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April 12, 2008

Another Reason Why I Should Be in Charge of the Major Networks

I've made no secret of my love for the show Heroes. Well, let me rephrase. Approximately seven-eighths of the first season of Hearos was pretty much some of the best TV ever. Then that season ended and it was, well, not the best ending. In fact, it was one of the worst season finales I can think of. Then I got all geared up for the second season... and it kinda sucked. It was missing all the things that made the first season cool--you know, stuff like character development and a coherent story. Oh, and Hiro was in fucking feudal...

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April 2, 2008

Grammar for Idiots, Part I

In English, subjects and verbs have to agree. For example, "He runs" is correct, but "They runs" is incorrect. The latter should be "They run." When the noun is singular, as in "he runs," the verb must also be singular. When the noun is plural, as in "they run," the verb must also be plural. Now it's going to get complicated--if you're an idiot. You see, our language has many words for things that are really collections of other things. For example, instead of forcing us to say "a number of animals of the same species doing stuff together," English...

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March 10, 2008

Harbingers of Doom

We are fucked. Oil prices are breaking new records every day. We are mired in an endless war. Our President doesn't seem to mind torture. Our leaders are more corrupt than ever. Or perhaps they're not, which is even scarier. Yes, it seems that at almost every turn, we are confronted by evidence that our entire civilization is heading for the shit can. But the most compelling evidence that our culture is (rightfully) doomed comes from Hollywood. Yes, at a time when the entire entertainment industry seems to be completely out of original ideas and left with no option but...

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February 18, 2008

The New Knight Rider

Writers' strike notwithstanding, it's been evident for several years that Hollywood ran out of ideas several years ago. This is obvious because rather than bringing us new ideas, plots, and characters, they're instead repackaging things we loved when we were kids and claiming the thing is new and improved. More often than not, the producers of these "reimaginings" completely fail to understand what made the original thing awesome but, what's worse, think they understand exactly what will make the new thing awesomer. And, inevitably, what we get is some asshat's vision of something we've known and loved for years that...

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February 4, 2008

Super Bowl XLII

As I've said, I'm new to the whole "caring about football" thing. Still, last night's game as awesome. Or, well, the fourth quarter was awesome. And, actually, the rest of the game was much more exciting than the score might suggest. I was rooting for the Giants for a few reasons. First of all, I hate the Patriots. I hate the Patriots because the fucking media seems to be unable to stop themselves from felating Brady and Co. They are an amazing team, Brady is an amazing quarterback--even I can see that. But do we really need to mention it...

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January 14, 2008

Where No Untalented Black Man Has Gone Before . . . . (Updated)

I'm just going to go ahead and admit this for anyone that hasn't already picked up on this: I love Star Trek. I never really liked the original series. I think it's cheesy, predictable, and boring. I can see past the amazingly crappy special effects, but most of the stories are transparent morality plays and, as a result, all the characters are either completely flat or absolutely overdone. No, my love of Star Trek started with The Next Generation. That show was awesome. I still remember being relatively young and getting really excited whenever Jean-Luc Picard would start doing his...

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January 7, 2008

What's More American than Gladiators?

The new version of American Gladiators is awesome. I just watched what is apparently the second or third episode. It was pretty fucking cool. The producers have somehow managed to keep all the things that made the original series so awesome--including most of the best events. In fact, the only omissions I care about are Atlasphere, in which the competitors and gladiators rolled around in giant hamster balls, and Human Cannonball, in which the competitors swung on ropes and tried to knock the gladiators off of pedestals. But the absolute best events--like Assault and Joust--are back and, in the case...

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December 20, 2007

Clash of the Choirs

I've been watching Clash of the Choirs on NBC for some reason. Actually, I know the reason. See, I'm kind of a sucker for choirs. There's something about a bunch of people coming together to sing with one awesome voice that I really get into. I really like the interaction of a bunch of different voices, and there's not a more natural-sounding musical tone than the human voice. So, yeah, I like choirs. So I've been watching Clash of the Choirs. But here's the thing. I've been recording all of the episodes on my DVR and I've been using the...

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December 14, 2007

Knight Industries Three Thousand?

