PCP on TV - Lost Season 6 wrapup

Welcome back to Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be talking about the TV show Lost.  If you’ve been reading my blog all summer, you know that I’m working my way through the entire run of the show before the regular fall TV shows come back on, as I had never watched it when it was originally on the air.  I’ve now finished the 6^th and final season of the show.  In short, holy crap what an amazing show from start to finish.  I am so glad that I watched this show this summer, I don’t regret it for a second.  Now for my thoughts on season 6, written down as I watched each episode so they are in order as we go through the season: (WARNING:  spoilers ahead if you’re like me and never saw the show before).

·   All the way back in the 1^st season, Greg Grunberg was the pilot of Oceanic 815 that died in the very first episode.  It was nice of him to cameo his voice in the flash-sideways universe as the pilot on the intercom after they hit the turbulence.

·   I loved the way they showed Kate’s hearing loss from the explosion at the end of season 5, having her hearing (and the sound levels on the episode for the audience) slowly fade back in.  At first I thought something was wrong with my TV, but then I realized what they were doing.  Cool trick.

·   Early on in the sideways universe, things are still the same as they were in the main universe – Boone says to Locke “If this plane goes down I’m sticking with you.”

·   I found it amusing that Ben was griping to Locke/Smokey (hereafter called L/S) after L/S explained what happened.  Ben was complaining that L/S used him.  That made me laugh because Ben is usually such a master manipulator that it was ironic that he was so masterfully played.

·   When they first show us Locke at home in the sideways universe (before revealing what it is) I wrote this:  “So Locke is apparently friendly with his dad?  Helen mentioned him inviting the dad to the wedding.  Also, if they’re still friendly, how did he injure his spine?”  By the end of the season this was answered with the big reveal of what the sideways really was, and then it all made sense.

·   When L/S and Sawyer were in the cave looking at all the candidates’ names on the wall, I almost wish the camera had spent more time going over all the names.  I couldn’t find Kate’s name on there, crossed out or otherwise.

Read the rest after the jump!

PCP on TV - Fall 2011 TV - What's on my DVR

Thanks for coming back for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  It’s September 2011, and that means that the fall TV season is upon us.  Today I’ll be talking about what is on my DVR for my wife and I to enjoy this fall:  what’s new, what’s returning, and what didn’t make the cut.  I’ve had to drastically reduce the amount of shows I watch compared to in the past, because of a few reasons:  1) I want to have a life, 2) I have grad school 2 nights a week, and 3) I’m having a son in December, so I can’t go too overboard.  Unfortunately, that means I’m not going to be watching as many of the new shows as I want to, but oh well, there’s always DVD in the future like I did for Lost this summer.  Thankfully, through the power of DVR, I can watch these 15 shows in only 9 hours a week when I skip out the commercials.  I have just enough time each week to manage that.  So, here’s what’s on my DVR this fall in no particular order.

New to my DVR for this fall:  4 shows

Ringer – I’m a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so the fact that Sarah Michelle Gellar is returning to TV had me on board for this show from Day 1.  Adding in Lost’s Nestor Carbonell and Veronica Mars’ Jason Dohring were the icing on the cake for me.  Definitely looking forward to this one.  Premieres on the CW on 9/13.

Up All Night – Considering that I’m going to be a parent myself in 3 months, it’s fitting that this show about new parents is making its debut now.  Starring the very funny Christina Applegate, Maya Rudolph, and Will Arnett, this show has a great comic pedigree.  Hopefully it’ll be good.  Premieres on NBC on 9/14.

The Secret Circle – I’m giving this show about witches a shot because it comes on right after my #1 guilty pleasure the Vampire Diaries, and it’s from the same creators.  Hopefully it will be more like Charmed than like Eastwick when it comes to shows about witches on TV.  Premieres on the CW on 9/15.

Terra Nova – this one meets my need for a sci-fi fix:  time travel, dinosaurs, and it is produced by Steven Spielberg.  I’m so there.  Premieres on Fox on 9/26.

