2012 Film #2: X-Men: First Class

Posted on January 26, 2012 by brian

 

Yep, Film #2 is also a comic book movie.  From last summer.  Trying to catch up, ok?

Bottom line on this one? I liked it.  Funny thing about expectations though, I think I ended up liking Thor better because my expectations on that one was lower than for this one.

So, as a quick plot summary, this is basically a prequel to the X-Men movies, going back to when Prof X and Magneto were younger.  Some of this (generally speaking) was in the comics that I read, but certainly not this story.  Basically the bad guy (Kevin Bacon!) is spouting the rhetoric that Magneto was preaching in the first X-Men movie, but his methods are cruel, and poorly placed since it makes Magneto his enemy.  But Bacon is badass enough that Prof X and Magneto have to team up to take him down.  Will it work?  I’ll let you guess.

Anyway, what did I like about this film?  Fassbender was great as Magneto, and Bacon was good enough as Shaw that I forgave how much they changed that character from the comics.  The plot was solid enough, if at times a bit gruesome (poor Oliver Platt).  A couple of the cameos were great (loved Jackman).  I also liked what they did with Mystique (and the actress who played her was quite good too).

What didn’t I like?  Mostly, it was Prof X.  It didn’t work for me.  Patrick Stewart is a good enough actor to get away with the “finger to the temple, now I’m doing my super-power”, no so much this guy (the name escapes me).  The movie also suffered from cramming as many mutants as they could into the film (X-Men #3 was the worst example of this) and they seemed to be merging Cyclops backstory with Beast’s in this film.  The less said about how the films ruined Cyclops, the better.  There were a couple of other minor points, but they don’t really tip the balance one way or the other.  Oh, except Moira.  WTF?  A reasonably useless CIA operative instead of genetic researcher?  That was lame.

Not sure where they go with the franchise at this point.  Were they to have another prequel, it almost demands the exclusion of Magneto.  But I wouldn’t line up to watch another film where it was mostly this Prof X.

Anyway, bottom line was that I did like it, even if I’m sounding a bit harsh is this post.

 

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2012 Film #1: Thor

Posted on January 16, 2012 by brian

 

Thor.  Bottom line?  I liked it.  Not an overly serious film, but a decent action movie.

Thor was my first Marvel subscription from when I was a kid, a natural followup to an obsession with mythology books (the library had these huge, coffee-table like books of both Greek and Norse mythos).  None of those stories really stuck with me though, although I am pretty sure none of it was used in this movie.  So I guess I’m saying that I was pre-disposed to liking this thing.

Even with that said, the film itself was enjoyable enough.  It didn’t take itself too seriously, indeed the most enjoyable parts were the humor bits: Thor getting tazed; Thor getting hit by truck; Thor requesting animals large enough to ride at the pet shop.  I can forgive the more ‘serious’ parts, however cliche.

A note about the casting: Thor was pretty much an unknown (Ok, he was Kirk’s dad in the Star Trek reboot) but that is an impressive list there: Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard; it is remarkable the level of acting talent that is being brought to this genre.  That said, Thor’s Asgardian buddies were a bit of a disappointment.  I like my Volstaggs morbidly obese.

Noted from the trivia page at IMDB:  J. Michael Straczynski cameo: he is the guy who first finds the hammer.  Did not recognize him.

 

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50 Films in 2012

Posted on January 16, 2012 by brian

 

Perhaps a modest goal, but given recent viewing habits, one a week is even possibly ambitious.  We shall see how it all works out.

As for reviews, I’m going to keep things simple.  Goodreads has already taught me the dangers of starred reviews, and the problems of grading things across all genres.  I’m going to stick to one of two categories: I liked the movie, or I did not.  I may try to parse out the reasons why the movie falls into the category I put it in, but all factors are in play, from “this is the worst plot and acting I’ve ever seen” to “I guess it was a good movie, but I’m not feeling it” to “I will forever associate this film with Carlos barfing in my face” and so on.

Anyway.  It is mid-January.  We are already behind…

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Reality Recap: Finished, In Progress, and New.

Posted on November 4, 2011 by brian

Thoughts on the various Reality (well, competition shows really, but that is another post) Shows.  Spoilers?  Yeah, Spoilers:

Finished:

Top Chef: Just Desserts.

This one whimpered to a finish.  The edits created someone to root for, or more probably someone to root against, and the ‘villain’ didn’t win.  I still never got as engaged in this one as any Top Chef season, and even prefer Chopped.  Possibly this is because part of the challenge was reliant on artistic aspects versus flavor.  Dunno.  It was wise for this show to start when there was little competition, even so I don’t think I’ll be upset if I miss a new installment.

