Yumanity!

With Thanksgiving now behind us, it means crunch time for me once again with school. Knowing I won't have much free time over the next few weeks and seeing that 3:10 to Yuma was out at the budget theater right now, I made sure to squeeze in a viewing tonight. And it's a good thing I did because this thing delivered.

The movie is a winner and that is thanks in large part to the terrific acting by its two primary leads. We've known for quite some time that Russell Crowe is talented and he gives another fine performance as the murderous Ben Wade. Opposite him in Christian Bale, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors of all time. The last few films he's done have been outstanding with him doing a great job playing very different characters. Here, he's the down-on-his-luck, Dan Evans who's doing his best to provide a good living for his family.

We also get some strong performances from the supporting cast. Peter Fonda does a nice job as an aging bounty hunter. Ben Foster is all sorts of creepy and slimy as Ben's second in command. And I really enjoyed Alan Tudyk as the doctor. This is a guy who most won't recognize, but has had solid performances recently in Knocked Up, Arrested Development, Dodgeball, and voicing Sonny in I Robot.

Going back to Bale and Crowe, though, the film works because it does a wonderful job of establishing the relationship between their two characters. As they travel together to put Ben on the prison train heading toward Yuma we see how they are two sides of the same coin. Ben is a villain with a side of humanity while Dan is a hero with hints of a dark side. We learn more about each of them throught their interactions with the other.

I'm not sure what it is about westerns that brings out these themes so nicely, but they do. The ideas behind what is good or bad, black or white, are emphasized when they are placed in such a shades of grey world like the old West. We see, this fall especially, how modern political dramas attempt to achieve the same thing but failing to do so. Perhaps its because the ideas surrounding those themes are more simple in the Western genre. Or maybe its because when it comes to modern political thrillers everyone is afraid to step on somebody's toes that those themes become muddied.

While this genre works at getting these themes across, the one flaw I found in the film is associated with the genre. I personally did not feel the director did enough to give this film the look of an old western. Everything had too much of a Hollywood feel for me and at times it took me out of the film. Thankfully everytime I started thinking about it, I was drawn back in by the performances of the actors.

The film is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, who, along with Stephen King and Philip K. Dick, is becoming one of Hollywood's go-to guys for source material when making films. It's also a remake of a 1957 film, starring Glen Ford. Based on what I know, this version seems pretty faithful to the original. One aspect that does remain the same is the ending, which I'm sure will be debated by all who see this film. Without giving anything away, I will say that the ending doesn't confuse me, but I have no doubt that others won't get it. I think because the ending isn't conventional the director could have done more with the final scenes. The finish is a little too succinct for the action it involves. There is certainly plenty of evidence throughout the film to explain why it ends in that manner, but it's not necessarily spelled out for the audience. For this reason, you're going to have a lot of people who may not care for the ending.

While there may be room for improvement on how things wrap up, it did not ruin the film for me. This is a really good film and I would have no qualms if it or the actors were nominated in the upcoming awards season. I'm not typically a Western fan, but if the films in this genre continue to be as good as this one, I may become a convert. When this one makes it out onto DVD (which probably won't happen until after the holidays), make an effort and check this one out. Grade: A-

Who Ya Gonna Call??

New Ghostbusters Video Game

The timing is a bit odd, but yes, there is going to be a Ghostbusters game coming out on all platforms next fall and will include voice work from all of the original cast.

Clearly, I was sold on the game based on the fact that I loved the movies and it sounds like they're committed to make this to be almost like Ghostbusters 3. But, being a Wii owner, I see a lot of added potential with this game using the unique gaming features of Nintendo's system; namely using the Wiimote and nunchuk as the proton pack and trap.

Unfortunately, we have to wait until Fall 2008 until we can have a chance to tangle with Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

TV Week in Review

Amazing Race: High(Low?)lights of the week included Donald stripping to his undies to pole vault in the mud and Ronald's brutal browbeating of his daughter throughout the leg, culminating in his telling her that she always disappoints him. I said that I would like to see a family team last long, but given their performances this past week, I don't see that happening again. As usual, the unique teams (goths, hippies, etc) are more interesting and likeable than the dating couples, yet most of the couples finished near the top of the pack this week. But have no fear, each of them is one girlfriend meltdown away from getting Philiminated.

Chuck: Leave it to some good ol' truth serum to get some stories moving forward. Of course, the most interesting tidbit actually came from a lie; we learned Sarah really does have feelings for Chuck. And it comes at a time when Chuck has decided to move past her and try things out with sandwich maker Lou (played nicely by Rachel Bilson). Once again, I see Chuck having more chemistry with anyone but Sarah, but I don't think the Chuck/Lou pairing will last. Next week promises some big surprises and I have a feeling I know what they are, but I'll wait and see if I'm right.

Heroes: See my nagging Heroes questions post to get my thoughts on yet another uneven effort from this show.

How I Met Your Mother: The whole idea behind not seeing the flaws in a friend/lover until someone points them out to you was done perfectly and as Homer Simpson says, "It's funny, cuz it's true". As nice as this episode was, next week is the one I'm waiting for as the slap countdown finally hits zero. Barney beware!

Aliens in America: A stronger effort than the past few weeks if for no other reason than Justin and Raja were fighting this week. I think the value in this show will to have these two outcasts bond with each other in a world "against them" rather than making this The Odd Couple: The High School Years. The direction the show takes them over the next few episodes may be what determines whether I stick with this show or not.

House: I hate repeating myself, but the same gripes I've had about this show this season remained this week. The show still has its strong points, namely its great one-liners (usually from House) and gross out ailments, but the structure under which they're currently being provided is not one that I'm enjoying.

Reaper: Many interesting little things came out of this week's episode: Loved the Gladys subplot and her messing with Sock's dreams. We got to see the Devil's nastier side this week with his leaving Sam the bill for dinner and having the cop's last arrest be his own. The "Get Out of Hell Free" card is also very intriguing, but you can bet Sam won't use it for himself. The likely recepients right now would be Sam's dad or Andi. If it's the latter, lets hope she won't turn it down like she did Sam's birthday gift. BTW, loved the slap fight between Sam and Andi's now ex-boyfriend/douchebag.

Back to You It finally struck me this week how similar this show is set up to Murphy Brown. While both shows have similar characters, there is a key difference between them; MB was a sitcom that had its characters deal with topical issues of the day, while Back to You simply involves their characters in cliched sitcom plots. Take for instance this week's episode which involved the gang trying to get a raccoon out of Kelly's attic. Let the hilarity ensue! If this show has aspirations of keeping the standard sitcom alive, it needs to take things to another level.

Mythbusters: I might as well include this too since it was a new episode this week. I liked the idea of the supersized myths, but was a little underwhelmed by the choices they made for the myths to supersize. Both the shark and waterski myths were pretty anticlimatic (and shouldn't Jaime and Adam have done the waterski one since they did the original). However, I really enjoyed the jet cab one. The results weren't surprising but the visuals were awesome to watch. Finally, there was the jet car myth. I always found the original jet car myth to be boring, but since it was their first, I know this show loves it. It was a shame to see their efforts and not the myth busted on this one. I was not expected the car to blow up like that. Given what happened, I have no doubt that they'll try that one again in the future. I'm curious how recently that one was done though considering Scottie was involved with it. If it was new, I'm not sure why they brought her back for help on it.

Survivor: It's a good thing this week's show didn't air next week or else I probably would have thrown up my Thanksgiving dinner watching Courtney and Frosti canoodling. Thankfully that little showmance had the kibosh put on it when they booted Frosti off this week. There were other annoyances on this week's show like the fact that Phei-Gee's immunity win was seen coming a mile away. Between her "I haven't won anything" speech and Erik's "As long as Phei-Gee's doesn't win immunity, I'll be fine" line, you knew exactly what was coming. The one cool thing about this episode was Probst keeping the castaways at tribal council for an unknown twist. But be forewarned, it won't come this week as they're airing a clip show this week instead.