Returning to my DVR for this fall:  11 shows

 Read what's coming back after the jump:

PCP on DVD - 4 2011 Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies reviewed

Time for your next hit of PCP.  Today I’ll be talking about 4 films from 2011 and 1 from 2009 that take us out of our normal reality and add an element of sci-fi or fantasy.  We’ve got 2 alien movies, 1 in a fairy tale, 1 in a fantasy world, and 1 with Nazi zombies.  These 5 films are now available on DVD and I recently caught them on Netflix:  Battle: Los Angeles, Sucker Punch, I Am Number 4, & Red Riding Hood from this year, and Dead Snow from 2009, which is currently available on Netflix streaming.

Battle: Los Angeles – 2011, Rated PG-13.  116 minutes.  Starring:  Aaron Eckhart, Ramon Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, & Michelle Rodriguez.  My rating:  7 out of 10.

Battle: LA is a movie you’ve probably seen before, back when it was even more unrealistic and titled Independence Day.  Aliens have invaded, we have to fight back, etc etc.  Nothing particularly new here.  However, it is some of the performances that stand out and help salvage the movie from being a complete snooze.  Aaron Eckhart is great as Staff Sergeant Nantz, a 20 year veteran Marine that was about to retire after he lost soldiers under his command in Iraq but has been forced back into active duty when the invasion happens.  He is the right hand man to 2^nd Lieutenant Martinez, played by Ramon Rodriguez, who is fresh out of officer training and has never seen combat.  Rodriguez does a great job of portraying the Lt’s fear and trepidation when he first encounters combat.  They have to lead their platoon into LA to rescue some stranded civilians before the Air Force is scheduled to wipe that part of LA off the map.

This film is a straightforward alien invasion movie:  aliens have invaded and it is up to our soldiers to fight back.  There is nothing particularly original here, and in fact the film is rather filled with clichés from almost every war movie ever made.  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t enjoyable, however.  Just because a film has a bunch of war movie clichés doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun to watch.  Although, if you get nauseous from jittery camera movies like District 9 or Cloverfield, then this might not be fun for you to watch after all.  Aside from the documentary-style aspect of the filmmaking, the film is rather similar to Independence Day, without the whole implausibly bogus story of going into space to upload a computer virus to save the day.  Battle: LA is more gritty and more realistic, and even portrays more despair than ID4 ever did, but at the same time you know as a viewer of alien invasion movies that everything will still turn out okay.  So who cares if the film is formulaic?  If you are a war or alien junkie, then this is a film for you.  If not, then take a pass.

Read the rest of the reviews after the jump

PCP on DVD - 4 2011 Thrillers Reviewed

Time for your next hit of PCP.  Today I’ll be talking about 4 films from 2011 that attempt to give us some suspense.  Some succeeded and some failed miserably at building any sort of tension.  These 4 films are now available on DVD and I recently caught them on Netflix:  Limitless, The Adjustment Bureau, Unknown, & The Roommate. 

Limitless – 2011; PG-13.  105 minutes.  Starring:  Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, & Abbie Cornish.  My rating:  6 out of 10.

Limitless has an interesting premise:  what would you become if you could suddenly access all 100% of your brain function and turn your mind into a super computer far more powerful than anything you could imagine.  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t quite live up to its possibilities.  Bradley Cooper stars as Eddie Mora, a writer with terminal writers block and a personal life that is falling apart.  His longtime girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish) has just dumped him because she can clearly see that he isn’t going anywhere.  And he isn’t, his life is a waste of time and space.  Everything changes when he runs into an old acquaintance, Vernon, a drug dealer that has a stash of a super-drug called NZT that unlocks the potential trapped within the rest of his brain.  Suddenly after taking the drug Mora is able to turn his life around, making a fortune in the stock market, but also attracting the attention of some people that want to do him major bodily harm.

The film is okay but not great.  From a visual standpoint, the shots of the camera rapidly sweeping through New York City down block after block, to demonstrate the enhanced senses that Mora has after taking the drug, are a rather nifty trick that would probably make you nauseous if you watched it in 3D.  Those shots though, showing Mora’s high, are about the only cool camera trick in the film.  There are not particularly any other shots that stand out.  The dialogue isn’t particularly good either.  The thrills are okay, but nothing to write home about.  Probably the most suspsenseful scene in the film is when Lindy is being chased by a bad guy that wants Mora’s stash for himself.  Since she’s not a total major character, there was some real tension wondering whether or not she’d bite the dust.  Between the lack of suspense and some of the plot holes in the film that you could drive a semi through, this film gets downgraded to only average.  Watch it if you like Bradley Cooper, but pass otherwise.

