Mickey as Indy

Disney has a set of collectible figures that are pretty tall, usually two or three feet in height, so they're called "big figs". They have a new release that we saw a couple of weeks ago that we thought was pretty awesome.






Mickey dressed as Indiana Jones himself! His hat is flocked so it has a soft feel to it. And you can see from the picture below that the idol he's holding is pretty authentic-looking!







"We named the *mouse* Indiana!" ;)

Star Wars and Indy LEGOs!

Some new Lego sets in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones universes have been announced, and I think some of them are really cool.







This is a motorized walking AT-AT, which I think would be awesome to have, though I'm not sure about actually putting the thing together. I love all the little details and that it even comes with a dangling Luke!







This set depicts the Battle of Endor and comes with a lot of figures (including Ewoks!) and the glider and the chicken walker too.







Even though I'm not a fan of certain aspects of this film and this sequence, the Temple of Doom set still looks pretty spectacular. However, I think I might be tempted to just burn the Willie minifig...


Here's the link to the full list of new sets.

"The Love Guru" gets five nominations

No, not Oscar nominations - those don't get announced until tomorrow morning. "The Love Guru" got five Golden Raspberry Award nominations - better known as a Razzie.

Here are the nominations in the major categories and my comments on the nominations.


Worst Picture
Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
The Happening
The Hottie and the Nottie
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
The Love Guru

I can happily say that I didn't see any of the six nominated movies. I read about "The Happening" - wow, what a stupid movie idea.


Worst Actor
Larry the Cable Guy, Witless Protection
Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave
Mike Myers, The Love Guru
Al Pacino, 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill
Mark Wahlberg, The Happening and Max Payne

I only saw one of the performances, and that was Mark Wahlberg in "Max Payne", and I actually rather enjoyed the movie and liked his performance ok, so I disagree with his nomination for that.


Worst Actress
Jessica Alba, The Eye and The Love Guru
The Cast of The Women (Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Meg Ryan)
Cameron Diaz, What Happens in Vegas
Paris Hilton, The Hottie and the Nottie
Kate Hudson, Fool's Gold and My Best Friend's Girl

I had wanted to see "The Women" because I really liked the original, but I never got around to it. The movie did get panned, so it looks like they didn't do a very good job of remaking the film. Guess I'll just watch the original again.


Worst Supporting Actor
Uwe Boll, Uwe Boll's Postal
Pierce Brosnan, Mamma Mia
Ben Kingsley, The Love Guru, War, Inc. and The Wackness
Burt Reynolds, Deal and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Verne Troyer, The Love Guru and Uwe Boll's Postal

I *so* agree with Pierce Brosnan's nomination for "Mamma Mia". I have not made it a secret in the least that I really didn't care for his performance in the movie, at least in terms of his singing.


Worst Supporting Actress
Carmen Electra, Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans
Paris Hilton, Repo: The Genetic Opera
Kim Kardashian, Disaster Movie
Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
Leelee Sobieski, 88 Minutes and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

I really disagree with Paris Hilton's nomination for "Repo: The Genetic Opera". I really liked the movie, and I think she did a terrific job. OK, so it was a bit of typecasting, given the character she played, but I thought she pulled it off really well, especially considering how off-beat and twisted that movie was.


A few other random comments about extraneous nominations:

Nominated in the Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel were both "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull" and "Star Wars: The Clone Wars". I know a lot of people didn't like either of them. I had my problems with Indy IV, but generally, I enjoyed it. And I *really* liked "The Clone Wars".

M. Night Shyamalan was nominated for Worst Director. I think they should just make that a lifetime award for him and be done with it.

And Worst Career Achievement is being given to Uwe Boll. No, I have no idea who he is. And yes, "achievement" is spelled incorrectly in one place on the website.

Indy Lego cake

I got a new follower request on Twitter today, and since I have my updates blocked, I have to approve requests. When I've gotten a request from someone I don't actually know, I look to see if they have a website and what their tweets are like and how many people they're following to see if I want to accept. I don't do professional followers. After browsing around, I accepted the request. In browsing the person's blog, I came across this particular post of a cake that the person's wife had made for their son's birthday. The pictures are really cool, though yeah, the gummy snakes still freaked me out. Kudos to AB's wife!

"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" - spoiler movie review

I can't for the life of me remember if I've seen the first Mummy movie. I know I didn't see it when it came out theatrically, so I would have had to watch it on DVD or something. I did very much enjoy the second Mummy movie, and when I saw the trailer for the third Mummy movie, and the trailer looked good, especially since Jet Li was in it, it was a go.

In general, I did enjoy the movie, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped/expected, so I was disappointed that I didn't like it more. While it didn't quite reach the level of "Independence Day", this movie definitely seemed to borrow liberally from many other movies, or maybe they just had so many of the same occurrences that it just kept reminding me of other movies. I think I'd put this just slightly higher than what I thought of "Hellboy II", but I think that's mostly because Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh were in this one, and I at least had some history with this film whereas I didn't with "Hellboy".

The film starts with a history lesson about how the Dragon Emperor of China was on a quest to take over the world, Brain's own plan notwithstanding. He has a fierce army, but there is one thing he cannot fight - death. He seeks the key to immortality and sends General Ming, his most trusted loyal friend (and yes, at the point when the narrator said this, I knew said friend was going to do something the Emperor didn't like), with a woman (Zi Juan) that the Emperor has claimed for himself to find the key. I thought Ming was going to steal the secret of eternal life, not the woman. When they come back with what they were seeking, the Emperor has Zi Juan cast the immortality spell on him, but right after that, he reveals that he knows about the liaison between Ming and her and has him killed. He tries to kill her too, but he then discovers that she had instead cursed him. (OK, so I didn't pick up on the whole "she cast a spell in a language he didn't know" major hint.) She cursed him so that he and his entire army were turned to stone.

After that great opening, we then see that Rick and Evelyn O'Connell have settled into the boringest life possible and that there's definitely now a disconnect between them. It's almost like Evelyn is a totally different woman. Conveniently, their son Alex (who is inexplicably an adult but mom and dad don't seem to have aged proportionately - guess he went away to soap opera summer camp) is involved in a dig that discovers the Dragon Emperor, and car chases and things blowing up ensue as they race to prevent him from regaining his full strength and re-awakening his army to finish his conquering of the world.

Sounds exciting, huh? Yeah, but it didn't quite play out as that exciting. There were too many wink/wink/nod/nod references to their previous adventures, even with Evelyn remembering things that happened to her that she wasn't around for. I think it also had the problem that many of the good lines were already in the trailer, and I was sick of seeing the trailer by the time I saw the movie, so when those same lines appeared in the film itself, they fell flat for me because I'd already heard them over and over again, out of context.

The father/son estrangement story was really weak, with everything all bad at the beginning, and then both father and son have these major revelations, and they have their "moment". NuEvelyn shows that she's going to be the mother-in-law from hell when we see her smothering her grown son and immediately bad mouthing and being suspicious of the woman he's interested in.

It was nice that Ming was in the final battle (and it was funny that he was missing an arm), but the scene where he gets a glimpse of his daughter before he turns to dust was a little predictable. And Zi Juan must have gotten her fertility from soap operas as well, getting pregnant from just the one tryst.

When they were in Jonathan's club in China, my first thought was, "Oh, that place used to be called Club Obi Wan". There was actually quite a bit of the movie that reminded me of various Indiana Jones movies, like when Alex was descending into the tomb with the booby traps and such, and it wasn't just because they're both action genre films about digging up old dead things and such. Liked the nifty original stunt with being dragged under the car. And then at the end when the Emperor died and all the warriors just collapsed, I completely thought of the battle droids in "Star Wars".

When Rick is stabbed, and it's determined that the only way to save him is to get to the fountain of immortality, I immediately thought of the third Indiana Jones movie and the more recent "The Forbidden Kingdom".

The Yeti were ... interesting, and certainly not run-of-the-mill. I would have liked some kind of even minor explanation of why they even saved Zi Juan when she was close to death, but it was fun to watch the Yeti fight the bad guys and then save the good guys from the avalanche. It was also funny when they realized that the daughter spoke Yeti!

I also would have liked some kind of explanation as to why crossing the Great Wall would make the warriors indestructible.

One scene I really loved was during the big battle scene near the end of the film. The warriors let loose with this massive archery attack that looks absolutely devastating. And it would have been - if they had been fighting flesh. It was funny to just watch the skeletons standing there with arrows through their rib cages and bones, and they just picked them out and then proceeded to battle. That take was a very nice gem.

OK, here's one complaint I often have with mixed-language films. Zi Yuan and her daughter have been talking to each other in Chinese the whole time. In their last scene together, all of a sudden, they're speaking English. The daughter sees her mother, and screams it out in English? And mom decides to convey a vital bit of information in English to her daughter all of a sudden? The husband said that maybe that was just a liberty so they didn't have to translate anymore, which didn't make a lot of sense to me anyway since they'd subtitled the entire rest of the film. But on top of that, I didn't get the impression that Evelyn spoke Chinese, and she obviously understood Zi Juan's dying words since she was the one to relay them to Rick and Alex. It would have worked fine for the daughter to be so consumed with grief that she can't act, but when they ask what her mother said, she just tells them, and off they go. Easy.

As you'd expect, they did have some awesome special effects. I especially love all the transformation stuff with the Emperor (and when he was oozing mud and fire, separately), and him turning into a three-headed dragon was cool too.

I really liked Brendan Fraser in the last Mummy film, but I didn't really feel he had much to do in this film. Mug a bit, try to fail at being a father, be not nearly as interesting a would-be father as Indiana Jones.

I really did not care for Maria Bello as Evelyn, and it's not even that I'm particularly tied to that character, but I don't remember Evelyn being as snarky and bitchy, in a bad way, like this Evelyn turned out to be. I really couldn't see what was in her that made Rick continue to love her all these years. I get that if Rachel Weisz didn't want to do this film, their hands were kind of tied. I guess they didn't want to kill off the character, though I think that might have been a better choice. However, Jack Ryan's wife was re-cast (heck, *Jack Ryan* was re-cast), and that didn't present a problem, so I think it was just that the character was either written wrong, she played it wrong, or the director had her play it wrong.

