Category: Reviews (Page 36 of 120)

Starz series “Crash” does its inspiration justice

August 25, 2009 / John Paulsen

After mowing through the first season of “Crash” on the Netflix streaming service, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. The series is based on the same concept as the 2004 film of the same name — the lives of otherwise disparate Angelinos are ultimately connected.

It stars Dennis Hopper as Ben Cendars, a past-his-prime record mogul. In reality, Hopper is playing the same role he always plays — a man with great presence and intelligence who may or may not be totally insane. He takes a young wannabe rapper (Jocko Sims) under his wing as he tries to wrest control of his record company from his resentful daughter (Kari Matchett).

Another (and more dominant) storyline revolves around a married police officer (Ross McCall) who, via a car crash, gets involved with a beautiful but dangerous gypsy (Moran Atias). His partner (Arlene Tur) is having an affair with a dirty detective (Nick Tarabay) who is moonlighting for a Korean kingpin. A gang-banger-turned-paramedic (Brian Tee) gets tangled in this web, and a detective from another precinct (Tom Sizemore) is called in to investigate.

The series also follows a Guatemalan immigrant who makes the trek through Mexico to the U.S., a married couple that loses their life savings in the real estate market, and a homicide detective who is tasked with keeping a young witness alive long enough to testify against a murder suspect.

As we learned on “The Shield,” dirty cops make for excellent television, and while “Crash” isn’t quite as gritty, it serves as a nice fix for those missing Vic Mackey and Co. I’d also recommend it to those that liked “Southland” in that it’s successful in telling a big story that involves a lot of different moving parts. Unlike these two series, “Crash” is on pay cable, so the creators have even more freedom to tell their story.

Season 2 debuts on Starz on September 18. Between this series and the excellent comedy “Party Down,” Starz has something going.

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Mad Men 3.2 – The Sky Was Falling, Heaven Was Calling

August 23, 2009 / Will Harris

Okay, before we really get rolling on this week’s “Mad Men” blog, I really think we should start things off in much the same way that tonight’s episode did: by reminding the world just how incredibly hot Ann-Marget was in the early ’60s.

I mean, seriously, was she smoking or what?

It’s no wonder that Peggy immediately slid into catfight mode with that comment about how, if the client was looking for someone like Kim McAfee (Ann-Margret’s character from “Bye Bye Birdie”), they were looking for someone who’s 25 but acts 14. It was a hilariously bitchy line, almost as funny as Sal’s character-perfect reaction when the clip ended. This obviously isn’t the first time Peggy’s been so annoyed by the goings-on within Sterling-Cooper that she’s stepped out of her comfort zone and tried to be someone that she really isn’t, but, wow, her attempts to duplicate Ms. Margret’s moves and vocal stylings made for some highly uncomfortable viewing. Nonetheless, she at least ended up feeling sufficiently empowered to go out for a one-night stand with a hyper-excited college boy.

No surprise, though, that she slowed down his base-running – as well she should have, since he was clearly headin’ for home plate at a fast clip – in order to avoid a possible repeat of the Pete Campbell situation. As she slipped out of bed in a failed attempt to avoid a walk of shame, I couldn’t help but notice just how much more attractive Peggy looks when she’s out of her work clothes…but, then again, you could probably say that about most women.

External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

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Mad Men 3.1 – On your mark, get set, get out of town

August 16, 2009 / Will Harris

Welcome back to the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency…and, yet, although this is the premiere of the third season of “Mad Men,” it’s actually the first time that Premium Hollywood has gotten around to blogging the series. It’s certainly not that we haven’t been watching (the series did, after all, end Season 2 at the top of Bullz-Eye’s TV Power Rankings), but…well, the reasons why we haven’t done it before now are moot. We’re here now, so let’s get cracking, shall we?

I have to admit: the opening flashback sequence left me uncertain at first, and I wasn’t entirely sure if we were supposed to infer if it was Don’s own birth or not, but, yes, it does indeed appear that not only does Don have someone else’s identity, but it’s highly possible that he’s never really known who he was. Well, that would make it easier to escape into someone else’s life. As it turns out, not nearly as much time has passed as we might have expected: Betty is still in the final stages of the pregnancy we learned about in the season finale, so we haven’t even moved forward nine months. As ever, though, series creator Matthew Weiner managed to tease us a little bit about the timeline by having us presume that Don was warming formula for the new baby when he was, in fact, just getting Betty a bit of warm milk to help her get to sleep.

Time to jump over to the offices of Sterling Cooper, where there’s clearly been a bit of a British invasion since we were last around. John Hooker could be an interesting character, given the way he’s carving his niche as an assistant rather than a secretary. Could a relationship with Joan be in the cards? Too soon to tell. Based on the comments around the office, some firings have clearly been taking place (clearly, it’s not the least bit coincidental that the conversations about job loss, medical insurance, and taxes echo just as strongly now as they did in the 1960s), but I can’t imagine any of the others have been nearly as entertaining as Burt Peterson’s. It’s always good to see Michael Gaston’s face – I still think of him as Gray Anderson from “Jericho” – and he made a great explosive show of Burt’s departure. Burt’s screaming behind the closed door of his office was hilarious, but I think the biggest laugh came from Roger Sterling’s late arrival to Burt’s farewell. (“Oh, it’s that meeting.”) By the way, after all of the intense discussion last season over the meaning of the painting in Bertram Cooper’s office, I enjoyed a chuckle when Cooper’s premiere appearance involved a discussion about new pieces of artwork.

