Project Runway: All Stars (Season 2)

Starring: Carolyn Murphy, Georgina Chapman, Isaac Mizrahi, Joanna Coles

Creator: Eli Holzman

Genre: Reality, Competition, Fashion

Rating: B-

I have to confess that while I do really enjoy Project Runway, I have more mixed feelings regarding Project Runway: All Stars.  While I still like the contestants - although I do kind of question just how some of them made it onto Project Runway in the first place let alone the All Stars installment - I really miss the chore people of the original series - Heidi Klum, Tim Gunn, Michael Kors, and Nina Garcia.  Nothing against the people that they bring in for the All Stars, but we just don't love them as much.

Season 2 of All Stars features cast members from every season of Project Runway up to season 9, with the exception of season 4.  What I did like about this is that they had four runner ups this season, although they also had people who came in 10th and 11th on their original season, which contributes to some of the begging the question as to how some of these people are All Stars.  Despite that, though, as the season progressed I really started to like all of the remaining contestants.  I didn't know all, or really most, of them from their original season, but once the weaker designers were weeded out I really came to enjoy most of them and their esthetic.

I have kind of mixed feelings about the finale.  I really liked two of the designers who made it to the final three, but I wasn't really a fan of the third designer.  In the end, while I did like the person who won, it wasn't necessarily the person who I wanted to win.  I also kind of questioned the way they rated the first and second runner up, as I really thought that the person who came in third probably should have won, and the person who won should have come in second.

I did like the overall challenges of this season, with my favourites being the avant-garde androgynous look and the graffiti art challenges.  I was a bit disappointed by the overall celebrity judges.  There were a couple that I thought were great, but overall it seemed a bit subpar for the series.  A bit of a disappointment, really.

Knocked Up (2007)

Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Charlyne Yi, Jason Segel, Martin Starr

Director: Judd Apatow

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B-

After getting a promotion at work, career-minded Alison Scott (Heigl) has a one-night stand with stoner Ben Scott (Rogen). Alison very quickly begins to regret it, but when she finds out she's pregnant all hilarity ensues.  Alison and Ben must figure out if they want to make it work, and if they can make it work, and really how to do so.  Along for the ride are Ben's stoner friends and Alison's sister and brother-in-law.  By far the best part of the film is actually Alison's sister and brother-in-law, Debbie (Mann) and Pete (Rudd), and their children, played by Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann's real life children, Maud and Iris Apatow.  There's a reason that the sequel, This is 40, focused on Debbie and Pete and not on Ben and Alison.

Um, okay.  So, I liked the basic idea, but I disliked how it ended up basically being a stoner take on the romantic comedy.  I would have rather it gone a less typical route - yes the pregnancy bit is less typical, but the whole guy meets girl, things are awkward, guy and girl hook up, and they all live happily ever after (after that one massive fight where they almost break up) is a bit cliched at this point.

I did really like the dynamic of Debbie and Pete and what they offered to the table.  I believe I said it in my review of This is 40, but I really like how the kids feel like real people here, like real kids.  I attribute this to the fact that they're actually Apatow's kids, but hey it works.  I think if you're going to write children in your movie (or book or TV show or whatever) then you need to have children in your life - a lot - otherwise it just seems fake.

Katherine Heigl criticized this film saying that it's sexist, saying that it "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys."  I both agree and disagree with her here. While the women are shrewish at times and the men are goofy fun-loving guys, I kind of think that Knocked Up tries to show that both are essentially good.  Yes, Alison is a bit uptight, but she's the responsible one, the one who you should admire.  Ben is a freeloading stoner - as are all of his friends.  Debbie and Pete are both a lot more likeable, and both a lot more relatable.  The guys say at one point how great the women are and how they aren't deserving of them because they don't put enough into the relationship - and this is something that we see throughout the film.  I do kind of think Heigl's character is a bit humourless, but I also think that's a lot to do with the fact that she doesn't relate to Rogen's style of humour - which I can totally get.  Debbie, however, has a much better dynamic with Pete - something played out further in This is 40.  Oh, also, as far as Heigl is concerned, it's kind of bad form to badmouth a movie you're in.   Just going to toss that out there.  Also, one final note: I'm not really sure how to tag Knocked Up and This is 40 to show that they're related.  It's part of a series, but not part of a series? If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

Grey's Anatomy (Season 3)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh, Sara Ramírez, Eric Dane

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

In many ways the third season of Grey’s Anatomy is one of my favourite seasons of the show, while at the same time in many ways it’s my least favourite.  I love what the show does with some of its more secondary main characters and I love how many characters are introduced or bumped up in this season. I love the dynamic that Callie (Ramírez) and Sloan (Dane) bring to the show, and the way that Meredith’s (Pompeo) father and his other family are introduced more – and the way that Meredith further embraces her other family, and the way in which her relationship with the Chief (Pickens) develops.  I love the whole idea of the Chief being a surrogate father for Meredith, and it’s in this season that we really begin to start to see that.