So, Knight Rider, perhaps the best show of the 1980s, is, like everything else that was once good, bad, terrible, excellent, or mediocre, getting remade. That may or may not be cool, I'm going to wait and see. But the show's already got one strike against it: KITT will not be a 1982 Trans Am. Instead, it'll be a 2008 Ford Shelby Mustang: Now, I love Mustangs, and I think that the late-model ones, this one included, look really fucking awesome. I really like the pseudoretro design. But they're just not KITT. This is what KITT's supposed to look like:...

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December 4, 2007

"Powerless" or "A Good End to A Subpar Story"

Tonight was the finale of Heroes's second volume, titled "Generations." Even after the completely underwhelming finale to the first volume, I was really pumped for the second one because the writers kept talking about how much we'd get to learn about all of the different characters' backgrounds and stuff. Can you say "backstory"? But, in the end, we didn't really get a lot of worthwhile information. We know who founded the Company, but they're all mostly dead. Except for Parkman's dad, who's disappeared, Angela Petrelli, who's a supercrazybitch, and Bob, who's just a bad father. And Adam, of course--let's hope...

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November 27, 2007

"Truth & Consequences" or "When Average Is Good"

As much as I love it, Heroes really has not been as good this season as it was at its best last season. Perhaps that's why good episodes like tonight's are still kind of disappointing. This would have been an average episode last season; this season, it's one of the best. Still, there was some good stuff and, as is unfortunately the case nowadays, some pretty stupid stuff. Peter, Adam, and Victoria Pratt We're off to save the world again. Only not really because Adam is a sociopath, but Peter's too stupid to see that, even when Adam kills someone...

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November 20, 2007

"Cautionary Tales" or "Fuck You, Mohinder"

Alright--another episode that reminds me of how good this series can be. From beginning to end, this episode was full of suspense and action. And, more importantly, it ostly executed well. For the first time in a while, each of the narratives felt cohesive and believable--with the exception of Hiro's decision to (yet again) travel back in time to try to save someone's life. Still, there was no Niki (although she was mentioned), and no Wonder Twins. That, right there, is a good thing. Hiro I still love Hiro, but the writers seem to be at a loss as far...

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November 13, 2007

"Four Months Ago" or "Again?"

Last week's episode continues to be this season's high-water mark. After the revelations and questions they presented, tonight's flashback episode was rather anticlimactic, especially since it didn't really give us much new or interesting information. Moreover, it's a retread of a concept the writers used last season: take us into the past so that we understand our characters' present. The title of last season's analagous episode was even similar--"Six Months Ago." Unfortunately for those of us living in the present, last season's episode was much better. The primary problem is that tonight's episode didn't do much to fill in any...

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November 6, 2007

"Out of Time" or "Now, That's Much Better"

I had been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of quality in Heroes episodes. But tonight's episode really brought it back around. Everything--from the character development to the completely unforeseen (at least by me) twists--made this a great episode. I think it was definitely the best episode so far this season. I'll take things in order from least shocking to most shocking. Claire, West, and Mr. Bennet There wasn't anything too shocking here. Obviously, West was eventually going to find out who Claire's dad was. And obviously it wasn't going to go well. And obviously Claire was going to be...

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October 30, 2007

"The Line" or "It's Deja Vu All Over Again"

I think this was another decent episode. It was more good than bad, but not anything too special. We finally got a good amount of Hiro, a decent amount of Claire, and even a little Peter. Though I didn't mind the absence of Nathan and Parkman during the episode, in retrospect, I sort of wish they had been there. And, of course, I wish we had gotten significantly less of the Mexicans. They just make me so fucking angry. But the two things that really stuck out for me were Mr. Bennet's story and the fact that the big overarching...

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October 23, 2007

"Fight or Flight" or "I Want More Kristen Bell. Now."

Tonight's episode was another one without much action, but it was still pretty decent. There wasn't anything terrible about it--other than the lack of Claire--and there were some pretty good things. In fact, to my surprise, Monica and Micah kind of grew on me. I know, I know, they're related to Niki and D.L. Still, I think they might be alright. Niki's a bad influence in pretty much every way, so I'm not surprised that she also influenced her son's suckiness or that, without her, he's not such a douche. Still, I don't outright like them, I just don't mind...

