Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

Lost Finale

The Lost finale wasn’t too bad. Still too much exposition, but a “red-shirt” got blown up by unstable dynamite and some Deliverance-looking guys stole the annoying kid from the annoying dad. And we got a look at the T-Rex (although it looked a lot more like sentient swamp gas than any dinosaur I’ve ever seen.) For cliff-hangers we’ve got several guys floating out in the ocean without a boat and several more huddled around a hole in the ground that goes…somewhere. Consider this the series’ way of saying “Thank you very much, see you in 4 months.” Now we get a summer of re-runs.

Oh yeah, Britney won last night.

Stuff

Today’s entry will be a disjointed collection of stuff. Lets see…a couple of illegal aliens came to our house yesterday and put up a fence. It looks good. Jose (that really was his name) and his pal did a bang-up job and we’re happy. I’ll probably post a photo or two eventually. Long live cheap labor and insecure borders.

Picked up some new DVDs today at Best Buy. Among the haul:

• Assault on Precinct 13 – I hear stuff blows up good in this one.
• Swimming Pool – Two words, Ludivine Sagnier
• The Aviator – Scorsese offsets the Leonardo effect.
• Closer – Two more words, Natalie Portman
• White Noise – I have no idea why I bought this…

This brings my DVD tally to 417. Take that Kohary.

Last weekend I got around to watching Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. I’ve only had the DVD since forever. Diane was away for the weekend so I gave it a shot. It was a good movie, as far as Australian skinhead flicks go. Crowe is one intense actor…check out his interview on the dvd’s extras if you ever get a chance. Doing a little IMDB probing afterwards I was interested to learn that one of the leads, Daniel Pollock, committed suicide almost immediately after filming. The guy jumped in front of a train of all things, inspiring Crowe and his band to write a song about it called “The Night that Davey Hit the Train“.

Ok, time for a break. Go enjoy this Parade of Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes.

Back? Good. Horrific eh? I think the Jar Jar one is the actual actor who played him in the movie and not some schlub in cosplay.

I moved from Quicken 2003 on Windows to Quicken 2005 on the Mac. Easy? You try it…the process sucks. But now the only reason I boot up my pc is gaming, and I’ve been doing precious little of that lately.

Other thoughts – American Idol has become the suck. I gave up tuning in for the talent a long time ago, I mostly watch as a way to spend time with Diane. In the past though you could always count on humor or cute contestants or something. Not anymore. (Carrie Underwood can be decent at times, but if you really look at her you’ll notice that she’s pretty darn thick around the middle – not to mention the fact her dancing looks like a twitching, pathetic squat and she has absolutely zero vocal range.) So tonight’s two hour finale pits Greg Allman against Britney Spears. That’s all you gotta know. I pass. Kudos if you manage to sit through the whole thing.

That brings me to Lost. I count myself as a fan, never missing an episode. Even after the interminable breaks in the season for playoffs or sweeps or whatever nonsense…I’ve always managed to keep abreast of the action. But lately the show hasn’t had any. Action that is. I mean you watch the thing for an hour and you realize that it’s been 50 minutes of exposition about Jack’s father or Sawyer’s eyeglasses. The actors move a log across the beach and then it’s all flashbacks. It’s all very mysterious, and that can be good, but at some point you’ve got to cut it out and deliver the goods or you’re going to lose your audience. They’ve got 2 hours tonight…show me a little something, will you? Bring a little something to my entertainment table. I don’t want to see Kate’s airplane again, or Hurley’s sweaty t-shirt. Knock somebody off, spill the beans about those numbers, and show me the T-Rex thingy. Thx u.

Finally, papercasting. Be glad I don’t use this technique, my handwriting is rotten.

Survivor observation…

Watching Survivor last night it occurred to me that given the right light and camera angle, Katie can look rather attractive.

…then the light fades, snakes sprout from her head and death rays shoot out of her eyes. I am SO glad she didn’t win the million dollars. Kudos to Tom who is the first survivor to use muscle and leadership to take the prize. He played probably the cleanest game of any Survivor to date. Other observations:

• Coby minces more than Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Given five minutes alone in a room with him, I’ll wager most people would be able to guess his profession.
• Throw a little chin-beard on him and Ian becomes Shaggy. Matthew Lillard should start tuning up that resume.
• Wanda is a flippin’ fruitcake. That she came to the show prepared with an original song to sing is frightening enough. That should could’ve gone on for 10 verses (if not cut off by Probst) is even scarier.
• Stephanie needs a show of her own. It’s too soon for someone this…talented.. to step out of the spotlight. Just do something about those eyebrows! Someone needs to tell that girl you need to trim them less, not more! Sheesh.
• If Coby set back the cause of gay men seeking to avoid being stereotyped, James put a similar hurt on rednecks everywhere.

So now it’s over, and our Thursday nights are empty again. Hurry back, Survivor Guatemala…we need you desperately.

Fluff TV

For those of you that were wondering, “Yes, I’m watching American Idol and Survivor again this year…”

Overall I think the talent level on American Idol has been higher this season, although there still are the inexplicable contestants. For an example of what I’m talking about, look no further than Scott Savol and
Mikalah “The Nanny” Gordon. Savol at least can sing…Mikalah sounds like a steaming hash of Barbara Streisand and Fran Drescher.

My current favorite to win the show is Nadia Turner, a singer with tremendous stage presence – someone who looks like she’s been performing in front of large audiences for years. I’ll continue to root for Carrie Underwood because she’s sweet and easy on the eyes, as well as Bo Bice (because he doesn’t do ballads.)

Survivor has been pretty good so far, although I’ve seen just about enough of fancifully fey Coby in that banana hammock of his. I’ve been most disappointed by the departure of the pneumatic Ashlee Ashby. The 22 year old looked like something from Heavy Metal magazine (or a Boris Vallejo illustration.)

Battlestar

The new Battlestar Gallactica series started last night with back to back 1 hour episodes. I really enjoyed the mini-series last year and have been looking forward to this for some time.

I thought the debut episodes (33 and Water) rocked. I especially like the (mostly) realistic space physics. Little or no sound, heavy use of stearing jets, etc. Yeah there’s the problem of faster than light travel, but I’m willing to give them that one. There’s also a rather serious dose of eye candy. I’ve got this series Tivo’ed, along with the new ESPN effort – Tilt.

Evil Scarecrow

An observation from early Sunday morning cartoon watching with my daughter: If I were Bob the Builder I’d cover Spud with gasoline and burn that twitchy, irritating jerk to the ground. Then I’d dance on his ashes and have Roley smash them flat.

I’m just sayin’…

The home stretch

We’re down to the final episode of Survivor and it has come down to this. A mouthy female construction worker, a lesbian mystic, a moon eyed stick figure with the Houdini-like ability to dislocate her shoulder blades at will, and rough, doughy dude with a pony-tail.

These are our Survivors… Savour the moment.

As we wait for Sunday’s episode, check out the latest amusing review from The Shape of Days.