Okay, so lots to talk about. First of all though, let me simply say this: To those of you on the East Coast ... here in LA: Sunday - 85 degrees. Monday - 85 degrees. Today - a slightly chilled 75 degrees.
Choke on that, Slappy.
Seriously though, those New England winters, especially in Boston where the windchill infinitely worsens things, are terrible. Trying to walk from place to place at BU when it's negative 10 degrees is just painful, as is trying to block out the cold in frigid dorm rooms. I guess it builds character ...?
MOVIE RANT OF THE DAY:
Note: The following rant may get slightly geeky, so leave now if that scares you.
So Marvel right now seems to be doign a lot of things right. Now that they're an autonomous movie studio, things are looking up for the House of Ideas. Take the Iron Man movie - great casting thus far - Robert Downey Jr should make a great Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow of course is very talented, Terrence Howard is one of THE best actors out there, and now, they've added Jeff Bridges to the cast. Not only is he THE DUDE, but Bridges is one of those rock-solid guys who pretty much always makes any movie he's in better. Who would have thought that Iron Man would have a totally A-list cast like this? Okay, sure, there's still huge question marks over the quality of the upcoming Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four 2, but hey ... the new Marvel Studios seems to be starting things out right with Iron Man, so, things are looking up.
Now, DC / Warner Bros, in the last few days, has made some odd / troubling choices. This is not good, because overall DC's movie track-record is piss-poor. There was one giant blip in the form of Batman Begins, and thankfully the Bat franchise is now in good hands. Also, V for Vendetta marked a great showing for DC/Vertigo, a welcome well-done adaptation in the wake of bombs like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Constantine. But Superman Returns, for me at least, derailed a lot of the momentum that DC had in the movie world. Because come on, what fanboy doesn't want to see DC have great thriving movie franchises running concurrently for their Big Two, Superman and Batman, and maybe even Big Three (add Wonder Woman to the mix)?
So now what happens ...?
a.) David Goyer off the Flash, Night at the Museum guy in: Okay, Goyer off The Flash alone is not a bombshell. While Goyer is a comic guy through and through, I could see that maybe he wasn't the best choice for The Flash, since he is unproven as a director and his writing has mostly been with darker characters. The one ace-in-the-hole for Goyer was that he had the Ryan Reynold's connection, and most agree that Reynolds would make a great Flash. But then the news: Shawn Levy, the director of such quality flicks as Cheaper By the Dozen, Daddy Day Care, and Night at the Museum is doing the Flash. My first reaction to this was: What the hell. My second reaction was: Well, maybe he's not that bad. My third reaction was: What the hell. I'd like to give Levy the benefit of the doubt, I really would. It's just that the last time a second-string comedy director helmed a major comic book franchise, we got Tim Story's Fantastic Four. And yes, like Fantastic Four, a Flash movie should probably be huge, larger than life, evocative of the craziness of the Silver Age. Note though, that those things do not equal crappy movie. Now, why do I even care about The Flash? Well, Flash holds a special place in the hearts of many modern comic fans, as his adventures over the last 20 + years have been some of comics' best-written and most fun, thanks to guys like Mark Waid, Bryan Augustin, Grant Morrison, and Geoff Johns. Please, just make a movie that will do those guys and the character justice.
b.) Joss Whedon off Wonder Woman: I'm not a Whedonite nor am I a mark for Wonder Woman. So why do I care about this? Well, I think this movie could be really cool if done right, and overall getting this franchise right could only be good for DC and comics in general. And even though I'm not into Whedon per se, I know that one thing that the man does well is strong female characters, so he seemed like a natural. This movie is still very much a big fat question mark, but I am very skeptical about its prospects.
c.) Joel Schumaker on Sandman: Okay, luckily, this is only a RUMOR. But this one should be a no-brainer. Thanks to the crapfest that was Batman and Robin (and Batman Forever), Schumaker is universally reviled by comic fans (or just fans of good movies) even if he has on occasion made other, better films. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, on the other hand, is considered by many not only one of the finest sagas ever published in comic form, but plain and simple one of the best pieces of literature of the late 80's, early 90's. Clearly, the names Gaiman and Schumaker should not be in the same sentance. If anything, Sandman begs for someone like Terry Gilliam or Darren Aronofsky or Ridley Scott or Alex Proyas or Peter Jackson to handle an adaptation. Hopefully, this is just a rumor. If not, someone at Warners is on crack.
