Category: TV (Page 49 of 595)

Sons of Anarchy 3.7 – Widening Gyre

October 19, 2010 /

It may have seemed like a foregone conclusion after last week’s episode that SAMCRO would be heading for Belfast this week, but since they have to wait until Oswald’s charter plane leaves for Manchester, they’re stuck in Charming for one more day. And as it turns out, it’s for the better, because after a member of the Grim Reapers turns up dead, SAMCRO has to step in and stop them from seeking revenge on the Calaveras. Afraid of striking back without checking with Alvarez first, Clay decides to approach the Mayan president directly to act as a mediator. But while Alvarez admits that he still needs the Calaveras in his pocket because they serve a purpose, he agrees to let SAMCRO question Salazar about the assassination. Salazar begrudgingly gives up the man responsible, but Alvarez punishes him as well, stripping him of his patch and putting someone else in charge.

Salazar isn’t at all pleased, and after they made a point of showing his reaction to Jax telling Alvarez that they were going to be out of town for a week, I just knew that he was planning some kind of retribution. And now that they know that Tara is Jax’s old lady, you can bet that they’re going to go after her, especially with the club halfway across the world. Still, it feels a little too soon to be doing another subplot involving an attack on one of SAMCRO’s women after Gemma’s kidnapping/rape last season, so here’s hoping that Salazar is taken care of before anything bad happens to Tara.

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After all, it’s not like she hasn’t already been through hell these last few weeks. She was held at gunpoint by Cameron while Half-Sack was killed and Abel was kidnapped, she became an accessory to murder when she helped Gemma kill Amelia the caretaker, and on tonight’s episode, she walked in on Jax to discover that he had just banged a porn star. Opie believes that Tara is too resilient to let something like this make her want to give up on the relationship, but she’s still not happy about it and has moved out of Jax’s house for the time being. Gemma suggests that telling Jax about the pregnancy may change his mind about his plan to “protect” her, but she wants to keep it a secret until she decides what she’s going to do with the baby, and makes Gemma promise not to tell anyone.

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External TV, Sons of Anarchy, TV, TV Dramas

Once more with whinging

October 19, 2010 /

It has yet to spawn a full on blogosphere geek tantrum though that may be just a matter of time, but the news is out tonight via Mike Fleming that “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy is “eying” a remake of, you guessed it, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Now, it’s anyone’s guess how much this story may be a cannily opportunistic exaggeration to pump up the ratings of the upcoming 10/26 “Glee” episode paying homage to Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien’s odd little musical. Russ Fischer is certain an actual film would be a “fool’s errand.” I don’t want to reiterate my standard defense of remakes in theory (though not always in practice, lord knows) for the millionth time, but I will say there’s absolutely nothing holy or perfect about this particular original. I actually think that “Rocky Horror” in a funny way became enormous not so much because it was partly great, but because it was also badly flawed. The first 30-45 minutes of the film are a complete hoot and really did touch a huge socio-political-sexual nerve, but the second half becomes increasingly morose and dull. Hence, the need to dress up, yell funny stuff back at the screen, throw stuff, etc. I certainly wouldn’t mind a version that actually worked without audience participation — like an actual movie.

On the other hand, there is one thing that any remake by anyone will find impossible to top, and that’s Mr. Tim Curry.

What a performance. Not that Barry Bostwick or especially Susan Sarandon were exactly chopped liver  — I’m also a pretty big fan of the late Charles Gray, who played the narrator about as perfectly as you could imagine. Meat Loaf wasn’t bad either, and I had a bit of a crush on Nell “Little Nell” Campbell’s tap-dancing Ruby Keeler homage, Columbia. (On the topic of redheads — I’m for them.) Where was I? Ah, never mind.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies, TV

Boardwalk Empire 1.5 – Irish Blood, Jersey Heart

October 18, 2010 /

I’m not sure if this week’s episode was the best installment of “Boardwalk Empire” to date, but at the very least, it was the first episode where those of us who’ve been watching since the beginning of the series felt like we were finally getting some payoff to the storylines we’d been diligently following for the past month.