C.S.I.: So this was the big farewell Sara episode and I have to say I was left relatively unmoved. I get the idea of the job becoming too much for her to take, but I didn't buy that this was the case that would do her in. Maybe part of the problem was that I somehow missed the earlier episode that involved the potential suspect. Disappointment aside, I doubt that this will have too much of a negative impact on the show. There's still cases to be solved and the rest of the crew is intact to deal with them just fine. I would worry that too much time would be spent with Gil being depressed about Sara's leaving, but this is Grissom we're talking about and he doesn't show emotion. They actually will have a new episode this week and it looks to be a fun episode involving the lab tech people playing a mystery game.

My Name is Earl: Hooray Joy had the baby. Now let's get Earl out of the clink and have the show return to normal. And when that happens, hopefully they'll be able to find some way to keep Craig T. Nelson's warden around in some capacity.

30 Rock: The show certainly had plenty of laugh out loud moments, but I'm a little uneasy whenever they try and bring political themes into the show. This show so unapologetically leans to the left that it becomes a bit annoying. It ends up coming off more preachy than funny. Despite this I still enjoyed plenty about this week's show including Northax, Liz's new neighbors trying out for the Amazing Race, and Tracy's crude Cyrano de Bergeac routine.

The Office: It was tough to truly enjoying this one given that it is the last new one for the foreseeable future and because of its more dramatic tone. What I did appreciate was Steve Carell's terrific performance in this episode. You could really empathize with the situation he was being put in. The very fact that he managed to seemingly keep both his girlfriend and his job at the end of it all is impressive. The funniest sequence of the episode though once again involved Michael's use of "That's what she said". The court reporter's deadpan repeating of the dialogue just added to the hilarity. As for the pingpong subplot, it was just all right. I think I would have liked it better had it had a better payoff. Instead, it sort of limped to a finish with Pam and Kelly pathetically settling their issues on the table. Although, having the episode end with Dwight and Mose's epic ping pong battle was awesome.

Is this post long enough yet? :)

Nagging Heroes questions

So after last night's middling flashback episode, it seemed more questions than answers were producers. To wit, here's a list of things, of varying importance, that are still bugging me:

- How was Nathan able to grow that Grizzy Adams beard in just three weeks?

- We saw that container Peter was trapped in was empty in New York, so where did those iPods go?

- The commercial last week told us that we would learn what happened to Sylar, so what gives?

- How did HRG and Mohinder hook up in the first place to try and take down the company?

- So much happened to Parkman in those four months, yet not one word about him last night?

- Are the writers incapble of telling us ANYTHING different about the Wonderless Twins?

- For someone as powerful as Adam, didn't it seem like he should have been in a more secure cell, especially considering how easy he and Peter broke out?

- So, DL could react to a split second punch, but not the gun shot?

- Didn't it seem that Bob took over control of The Company awfully fast, considering Thompson would have only been killed by HRG a few hours earlier?

- Finally, would things have been better off had they just started the season with this episode?

C.C. wins Cy Young

Sabathia captures pitching award

It's wonderful to see C.C. get recognized for the great season that he had. This, on top of Grady winning the Gold Glove last week are good signs that the national media is finally willing to give us the national recognition that we deserve. Now if only we could turn these great performances into a World Series victory. Is it time for Spring Training yet?

It's time to come clean

Controversial Tell-All Book Reveals Wrestling Fans Are Fake

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I guess I always knew I wouldn't be able to keep it a secret forever. I just never expected it to come out this way.

Disappointing football weekend

Both my Browns and the Buckeyes let me down this week. First, you had OSU ruin their chance for another crack at the National Championship by getting upset by Illinois on Saturday. Then the Browns go up early on the hated Steelers today and then fail to close things out. As tough as each of those losses were, in some regard, I'm not overly surprised by either outcome. While the Bucks were #1, it was more a situation of them falling into that spot rather than earning it. And with the way top teams have been upset this year, it was almost bound to happen to them as well. As for the Browns, they just played an overall better team, as much as I hate to admit it.

Despite these loses, there is still some positive things to look forward to. OSU plays Michigan next week, which is always a HUGE game and the Big Ten title will be on the line in it. A win against the Wolverines and the Buckeyes will be playing in the Rose Bowl, which isn't too shabby. The Browns also have some things to remain positive about. First off, they played the Steelers much more competitively today than in Week 1 and it's always good to see marked improvement. Second, they have a pretty soft schedule for the rest of the season, which means they still have a very good shot at the playoffs, which would be a great accomplishment for this team.

So I guess the moral of the story is stay positive and hopefully someday something good will come to the state of Ohio.

What a week of TV

All of the stars must have been aligned properly this past week because practically all of my favorite TV shows delivered a home run. The conspiracy theorist in me says that the writers planned it so that their best episodes would air the week they went on strike so that the viewers would side with them even more. But we can speculate about that more at a later date; for now, let's review what went down on the boob tube...

Chuck: After producing solid episodes the past few weeks showing Chuck evolving into a spy, we got a good episode this week that provided some answers to some of the overarching questions of the show. Seeing Chuck's days at Stanford via flashbacks was neat. It also gave us the first indication that perhaps Chuck was born to be a spy, what with his memorization skills. We still don't know exactly why Bryce sent Chuck the images, but I'm sure that will come in due time. On the flip side of things, we got to see the Buy More gang try to mutiny against new assistant manager Harry Tang (talk about a name designed for dirty jokes). The best part about this was an extended role for Nerd Herder Anna. As I've said before, I can take or leave Morgan, but they've got to keep giving more to the rest of the co-workers. They're all solid.

Heroes: Finally! It's about time they started to give us a unifying storyline and have everyone take sides. So glad to see Hiro back from Japan. No real surprise to see Kenzo turn out to be Adam Monroe, but that's ok because that was the right move give how everything's played out so far. I'm so happy HRG learned about West and decided to put his foot down. I guess poor Caitlin is stuck in 2008 (Does she just vanish if they prevent the virus from spreading?) The nightmare man stuff was ok, but they could have done more with it (should have spent more time with that than having to force us watch Parkman weep over Molly's bed. Ugh) Bob continues to be an awesome morally ambiguous character. I loved him giving Nathan some juicy info and then calling out Mohinder for his confession (BTW, Mohinder just needs to die. He serves no purpose for anyone). Next week is the flashback episode, so hopefully it'll do a good job of providing all the missing pieces of the puzzle.

How I Met Your Mother: Another hilarious episode this week. The "what he should have said" running gag was used perfectly. My favorite part of the episode had to be Ted doing his best David Caruso impression while trying to figure out the details of Marshall and Lily's fight. I also liked the divorce fake-out and how the gang reacted before and after they knew the true story. I can't wait to see how Marshall and Lily handle living in their new apartment which is the heart of that new New York hot spot, Dowisetrepla.

House: About the only 'miss' this week. Just when I thought we were finally going to start trimming the fat of this intern candidates, they go and bring in yet another new cast member this week. The cast is just too bloated right now and it's taking away from the original appeal of the show. I did enjoy House getting to showcase his antics for the CIA, but the case he was dealing with wasn't particularly interesting. One of the primary problems with this large cast is the continued shafting of screentime for Cuddy and Wilson. I respect them for trying to think outside the box this season, but it's not working. The prescription for this show is get back to basics.

Reaper: Once again, the best parts of this show had nothing to do with the 'soul of the week'. I savor the moments each week that focus on the devil or at the Work Bench. For instance, I was doubling over in laughter hearing the devil talk about new girl Taylor's erogenous zones. Then we had the introduction of Russ (Booger from Revenge of the Nerds!), who was all sorts of creepy. I really hope they bring him back in future episodes. I loved Sam and Sock telling Ben not to be too friendly with him, yet he couldn't resist not taking Russ up on his offers. Perhaps best of all was Andi's fort/entertainment center (aka the Ted-free zone). How amazing was that thing?!? I want to marry her right now. At this point, I don't care if Sam dates her, he just needs to have her part of the soul capturing team. She is all sorts of awesome!