I really liked Jet Li in this film. He was playing ancient Chinese, which he's really good at, and the fight scenes were awesome. As much as I wish him mainstream U.S. success, I do have a hard time when he's struggling with English dialogue, and I do think it also affects his performance.

The stand-out performance in the film for me, though, was Michelle Yeoh. I generally like her anyway, but I thought she was absolutely terrific, whether it was her character standing strong against the Emperor (and we got a Jet Li/Michelle Yeoh fight scene!), or being a tender mother to her daughter (I loved the look on her face when she immediately recognized the connection between her daughter and Alex), or just doing what needed to be done the rest of the time.

John Hannah was fine as Evelyn's brother, Russell Wong was good as General Ming, and the actor playing the Emperor's new general was good as well, but other than that, it was pretty non-descript. I didn't care too much for the actors who played Alex or Ming's/Zi Juan's daughter, and I found their love story to be laughable and awkward.

I had one moment that I'm sure the filmmakers didn't intend and that I doubt anyone else experienced. The line that the Emperor's men were "terracotta warriors" seemed to have stayed with me, because during the battle scene between them and the undead skeletons, every time one of the warriors was defeated, I just pictured the foley guys in their recording studio smashing pots left and right. Very distracting.

Oh, and I also had another moment, when they were talking about being in the Himalayas and then the Yeti, and I so wanted to ride Expedition Everest. Not that my mind kept wandering from what was going on in the movie.

I don't regret having seen this movie, but I think it's time to let the franchise rest. No more adventures, in Peru or otherwise.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" - movie review (full spoilers)

In case you missed it in the title, this review of the fourth Indiana Jones movie is going to be chock full of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film yet and don't want spoilers, why are you here?

A fourth Indiana Jones movie was something that I never thought I'd see. They've been talking about one for *years*, but it's never materialized because the script has never been right, a script that had to be approved by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, with Ford apparently the hardest to sell on the idea. And without him, you have no movie. You can't do an Indiana Jones movie without Indiana Jones, and at this point in time, Indiana Jones can't be anyone other than Harrison Ford - at least not an adult Indiana Jones.

As the persistent rumours of a fourth film finally became reality, I was both excited and concerned. Indiana Jones is one of those iconic characters now - were they going to be able to live up to its history and reputation? The hardest part for me was avoiding as much information about the film as possible, which is seriously difficult given how much press this kind of film would generate. But I wanted to go into the film knowing as little as possible.

The little bits I learned because of casting were ok. Shia LaBeouf was going to play Indy's son. OK, the fact that Indy has a son isn't that big a deal, and I wasn't familiar with Shia at the time the announcement came out, but when I saw him in "Transformers", I really liked him, so I was happy he'd be Indy's son. I was most happy when it was announced that Karen Allen was coming back as Marion. I loved her in the first film, and I was decidedly, seriously, overwhelmingly irritated with Kate Capshaw in the second film (OK, yeah, so Steven married her - maybe she's a good wife and mother, and she might even be a decent actress [I did like her in "Windy City"], but her character was awful in the film - she was a shrill, screaming, helpless bitch, about as much the exact opposite of Marion as you could possibly get.), and I didn't care for Nazi bitch in the third film, so to see Marion back was going to be awesome.

There aren't too many films that we go to see within the first 24 hours of opening. The only films we've done that with lately are the new "Star Wars" films and "Alien vs. Predator" (awesome movie, btw). In most cases, we've gone the night of opening day, but with Indy, I didn't want to wait that long because 1) I was too excited to see this film and didn't want to wait longer than I had to and 2) avoiding spoilers on this kind of movie is extremely difficult, so an extra added few hours of trying to avoid spoilers, especially after it has already been released to the general public, was going to be even more difficult. (The film was shown at Cannes on the Sunday before opening, so all the media movie reviews were out by that night, and I had avoided any newspapers and didn't listen to any radio from Monday through Thursday morning.) By the time we had decided to go and figured that it wouldn't be showing at Mann's Chinese, we decided to go to the Arclight in Hollywood, and the 12:01am screening in the Cinerama Dome was already sold out, so we decided on the 12:30 screening in one of the other theatres. There were a few other showings between midnight and 12:30, but they seemed to be in smaller theatres, so I decided to opt for what appeared to be a bigger theatre. I do miss the experience of seeing an event movie like this at the Chinese, given the Chinese's history, but I do like the trade-off of not having to stand in line for hours and running to find a seat but rather, being able to show up just before the movie starts and have an assigned seat.

We got to the Arclight at about 11:40pm, and the place was packed, from all the people entering the parking structure and looking for a parking space to everyone milling about outside the theatres and in the lobby areas. I know that some people think going to these kinds of screenings is crazy, but part of the appeal of them to me is the event value - these are people so dedicated and interested in the film that they're willing to see it in the middle of the night, and that usually makes for a great crowd to watch a film with because there's so much energy and excitement there. I can't tell you how many people I saw there wearing the signature Indy fedora or even the entire Indy outfit.

OK, so I've talked about everything but the movie itself, so get to it, won't I? Well, I figured that would be plenty of spoiler space there for anyone who accidentally missed the spoiler warning above.

Generally, I liked the film. I had a fun time, there was some really nice dialogue, and the action sequences were kick-ass as you'd expect. Sure, there were things I didn't like as well, but that's true of both "Temple of Doom" and "Last Crusade". (I can't think of anything in "Raiders" that I really didn't like.) I think my perception of the film both suffers and benefits from my historical attachment to the series and the characters. Nostalgia value certainly plays into a lot of the things I liked about the film, but the film also had a hell of a lot to live up to.

Speaking of nostalgia value, I thought it was terrific that they used the old Paramount logo. At first, I thought it looked weird but couldn't pinpoint what was "wrong" until I realized what they'd done. And I absolutely *loved* the traditional morph of the Paramount logo into a mountain in the movie, but this time, it morphed into a prairie dog's mound! That was just too awesome.

I thought the story itself was decent. It was pretty complicated so that you had to pay attention to follow it, but that was true of "Raiders" as well. I think Harrison Ford did a good job of managing to convey the details that you needed to be invested in the finding of the crystal skull without making it tedious.

One thing I really didn't like was that the lost civilization turned out to be aliens, and I *really* didn't care for the spaceship scene (which reminded me of the end of "The Abyss"). I could have lived with the alien story a bit more if they had found some other way for them to leave, maybe just mystically flying away or something, but the regular spaceship shape just seemed too pedestrian for an Indy film, even if they are supposed to be multi-dimensional beings. Oh, and I didn't care for the whole "Tarzan" sequence with Mutt - that was just too weird, even though the monkeys were funny. There were also some fairly preposterous things that happen in the film - like Indy surviving the nuclear blast by hiding in the refrigerator, which gets thrown miles away and bounces around, and he comes out with just a few bruises, but it's not really any more preposterous than a lot of things that have happened in previous Indy films, and there is a certain level of preposterousness and unbelievability that I allow for in these kinds of films.

One problem I think I did have was placing myself in the timezone of the film to be able to understand some of the points being made. It took me a while to realize that they were smack dab in the middle of the worst of McCarthyism, which accounted for the treatment that Indy got from both the FBI and the university. That period was also rife with tales of alien visitation (I was quite proud of myself for noticing the "51" on the inside of the warehouse door since I'm usually oblivious to that kind of thing), not to mention the testing of the nuclear bomb, so it did make sense to some degree to have all those elements in the film.

Once I'd seen the trailer and saw them in the warehouse full of crates, I did expect some kind of mention of the Ark of the Covenant, and I was not disappointed - I loved the shot of the Ark in the partially-destroyed crate. I liked the nod to "Star Wars" with Indy's line of "I've got a bad feeling about this". I didn't expect any reference to Henry, Sr. since Sean Connery could not be convinced to be in the film (I'm curious as to what they were going to have him do. I thought I remembered that he wouldn't have been in the film much anyway, that it was mostly a cameo role, so I'll have to do some research to see if I can find out what that part of the story was supposed to have been.), so I was happy to see his picture on Indy's desk at the office as well as the reference to him near the end of the film. I really didn't expect any reference to Marcus Brody, so it was nice to see his picture on Indy's desk as well as the bronze statue of him on the grounds - I hope they fix his severed head though.

The college where Indy teaches (Marshall) is a nod to long-time friend and fellow producer/director Frank Marshall. I wonder if Mutt's last name is a tribute to Steven's long-time musical collaborator John Williams?

Can I tell you how taken aforward (ok, not really, but I've never finished that particular homework assignment) I was when Indy and Marion were sinking in the not-quicksand (I loved Indy launching into his explanation of that, btw.), and Mutt finds something to help them - by heaving this gigantic snake at them to pull them out. I am TERRIFIED of snakes, and not just by live ones. I'm pretty much terrified of almost every representation of a snake with very, very few exceptions, this being one of them. So when I realized what Mutt had thrown at them, I don't know if Indy was more scared or if I was. Indy didn't have anyone to hide behind, but I did. I only watched that scene peripherally, because what's more scary than just a snake? A HUMONGOID ONE. Hmmm, given the same predicament Indy had - do I grab onto the snake to pull myself out or succumb to certain death by drowning/suffocation? - I'm not sure I could do what he did, and calling it a "rope" wasn't going to make a damn bit of difference to me. Two intellectual brain cells in my head were able to pull themselves away and wonder for a second whether it would actually be possible to use a snake for that purpose or whether the snake would snap first, but then the other billion scared-out-of-their-mind brain cells pulled them back into the fold, and the question wandered off into thin air.

I also wasn't too enamoured of the ant sequences. I didn't watch much of those when someone would fall into the ant pile, and the ants would presumably devour them - I don't know for sure because I wasn't looking. I did see a bit of the final ant sequence when they dragged an entire person into their ant hill. That was both cool and too disgusting to think about too hard.

