skip to main |
skip to sidebar
[Cross-posted from 4:12.]
Comic book hero movies and summer blockbusters haven't necessarily been good. Ever. Of course there are a few gems out there. That's only natural. I mean, last summer the only movie we had to look forward to that fit that profile - based on a comic book, huge budget summer blockbuster, lots of explosions - was the infamous Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. So I understand why anyone might be wary when it comes to 2010's The A-Team.
But it was really good.
That's right. I liked it a lot.
First of all, the cast was amazing. Obviously, the original team was built perfectly - you've got the brains, brawn, charm, and the wild card. None of them would be particularly amazing alone, but when you bring their very specific talents together, the team is basically unstoppable. The team in the movie specifically was all that and more. Liam Neeson does wonderfully as the no-nonsense, intelligent, plan-it guy slash killing machine. No question there. A part towards the end I found myself thinking, "Of course he's not dead, didn't you see Taken?" Bradley Cooper, of Hangover fame had me nervous for a little while. Before I saw the film, I was thinking, "How could this charmer from The Hangover POSSIBLY fit in with Liam Neeson the BAMF in an action hero movie?," but he worked so well as Face. Of course, I don't know the original A-Team, but his character was charming, silly, and excellently executed. Then, of course, there was Sharlto Copley, better known as Wikus from District 9. Initially, I was worried he was just going to be a stereotype of a crazy guy, because that's definitely how he came off in the beginning, but he was pretty amazing. He had me laughing much of the movie through, and when things got rough, he pulled something crazy out of his bum and saved entire operations. For instance [spoiler], he and B.A. are trying to clear customs and he was supposed to be the rabbi and B.A. was supposed to be from an African country but their passports get switched, so to keep his cover, Murdock ends up improvising Swahili, and it worked. Then there was B.A., played by Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, an actor I have never seen or heard of before, though apparently he was in one of Jesson's favourites, The Midnight Meat Train. He was also very good - he never tried to be Mr. T., which I think was very appropriate, and he filled out the character quite nicely, bringing him a human side and a charm that one might not expect from a comic book depiction of "the muscle". Overall, the acting was exceptional and the characters all worked together wonderfully.
The plot was fairly decent too - it wasn't about taking down bad guys or saving the world so much as clearing their own names. But for that reason [spoiler], the ending was unsatisfactory. They clear their names but "breaking out of prison is still illegal," so they have to go back in. Face got his ex back, too, which at first bugged me a lot - she doesn't deserve him - but [spoiler] she actually slips him the key to the handcuffs through an overly-passionate kiss, leaving the ending wide open. Though if the cast is the same and the plot is as good, I would definitely not mind seeing a sequel in a couple years.
The effects were great but the CGI was never overwhelming, which is typically a problem that's been bothering me a lot in more recent movies.
There were also times where the dialogue was a little... cheesey... bordering on awful. But the chemistry of the actors and the light-hearted feel of the whole movie more than make up for any faults. I would be lying if I said anything short of "I loved it". I highly recommend this movie - and face it, if you want to see a movie this summer, your other options are kids' movies [though Toy Story 3 was amazing and I've heard good things about Despicable Me, they're simply not for everybody], Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Twilight Saga: Eclipse. So weigh your options carefully : I think you'll find that, besides Toy Story 3 if you're into it, The A-Team will be the best movie you see all summer.
Unless Inception turns out to be really good.
Fringe - Season 2, Episode 8: "August". Original Air Date: 19 November, 2009.
Michael Cerveris is back! He, and a bunch of other Observers have been sighted all over the place. So one of the Observers, August, who is not Michael Cerveris, kidnaps a girl to save her from a crashing plane. The other Observers are mad that he interfered, because she was supposed to die on that plane.
Meanwhile, the Team is trying to find him because, for all they know, he's kidnapped her.In the end, August realises what he has to do. The other Observers have hired an assassin to kill the girl, because she is not supposed to be alive, and they can't understand why he saved her [if you want to know, it's because he watched her grow up after her parents died, and he feels an emotional connexion to her, almost as a father figure] because she is, seemingly, unimportant. He risks his life for that girl and makes her important, by being implicated in the death of one of Them. And now she gets to live.