Back to You: Even this show produced an above average episode. This will never be a classic, but if the humor content stays at this level, I'll stick around. I must admit though that I missed the last few minutes of the show because of a DVR error, so the finish may have been lousy. But for now, the show has earned a stay of execution. The same cannot be said for Journeyman which I abandoned last week.

Survivor: I was watching this live and got a phone call during it, so I missed the last 10 mins. I know who got booted and can't say that I'm particularly upset over it. The only thing that bugs me about it is that it proves that there are very few smart players this season. A lot of them are trying, but their plans are terrible/poorly executed. Todd isn't comfortable if he's not making some grand scheme. Dude, you just have to pick off the Zhan Hus. It's not that difficult. Trying to shake things up will only bite you in the ass later on. James continues to come out of his shell and deliver some hilarious lines. I guess I'll be rooting for him, but he certainly has a big target on his back. Finally, both challenges were pretty lame this week. Is there any surprise that Courtney won immunity? A barrell can't roll around if there's nothing on it to make it unbalanced. BTW, was anyone else curious if she was going to wear the immunity idol as a belt instead of a necklace?

The Office: This was probably my favorite episode of the season. And dare I say it, this episode felt the closest to a season 2 episode than I've seen in a while. I always love when it's Michael out of the office, leaving everyone else to play. Although there wasn't much playing going on thanks to Jim's terrible birthday party plan. It should have been obvious that that plan wouldn't have worked, but it was fun to see Jim endure the error of his ways. Meanwhile Michael's antics in the woods provided a number of laughs (most involving his various uses of his pants to survive). But I think best of all was Dwight. First we got to see that great montage of Dwight's hidden office weapons (file that under Mr. A. Knife). Then his watching over Michael provided some additional funny moments. His tackle of Michael was wonderfully reminscent of him slapping the coffee out of Stanley's hand last season. The final scene involving Michael and Jim was that perfect blend of emotion and humor that this show has always excelled at.

30 Rock: Another wonderfully absurd episode. Their handling of NBC's "green week" was easily the most overt, but it produced some hilarious results. David Schwimmer did a great job as the increasingly delusional Greenzo. And credit to Al Gore for his small role that poked fun at himself. Easily the best part of this week's show was everything related to Kenneth's party. First, there were the great flashback clips of past lame parties. Then we got the awesome scene involving the post-party meeting that had spliced in clips of the out-of-control bash. This did just a great job of showcasing the show's great cast while providing consistent LOL moments.

My Name is Earl: An improved effort over last week's uninspired COPS episode. But this one can't truly be evaluated until we see part 2 next week. I was glad to see Craig T. Nelson back as the warden. I also thought the tryouts for Earl's Scared Straight performance delivered some good laughs. I'm glad that Joy's finally going to have that kid. She hasn't been able to truly be herself while having that kid inside her. Hopefully we'll continue to see more episodes like this throughout the rest of the season.

CSI: Didn't get a chance to see this yet this week. But considering this post is probably way too long already, it's for the best that I don't have anything to say here.

With the way things are playing out, it looks like I'm going to have to savor the greatness of this week, because there may not be too many more of them like it for a while to come.

These laughs are made for Walken

Seeing Christopher Walken in Balls of Fury today made me nostalgic for some of his great work on SNL. He's a classic clip of him with Tim Meadows from a 2000 episode.


via videosift.com

Truth be told, I can't think of nothing I'd rather do on a cold, wintry night than curl up with a leathery, musky old Ballsac

After having a busy few weeks, I finally managed to find some time to head out to the movies. I only wish now that I could have seen something better. The only films at the budget theater right now are the end of summer dregs. As a result, I ended up seeing Balls of Fury. I had a feeling it wouldn't be great, but there was enough comedic talent in the cast for me to hope that I might be wrong.

The film pretty much delivered what I expected. This is due, in large part, to the fact that the trailer gave away quite a lot of the movie. Not only had the trailer shown most of the funny moments, it also pretty much told me how the entire story would go.

As I said, there is a lot of comedic talent in the cast and for the most part they each get a few moments to shine. There's a reason they're called 'talent' and it's because they can rise above mediocre writing and still provide the audience with a laugh or two. Christopher Walken, Patton Oswalt, Thomas Lennon, Aisha Tyler, and Terry Crews each bring their unique comedic style to the film, which I appreciated.

The same praise cannot be given to the film's star, Dan Fogler. I found him to be grating and unfunny. This guy has been in three or four different films within the past few months, and I can't understand why. Let's hope Hollywood doesn't confuse this guy for any big talent. Certain people, like Jack Black, can pull off the fat and sweaty look and make it funny. This guy isn't one of them. I found it uncomfortable just to watch him on the screen.

And speaking of uncomfortable, I felt bad for the attractive Maggie Q, who had to play the love interest for this guy. She made not be a household name yet, but she's certainly done a number of high profile movies and doesn't deserve to be slumming it in a film like this.

The story of the film, however, may have been the most disappointing thing. The way everything develops is so familiar and overdone that I thought they were maybe trying to parody other films. But everything is played so straight that I think it was just lazy storytelling instead. On top of the hackneyed plot, too much time is spent on uninteresting or inconsequential matters like the FBI sting and male sex slaves. As odd as it may sound, I would have actually liked for them to focus more on the ping pong. I think they could have had a lot of fun developing creative and funny moves for the players to perform. In a lot of ways, it reminded of Dodgeball. My favorite part of that film is the montage of the tournament. I would have rather seen an extended version of that than the training scenes. The same holds true for this film.

What's interesting is that the writers of the film are Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, both of Reno 911 fame. These two have written a number of films recently (including Night at the Museum) and I haven't found any of them to be particularly good. I find it hard to believe that Reno 911 can be so enjoyable, yet so many of their feature films have been so lackluster. Given their history on the sketch show The State maybe it's just that these two are incapable of writing something that is funny for longer than 3 minutes.

Balls of Fury isn't as insultingly bad as say The Brothers Solomon or License to Wed but it sure doesn't succeed at what it aimed to do. I think I would probably have more enjoyment and laugh more playing ping pong with my friends than I did watching this. If you enjoy a lot of the comic actors found in this film, you'll probably continue to enjoy them watching this movie, but you would be better off just watching some of their older, better material. Grade: C-

Happy Election Day!

Not crazy about the Demorcratic or Republican frontrunners in the upcoming '08 Presidential election? Well check out this video of fringe candidates and see if you're willing to back any of them...

SNL -Fringe Candidates Debate
Uploaded by PigLips

And they're off...

I can't say how glad I am to see the Amazing Race back on TV. It truly is an underrated reality show (although not in terms of Emmys, of which it has won 5 in a row). And as one team put it last night, it's also a love letter to the planet. Even in this, it's 12th season, they're still exploring new places that are fun to view as the watcher. For instance, last night's episode spent most of the time in Ireland and showcased it in all its emerald glory.

But of course, the show lives and dies by its team. It's clear we have another ecclectic group of racers this time around, but I'm not sure if there's anyone I immediately wanted to root for. There are your requisite bickering couples, (Nathan looks like he's going to be particularly brutal to his partner) as well as your eccentric couples (Goths! Lesbian ministers!!) The ones I find most interesting though are the familial pairings; this season has a brother/sister, father/daughter, and a grandfather/grandson. These teams never seem to do well, so I'll be quasi-rooting for them to at least go far.

While I can't get a beat on most of the teams, I can say with certainty that I was glad to see Ari and Staella be the first team eliminated. I've grown tired of the catty homosexual reality show contestant, so seeing Ari get the boot is fine by me.

So am I the only one watching this show or does anyone else have thoughts on the new season. Share anything you want, even if it's to bitch about how football is once again constantly going to screw with trying to DVR this show.

Are the Browns for real?

