Last night’s episode of “The Biggest Loser” was like a slap in the face to the show’s producers, who clearly wanted Melissa in this thing for the long haul but, well, you’ll have to read on…..
Host Alison Sweeney threw another curve ball at the contestants to start the show, when she told them that one of them could literally earn immunity with the push of a button this week. She gave them each a tag to wear around their neck with the amount of weight they had to lose in order to reach 2% of their body weight. If someone felt they had reached that mark at any point during the week, they could hit a red button that sounded a loud and giant alarm. That player would weigh in and if they reached their 2%, they were immune from elimination. If not, they were out of this particular challenge, and someone else could try and gain immunity.
We’re down to the final 9 on “American Idol” and the competition is really beginning to heat up. In fact, if you take into consideration the entire season, the judges’ comments, and the performances last night, most of which were pretty good, it’s near impossible to predict who might be going home this week. And as always, I agreed with the judges wholeheartedly on some, and not at all on others. The songs were from the great songbook of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, meaning they could sing Beatles songs or Lennon or McCartney solo stuff. Paul McCartney delivered a good luck message by video before the show, but thankfully they didn’t (and I’m sure couldn’t afford to) bring him in to mentor the contestants. With that, here we go….
“It’s like I already loved her. And that’s when things got weird.”
Leave it to Daniel Widmore (nee Faraday) to help make sense of everything. While the idea of the castaways having an awareness of their Earth-2 counterparts isn’t exactly a new concept, tonight’s episode more than confirmed it. It certainly made sense that Desmond would be the conduit for such a reveal, since he’s been known to time travel through his own consciousness on occasion. That’s likely what Widmore was banking on when he decided to bring him back to the island, and although Desmond wasn’t happy about it at first (and how could you after seeing that poor guy fry in the generator room?), he changed his mind after getting a sneak peak at his life in the mirror universe. It may have only lasted mere seconds, but Desmond is officially on board with Widmore’s plan. Too bad Sayid had to break up the party with some ninja-like stealth.
So what exactly did Desmond see while he was passed out in the generator room? A lot. In fact, just like Richard Alpert’s story a few weeks ago, tonight’s Desmond-centric episode was surprisingly straightforward in that it didn’t jump back and forth between the two realities. Instead, a majority of the action took place on Earth-2, where we learned that Desmond isn’t just on good terms with Charles Widmore – he’s his right-hand man. In fact, Widmore loves the guy so much that he’s willing to crack open a 60-year-old bottle of scotch just to celebrate his return. Now that he’s back in L.A., however, Widmore already has another assignment for him. It appears Mama Widmore is throwing a big charity bash where their musician son, Daniel, plans to mix classical music with rock ‘n roll by playing alongside Driveshaft. The only problem is that the band’s bassist has just been arrested for heroin possession, and in order to get him to the gig in one piece, Desmond is sent over to babysit.
Ah, Desmond and Charlie back together again. It’s no secret that these are two of my favorite characters on the show, so you have to love any plot device that puts them in the same room, especially when there’s actually a purpose to it. Though it’s hard to say whether Charlie had anything to do with Desmond’s flashes (would he have still seen those Earth-1 memories if Charlie hadn’t put his hand up against the glass?), his story about seeing Claire on the plane and instantly feeling like they were meant to be together had to have some kind of effect on him. At the very least, that underwater sequence proved to be a little eerie, if only because I worried that Charlie’s fate wouldn’t end be any different on Earth-2. Luckily, Desmond was able to save him this time around, but not without accruing some injuries of his own.
If Charlie was the catalyst for Desmond’s merging consciousness, then the CAT scan proved to be the electromagnetic force that amplified it. And after seeing Penny’s face during his latest flash, all bets were off. You just knew he was going to try and track her down, but who would have thought that Eloise Widmore (nee Hawking) would be the one to stand in his way? Though the writers were obviously having a little fun with her response to Desmond’s confession that Driveshaft would not be appearing at the event (“Whatever happened, happened”), her plea for him to stop looking for Penny was a major WTF moment. Not only does she appear to be privy to Desmond’s special ability, but she warns him that what he’s doing is a violation. But just what is it a violation of? The laws of science, or the rules of the island?
Anyone familiar with Desmond’s past exploits knows that he never gives up that easy, and he finally managed to track Penny down at the same stadium where he first met Jack. The tip was courtesy of her half-brother, Daniel, who had his own tale of déjà vu to share with Desmond about a certain redhead named Charlotte. Unlike the other Losties, Daniel actually has a theory behind the phenomenon – namely, that by setting off a nuclear bomb on Earth-1, their lives may have branched off into an alternate reality. It’s exactly the explanation that Desmond needed to help him on his mission, and after his meet-cute with Penny, he asks his driver (Fischer Stevens, in one of the episode’s many awesome cameos) to get the manifest listing the passengers on Oceanic 815 so that he can let them in on his little secret. If that final line didn’t send chills down your back at the prospect of these last six episodes, I don’t know what will.