 Read the other 3 reviews after the jump!

PCP on TV - Lost Season 5 better late than never!

Welcome back to Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be talking about the TV show Lost.  If you’ve been reading my blog all summer, you know that I’m working my way through the entire run of the show before the regular fall TV shows come back on, as I had never watched it when it was originally on the air.  I’ve now completed the 5^th season and these are my thoughts and observations about this show. (WARNING:  mild spoilers ahead if you’re like me and never saw the show before).

• Interesting coincidence when time traveling?  When Locke gets shot in the leg by Ethan, he’s standing more or less in the same area where his legs gave out on him back in the first season, underneath the crashed drug smuggling plane.  Was that why his legs gave out back in season 1?
• Also, how many times has Locke been hurt in the legs now?  He had the blast doors come down on it, gotten shot in the leg, and he even gets a compound fracture this season when the time jumping causes him to fall down the well.  Poor guy finally gets the use of his legs back and they keep failing him anyways.
• Understatement of the season:  after Locke shows up and saves Juliet and Sawyer from the Others, all he says is their names and “Good to see you.” – cut to commercial.  No long exposition, just a nice understatement before the break.
• Man, Widmore was a jerk in the past, quick to kill first and ask questions later.  I suppose that hasn’t changed much over the years.

Read the rest of the post after the jump:

PCP in Theaters - Fright Night

Ok so for only the 2^nd time this summer, I finally had a chance to actually go and see a movie in theaters.  So, here is my review of the latest movie I’ve seen, Fright Night, with a bonus short review of an older film at the end of the post, as well as my thoughts on the trailers featured on Fright Night.  Thanks for dropping by for another hit of PCP!

Fright Night.  2011, Rated R.  106 minutes.  Starring Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, Toni Collette, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, & Christopher Mintz-Plasse.  My rating:  8 out of 10.  Note – I saw this in 2D not 3D.

Going into this film, I didn’t know what to expect.  The ad campaign left me feeling a little underwhelmed, and with all the vampire stuff everywhere else in pop culture lately, I was staring to feel a little burnt out on vampires.  Even my wife, who got me hooked on Buffy, Angel, & the Vampire Diaries and is a Twilight fan, wasn’t particularly in the mood to see this.  However, it was the only movie that fit into our time slot of when we could go see a film that the friends we were seeing it with hadn’t already seen, so that sort of made the choice for us.  I was a cautiously optimistic after reading some reviews of the film on Friday, but I still wasn’t sure if it would be good or if it would suck.  Thankfully, I did not come away disappointed at all.

Read the rest after the jump!

FML - Why I'm looking forward to having a kid

So for those of you that are not aware, I am going to be a father for the first time this December; my wife and I are expecting a boy.  As his arrival gets closer and closer, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that I am looking forward to sharing with my son.  So, without further ado, these are the things I’m most looking forward to sharing with my son once he’s old enough to appreciate them.  I just hope that he likes them as much as I do, and I hope I won’t be too disappointed if he doesn’t.

Authors/Books for when he’s a kid:  Shel Silverstein, Bearenstain Bears; Dr. Seuss.

Authors/Books for when he gets old enough:  Stephen King, JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, John Sandford, David Baldacci; Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy.  Also, graphic novels in general, and the Marvel universe in particular.  I hope my kid likes comics :-D

TV Series on DVD for when he’s a kid:  DVDs of the old school stuff I grew up on – Schoolhouse Rock, GI Joe, Thundercats, He-Man, Looney Tunes, Tiny Tunes, Animaniacs.

TV series on DVD for when he gets old enough:  Anything classic sci-fi, but especially Lost, Babylon 5, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica, & any Star Trek franchise.  In the realm of non sci-fi – Castle, 24, Big Bang Theory, Band of Brothers, & The Pacific.

Movies for when he’s a kid:  Princess Bride, Star Wars (and they’ll be watched in the proper order: IV, V, VI, I, II, III – I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he finds out Vader is Luke’s dad.  I hope he doesn’t have that spoiled for him I’ll have to get him young on that), anything by Pixar, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda, and the classic Disney movies.