It sure seems that way after they were able to defeat a capable opponent (the Seahawks) in overtime yesterday. Right now this offense is firing on all cylinders and just can't be stopped. I still have a lot of concerns about the defense, but kudos to them for making the stops when they counted yesterday. I figured we were sunk when Seattle won the coin toss in overtime, but low and behold the Browns got a rare spot of the ball call overturned and then made a huge stop on 4th down.

If the Ravens are able to beat the Steelers tonight, that would put the Browns in a three-way tie for first place of the AFC North. It would also set up a huge matchup between us and Pittsburg next week. And after the beatdown they gave us in Week 1, you better believe we've got payback on our minds.

Just to show you how well the team is playing now, this is the first time since 2001 that the team has won three games straight. And we should be 6-2, had the Raiders not pulled that cheap tactic in the closing seconds of the game against us in Week 3. I don't want to get too overconfident, but this team is looking like it really is for real. Now let's just hope they don't have to give interviews saying they're "for real" over and over again (like a certain Canadian wrestler were supposed to forget ever existed) in order to prove it to the rest of the country.

The day the pen stopped moving

So as of today, the writers' strike is officially on. If you haven't heard, the primary issue of the strike revolves around the writers wanting more money from DVD and Internet revenues. I'm not sure who I'm exactly siding with here, but the most important thing is that it gets resolved ASAP.

The most immediate changes you'll see is the late night talk shows will all be in reruns for the time being. If this strike lasts for any length of time, scripted TV shows like Heroes and The Office will be affected around the beginning of the new year. If things really get out of hand, we could see it have an effect on the movie industry as well.

To keep you updated on all the latest develoments, I've put a couple of links on the sidebar of blogs that will be posting regular updates related to the strike. The TV Guide link in particular does a nice job outlining what changes we'll see in the major networks as the strike plays out.

Thursday TV

Just some quick thoughts on what I saw last night while I have a few moments of free time up on campus:

Survivor: Oh man, what an awesome conclusion to last night's show. After the disappointment of no one finding Yau Man's fake immunity idol last season, the fun of watching someone hand Jeff a bogus idol at tribal council was realized last night. As soon as Jaime found the faux idol I was praying that everything would fall into place for her to foolishly play it; and lucky for us the gods smiled upon us and delivered exactly that. I guess this is karma's cruel way of punishing Jaime for her giggle-fest two weeks ago while throwing that challenge. Probst made the whole event even better with the cavalier way he threw the fake idol into the fire and proceeded to tally the votes.

As for the rest of the episode, it was a typical merge episode. Gorging at the feast, faux friendliness between merging tribes, cockiness amongst tribe who has numbers advantage, etc. It seems that the original Zhan Hus will be picked off one by one now, but when you have wild cards like Jean-Robert, Frosti, and Courtney in the mix, I'd say it's anything but a given. BTW, can a human skeleton be a member of the jury? Because it looks like one stiff wind will blow away the remaining skin and meat left on Courtney's torso. That girl is vile to look at and listen to. What's Frosti thinking nuzzling up with that. He certainly can't be doing it to keep warm.

My Name is Earl: I was actually pretty disappointed with this hour-long effort. I missed the first COPS episode that they did, so I really can't compare the two. I just thought that a lot of the jokes either fell flat or were blatantly obvious. I enjoyed having an episode that got to utilize a lot of the other Camden weirdos, but their presence wasn't enough to salvage this. I also thought from a production standpoint that it could have looked a little bit more like COPS. Instead, it just came off as a bad, neutered version of Reno 911.

The Office: I enjoyed the episode and liked the story they did, but I didn't find it to be a very laugh-out-loud filled show. It had it's moments ("I think I cut my penis on the lid"), but didn't do as much as it could with the story. I also felt that the "finer things" club could have been executed better. With the way it was done, it just seemed odd and out of place. Given that Karen became branch manager of Dunder Mifflin: Utica, I wonder if that is their plan for the spin-off, especially if they think Rashida Jones' midseason sitcom isn't going to succeed. I have high hopes for next week's episode as its going to take Michael out of the office, leaving his underlings on their own. That setup has usually yieled some great episodes in the past (Office Olympics, The Client, etc), so hopefully they'll be able to do that again.

Didn't get a chance to watch CSI yet. If anything notable happens, I'll be sure to comment on it later.

WikipediaVision

While surfing my usual message boards, I came across a link for one of the neatest and craziest things I've seen online. It's an real-time map showing every single edit that is being made on Wikipedia. If you're looking for a good time-waster, this is it. You'll find yourself becoming engrossed with what's being edited and from where. And as silly as the whole thing is, I think there is the potential for some research to come from something like this. I'm sure someone could make some correlations between topics being edited and the areas of the world that are editing them. Check this out for yourself: WikipediaVision

The internets are playing a trick on me

First off, happy Halloween everyone!

Now with that out of the way, let me vent for a second. There were a couple of items I wanted to post on today and in looking for the videos that I wanted to include I came up empty. I think I may be losing my touch. Normally, I can find the videos I'm looking for within a heartbeat.

The first one I wanted was to recognize the passing of Robert Goulet. I was going to include his performance of "O Canada" from Wrestlemania VI, but that is nowhere to be found. I had no problem finding Reba McIntire singing America the Beautiful at Wrestlemania VIII, but there was no love for Goulet. So instead, here's a clip of one of Will Ferrell's hilarious performances as Goulet.



Then, I wanted to make a Halloween post and include the awesome commercial from Reaper that had Ray Wise's Devil dancing in a graveyard to the tune of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year". No such luck again. Not only was it not on YouTube or any other video hosting site, but the CW didn't even have it on their own homepage. Way to drop the ball CW! A show like this could use a little bit more publicity. BTW, last night's episode may have been my favorite. I loved the idea of Hell shutting down on Halloween and I think Patton Oswalt's Leon needs to be a recurring character. So anyway, since the CW is being their typical clueless, unorganized self, here's a classic Halloween clip from The Office to celebrate All Hallows Eve.



If anyone happens to stumble on the clips I wanted, feel free to send me the links.

Could The Office be expanding??

From TV Guide.com:

"If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, NBC may be about to pay a major compliment to Grey's Anatomy. Multiple sources confirm to me exclusively that the Peacock is developing an episode of The Office that would introduce several new characters who would then be spun off into a new series à la Private Practice.

However, unlike Practice, which stole Grey's regular Kate Walsh to anchor the new series, the proposed Office 2 is not expected to include any of the mother ship's core cast. In fact, producers are already casting about for a "name" to headline the potential show."

If the show is distinctly different from The Office it has a chance of working. But if this is just going to be The Office: Utica, I don't see the worth in doing this.

Mr. Perfect 2.0

I don't make much time for wrestling anymore (a combo of my busy life, a lack of major stars and their lazy storytelling), but when I read this in the Smackdown spoilers, I had to check it out. It's a jobber match with some worthless new tag team, but one of the jobbers just happens to be Mr. Perfect's son, Joe Hennig. He's only seen for a few seconds, but since he wears his dad's ring gear, you'll immediately recognize him. Looks like he inherited his dad's awesome bumping skills.

RIP Jin???

Lost curse strikes again! Kim dinged for DUI

Given the track record of Lost stars who have been arrested for driving violations (Libby, Ana Lucia, Mr. Eko) could this mean the death of Sun's hubby? If I were Daniel Dae Kim right now, I'd be working on my resume.

Trailer for new season of 24

Sure, last season of 24 was vastly underwhelming; so much so that it ended up turning off a lot of people on the show altogether. But hope springs eternal for me and after watching this trailer, I believe this show has the ability to fix itself. There are making a lot of changes (No CTU, the return of Tony, etc.) which we all hope are for the better. This appears to be the make-or-break season for 24, which is a weird thing to say considering it's their 7th season. Take a look for yourself and see what you think...

Drew review

So we're a little over a week into the Carey era on The Price is Right and things are looking good thus far. Everyone will agree that he's no Bob Barker, but, in some ways, that's a good thing. I think for the livelihood of the show, Drew needs to find ways to make it his own. Trying to mimic Bob in style and mannerisms is only going to draw unfair criticisms.

