I will keep the posts as posts for now so that no links will be broken, until I’m done.

This one was a bit of a mess. I kind of liked what it was going for, but it failed most of the time as it was trying to get there. Things just happened that there was little to no explanation for and it was a bit confusing to follow.

We start out with Echo wandering aimlessly around picking through garbage and unsure of what she’s doing. In a local mom and pop grocery store she see’s a young Hispanic woman who is told her food stamps won’t work there. Echo steals food for her but gets caught. The young woman, Galena is arrested as an accomplice but Echo is able to fight off the deputy and get away.

The next time we see Echo, she is a nurse in a hospital working the system so that she can get put on the county jail flu shot detail.

But there was made no mention of time passing so it definitely struck me as odd. Obviously time passed since she goes home to Paul Ballard.

The two have concocted a scheme to break Galena out and after it is successful, they plan to return to the Dollhouse.

Meanwhile at the Dollhouse Adele is struggling to find her footing as her dollhouse is taken over. Topher doesn’t seem to mind who he’s working for much to Adelle’s chagrin and Topher works on the remote wipe.

Eventually Topher confesses that Rossum is after more. In trying to figure out what they wanted, he was able to come up with a remote imprinter. Scared he tells Adele his fears and shows her the plans. Adele, uncharacteristically takes the plans and turns them into Rossum using the leverage to regain control of her house.

I didn’t like it. It just seemed very unlike Adele. Adele was always tough and no nonsense but she had a very deliberate moral stance that she would not compromise for. The only outside explanation that can be used would be that she cares for the dolls so much that she had to do something evil in order to ensure she was in control of the dollhouse for her next step in toppling Rossum. But that just seems far fetched.

Overall it’s an interesting episode that definitely takes the whole show in a new direction, if only it could have not changed aspects of long standing character and been a slightly more direct narrative it could have been in the upper echelon of Dollhouse episodes.

C+

Previous – 2.06

Next – 2.08

The Family Man

2000

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Tea Leoni, Don Cheadle, and Jeremy Piven

Written by: David Diamond and David Weissman

Directed by: Brett Rattner

Another Christmas movie…and this time the film decides to splice a couple of holiday favorites. Let’s take It’s A Wonderful Life and splice it WITH a Christmas Carol and throw in a little Mr. Destiny at the same time and POOF – The Family Man.

Nicolas Cage stars as Jack Campbell, a greedy businessman who has no social life outside the empty fling. On Christmas Eve, after driving his people to work harder on an upcoming merger, Jack goes to a local convenience store for some eggnog and runs into a situation where a disgruntled man is trying to cash in on a lottery ticket that the cashier believes is fake. The guy pulls a gun and Campbell steps in and works out a business arrangement to satisfy everyone, he buys the $237 winning ticket for $200, therefore everyone wins, the guy gets quick cash money, Jack makes $37 and no one dies.

After a bit we learn that the disgruntled man is in reality an angel of some sorts and he’s about to give Jack a “glimpse” into what his life would have been like if he had made a different decision years ago.

Years ago he was in love with his fiancee when he got an offer to intern in Europe that would further his career. At the last moment his fiancee begged him not to go saying she knew it would destroy them, but he chose to go anyways.

What would have happened if he had said yes?

We find out that he would have married her, watched her father have a heart attack and he would have slid in to help at her father’s retail tire store. In the meantime they would have had two kids and a suburbian life with good friends.

In short everything that business man Campbell would be frightened of. And at first he is. Predictably most of the movie comedically deals with his inability to deal with his newfound situation, but also fairly predictably he slowly comes to term with his life and realization that he was in love with this woman then and he still was.

He even grew to love his kids and realize that this was an emptiness in his life that he never admitted before even to himself.

Of course all good things come to an end and just as he realizes it, it’s time for him to go back.