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October 16, 2007

"The Kindness of Strangers" or "Setup Takes Forever"

We're only four episodes into the season, so we have to expect some episodes where there's not a lot of action. Things have to get set up for later in the season. That work has to be done, and it's always a challenge to keep things interesting even though you're mainly just setting the board up for the rest of the game. That said, I think this episode did an adequate job. It had some pretty decent revelations and some nice character development. Here's what I thought, organized in the most logical way I can think of: Claire I have...

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October 9, 2007

"Lizards" and "Kindred"

Due to a DVR mishap, I wasn't able to watch last week's episode of Heroes until tonight. And, of course, there was a new episode on tonight. So I'm going to discuss them together. I'm going to do this by character this time. Hiro God, I love Hiro. And I really want him to hook up with the swordsmith's daughter. Too bad he's got that whole "maintain the integrity of the timeline" thing going. Still, I think it's almost certainly going to happen. There's no way Hiro pretending to be Kensei was a one-time thing. And there's no way that...

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September 24, 2007

"Four Months Later . . . " or "Well, that Didn't Suck"

Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive as tonight's Heroes episode started. But--perhaps because my expecations were extremely low--I liked the episode. It wasn't groundbreaking or excellent, but it was a decent way of showing where the characters have gone since the debacle at Kirby Plaza, and I think that most of the characters are set up to have really interesting story arcs this season. We start with Mohinder giving a lecture about a plague that's killing only those that have special abilities. Again, Heroes is ripping off storylines from the X-Men comics. The first time they did this--when...

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September 23, 2007

An Open Letter to Tim Kring, Creator and Executive Producer of Heroes

Mr. Kring, I have to say that I am extremely frustrated and disappointed. Before the last TV season started, Heroes was one of the few new series I was excited for. In fact, I was extremely excited about it, but I feared that it would get cancelled relatively on. While the show's premise--ordinary people learning that they have extraordinary abilities--appealed to me, an old-school comic-book geek. Still, I was afraid that the public at large wouldn't understand or, more likely, that the creative staff would fail to take their characters seriously. Needless to say that I was pleasantly surprised. In...

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August 20, 2007

My Weekend and Myspace

So, as I expected, I did pretty much nothing this weekend. In fact, I forced myself to go for a drive tonight just so that I could say that I actually left the apartment this weekend. I did some reading--I finished Over Sea, Under Stone, the first book in the Dark is Rising series, which is apparently about to be made into a movie or something. It was decent, although really short. I think I'm going to read the rest. Man, I love young-adult literature. I rule! I also watched some TV. There's this show on GSN called "Without Prejudice?"....

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August 15, 2007

"Bartlet for America"

Although Mr. Vice lent me the DVDs about a year ago, I've just now finished watching the seventh season of The West Wing. I have to say that I think it was pretty good, but nowhere near as good as the first four seasons. I really missed some of the older characters, and I was happy to see Sam come back. It sucks that Zoey didn't really get to do much and we never found out what happened between her and Charlie, but it was good to see Charlie go off to law school--you know he's going to be a...

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August 13, 2007

Apparently, "TLC" No Longer Stands for "The Learning Channel"

I'll probably post something else later, but I just thought I'd point this out. Although Mr. Utah has been arguing that TLC's programming has, as of late, been less about learning than about "reality" and house flipping, I maintained that the network still broadcast generally high quality stuff. But, as it turns out, I was wrong. You see, the channel supposedly dedicated to learning has agreed to broadcast the Miss America pageant. This is stupid for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the stupid Miss America pageant needs to just go away. But, no,...

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May 23, 2007

"How to Stop an Exploding Man" or "How to Stop a Season from Kicking Ass"

Due to my tardiness with this entry, my esteemed colleague Mr. Vice has already posted his thoughts on Monday night's Heroes season finale. I'll offer my own thoughts here, but I have to say that I agree with almost every single one of Mr. Vice's criticisms and, overall, I was extremely disappointed by the finale. First, I think that the Sylar-Peter fight was so lame I can't believe the writers, editors, directors, actors, and producers actually offered that worthless attempt at a confrontation. After literally a whole season of building up the confrontation between the two most powerful people in...