The third season of Grey’s Anatomy starts with Meredith trying to choose between McDreamy (Dempsey) and McVet (Chris O’Donnell), Izzie (Heigl) trying to cope with Denny’s death, Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) deal with the results of the shooting, the Chief is forced to choose between his wife and his job, Bailey (Wilson) tries to reaffirm her status as a surgeon post-becoming a mommy, and George (Knight) tries to figure out his relationship with Callie. And, of course, to mess with it all, Mark Sloan returns to Seattle Grace. As the season progresses there are hook ups and break ups, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, comings and goings. The season seems to go into so many different directions, with so many plots being picked up and dropped, that it’s hard to provide a quick summary of it all without spoiling the way in which things with the earliest plots develop.

Okay, so the McDreamy/McVet thing was great.  As was the addition of McSteamy and the Dirty Mistresses club.  I love McStreamy and the element that he brings to the show.  Somehow, the Mer/Der/Addison (Pompeo) triangle is so much with the addition of a viable love interest for Addison.  I also like the fact that Sloan is as much about getting his friendship with Derek back as he is about doing anything with Addison - and the fact that he's very much about sleeping with as much of the hospital's female staff as possible.  It's such a great element of his character, I love it.  I really enjoyed elements of the George/Callie relationship too.  I love how the crush that George had on Mer is gone, and that he's trying to become an adult and enter into an adult relationship with someone.  I hate where the relationship ended up going, but then my overall dislike of Izzie at this point may have been a huge contributing factor there.  Also, am I right in thinking that George's friends are complete asses for how they treated Callie here?

I didn't like the second half of this season nearly as much as I liked the first half.  Things kind of change following the three parter, "Walk on Water," "Drowning on Dry Land," and Some Kind of Miracle." While I really did like what they did with each of those episodes - and especially the reactions to Mer's situation in "Some Kind of Wonderful" - it marked a turning point in the season where everything just started to go to shit again.  I do like how the season ended, but the steps that they took in getting there just bugged me.  Sometimes I wonder if our Interns are growing up or if our Attendings are simply sinking down to their level.

That being said, I did absolutely love the season's finale.  The relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) has always been an interesting one, and I've found it intriguing to watch how much of herself Christina has been willing to give up for him.  There's a part of me that wonders what would have happened had real life not shaped the direction of the plot here - Washington's controversial behaviour on set had a huge play in things - but I like how they dealt with things as it was.  In my opinion, there was no better way this relationship could have gone.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight

Creator: Joss Whedon

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Horror, Comic

Rating: B-

Set some time after the completion of both season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and season five of its spin-off Angel, the comic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight shows us how Buffy Summers and the surviving Scoobies manage following the defeat of the First Evil and the creation of a multitude of slayers.  Slaying has become a secret, paramilitary organization helmed by Buffy, and is now starting to draw the attention of governments. A new organization, Twilight, is gaining prominence and directly threatens the slayers. This season brings an introduction of new characters, primarily in the form of slayers, and a return of old favourites (and not-so-favourites).

The thing that I really disliked about this season was that it was really hard to place in time.  You know from the start that it's set after the conclusion of the TV runs of both shows, but it's not as clear, at least from the start, where it's occurring in relation to the comic Angel: After the Fall and its many mini series.  This is a problem that's never really entirely resolved, a disappointment given as it becomes a bit integral to the plot later on - especially as characters cross over from Buffy to Angel and back again.  This is a problem that, to the best of my knowledge, never really gets resolved, although it ceases to be an issue (or as much of one) in the next editions of this story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine and Angel and Faith, along with their mini series, all of which are under one publishing house and presumably one direction.

There are really kind of two arches here, as is common within Joss Whedon works.  There is both a Big and a Little Bad, and for the purpose of remaining relatively spoiler free, I'm not going to identify who (or what) either is beyond the existence of Twilight.  If you really want to know, check out the Buffy Wiki.  With this, two arch idea in mind, I'm going to say that for the most part I really liked the first arch and the Little Bad, while for the most part I kind of disliked the second arch and the Big Bad.

For the first arch, there's the whole feel of the world of Buffy, even though it's in a completely different setting. We see Buffy trying to step into this leadership role that is so much bigger than anything she's done before and really succeeding at it, while also still coming up against a lot of the same struggles that she's dealt with for many seasons now.  You can really see that she's struggling. There are a lot of ties to the way the show was, especially in the earlier years, which I loved.  In particular, both the Slayers and the organization of Twilight really reminded me of season four's Initiative.  There were a couple of more stand-alone episodes that didn't seem to work as well as the more overall arch, notably the Japanese vampires who stole Dracula's powers, although I did enjoy the return of Dracula.  This wasn't too bothersome overall, though, as I don't think Buffy's ever really been known for its stand-alone episodes - no one cares about Inca the Mummy Girl or the hyena possessed students who ate Principal Flutie (the exception here, is "Once More with Feeling" which was just awesome).

The second arch, where timing becomes a bit more important, is a lot less well done.  I liked the overall fight and the motives and methods of our heroes - I even really liked the conclusion of things.  I didn't really like some of the themes, though, or how some things played out after the revelation of Twilight.  Some of the themes here are ones that played into the themes of the series as a whole, which I liked, while others seemed to violate the rules of the world, which I disliked.  These rule breakages seemed to be waved away with a bit of a "it's magic" bullshit, which I tend to dislike as well.  I had to suspend my disbelief a fair bit in this arch, which I don't like.  There's just... this lack of consistency, I guess.