He awakens back in his rich life but now yearning for what he left behind. He throws caution to the wind and tracks down his “wife” and asks her to get a cup of coffee. Eventually she gives in leaving it open that they might respark their love.

It is a somewhat hopeful ending where it could have been a very depressing ending but at the same time it doesn’t commit to the Hollywood happy ending it could have either so I’ll let that go.

Overall it’s a heartwarming film, that has some decent performances from Cage and Leoni and some unlikely subtlety from Jeremy Piven and Cage’s best friend during the glimpse. It is a bit cheesy at times but for the holidays, it’s supposed to be.

B-

“Weapons Factory”

“Weapons Factoy” is a great example of why Clone Wars is much more than a kiddie cartoon show. In fact it is at times more in depth and better at character development than the films are. It takes the relationships they have and analyze and compare and put them through the ringer to show us how they develop.

Take for example Anakin and Ahsoka. What started out as a real detriment to the series, has begun to really come around and actually become a valued part. Ahsoka is still a bit kidlike in demeanor as is appropriate and certainly will still attract a kiddie audience. But for the more mature audience, Ahsoka is the key to helping us see Anakin’s faults and beginnings of his descent.

For all the griping about this show not moving forward very quickly, I think this episode might have moved a bit too quickly. I don’t question the episode at all. I merely question the placing of the major events.

The Blue Hand portion of the show is nice. It doesn’t move the story forward much but it does showcase an important part of the society’s reactions to the flashforward which had been somewhat subdued since the beginning of the show.

Specifically those who like Demetri who didn’t see a flashforward. Like most who didn’t the Blue Hand has concluded that it means that they are dead in six months time. So they are going to live like it. Live like nothing mattered. Debauchery of the highest form.

The FBI investigates further trying to nail down the leader so they infiltrate one of the meetings. In order to get in though, they are forced to play roulette. Al, without hesitation grabs the gun and pulls the trigger to his coworker’s surprise. When they question him, he shrugs saying he had a flashforward. He knows it’s not his time to die.

This brings up the most fundamental question the show really has to ask. Free Will vs Fate. Is everything pre-determined and if so what does it matter? We learn slowly throughout the episode that Al’s flashforward which had seem very innocuous at the time was a lot deeper. He recevied a phone call and it seems that he is going to be responsible, somehow, for the death of a young mother with twin boys.

He searches her out on Mosaic and sure enough she did not have a flashforward.

Demetri, the most famous (to the audience anyways) character not to have a flashforward finally comes clean to his fiancee who merely reiterates that she saw their wedding and they have to choose to believe in it.

Meanwhile Al slowly deteriorates over time but doesn’t show it to his coworkers. They drag down the local leader of the Blue Hand and interrogate him but don’t get a lot of information when the big event transpires.

Al leaves something for Demetri and asks him to get it into the right hands. When Demetri opens the envelope he quickly realizes that Al plans to kill himself. They all run to the roof to try to stop him and there is a standoff.

Al looks at peace though and looks directly at Demetri and tells him that they can change the future. Nothing is written in stone.

And he jumps.

Wow. Now like I said in the beginning the only thing I really question is the placement of this epsiode. It seems to me that this was a big deal that could have been drawn out. The question of whether or not the future could be changed.

The fact that it can be has just thrown out everything we’ve known about the flashforwards. It’s a game changer. To me, that should be a season finale kind of reveal. So we’ll have to see what happens and where they go from there.

But my nitpick really isn’t about the episode itself which was a home run. I have to add that I really loved the fact that they had the focus on the ones who didn’t have the flashforward and really shot it over to some of those who had and how they are in truly in the same boat at times. As far as Al was concerned his life was as over as the Blue Hands were.

And then to throw another twist at you. After Aaron meets a platoon mate of his daughter’s who really sets his mind at ease regarding her death…he walks into his house to see…his daughter sitting at the table.

