Should I stay or should I go?
October 10th, 2007
By Fred Richardson
Sometimes nothing new holds our interest and that older release we’ve been meaning to see just left theaters. In my case it’s not that the movie I wanted to see was gone, it just was too many weeks out to be really timely for a printed review.
And I think Ben Stiller should stop making romantic comedies now.
I went to see last weeks terrorism action/thriller The Kingdom. Director Peter Berg does a competent job, but the movie is far from perfect. There are very powerful scenes and plotlines, but the whole thing just comes across as a synopsis of a very special Tom Clancy-inspired crossover between “CSI” and “The West Wing,” but with HBO language and violence. Really, it would be a great novel if Clancy had written it back when he was doing his best work. Then there’s the message/moral of the story. It seems like everything is there to service the message. Characters overcome obstacles with extreme ease and it hurts the obvious attempt the movie makes to be realistic.
On the positive side of the equation is the great acting and the last half-hour is a full-on action-packed masterpiece of the best sort. But ultimately the movie is merely average. Wait for the DVD release.
Mixed-media grab bag
Speaking of DVD releases, last week saw the release of one of my favorite movies this year. Knocked Up got the deluxe treatment with a 2-disc release featuring a slightly longer unrated cut and tons of extras. I have to admit that on second viewing, the movie didn’t shine as brightly for me, but I’ll still put it on my top 10 list for the year. The extras are fun, particularly on the second disc, with many of them gloriously self-aware and tongue-in-cheek.
Back to the Tube…
Last issue I talked about 3 pilots for new NBC shows. This time around I’ll follow up with a little bit about the second episodes. “Journeyman’s” second episode was pretty much more of the same but we seem to be getting hints about what exactly is going on. Hopefully we’ll get answers while more questions pop up a-la “Heroes” and not some giant ongoing mystery with no payoff like “Lost.”
“Bionic Woman” was better this time around by a little bit. What it felt like was the missing parts of the pilot. It’s as if there was a long introductory movie that got broken up in script stage. It felt a little more like the original series in theme if not tone, but comparisons to “Alias” still apply. I’m encouraged by the improvements and if they continue we’re in for a great ride very soon. Episode two of “Life” was as good as episode one and so long as the central mystery continues to unfold organically, it should be lots of fun. The show might outlast itself in much the same way as “The X-Files” did, but we should be so lucky, eh?
For those that missed the first episodes of the season, many of these shows are now viewable online at nbc.com, cbs.com, and abc.com with full episodes on streaming video. Nowadays you can go cheap on cable at home as the best shows are eventually released on DVD and current seasons are online without extensive commercials.
Now for another thing we look at on a screen: games. I’m an OLD gamer. My family had a Pong game when I was really young and I was a proud owner of an Atari 2600 and have played most major console systems on at least a casual basis. My personal preference is for PC-based games but the line has blurred quite a bit in the last few years.
Now I have an X-Box 360 as well as a modern PC so it’s time to fast forward for a quick review of the powerhouse release Halo 3. I’ve played the single player campaign all the way through but have yet to venture into the online component, so this applies to the story-based parts. In a word: eh.
It’s short. It’s mixed in difficulty. It’s fun, but not really innovative. On the second level of difficulty I finished the game in three sittings of less than five hours apiece and suspect the beer drinking accounted for quite a bit of that time. If you’ve never played a Halo game before, don’t try the single player part of this game till you play the original release and at least have someone tell you what happened at the end of Halo 2.
Next time: 30 Days of Night and more…
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