Harrison Ford was terrific as usual as Indy. There had been a lot of speculation about whether he was too old to be doing that sort of thing, but he showed that he wasn't, doing his own stunts in the film. I did like that they didn't ignore his age and pretend that he was as spry as he used to be (I laughed when Mutt said to him something like "what are you, 80?"), but it's obvious from his actions and the stories he told that he had continued on his global jaunts since the last time we'd seen him and he hadn't just been a classroom professor.

As I mentioned, I was thrilled to see Karen Allen in this film, and I thought she did an awesome job. I *loved*, *loved*, *LOVED* her first line - "Indiana Jones" - done with the same inflection as in "Raiders". And I know I wasn't the only one that thought she was going to hit Indy, just like in "Raiders", when she was actually going to hug Mutt. I loved the back-and-forth between her and Indy and all the sassing she gave back to him when he commented about her getting kidnapped and her retort that he hadn't fared much better. She still had the same spunk as before, and I also loved that she drove off the cliff to get them out of trouble - she's no wilting flower. I did laugh along with everyone else when the camera panned to reveal the silly grin on her face after Indy told her that while there had been other women, none of them were her. I wasn't particularly thrilled about the wedding at the end - it's just not the Indy that I'm used to, and I didn't think they needed to be married to be together, but I suppose that's an acknowledgement of a progression on Indy's part - married man and Associate Dean, but the hat at the end contained at least the hope that he wouldn't just become a boring old guy now.

I thought Shia LaBeouf was pretty good in the film, though he really didn't have that much to do. The whole thing with his hair was pretty funny though. (Incidentally, I was laughing at the early part of the film when Mutt and Indy are in the soda fountain, and that whole scene just made me think that Steven Spielberg got to do his own "American Graffiti" segment.) He was really good during the entire car chase sequence as they're all exchanging possession of the crystal skull, and I loved his sword fight with Cate Blanchett's character. I did keep expecting them to explain his character name. I mean, Marion named him Henry, but instead of that name, he goes by "Mutt". Is this another case where a "Henry" decided to go by the pet's name instead? "We named the *dog* 'Indiana'." - one of the best lines *ever*. It was funny that Indy was referring to him as "Junior". Ummm, not so much since he's not a junior - he's Henry Jones, III, though calling someone "Third" is probably too weird. After the wedding, Mutt picks up the hat that's been blown to him, and he's just about to put it on his head when Indy walks by and snatches it away. You could have speculated that they wanted to continue the series with Indy's son, but I think that particular scene and the fact that Mutt never actually got to wear the hat shows that you can't replace Indy, even with his own son, and the filmmakers are well aware of and acknowledge that.

I thought John Hurt was excellent, as was Ray Winstone as Indy's sidekick/nemesis, I thought Cate Blanchett was ok (I'm not usually a fan of hers, except in "Notes on a Scandal"), and while I liked Jim Broadbent, I didn't know he was only going to be in so little of the film.

Now that the shock value of seeing an Indy film that I'd never seen before has worn off, I want to see it again, where I might be able to appreciate it more for itself. In the grand scheme of things, I'd put this in a tie for second - nothing tops "Raiders", so that's obviously first. Given a choice between this film and "Last Crusade", I can't decide. I like this for Marion being in it and the other things I've mentioned, but having Sean Connery and Harrison Ford play father and son was just too awesome. Pulling up the rear is, of course, "Temple of Doom". I didn't have the problems with the violence in the film that others did, and I would actually like to see the film again, but I'd be happier and more inclined to do so if someone would do me the favor of rotoscoping Willie Scott out of the entire film because I just can't deal with her.

Hmmm, I've read some stuff that there were originally planned to be five films in the series - does that mean there might actually be another one forthcoming?

OK, last bit - apparently, this film has pissed off the communists. OK, whatever.

"Iron Man" - movie review with spoilers at the end (and minor notes on Indy IV trailer and in-theatre "Wall-E" display)

Iron Man is not one of the comics stories that I've familiar with, but the trailer looked interesting, and I really like Robert Downey, Jr., so with a busy schedule this weekend, we ended up going to a morning screening, unusual for us. Considering how crowded the theatre was for this 10:45 screening, predictions for big box office for this film seem to be coming true. It's being reported that Friday's take was $32.5 million (with Variety putting that number at $33.4 million), which puts the film on track for a stellar opening weekend.

OK, slight detour here - inside the theatre lobby was a display for "Wall-E". I thought it was so cute!




Here's a close-up of the bench next to Wall-E.




At the screening we attended, they showed quite a number of trailers in front of the film, making the 2 hour plus movie an even longer theatre experience. Among other trailers, they unsurprisingly showed trailers for comic book-inspired films "The Incredible Hulk" and "The Dark Knight". Since "Iron Man" is being released by Paramount Pictures, it also wasn't surprising that the last trailer to be shown was a longer trailer for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". It really does look like they've captured the spirit of the series. Karen Allen looks like she hasn't aged at all, and while I'm not necessarily fond of Kate Blanchett, she actually looked good in the clips they showed. Here's a link to the new trailer.

OK, onto the movie at hand.


Overall, I thought it was a pretty terrific movie, and if it wasn't for the multitude of films coming out in the next few weeks, I'd probably be interested in seeing the film again. As you'd expect, the action sequences were amazing, with lots of things spectacularly blowing up and lots of fire everywhere. But one thing I've noticed about comic book-inspired movies in recent years is that there's much more emphasis on acting than previously. The movie wasn't good just because of the good action - the acting was pretty stellar all around. Since Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan were cast in starring roles in "X-Men", it seems like many of the subsequent superhero movies have been cast with name actors in the lead with a history of turning in good performances in more "serious" roles. I think that has elevated the stature and quality of these kinds of movies, so they're not simply live-action versions of comic book stories but bona fide good and even great movies in their own right.

"Iron Man" is about Tony Stark, head of a successful weapons-building company who is shown first hand the destruction caused by the things that have made his fortune. An attack of conscience leads him to build a suit with amazing abilities that allow him to turn the tide of the destruction being done with his weapons, but not everyone is happy about his change of heart.

I thought Robert Downey, Jr. did an amazing job as Tony Stark. He captured both the carefree days early in the film as well as all the developments in his character as the film progressed. Unlike Superman and Spiderman and the Hulk and the X-Men, he does not have superhero powers himself, but rather more like Batman, he is able to build devices that give him the ability to do extraordinary things. Even though Iron Man is based more in reality than most other superheroes, Tony Stark does come up with some fairly incredible things, and Downey, Jr. sells it completely believably. He plays the harder beats not as you might expect in a run-of-the-mill action flick but more from what you'd expect from a "serious drama". I've always liked him as an actor, and I'm glad to see that his star seems to be rising again. This is the second film I've seen him in this year, with two more coming up in the next few months.

Gwyneth Paltrow was terrific as Stark's personal assistant Pepper Potts. Paltrow and Downey, Jr. had very good chemistry, and it was fun to watch them play opposite each other. Paltrow is obviously a very beautiful woman, but they did manage to "plain her down" for the most part with her hairstyle, costuming and mannerisms.

Terrence Howard was also terrific as Stark's long-time friend. Howard looks very familiar to me, but in looking over his credits, I can't pick out anything that I specifically remember him from. The only thing I can come up with is that while I didn't see "Hustle and Flow", I do remember there was quite a bit of press when he was nominated for an Oscar for his role in that film.

I haven't seen Jeff Bridges in quite some time, so I was a bit surprised at how different he looked compared to the last time I saw him. He was good as usual in this film.

Leslie Bibb plays a Vanity Fair reporter who has a sexy scene in the film. I found that fairly distracting because I knew her as a detective on "Crossing Jordan", so I was used to her being totally conservative and professional rather than a fairly typical blonde bombshell.

And yes, Stan Lee makes his standard cameo.

Oh, and a quick mention that the end titles are fabulous - you should definitely stay and WATCH ALL OF THE END TITLES UNTIL THEY'RE FINISHED.

One bad effect of the film is that because I've seen the trailer a number of times, and the song "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath is used in the trailer, I've had that one riff from the song running through my head continuously today.


OK, so now that I've made all my general comments, here's the part where there be spoilers galore. You've been forewarned.






































OK, so, presumably, anyone still reading has already seen the film. Wasn't that an awesome film? Seriously!

I loved the back-and-forth between Tony and Pepper. It was sad but also sweet that each was all that the other had. I loved the scene where Pepper had to pull the copper wire from Tony's innards, and the scene at the charity function when Tony sees Pepper in that fab dress and then they dance and then go up to the roof and they come *thisclose* to kissing was just really funny. Of course, it's funnier later when we find out that Tony just left her up there. I liked that they never actually showed a romantic relationship between the two, and it was sweet that they used formalities when speaking to each other.

And for once, I actually was not surprised at a particular plot point. When Pepper asked Tony if he was going to keep the original heart mechanism and he said no, I knew she was going to end up keeping it and that it would play a pivotal part later in the film. Do I win a prize for not being blindsided by that development?

However, I did not catch on that Jeff Bridges would end up being the bad guy. He got a little cartoony in the end when he was in what looked to me like a Super Battle Droid outfit, but that's kind of to be expected at that point. He was great leading all up to that. I had figured out that he would be the one to step out of the car when there was the meeting with Raza, but I had not expected that he was the one who had ordered the hit on Tony in the first place. I did think it was funny in the end titles that there's a credit for a photo shot of Jeff Bridges for "Tucker". They must have used one of the photos done for that movie to create one of the magazine covers we saw about the history of Stark Industries.

And speaking of the end titles - how cool was it that they got Samuel Jackson to do 2 lines of dialogue as Nick Fury? (I have no idea who Nick Fury is, btw. I know the name of that character because I looked it up.) It was funny because when Tony walked into the apartment and Fury started talking, and I realized it was Jackson, my first thought was, oh, oh, you've been trying to hide from him, and he's found you now, and he's going to punish you for all the unauthorized jumping around you've been doing. Ummm, oops, wrong movie! ;) I take it this means they're planning a sequel?