There was a lot of hype for this episode, and I don't really feel like it lived up to it. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun, intriguing episode... but it just wasn't that great. It wasn't very good compared to other episodes, and it didn't live up to the anticipatory advertisements and the real-life Observers planted around the country in cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago. For something that was expected to be so big, it felt fairly insignificant.
If you would like to see a sample of my notes on this episode:
MICHAEL CERVERIS IS A BAMF
Olivia is the most amazing woman evar and she's scared of roller coasters *love*
Too many Michael Cerverises. They are not all Michael Cerveris.
I have to go out. I would prefer not to gag you.
WHY IS MICHAEL CERVERIS NOT IMPORTANT IN THIS EPISODE?!
Fringe - Season 2, Episode 7: "Of Human Action". Original Air Date: 12 Nov 09.
The episode opens with cops pulling in to save a kidnap victim, but one walks himself off a roof and one shoots all the other cops and then herself. When the team arrives, Walter guesses hypnosis, but Peter says it can't be that because hypnosis won't make you do anything you wouldn't do yourself. After more thought, Walter considers mind control as a completely viable option. Studying the body of a corpse, Walter tries to figure out a way to combat the mind control, and they stage a way to get the kid back. Except it turns out the kid, Tyler, is really the kidnapper, and he kidnaps Peter! Walter has trouble letting go of Peter, and he can't work without him. Meanwhile, Peter is trying desperately to fight Tyler's control, but can't. Eventually, he brings him to a strip club. He keeps trying to dissuade Tyler, but the kid is set in his course. He tells Peter that his father has lied to him all of his life, telling him that his mother was dead when in fact she was alive and well in Maryland, and that's why he's doing this. Walter figures out another way to block the mind control, with an EMT like in The Matrix I guess, and so they use it on the kid. Peter purposefully crashes his father's car in Tyler's moments of disempowerment. They wean the kid off of the drugs he'd been on and his powers go away. In the end, Walter and Peter share a sweet scene: Walter makes Peter crêpes and talks to him about when he was little and his mother. But then, we see Nina writing an email to Mr. Bell, of all people. She says that "one of the Tylers" showed mind control ability but that it had unintended consequences, and he went looking for his "surrogate mother" and so she is discontinuing the research completely, and there's a shot of Tyler's father wheeling Tyler into a room filled with Tylers!
This episode leaves a lot more questions than answers: surrogate mother? ONE of the Tylers? WHAT?! And what IS Nina up to? What are they planning?! Aaaah! I liked it! But I was also incredibly worried when I watched this episode. The bonds the watcher has 'created' with the characters are really put to the test watching this, which is somewhat embarrassing to admit.... :D
Castle - Season 2, Episode 8: "Kill the Messenger". Original Air Date: 9 November, 2009.
The episode begins with a bike courier; a masked man crashes a car into him and steals the package the man was set to deliver. The team tries to figure out what was in that package, so they track down the sender, an old woman, hooked up to oxygen in her own home. She says that she had no idea what was in the package she'd sent that morning, and that it was from her nephew, Brady. He had sent it to her years ago, and told her to keep it safe and to never look at it when he went to prison, and now, he wanted her to send it to whom it was addressed. That person? The captain. But when they want to talk to Brady, they find out that he's been murdered that morning in prison. Talking to others involved with Brady's case, in which he pleaded guilty to murder, they learn that he may not have been the murderer. A lot of digging around in Brady's victim's case brings them to one of the wealthiest families in the city: the Wellesleys. In the end, they discover that the Wellesleys' attendant / butler / everything man, Frank Davis, was not only responsible for the biker's death, but also Brady's [I think?] and the young woman from all those years ago. In the previous episode, Castle said, "I'm going to go with the butler," and tells Beckett it's who the mystery writers always go with when they're out of ideas. It's a cute bit of foreshadowing into the end of this episode.