Movies for when he gets old enough:  Lord of the Rings, Fight Club, Seven, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Army of Darkness, Dark Knight, Top Gun, The Killer, Hard Boiled, Usual Suspects & Saving Private Ryan.  Also, if he shows a true appreciation for film, I’m really looking forward to showing him really old stuff such as Akira Kurosawa & Alfred Hitchcock.  I’m hoping that for films with a twist ending, by the time he watches them since they’ve been out for so many years that the endings will not be commonly discussed in pop culture anymore, so he gets shocked by the ending of Fight Club, 6^th Sense, Usual Suspects, and other films like that.  I really hope that he goes into those films unspoiled so that I can see the look on his face when the twist comes.  Who knows though, maybe he’ll be like his mom and see the twists coming a mile away.

Sports teams to follow:  anything from Chicago and anything for the University of Michigan.  The first piece of clothing I bought my son was a U of M onesie and he also has a U of M mobile for his crib.  That boy is going to grow up fanatical about U of M football just like his old man.

Sports teams to hate:  The Yankees, Ohio State, Green Bay Packers, Michigan State, & Notre Dame.

Video games and board games.  The kid is going to be gaming a lot just like his dad.  I like the Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Xbox 360 so that he can play the games I played when he was that age, and so he can see just how lucky he is to live in an age that isn’t 8 or 16 bit graphics anymore. 

So those are just some of the things I’m looking forward to sharing with my kid.  I’m sure there are plenty more things that will come to me as I’m going through this new chapter in my life.  Hopefully I can still keep up with my blogging, although going forward there might be more posts about my son mixed in with posts about pop culture.  I haven’t decided if I am going to start a separate blog for posts about my family or not, that remains to be seen.  Anyways, thanks for dropping by!

PCP on DVD - 18 more short reviews of 2010 films

Ok, here’s the final backlog cleansing of films from prior to the current year.  These 18 films are from 2010, and once I get these out of the way I can go back to longer reviews of actually current films that are new to DVD or in theaters.  Going forward, if I catch an older film on DVD, I will just do a quick blurb review like this as part of a post on current movies.  I’m not gonna let the backlog ever stack up like this again.  So without further ado, here are my thoughts on 18 films from August to December of last year that I’ve caught on DVD recently.  They’re sorted for your convenience by month of release to theaters, so near the end of the post are the films that came out in December and are newer to DVD.

The Switch.  My rating:  5 out of 10.  Another mediocre comedy, nothing spectacular, which is disappointing considering how funny Jason Bateman can be.  Here he’s just neurotic and annoying.

The Other Guys.  My rating:  7 out of 10.  Half buddy comedy, half spoof of buddy comedies, this film is funny and entertaining.  Better than some of the recent other films from Will Ferrell lately.

Wall Street:  Money Never Sleeps.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Considering that a) the original is a classic and b) this film could have been a much better commentary on the current economy we live in, this film comes away as a disappointment.  It’s not terrible, it just comes nowhere close to living up to the original.

Buried.  My rating:  8 out of 10.  Ryan Reynolds steps up and shows he actually can act.  Very Hitchcock-ian film, bleak and depressing but extremely claustrophobic and suspenseful.

Grown Ups.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Adam Sandler seems to be phoning it in lately, making films with his buddies that are nowhere near as good as his classics like Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison.  Has some funny moments but could have been better.

The rest of the backlog is after the jump

PCP on DVD - 14 short reviews of 2010 films

Continuing on with the clearing out of my backlog of reviews, here are my quick thoughts on 14 films from 2010, released between January and July of last year.  After these, my backlog is now down to 28 films, 16 from 2010 and 12 from 2011.  Once I’m back into 2011 I’ll go back to longer reviews. 

Shutter Island.  My rating:  9 out of 10.  I loved this movie.  Of course, anything directed by Martin Scorsese is a must-watch film in my book though.  Great twists and turns; a great mystery.  Very enjoyable film and I did not see the ending coming.

Alice in Wonderland.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Honestly, give me the old Disney cartoon over this.  It looks like Tim Burton was dropping serious amounts of LSD when he filmed this.  Visually creative and beautiful, but it is probably too scary for little kids.

How to Train Your Dragon.  My rating:  10 out of 10.  Dreamworks finally made a film to match Pixar.  Funny, lighthearted, touching, and entertaining.  Great film all around, and one I can watch again and again.

From Paris with Love.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Decent old-school style action flick.  Loved the Pulp Fiction reference Travolta’s character makes.  Good action sequences, but more believable than many action films, not too over the top in terms of events occurring that defy the laws of physics.