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May 15, 2007

"Landslide" or "It's All Set Up"

The producers on Heroes have said that the season finale is three hours long but split up over three episodes. I think that a pretty accurate description: last week's episode was very expository and did little more than bring the main characters to New York to set us up for the big finale--the explosion (or the prevention thereof). This week's episode was a little bit more of the same, although there was more action, more revelations, and certainly more deaths. And it took the final step towards setting up next week's season finale. Peter learned to control Ted's ability--he managed...

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May 8, 2007

"The Hard Part" or "Setting up the Dominoes"

Goddamn, I really liked this episode. First of all, I really like the relationship between Peter and Claire. I really like the fact that Peter talks to Claire like she's a real person without being condescending. I think she deserves that, and he seems to be the only person who really does that. I think she likes that, too, even if she's not always down with his save-the-world imperative. It was nice to see Claire and her dad reunited. I really hope Claire doesn't end up having to shoot Peter in the back of the head. Oh, and Claire looked...

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April 24, 2007

".07%" or "The Percentage of the World's Population that Will Die When Peter Explodes"

Goddamn, it's been a long wait for the new episode of Heroes, and it was completely worth it. I'm going to watch the show again and try to commet on some of the more awesome or interesting aspects. The Linderman narration at the beginning I really liked this--it really emphasized Linderman's complete and overriding involvement in the lives of every single character. They changed the Candace morph sequence effect Before, when Candace "morphed," the whole scene, including the background, was obscured. Now, it's a more conventional morph. This is a strange choice, I think, since Candace doesn't actually morph, she...

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March 6, 2007

"Parasite" or "I Have to Wait How Long?!" (Updated)

Although I was slightly disappointed by this episode, it was still pretty good. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that, given last week's awesomeness, I had my expectations set pretty high. And I expected something more explosive to happen. Spoilers. Ok, so, obviously, Peter's going to survive Sylar's attack. The really cool thing is going to see them duke it out super-hero style. Remember: Peter's got all of Sylar's abilities and some Sylar doesn't have, such as flight, regeneration, and telepathy. On the other hand, Sylar has mastered all of his powers, especially telekinesis. While we've seen that...

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February 19, 2007

"Unexpected" or "The Best Fucking Episode of Heroes Yet!"

Wow. That was definitely my favorite episode of Heroes so far. I mean--fuck! Spoilers follow. There was so much awesomeness there I think I'm going to have to make a bullet list. Hiro. Though Hiro's been one of my favorite heroes since the beginning of the series, I had recently become annoyed that he hadn't done a lot of actually heroic things. But I think we can safely say that, after today, he is the man. First off, he faced what was arguably his most imminent threat: an angry dude with a gun. But, rather tha wuss out or run...

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February 13, 2007

"Run!" or "Poor Claire" (Updated)

Another straight-up excellent episode of Heroes. Not as good as last week's, perhaps, and definitely more depressing. But still really good. As usual, don't read on if you haven't watched it yet. The biggest story was Claire. I liked the story, but I have to say that I feel really bad for our indestructible cheerleader. First off, she gets in trouble for doing something her moom said she could do. It's not Claire's fault that Mr. Bennet made The Haitian erase Mrs. Bennet's memory, after all. To make matters worse, Claire's frustration with her adoptive father is understandably growing. Now...

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February 6, 2007

"Distractions" or "I Did Not See That Coming!"

Monday night means Heroes. Spoilers to follow. Holy fucking shit! Nathan?! That's just--wow. I didn't see that coming at all. I have to admit that I was pretty blown away. The immediate thing this means is that the people who were rooting for a Peter/Claire relationship are out of luck. In addition to that being statutory rape, it's now also weird pseudo-incest. The more important question is: How is Nathan going to react? He, like Claire's mom, probably thought Claire was dead. So how's he going to deal with finding out not only that she's alive but also that she,...

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February 5, 2007

What a Disappointment

Football doesn't interest me in th least. However, I usually enjoy the Super Bowl because of--what else?--the commercials. But this year's commercials were pitiful. There weren't any so-cool-you've-gotta-talk-about-them-the-next-day commercials. And, strangly, there were a lot of really depressing commercials. For example, that commercial with the car-building robot that fucking kills itself? That was just . . . wrong! Why would the ad company spend all this time humanizing a robot, making me identify with it, only to have it jump off a bridge. And then, oh, it's ok--it was all a dream. No, that one sucked. And so did the...

