Pardon the crude title, but there just isn’t any other way to say it. After watching last night’s premiere, it’s clear that “Justified” is poised to become the next great FX series.
One part “The Shield,” one part “Sons of Anarchy” and one part “True Blood,” “Justified” follows Raylen Givins (Timothy Olyphant) a somewhat disgraced (yet badass) Deputy Marshall who is assigned to Eastern Kentucky (and his hometown of Harlan) after losing his plum assignment in Miami over a shooting he deemed “justified.” The series is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard.
The antagonist — at least for the first episode — is Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins, who you’ll recognize from his role as Shane Vendrell on “The Shield”), an Aryan criminal with a propensity for blowing things up.
There’s also Raylen’s ex-girlfriend, Winona (Natalie Zea), and Ava (Joelle Carter), who would like to be his new squeeze.
The first episode was about bad blood between Raylen and Boyd, but it looks like each week, Raylen will be working on a different assignment, ranging from witness protection to prison transfer to hunting down criminals. Olyphant was terrific in the role of sheriff on “Deadwood,” so he’s not going to have any problem carrying this series — he already owns this part.
If you miss “The Shield” and like “Sons of Anarchy,” give “Justified” a shot. It’s well worth the time.
Howdilly ho, Losterinos! Jae-Z is still in Austin for South by Southwest, so I am guest blogging this week. And don’t worry, I’m not going to come up with a bunch of wacky nicknames for everyone, or end the blog with a music video.
It’s tough to decide which version of Earth was more interesting tonight…oh, who am I kidding, the Earth-1 story was definitely better. Crazy Claire tried to kill Kate, while Sayid looked on impotently. He’s clearly reeling from the guilt of knowing that he allowed Evil Locke/Smokey to enter the temple and lay waste to the righteous who refused to go with him. I’m sure he’s also depressed over the “knowledge” that he’s infected, whatever that means. Me, I’m not so convinced that anyone is infected. Yes, Rashomon (damn it, I swore I wouldn’t hand out nicknames) said he was infected, but while we watched the similarly infected Claire put an axe in a guy’s stomach, Evil Locke explained tonight just what it was that fed that insanity, and it wasn’t sickness or disease – it was the need for an enemy, much like Guy Pearce’s character in “Memento.” It drove her, but once she had no need for it and discovered that Kate was not her enemy, Claire turned out to be a reasonable and normal, if mournful, person. Does this mean that there is indeed nothing wrong with Sayid? Or does this mean that we haven’t yet seen exactly what is wrong with either of them?
Stupid “Lost.” Eight episodes left, and they’re still providing more questions than answers.
Sawyer’s flash-sideways is Hugo-ian in that he’s the opposite of his Earth-1 counterpart. Jack’s still a doctor and Kate’s still a fugitive, but here, Sawyer’s a cop, and he uses his fake Dharma last name as a safe word when his mark pulls back the hammer to shoot him. I just love that he’s able to nail the wife of his intended target before dropping the bomb on her when she won’t play ball. Who wouldn’t sign up for undercover work if they knew it would get them so much sex?
And that wasn’t the only sex Detective James Ford would have this week, as he later bedded a Kidman-esque redhead archaeologist named Charlotte, but completely blew it (her words, later) when he flipped his lid after walking in on her looking at the folder dedicated to the man who led Ford’s father to kill his mother, then himself. The scene was actually one of the clumsiest in the entire history of “Lost,” as Charlotte went plowing through his stuff like she was a con herself…and who knows, maybe she is. (The truth: probably not, since they’re running out of time, but she sure as hell acted like one.) The bigger question, though, is: who leaves a folder that important, that potentially incriminating, in their top drawer? The whole thing was just, to quote my wife, ridiculous.
The big takeaway from the flash-sideways was that the individual stories finally appear to be coming together, as John/Sawyer confesses to his partner Miles about his extracurricular attempts to hunt down the man who destroyed his family, only to be slammed into by a runaway Kate, whom he later runs down in an alley. Up to this point, the Earth-2 story lines have been largely independent of the others, but now it looks as though everyone is going to start getting tied together. Whether they become aware of their other selves, though, is still up in the air. Truth be told, I’m not sure how I feel about that. God knows, I wouldn’t want to talk to another version of me. One’s enough.
