Scott's dead.

I don’t now what my motivation is, exactly, but I’m going to start doing recaps of the shows I watch regularly. Maybe it’s in an effort to entertain you, my loyal readers, as you go about your daily doldrums.

Lost: “The Long Con”

  • There now seem to be three factions on the island: Jack’s warriors, Locke’s thinkers, and Sawyer’s in his own corner with Charlie. There doesn’t seem to be much going on, at least on the surface, in the last few episodes, but I think the table is being set for some major events down the road, Lord-of-the-Flies-style.
  • Locke was going through a book called “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” down in the hatch (you can read the full text of the story here). A short summary of the story, courtesy of Google:

    A Civil War soldier is to be executed by hanging, but when the plank is kicked away, instead of breaking his neck, he manages to miraculously escape unscathed…or did he?

    That summary hints at the actual truth behind the story, which I won’t spoil here. Go read it at the link above; it doesn’t take long, and you’ll quickly see the parallels between it and the possible (and I stress possible) plot conceit behind Lost itself. I tend to think it’s more of a red herring by the creative staff, once again.

  • Speaking of red herrings, the mystery script Hurley was reading, entitled “Bad Twin,” is an obvious allusion to some of the theories that have been formulated on the web. The “Bad Twin” theory states that everyone in the world has an identical twin, and that the odds of meeting that twin are 4,815,162,342 to 1. Yes, you should recognize those numbers. There’s more to it, and I’m not doing real justice to the entirety of the theory, but you get the idea. Anyway, that twin is purportedly “bad” as well, a mirror opposite in personality despite appearances.

    Bad Twin

  • There’s an alternate, and much more likely, explanation for the script’s presence. Courtesy of Amazon.com:

    Bad Twin is the highly-anticipated new novel by acclaimed mystery writer Gary Troup. Bad Twin was delivered to Hyperion just days before Troup boarded Oceanic Flight 815, which was lost in flight from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles in September 2004. He remains missing and is presumed dead.

  • I found it kind of strange that, immediately before Sun was assaulted by Charlie, Vincent appeared. Coincidence, or is Vincent somehow a harbinger of bad things? Was he there to warn her? Am I reading way too much into what is probably just an overly friendly dog? Is Walt acting through him? Questions to be answered another time.
  • The music Sayid and Hurley heard at episode’s end was clearly from a bygone era. Hurley’s “…or maybe from another time” comment is another obvious allusion to the fact that the castaways may nto be living in present day–that they were somehow transported back through time. At this point, I have to think the writers are simply messing with the audience, knowing full well how much everything is overanalyzed. Still, there have to be pieces of the larger puzzle sprinkled along the way, don’t there?
  • Lastly, another instance of intersection between the castaways’ former lives: Kate’s mother was the waitress waiting on Sawyer and Gordy in the diner.

Xtra Lame

Super Bowl XL

Well, Super Bowl XL turned out to be a real bomb. Thinking back to last night, and I’d be hard-pressed to come up with more than one or two postives about the whole broadcast. The pizza I ate was pretty good, though.

I didn’t catch too much of the pregame, but what I saw of the ceremony honoring all of the past Super Bowl MVP’s was pretty cool. Conspicuously absent were Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, the MVP quarterbacks of the Steelers and 49ers, respectively. I come to find out, today, that they both declined to be part of the ceremony because they wouldn’t be paid enough. Montana wanted at least $100,000. What a joke. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bad thing about Montana, so this is stunning to me. It’s further evidence of the old adage that all athletes care about is money. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what status you hold in the sporting landscape, money is the primary motivator.

Regardless of that, the ceremony was nice. That was then followed by a Dr. Seuss introduction, featuring Harrison Ford, clearly in the middle of an acid trip. Who thinks of this stuff? How did the meeting where this was formulated go? Was everyone actually on drugs, and thought it was a good idea to have a commercial with Harrison Ford on drugs, introducing the Super Bowl? Come to think of it, maybe that guy with the goatee, wild eyes, and earring wasn’t Ford at all; maybe it was Timothy Leary.

The National Anthem was a little iffy as well. All I could think of while Aaron Neville was moaning was Horatio Sanz’ portrayal of him during Saturday Night Live, and his obsession with cocoa butter. Aretha Franklin is fat.

SeahawksSteelers

On to the game itself, then. Finally, something to cut through all the endless hype and interminable build-up and rampant commercialism (I like adjectives). And the game sucked. Both teams were basically begging for the other to go ahead and take charge, and neither did until Pittsburgh pulled out a trick play in which their quarterback-turned-wide receiver Antwaan Randle El threw a bomb to WR Hines Ward for the touchdown. It’s probably a bad sign when a wide receiver has a better night at QB than your starting QB (Ben Roethlisberger), who had a 22.9 QB rating. But despite his horrid performance, he got plenty of help from the refs and a bumbling Seahawks team (see the end of the first half for the height of time-management incompetency), and now has a Super Bowl ring.

Big Ben
Big Ben shares his underarm odor in an effort
to describe his Super Bowl performance

The other highlight of any Super Bowl broadcast is usually the commercials, though I think they’ve been pretty lame the past several years. This year was no exception. How do these ad execs have jobs? These companies spend over $2 million dollars so we can watch a bunch of idiots dressed up like lettuce and tomatoes jump on each other? Other high/lowlights:

  • The Magic Fridge: probably the best commercial of the night.
  • FedEx Caveman: another good one; violence and irrational behavior are always good for some yuks. Yuks…ha.
  • Pepsi Can: Jay Mohr as an agent for a Pepsi can: this was the worst of the night; seriously, Ad Execs, even after you guys filmed this–you watched it and thought it was worth putting on the air? “Brown and bubbly?” Really?
  • Careerbuilder.com: if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: chimps=comedy gold.