Project Runway.

Mixed feelings on this one.  After the debacle of a win by the annoying Gretchen in the last installment, a win by Josh in this one would have allowed me to swear off this show for the future, or at least one done by these judges (look at me laying the groundwork for a viable excuse to watch the next all-star installment of PR).  But he didn’t, and even though Anya didn’t blow me away, and they really did give her a second chance, at least Josh didn’t win.  Victor really let me down.  I’m down on this show.  I felt it was too long when it was just a 60 minute show, at 90 it really bogs down for me.  I can see me not watching the next one of these anyway.  Well, except the All Star one.  Damn!

 

In Progress:

Chopped.

This show remains reliable, not much more to say about it.  It has slipped a bit, mainly due to the fact that they had a winner’s bracket where 16 previous winners came back to compete again.  That set the bar a little higher, skill-wise, and now that we are back to people who can’t handle the time or screw up in other ways, it is falling a little flat.  Like I said, reliable.

 

New:

Top Chef: Texas.

Watched the first one of these, and the quality increase over both Just Desserts and Project Runway were prevalent.  As stated above, I think I just like the savory chef better than the dessert chef.  As for the comparison with Project Runway, I find it interesting that both TC and PR did something a little different this year, bringing in more contestants than they really have slots for, and doing the final cut as an episode.  And again, TC does it better.  PR just brought them in to show their collection, as though the judges/producers hadn’t already seen this stuff (how did they trim down to 20 or whatever they had if not?).  TC instead actually makes them do a challenge, and that is what leads to making it or not.  This seems so obvious that I can’t believe that PR didn’t do this: take all the marginal folks and give them a challenge and let the winners move on.  At any rate, I’m liking Top Chef so far, it is early though.  Definitely recognized at least one of the chefs from the Future Food show.  But right now The Beard (as I will call him) is my favorite.  This will change of course if he trims or shaves it.

Next Iron Chef.

Only one episode so far, but this one has the potential to be awesome.  First off, the skill set of the contestant pool is off the charts.  As good as the Top Chef Masters group (there is even some overlap) from the first two seasons (the third Top Chef Masters show was a tier below).  The format is cool as well.  A challenge was introduced, and the two chefs deemed to be the least successful (words chosen carefully there, as I can only imagine that all the food is pretty damn good) then face off, Iron Chef style, to see who stays and who gets eliminated.  Naturally it is a watered down version, only one dish to be prepared (shorter time limit as well), but there is still a mystery ingredient.  Hopefully near the end of the show they will revert to a more standard format, it would be nice to have the winner do a couple “real” episodes before getting the title.  Although it seems as though half the cast has competed on Iron Chef, several of them beating Bobby Flay.

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Movie Time: Sucker Punch

Posted on October 24, 2011 by brian

 

Not going to waste a lot of time on this one.  It was pretty awful.  It is probably not even worth spending a lot of time with analysis.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a good movie, but I was hoping it would be a solid entry into the action genre, or something.  Instead it was just lousy.  Sort of like watching someone else play a video game, knowing you won’t get a chance to play and the person playing has enabled the god mode cheat codes.

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Movie Time: Date Night

Posted on October 24, 2011 by brian

 

We don’t watch movies as often as we used to.  In fact we’ve been in a drought some time, but we had this one on the DVR from a while back (HBO), and it was only 90 minutes, so why not?

I knew the set-up from the commercials, Tina Fey and Steve Carell are a married couple in a rut, go outside their comfort zone to try and spice things up, and get into all kinds of zany trouble.  The film quickly breaks down into a cartoon, but since you sort of see that coming I didn’t find it distracting.

The best parts were probably the cameos.  I have to mention William Fichtner, if just to mention him (he chewed the scenery quite a bit, I’d say). Mark Wahlberg was good, I almost always enjoy his comedic turns because he plays the characters so straight.  The lack of winking at the audience elevates the performance.  But the best scene was probably the one with James Franco and Mila Kunis, they were awesome.  Freaks & Geeks and That 70s show FTW!  That said, good lord what happened to Ray Liotta?  It seemed like they started filming in a restaurant, he was there eating, and they just stuck him in before he knew what was happening.

Anyway, nothing brilliant about the film, kudos for avoiding some obvious cliches like putting the children in danger.  No regrets, but no lasting memories either.

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New TV shows

Posted on October 19, 2011 by brian

 

Fall has brought several new TV shows that we’re trying (or have tried) out.  I’ll detail three of them in this post.