Oh, and the guy who played the doctor who saved Tony's life? He was awesome. It was so sad when he died.

I loved all the humor that was in the film, especially when Tony was doing the first tests of levitating. "If you douse me one more time when I'm not actually on fire, I'm going to donate you to a school." OK, I don't know the exact line, but I was laughing so hard at that, made worse when he *was* doused again after accidentally crashing through his roof and onto one of his spiffy cars. It was also funny when he was arguing with it while he was doing welding or something. "No, just don't move. Oh, am I in your way?" Too funny.

I did have one question though - I get that they were in a cave, and the doctor could only do what he could to keep Tony alive by keeping the shrapnel from entering his heart. But once Tony got rescued and was back in the States, wasn't there a way for the doctors to get the shrapnel out so that he didn't have to keep wearing that device? Yeah, I know, that would have destroyed a plot point that was needed for later, but it didn't make sense to me that he just lived with it.

And after Tony was rescued and was back in the States and was in the car, refusing to go to the hospital, it was funny that he wanted a cheeseburger, but of all the great cheeseburgers he could have had, they just went to Burger King? Why did he pick that? (The husband's answer was, "Because Burger King paid them.") I was wondering if there was a promotion where Burger King was giving out Iron Man toys with kids' meals, but when we drove past one today, the husband said he didn't see any signs on the windows saying such.

Oh, and I wasn't thrilled with Tony actually announcing he was Iron Man at the end. Seemed like an odd ending to me. Well, ok, ending before the later ending.

So, yeah, a few minor quibbles, but overall, loved the movie!

"Luke Banana-walker battled with his inner shellfish when he began training to become a Jedi Steak."

OK, no, this isn't some weird new offshoot of the Star Wars universe. Well, in a sense it is, but it's not anything you'll see on the big screen or on TV. It was recently announced that ever-popular Mad Libs is going to be released in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones universes.

I remember playing with Mad Libs some when I was a kid, and I thought it was ok, but I never thought it was the barn-burner that some people did, so I won't be picking these up, but there will be plenty of other things to hold my interest.

My Star Wars obsession is going to be having quite a bit of competition in the next several months. OK, so I'm really looking forward to the novelization of "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" that's being released on August 19. The husband is excitedly waiting for the arrival of the game itself, but I'm really just interested in the story, which sounds terrific, so the novelization is what I want.

And there's apparently a whole slew of new things being released in the Galactic Heroes (aka "little squat people") collection. Here's a run-down with pictures of a ton of stuff. Slave Leia and bartender R2 are funny. Destroyer droid!!!!!! We just got the Battle of Mustafar set from Target that includes pregnant Padme. The rancor is a bit funky, but I'll probably have to get him anyway - come on, it's the rancor! The couple sets after that all look pretty awesome. And here's a landspeeder that's not mentioned on that blog. Guess I'll have to regularly haunt Target, Walmart and Toys R Us for these new releases.

But it's not just little squat Star Wars folks. Hasbro is also going to be releasing little squat Indiana Jones folks! Here's a run-down of the first wave, with pictures galore. The snakes are a little more realistic than I like, so the husband may have to open those packages. I love Indy with the idol as well as Belloq with the Ark. There are a few other sets not mentioned in that article but which are on Hasbro's website. This is one set we're NOT getting. This one's pretty cool. This one's just funny, though I don't think his likeness is very good, and I have no idea why he's carrying an Indy doll.

And then, of course, Mr. Potato Head in the Indy collection is being released this weekend.




And obviously, the new film is being released later this month, so we're going to have to figure out whether we're going to a screening on the morning of opening day or the night/next morning of opening day.


But it's not just about Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Wall-E is gearing up as well. Recent merchandise news has been released - check out this blog entry for more info.


It looks like we'll be spending all that economic stimulus money that we're not getting.

upcoming movies

Since I've been spending quite a bit of time at the movies lately, that also means I've been seeing lots of trailers. When we're not seeing a lot of movies, I miss seeing all the stuff that's coming up, although sometimes that can be a blessing as well. I can't tell you how tired I got of seeing numerous trailers for "The Eye" and "The Ruins".

But with the summer movie season about to kick in, there are quite a number of movies coming up in the next multiple months that I'm interested in seeing. Here's a rundown of them.

I first saw the theatre standee for "Made of Honor", which is being released May 2, and it didn't do anything for me, but as I've been seeing the trailers, it looks funny. Yeah, it looks to be pretty predictable with standard romantic comedy overtones, but I like the physical comedy I've seen in the previews. Here's the link to the trailer.

When I first saw the trailer for "Iron Man", which is being released May 2, I was very surprised to see Robert Downey, Jr. in the lead role. I guess everyone is doing these kinds of films nowadays. It looks like it'll be interesting, though. Here's the link to the trailer.

I remember watching and loving "Speed Racer" as a child, and even though I really can't tell you much about what I watched (other than that whenever I've been stuck at a train crossing, I've always wished I had his car so that I could jump over everything and be on my way), I'm interested in seeing the live-action feature film version, which is being released May 9. I'm not crazy about the Matrix-like funky special effects, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Here's the link to the trailer.

I enjoyed "The Chronicles of Narnia", so I'm interested in seeing "Prince Caspian", which is being released May 16. I've never read the books and haven't yet decided whether I want to attempt them. I've got too much stuff in the queue as it is, so it's not like I'm looking for things to read, but it's something I might consider in the future. I might have to watch the first film again to orient myself before seeing this one. Here's the link to the trailer.

You would pretty much have to be living under a rock to not know that the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series is being released May 22. I'll be spending the majority of May trying really hard to avoid spoilers, especially once the film premieres at Cannes. I'm looking forward to seeing the film - the trailer looks great, I'm excited that Marion (Karen Allen) is back, and I'm interested in seeing how Shia LeBeouf does in the film. Here's the link to the trailer.

I hadn't heard until recently that they were making yet another version of "The Incredible Hulk", which is being released June 13. The last version didn't interest me enough to actually see it, especially with the horrid special effects, so I was pretty ho-hum about this version - until I saw the trailer. It looks pretty good, and I find it interesting that Edward Norton is playing Bruce Banner. With the cast also including Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Robert Downey, Jr., I'm looking forward to seeing how this version pans out. Here's the link to the trailer.

I've already talked about being excited to see "Wall-E", which is being released June 27. We're planning on getting tickets for opening night at the El Capitan as soon as they go on sale. (You don't really need me to link to the trailers, do you?)

It'll be a two-movie weekend since I'm also interested in seeing "Wanted", which is also being released June 27. I'm not a particular fan of Angelina Jolie, but the trailer looks awesome, and Morgan Freeman is in it, so how could you go wrong? Here's the link to the trailer.

I recently saw the trailer for "Hellboy II", which is being released July 11, and it looks kind of interesting. I've never seen the first film, and watching this trailer made me think about a city full of the inhabitants of Tatooine's cantina. The husband wants to see the film, and he's recommending that I watch the first film so that I can understand this one better. Here's the link to the trailer.

The second installment of the new Batman series, "The Dark Knight", is being released July 18. I was looking forward to seeing the film anyway as I love this particular incarnation of the story (I was not a fan of Batman being played by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer or George Clooney though admittedly, I didn't see the last couple movies in the series.), but it'll be sad to see Heath Ledger's last role, in which he supposedly does an amazing job. Here's the link to the trailer.

The movie I'm most excited to see, "Mamma Mia", is also being released July 18. It's going to be a bit of a schizophrenic weekend at the movies. (You don't need me to link to this trailer either, do you?)

I had heard nothing about "Tropic Thunder", which is being released August 15, and as I watched the trailer, it wasn't really the kind of movie I'd normally be interested in - except for one element. The apparently-very-busy Robert Downey, Jr. is in this film, playing a critically-acclaimed Australian actor who undergoes a controversial medical procedure so that he can play an African-American character in the movie-within-a-movie. The trailer footage of him looks incredible, so I think I'm going to have to see this movie just for him alone. Here's the link to the trailer.

Another movie that I'd known nothing about is "Hamlet 2", which is being released August 22. But we saw the trailer recently, and we were laughing so hard that it's one of the movies I'm looking forward to seeing the most. It's just completely irreverent, and the show-within-the-movie just looks outrageous. Here's the link to the trailer.

I'd heard that they were doing a remake of "The Women", which is being released October 10. I'd seen the original film as well as read the original play and enjoyed them both. The casting of this new version is pretty interesting, so I'm interested to see how it comes out. There's apparently no trailer available yet.

"Survivor", "Celebrity Apprentice", "Knight Rider", "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", "Big Brother", "Law and Order", the Oscars and Barbara

OK, I'm catching up on about a week and a half's worth of shows, so this is going to be a long one with lots in it. Miscellaneous notes on other shows are at the end.


"Survivor" - previous week

On the way back from tribal council, Ozzy apparently caught a fish barehanded. What the heck with him? On the complete other side, the fans couldn't start a fire, even though they had flint. OK, so they're super fans, they've watched every single episode of the series. I've seen a lot of the series, and while I might not be able to start a fire, I know that hacking off chunks of the flint is not how you're supposed to use it to start a fire, not to mention that they wasted about half the flint trying to do it that way.

The fans were having a really hard time coming together as a group. They'd had no food or water, and the division in the group was shown literally when three of the members, the older group, decided to make a shelter just for themselves. The remaining group made their own shelter, with a fire finally started between the two shelters.

Meanwhile, on the favorites, Amanda and Ozzy's budding relationship was attracting attention, but Ozzy was wary of what people perceived. Umm, then you might want to watch you're doing then. They're perceiving what they're seeing, and they're seeing a lot. Don't assume that everyone's asleep and not conscious of what you're doing. If Amanda noticed and commented on James and Parvati, then it wasn't that hard for Jonathan and Cerie to figure out what was happening with Ozzy and Amanda when they started making out in the sleeping area.

On a completely different note, it was cool watching them eat the giant clam. That stuff is good! And you can't get any fresher.

When the two groups met for the next challenge, the fans applauded when they found out that John had been voted out the night before.