It's been a little tough to truly gauge how well Drew is doing so far because they've been airing the episodes out of taping order. And it's become noticeable the difference between the shows he did in the first week and the ones he did a month into the job. The good news is that Drew has shown considerable improvement in the episodes that were taped more recently.

Drew's strength thus far has been his people skills. He comes off as an everyman and makes contestant feel very comfortable. At times, Bob was all about business, so it's nice to see Drew take the time to get to know the contestants a little bit more. Drew is also very funny and provides a lot of good one liners. Some may look at his jokes as disrespectful, but I enjoy the type of snark that he's brought to the show.

As far as weaknesses go, he still needs to work more on building drama with the games. When it comes time to reveal whether the contestant has won or not, he rushes through it and sometimes the player doesn't realize that they've actually won. He also tends to over-explain the rules of the games, but I have a feeling that will lessen in the coming weeks as he becomes more familiar with the games himself.

Given that there have only been a few episodes aired, Drew gets an Incomplete grade right now, but from what I have seen, I have hope that he'll be able to continue the tradition of America's favorite game show for a long time to come.

Viva Laughlin the bell tolls for thee

Well that certainly didn't take long. After just two episodes the musical/drama/disaster Viva Laughlin was cancelled by CBS, making it the first TV casuality of the new fall season (and no, neither FOX's Nashville nor CW's Online Nation count. I mention this news not because I take glee out of their failure (although it is interesting to see once again that CBS only fails when it tries to think outside the box), but because starting Nov. 4 Viva Laughlin's time slot will be filled with the return of The Amazing Race!! From the news piece I read, some of the new countries the racers will be stopping in this season will be Ireland, Lithuania, and Croatia. Hard to believe this is the 12th edition of this show and they're just now visiting Ireland.

PWNED!!

Take that message board commenters!!

And now begins the long winter wait

***Before I begin the post, I just want to say that this is about the 5th post I've made today, so make sure you keep reading all the way down to read everything new that's going on with me.***

So last night the choke job by my Cleveland Indians was completed as the 'Sawks' pounded on us once again. I'm not sure if it makes me happier or more depressed that the Tribe kept the game close until about the 7th inning when things just fell apart. It would be easy to pinpoint our failure to go to the World Series on one individual, but really it was collective effort. There were multiple people who just couldn't deliver when the team relied on them.

Now as the off season begins, it'll be interesting to see where this team goes. On one hand, you could say that making it as far as we did would indicate we're just a tweak or two away from getting to the World Series. But given that we had many people underperform in these last few games makes you wonder if they should remain an integral part of the team. In general, I'm trying to stay as optimistic as possible. I truely believe that we have a solid nucleus of talent that we can continue to build around. And as disappointed as I am in us losing, I can't deny that the Tribe gave me and the rest of the city a lot of wonderful memories this season.

Still it's tough to watch Cleveland come so close to winning a championship again only to come up a little short. If you feel our pain, you're more than welcome to send sympathy cards and letters and/or donations to the "Wait 'Til Next Year" fund, in care of Adam Gutschmidt. Any submissions are appreciated.

A fair to remember

The state fair was in town this week and I was able to go over the weekend with some of my friends and attend the festivities. This was my second time there since moving to NC and once again it was quite the cultural experience.

Now I've been to the city carnival many times when I was young and this is basically the same thing, only on a much grander scale. I still find it funny how there are so many people who attend the fair as if it was some big deal. You see the trailer park trash all dressed up as if this was the prom or something. Personally I wanted to burn my clothes after going there after being around all the farm animals and the litter that is strewn throughout the midway.

The day I went, the place was absolutely packed. That might have had to do something with the fact that Daughtry was performing there that day, but from what my friends tell me, it's always that full.

But the highlight for me every year is to see what new heart attack inducing foods they are selling each year. Beyond your typical elephant ears and corn dogs, the NC State Fair food vendors provide people with just about everything in a deep-fried format. Some of the traditional favorites are deep-fried Oreos, Twinkies, and cheeseburgers. Last year, they introduced deep fried Coke. And this year, they added deep fried Reese's peanut butter cups and deep fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Personally, I tried to stay as healthy as possible and only bought the fried apples.

Cerebral and Anti-cerebral

With no baseball on Friday night, I managed to watch a pair of movies that had initially slipped through the cracks when they were originally released.

First, PBS aired the documentary Wordplay, which looks at crossword puzzles and the people addicted to them. Being a puzzler myself, I found a lot of the content to be fascinating. I also got caught up in the "drama" of the crossword tournament finals that served as the climax of the film. Whether intentional or not, I thought the film clearly created some heroes and villains amongst those participating in the tournament, which made it even more thrilling to watch how it would play out. My only complaint about the film is that I wish it would have either completely focused on the tournament or on those obsessed with doing crossword puzzles. Watching segments involving celebrities like Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton talk about their love for crosswords interspersed throughout the events of the tournament made it seem like they didn't have enough content to do a full movie on one aspect or the other.

Then after watching such an intelligent and provocative film, I went to the other side of the spectrum and watched Michael Bay's The Island. A quick backstory before talking about the film. I had a mild interest in this film when it came out in 2005. I ended up ordering it on demand after it came out on DVD and recorded it on DVD. After recording it, I tried on two or three different occassions to watch it and fell asleep each time about twenty minutes in. So I finally made it through the whole thing this time only to learn that there had been some problem with my cable when I recorded it and it didn't show the last 10 minutes of the film. Had the film been better, I would have been pissed. As it was, this was a disappointing failure. The first half hour of the film makes it seem like this is going to be an interesting science fiction film that is going to make some statements on our current culture as well. But after that, the film devolves into a silly, noisy chase film involving characters that we don't really care enough about. Given how the film was going, I didn't need to see the last 10 minutes to figure out where it was going. Thumbs down for me on this one.

Quick TV roundup

Before we start another week of TV, let me quickly recap the highlights from last week and point out some questions that I'm left wondering about.

Heroes: Was last week a rerun, because it sure felt like I had seen all of that before. This show needs to get out of its creative rut in a hurry. Season 2, thus far, is severely lacking any focus and needs to create some sort of unifying mission for our heroes. I can only stand so many weeks of the Wonder twins temporarily killing people with Maya's crying power as they endlessly travel through Mexico. BTW, anyone else think that Parkman's dad (aka the Boogeyman) is NOT the one that through Mr. Nakamura off the roof?

Chuck: The show is finally getting its footing now that Chuck is going on missions. I loved his attempts to stop the "Wookie" from selling the diamond. I also enjoyed the various Bond references sprinkled throughout the episode. My gut is also telling me that we haven't seen the last from Katrina. Making her a recurring character could make for some interesting storylines. Speaking of recurring characters, we need more of the Nerd Herd!

Journeyman: I wish I could travel forward in time to figure out when we're going to get any sense of what's going on with Dan's ability. That way I would know whether to stop wasting my time with this show or not.

How I Met Your Mother and Aliens in America: Each of these episodes had their laughs, but were far from standout episodes. Now pressing issues with either of them. I mainly include them here as a way to promote other people to start watching them.

House: N/A due to baseball playoffs.

Reaper: Another fun episode that yielded a lot of laughs but still failed to break out of its formula. On one hand, the formula works, so I can't be too mad at them. Still, variety is the spice of life and this show could use to show that it at least has the ability to change things up once in a while. The Devil was still awesome this week, but we also saw that he knows how to perfectly get what he wants when someone tries to defy him.

Back to You: The initial problems with this show remain. The comedic talent on this show continue to be weighed down by the awful characters surrounding them. Like Journeyman, this show is on borrowed time.