 

American Horror Story

Only watched the first episode of this one.  Not sure what they were trying for here.  I suppose the genre, at least on TV, is under represented, but it felt like they spent more time on ‘pushing the envelope’ than on establishing an interesting story.  So you can curse on cable TV, swell.  Ass cheek?  Great.  And several other ‘adult’ situations that I found more distracting than anything else.  So far as the horror set up, everything seemed to be a retread of things we’ve seen before, and I’m not even that familiar with the genre.

Verdict:  Punt.

 

Terra Nova

This one started out reasonably, a little sci-fi, some tense moments early, dinosaurs, and a few larger than life characters.  But it bogged down quickly into eye-rolling plot points (armed soldiers killed by the threat, but regular civilians survive by running; horrifying monsters that will kill you dead, unless you just run blindly into the forest!) and several characters existing as plot points (Exposition Daughter being the worst).  This one was teetering, and then the extra inning baseball game over-ran for nearly the entire episode, so that was the end of that.  This one might have been fun if we’d given it time to settle in, but we did not.

Verdict: Punt.

 

Person of Interest

This one is my favorite of the group, but even it isn’t must see TV.  Suz sort of nailed the concept, this show is basically Quantum Leap, a bit more on the serious side, but essentially strangers jumping into people’s lives and having to figure out how to help them.  I thought A-Team, but that is a little too campy to be a good description of this show (although the voice-over introduction in the opening credits always makes me hum the theme from the A-Team).  It has been mostly episodic so far, but with some story that carries from episode to episode, what will make things interesting is if they actually move things forward vs. hitting the reset button after every episode (for example, will they address the police officer who is tracking them down, or will she become the army guys who always show up too late at the end of the A-Team episode?).  The jury is still out on Jim Caviezel, he seems to be playing the character as Batman right now.  Emerson sometimes channels Ben Linus (which is a reminder that this show is no Lost), but other times is completely awesome.  This show has potential, even as a more episodic procedural vs. a serial.

Verdict:  Still watching.

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TV Shows: Community

Posted on October 3, 2011 by brian

 

We finished Season 2 of Community on DVD this week, so I figured I’d post about the show.  I won’t beat around the bush, I love this show.  Easily my favorite sitcom since Arrested Development, and one I’m glad we’ve caught up with because I like the show enough to try and watch it in “real time” (not “Real Time” which means as it airs or slightly thereafter, but within the same week or so).

What is it about the show I like I so much?  I think the cast hit their stride almost immediately, it is one of those ensembles where every character works.  Of course there are favorites (Troy for me, love that guy), but even the more minor characters work for me.  I love the “meta” jokes, and a lot of the entertainment references work for me.  And of course, it makes me laugh.  Sometimes so much that I miss the next line of dialogue.  If that isn’t a measure of success, I don’t know what is.  Troy and Abed doing their random crazy stuff in the credits is pure gold too.

I think Chevy Chase was the weakest link at first, but boy does he recover and create a great character.  Ken Leung was on the fence for me as well, but especially in Season 2  he makes some of the more memorable appearances.

The option at this point would be to make an extensive list of scenes and such that I have loved from this show, or just sit back and give a Thumbs Up.

Thumbs Up.

Also:  While this post was hanging out in Unposted Limbo, we caught the first two episodes of Season 3.  The show definitely holds up.  It is not possible to describe how Troy shouting “Boutros Boutros Ghali!?!” is so funny, but I nearly did a spit-take.

 

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Late Summer TV

Posted on September 26, 2011 by brian

 

So, one trap we fell into this summer was filling the DVR with a bunch of competition reality shows during that period of time where our more favorite shows are on hiatus.  We went a bit overboard this year, I do believe.  Two of these are nearly over (in fact, one finale is waiting for us on the DVR now), which is good timing given that the fall premieres are upon us.  I’m bunching all four into one post.

 

The Great Food Truck Race (2).

This one is my least favorite of the four, although I’m not loving most of these this time around.  I allowed myself to get hooked on it based on the hilariously over the top hosting by Tyler Florence, although as the show continued this became less funny and more annoying. One thing this show has going for it is that it is pretty short, this is the one that has the finale waiting for us on the DVR.  I think the concept, which has competing food trucks drive to new cities and sell their various cuisine to folks is cool, and I like the simplistic rules: the truck that generates the least amount of money is the truck that is eliminated.  But the show gets a little too cute with the various obstacles they toss at the teams (one of the more annoying ones was allowing the teams to spend ~$500 and then telling them they could only serve vegetarian.  Really?) and ultimately the show gets a bit boring.  I don’t think I’ll come back for a new season if one is made.