TV STUFF / 24 + PRISON BREAK RANTS OF DOOOOOOOM:
- Some of you not in the know have been questioning my championing of PRISON BREAK of late. To which I say: watch the show. For the last few months, it's been completely awesome. And last night's ep was no exception - yet another installment that pretty much ruled it.
I do understand though, this show isn't for everyone. For all of you, go back to watching Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. Prison Break is a show that separates the men from the boys. It's ugly, violent, twisted, over the top, action-packed. Gotta love it.
So anyways, great stuff last night. A few things I loved:
- Kellerman realizing he was being played and that it wasn't really the President he'd been talking to, jsut some woman using voice modulation.
- Sarah Tancredi nearly killing Kellerman.
- Michael and Sarah's near-miss train-ride tryst.
- Mahone asking Bellick if Bellick would be his "dog." Awesome.
- The whole hostage situation in the diner.
- T-Bag playing Brady Bunch with his faux family.
- And, my favorite part of the episode ... Mahone confronting Haywire atop that tower, sadistically prodding him to jump to his death. William Fichtner had one of his best scenes to date on the show ... just so stone-cold and stoic, yet inches away from snapping. Great actor, great character.
And, in two weeks -- Stacy Keach, most badass prison warden ever, returns. Sweeeet.
My Grade: A
- TWENTY (24) FOUR last night was a marked improvement over last week's pretty disappointing episode (by 24 standards). And that's saying something, because this week, the onslaught of incredibly LAME and obvious subplots continued. The whole Karen Hayes thing still makes no sense. The Regina King subplot is preachy and mostly useless. The office politics at CTU are played out. Morris being the computer whiz that the terrorists were seeking out was one of the most obvious "twists" I've ever seen from this show, so much so that I'm almost hoping it was some kind of red herring. And then ... are they seriously going to have YET ANOTHER evil-ish vice president who is out to upstage / unseat the President? Didn't they use up that angle with Logan the last two years?
And yet, amazingly, despite all the dumb subplots, this episode of 24 STILL managed to kick a ridiculous amount of ass. How could that be possible after the litany of complaints I just listed? Simple -- pretty much everything with Jack, his father, and Graem WAS RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME. Sure, Jack's insano passive-agressive torture scenes have been done to death on 24, but the entire time that Jack had Graem strapped to that chair I literally was on the edge of my seat, hanging on every word and muscle twitch. Graem evoking the names of David Palmer (RIP), Michelle Dessler (RIP), and by-God Tony Almeda (RIP?), revealing himself as the mastermind behind their murders, but only after Jack alternatively coddled him like a baby and injected him with multiple CC's of liquid pain, was a classic, CLASSIC moment of 24. Damn that was intense. And while the Morris non-twist I alluded to earlier was pretty anticlimactic, Pappa Bauer coldly offing Graem was a nice finish to the episode. Looks like we have a new big bad. My only qualm is that Graem was a potentially cool character, it's too bad he wasn't more fully explored.
- What are the odds that Jack's newly-widowed sister-in-law is EVIL?
- Even though the Morris twist was dumb, I like that he will now be in the spotlight and out in the field. That actor is great, as all fans of La Femme Nikita know.
- Seriously, the VP being so anti-Palmer is just way played out.
- We need more Jack-Chloe interaction.
- Jack must swear revenge in the name of Almeda!
And yes, as I said before, it is a tribute to the sheer GRAVITAS of Kiefer and company that, despite having many flaws, I was still so thoroughly entertained by this episode overall that I'm going to grade it highly.