Joining “Kick-Ass” in the pantheon of film titles that would have been considered too crude by exhibitors and the MPAA not so terribly long ago is this buddy comedy. Directed by “Austin Powers” and “Meet the Parents” alum Jay Roach, the film stars Paul Rudd as an up-and-coming executive working for a company with a mean streak, Steve Carrell as the zany, small-of-brain titular character and some pretty great supporting comic cast members. (Just for the benefit of those of you outside the Jew-loop, “schmuck” loosely translates from Yiddish as “dick” — no capitalization needed.)
American remakes of French comedies don’t often seem to work and Roach is not really my all-time favorite director, but Carrell and Rudd are both very good in these kind of roles and the trailer makes me laugh. I think there may be some hope here. (H/t Peter Sciretta of /Film.)
Oh, and I should hardly even comment about the crudeness of this title, given that apparently Paramount has a movie coming up which, at least for a time, was entitled “Fuckbuddies.” I think they’ll be going with “Friends with Benefits” or some other name instead — or look for the from director Ivan Reitman to be coming to a theater near you shortly before or after the Rapture.
I’m not sure how I wound up there, but this morning I found myself reading Jonah Weiner‘s thoughts about James Nguyen’s “Birdemic: Shock and Terror,” the latest “so bad it’s good” production to find some success as a midnight movie and to get more than its share of coverage for so doing. Then I watched the ABC News video which I will present without further comment, except to apologize for the small size of the image. (ABC’s player won’t permit altering the size, for whatever reason.) You might also want to check out this amusing BBC item about it as well.
Okay, so now it’s time to talk about something I’ve learned about the movie world and frequently expressed verbally, but never online.
In my travels around the very lower rungs of the film world, I’ve noted that there are exactly two ways to have a career as a filmmaker. Be extremely well focused, productive and hardworking — being hard working to the point of actual madness won’t hurt, if you and your loved ones survive it — be very smart, passionate, creative, thoughtful, and lucky and you might have a decent-to-great-career.
The other path still involves hard work, or perhaps simply a truly bad case of ADHD and/or mania, and no particular amounts of intelligence or creativity is called for, though passion and luck are still required. But here’s the secret to the second path — no matter how badly something turns out, you must never entertain the thought it might actually be bad. When you ask your best friends what they thought of your script, if they start to look down and change the subject, you must assume that they are doing that because the script is so good they are beyond words. If you’re of a nastier disposition, assume they’re jealous. If you’re somewhere in between, assure yourself that they’re simply unable to comprehend what you’re going for. Can’t blame them if for not being as brilliant as you are.
The next step is to use your honest passion to persuade clueless and/or desperate crew and actors to be in your film for little or no payment and, if you can’t afford to self-finance, get star struck dentists or CPAs to “invest.” When the film is completed, ignore the three awful reviews you were able to garner and dwell on the fact that your film was an official selection of the Rancho Cucamonga Film Festival. Do not notice — much less learn from — your mistakes. That would involve not being delusional, and you need your delusion the way a shark needs teeth.
At this point, you will perhaps be able to find bottom feeding producers who will note that you’ve been able to complete a film — a real achievement in itself. They may then choose to pay for another film for reasons of their own. If not, there are always more dentists and CPAs. The beauty of video technology is that you need fewer of them than you once did, though you’ll also have more delusional competition than before, too.
And then, my son or daughter, you may just have a career. Not a brilliant career, but a career. I have seen this happen with my own two eyes. How do you think Ed Wood kept on working throughout his life, writing novels and screenplays and directing movies despite the fact that he had absolutely no talent for any of it?
But what do you do if your film has the kind of luck that “Birdemic” is enjoying and becomes a midnight cult hit? What if theaters nationwide are full of inebriated youth laughing derisively — an indignity that never quite happened to Ed Wood, though I’m sure he could have used the cash? Do you bow your head in shame all the way to the bank and make off for an island paradise, never to be heard from again? No, because if you had any shame, you wouldn’t have made that terrible but funny movie in the first place. You might have, in fact, made something boring, and that’s the worst fate of all for a movie. Much better to have created something truly memorable.
Nguyen appears to have trademarked the phrase “Romantic Thriller” and declared himself the “master” of it. That takes some balls™.