Survivor: Only saw parts of it while flipping between it and the ball game. From the commercials, I figured each tribe would just steal the other's best players and for the most part I was right. Not sure how Sherea got chosen though. Also, how foolish of Zhan Hu to think they would just be stealing from the other tribe and not have to give anything in return. Idiots. They continued to show their intellectual ineptitude by throwing a challenge. Actually, I sort of see their rationale, but the way they went about it was all wrong. Plus, karma always has a way of getting revenge on people like this who try to throw challenges. Despite the remaining Zhan Hu thinking everything went according to plan, I don't see this having a big impact...yet. Aaron is no great loss and Fei Long still remains a strong threat even without him. This week it looks like someone will discover the hidden immunity. Given the way this season has played out, I wonder how long it will take before they tell the rest of the tribe that they found it.

CSI: Didn't watch because of the ball game. Anyone want to tell me if Sara accepted Grissom's marriage proposal?

My Name is Earl and 30 Rock: Of these two, 30 Rock was the clear winner this week. I get what Earl was trying to do with its creative writing episode, but it just felt a little flat to me. On 30 Rock, none of the three primarily storylines were really advanced, but they continued to deliver some LOL moments while telling them.

The Office: I'm so torn on this week's episode as I thought it was really well done but severely was lacking in the humor dept. Given the storylines they're dealing with right now, I suppose the somber tone was appropriate, but I wish they would go back to having more fun in the office. I may have said it before, but they really have entered into this parallel universe where Jim and Pam are happy and in love and everyone else is miserable. As much as I don't want to see anything ruin PB and J's relationship, I want Michael and Dwight back to their old selves as well. It should be interesting to see how much things change, including my opinions on the season, now that they go back to half hour episodes this week.

Looks like the Goblet of Fire wasn't the only thing that was flaming

So over the weekend, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling revealed an interesting bit of information about Hogwarts' headmaster:

"At a Friday night appearance at Carnegie Hall, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling confirmed that which many fans had suspected: Albus' wand leans the other way. According to the AP, during a question-and-answer following a brief Deathly Hallows reading, Rowling responded to a query about Hogwarts' headmaster finding true love by saying, "Dumbledore is gay." The writer proceeded to elaborate that Dumbledore was smitten with Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle. Upon seeing his good friend go bad, she says, Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

OK, what?!? I mean, what purpose does this serve? First of all, who are these moron fans that are asking about Dumbledore's love life? You have one opportunity to ask this woman anything about the rich world she's created and that's what you want to know? Second, what good does it do to reveal this now after the fact? All it does is rile up the homophobes who don't want to hear that and it certainly doesn't appease those in favor of it because she was too gutless to add that aspect into the actual books. This was definiely something that deserved to be left to readers' imagination rather than revealed in such an frivolous manner.

Transformercial

As my fall break continues, I saw the last of the big summer films today, Transformers. There are a number of reasons why this one was the last one I got too. 1) The project initially didn't interest me as I never was a fan of the toys growing up; I was a GoBots man, myself. 2) Seeing Michael Bay's name attached to it didn't give me much hope that this was going to be a cinematic masterpiece. 3) I got increasingly annoyed at the amount of publicity the film was getting; the MTV Movie Awards basically became one long commercial for the film. 4) I've never thought much of Shia LeBeouf as an actor.

Despite all those reasons, I went into the film with an open mind. After all, the film made a lot of money and I read/heard a lot of people say they thought it was really good. The general consensus was that the film was a lot of fun with kick-ass action. Unfortunately, I ended up not being able to share in that belief. For whatever reason, I just couldn't turn off my brain and enjoy it. There were too many things in the film that I found annoying.

First, was the amount of commercialization within the film, hence the title of my post. Now this film is not the first to have gratuitous product placement, but here, every scene seemed to include a brand name of some product, and a lot of times they had nothing to do with the scene. Off the top of my head I saw plugs for GMC, Cadillac, Burger King, Mountain Dew, Apple, Xbox, My Little Pony, Furby, and Wells Fargo. I'm sure I'm missing something too. Seeing these things pop up constantly became annoying after a while.

Then there was the liberties Michael Bay took with time throughout the film. In one scene it would be morning and then the next it would be pitch black and there is no context given for what happened over the course of that time. Bay just sets up action sequence after action sequence without doing a proper job of placing them in a logical or clear setting.

Shia LeBeouf also continued his streak of grating performances in my book here. He seemingly plays the same character in every film; this smarmy, rapid talked that wants you to think he's humble and just a kid, yet comes off as cocky and arrogant. Frankly though, all of the human characters came off as unlikeable to me. And a lot of them had characterization that just confused me; like John Tuturro's comedic hardass. He gets introduced halfway through the film and you're completely confused as to what his motivations are and why he's being so difficult. About halfway through the film, I was starting to think that the Autobots should just let the Decepticons destroy the planet. If these are the people representing us, perhaps we need to start over.

In addition to the confusing characters, you also had scenes that left me scratching my head too. The whole scene involving Sam looking for his glasses and being interrupted by his parents was terrible. First off, the Autobots were annoyingly impatient with Sam as he looked for the glasses. Then I found it hard to believe that these huge machines are walking around in Sam's backyard yet NO ONE seems to notice. Then there's the awkward dialogue between Sam and his parents about what he was doing in his bedroom that goes nowhere. The other scene I found troubling was the final climatic battle between the Transformers. There is all these explosions and destruction going on, yet there are constantly people wandering in the street amongst this carnage. After the first explosion, wouldn't these people find shelter or run away. I'm watching this and thinking "What are these people still doing here?"

Speaking of the final climatic battle, I was hoping this was going to be the film's saving grace. After the first 3/4 of the film was focused too heavily on the humans, I thought that I would at least get an awesome battle to close things out. Yet, even this wasn't as good as I would have liked. I think a part of the problem was that it was too difficult to discern who was fighting. Perhaps with a better knowledge of the characters, this may not have been a problem. But for me, it just seemed like two hunks of metal wrestling each other. I could never tell who had the advantage. Then the whole thing ends with a thud with Sam sticking the cube inside of Megatron. I wouldn't have had as big of a problem with that, if that solution had been posed earlier in the film. Instead, they Optimus kept harping on how he would have to absorb the cube in order to save everyone. Why should he kill himself when sticking it in Megatron was clearly a better solution?

Perhaps I am overanalyzing a film that isn't meant to be nitpicked. Unfortunately the film's flaws were just too glaring to me. I think a good comparison would be the new Die Hard film that came out this summer. It too had a lot of action and ridiculous stunts that require a suspension of belief. However, the difference between the two is that I had a lot of fun with that one and Transformers just left me with a big headache. I am glad there are those out there who enjoyed this, but I thought the film simply did not provide more than meets the eye. Grade: C+

Talking Thursday TV

My Name is Earl: Given the bland nature of the prison storyline to start this season, I was happy to see that this ended up being a flashback episode which showed how all of the primary characters came together and it was a result of Frank, who was played by Michael Rappaport. Rappaport is an actor who I never cared for, nor found funny, so kudos to this show for giving him a role that changed my opinion of him. From what I've read, the Frank character will be around for a few episodes, as will Alyssa Milano, who will play Frank's former girlfriend. With an addition like that, there may be hope that this whole Earl is prison thing may finally begin to perk up.

30 Rock: Last week's episode featuring Jerry Seinfeld was just all right, so I was pleased to see that the show was back on its A game this week. All three of the storylines delivered numerous laughs: You had Jack once again battling it out with his nemesis Devin Banks (played wonderfully by Will Arnett), you had Kenneth trying his best to get Tracy to rekindle with his wife, and you had Jenna continue to deal with her weight issues. Highlights included Tracy's music video for "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah", Dr Spaceman helping Jenna with her weight, Devin putting Jack's heart to the test while Jack put Devin's gayness to the test, and Liz using her ham napkin (aka her unused wedding dress) to prop up her Blerg furniture. The lone disappointment this week was that we didn't get to see enough of the writing staff. But having a large cast full of funny people is far from a serious problem. They'll all get their chance to shine throughout the season.

