Some Television

Well, not a single movie was watched this past week, and you may in fact ask yourself what has replaced them. And all I can respond with is: nothing and television. You are aware that new programming - fall programming - has begun for quite a few shows and that means that I now have another use for the television aside from catching up on old shows I missed the first time around. We can start off with Fringe, which was sold to me as a modern X-Files but with a more attractive Scully. Such promotion is proven true and I'm now committed to watching at least four more episodes.

If a show is terrible I have no qualms about shutting down viewing pretty quickly. This has happened numerous times in the past, most notably last year, where a show could not hold my interest for two episodes, it was done. And in all cases, these shows have not been renewed for another season. Read: Journeyman and....that show about the nuclear bombs. You know the one, where fans brought it back from the dead by sending in bags of peanuts? It was terrible, and I think even the fans who were happy it came back realized this the second time around. It would be akin to reviving a month old corpse and having it do a final dance for you, rotting flesh and all. It's just sad.

There have been some shows I gave up on that did well, like Reaper. Unfortunately these shows only grab about fifty percent of my attention, and it's just a matter of if something else is on that is more worthy. If I recall correctly something else was on that night and Reaper just died for me. Which brings me to an issue I had last year: I could only watch one show per night. This is probably going to be true this year too, but I'm working on it. I can talk about that more some other time.

Fringe. Good season opening, but it did feel a little rushed and nutty. I read somewhere that a show really picks itself up in episodes two through five, where it can find a groove and it's inner self. If this is true that I have high hopes for Fringe as the opening was solid. I'm going to watch the second episode tonight, I think.

House also premiered this past Tuesday. I finally got around to watching it on Thursday. It was good. I will continue to watch House because it's typically the same thing every week, and this kind of reliability is comforting. Kind of like watching The Office. Every week is just good comedy and you can go to sleep Thursday night happy. You can count on a good Thursday night.

What else...Entourage. One of those shows I got completely addicated to because I watched the first few seasons within a couple of weeks. Now it's slowing down cause I can only watch one per week, and it airs at odd times. Well, it seems to be starting with the rest of fall television, which is nice. And it doesn't look like the show is going to slow down itself. Just so we're clear, the season opening was great.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll be watching more television this weekend.

Movies for the week ending September 12

I'll have to include some movies I've watched in the past couple of months as my movie-watching habits have died down quite a bit recently. There hasn't been anything really jumping out at the theatre for me, and without the movie channels to watch anymore, times are tough. I've been watching The Wire a lot over the past month, which really takes away from movie time. And with the new TV season starting, expect even fewer current movie reviews. I'll try to write about older stuff as it jumps to mind.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS - Honestly, I'm not even sure what to think of this movie. Did you enjoy Superbad and Knocked Up? This movie was entertaining but not up to those other movies' "level." There were plenty of laugh out loud moments that got the crowd in the small theatre going, and even had myself going. There was an odd amount of gore in this movie, although not entirely out of place like The Happening, it did seem a bit odd. Franco is great, and Seth is, well, Seth. I wasn't super excited for this movie and got what I wanted out of it. 6/10

More Movie Reviews

Wow, so much for the weekly movie review update, eh? July 11, you say? And now it's early September and surely, most definitely I have seen a large number of movies during this period. This is true, but I feel as though I could argue that it is not.

THE DARK KNIGHT - It is of course with absolute certainty that this movie was really, very, quite good. However, I'm not getting as excited for it as many others, and I can't pinpoint why exactly that could be. The movie basically had everything you could want out of it, including a perfect Joker performance by Heath, lots of neat gadgets, good action scenes and all the other fun Batman stuff. But really, it was lacking Bruce Wayne. He definitely took a backseat in this plot line. But still, I would give it a 9/10

THE LOST BOYS - This one I saw recently, twice. Now you may think that if I saw a movie twice within seven days that would indicate you know what, but that is not true. I tried watching this movie - probably about ten years ago or even more - and got nowhere with it. I stopped watching it. I don't know why. The movie is watchable and fairly entertaining, but I cannot determine why it was supposed to be so "great." Perhaps it wasn't. But you know people talk about this movie, and while watching it, you can completely understand why this was big in the eighties. So really, I enjoyed the movie but it fell a little short of my expectations. 6/10

DAY OF THE DEAD [2008] - Was anybody else aware that they remade this movie? In fact I have to check the IMDB just to confirm this movie exists. ... Check, it does exist, I did not dream this up. It also stars Mena Suvari...what? I'm in disbelief because this movie was really bad. While the remake of Dawn of the Dead was quite superb, this one really falls flat. Is this even in the same continuity or universe as the others? The original takes place in an underground military base where experimentation on the zombies leads to a reveal that zombies are still capable of thought, learning, and problem solving. They make this happen in this version too, but instead, the movie takes place in a cliche small town with all your standard, flat characters. Boring. But the most offensive bit of this movie is that they explain that people become zombies because of a man-made virus. What?! The mystery surrounding why the dead walk never needed this before, even in the previous remake, so why would they put us through an explanation now? It's downright offensive. The only thing this movie does is turn Romero's "classic" into another run-of-the-mill zombie movie. For crying out loud, we even have zombies performing Spider-Man wall-climbing maneuvers. Terrible. 3/10