Vincent Kartheiser never fails to impress me with his work as Pete Campbell, running through the gamut of emotions this episode. First, he’s scared shitless that he’s destined to suffer the same fate as Burt, only to have his nervous twitching turn into a full fledged dance of glee when he gets the news that he’s being given the title of Head of Accounts. Then, when he learns that Ken has gotten the same news and that the higher-ups are basically playing the two of them against each other, he develops a stone face that would put the heads on Mount Rushmore to shame. And just as you think he’s going to go whine to Don (as he’s already done to his wife), he’s put in a situation where he has a chance to toady up to both Sterling and Cooper simultaneously, which you can bet he takes advantage of. You probably wouldn’t want to watch an entire series revolving around Pete, but for my money, he’s arguably an even more deep and complex character than Don is. I know Kartheiser has gotten recognition through the Screen Actors Guild, but it’d be nice if the Emmys threw a little love his way next year.

External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

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True Blood 2.9 – Though I be a dead man, I said yes and amen

August 16, 2009 / Will Harris

Well, you know what the Smiths said: if it’s not love, then it’s the bomb that will bring us together. And so it was at the beginning of this week’s “True Blood,” as we saw Sookie suck the silver shrapnel right out of Eric, God love her…and, by the way, the phrase “suck the silver shrapnel” clearly needs to be popularized as a double entendre post-haste. (On a related note, I also anticipate quoting Sookie’s exclamation, “You big lying A-hole,” enough to bring it into the pop culture lexicon pretty quickly.) Eric’s delivery of the phrase “she was superb” to Bill was genius…as, for that matter, was his chicanery to get hooked into Sookie’s emotions. The intimate discussion between Sookie and Bill no doubt thrilled fans of Charlaine Harris’s original novels, as it confirmed that they were finally going to get what they’ve been waiting for: a pairing-up between Sookie and Eric. And is it me, or was that the most erotically charge scene of the season to date? Maybe it’s just because there was no blood being smeared this time around.

Jason was clearly suffering from a little post-traumatic stress, given the way he looked when he saw Luke’s dismembered hand. As a result, the discussion between Sookie and Jason wasn’t terribly surprising, but it was sweet and heartfelt, a tone we’ve not seen between the two of them in quite some time. You can’t blame Jason for slipping into depression over their lack of family, but kudos to Sookie for giving him a kick in the pants about growing up. I doubt if it’ll take, given his history, but it’s a start, anyway. By the way, only a sister could get away with telling a guy that he’s lazy rather than dumb and to say that she sometimes wants to stick his head in a bucket and kick it around the yard. Did you notice that she gave him shit, but he opted to avoid any insults, even in jest? Maybe he’s smarter than I’ve given him credit for.

Could Jessica and Hoyt be any cuter a couple? I loved that comment from Hoyt when he was doing verbal battle with his mother, smacking her down for only bothering to bring up his father when she doesn’t like something he’s doing. But, then, I loved pretty much that entire scene, particularly when he was listing off the various types of people she doesn’t like. (As someone who was raised in the South, I dare say that I’ve heard her excuse about how why she doesn’t like vampires – “it was the way I was brought up” – more than a few times in a different context.) I think it was always a given that the meet-and-greet at Merlotte’s between Jessica, Hoyt, and his mama was already going to go poorly, but who knew it would result in Mama being around for Maryanne’s explosive entrance into the place later that evening?

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The strange weekend of five

August 14, 2009 / Bob Westal

This is one interesting movie August we’re in. In fact, if you go to a mutliplex this weekend and can’t find anything that interests you, then you probably don’t belong anywhere near a contemporary movie theater. At this point in film history, things just don’t get that much more diverse, and more interesting, than the new films on offer this weekend.

* Anyone with a geek bone in their body has heard and/or seen a fair amount about the movie box office prognosticators expect to end the reign of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” By most accounts a thoughtful yet violent/bloody R-rated science fiction actioner from first-time feature director Neill Blomkamp, “District 9” benefits from a lot of really good buzz, truly outstanding reviews, and a very high-profile variant of a viral campaign; the “humans only” signs have been up at bus-stops in Los Angeles for what seems like years and the film’s association with executive producer Peter Jackson won’t hurt. (Just like the filmgoers who probably still believe that Quentin Tarantino directed “Hostel” and have no clue who Eli Roth is, many casual movie fans will give Jackson the credit/blame on this.)

On the possible downside: there are no stars or recognizable faces and the film’s setting of South Africa might put off some people. We Americans, I fear, can be an obnoxiously xenophobic bunch at times. However, this is a new age we’re in (I think) and certainly this film, about space aliens being oppressed by us literally xenophobic humans, has a much easier to grasp premise than “Serenity,” the last star-free but excitement-heavy, well-reviewed science fiction film to rely on viral marketing, and the virus is far more virulent this time. So, the projections of a take of somewhere in the $20 millions or more for Sony offered both by Variety‘s Pamela McClintock and The Hollywood Reporter‘s ever-jolly Carl DiOrio, who guesses it at at least $25 million, make some sense.

* Unless they’re seeing someone very special and very insistent, the young males who will be flocking to “District 9” likely won’t be seeing this week’s promising box office hopeful, even though it’s also science fiction, though obviously of a very different sort. Warner’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is unusual for the movies I write about here in that I’ve actually seen this one before its release date, and you can read all about my opinion of the film over at the link. Suffice it to say that fantastical romantic melodrama is not generating a whole bunch of critical excitement, though that underwhelming 37% RT rating is not so much a collective groan as a chorus of “meh.”