The Office: The hour long episodes still feel excessive to me, but this week's episode was certainly an improvement over last week's uneven effort. Certainly the highlight this week came from Dwight's attempt and eventual success at outselling the new online service offered at Dunder Mifflin's new website. Part of the enjoyment was watching Dwight and new crony Andy be over-the-top in their obnoxiousness as Dwight battled the computer. But the other joy came from Jim and Pam's wonderful prank where they began IMing Dwight pretending to be the computer come alive.

We also had plenty of romance in the air as Andy did his damndest to woo Angela now that she's on the market again, while it appears the beginnings of a love connection were forming between Kelly and Darryl. More on that in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Michael is having all sorts of problems. Jan wouldn't come with him to the website's launch party in New York (I absolutely loved Michael asking Jan if she would mind if he took Carol instead). Then Michael learned he wasn't invited to the party in New York. This completely set off Michael and led to him kidnapping a pizza boy after he wouldn't honor his coupon. Michael really appears to be in a downward spiral since the beginning of the season and I'm worried to see where rock bottom might be for him.

Other highlights included Stanley's dancing to the website's music, Phyllis trying to use different tactics to stand up against Angela, the cold opening with everyone's attention diverted to the floating DVD screensaver, Kevin's concern over getting the right Angelo's pizza, and Jim and Pam's rooftop date.

Survivor A lackluster episode after a strong start to the season. Then again, maybe I'm just bitter for failing to score points in Fantasy Survivor from this week's episode. Some bad intel caused my downfall as the commercials misled me to think both tribes were both voting someone off and TV Guide showed a picture of Dave to make me think he would still be around next week, hence why I didn't put any points on him. Misleads aside, Zhan Hu really dropped the ball here by voting him off. Sure he was annoying as all hell, but he was also essential to their daily living, while Sherea provided absolutely nothing for that tribe. The challenges weren't very interesting, mainly because they weren't very competitive. BTW, what was up with that wacky animation during the immunity challenge? Unless they're trying to trick me again, next week the tribes will be reshuffled, which should hopefully provide a little more balance into what has been a rather lopsided competition thus far. One final thought...why does everyone keep trusting Todd. He sure seems sneaky to me, yet everyone keeps making alliances with him and giving him clues to the hidden immunity. And everyone that gives him information ends up getting voted out. If I was the rest of the castaways, I would be looking for ways to eliminate him sooner, rather than later.

CSI: This week's episode was one of those hauntingly disturbing episodes that this show seems to excel at. All sorts of creepy crimes were believed to or actually did occur including pedophilia, double homicide, and exorcisms. I thought Lost's Michael did a good job as the reverend/former sex offender. Although, it still wasn't clear to me at the end whether he had given up his former transgressions or not. I thought the way they determined the girl had been involved in the murders was a little too neat and tidy, not to mention circumstantial, but given how much they had to do to get to that point, the rushed finished was probably necessary. They could have had more time, but they opted instead to do a B story involving new CSIer Ronny Lake. Conveniently paired up with the soon-to-be-gone Sara, she appeared, character-wise, to be the complete opposite of Sara, which is more than likely intentional on the writers part. I'll wait a few episodes to pass judgment on her, but my initial thought is that she doesn't seem like she'll fit in too well with the rest of the regulars. Also, the beehive Grissom found will be returning in future episodes. From what I've read, it will be his pet project for the season. I guess he needs something to take his mind off Sara.

Oh Brother

I'll keep this short and sweet. I saw The Brothers Solomon yesterday and it was terrible. I was already skeptical about seeing it based on previews, but because it had a lot of comedic actors that I love, I decided to check it out. Sadly, all of that comedic talent is wasted in this picture. This is basically a stale rehash of all the other idiot comedies that came before it (i.e. Dumb and Dumber) The film's jokes and viewpoints on such issues as race, parenting, romance, and family relationships give us nothing new. There are also a couple of subplots that never properly get paid off over the course of the film. The whole thing was just a waste of my time. There was one funny scene, so I'll explain it here and that way you'll have as much enjoyment as I did with the film, minus the 90 minutes of torture.

As the two brothers (Will Arnett and Will Forte) prepare to become dads, one of the things they try to learn to do is change a diaper. Using a baby doll, the one brother keeps loading up the diaper with pleasant things so that the other brother can be trained into thinking it's pleasant opening up a diaper. Some of the diaper contents included a pile of quarters and chicken nuggets with honey mustard sauce. On the last attempt the brother finds popcorn, but amongst the popcorn is a dead bird. That was put in there to give the brother a harsh dose of reality. That was the only mildly amusing part of the film. If you didn't even laugh at that, then you know just how bad this film was. Grade: D

Charlie Wilson's War trailer

They finally released a trailer for one of the few films that intrigues me this holiday season. The film certainly has the pedigree and topical subject, but we'll have to wait a couple of months to see if it can deliver.

Al rodente

So with fall break upon us, I decided to head over to the budget theater and I saw Ratatouille. Naturally, whenever a new Pixar film comes out, comparisons are immediately made to the previous films. When I look back on them, I see each one as uniquely great and can do a word association with each of them.

Toy Story has novelty
A Bug's Life has bravery (mainly for trying to follow Toy Story)
Toy Story 2 has the complete package (humor and adventure)
Monster's Inc. has whimsy and imagination
Finding Nemo has heart
The Incredibles has kick-ass action
Cars has nostalgia

So what indelible mark does Ratatouille leave us? In a word, elegance. And depending on how attractive you find that quality in a film will pretty much determine whether you like this film or not. This is undeniably the most visually beautiful Pixar film yet. I was in amazement at some of the sequences created for this film. Everything from the Paris skyline, to the rapids-like water flowing through the sewer, to the fine details found in a five-star restaurant's kitchen shimmers on the screen in illustrious beauty.

However, for the most part, the film seems to be constructed as a bunch of visually beautiful sequences without much in the way of story holding them together. If only the story was as multi-dimensional as the visuals created for this picture. That isn't to say that there aren't many things going on. There are several plot points peppered throughout the film, but none of them are explored with any depth. This is mainly because the two main characters with which the plot points are related to are fairly one-dimensional themselves.

The story focuses on a rat named Remy (voice by Patton Oswalt) who somehow has great culinary skills trying to help a young cook, Linguini, succeed in a once-great French restaurant. Given their peculiar relationship, each of them have to endure conflicts which prevent them from happiness. However, because their characters aren't fully explored, their way of dealing with their problems make them come off as unlikeable instead of sympathetic.

Only one character has an opportunity to flourish and that is the intimidating food critic, Anton Ego. His character succeeds at being memorable through the great voice work of Peter O'Toole. O'Toole manages to rise about the flat storytelling and create a character that immediately draws you in.

Overall, the film really lacks in the humor department and does not create many iconic characters. I think a lot of the credit here goes to the less than star-studded voice cast hired for the film. Patton Oswalt and Janeane Garofalo are serviceable in their roles here, but do not provide that added spark that are found in so many of the previous main characters of Pixar films.

I will say that, flawed plot aside, its conclusion was able to win me back to a certain degree. It naturally provided a happily ever after finish, but did so in a way that wasn't as conventional and didn't insult the audience's intelligence.

If we were grading this film as if it was being served on Iron Chef America, it would score high on plating and low on taste. If you are one that prefers style over substance, you're likely to fall in love with this movie. I find it hard to believe though that too many people fall under that category. In retrospect, it's hard to figure who this film should be marketed towards. Kids are likely to find the film lacking in humor and general fun, while adults will find the concept of a rat as a gourmet chef to be too ridiculous. It appears that this film is all dressed up with no place to go. This film, just like fine dining, is nice on very rare occassions, but for the rest of the time, the familiarity of home cooking will suit me just fine. Grade: B-

TV Roundup

OK, sorry for the lack of posts lately. Blame it on a combination of being busy with school work, Indians playoffs games and the overwhelming amount of TV to talk about. I'd love to do daily posts on the previous nights television, but there is so much that I watch on Mon. and Thurs. that I often can't watch it all in one night. And when I do get around to watching everything, I have so much to say about each show that one post would probably take up the length of the screen. So I'm just going to have to make shorter comments on each show. Primarily they'll focus on remaining questions I have that we can speculate on for future episodes. We can just assume I enjoyed each episode and if I didn't, then I'll make a specific note of that.