Repo Men.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  It’s a bleak look at a future where corporations rule the world and a dark sci-fi film with a high body count.  A good twist ending as well, but not a movie I’d watch a 2^nd time unless there was absolutely nothing else on.

Date Night.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Not as funny as it should have been given its stars.  Mark Wahlberg was funnier in this than either Tina Fey or Steve Carell. 

The rest are after the jump

PCP on TV - Lost Season 4 better late than never

Welcome back to Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be talking about the TV show Lost.  I never watched Lost when it was first on the air, and by the time I wanted to watch the show, all I heard about it was that it was confusing and if you were jumping in to it late, you would be totally… well, lost.  I knew this would be a show I’d like, because I love the work of J.J. Abrams, especially Fringe, and I love sci-fi in general.  So this summer I resolved to watch the entire run of the show on DVD.  I just completed power-discing through the 4th season now, and these are my thoughts and observations about this show. (WARNING:  mild spoilers ahead if you’re like me and never saw the show before).

• They’re getting even less subtle with the characters’ names this season:  Charlotte S. Lewis (C.S. Lewis), the physicist Daniel Faraday shares the same last name with physicist Michael Faraday.  Of course having characters with the last names Locke, Rousseau, Shepherd, Hume, and Hawking isn’t exactly subtle in the first place if you get the references.
• I love how they show us a polar bear skeleton in the Tunisian desert with a Dharma collar on it in the 2^nd episode, but don’t give us a clue as to how that happened until much later in the season when Ben also wakes up in Tunisia, but they still don’t show us how he got there until the finale, when he moves the island and is teleported to Tunisia.  How did the bear make it there though?  That part makes no sense (but when has this show made full sense?)

The rest is after the jump!

PCP on DVD - 12 supershort reviews

Ok so my wife pointed out to me that my backlog will never get cleared out unless I really clear them out en masse.  She also pointed out that I should focus more on the newer releases on DVD, instead of the older stuff that we caught on DVD.  So, I’m going to wipe out my entire backlog of everything that is from 2009 or older in one fell swoop, with super short reviews- twitter sized reviews basically.  So here’s my quick thoughts on 12 films from 2009 or older that for some reason or another we watched on DVD within the past couple months.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  It’s ok, not great.  Hayek and Reilly are entertaining, but the movie is only average.

Planet 51.  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Cute but not great.  Decent kids movie, not as much there for the adults though.

The Joneses.  My rating:  7 out of 10.  Very interesting dark comedy with a disturbing and creepy premise.  Marketing majors would find this especially interesting.  Good social commentary on the consumer nation we live in.

Good Hair.  My rating:  7 out of 10.  Funny and interesting look into the world of hair, documentary made by Chris Rock.  You’ll never look at a weave the same way again.

Why Did I Get Married?  My rating:  6 out of 10.  Average film with a message from Tyler Perry.  Better than its sequel.

Surrogates.  My rating:  5 out of 10.  Promising premise, so-so execution.  It’s ok.  If you don’t like sci-fi take a pass.

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.  My rating:  7 out of 10.  Rebecca De Mornay is great and chilling in this, very creepy.  A bit cheesy though, kind of shows its age a little bit (it is 20 years old now).

Carriers.  My rating:  4 out of 10.  I wouldn’t have watched this if it didn’t star Captain Kirk aka Chris Pine.  Even then though, not worth really watching.  Rather bleak and depressing, and not particularly good.

The Time Traveler’s Wife.  My rating:  7 out of 10.  Cute and sappy, guaranteed to make your wife cry.  Not a romantic comedy though, more like a romantic drama, which is more depressing.

Surf Ninjas.  My rating:  3 out of 10.  I wouldn’t have watched this if my wife didn’t force me to, as she loved it when she was a kid.  Terrible film, super cheesy.  I guess it would have been better if I had watched this back when it came out, when I was 12, but at 29 it is just weak.

Dahmer.  My rating:  5 out of 10.  Jeremy Renner is creepy as heck as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.  Unfortunately the rest of the movie is only average.

Lilo & Stitch.  My rating:  8 out of 10.  Probably the best Disney non-Pixar film of the past 15 years.  Funny and heartwarming.  I’ll definitely be adding this to the collection of movies I’m buying for my soon to arrive child.