 

Top Chef: Just Desserts.

The spin-off of Top Chef is back for season 2.  I love Top Chef, which is odd since you don’t get to taste any of the food.  This version of the show does sort of pale in comparison with the original though.  Part of it is the focus on pastry/dessert chefs, just a personal preference of mine, and part of it is the judging (the head judge, who apparently was a fan of the Honky Tonk Man, is no Tom Colicchio).  This season’s group of contestants is kind of thin too, most of them seem to think they are a lot better than they appear to be, and there does not seem to be any of them for me to root for.

 

Project Runway

Speaking of having no contestants to root for, this season of PR has been particularly disappointing.  They may be down to 7 designers left at this point, and I think I dislike something about each of them, or can at least think of a reason I won’t miss any of them if they leave.  I don’t have much more to say about this year’s group.  Perhaps I’m still angry at who won last time (spoiler).

 

Chopped (Champions)

Now this is an addictive show.  What a great format, bring in 4 contestants, give them a mystery basket of ingredients and a time limit to make an appetizer, judge them and eliminate (Chop!) the least successful one and move on to a new basket.  Next is a main course and then a dessert, but the winner is judged on all three rounds.  A perfect set-up for short attention spans, and lord knows mine is shorter these days.  The ones they are showing right now are a little different, as all four contestants are previous winners, so the skill level starts out higher (so you don’t have a first round elimination where a contestant in over their head puts some particularly hilarious stuff on the plate), but it is still pretty good.  They had four rounds of these, and then this week those four winners will face off for the big prize.  My biggest criticism of the show is that often there is no point in listening to the judges comments, as they are edited to keep some suspense into who gets “chopped”; despite this they often telegraph who is going to win by weaving in some sort of sob story (recovering from illness or substance abuse; need the cash to see a sick relative; not a ‘trained’ chef so this is proof of competence) but this can be ignored more often than not.  I’m not sure when new episodes will return of this show, but I’ll miss this one.

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Glee Premiere!

Posted on September 25, 2011 by brian

So, Glee premiered this week.  Not the most excited of opening sentences, and that does a reasonably good job of summing up my feelings.

First, a quick summary of my thoughts on Glee.  When the series started, I loved it.  Loved the musical numbers, loved the backdrop of underdog high school kids, loved Jane Lynch and the smartly written wisecracks.  Definitely a break-out hit for me.  Season 2 started uneven, and took a while to get its footing.  But once it did, I was back on board.  Unfortunately, it ended poorly for me.  And for a pretty simple reason: for me, the story-telling is mostly just a framework (this can be interpreted as “an excuse”) to set up the musical numbers.  These numbers make or break it for me, and the introduction of “original songs” ruined it.  Because “original songs” = “crappy songs” more often than not.

Anyway, it wasn’t horrible enough to make me quit, and I’m holding out hope that they will somehow ban “original songs” from the competitions this season, either as a plot point (Sue trying to sabotage the group by eliminating their “secret weapon”) or they can just pretend it didn’t happen last year.

So, the Season 3 premiere:  felt a bit flat to me.  Too much “reset button”, and lots of it rings false or stretched.  Quinn was just embarrassing.  The fact that the club is still at the bottom of the food chain seems a bit lazy.  Wouldn’t it be more interesting to see how the club dealt with a bit of social success?  The less said about yet another Sue Sylvester reset to villain the better, it gets tiring to see her redemption arcs and then go right back to being the villain.  At this point she is better served as a thorn/annoyance than villain.  Even Rachel and Kurt’s confidence shaking storyline seemed a bit forced.  And I’m never a fan of “Tough Mr. Schue”, it just never feels like it will last.  That said, the banning of Santana worked for me, although I like her character and want her in the club.  Although I would argue that setting the fire to the piano at the end of that performance actually made it cooler, and was more likely to attract new folks.

What did I like?  There was still good stuff.  Brittany is always good for a one-liner (Are you working on a time machine too?), and most of the performances were good.  The Glee Project actually worked against the confidence shaking scene, as we spent the summer watching the actress being a second-rate Lea Michele and then she is cast as someone who is supposedly more talented than Rachel.  That said, I really enjoyed the number.  Which is even more enjoyable if you mentally insert Magnitude from Community into the background, btw.  I also liked the line about self-diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome.

Overall a shaky start though.  The preview looked promising though, if just for another hilarious Brittany line.

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