    Chimp

  • Movie Trailers: There are usually a few good movie trailers during the Super Bowl, but not this year. The only one worth mentioning is V for Vendetta, which looks like it has the potential to be a really unique and interesting hit later this year. Other than that, nothing worth mentioning.
  • Gillette Fusion: we need FIVE blades now? I can feel my jugular quivering in fear already.
  • Pretentious Car Ads: has a $2 million Super Bowl car ad ever made someone actually want to buy a car? Nothing says “buy me” like a bunch of supermodels being lifted out of a mercury-filled vat, followed by an Escalade. Hunh? Who’s watching these that can afford a brand new Escalade anyway? The only people who can afford them are actually at the Super Bowl, so they can’t see the damn commercials!

The rest of my night was spent playing some darts and watching some TV doctors talk very seriously about a “code black” on Grey’s Anatomy. I’m still not sure what a “code black” is, but I think it had something to do with bad, melodramatic overacting, as that seemed to be prevalent in the situation.

All in all, a Super night.

Okay, that last line was really lame, but I was attempting to tie it into the whole Super Bowl theme. Wait a minute, I just called the last line “lame.” The title of this post is “Xtra LAME!” YEAH! I’M AWESOME!!

Sin City | A

director: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino
starring: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, Clive Owen, Benicio del Toro, Jessica Alba, Rutger Hauer, Powers Boothe

I take my mind off her and I crawl back inside myself. It’s almost killing time, and I better get sharp.

I check the list: Rubber tubing. Gas. Saw. Gloves. Cuffs. Razor wire. Hatchet. Gladys. And my mits.

We’re close enough. Pull over.

So sayeth the indestructible Marv (Mickey Rourke) in “The Hard Goodbye,” a vignette within one of the outstanding, one-of-its-kind movies of all-time, Sin City. They simply don’t make movies like this, and by “they,” I mean the Hollywood establishment. Rarely will you see a film this unique coming out of the studio system, and even rarer still, will it be so good. Director Robert Rodriguez shot the entire film on green screen sound stages, later replacing the green with the many seedy, dark backdrops of Basin City. All this to better embody famed comic writer/artist Frank Miller. Miller’s “Sin City” graphic novels have been acclaimed for some time, but translating them into a big screen flick never seemed to be feasible. The distinct look in the novels could never be captured by any other medium but an artist’s canvas.

But Rodriguez has done just that, painting his own masterpiece on an altogether different canvas, with altogether different tools. But the same sensibility is there, and it pays off in spades.

Marv

The flick goes through a series of stand-alone vignettes (though they’re all inextricably linked), following the lives of some of Basin City’s bravest, bloodiest, meanest, and toughest characters as they seek revenge, look for a good time, cruise the streets, and dispose of the bodies they leave in their wake. It’s a good old-fashioned, hard boiled thriller, and I do shame to it by attempting to put the experience of watching Sin City into words. From Goldie’s red lips to that Yellow Bastard’s bloated (and yellow) head to Basin City’s hard-edged, black & white hues, it’s something you should experience visually for yourself. So I’ll stop here and say you should do just that.

The Ring Two | C-

director: Hideo Nakata
starring: Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, David Dorfman

There’s not a whole lot to say about Ring Two, other than it certainly seems to be directed well. Other than that, it’s a massive borefest. Picking up about 6 months after the events of the original Ring, the flick starts with two more idiots watching the infamous tape–which they soon regret–and then we’re off and running….well, maybe it’s more of a brisk walk. Ring Two is not horribly bad, but it’s not good, either–it’s simply boring. I’m not sure I could even call it a horror movie, as it purportedly claims to be, as there wasn’t more than a minute of screentime that I found “scary.” After a pretty decent first movie, I’d expected a bit more out of this. Nakata’s direction is certainly nice; I liked a lot of the shots and overall cinematography. It just doesn’t make up for the lack of story.

One good moment features some ill-tempered elk (though without frickin’ laser beams on their heads) having an argument with a Volkswagen, but moments like these were few and far between. So, it’s not worth a rental, it’s not worth 2 hours on HBO. You can safely avoid it, unless you’re looking to fall asleep.

Speed 2: Cruise Control | D

director: Jan de Bont
starring: Sandra Bullock, Jason Patric, Willem Dafoe

Another Hollywood “cash in on the popularity of an okay first movie” sequel, Speed 2 features the same taut, exciting action–except on a cruise ship taken over by an insane Willem Dafoe! I caught this on cable the other day, not remembering how bad it was. Basically, Bullock and Patric are on vacation (on said cruise ship), and having a lovely time until nutjob Dafoe takes control of the ship with an elaborate series of remotely-detonated smoke bombs (that’s right: smoke bombs). Anyway, after some brief and altogether unnecessary exposition of his motives, the movie basically consists of a series of shots of the cruise ship sailing toward objects. Insert shot of cruise ship going fast; cut to shot of oil tanker; cut back to cruise ship going fast; cut to shot of oil tanker, slightly closer; cut to shot of cruise ship going fast; cut to shot of oil tanker, seemingly a hundred feet away; cut back to cruise ship…you get the idea.

Despite the cruise ship being about a hundred yards away, it takes about 20 minutes for it to reach the tanker. This sequence is essentially repeated with a seaside commerce area a few minutes later. All in all, shots of “boat going fast” take up about 78% of the movie.

I haven’t said much about the acting thus far because, well, there’s not much to say about the acting. Despite all this, it’s worth seeing solely for Willem Dafoe’s fantastic, maniacal laughter at the end. Sandra Bullock’s easy on the eyes, too. Oh, and font like this indicates the movie will be fraught with fast-paced, exciting action!!!! RUSH HOUR HITS THE WATER!!!