Ok so now the backlog is down to 39.  I’ll also be cranking out the 2010 films I’ve seen like this shortly, then I’ll go back to longer reviews on the films from 2011.  Thanks for stopping by!

PCP on DVD - Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 50 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’m going to do things a little differently.  As the movies in this post are part of a trilogy, I will be discussing all 3 films in one large review.  The films are the Swedish adaptations of the bestselling Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson:  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest.  Also known as:  The books and movies with the obnoxiously long titles.  I have not read the books yet that these are based on, but I plan to at some point, and I’ll also be watching the American remakes of these when they come out, directed by David Fincher.  When I saw these, I watched the subtitled, not dubbed versions.  Now, on to the reviews:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 152 minutes.  My rating:  9 out of 10

The Girl Who Played With Fire 129 minutes.  My rating:  8 out of 10

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest 147 minutes.  My rating:  8 out of 10.

Starring:  Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre.  All are rated R, and all were released in 2009.  All are in Swedish with English subtitles. 

Reviews after the jump

PCP on TV - Lost Season 3 Better Late than Never!

Welcome back to Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be talking about the TV show Lost.  I never watched Lost when it was first on the air, and by the time I wanted to watch the show, all I heard about it was that it was confusing and if you were jumping in to it late, you would be totally… well, lost.  I knew this would be a show I’d like, because I love the work of J.J. Abrams, especially Fringe, and I love sci-fi in general.  So this summer I resolved to watch the entire run of the show on DVD.  I just completed power-discing through the third season now, and these are my thoughts and observations about this show. (WARNING:  mild spoilers ahead if you’re like me and never saw the show before).

• So the Others have a whole community with a small village and everything?  WTF?  That was quite the shocking opener to the 3^rd season.
• Again with the cliffhangers each week.  We don’t find out until the 3^rd episode of the season what happened when Desmond threw the failsafe in the hatch, and whether or not he, Locke, and Eko survived, and that was one of the main cliffhangers from the 2^nd season finale.  Colleen gets shot by Sun in the 2^nd episode, but whether or not she survives isn’t resolved until the 4^th episode of the season when she dies.  Also, one of the biggest cliffhangers from the 2^nd season finale – the ship that detected the magnetic burst from the island then reported back to Penny wasn’t seen again until late in the season, but then we find out that the ship we think was Penny’s ship wasn’t actually Penny’s ship.  It’s almost as if the writers forgot about that as it took almost the whole season to get to that.
• Did Sun’s lover jump to his death or was he thrown to his death?  I’m thinking thrown – as he had that necklace in his hand as he died.
• I liked how they teased us with Desmond seeing the future in the 3^rd episode and 4^th episode before explaining it more clearly later in the 8^th episode.  They didn’t explain until even later (the 17^th episode) how it is that Desmond seemingly can see multiple futures – each time he prevents Charlie’s death, he now has the knowledge of how to prevent the next one, because he gets a vision.

The rest of my thoughts are after the jump.  There's a lot for this season!

PCP on DVD - 3 Comicbook Adaptations reviewed

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 50 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’m going to do reviews for 3 films that were previously done as graphic novels:  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World; Red; & Kick-Ass.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – 2010; PG-13.  112 minutes.  Starring Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, & Jason Schwartzman.  My rating:  8 out of 10.

I absolutely loved this movie.  Pilgrim is filmed as though it is a hybrid of a live movie, cartoon, video game, and comic all in one.  It is definitely one of the most unique and individualized films I’ve ever seen, as not a lot of movies are made like this.  It’s a true visual delight, starting right away with the Universal logo and music done as if it’s an old 8-bit video game.  Michael Cera stars as the titular Scott Pilgrim, playing a variant on the same character that he always plays, the kinda nerdy whiny guy, but this time he can actually rock with a band.  The movie has some great shout-outs to the world of comics and video games, including appearances by 3 actors that have starred as a Marvel or DC character in their own film:  Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, & Thomas Jane; as well as the music from Zelda and numerous other videogame homages.  The script from writer/director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is filled with one liners and gag jokes.  The performances from the cast are all solid and very entertaining, especially some of the evil exes that Pilgrim has to fight.  I haven’t read the source material so I’m not sure how much it deviates from the graphic novels, but it’s a pretty entertaining film.  I’ll have to check out the books sometime.  All in all, this is a very enjoyable movie.  If you grew up on video games and comics, you’ll get a kick out of this film.