Which brings us to the main story line, where Evil Locke asks Sawyer to travel to Hydra Island (where he finds the dress Kate wore when they first hooked up) to confirm Evil Locke’s suspicions that there are people there who mean him harm. Of course, there are, and they’re well armed (Charles Widmore doesn’t do cheap), and Sawyer does what he does best: he lies, which is precisely why Locke sent him there in the first place. Of course, Evil Locke doesn’t know that Sawyer intends to doublecross both Widmore and Locke…or maybe he does. It could be yet another test. Either way, Widmore’s posse is building a Smokey-proof fence, so this could make for a fun battle royale.
God love Jin. The love he has for his wife is so sweet. Which of course makes me think that they won’t meet until the series finale…and will die before they get to embrace one last time. Come on, this is “Lost” we’re talking about. They’re not going to give us some ribbon-bowed, flowery happy ending. People are gonna die. Jin and Sun have spent almost two years in TV time apart. You better believe that their reunion will come with a catch.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Wow, that was so much fun! Thanks for playing with me today. Heeeeere we go: Yooooooooo gabba gabbaaaaaaaa! (*packs up boom box, exits stage left*)
“24” pulls out an oldie but a goodie this week, as the IRK bad guys – who are remarkably well funded and well connected, even on foreign soil – set up Princess Jasmine to “escape” to CTU…and bring a massive EMP with her. Boom boom pow. Dark is the night for all. Can’t find my way home, etc.
Now, let’s put aside the probability, and even the predictability, of it all for just a second. The cutting back and forth between Jack trying to reach Chloe and the utter chaos at CTU was the most action-packed moment of the season. I mean, they are seriously fucked right now. The radiation sensors are down, and they have no way of getting in touch with, well, anyone. It’s a hell of an ending to the first half of the season.
But is anyone else just a little tired of seeing how easily compromised our nation’s counter-terrorist unit is? First bombs, then nerve gas, and now an EMP. (The previous EMP was set off at McLennan and Forster’s office, thus causing Go-Betweens fans around the world to giggle to themselves.) Honestly, CTU deserves to fail if they can’t come up with fail-safe measures to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Is there really unsecured access to directly below the building? You may as well leave a trail of gasoline, and supply the bad guys with a match.
Likewise, you have to just smile to yourself at the precision timing of Jasmine’s arrival in relation to the gigantic ticking clock in the back seat, that she wasn’t delayed by traffic (hey, even at four in the morning, it can happen in New York), or one of those mad squeegee guys, or simply got lost. That whole watch-your-daughter-die thing couldn’t have been cheap or easy to set up, especially when it is nothing but a smoke screen. Deep breath, Med, deep breath. It’s a TV show. It’s a TV show that asks us to believe that everything happens at the top of the hour. Let it go.
“I used to own this town. I was Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler, damn it.”
Same with tracking cell phone signals. They use it only when it suits them. Of course, while I was wondering why they didn’t try tracking Jasmine using her cell as tonight’s stuff was going on, the truth is that Slumdog President doesn’t have that ability, and CTU didn’t know she was missing, so I guess they’re covered on that one.
And then there’s Starbuck, who’s doing a Katherine Heigl happy dance (see “The Ugly Truth” if you want to get that reference, or better yet, don’t) now that an EMP just granted her a stay of execution. My prediction for her is that she performs a couple selfless, game-changing acts…and dies protecting the ones she loves. I think we all know she’s not coming back for another season – assuming there is another season, and there is rampant speculation that this may indeed be “24’s” final hour, at least on the small screen – so why not let her go with grace? She gets the sendoff her past-life BSG character deserves, and Cole receives the comfort of knowing that while Dana had secrets, he wasn’t wrong about what kind of person she was.