What I'm a bit undecided about here, is regarding the relationships this season.  There are a few here: the ongoing Angel/Buffy/Spike triangle, Willow/Kennedy, Dawn and Xander's love lifes (both which see the introduction of new characters), and Buffy's imposed stint of celibacy.  To start, the likes.  I really like what they did with Willow and Kennedy.  While I'm not the biggest Kennedy fan, I appreciate the fact that the writers respected Tara's death and haven't caved into the demand to get rid of Kennedy and bring her back.  I also like the fact that the two of them struggle and go through ups and downs, because ups and downs (and more downs and sometimes deaths) is what Buffy is about.  I also loved the Dawn storyline, and the fact that we're slowly given the backstory as to just how Dawn became a giant (yes, this is related to her romantic life).  Xander's was cute too.  Xander tends to be rather abused in the Buffyverse, particularly when it comes to romantic entanglements, so every time they introduce a new romantic partner for him I find myself hoping that she's the one and wondering just how it's going to explode.

Now, for the less good.  I have a lot of mixed feelings regarding the triangle.  In general, I have no problem with its continued presence within the series, and I really understand the perspectives of both Buffy and Spike.  On the one hand, Buffy will always view Angel as the first love of her life, the good guy, and the guy who got away.  At the same time, she also views Spike as the guy who's been there, especially in the last few seasons when she's been at her lowest, but he's also the guy who's hurt her.  I don't doubt that she really does love him, as revealed in the finale of the TV series, but that love is a convoluted and confusing thing.  She's not yet at a place where she can really accept and embrace that love, and might never be there.  I don't know if they'll end up together in the end or not, or if they'll end up both alive in the end, or both dead, or what - it being Joss, I kind of suspect that Buffy, Angel, and Spike will all die before this triangle is ever really resolved.  The point is, for Buffy there is always that love for Angel, and I think there is also that love for Spike, regardless of who she's with - be it Angel, Spike, or someone else entirely.  For Spike, there is also always Buffy, regardless of who he's with.

At the same time, Angel is not in this situation.  Buffy is not always the one for Angel, in fact I don't think she's been the one for him for some time now.  Within the continuity of Angel he has moved on.  He's found another great love and it is for her that he longs, not Buffy.  After a point, when Buffy was brought up within Angel it was more and more with either nostalgia or out of a desire to oppose Spike; this is particularly prominent in season five, when Spike joins the cast.  When he enters into the Buffy world, however, any development of the character in Angel appears to be discarded - which really, serves as a slap in the face to his relationship with Cordelia.  For me, this really becomes clear in After the Fall, when Angel is broken and thinks he's dying - it is for Cordelia he calls for (inadvertently naming his male dragon after her), not Buffy.  To have him fall back into the "let's be with Buffy" thing here just seems like an insult to that character development.

Voyager

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical, Romance, Sci-Fi
Rating: B-

The third novel in Diana Gabaldon's critically acclaimed Outlander series, I have to say that I think that Voyager is probably the weakest, at least in so far as her novels go.  While there is a story here a lot of it seems to be more about a justification of her desire to reunite protagonists Jamie and Claire and move them, once again, towards the action.  While I appreciate the sentiment and I do largely agree with the desire to reunite our time traveller with her soul mate, there is still a big part of me that can't help but feel as though more so than most of Gabaldon's books, Voyager really fails to stand out on its own and really serves instead as a bridge covering the cap between two separate parts of the series.

Voyager picks up where its predecessor, Dragonfly in Amber, left off, with Claire facing the revelation that Jamie is not dead, as she had long believed, but rather very much alive - or at least, would be, 200 years in the past.  Time travel inherently makes understanding things like that more complicated.  Claire sets out on a journey to reunited with her man, while the daughter that she is leaving behind, Brianna, comes to terms with the knowledge that the man she thought was her father wasn't, and that she's now about to lose the only parent that she has left.  Meanwhile, Roger Wakefield is faced with the very pressing desire to be a big part of Brianna's life.

I already said this, but I think it bares repeating.  This book is a bridge between two connected but rather separate stories; Outlander and Dragonfly are about Scotland and the Rising, while the later novels are about America and the revolution.  This book serves to connect the two and to establish the younger generation.  While Jamie and Claire continue to play important roles in these books, in a manner of speaking they also become more and more about Brianna, Roger, Young Ian, and other characters more their age.  I understand that, and I really respect that, although I do think that in later books the series becomes a bit bogged down by both the characters and the number of different plots going on.  Gabaldon is a great writer, but sometimes it becomes a bit much and at points it begins to lose the charm of Outlander.