Margaret is awakened by a bustling at the garage across street, and given that it’s a garage, you could almost believe that it’s barrels of oil being rolled in…right up until the point when the gentleman takes a sip of the product. It seems at first that Margaret isn’t terribly bothered by the sight, nor even by being awoken so early, since she heads straight to the kitchen to whip up a batch of soda bread. As it turns out, however, she’s baking up a plan of action. Cut to Nucky and Eli, neither of whom are in the best of moods: Nucky isn’t exactly ecstatic about St. Patrick’s Day, and Eli quickly matches him with his annoyance over being slighted at breakfast. It’s not really about the breakfast, though. It’s about being considered of lesser importance by everyone all the way down to the waiter. Looks like the Celtic dinner is going to be interesting, what with Eli’s speech and the brothers’ dad being in attendance. It isn’t long before Margaret turns up to deliver the soda bread to Nucky…but what’s this? After several episodes of the show underlining Nucky’s interest in Margaret, suddenly he’s blowing her off? Interesting. He says, “My life’s complicated enough,” but something’s got to be up…and, clearly, Margaret’s pissed off by the reception, given that she promptly throws the soda bread into the wastebasket.

Her next move: to attend a meeting of the Women’s Temperance League…her first in quite some time, based on the reaction she receives when she strolls in…but when the topic turns to what can be done to prop up Prohibition, Margaret chimes in about what she witnessed earlier that morning. As I watched, I couldn’t help but suspect that neither Thompson brother would be quite as much of a friend after St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone. Little did I know that one would be decidedly more than a friend by the end of the episode.

Can’t say as I expected that Nucky’s offhanded “I’m a little short” joke would ultimately result in a storyline devoted to the vertically-challenged – who knew there was such a substantial population of midgets in Atlantic City? – but they’re apparently none too thrilled about the way they’re being treated with this whole Celtic parade. Carl Healy comes to visit Nucky, who’s not in the mood to put up with small talk…no pun intended. Carl asks for a raise from $5 to $10, but Nucky’s not having it. He is, however, willing to cut a deal where the guys get a slight raise and Carl gets an extra cut. Not a bad deal, but somehow I envision it going wrong. When Margaret comes in, she’s clearly a woman on a mission herself, only taking time to confirm her suspicions that Nucky’s just another sheister politician (yeah, that soda bread sure wasn’t tasty, wasn’t it, Nuck?) before getting down to business. Clearly, no matter what these two may have thought of each other in the past, there’s nothing but annoyance between them now, thanks to this latest development. “This isn’t a personal favor, Mrs. Schroeder.” Yeah, no shit, Nucky.

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Boardwalk Empire, External Entertainment, External TV, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

Mad Men 4.13 – No, seriously, who IS Don Draper?

October 18, 2010 /

A lot of TV critics spent much of last week trying to work out what would come to pass in this season’s final episode of “Mad Men,” but I can honestly say that I didn’t give it too much thought. The most I did, really, was reflect on how the previous season of “Mad Men” ended, which only served to leave me thinking, “Okay, there’s no way the end of Season 4 is going to leave me as excited about next season as the end of Season 3 did.” And I was right: it didn’t…but that doesn’t mean that Matthew Weiner didn’t still do yet another fine job of setting the stage for the series’ next go-round.

Maybe it’s just the cocktails talking, but since this is the season finale, I don’t think there’s any point in going through the episode scene by scene by scene, so let’s just look at the various events that went down, along with their repercussions:

Don and Fay: I think we all knew they were more or less doomed from the moment Don sexed up Megan in his office, but, man, it just got more and more depressing to watch them interact, especially knowing that Fay had basically betrayed her principles for the sake of their relationship. Her speech to him before she headed off on her flight underlined yet again how much she cared about him. I really do think that Don wanted it to work out between them, but as he proved last week with his letter to The New York Times (and, of course, on probably a hundred more occasions in other episodes), he’s a man who does things on impulse, rarely bothering to concern himself with the possible repercussions. I can’t imagine that their final phone conversation will prove to be the last we see of Fay, but if it is, you can’t say she didn’t get the best possible last word, snapping, “I hope she knows you only like the beginnings of things.”

