"Set against a backdrop of serial murders, including the Yorkshire Ripper case, they deal with multi-layered corruption and feature several recurring characters across the four books. Though real crimes are featured the scripts are fictionalised and dramatised versions of events rather than contemporary factual accounts."
Resident Evil 1, 2&3 - ultimately forgettable action movies based on the video games. The occasional nicely stylized action scene, but not particularly good movies, as they go.
Battlestar Galactica - I am sick to death of the bleak melodrama of crying in space. So say we all. And the bleak tool of authoritarian obstinance, Admiral Adama. But it's too well written to give up on after 4 seasons. And it's so close to the end, so I'm in it till it's over.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold - been pleasantly surprised by the new series. Lighter and skewed younger than BTAS, it's way better than The Batman, and has a great, fun, witty and kinetic style.
Friday Night Lights - best drama on TV. Period.
UFC 96: Jackson vs. Jardine - some good fights.
Real Time w/Bill Maher - abrasive & funny, as always.
Delocated 1&2 - wacky new show on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network. Pretty funny. Delocated - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"...Jon Glaser plays a man ('Jon') in the witness protection program who moves his family to New York City so they can star in a reality TV show, forced to wear balaclavas at all times. Paul Rudd guest-stars in the pilot as himself.""Paul Rudd is dead! He was in Anchorman."
Dollhouse - Joss Whedon's new show is starting to gain some momentum after a slow start. Showing some sparks and signs of the Whedon magic.
Eastbound and Down - southeastern NC tragicomedy at it's finest. I'm dying to see just how far down the well the trainwreck goes. Funny stuff.
Iron Chef America - Battle Fresh Beans/Beer/Suckling Pig/Cheddar/Egg/Wild Boar - I suck at cooking but have an entirely unhealthy obsession with this show. I love watching it. I even think I've seen a couple of these before. Don't care. Awesome.
House - Great ep this week. First because Jay Karnes/Dutch from The Shield was the guest star. Great actor. And he had a brain disorder that prevented him from telling any of the normal white lies we all tell every day. 100% truth, all the time. Hilarious. And revealing. And the ep was brilliant because anytime they delve into the House/Wilson friendship, it totally evokes Holmes/Watson. Which is awesome. You know, with the Robert Downey Jr Holmes film coming up, I wonder how many folks might think that the dynamic is aping House.
Heroes - John Glover had a great guest spot as Sylar's dad. But the show is still kinda all over the place.
The Daily Show was awesome this week. Continued crushing of the morons over at CNBC culminated in Mad Money's Jim Cramer on the show, where Stewart absolutely brutalized him with the light of truth and righteous indignation.
"I understand you want to make finance entertaining. But it's not a fucking game."It was beautiful. Jon Stewart, when he's on, imho, is the best freaking TV journalist in the country. The only knock I have is that he's far too deferential to the politicos that come on his show. But when it comes to handing the media its ass, he's the go-to guy. Also, Paul Rudd was on this week. Way funny.
Also a couple eps of the Colbert Report this week.
Castle - New show with the impressively funny Nathan Fillion. Playing a highly intelligent mystery writer man-child. Hope it sustains the level of the pilot. Good show. - "I can't tell that story. That's wildly inappropriate."
Office & 30 Rock - "The KGB will wait for no one!" - "Why do you have a diary? To keep secrets from my computer." Awesome.
Smallville - eh episode. Continually on the bubble.
Skins - the characters are so damaged and make such bad decisions, I can't not watch. Totally engrossing and well acted.
Ladykillers - the Coen brothers, so an appropriately strange and quirky flick. Entertaining enough. Great soundtrack/score, though.
Facing the Giants - I'm sooooo not the target audience for this movie. Sent to me by one of my oldest friends, who's convinced I'll be spending all of eternity burning in hell. But I'll give anything a friend is kind enough to buy me and send to me a chance. Thought that counts and all that kind of thing.
Facing the Giants - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Facing the Giants is a 2006 American drama film directed by and starring Alex Kendrick. The cast, composed of volunteers from Sherwood Baptist Church, includes Shannon Fields, James Blackwell, Bailey Cave, and Tracy Goode. The film relates an underdog story about American football from an Evangelical Christian worldview. This movie was shot in Albany, Georgia. The film made its television debut on September 21, 2008, on Trinity Broadcasting Network."So... the positives. Props for true believers and independent film making. Instead of complaining about Hollywood, they went out and did something creative and meaningful for them. Massive kudos for that. Production values were decent, especially for a group of amateur actors.
Another point I'll give the flick is it's absolutely true that you're always much more capable than what you may think you are.
But you don't need any magic book or invisible superhero to get it done.
The big failing of all these religious themed films and books and everything, is that they're not there to tell a good story. They're there to proselytize, and everything else is secondary.
Compare it to, say, Friday Night Lights, another football story, where religion in a small Texas town has been a part of several plotlines about developed characters, as opposed to this flick, where it is all so obviously just an excuse to get their message across, and the characters are kind of empty shells to mouth that message. It's just not good storytelling. And while the acting level is good for a bunch of amateurs, and there's one or two performances I'd say were pretty good, they're still amateurs. And it kinda showed.
And I swear, the second I saw the dude in the wheelchair, I knew he'd stand up at the climactic moment to inspire victory. That's just not really very good storytelling.
And still not the worst Christian themed flick I've ever seen though... that'd be Joshua, which was particularly galling and disappointing because I actually really dug the book it was based on, which I'd read in high school.
But ultimately, this movie just isn't for me. The message is pretty much antithetical to, well, damn near everything I think and feel. Every time they said "honor authority" I wanted throw my glass at the fucking TV. Respect & honor isn't automatic. It's god damned earned. And also, if I'm following the movie the right way, when you pray and give your life over to god, Jesus gives you a new truck, gets you pregnant and helps you win football games. Apparently. Which is why you should be Christian. Or something.
But hey, the football scenes were cool. And I appreciate my friends who think enough of me to try and save my soul :)
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