The minor plot in this episode is very minor; Grams gets a 'MyFace' as she calls it, and she has to deal with multitudes of friend requests. And then she has a date!
Like last week's Fringe, I like that we got to learn about a higher-up that we don't normally get much character development. Unfortunately, I thought it was too similar to Fringe's story, with the captain having to close up an old case and all that. I do not like weird TV coincidences like those.
The plot was quite gripping, however, I did not love this episode. Maybe I just wasn't into it, who knows, and I can't really say why, but I just didn't feel myself being drawn in the same way as I normally do.
Fringe - Season 2, Episode 6: "Earthling". Original Air Date: 5 November, 2009.
OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH FRINGE IS BACK FROM THE WORLD SERIES BREAK! Wait, hold that excitement...
This episode of Fringe was another one that has very little to do with 'the pattern'. In fact, it seemed to be just an episode, and I wasn't in love with it. Maybe because my roommate had company, and they were loud, and I didn't get the same effect, but I can't be sure. The idea was they found this 'shadow man' who stole radiation from people's bodies, unfortunately, leaving them as dust. Very dead dust. "Except for the penthouse guy; he died of bad luck." This case had been Broyles's four years before, and he thought he'd fixed it, and now it's back to haunt him. We learn a lot about the guy because of this: some of his backstory [he had a wife and kids, for instance] and some of his character development. Always a good thing. So Walter tries to figure out what's going on as the killings become more frequent. There were Russian cosmonauts, outerspace organisms, and just general fun Fringe stuff.
I'm sorry this one's something of a crummy 'review', but the episode wasn't wonderful and didn't give me much to talk about, I think. There was very little Walter, Peter, or Olivia. The most character development was with Broyles, which is definitely not a bad thing, but I would have liked to see the episode a little more far-reaching.
Castle - Season 2, Episode 6: "Vampire Weekend". Original Air Date: 26 October, 2009.
America's current vampire obsession has invaded... my half of the world...
It's Halloween, and Castle is preparing for a big party. He keeps mentioning it to Beckett, reminding her that costumes are mandatory, and hinting that he'd love to see her in something sexy. But even more important is the case: a vampire was murdered by a stake through the heart, in a cemetary. Yeah. Apparently this boy, Crow, belonged to a small geek community of vampires [I say geek meaning a person who is fascinated by one specific thing or culture and strives to live as close to the object of his emulation as possible, no negative connotations intended]. He was a young artist, who, together with his friend Damon, also found murdered, was creating a graphic novel about a real life NYC vampire named Morlock. The team finds Morloch and takes him into custody. He's a case, because he has a condition, I forget what it's called but its nick-name is the Vampires' Disease, and he is very sensitive to sunlight, to the point where his skin burns and blisters up with contact. With that condition come hallucinations and other craziness, so it's no wonder he actually believes he's a vampire. In the end, it was his insane babble and crazy talk that solved the case. Crow's step-mother had killed his mother so she could marry the father, and now, many years later, Crow figures this out and so she kills him too, trying to frame his group of vampire friends because of his father's disdain for them, in an effort to keep her husband close to her. In the meantime, Alexis is going to her first 'real' high school party with her friend and co-parent [for a health class baby egg project], and her dad knows she won't get into any trouble, but he tells her to call him if she feels uncomfortable or compromised in any way because he will come get her, no questions asked, no punishment. She thinks she won't have to, but she does because the punch was spiked and her friend was really wasted. Castle picks them up and does the right thing in calling the girl's parents, despite Alexis's protests that she would get in a lot of trouble. In the end, the friend was so mad that she broke the egg baby.
The episode was good, and very Halloweeny. Castle began the episode by saying how much he loved Halloween, but Beckett says it's the worst as far as weird crimes. I think the show did a decent job, too, and not making fun of the geeks. Of course, individual characters mocked the vampire Covent a little, but the way they were portrayed in the show was as a little weird, definitely different from the 'norm', but not dangerous or bad or stupid. And, I know I say this a lot, but I really love the relationship between Alexis and her father. There are so few 'like me' teenagers on television, whether it be adult programming on basic channels, like this, or on pre-teen shows on Disney. This girl is well-adjusted, has a few issues, but nothing she can't handle, and she's not angsty or slutty or deceitful like so many TV teens are. In this episode, she had to learn a bit of a lesson between choosing the right thing and the easy thing, but she followed her father's orders, and doing differently in that situation could have ended really badly.