Which brings us to Jimmy James, Capitalist Liontamer. Last week I was terrified that he was using the parole officer thing as a ruse to continue the con in the event that Kevin failed, but on the surface, it looks as though that he’s a legit good guy…or possibly the ballsiest con man in the history of the world. He said he had a friend on the force, but all of the evidence that he hit Starbuck with – the phone calls, the storage locker break-in, the mangled cop – could very easily have been provided by Kevin and his wacko friend before they were killed, and Jimmy is just bluffing that Starbuck won’t question the authenticity of whatever that paper he presented her with that demanded access to the security feeds. If he’s a con, then he’s the craziest con ever, because even the good ones stay the hell away from the authorities if they can help it. Doesn’t he know that they have facial recognition software…or at least that they did until Princess Jasmine blew the electronics sky-high? This character might turn out to be my litmus test for “24” going forward. If he turns out to be a con, then I will officially never believe a single thing I see on this show, unless it’s Jack doing it.
Twelve hours down, which means, to use another musical reference, twelve stops and home. (The Feeling. Twelve Stops and Home. All Anglophiles should head to iTunes at once.) New York has not been good to CTU so far, and that’s been while the city was sleeping. It will be very curious to see if the surly commuters are any more accomodating. Considering my brief experience with said people. the answer is a defiant ‘no,’ but who knows, maybe they’ve mellowed out since then. (*Stifles chuckle*)
Tonight’s blog title comes from Naked Eyes’ third Top 40 single – yes, they had more than two hits, and in fact had one more before all was said and done – and even more curiously, this song does not appear on any of the band’s hits compilations. This has always baffled me, as it’s easily one of their best songs, hence the decision to release it as a single. Maybe it was the midgets in the video that embarrass them to this day, who knows. All I know is that I like the song.
HBO’s “The Pacific premieres on the West coast as I write this, and it’s time to take a look at two acclaimed films that take a sidelong look, even comic, look at the hardships and danger of war. Both of them, for whatever reason, have “Mister” or “Mr.” in the title.
Our first film is suggested by master cartoonist and my personal consultant on matters relating to World War II, Randy Reynaldo. Directed and co-written by John Huston, “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” stars Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr as a Marine and an Irish nun who are forced to live under the noose of enemy Japanese soldiers when they become marooned on a remote island. Though a hit on its release, it’s become a somewhat obscure film today, despite being one of Huston’s personal favorites and despite the enormous talent and appeal of its two stars. (Kerr was nominated for an Oscar; Mitchum was not, though many feel he was robbed.) I confess to having not seen it myself, but after looking at the trailer below, I really want to. Something tells me I might like it even better than the not-completely-dissimilar, “The African Queen.”
I’ve seen the second film so many times since childhood, it’s kind of fused with my subconscious, though I didn’t think of including it here until almost the last minute. Directed by two of the greatest classic-era directors, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, and featuring four of the greatest stars of three different Hollywood eras, “Mister Roberts” doesn’t break any cinematic ground but that doesn’t matter.
Starring Henry Fonda as an intelligent and humane officer desperate to get off the cargo ship he’s been stationed on and away from its small-minded, tyrannical captain (James Cagney) in order to see real action against the Japanese, it’s easily one of the funniest and most captivating tales of wartime life ever made, right through to its devastating conclusion. There isn’t a single battle shown, but no film I’ve even seen more powerfully conveys the grim seriousness of war in quite the same way. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s still a classic.
With the steady drumbeat of acclaim building over HBO’s Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman’ produced “The Pacific“, it seems like a good time to start looking at some of the key depictions of the Pacific side of World War II from the movies. While they may often be propagandistic, the best of these films had a raw power that is still quite moving, even if even hinting at the true, bloody cost of war in film was impossible when they were made.
We’ll start with probably the most iconic and popular Pacific war film ever made, “The Sands of Iwo Jima” starring none other than John Wayne himself and directed by Allan Dwan.
And, as a bonus, here’s a lovely moment from the most famous Pacific war film made by the man many consider the greatest American film director of all time, John Ford, and I’m close to being one of them myself. “They Were Expendable” certainly has its share of brilliant moments and below is an example of Ford’s brilliant use of music and images to evoke powerful emotions. Amazing stuff and barely a word is said.