Heroes: Let's start with the one that requires the most discussion. I love how HRG had bagged and tagged West in the past, but am not liking the fact that he's shown dead in Isaac's painting. Let's hope that's one future that doesn't come true. Do you think the Company could have somehow planted that because they know Mohinder is a mole? The practical reversal in character for Peter and Sylar is neat. Sylar can't do any of his powers (is he "sick"?) and Peter can't help show off all of his. Other questions about them: Where is Sylar? The island from Lost? What's up with Peter's tattoo morphing? I'm ready for Hiro to come back to the present, but I enjoyed having him find a way to communicate with Ando. I also find the Japanese princess cute and she has good chemistry with Hiro. Too bad it looks like Hiro will once again fail to get the girl. I'm sure that whatever the Company wants from Nikki can't be good, but at least it provides her with a reasonably interesting storyline. Poor Micah will seemingly never have a stable family life. Hope he enjoys Nawlins! The more they interact, the creepier I find the whole Mohinder/Parkman/Molly relationship to be. Once again, Maya and Alejandro did nothing interesting. Can Sylar just lop off their heads already?

How I Met Your Mother: I swear the writers of this show must be spying on my life. First, they had Ted come from Ohio and be an Indians fan. Then they had an episode involving Barney going on the Price is Right. Now this week we saw that Barney bought a replica WWF title belt which was to be given to the one of them who was able to have three way first. Not to mention Barney and Marshall playing tennis on the Wii. I'm afraid what aspect of me they'll showcase next. If somehow North Carolina State University somehow gets worked into an episode, then I'll really be scared.

Chuck: The show continues to be all sorts of fun and awesomeness. Highlights: Sarah and the attractive female villan in a kick-ass fight, Casey chucking a microwave at a henchmen's head, the return of the Nerd Herders, Captain Awesome teaching Chuck the lady's role of the tango, Chuck's Stanford colleague getting busted for his insider trading. No real questions to pose at this point, just enjoying the ride that this show is taking us on.

Journeyman: All sorts of questions to ask with this show. But they're still the same ones I had after the pilot. So instead, I'll pose this interesting theory: What if Livia is controlling when Dan flashes back in time? It seems convenient that when he leaves it is at a time that is harmful to his marriage. Unfortunately, if this show doesn't start doing better in the ratings, we may not get the answers to our questions.

Aliens in America: The show is at its strongest when it makes sharp commentary on what it means to be in high school. At its best, the show reminds me of the film Election, which is a very good thing. At times though, some of the stuff can be a bit hokey. We'll see which side wins out as the show evolves over the next few weeks. All of the stuff with Small Paul was great though. Who can't figure out that bringing a briefcase to school is grounds for immediate teasing. I also love how Jeffrey using tactics from Say Anything and Jerry Maguire worked on winning Claire back because those movies are "too old" for her to have seen them. It's a shame that's also a commentary that I'm getting old too.

House: As much as I like the idea of House abusing these new intern candidates with his games, I am really missing the way things used to be. I think the absences of Cameron, Chase, and Foreman are starting to take their toll on House as well, as evidence by his trying to "nearly kill" himself. As bad as it is not having House's old crew around, this week didn't use Cuddy or Wilson enough either. Nobody seems like themselves these days, so let's hope we get some normalcy soon.

Reaper: Like Chuck, this show continues to rock. Watching Sam and co. dressing up in different combat gear each week as they do battle with the soul is a riot. The Devil also continues to produce numerous LOL moments each week with his appearances. The one thing that's bugging me though is that Andi is offering herself up on a plate for Sam and he's too oblivious/too scared to take advantage of it. So frustrating!! Hopefully with some more prodding from Sock and the Devil, he'll eventually grow a pair and get on that. BTW, how wonderfully odd is it that the Devil is actually a better parent than Sam's real parents are?

Pinch me, I must be dreaming

It's hard to believe but things are actually looking up for Cleveland sports.

- The Indians finished the regular season today with a win over the Royals and ended up being tied for the best overall record in Major League Baseball with the Red Sox. Unfortunately, since they had a better record against us, they'll have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Now the Indians begin the playoffs against the hated Yankees on Thursday. I can't deny that I'm a little bit nervous about facing a team that we didn't win one game against in the regular season. However, we do have home field advantage and the pitching matchups should be in our favor. Let's hope we can continue the roll that we were on in Sept. all the way through the postseason.

- Then, low and behold, the Browns ended up winning again today. Even better, it was against the detestable Baltimore Ravens. I won't fool myself into thinking we're really that great. It seemed today to be more a case of the Ravens sucking than us outperforming them, but I'll still gladly take the win. At the beginning of the season, I would never have predicted we would be 2-2. Now if we can beat the Patriots next week, then maybe I'll start to become a believer in this team.

- Finally, the Cavs don't start playing again for another month, but I still got to see Lebron last night as he hosted SNL. For the most part, I thought he did a decent job; at least for an athlete host. There was some funny skits, but it helped that they had a summer of notable stories to mock last night (Michael Vick, Larry Craig, OJ, High School Musical, etc.). Plus, I was thrilled to see the return of the Ambiguously Gay Duo. It's nice to see Colbert and Carell take time out of their busy schedules to do fun stuff like this.

All in all, it's actually good to be a Cleveland sports fan these days. We can't say that often, so I'll cherish it for as long as I can.

Tuesday/Wednesday night TV

With so little to watch on Wednesdays for me, I decided to just lump my thoughts for the past two days into one post.

House: I wouldn't always like it this way, but tonight's episode that was sans Chase, Cameron, and Foreman was a lot of fun. Without them around, we got a whole bunch House/Wilson banter, which was awesome. Their friendship is so remarkable in the way they tolerate each other, despite knowing how to push each other's buttons so perfectly. I loved Wilson kidnapping House's guitar and then House retaliating by kidnapping one of Wilson's patients. As for the medical mystery of the week, it wasn't anything particularly groundshaking (despite that being what brought the woman into the hospital in the first place. Ha!) until the big reveal at the end. Once again, the themes of the medical mystery perfectly connected with House himself is dealing with. And now the games begin as House will put 40 hopeful candidates through the ringer to try and find a new team. Should be fun to see how it all plays out.

Reaper: They intrigued me with the premise and hooked me with the actual initial episode. This show is great! Everyone is perfectly cast in their roles. Ray Wise as the devil is superb. You might as well give the guy an Emmy nomination right now. I can't wait to see his antics every week. The whole bounty hunter aspect of the show is really cool too and it should be very interesting to see what kind of powers/capabilities the escaped souls will have that Sam must capture each week. Sam's buddy, Sock, is hilarious and I'm glad to see Tyler Labine get some work after Invasion was preemptively canceled a couple of years ago. And Heroes loss is Reaper's gain, as Candice the shapeshifter is playing Andi, the girl Sam has a crush on. Her presence was the only negative of the show. Not because she was miscast (she's absolutely adorable and makes for a very "crushable" girl), but because she wasn't the original girl for the part. They filmed the pilot with a different girl, but then changed their mind. So when they added Missy Peregrym, instead of reshooting the pilot, they just reshot her scenes and spliced them in. The end result was Sam having different facial hair in different scenes of the show. Luckily that problem is isolated to this episode. Overall, this is a definite winner and I hope it really catches on with viewers.

Back to You: After being on the fence with this show last week, tonight's episode did nothing to help it's cause. There is a good show buried in here, but they're having difficulty digging it out. A lot of the lines/jokes are so obvious that I'm saying them before the actors are. And the station manager and reporter who got passed up for the anchor job do nothing for me. However, Fred Willard was just fantastic tonight. His stuff consistently had me laughing throughout the half hour. I just wish they would focus more on the newscasting aspect of the show, instead of the tired relationship/personal issues of the characters. I'll give it another week or two to turn around, but right now, this show is on notice.