The challenge was for combined immunity and reward - fishing gear and a boat. It was funny to see Ozzy's reaction to that, so excited. Yeah, dude, like you need them - you caught a fish barehanded, remember?

The faves ended up winning the challenge, and they picked Kathy (who already had an immunity idol, thanks to Yau Man) to go to Exile Island. They were then told they had to send one of their own as well, and they picked Cerie. Kathy and Cerie went in search of the hidden immunity idol, but the clues led them to swim back and forth between two islands. It was fun to watch Cerie get exhausted since she didn't normally do much. I also thought that previously, whoever was sent to Exile Island wasn't usually back for the vote and so got immunity from tribal council, but in this case, Kathy was back before they had to go to tribal. While we saw them go back and forth in search of the idol, we don't know what happened, whether or not they found it, and even if they did, who would get it? In the past, there was only one person on Exile Island, so would it be a matter of who actually gets to the idol first?

At the fan camp, everyone commented on how poorly Chet did, and the larger group had decided they were going to target the three-member group, though Kathy would be able to use her immunity idol since this was her first time at tribal council. However, Joel decided he didn't like Mike taking charge, so he surreptiously campaigned to vote off Mary, who was in an alliance with Mike. It was funny at tribal council to watch Jeff question Chet, Mary, Joel and Mike with very pointed, on-target questions. It was obvious that he was seeing (or someone was telling him) about the footage from earlier in the day, so he knew exactly what buttons to push in getting responses from them. In the end, Joel's efforts paid off, and both Mike and Mary were blindsided when Mary was voted out.


"Survivor" - last week

After tribal council, Mike and Joel talked since Mike figured out that Joel was probably behind voting Mary out. There was no resolution since neither one really trusted the other afterward. Things weren't much different at the faves' camp as both alliances of four fought over Cerie. Cerie tried to figure out which side to align with, but she should be careful since it's happened before that the "swing vote" ended up being the person voted out when they played both sides and neither side could trust them. Being in the middle can be a powerful position, but it can also backfire on you. And I had remembered not liking Cerie from her previous appearance, but I couldn't remember exactly why. After seeing this episode, I remembered. She complained that neither side was really giving her special treatment, that they should be doing favors for her and other nice things, and they should carry her around. She said the last bit jokingly, but sorta not. Ummm, yeah, lady, whatever. I remember now that she was pretty lazy and didn't do anything and wanted other people to do stuff for her before, which was partly why I didn't like her, and that was back then, so her wanting it now shows she hasn't changed any. Yep, still want other people to do for you. How about doing for yourself?

The reward challenge involved fighting over bags, which the faves won, which earned them three groups of items that they chose out of a catalog. They again choose Kathy to go to Exile Island, and this time, they choose Aimee to go with her. Aimee was very enthusiastic about looking for the idol, but Kathy was understandably not as eager to go back and forth from island to island again. We still don't know if the idol has been found yet.

That night, the fans' shelter turned out to suck bigtime and provided no relief from the rainstorm. The team barely got any sleep, and they were still weak from lack of food. But in true you-never-know-what's-going-to-happen-on-Survivor style, even though the faves were fed and well-rested, the fans still did better in the immunity challenge and ended up beating the faves. The challenge was for half the team to be holding a net, and the other half of the team would be trying to toss coconuts into the other team's net, and whoever held on the longest won.

At the faves camp before tribal council, there was a lot of negotiating back and forth about who to vote out. Cerie was adamant about voting off Yau Man because she was sure he'd find the immunity idol on Exile Island if he went. Does that mean they didn't find it or was she just bluffing? I guess she was familiar with Yau Man's time on his previous show, as her desire to get him out seemed to be motivated by what a threat he turned out to be by the end of the show versus the non-threat he started out as. Cerie managed to get the alliance of two couples to vote with her, and Yau Man was voted off. I was confused that Aimee voted for Cerie. Not sure where that came from. I wonder if that will show up in the next episode. The preview for the next episode also hints that the immunity idol on Exile Island was or will be found.


"Celebrity Apprentice" - previous week

Team Hydra talked about how much they were enjoying working together, unaware that Donald Trump was about to re-divide the team members.

The new Hydra consisted of Piers, Omarosa, Carol and Lennox, and the new Empresario consisted of Tito, Marilu, Stephen and Trace. Marilu was understandably pleased with her new team, but whether or not Piers and Omarosa could work together remained to be seen.

The task was in Central Park, where they were to run a horse and carriage business with a team of 3 drivers. The going price was $34 per ride, but their challenge was to make as much as they could, so celebrity contacts came into play in the challenge again.

Trace was project manager of Empresario, and Piers was project manager of Hydra. All of the team members called their contacts to come out and bring money, and Piers informed his team that his decision in the boardroom would be based solely on who made the most money, so he was extremely happy when Omarosa was unable to bring even one person in. Even though they had decided to put their differences aside to win the challenge, a major blow-up occurred when Omarosa was filling out paperwork, and she spelled Piers' name wrong and barely acknowledged her mistake. She then said that Piers was petty because he got upset, but considering she never even acknowledged her error, and if she really didn't know, she could have asked. Also I expect that she would have been equally angry if he had spelled her name wrong. They had a heated fight in the van over, and Piers fired her, with Piers and Lennox getting out of the van to walk while Carol was left with Omarosa.

Empresario stopped to get roses and champagne for their business, and Marilu was really happy to be able to work with no drama. She was probably the happiest about the team redivision. Stephen called in yet another brother, Billy, who showed up, and they auctioned off a carriage ride with him. Tito was also able to bring in a celebrity, his girlfriend Jenna Jamieson, and for her contribution, she wanted to take a ride with him. We took a carriage ride when we were in New York in 2006, and it really was as beautiful as we saw during their carriage ride. I think our driver was from Ireland.

During the challenge, Omarosa was completely belligerent and insulting to Piers and ignored anything he said to her. She never acknowledged her part in creating the drama, and to me, she stooped much lower than was called for. She constantly referred to Piers' children and how they must be so disappointed in him and how another man was raising them. (I'm assuming Piers and his wife are divorced and she remarried and has custody of the children.) Omarosa had been dismissive of Piers many times previously, even though he had made a name for himself, not only for being a celebrity judge but in running a newspaper business, but Omarosa held herself up higher, even though her only claim to fame has really been from being on the show previously. But even with all that, at least it was about the individual person, and it was about business. Resorting to personal attacks that involved his children was really uncalled for, especially since she didn't do all that much during this challenge.

While Empresario was combining celebrity contacts with regular park guests as passengers, Piers decided to hold Hydra's carriages for the big spenders they were expecting. He wanted to make sure a carriage was available when the big spenders showed up rather than have all the carriages out for people paying less money, so the carriages sat there a lot, unused.

In the boardroom, the fighting between Piers and Omarosa continued, and the other team was shocked when Piers detailed Omarosa's attacks on his children. Piers said that he wouldn't quit, but he refused to work with her any more. However, even with all the problems on Hydra and all the harmony on Empresario, Hydra pulled off the win. Trump then decided to move Omarosa back to Empresario.

Trump was extrememly dismayed that Hydra won because he said that if Empresario had won, his decision would have been so much easier because they all knew who he would have fired on Hydra. I was surprised to hear that because it seemed like it would be a tossup between Omarosa and Piers. I think he might have picked Omarosa since she contributed nothing to that particular challenge, and she had failed during her stint as project manager. But since it was Hydra that won, he had no idea who to fire from Empresario. None of their members had anything bad to say about any of their teammates as well, so Trump made the decision, I think the right one, not to fire anyone, because no one deserved it for that challenge, and no one had a history that would have really played into it. It would have been a completely arbitrary decision of who to fire. At the end, he decided to move Marilu to Hydra, making the teams even again.


"Celebrity Apprentice" - last week

The new challenge involved QVC, and the teams were taken by helicopter to QVC's headquarters in Pennsylvania, where they would write and produce a 10 minute live segment as a commercial for a new product. Stephen was project manager for Empresario, and Marilu was project manager for Hydra. They had a choice of six items they could sell, and if both teams picked the same item, they would have to negotiate to see who would get it. Both teams initially picked the ladderkart, and Empresario had decided that if they both picked the same item, they would just toss a coin to decide since neither was going to give in. They did the coin toss, and Hydra won, so they got to go with the ladderkart. They decided to go with Marilu as the on-air person with the male host from QVC, even though Piers initially wanted to go with Lennox, but Lennox said he'd been overused. Empresario then chose the lightweight heavy-duty cordless sweeper and decided to go with Trace as the on-air person with QVC's female host. Omarosa wanted to rehearse before the segment, but Stephen said no. On a side note, why does she call everyone "son"? To me, it sounds condescending and belittling, but I'm told it can be an ethnic and regional expression that isn't necessarily intended to be that way. Maybe it's the tone in which she says it that gives me that impression. Or just because she seems to be a self-important raving bitch so much of the time.

Hydra had their spot first, with Lennox and Piers in the control room, and Marilu was excited and had a lot of energy, but it wasn't controlled energy, so she was pretty much just talking and talking and talking, even talking over the caller on the phone. She sort of demonstrated the item, but she pretty much did the same thing repeatedly, and she almost seemed to rely on her own love of the item to sell it rather than actually selling the item itself.

When it was Empresario's turn, Trace was calm and quiet and explained and demonstrated all the good points of the sweeper, and he also mentioned easy pay, which Stephen had gotten from speaking to a QVC guy, which allowed people to pay in 5equal payments instead of paying all at once.

In the end, Empresario won both because they had a higher selling price and because they sold more units. When Trump mentioned easy pay to Hydra, they were shocked to hear about it, even Carol, who had worked for QVC for five years and knew nothing of it. Trump told Marilu to choose the one person who wouldn't be coming back into the boardroom, and she picked Carol. Later, Trump said he didn't understand why she picked Carol rather than picking Lennox, and that even with Marilu's and Piers' assertions that Lennox was sleepy and not very helpful in the early part of the day, Trump mentioned Carol not knowing about easy pay. I wonder if he would have fired Carol had she been one of the two brought back, but then again, he also stated that Marilu as project manager was responsible for the task and she had also had a few hiccups in previous challenges, so in the end, Trump fired Marilu.