The other problem with Voyager is that in being a bridge book the plot is somewhat lacking.  There's a lot of set up here for a major future plot device, and likewise there's a lot of conclusion here for some of the hanging threads of previous devices.  In as much as the characters might at times bog down later books, one of the things that I love about Gabaldon in general is the plethora of really deep and unique characters.  Voyager doesn't lack in them at all, but for much of the time it almost seems like they're there not so much to introduce or partake in any plot, but to simply exist.  In a way this works, but in a way it doesn't.  The way that it really doesn't work, at least for me, is the fact that there is almost no continuity in these characters - the bulk of them were never introduced before Voyager and do not appear again afterwards.  This is really hugely disappointing, just because I like to see the ways in which these characters appear to have developed off screen.  This idea continues as well; a lot of the characters introduced in Outlander and Dragonfly no longer appear to exist in Voyager.  While it's understandable that Claire has been gone (and presumed dead) for some twenty years, there's still a part of me that wants to see her seek out some of her old companions.  She might not wonder what happened to them, but I do.

Titanic (2012 Miniseries)

Starring: Linus Roache, Geraldine Somerville, Celia Imrie, Toby Jones, Perdita Weeks, Lee Ross, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Sophie Winkleman, Steve Waddington, David Calder, James Wilby, Antonio Magro, Stephen Campbell Moore, Noah Reid, Lyndsey Marshal, Mark Lewis Jones, Ruth Bradley, Peter McDonald, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Glen Blackhall, Dragos Bucur, Maria Doyle Kennedy, David Eisner, Linda Kash, Brian McCardie, Peter Wright

Creator: Nigel Strafford-Clark

Genre: Miniseries, Period Drama

Rating: B-

I'm still a bit undecided on this show. There are elements that I really enjoyed - particularly in the way they ended it. I don't just mean in that the boat sank and some people died while others didn't, I mean that after three rather disjointed and confusing episodes they still managed to make it suspenseful and make me care about who lived and who died.

The basic story behind this is obvious, and because of the sheer volume of characters within it I'm not going to really summarize things too much. Basically, the show is four episodes long with each of the first three episodes introducing the audience to the characters as they embark on the Titanic and leading up to the hitting of the iceberg. Each of these first episodes ends with this moment, and as such each episode introduces things differently and largely covers the same span of time. The final episode is the sinking and we find out the fates of the characters we've kind of gotten to know.

Because of the nature of the show things get a bit confusing. There are characters in the first episode who seem to disappear until the fourth, and there are events that happen multiple times in the series, with each repetition being altered to follow a different point of view. I really like what they tried to do here overall, but it gets a bit bogged down after awhile. The short length of the series doesn't mesh well with the sheer volume of the cast. The creators were trying to tell too much of a story in too little of a time.

That being said, because of the nature of the show I did still manage to get attached to the characters, and as the boat sunk I was anxious about who would survive and who wouldn't, particularly among the male and lower class characters. If you think about it, that's what a show about the Titanic is supposed to do.

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Starring: Roger Moore, Bernard Lee, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Hervé Villechaize, James Cossins, Clifton James

Director: Guy Hamilton

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B-

Holy fuck these movies are racist.  That was what went through my mind pretty much the entirety of this movie.  The series, so far, is rife with stereotypes and negative depictions of anyone who isn’t a white British subject.  These movies are really racist – like ridiculously so – and just seem to get worse as they go on.  Likewise with the misogamy.  I wouldn’t say James Bond, the character, is himself a mysoganist, but the movies definitely paint women in a certain way.

The Man with the Golden Gun takes Bond (Moore) back to Asia, this time Thailand where he’s searching for assassin Francisco Scaramanga (Lee), known as the man with the golden gun because he has a golden gun that he uses to shoot people with gold bullets.  One such bullet was sent to MI6 with Bond’s code etched into it, leading them to believe that Bond is his next target.  Along the way, Bond acquires an assistant in the form of Miss Goodnight (Ekland), who he is rather determined to sleep with, flirts heavily with Scaramanga’s mistress Andrea Anders (Adams), and comes up against Sacramanga’s dwarf manservant Nick Nack (Villechaize).

Midway through the movie I sent a friend a text saying “I just saw James Bond give a sumo wrestler a wedgie before being knocked out by an ugly midget.”  I’m not sure what else I can say to critique this film than the massive “what the fuck” that I thought when I saw that scene and that I’m expecting you thought when you read that sentence.  I think if I really put a lot into a review of this movie it would involve taking this movie as serious, and I can’t take something serious that involves a scene like that.

I kind of came to that conclusion about mid-way through this movie; if I don’t take them seriously and just go with the flow, no matter how ridiculous it gets, they’re more enjoyable. I don’t think these are actually good movies, but they can be fun.  That having been said, I'm still kind of annoyed with Miss Goodnight for sleeping with Bond.

Grey's Anatomy (Season 2)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

I went into rewatching Grey’s Anatomy with the thought that at some point the character if Izzie Stevens (Heigl) was a good one.  Sure, she wasn’t the best surgeon in our crew of interns and she could be annoying at times, but I was certain that at some point in this show I actually liked her.  I’m not certain when I stopped liking her, but I do know for sure that by episode 19 of season two I really couldn’t stand her.