A

Previous – 1.06

Next – 1.08

Exit Elvis

2002

by

Tribe of Judah

CLICK HERE FOR FULL REVIEW

Observe and Report

Starring: Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Collette Wolfe, and Ray Liotta

Written by: Jody Hill

Directed by: Jody Hill

Paul Blart wannabe? The filmmakers tried desperately to say it wasn’t so. It is certainly a darker story than Paul Blart. But in the end, it doesn’t matter whose came out first, after watching Paul Blart, the comparisons were just inevitable.

Seth Rogen is Paul Blar…er… Ronnie Barnhardt, a mall cop who takes his job super seriously. The mall is his lair and he will do anything to protect it…oh and to get into the hot mall employee’s pants.

Really so much of the film is Paul Blart it’s not even funny…except it is. It’s hilarious. I enjoyed it more than Paul Blart. This is the dark mall cop movie. The one with bite and situations that shouldn’t make you laugh, yet you can’t help yourself.

Oh and I can’t discount using TWO Queen songs in the soundtrack, especially the obscure “It’s Late”. Complete kudos there.

Seth is Seth and always is likable. Anna Faris is completely dislikable which is good for the role.

Ray Liotta nearly steals the show as Detective Harrison who Barnhardt just can’t help but annoy. In one of Liotta’s best deadpan it’s a treat watching him tick like a time bomb until he goes KABLOOOM!

Overall it is a funny film that deserved more viewers than it got and I sincerely think that the much less deserving Paul Blart ruined audiences for the genre (if you can call it that) of mall cop films.

B

Now that’s how you start a series. With a bang. Phenomenal storyline, performances, cinematography, I had very little to complain about the show. Well maybe the unsubtle bashing on the head from ABC regarding going to their website to find more out. I thought the kangaroo in the middle of the street might be important on my own. I didn’t need ABC telling me to remember it because it might be important.

BUT that aside we start with a bang. Joseph Fiennes as Mark Benford is waking up upside down in a car. As he scrambles out he sees that whatever happened to him, happened to everyone around him and his partner.

Then we shunt out four hours earlier where we meet most of our main characters. Benford and his partner, Demetri (John Cho) are FBI agents trailing some terrorists. Benford’s wife, Olivia (Sonya Walger) wakes and goes to work as a surgeon while a babysitter comes to watch their young child.

One of Olivia’s co-workers is walking on a bridge and contemplating suicide while Mark’s AA sponsor is climbing a utility pole.

Then mass chaos and it is handled well. There is certainly no sugar coating the situation here. Catastrophic loss due to automobile accidents, over 800 planes down in the US alone including Air Force 2. It’s dire.

But what comes back is more interesting. When everyone globally blacked out at the same time for the same duration (2:17) they had visions of a future six months down the line. The show does well in slowly unveiling what everyone saw and even confronted Demetri’s not seeing any vision up front. Did he not have a vision because he’ll be dead?

Olivia sees herself with a man she has never met. One of Mark’s fellow agents saw being at a sonogram when she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. Mark’s sponsor sees that his daughter who was declared dead in Afghanistan is actually alive.

But most importantly is Mark’s future. He sees himself investigating this case and getting closer to revealing what happened and who is behind it. He sees names involved and it becomes the basis for a new investigation to be launched by Mark’s agency.

Towards the end we even make our first discovery which showcases how well the plot was laid out. Like a nice puzzle piece we find that footage is discovered from during the blackout where at a sporting event we find that there was at least one person who didn’t black out and was walking away.

The pilot did everything a good pilot should do. It sets the tone, it introduces the characters and their realtionships, and it sets the groundwork for an arc. I think Flash Forward is going to be a very strong show.

A

Next – 1.02

The season finale for Warehouse 13 was certainly a doozy. I just wish the show up until now had been more consistent. It would have made the finale that much more thrilling with some proper build.