House - Season 4, Episode 5: "Tabula Rasa". Original Air Date: 19 Oct 09.
This episode was called "Tabula Rasa" - because every show out there needs an episode called "Tabula Rasa". If you don't know, it means "Clean Slate", so it's symbolic.
So we left off with Hiro and Peter: Hiro appears in Peter's apartment and passes out. In the beginning of this installment, we see Hiro lying in a hospital bed with Peter at his side. Hiro thinks he's there to save Peter, but Peter thinks it's up to him to save Hiro. Oh you boys and your silly Jesus complexes... Peter takes Hiro's ability and uses it to go save Hiro's life, but not before telling Emma [the deaf woman] to talk to Hiro about her ability. She does, but all she wants is an 'off switch', even though Hiro's all for the embracing yourself as you are point of view.
Okay, now it's time for my interjection: HIRO IS SO CUTE!! ♥ :3 Yup.
Hiro's trying to prove to Emma that her powers are good, and he does a magic show for some hospital patients and staff, including making Emma 'disappear'. I think it worked :D
After the show, Hiro's back in bed and Emma tells him he needs to stay there. He tells her about his friend, Charlie, and how you have to stay strong and happy in the face of death. But then he realised he left Charlie off of his list [of wrongs to right and people to save]!!
By the end of the episode, Hiro spontaneously disappears again, which freaks Emma and Peter out, a lot.
So Peter ends up in Noah's bathroom because he hasn't teleported in a while. He explains his predicament to HRG, and Claire says that she should just give Hiro some of her blood; Noah negates this solution, saying that a brain tumour is living tissue, and Claire's regenerative power would only make the tumour grow. But he does remember a boy they 'bagged and tagged' a few years ago, named Jeremy, who had healing power [like Linderman!], so he and Peter go to pay him a visit.
They find the house that Jeremy lives in, but all the plants in the yard and the bird on the porch are dead, and the place reeks of death. When they go inside, they find the parents, dead, in their armchairs [it's pretty disturbing, lol]. Noah explains that the kid possesses not only the power to give life, but also to take it away. A very frightened Jeremy starts shooting at them with a shotgun: he wants to scare them away. When Noah finally gets close enough to talk to him, Jeremy makes a terribly conffesion: "Everything I touch... dies."
As Noah tries to convince Jeremy that this can't be true, Peter appears beside them and Jeremy shoots him from an extremely close range! NOOOO PETER WTF NOOOOO!!! Noah pleads with Jeremy to save Peter's life, and after much convincing, he finally does. Yay! :D
In the end, Peter absorbs Jeremy's power so he can bring it back to heal Hiro. Noah is very sweet with Jeremy because he feels he let him down way back when, so he fixes the house to make it look like the parents died of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
But, when Peter gets back, Hiro's already vanished!
While all of this is happening, Nathlar is still in the hands of the carnies. Samuel Sullivan, the guy I've been calling King Carnie [at least to myself, lol], calls Nathlar 'Sylar', but he doesn't respond. He says that according to the police, his name is Gabriel. When Samuel asks him to take a deep breath and tell him the first name that comes to mind, Nathlar says, "Call me Nathan." Samuel is confused. But, for all his niceness, Samuel obviously has plans for Nathlar, and he's using Lydia to pull him in to the community.
But here's a question: if we really do get the 'real' Sylar back, won't the whole carnival be screwed?