The second season picks up pretty much exactly where the first one left off, a trait that I always enjoy – while a lot of time has passed for the viewers, no time at all has passed for the show.  Meredith (Pompeo) has just discovered that her dreamy boyfriend Derek (Dempsey) is in fact married, with the appearance of his wife, Dr. Addison Montgomery Shepherd (Walsh).  This love triangle becomes the primary focus of this season, as Meredith comes to terms with Addison’s existence, Addison fights to get her husband back, and Derek is forced to chose between the women.  While this forms the focus of the show for much of the season it isn’t the only major plot.  There’s also Izzie falling in love with a patient (Jeffrey Dean Morgan); Alex (Chambers) grows as a character, as he develops a relationship with Izzie; George (Knight) finally deals with his feelings for Meredith; the relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) grows and finally becomes public; Bailey (Wilson) is pregnant; we discover more about the relationship between Meredith’s mother and Dr. Webber (Pickens); and we’re introduced to Callie Torres (Sara Ramírez), Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith), and Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), who each become main characters in later seasons.  Oh! And there’s a bomb! In a body!

 Let's start with what I liked about this season... I actually loved the triangle between Meredith, Derek, and Addison.  I don't remember how I felt about it when the show first aired, but this time round I definitely liked it.  I really like Addison as a character, I was disappointed to see her leave at the end of season 3 (and even more disappointed by Private Practice, but that's a whole other review).  The triangle later on in the season is less great, even if it does involve Chris O'Donnell.  At that point it really seems like the show runners are just trying to create drama and delay what has been set up to be the inevitable.  I would love to see O'Donnell's McVet return at a later date for a random appearance just because he was a fun character - I would not like to see him return as a romantic partner for anyone.

In addition to liking the Mer/Der/Addy triangle, I also really love what they did with George this season.  I actually think this might have been George's best season - as much as I loved the character, it's really all downhill for him from here.  Likewise, I really loved the growth of Alex here and the development of his relationship with Izzie.  While I really did not like Izzie in general, I did like what she brought out in Alex.  As for Christina and Burke... I'm never really sure if I think that Burke got Christina.  At one point in season 4 she comments on how much of herself she had to give up for him; in season 2 you start to really see her doing that.  I always love the character, but I don't think I ever really liked the relationship here.  Beyond the coure group of interns, we have the plots with Bailey (awesome!) and the Chief (less awesome, but still good).  If this show became Bailey's Anatomy I would be totally okay with that.  There is just something so unbelievably perfect about the way that Chandra Wilson portrays her.

The good having been established, let's now turn to the bad.  Mainly Izzie Stevens and her relationship with Denny Duquette.  There was nothing about this plot that was enjoyable.  While I understand that the interns (and the doctors) make mistakes and aren't always able to be professional, the relationship between Izzie and Denny is just a whole new level of wrong.  It's something you can really see building up overall with Izzie in general; she's never good at separating her emotions from her work.  While other doctors struggle with this at times, most of them are able to balance between appearing completely unemotional and heartless (Yang is an example of this, often) and being really emotional and thus unable to properly do their job.  Izzie isn't able to do this, and it just gets really annoying.  The thing that really gets me about this is that I think we're supposed to be rooting for Izzie - be it when she's having an emotional affair with her patient, or when she's violating the oath that she took before becoming a doctor - notably, the do no harm bit.  I really wasn't.  I didn't want Denny to die... I just didn't want Izzie to succeed.  Her actions really scared me - not in that I was frightened, but rather in the way that I was unnerved by the idea that a doctor might behave like that.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Starring: Sean Connery, Mie Hama, Donald Pleasence, Akiko Wakabayashi

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B-

Once again, Bond is back, this time in a movie that is just really weird.  At the start of the film, James Bond (Connery)'s death is faked, enabling him to go undercover in Tokyo, where he investigates whether or not the Japanese are involved in the hijacking of an American spacecraft.  Bond hooks up with another Bond girl, SPECTRE is revealed to be involved, and a lot of things happen that make you wonder just how we haven't succeeded in blowing up the world yet.

I really don't know how I felt about this one.  It was short, or at least it felt that way, and so I didn't get bored - which has happened with other Bond movies - but I didn't really feel enticed either.   I actually found a lot of this movie to be based on racial stereotypes, more so than in previous Bond films.  Once again, a lot of this movie reminded me of Austin Powers (fitting, because it is part of the basis for the parody), and its strengths seemed to lay in the fact that while being similar to the Mike Meyers film it wasn't actually Austin Powers.  This is going to be a rather short review, simply because I don't really know what to say about this movie.  I didn't really enjoy it, but at the same time I didn't really dislike it either.  It's a weird one, sorry.

Total Recall (2012)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Jon Cho, Bill Nighy

Director: Len Wiseman

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Rating: B-

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I actually really enjoyed this movie.  The acting isn't superb, the plot is weak at points, it's not really moving on an emotional level or funny or anything.  At its core, Total Recall is a mindless action flick set in a dystopian future.  It isn't meant to have a great plot or great acting or connect on an emotional level (the lack of funny, however, is a bit of a disappointment).  It's supposed to have awesome chase scenes, mind blowing special effects, and cool gun fights.  Total Recall has all of this and more - in addition to it all, it also has this awesome futuristic world.  Sure the science is sketchy, but damnit, it's science fiction.  The science doesn't have to be right, it's fiction.