"Knight Rider"

A group of mens conned their way into the house of an inventor (Charles, played by Bruce Davison), who then had a heart attack and died. As the men searched the house, shooting an automated vacuum cleaner along the way, they encountered all kinds of different amazing electronic gadgets, but they were unable to stop the car, KITT, from getting away.

They then played the theme of the show, which was a cool re-done version of the original theme.

KITT then went to pick up Charles' daughter Sarah, who was at Stanford. Being a Cal grad, I will forgive the fact that she was a teacher at Stanford.

On another front, Mike Traceur had a car that had been used in racing, but he wasn't doing very well, and he owed his investors $90,000, who wanted to collect immediately, or harm would come to Mike and his friend/roommate.

Meanwhile, KITT 3000 (who used to be KITT 2000 in the previous show) had the ability to morph into a different kind of Mustang vehicle with different features and colors by way of nano technology, which is how KITT and Sarah escaped the men at Charles' house who were now after Sarah. KITT had been programmed to pick up Sarah and then find Mike, a friend of Sarah's since childhood, and when they discovered he was in Las Vegas, they headed there.

It turned out that the men were working for a group called Black River, a private security company who wanted Charles because of his work with Prometheus, a program for the military where weapons could be operated by remote control. They wanted to get control of Prometheus so they could control the weapons.

Sarah found Mike at the Montecito Hotel (which is the fictional hotel where NBC's show "Las Vegas" is based, and which is apparently used any time another NBC show has to go to a casino in Las Vegas). Black River's men came after Sarah and Mike, but Mike had previously been an Army Ranger, in special forces, so he was able to get himself and Sarah away from the men. After they got away, KITT wanted to go to the FBI, but Mike was against that idea. (On a separate note, they often showed shots of KITT talking by displaying various instruments on screen or showing the front of the car, which has lights that move back and forth. I couldn't help but think of the cylons from the original "Battlestar Galactica".)

FBI agent Carrie had been brought in to work with the County Sheriff on the case of Charles' death, but when she saw the body, she said that Charles was still alive. Charles had apparently been using a body double for some public appearances and other situations, and they showed in a flashback that it was the body double who stayed to confront the men while Charles escaped out a secret side door. After Carrie left, the County Sheriff was revealed to be working with the Black River men, and he passed on the information that Charles was still alive. Charles was running through the woods and ended up at a house, which we found out belonged to Jennifer, Mike's mother. Jennifer and Charles went to a hotel where he could call KITT, who then patched him through to Sarah, and Sarah relayed their whereabouts to Carrie, but the County Sheriff was also listening at the time, so he relayed the info to the Black River men. Mike ended up getting to Jennifer and Charles before the men did, and as they were escaping, Charles told Mike that he was in fact Michael Knight's son, and that he and his mother had to be left there for their own safety. The group ended up getting captured by the men, one of whom was hacking into KITT, and just before he got control of KITT, KITT shut down. In the ensuing melee, Jennifer was shot and died. The men left with Charles and left one man behind to kill Carrie and Mike and Sarah, but they overpowered the man and Mike drove KITT with Sarah in pursuit of Charles. During the ensuing chase, KITT was shot at, but because he was turned off, he could not use the nanotechnology to repair himself. Mike established eye contact with Charles at one point and then figured out what to do. He put KITT in the way of the car that Charles was in, and he had Sarah turn KITT on just before that, so before he could be taken over by the hacker, he was able to repair himself and make himself impenetrable - which was bad news for the car with Charles in it that ran right into them. Charles survived the crash, but his would-be captors did not.

On the way to Jennifer's funeral, Charles told Mike that he was resurrecting the Knight Foundation, and they wanted Mike to drive, but he refused. After the ceremony, when Mike was the only one left, he noticed a figure to the side, and when the figure came over, it was revealed to be Michael Knight himself. He said hello to his son and told him how he got involved in the Foundation, and he basically ended up talking Mike into driving for the Foundation. At the end, Mike was on to his first mission with KITT, with Charles, Sarah, Carrie and Mike's roommate, who was now working on KITT for the Foundation, bidding him farewell.


In recent years, there have been quite a number of "re-imaginings" of 70s and 80s television shows (like "S.W.A.T.", "Miami Vice", "Battlestar Galactica" and "Starsky & Hutch") where the new version pretty much completely ignores the existence of the original show. It's interesting that this year, there are two shows where it wasn't so much a re-done version as a continuing version. In this case, it's a passing of the torch, especially with Michael Knight's appearance and the new driver being his son. In the case of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", it's a continuation of the story as we know it, filling in blanks of time we didn't know about.

I generally enjoyed the show, though they had some of the same problems inherent in the first episode of anything, where they had to do a lot of explaining of who everyone was and what their relationship was. You pretty much have to lay the groundwork before you can really do the fun stuff. I thought Justin Bruening was very good as the title character, and I think he's got the right combination of seriousness, charm and humour to pull off the role. I don't quite have a feeling when it comes to the voice of KITT. If I hadn't already known, I don't think I would have been able to figure out that it was Val Kilmer. There's been much speculation about how they would tackle KITT since his voice was almost more iconic than Michael Knight or the car itself. I like that they decided to go in a completely different direction, so that there was no direct comparison. Kilmer's KITT is more mechanical and inquisitive and literal, not snarky and "British", for lack of a better term, like his predecessor. This KITT is more like the good female terminator in "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" or Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation".

The movie apparently did very well in ratings, so there's a good chance it will come back as a series. I will be looking forward to seeing more of the show.


"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" - last week

Derek didn't trust Cameron because he knew she was a terminator, and he didn't want anything to do with her.

Charlie did his best to save Derek, and then he later wanted to know from Sarah why she left him. She said she didn't want to but she had to. Charlie later said that Derek needed blood, but he wasn't sure where they'd find the matching blood type. John offered his blood, which was a match, though neither John nor Sarah explained why. Charlie told Sarah that the FBI guy had come by to ask questions about her but he hadn't told him anything. John considered telling Derek who he really was, but ultimately he decided not to and just told Derek that Kyle died a hero, fighting to the last.

There were a lot of segments in the future time when the resistance forces were fighting Skynet. Derek and Kyle were together, and Kyle had the familiar picture of Sarah. Derek was then captured by the terminators and then put into some kind of holding area, where he met someone named Andy, who told Derek it was all his fault, that he was one of the people who had built Skynet. One by one, the prisoners were taken to what seemed like a torture chamber that had nice classical music, but we never saw what happened there. Everyone who came back was exhausted enough to be barely able to walk. Hopefully, we'll learn more about that later. Eventually, Derek was let go, and when he made it back to his underground tunnel, he discovered that the terminators had destroyed it. He was told by another person that John and Kyle were at some facility but then Kyle was gone. We know that's when John sent Kyle back to protect Sarah and John, but Derek didn't know that. In the future timeline, Cameron was also a good terminator who ended up taking out a terminator gone bad, and she ominously warned Derek that sometimes, they went bad for no reason. Derek then met up with John again and was sent on his own mission back in time to the present timeline. Because of his earlier conversation with Andy, Derek knew that he needed to kill him. Even though he told Sarah that he didn't kill Andy, it was shown that he lied as he was in fact responsible for Andy's death. But we still didn't know what happened to Andy's computer.

In the current timeline, Cameron was dismembering and taking apart the terminator that they had destroyed, the one that had been after Derek. She was going to pour some solution on it that would dissolve everything. Sarah later came in to check on her progress and was adamant that every single piece of the terminator be destroyed, but she was unaware that Cameron had saved the power source instead of destroying it.


"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" - this week

Cameron was dressed as a police officer on a motorcycle (what is it with terminators and motorcycles and leather and shades?) and deliberately caused a massive power outage in the city and then went to the police station, which was in disarray, and she went into the evidence lockers, and we found out later that she was looking for the terminator's hand.

The FBI agent (James Ellison) went to the mental hospital where Sarah had been held, and he watched video of her in one of her sessions. It was also revealed that he was in possession of the terminator's hand. When he was later away from his house, Sarah broke in, saw the tapes that he had, and took one of them. Later at the house, John stumbled upon it and watched it, which then upset him enough for him to leave the house. Sarah then discovered that he had watched the tape, which had been of her signing papers to give up John.

Meanwhile, Derek told Sarah that they needed to track down Dimitri, Andy's partner who taught the computer chess and who had disappeared. Sarah told Cameron that Dimitri's sister was a dance teacher, so Cameron signed up for her class, with the sister telling her that dance was the language of the soul.

Derek and Cameron were at the dining table, and Derek told Cameron that she could fool other people into thinking she was real, but she couldn't fool him. She then pulled a plate of pancakes to her and very deliberately took a forkful and ate it, which stunned Derek.

Ellison had gone to visit Dr. Silverman, who had retired after being Sarah's psychiatrist at the mental hospital. However, Silverman drugged Ellison because he thought Ellison might be a terminator from the future, so when Ellison came to, tied to a chair, Silverman decided to test him - by plunging a humongous knife into his leg. Silverman then believed that Ellison was human after passing that rather painful test. He then wondered if the apocalypse that Sarah had mentioned the machines would bring was the same apocalypse mention in the Bible. He said that he had been skeptical about everything Sarah had told him, but he became a believer when he saw the fight between the older, bigger terminator model and the newer, shiny, morphing terminator model. Unfortunately, he said he had no proof, so Ellison offered him proof - he had brought the terminator's hand, and it was in the trunk of his car. Once Silverman retrieved it (with Ellison still tied up - I knew he should have had Silverman untie him first), he said that the hand couldn't end up with the wrong people, so he gave Ellison a shot of something and then set his cabin on fire, presumably intending to leave Ellison to burn to death inside. As Silverman was leaving though, he encountered Sarah and apologized for not having believed her previously. Sarah decked him, said "apology accepted" and took off with the hand. (On a side note, Dr. Silverman was played by Bruce Davison, who recently portrayed the creator of KITT from "Knight Rider". Dude, you developed this super-intelligent car and yet you didn't believe Sarah was telling the truth that machines could become independently intelligent and do whatever the heck that they wanted? Yeah, yeah, I know. It was just messing with my head, like when I saw James Cromwell in "The Queen" just after he'd been revealed to be a bad guy on "24". Apparently, Prince Philip was a murderous treacherous liar and bad father. I kept expecting Prince Philip to kill people. But I digress.)