Don sitting on bed next to Megan

Don and Megan: As soon I saw Don start talking to Megan, I said to my wife, “Oh, God, don’t tell me he’s going to ask her to watch the kids for him…” But, of course, he did. I knew that the fire between them was destined to be rekindled at some point during the trip to California, but, really, did anyone anticipate that it would all go down so fast? Even when Stephanie gave Don the ring, I couldn’t imagine that he and Fay would ever actually make it to the altar, but, Jesus, it never occurred to me that, before episode’s end, the ring would be on Megan’s finger…and, yet, looking back at the episode, it’s very easy to see how Don got so caught up in it all.

First and foremost, Megan loves the kids and the kids love Megan. Don’s initial line when he walks into the room to a French chorus – “You said you didn’t have any experience, but you’re like Maria von Trapp!” – was hilarious, but it still wasn’t as funny as the expressions on the faces of Sally, Bobby, and Don when Megan kept her cool after Sally’s milkshake spillage. On top of that, she’s gorgeous, smart, and respects what Don does, all of which are important qualities. Still, let’s not kid ourselves: it’s the way she handles the kids that seals the deal.

In the midst of post-coital bliss, Megan tells Don, “I know who you are now.” Except she doesn’t. Not really, anyway. But she’ll no doubt find out at some point in the future. Maybe Betty and Fay can fill her in…?

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

It’s the end of week movie news dump — now, with fewer items!

October 16, 2010 /

There really hasn’t been all that much interesting movie news this week, but things have definitely heated up just in the last few hours. Specifically…

* Via Quint at AICN, “The Hobbit” two-movie package has been officially greenlit, with Peter Jackson directing. It’s a good thing because I was really getting tired of those “it’s just about greenlit” “it’s almost greenlit” “no, it’s actually not quite greenlit because of MGM being on the block, nothing to see here” rinse-and-repeat stories. I don’t even care if Nikki Finke and Mike Fleming want to claim a “toldja” on this or how many casting rumors they’re repeating, just make the damn movies already.

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Oh, but first, they’ve got to solve the previously reported issues with SAG and AFTRA. As a good liberal I’m very pro-union and I think that anyone who thinks we’d be better off without unions should be immediately transported to a smokey factory in 19th century London and asked to work a 72 hour week without overtime pay. However, like all the other geeks, I nevertheless think SAG and AFTRA are probably overreaching here and are singling out the movie because of its high profile.

* A related story is also a classic example of an unpleasant news item arriving late on a Friday night in an attempt to bury it. The highly regarded executive Mary Parent — beloved of Joss Whedon fans for giving both the “Buffy” TV and the “Serenity” movie gigs — is officially out at MGM.

* The king of the world is supposedly flirting with making a movie about the queen of the world — not Oprah, but Cleopatra. Angelina Jolie is already set to star in a project that’s already sounding to me as bloated as the wildly over budget 1963 production, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, that nearly bankrupted Fox — despite being the year’s most successful movie (despite being a movie that almost no one likes today).

* It always tempting to make jokes about the porn industry, but HIV is no joke and there’s been an outbreak of it, so far limited to one on-screen sex worker. Is the site of a condom really that much of a boner buzz-kill?

* David Chase is reuniting with musical genius Steven Van Zandt, who played helmet-haired Silvio Dante on “The Sopranos,” as his music supervisor and is taking on a cast of more-or-less unknowns on his planned feature musical drama. This one I’m looking forward to. Before getting his start writing some of the best episodes ever of “The Rockford Files,” Chase was and presumably still is influenced largely by European art films.

BTW, if you’ve never heard Van Zandt’s great radio show and you like rock and roll, you’re missing something. Also, Mr. Van Zandt should be remembered as a human rights hero for his involvement with this great piece of pop music protest.

Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies, The Sopranos, TV, TV Dramas

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