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February 3, 2007

Damn Stupid Cliffhangers

The last few days have been pretty quiet. I felt pretty bad for a few days, as if I was getting sick. I still might be, I'm not feeling 100% yet. I've been almost nonstop busy, although, somehow, I'm about a hundred pages behind in classes already. I got home at about ten o'clock last night and, though I had previously said I was going to bar review, didn't. In fact, I went to bed at around eleven. And then I slept until about one o'clock this afternoon. It was awesome. I went into the office for a while today...

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January 30, 2007

"The Fix" and an Explanation

I've decided that I'm going to start naming my Monday night posts after the Heroes episode that day whenever there was a new episode on. Tonight's episode was called "The Fix," and it rocked. The usual spoiler warnings apply. If you don't give a shit about Heroes, scroll down. Ok, how was Sylar able to trick the doctor guy into believing that he was dead? Is that another of Sylar's abilities? Why hadn't he used it before? Is the doctor just an idiot? And what the hell is Sylar going to do with Mr. Bennet? I can't wait to see....

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January 23, 2007

Concerning Television and the Many Measures of My Worth

The recent lack of amazing serialized television in my life has been disturbing. But, today, the powers that be deigned it appropriate to treat me to two hours of great television. Spoilers follow, so don't read on if you didn't see tonight's episodes of Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. First up, Heroes returned tonight after having left several weeks ago. I was left a bitter, empty shell. There were so many unanswered questions: What happened to Sylar? What was the Haitian going to do with Claire? Nikki turned herself in? Hiro fights a what now?? And, in...

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January 13, 2007

Shots

Sometimes in life you have to get together with some of your best friends and resolve to do nothing more than drink. That's just the way the world goes sometimes. That's the way the world went tonight. Starting with the always horrible Philips vodka, Mr. Utah and Mr. RPM and I worked our way through the liquor cabinet. Then, after we all realized that we were, in fact, drunk, we walked to a party consisting mostly of undergrads. Mr. Utah, in an amazing display of badassery, walked on a broken limb--without crutches. Upon our arrival at said undergrad party, we...

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January 7, 2007

More Respect for Ringo Starr

Getting back into the groove of doing work has been slow going, to say the least. Although school hasn't started yet, I've got a long list of stuff I need to do during the break, most of it Law Review related. It's ok, though--I've had a decent vacation and now it's time to get back to work. I just don't want to yet. I don't have any new year's resolutions, really. If anything, I have two goals: keep from gaining weight and get more organized. My quest for increased organization encompasses both time management (I'm going to get a fucking...

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December 26, 2006

Of Mexican Soap Operas and Shopping

Wow. Every time I think that Spanish soap operas can't get worse, they get worse. I'm not even going to attempt to explain what the fucking plot to this one is. I will say this: it involves a woman in bondage gear who may or may not be a stripper or a whore, her pimp and/or boyfriend and/or brother who dresses in zoot suits as if that's ok, some seemingly unrelated woman who's in love with the patriarch of some family (with whom she's moving in) and speaks to pictures of her dead parents and the Virgin Mary. That's all...

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December 4, 2006

Concerning the Impending Finals and Advertising Justice

Not much is going on right now. Finals are about to kick into full gear--the last day of classes is Wednesday. I don't have a final for a little under two weeks, and I don't have my last final for a little under three weeks. I'm not flying home until the 23rd. That's ok, though. I'd rather take it relatively easy and give myself the time to really study than rush and be all stressed out. Speaking of studying, that's been really tough lately. It's not that I don't care or that I don't want to do well, it's just...

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November 18, 2006

A Great Time to Be a Nerd

While trolling around the Internet today, I found this awesome poster for the forthcoming Harry Potter movie. I think it's pretty much unbelievably awesome. I also found a few other new Harry Potter pictures, most notably one of Dumbledore's Army. I pretty much love that picture. You can see Harry in the middle, obviously, then Cho to his left, then . . . were both Padma and Pavarti in the DA, or is that the snitch next to Cho? In any event, then Ginny, then Zacharias Smith, then some other dude. Fred, George, and Neville behind Harry, Hermione to his...

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