Total Recall follows factory worker Douglas Quaid (Farrell) as he begins to realize that his life is not exactly what it seems.  After a series of nightmares in which he is a spy of some sorts running from the police, Quaid decides to visit Rekall, a company that implants memories into its clients.  You can go anywhere, do anything, be anything.  While he's at Rekall, however, things go horribly wrong and before he's even put under it's revealed that Quaid is in fact a spy, who worked for a resistance movement.  From here his life goes to shit as his wife, Lori (Beckinsale), reveals that she isn't really his wife but rather a cop who's been assigned to watch him.  Quaid must flee from her, and by extension the entire paramilitary police force of both the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and the Colony (otherwise known as Australia), the only two habitual land masses on the planet.  Oh, and in it all, the girl from his dreams, Melina (Biel), appears.

The plot and characters in Total Recall are somewhat weak.  There isn't really the emotional connection between them and the viewer that the original film had.  I will give the film a lot of credit, however, in that it doesn't just totally rip off the original movie; while it follows the same basic plot and much of the general storyline, it also goes on a number of different directions.  This Total Recall is a lot more political than its predecessor, although never in a really original way.  It's very much anti-militaristic totalitarian and rather pro-workers, which is pretty much what you expect of a movie like this.  There's a lot of development towards this aspect of the plot, just not the characters themselves - I actually don't think I would have known the name of Biel's character if not for Wikipedia (and the fact that it's the same name as used in the 1990 version).

That being said, though, the movie's fun.  The special effects are cool, the chase scenes are hot. Every action movie is pretty much required to have a chase scene at one point or another, and in Total Recall it does so with hover cars.  Hover car chase scenes are the best.  The science is a bit wonky, but who cares - they go through the center of the earth.  Going through the center of the earth is always awesome.  The thing with the original Total Recall is that, while it's got a good plot and is emotionally charged the futuristic elements are rather lame and dated.  It's something that's a bit characteristic of older science fiction movies, which makes them a bit annoying to watch in the present day.  In this Total Recall, however, everything is slick and smooth and very much along the lines of what the future would look like if current trends continue.  I'm sure in another twenty years I'll be saying that the futuristic technology used in this Total Recall is rather old, dated, and lame when they remake the movie again, but for now it looked damn awesome.

I think, though, that my favourite part of this movie was the way that it differed from the original film while also paying tribute to it.  There's no Mars, but they mention it.  There's no huge brothel, but there's still a three breasted prostitute (no midget prostitute, however, sorry).  There's a fat woman who's travelling to the UFB for two weeks.  There are more moments like this, and to be honest every time they happened I smiled.  I enjoyed them.  Total Recall knew it was a remake of an older classic and assumes that you've seen the original.  It doesn't try to be some grand, fantastic movie.  It's a mindless action flick, and it does mindless action damn well.

Goldfinger (1964)

Starring: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee

Director: Guy Hamilton

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B-

I wasn't really a big fan of this movie.  In fact, I kind of didn't enjoy this instalment of the series.  Sure there were some amazing moments, but a lot of the movie was gimmicky and cheesy.  I mean, really, there was a long heated game of golf.  Serious movies that feature golf are not good.  It's like a rule, or something.

Goldfinger follows Bond (Connery) as he follows bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger (Fröbe) in an attempt to determine how Goldfinger is smuggling gold internationally.  This involves playing golf and cards - played in a manner that really make Bond look like a jackass - screwing women, and the like.  Eventually Bond determines that Goldfinger is planning on robbing Fort Knox and must stop him.  Along the way Bond screws some women and people are killed with a hat.  Yes, a hat.

Okay, so the awesome moments of this movie include when Shirley Eaton is killed by having her body covered in gold - this isn't a huge spoiler because it's basically the poster image for this movie.  The gold chick you see in everything Goldfinger related?  Yeah, that's Shirley Eaton.  There's also the gadgets, which for the most part are pretty cool, and Goldfinger tells Bond that he wants him to die, while pointing a laser at his crotch.  That moment is, in my opinion, probably the single most iconic moment of a James Bond film.  Sure there's "Bond, James Bond" and "Shaken, not stirred" but they're more catch phrases that you hear in most, if not all, of the films.  "I expect you to die" is just so iconic of this film, this series, this genre... it sent chills up my spine when it happened.

Despite that, however, the film was actually rather boring.  It was slow, and despite only running for 2 hours seemed to last forever.  I found that I really just didn't care about this movie.  I spent most of it hoping that it would be over soon and disappointed to see that it wasn't.  Maybe a combination of the heat and school related stress are getting to me, because any reviews that I've read of Goldfinger say that it's a great movie, I just found it uninteresting.  It wasn't a bad movie it just... didn't captivate me.

Savages (2012)

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek, Demián Bichir

Director: Oliver Stone

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Rating: B-

While watching Savages I found that if you suspend your disbelief surrounding the plot and characters it’s actually a pretty good movie.  Definitely not Oliver Stone’s best, but far from being his worst either.  There were a lot of elements about the plot that kind of confused me a bit, mostly in regards to character motivations, but once I let the journey take me on its course it was a fun little trip.  Weird and rather unexpected, but definitely fun.