Cameron went back to see the dance teacher and intervened when a thug reappeared and threatened her. By gaining her trust this way, she then told the teacher she was looking for Dimitri and that she could help him, so the teacher took her to where Dimitri was, which freaked him out because he was afraid they had been followed. Dimitri told her that he had arranged to lose the final match to the Japanese by programming the computer to make a fatal error. He had already sold the computer and needed to get it out, and if they had won, he wouldn't have been able to do that. When Cameron asked who he sold the computer to, he handed her a business card. Sure enough, Dimitri then noticed that thugs had pulled up in a car, and they didn't know what to do. His sister said that Cameron would help them, and Cameron went out the door, but she just allowed the men through as they pushed past her in the hallway and went inside to kill Dimitri and his sister. Cameron heard their screams but she did nothing to intervene, presumably because she had already gotten the information she needed about where the computer went. She has mentioned on several occasions with regard to herself and other terminators that they set out to complete their mission and nothing else. Her mission had not been to save Dimiti and his sister, only to get the information, so she had allowed them to be killed. Cameron later gave the business card she had obtained from Dimiti to Sarah, so presumably, we'll find out more in the next episode.

Conversely, we saw that as Sarah was leaving the cabin, the windows blew out, and she heard Ellison's cries for help. We later discovered that she had gone back to rescue him. Her mission had been to retrieve the hand, and Ellison was really collateral, but her humanity could not let him die in that fire.

When Sarah returned to the house, she told John she knew he was mad at her for giving him up. She explained to him that right after she had signed the document, she knew it was a mistake, and she was in the middle of breaking out of the mental hospital when he had come to rescue her.

In a bit of fitting irony, Ellison then committed Silverman into the very mental hospital where he was formerly a doctor, and he was now the one ranting about the machines and the apocalypse. We then saw Ellison at a prayer meeting - was he covering for Sarah or did he just believe now in Judgement Day?

At the very end, Derek surreptitiously watched Cameron as she performed a ballet piece beautifully - and he cried and was appalled that she could duplicate the moves and feelings so well. There have been a lot of hints that Cameron is becoming more than just a machine, and that her helping John and Sarah is giving her the ability to learn a lot. That, coupled with her secretly keeping a piece of the terminator, sets up something going horribly wrong. I guess we'll find out next week in the two-hour season finale.

I hadn't realized it, but apparently, the actor who plays John Connor was also on "Heroes", as Claire's friend from high school who was filming her exploits of being able to heal herself no matter what.

It's been a really long time since I've seen any of the Terminator movies, so when Silverman was recounting the terminator fight he had witnessed, I hadn't really remembered him being there. I had to know, so we put a DVD of "T2" in and watched that whole sequence, and yep, there he was, standing against the wall during the whole thing. I think I had been too busy focussing on the main story to remember him having been there. What a great movie. We got as far as them getting to the parking garage and Sarah about to commandeer a car. We had to stop at that point, since it was already late, and I was getting so embroiled in the film again that I could have just watched the whole rest of the film right then and there.


"Big Brother" - Tuesday episode

Jen was extremely upset about having been nominated, so she tried to make a deal to be in an alliance with Amanda and that she would do whatever Amanda wanted her to. Meanwhile, Ryan assured Allison of his loyalty, that he wasn't going to lay down just to let Jen stay in the game.

We were then told that Neil had had to leave the house due to personal matters. There was no mention of what the reason was, and there has still been no real info released, but this story based on a myspace message posted by Neil has a little bit of information. It was also revealed that last week's evicted pair, Jacob and Sharon, had been at a sequester house (first I'd heard of that), so Joshuah could pick either of them to come back and be his partner. Joshuah knew how hated Jacob was so he picked Sharon. I was sad that Neil had to leave. I expect it had to be something fairly serious, so I hope all is well with him and his family. Neal and Joshuah were my favorite couple in the house. After Sharon came back into the house, Joshuah filled her in on Jen and Ryan, and she was furious that they had lied about their relationship.

Amanda flirted a lot and wanted a lot of attention, and she ended up being very friendly with Parker, which made Alex mad, because, as we later found out, he liked Amanda and was jealous of Parker. Amanda's really high-pitched voice really irritated me. I've never understood why that is supposed to be appealing.

Jen and Ryan were all over each other since they no longer had to keep their secret. If they wanted people to even consider keeping both of them in the house, they should have downplayed the relationship, not flaunted it. They went even further by having a quicky sex session in the bathroom, the only place without cameras, but they were discovered by Parker, who was going to use the bathroom and heard them through the door. Ummm, so there's only one bathroom in the entire downstairs area?

Chelsia knew about Allison's and Sheila's story that they were a lesbian couple with a son, so she told James, who didn't reveal all the details to Alex but just said he thought there was another secret couple in the house and that Alex should keep an eye out, so Alex was suspicious of Amanda and Parker, but when he confronted Amanda, she was angry and indignant and told Parker, and based on what Alex told her, she thought James had specifically pointed the two of them out, so Parker and Amanda were mad at James. Added into that mix was Chelsia being mad at Amanda for bad-mouthing James and Alex clarifying that James hadn't mentioned them by name but simply said to keep an eye out. I don't recall there being quite that much drama involving so many of the houseguests in the time that I've been watching.

For the veto competition, the HoH couple and the two nominated couples participated, and the other couple chosen to participate were Natalie and Matt, with Joshuah chosen as host. The challenge involved one member of the couple being strapped onto a wheel and having to keep a button depressed and the other member spinning the wheel, with the winner being whoever got to 300 revolutions first or whoever stayed on the longest without letting go of the button. Allison's hand accidentally dropped off the button, so she and Ryan were out first. Amanda and Alex were out next because she accidentally let go of the button, but she revealed in her diary entry later that she had done it on purpose. She reasoned that they were already targets because they were HoH, and she didn't want them to become bigger targets by winning the power of veto. In the end, Matt and Natalie were the winners of the competition by getting to 300. Matt later promised Parker that he would take him off, but ultimately, Matt and Natalie decided to not use the veto and let the nominations stand.


"Big Brother" - Wednesday episode

Further to Amanda's need to be the center of attention, she also gossiped a lot, about everyone and everything. I'm not even sure she necessarily realized what she was doing - she just needed to be talking all the time. She made some comment about Chelsia that made her mad at Amanda, and after Chelsia called her on it, Joshuah really went after her, screaming at her with obscenities and such. When someone made the comment that she should be given a noose (a common phrase to use, implying that one is going to hang oneself on his or her own words), Joshuah followed it up with "just like her father", making a reference to Amanda's earlier disclosure that her father had committed suicide by hanging himself. That outraged Amanda and brought her to tears, and it quieted the rest of the house. Joshuah's expletive-laden screaming at her was one thing, but that kind of comment was seriously uncalled for. I had liked Joshuah before, but his making that comment really affected my opinion of him.

Jen was trying to save herself from being evicted, so she told Sheila that Ryan was racist and that he didn't like the fact that she had previously dated a black man. Sheila eventually told Ryan what she said, and Ryan was really mad because it wasn't just about the game - it was about their relationship. Jen was then mad at Sheila for telling Ryan, and she denied having called Ryan a racist, even though it was caught on camera. I couldn't tell if Jen was actively lying or if she really didn't realize/remember that she had said that.

When it came time for the voting, it wasn't revealed what the individual votes were, which I thought was odd, but by a vote of 3 to 1, Jen and Parker were evicted. One thing that made me happy about that was that Matt wasn't going to have to say Parker's name anymore. His really strong Boston accent bothered me, and whenever he would say Parker's name, my initial reaction was to wonder who he was talking about, and it would take a second for my brain to filter that he was referring to Parker. So Jen and Parker were the second couple evicted, but because they had won the earlier challenge, they each got $5,000.

Another odd thing about the voting is that I think it was said that both members of a couple had to agree on who to evict, and if they couldn't agree, then they ran the risk of being evicted themselves. Since they've never had couples before, it was never an issue previously, and I guess they had to have some incentive for each couple to have to make a decision. I guess we'll see in the future what the consequences might be if a couple can't agree on who to evict.

The new HoH challenge was one where they had to guess how the majority of the house would answer certain questions, and whatever the majority picked would actually happen. So they had to pick between no hot water and no hot food, and they picked no hot water. That made no sense to me. You can have lots of decent food that's not hot, and it's only for a week, but to go without hot water for a week would be a serious issue for me. They also had to pick between there being no cups in the house or no utensils, and they picked no cups. That made no sense either. You can improvise for utensils, and there are lots of things you don't even need utensils for, especially if they had picked "no hot food", but it's harder to improvise when there are no cups. There was something about the women being in bikinis for 24 hours, and then they had to choose between a margarita party and something else, and they chose the margarita party, which is going to be really interesting considering they have no cups. Maybe they'll use spoons since they still have those? There was something else about women cooking dinner, and another where they chose to have no washing machine for a week, but at least they'd still be able to hand-wash, so that wouldn't be so bad. The winners of the HoH competition ended up being Chelsia and James, which really disturbed Amanda and Alex because of the drama earlier.


"Big Brother" - Sunday episode

James and Chelsia promised Matt and Natalie that they would not be nominated, which made Matt and Natalie happy. Instead, James decided to target Alex and Amanda, and he made an agreement with Ryan and Adam to get Alex and Amanda out next.