What the show has finally gotten is that the artifacts are a huge part of the fun. So instead of having a specific artifact of the week be it, they allow the agents and Artie (and now MacPherson) use artifacts with abandon. Some are stupid, some are foolish, others are damn cool. But that goes with the ball game. The more the merrier!

We get a few answers as we should including the big schism between MacPherson and Artie starting over Carol, Macpherson’s wfie.

In addition we see that MacPherson has an inside agent and everything points to Claudia being a sleeper agent of some kind when she reports that MacPherson has been in contact with her in a different guise. He was also the one who helped her breach the walls of the Warehouse.

Towards the end the group capture MacPherson but it all seems too easy…and it was. It was a plot for MacPherson to get past the rare mineral placed in his blood that made it so that if he came anywhere near the Warehouse his blood would turn acidic and boil through his veins.

Then there is the reveal that Claudia was not the sleeper agent which really is unfortunate for her as she got all upset at the possibility and stormed off. No, it turns out that Leena has turned to the dark side. A bit strange unless Macpherson is tricking or mind controlling her in someway.

The end is quite a bang – MacPherson escapes and initiates a self destruct of the hallway connecting the outside to the headquarters of the Warehouse. Artie is caught in the explosion (although you know he can’t die).

It’s a great episode that does the main thing a finale should do…make you want to watch the next season premiere. The series has really taken it’s time but it now is just starting to reach the potential it had showcased from the beginning. It’s still awkward and it might never be a must-see show, but I find myself looking forward to it for now.

OBJECTS OF THE WEEK:

1. Phoenix – Lets someone live through fire/explosions but there are repercussions – two others on the outside will die in their stead.

2. Harriet Tubman’s Thimble – Allows the user to look like someone else.

3. Glass – When you circle the rim with your finger it emits a loud noise causing others to endure a hearing impairment.

4. Tuning Fork – Putting on the back of a glass victim’s head cures them of their hearing impairment

5. Nuclear Egg – Eggshell bomb with the slightest pressure it enacts a nuclear reaction.

B

Previous – 1.11

Next – 2.01

Ghostbusters 2

1989

Starring: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, David Marguiles, and Peter MacNicol

Written by: Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis

Directed by: Ivan Reitman

Are we ready to believe…again? I am. Enough that I’m not going to dismiss the film as a failure. The second film does not share the same amount of love and respect as the first but I believe it is underrated.
Though it is a silly, bizarre world again, this film seems to be unfairly picked on as the same qualities of the first are overlooked.

Bill Murray again makes the most of his Peter Venkman role. No it is not quite as funny the second time around, but it’s hard to match the sheer brilliance of his role in the first film. I will say I laughed at most of his lines this time around as well so I was not disappointed there.

Five years later and the Ghostbusters are out of business until a pink slime gathers under the City and sparks events that necessitate the return of the Ghostbusters.

The film continues the same underlying role of sarcasm and it seems to be easy. For example the scene where the boys are digging under the streets of New York City and Venkman tries to blow off the NYC cops and Utilities departments is simply classic Murray.

After the trial and return of the ghosts to haunt the judge, the Ghostbusters are free to practice their art again and it works well. But as the film goes on it does appear to have lost a little bit of steam. Little forced things undermine the film and make it known it’s running out of gas. Like the little ghostbuster logo with the 2 fingers indicating it’s the second film is good for a logo, but to use it on the building and car just seemed stupid.

The forced cameo of Slimer for no real reason also seemed gratuitous. Then there was the endingn which tried to duplicate the first film in a way but came off as a bit of a cheap carbon copy knock off.

But despite this it still works on a whole mainly because of Murray and to a lesser degree Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson.

Peter MacNicol is also a great addition as the bumbling turned evil henchman of Viggo, Januz.

Overall the film series probably needed a good break and a part 3 would have been a failure at the time…Enough time has now passed that it might be time to revisit the team. So it was good to stop now before it ruined the franchise. Since Ghostbusters 2 is certainly no ruin, even if there are the signs of fray.

B-