Savages tells the story of Ben (Taylor-Johnson) and Chon (Kitsch), best friends and marijuana growers, and their girlfriend O (Lively).  While Chon was in the armed forces he smuggled marijuana seeds into the US from Afghanistan and since then he and Ben have grown a particularly potent strain that is in high demand.  It is this strain that brings them to the attention of cartel leader Elena (Hayek) and her thugs, Alex (Bichir) and Lado (del Toro).  Elena tries to buy out their business, but after Ben and Chon insult her and make plans to flee the country she has O kidnapped in order to make them toe the line.  From there things all go to shit as Ben and Chon attempt to find a way to get O back.

For starters, I really enjoyed the way that Stone shot this movie. He kind of balances the tone between being some Hollywood flick to being an artsy film with a point – I’m not certain if Savages really has a deeper message, but it presents itself as if it does. I enjoyed the narrative that Blake Lively’s character provides, especially given as it’s preceded by the note that even though she’s telling us the story it doesn’t mean that she’s alive in the end. We kind of lose the narration in the middle, which is probably for the best, but it comes back in the end and I think provides a good wrap to the story. It’s weird… this is not a really deep movie, but between the way it was shot, with the variety of angles and the different angles, and the tone that the narration takes it really feels like it’s making some profound statement. I was almost left with the feeling at the end that I needed to rewatch the movie just to figure out what that statement was, but at the same time felt as though I didn’t really miss anything by not having grasped that statement.

Actually, that's somewhat of a lie.  I did get an idea as to what the some of the statements that Stone was attempting to make, although I'm not really sure of them.  There was a lot, obviously, on drugs, but I wasn't exactly sure if Savages was supposed to be anti-drugs or not.  Likewise, I wasn't sure if he was trying to be anti-violence or not - there are some characters in the cartel that you like and others that you don't, while Chon is very much in favour of violence and yet it's Ben, the pacifist, that you spend the entire time wanting to die.  Or that's how I felt about him, but regardless it's his pacifist actions that cause many of the problems.  In the end, though, I think it's the statement that acts as the problem of the movie.  Stone is trying to say something in Savages but the way he presents his message is rather convoluted and confusing, so at the end you're not really sure what it is that he's trying to say.  While there are some great works out there that do such a thing magnificently - Shakespeare comes to mind - there isn't much magnificence to Savages.  The message is lost simply because of a poor direction, or script, or something.  I'm not really sure where, I just know that the film probably would have been better without it.

Dr. No (1962)

Starring: Sean Connery, Joseph Wiseman, Ursula Andress, Jack Lord, John Kitzmiller

Director: Terence Young

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

Prior to last night I had never actually watched a single James Bond movie.  I’d seen bits and pieces growing up – my dad was a fan – but I’d never watched an episode from start to finish.  Having now done so I’m not entirely sure what to think.  I wouldn’t say that Dr. No is a bad movie, but it’s definitely not what I expect when I think of an action movie – although a huge part of that would be the result of cultural differences that have developed since the 60s.

Another thing that may be an element of its time is the sheer simplicity of the plot: a British intelligence agent, John Strangeways (Timothy Moxon), is ambushed and killed in Jamaica.  The result is that MI6 agent James Bond (Connery) is tasked with going to Jamaica and investigating the death – and determining whether or not it’s related to a cooperation with the CIA on a case involving the disruption of rocket launches.  While in Jamaica Bond liaises with CIA operative Felix Leiter (Lord) and Strangeway’s employee Quarrel (Kitzmiller) and sleeps with the film’s Bond girls.  He also learns about the reclusive Dr. No (Wiseman), who owns the island of Crab Key – which is reportedly guarded by dragons.

I have to say I enjoyed the simplicity of the plot.  It’s something that you really don’t see a lot of these days, especially in action movies.  There’s always some sort of twist – or at least an attempt at one – as the screenwriters and directors try to keep their audiences guessing.  I did find Dr. No to be a bit predictable, but I’m not entirely sure how much of that is a consequence of my being very familiar with post-Bond action movies – many of which utilize similar tropes that I expect would not have been as over used at the time – and how much of it is simply that the film is predictable.   I really liked how all the things that you associate with a James Bond film were already present in Dr. No, despite it being the first of the series – there’s the “Bond, James Bond,” line, the martinis, the Bond Girls, and the theme song that instantly makes you think of Bond.  I’m sure there were other elements that are very thematic of the series but not necessarily as well known as well, and I’m looking forward to picking up on them as I continue with the series.