The houseguests were shown trying to improvise cups by using bowls for everything instead. We noticed that some of the footage they showed during this episode must have been from before because there were still cups lying around the house whereas at the end of the previous episode, when they went back in the house after the HoH competition, all the cups had been removed. We never saw anything having to do with the women in bikinis, but maybe that'll be shown later, in addition to the margarita party and the other effects of the HoH competition.

Allison and Sheila had previously told Joshuah their lie about being a couple, and Joshuah relayed their "secret" to Sharon. It turned out that Allison wanted to tell Joshuah and Chelsia the truth about her and Sheila, though she was afraid of how Joshuah would take their lie about their sexuality. They were pretty much doing what Jen and Ryan did when they revealed their relationship because they thought Allison was going to spill. In this case, Allison was afraid someone was going to use their lesbian story against them, so they decided to come clean first.

After the big blow-up from the previous episode, Amanda forgave Joshuah for his reference to Amanda's father, and she offered him an alliance. He said he didn't know if he could trust her, and she said he could, but he didn't technically accept her offer, though I think she thought he did.

Natalie revealed that she was falling for Matt. (Does it irritate him or anyone else that she refers to him as "Matty"?). While Matt said he could be attracted to her, he rebuffed her repeated advances because he didn't want to be distracted from the game.

The food challenge involved the six couples being divided into two teams, and half of the team would be holding individual nets while the other team members would be throwing fish into the opposing team's nets. How weird that this was almost exactly like last week's immunity challenge on "Survivor", except there were three individual nets rather than one group net and they were throwing fish rather than coconuts. The yellow team won, so that meant that the green team was on slop for the week. However, even though Chelsia and James were on the green team, they still retained full food privileges because they were HoH.

After the challenge, Amanda claimed that people still didn't like her and were picking on her because at one point, the opposing team members were all throwing fish into her net to get her to drop it. Umm, no, honey, the world does not in fact revolve around you. It was complete strategy. Your own team had already targeted and succeeded in bringing down Ryan on the other team, and your teammate James was targeted before you.

Up in the HoH bedroom, there was some tension and flirting between James and Chelsia. (I want to know what James' tattoos say. They must be really bad because they were all blurred out.) Chelsia and James engaged in their own make-out session in bed.

Allison and Sheila decided to tell Chelsia the truth about their lesbian lie, and then Chelsia had them tell James. Allison then later told Joshuah, and I loved Joshuah's line that with Allison and Sheila supposedly not lesbians and Joshuah was now sharing a bed with a woman, he wasn't even sure if he was gay anymore.

The nominated couples came as a surprise, moreso to some than others. Alex and Amanda were nominated, but Matt and Natalie were also nominated (even though James had said they wouldn't be), with James explaining that nominating them was the only way to guarantee that they would participate in the PoV competition and that the real targets were Alex and Amanda.


"Law and Order: CI" - A dentist who had an expensive private practice as well as a low-income clinic was found dead. The detectives tracked down two kids who had one of his credit cards, and they told the detectives that they saw a woman leave his office. It turned out that the woman's son had died after a visit with the dentist. At first, he only seemed drunk, but then it got worse. The dead boy's friend revealed that several of them had broken into the dentist's office, and they were drinking mouthwash to get high. However, it turned out that the dentist had contaminated mouthwash which had traces of a chemical found in anti-freeze in it, and with the large quantities that kids were drinking, the cumulative effect was killing them. The detectives discovered that the head of the company that made the mouthwash had a connection at the FDA so that any problems were covered up, but after the death of someone who was going to expose that connection, it turned out that one of the company executives who had felt ignored and devalued had purposely triggered an allergy attack from the man and then given him a fake inhaler. Yeah, OK, so I don't think I got all the details of the story. Truthfully, I was bored with the episode, so I didn't care that much.


"Law and Order" - An orthopedic surgeon who was attending a doctor's convention was found dead in his room. The detectives tracked down a woman who was advertising for some company, and it turned out that she and a partner had a scheme to scam married men out of money. She would seduce them and then they'd ask for hush money to cover up the affair, although in this case, the man had ultimately turned her down before he was killed. It turned out that the wrong person was killed. The dead man was staying in a room registered to another doctor who didn't end up going to the convention. The other doctor had made the acquaintance of a warden, who had asked him for help. The warden had been unable to find any local doctors willing to attend when death sentences by lethal injection were being carried out, so the warden had flown in this doctor from out of town to be the attending physician, but in one case, something went horribly wrong, and a man who had killed two people had instead been turned into a vegetable and used as a rallying cry/sympathy case by those opposing capital punishment. The person who killed the doctor turned out to be a relative of the people who the man had murdered. The relative had attended the execution, hoping for closure, but instead, he saw the person who had murdered his loved ones turned into a martyr. The doctor had refused to testify against him, but the DA's office decided to prosecute him for murder in two cases where the death sentences were carried out before all the appeals had been exhausted. Their real intention was to out him as a doctor who assisted in executions, a fact he had been trying to keep quiet. In the end, he was forced to testify, but because the man who killed the wrong doctor felt bad about what he'd done, he ended up pleading out. Yeah, I wasn't all that interested in this episode either, even though some of the premise was interesting.

I'm still hovering on stopping watching the shows. The preview for this week's "Law and Order" looked good, so we'll see how that turns out. It's been announced that Jesse L. Martin will be leaving the show, partly because he will be playing Marvin Gaye in the biographical film. I like the new guy ok, but he's still seriously new, so having yet another new guy, coupled with the new ADA and Jack not being Jack anymore, I'm not sure I can make it through another cast change.


80th Academy Awards

There have been years when I've eagerly watched the Oscars, but that hasn't happened in a while. My interest usually depends on how many of the majorly-nominated films I've seen. This year, the only movie I'd seen that was nominated in any major category was "Ratatouille", nominated for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay.

This year, I watched the show on DVR, starting with half an hour before the actual show started. I fastforwarded through the songs and the production numbers and the special tributes and most of the acceptance speeches. I only heard one or two of those. I also fastforwarded through most of the announcements of nominees and pretty much just stopped to hear the name of the winner. I was happy that "Ratatouille" won for Best Animated Feature and that "Juno" won for Best Original Screenplay. I listened to most of Jon Stewart's stuff, and I thought he was pretty good, and though I still would prefer that they leave all the political stuff out of it, he actually made comments about both sides. I stopped at various points to look at a few of the dresses that the women were wearing.

Jennifer Garner looked great in a beautiful dress and necklace, but Jennifer, get your hair out of your face. It doesn't look natural, it just looks messy. There were a few other women who had a similar kind of hairstyle as well.

Kathryn Heigel had on a great dress as well, slightly similar to Ann Hathaway's, but I liked Kathryn's better.

Jessica Alba wore a dress in a beautiful maroon color, but then she had some weird feathery stuff along the bodice line. I'm not a fan, but apparently others are, because other women had similar feathery stuff.

Amy Adams did the "hair draped over one shoulder" thing that a few of the other women were doing as well.

Helen Mirren had on a gorgeous dress, red in the body with sparkly sheer mid-sleeves. She looked beautiful.

John Travolta - What was up with his hair making him look like a vampire?


The Barbara Walters Special

After the Oscars, I watched the Barbara Walters special for the first time in years. I had noticed that Harrison Ford would be on, so I wanted to see that, but I actually enjoyed the entire show.

I don't know much about Miley Cyrus and didn't even know she was Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter for the longest time. I have of course heard of Hannah Montana and that whole madhouse, but I didn't know Miley had dark hair and wore a wig to play Hannah or that her concerts were six of one and half-dozen of the other. It was a really interesting interview. One of the questions Barbara asked her was with reference to other girls who had stardom at an early age (like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan) and the trouble they've gotten into and how was she going to avoid that. Miley's answer was that her faith and her family were going to keep her from getting into that kind of trouble. Even though she has perqs that most 15-year-olds obviously don't have (like having your own wing of the mansion), it seemed from what she said that she still had to deal with consequences when she disobeyed her parents, and they were actually still parents to her. She seemed like a very grounded kid, and it's nice to see that not all parents of celebrities are abdicating their responsibilities.

I've heard interviews with Vanessa Williams before, so it was just fun watching her again. She certainly has gone through so much since winning, and stepping down from, the Miss America title. I knew that she had an amicable divorce from former Laker Rick Fox, but it was funny to hear that at one point, she and Rick and her other ex-husband all shared her house for a period of a couple weeks. It was also nice to hear that they have all maintained a good relationship because of their shared children.

I didn't know much about Ellen Page other than that she was the star of "Juno" and that she was nominated in the Best Actress category at that young age (she just turned 21 about a week ago) opposite some really heavy-hitters. I had meant to see "Juno" but still haven't gotten around to it, so hopefully, I'll be able to catch it sometime in the next week or so. I also hadn't realized that she had been in "X-Men: The Last Stand", the third film in the trilogy, as the girl who could walk through walls. Hers was another very interesting interview, and she too is very mature for having just turned 21.

Harrison Ford has come across as being a bit odd in recent years, whether during various awards shows when he hasn't seemed quite all there or drunk or whatever, and then there was his bizarre recitation of Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go" before last year's Superbowl. This was a very good interview, back to the Harrison that I'm familiar with. I had forgotten that part of what I love about him is that he and Ridley Scott had disagreed about Rick Deckard in "Blade Runner". While Scott insisted that Deckard was a replicant and fashioned the film that way, Harrison was adamant that Deckard was not and played him as not being a replicant. Yep, Harrison, you're right, he's not supposed to be a replicant. I'm really looking forward to seeing Indy IV.


Some good news has been released about "The Big Bang Theory". Now that the writer's strike is over, they will be coming back with new episodes, and because the show had been doing so well, they've already gotten an early pick-up for a second season. Yayyyyyy!!!!!


And speaking of the writer's strike, because it went on for so long and they didn't know when it was going to end, they had to come up with new programming, most of it reality shows since they don't require writers, and fruits of that labor are manifesting now on the schedule. Here are some of the gems you can look forward to seeing on a television channel near you: Amnesia, The Baby Borrowers, My Dad is Better Than Your Dad, Here Come the Newlyweds, and Just For Laughs.