Samuel Sullivan wants Sylar's memories to come back to him; memories are coming back to Nathlar, but they're not his. They're Nathan's. He remembers flying planes, shaking a lot of hands, and things like that. So a carnie named Damien takes Nathlar into the house of mirrors to 'show him who he really is' or something. Tripppyyyyy. I love mirror house scenes [in anything] because they're so... weird.. haha. Well, Damien's eyes do that Isaac Mendez painting thing and he passes it on to Nathlar... And now, all his horrible memories are being played out before him in the mirrors. He sort of flips out. I would too. I mean, can you imagine? Watching yourself kill your mother and then several other innocent people? So Nathlar's still flipping out, and we get to remember all the worst, and it's not fun. Charlie is the last one we see before he runs out of the house and vomits in a trash can - foreshadowing for the Hiro story arch?
So Samuel is a jerk: he invited the cop who was chasing Nathlar to the carnival with a pair of free tickets, and when he talks to the cop, he says no he's never seen that man before. But then he finds Nathlar and tells him that something must be done. So Nathlar goes back in to the house of mirrors to 'take care of' the cop; the cop pulls his gun on him, but Nathlar doesn't want to hurt him, he just can't control his Sith Lightning! He zaps him, but he wasn't going to kill him [didn't look like it, any way; he might have], so Edgar, the knives guy, comes in and ...saves the day? Well he kills the cop, anyway. That night, everyone welcomes Nathlar into the carnie family with hugs and dinner.
For the last bit, we see Hiro, in his hospital robe, peering into the diner window at Charlie! [I was a big fan of that character, and now I'm super excited!]
I liked how we understand the relationship between Edgar and Lydia. They are frequently in the same shot, and sometimes Edgar's face frames a shot of Lydia flirting with Sylar.
I did not like Samuel's line "Boys will be boys". UGH. Nathlar and Edgar spar, and Lydia asks Samuel if he's going to stop this, and that's his reply. And it's a stupid, sexist reply. Sorry. But it is.
Hiro The Magnificent!
House - Season 6, Episode 6: "Brave Heart". Original Air Date: 19 Oct 09.
This episode was intense. The intro was crazy, with a police chase, some parkour, and some guy jumping off a roof. Turns out, that guy is convinced that he's going to die, since he's just turned forty and all his ancestors died of heart complications shortly after they reached that milestone. House is convinced there's nothing to find, and they look at the heart in every light possible, yet still find nothing, even when examining his son for genetic problems. So, House lets him go with some placebos.
Hours later, there's a knocking on Wilson and House's door: it's Foreman. Apparently, their guy collapsed, dead, hours after his discharge.
So they bring the body to Princeton Plainsboro's morgue and prepare to do an autopsy. In a cute, ironic twist, House picks up a saw and prepares to cut into the man's chest, but Foreman says, "You can't perform an autopsy without a license," and takes the saw. He does it himself, and they notice the way blood is coming out of the gash in the chest - it looks like the man is bleeding. But that would mean..... AND THEN THE MAN OPENS HIS EYES AND STARTS SCREAMING IN PAIN!!!
Yeah, crazy.
So the pressure's on to find out what's wrong with him. They put him on steroids for a genetic auto-immune [and lots of painkiller, btw], but nothing works. His new pain in his jaw is only getting worse, so bad that he pulls his own tooth out.
Meanwhile, Chase is struggling so hard with his decision regarding James Earl Jones. It's really hard to watch him, because he's a mess [naturally] and has no one to really turn to. At least when we see House like that, we know, oh, he's just a crazy dummie, he's always like that. It's different for Chase. You can also see how this plays itself out in his marriage. Which is crappy. And the priest at confession doesn't help.
House thinks he's going crazy again. He thinks he's hearing voices when he sleeps in Wilson's study [which used to be the bedroom]. He's not; it's really Wilson whispering to Amber at night. It's pretty sad, really. Like, boo hoo sad, not pathetic.
Finally, House figures it all out. The man has something of an aneurysm in his brain somewhere that's been growing and it causes pain and his heart to stop. They remove it and the one in the kid's head, and that story line is resolved, too.
All in all, a fun episode. It was shocking, which made it really fun to watch.
Sorry, my House stories are always smaller because I watch them live in the common room with a group of people; I watch the other shows either live on my own tv or on my computer the day after, so I take better notes.