I did really enjoy Connery as Bond, although I have to say he wasn’t exactly the most charming of heroic characters.  I’m used to my action heroes going through a girl (or two) a movie, I’m just not used to them being so… well, for lack of a better word, Bond is rather chauvinistic.  You can see a bit of TonyStark in him (or perhaps you can see a bit of Bond in Stark?), but something about the straightforwardness of the character makes it really unappealing.  You can also see this in the fact that his sidekick is a plucky black guy who seems to do as much of the work as Bond – if not more – but neither gets credit nor girl.  The girl was similarly portrayed; she struggled between being a damsel in distress and a distressed damsel, but either way she was there so that Bond could save and woo her.  Really rather one sided – but then, I think the only character that had development in this movie was Bond himself.  It was a fun and simple journey, but I don’t think it was an overly developed one.  Once again, though, that could just be an element of the genre and the time.  Random Bond fact: while Ursula Andress portrays Bond Girl Honey Ryder two other actresses (Nikki van der Zyl and Diana Coupland) voiced her, one for her speaking and the other her singing.  Neither of them were mentioned in the film's credits.  Joseph Wiseman, however, was the only early Bond villain to not have his voice dubbed by another actor.

Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Novella, Historical, Mystery
Rating: B-

There were elements of  "Lord John and the Haunted Soldier" that I liked, and elements that I disliked.  The story deals with the consequences of the explosion of a cannon. Tom Pilchard, that Lord John momentarily is in command of during Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade.  An inquiry has been formed as Grey's cannon was not the only one to explode: in the previous ten months, a total of eight cannons have exploded, causing a lot of death and injury among the British army.  During the inquiry it is insinuated that Grey is at fault for the explosion of his cannon and that the overall fault lays in faulty gunpowder - gunpowder that is produced by Grey's elder half-brother, Edgar DeVane.  Once again, it is up to Grey to take up his own investigations and ensure his family's honour.

The one thing that I really liked about this story was the fact that by this point in the series a group of antagonists are clearly being established.  While none of these antagonists are actual villains in any of the books they do appear regularly and their dealings are often antagonistic to that of Grey's.  I am looking forward to the point at which Grey actually faces off with these individuals directly, and I wonder if he will do so one-on-one or if it will be a great face off between him and all of them.  The book was also very fast paced, which was nice in comparison to its predecessor.  Gabaldon doesn't bog herself down with the details (a rarity) and focuses most on telling the story.  That having been said, I really wasn't attracted by the story.  I found parts of it interesting, but when it was all said and done I felt like the whole thing was handled a bit too easily.  Once again, a lot of it really felt a bit contrived.  Overall, not Gabaldon's best work, but also not her worst.

Arrested Development (Seasons 1 - 3)

Starring: Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, Tony Hale, David Cross, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walters, RonHoward

Creator: Mitchell Hurwitz

Genre: Sitcom

Rating: B-

Arrested Development is supposed to be one of the best TV shows of, at minimum, the twenty-first century, receiving both critical claim and several awards during its short time on air, which was brought to a close when it was cancelled by Fox – so called untimely by the hoard of people who allegedly watched it, despite the lack of a reflection of such in the ratings.  I’m just going to stick this out there: when Fox gives a show multiple seasons, doesn’t screw around with its timeslot, and airs episodes pretty much in order, then cancels it due to poor ratings it isn’t exactly unjustified – especially if said cancellation comes with warning and the show is able to wrap up many of its storylines.  While I’ve enjoyed my fair share of cancelled shows, both Fox and otherwise, and lamented a few of them, I rarely hold it against the network.  The treatment of Firefly was a travesty, the treatment of Arrested Development not so much.

The show follows the excessively wealthy Bluth family; patriarch George Bluth, Sr. (Tambor), his wife Lucille (Walter), eldest son George “Gob” Oscar Bluth II (Arnett), protagonist Michael (Bateman), his son George Michael (Cera), Michael’s twin sister Lindsey Fünke (de Rossi), her husband Tobias (Cross), their daughter Mae “Maeby” (Shawkat), and the youngest Bluth son Byron “Buster” (Hale). At the start of the series George Sr. is arrested for defrauding investors and grossly spending the company’s money on personal expenses, which serve to pay for the family’s lavish lifestyle. Following a series of blunders, Michael is named President of the Bluth company and tasked with the job of saving both the company and the family; in doing so he asks his sister and her family to move into the Bluth model home with him and his son. Hilarity ensues over the course of three seasons as there are multiple escape attempts, ridiculous legal proceedings, numerous attempts to bring the family back together, save the company, and even to screw each other over. The entire show is presented in a documentary style format, as is narrated by series executive producer Ron Howard.

There are elements about this show that I really enjoyed.  I didn't really like Michael himself, but I did like Lindsey, George Bluth, Sr, and Lucille.  Their exploits were the most entertaining for me, especially as George Bluth, Sr began his run from the law.  The other characters for me were just a bit too over the top - while Michael's inability to really deal with his family got annoying, really fast, as did his rather overbearing relationship with his own son.  There were, however, a few running jokes of the series that I enjoyed - Gob's chicken dance in itself was rather lame, but I did enjoy the scene where all the Bluths were each doing their own chicken dance to mock Michael.  The many, many questions of Tobias' sexuality were great, especially once it became clear that they'd decided that Tobias really was gay.  A lot of this show was really over the top though, and really lame.  Some of the plots just seemed to go on for too long, especially the constant incest plot.  By the end of it I felt like I had watched something that while I had enjoyed, I also felt had ended well and didn't need to continue.  Not the greatest show, nor even one of the best of the decade, but others clearly disagree with me.