My Grade: A -
- I also caught a few shows from thsi past week over the weekend. Some quick thoughts:
- SMALLVILLE has so completely overused the Red K gimmick and other similar plot devices in which a character's mind or personality is magically altered. I hate to see them do it again. Because, mostly, the show is unforgivably lazy about these types of plots, with every one having some kind of "those things you said back there ... did you really mean them?" moment of lameness, and also setting things up so that characters are magically exonerated from all wrongdoing after they've been found to have been affected by kryptonite, mind-altered, or possessed by the spirit of a 17th century witch. Ugh. So here was ANOTHER episode where by all accounts Clark Kent should be arrested, detained, and/or forever besmirched by his actions as a leather-jacket wearing Red K Clark. But somehow everything is mostly back to normal by episode's end. How convenient. How lazy ... I will say, depite the overuse of these types of plots and usual sloppy writing that comes with them, this was still one of the more dramatic and action-packed episodes we've had in a while. To its credit, a lot happened here. But, so much of what happened was thanks to lame plot device #4578. So, Clark and Lois' brief romance doesn't really count. Clark blowing up at Lex doesn't really count. What does count is Lana whining to Clark about honesty and secrets for the 5 billionth time, possibly establishing her as Most Annyoing Character Ever. As always, there are little things to like here - another great performance by Michael Rosenbaum as Lex, Jimmy Olsen being surprisingly entertaining, some good moments between Lois and Clark, for instance - but man, I wish they didn't use lame gimmicks as a replacement for genuine plot and character development.
My Grade: C+
- THE OC looks to finally kick things up a notch next week, when some big fancy EARTHQUAKE, WHO WILL DIE? FINAL STORYARC! begins the end. But wow, this week's ep was just really, really bad. Frustratingly, annoyingly bad. I mean - the show can't even keep its villains straight. For weeks, we've been made to hate Ryan's conniving dad, and for weeks we've been slowly weaned to kinda like the endearing Gordon Bullet and his surprisingly sweet relationship with Caitlin Cooper. Now, all of a sudden, we're meant to ROOT for Bad Dad Atwood as some kind of underdog, and hope against hope that he and uber-bitch Julie Cooper will form some kind of couple from hell? Um ... okay? And ... what, excatly, were the point of all those random Kirsten-Jimmy Cooper flashbacks? There's three episodes left here guys - do we really need some stupid rift to form between Kirsten and Sandy at this stage of the game? Meanwhile, Taylor is more unlikably batty with each episode, and Ryan is just treading water despite being the show's main character. Seth and Summer ... yeah yeah, they're soulmates. Big whoop. The Simpsons from eight years ago called and wants its plotline back. Please tell me this show will go out on a little bit of a higher note, because right now it looks like it needs a mercy killing.
My Grade: D
- Also, watched STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP. I'm just so torn on this show, as there's some things I really like and others I cant' stand. I think one problem is that so many of he actors on the show just have that Sorkin-style delivery that tries to infuse EVERY line of dialogue with this self-important weightiness, which really WORKS when a character is supposed to be self-important and weighty - like Stephen Webber - he's easily my favorite part of the show right now. Other things I really liked - the whole seemingly-innocent Juliard student going girls gone wild on Tom Jeter - that had me cracking up. But man, I cannot stand when, in the middle of a conversation about sketch comedy, one of the characters will go on a rant about abstinence. OR this whole Simon Styles subplot, where he's mad at the one writer for nto wanting to write his sketch ideas, because they're too "black." Ugh. Whenever this show devolves into preachiness it is just hard to watch. I mean, what I was saying before, about the actors being too melodramatic even with absurd plotlines? Look at Timothy Busfeld in this ep - he and Sorkin's dialogue are treating this funny little snake-loose-in-the-studio storyline like it's epic melodrama. I don't know, I just find Sorkin's style of ultra-serious comedy to be grating. I want to like the show, but parts of it, I find, can just be hard to watch.
My Grade: B -
- Alright, I'm out. Watch VERONICA MARS tonight, be well, and for those about to rock, I salute you.
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