Read the other 2 reviews after the jump

PCP on TV - Lost Season 2 better late than never!

Welcome back to Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be talking about the TV show Lost.  I never watched Lost when it was first on the air, and by the time I wanted to watch the show, all I heard about it was that it was confusing and if you were jumping in to it late, you would be totally… well, lost.  I knew this would be a show I’d like, because I love the work of J.J. Abrams, especially Fringe, and I love sci-fi in general.  So this summer I resolved to watch the entire run of the show on DVD.  I just completed power-discing through the second season now, and these are my thoughts and observations about this show. (WARNING:  mild spoilers ahead if you’re like me and never saw the show before).

• I’m glad that I’m watching this on DVD, had I watched this one week at a time when it was live would have driven me nuts.  The 1^st episode of the season ends in a standoff that isn’t resolved until the 3^rd episode, and a shooting in the 6^th episode isn’t resolved until the 8^th.  Thank goodness I didn’t have to wait a week to find out what happened.  It seems every episode of this show ends on some sort of cliffhanger.
• The Dharma Initiative was founded by my fellow U of M alums.  Go Blue!
• I love how they link up characters – the guy that Jack allowed to die back when he was a doctor, having to choose between the two patients from the car crash, was Shannon’s dad and Boone’s step-dad.  Also, the character introduced in another of Jack’s flashbacks, Desmond, wound up being on the island as well.  He fled when the computer was shot in the hatch, but obviously nothing bad happened so I’d been kinda surprised so far that he didn’t come back for awhile.  They explain that when he does come back though, he’d been trying to flee the island.  And then in the season finale, we learn that Desmond had met Libby before their time on the island also.
• And then in Sayid’s flashback to his time in Iraq during the 1^st gulf war, he encountered Kate’s dad, as well as Kelvin, who was Desmond’s predecessor with pushing the button in the hatch.  And in Ana Lucia’s flashback to when she was working for Jack’s dad, they encounter Sawyer.

Read the rest of my musings after the jump

PCP in theaters - Transformers - Dark of the Moon

Time for another hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be reviewing Transformers:  Dark of the Moon, which I just caught in theaters.  For all the critical bashing this film received, I saw it Friday, 7/1 in a nearly sold out show, and people in the audience actually applauded when the film was done.

Transformers:  Dark of the Moon – 2011, Rated PG-13.  157 minutes.  Starring Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, John Turturro, & John Malkovich, and the voices of Leonard Nimoy, Hugo Weaving, and Peter Cullen.  My rating:  8 out of 10 on the popcorn rating scale – movies that are popcorn movies are rated for how much fun they are, not for plot or acting.  They are films you can watch without having to think.  Leave your brain at the door.  Had this film been treated like an Oscar picture in my review, I’d probably give it 4 or 5 out of 10, as you’ll see why in the review.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a fan of the Transformers characters in general.  I had a couple of their toys as a kid, watched the cartoon, and I actually enjoyed the first movie in this franchise quite a bit (though the second one had a number of obnoxious parts that ticked me off).  When I saw this movie, I was wearing a Transformers T-Shirt.  Also, I live in the Chicago area, and I’ve been to a bunch of the places where they filmed the movie and I love almost any movie set or filmed in Chicago, like Ferris Bueller or the Dark Knight.  On top of that, although he has become rather hated by many in film circles, I cannot forget that two action flicks I love, Bad Boys and The Rock, were Michael Bay’s first 2 directorial outings, so he has made a couple films that I thoroughly enjoyed before.  Altogether, I am not the most unbiased of reviewers of this film.  That being said, this is what I thought of it:

First off, the film is thankfully better than the 2^nd one in the series.  The first best improvement:  gone are the much hated racist stereotype “twins” from the second movie.  That doesn’t mean that Bay can make a movie without stereotypes.  He just replaces them with a Ferrari that speaks like a stereotypical Italian in the 1 line he has in the film, 3 Nascar cars that act like drunken hooligans and are even referred to by another character as a-holes, and one of the mini robots acts like a drugged homeless guy.  At least the other mini robot doesn’t do any leg humping this time.  The stereotypes aren’t limited to just the robots either, with Ken Jeong (Hangover 1 & 2) as an Asian stereotype and Alan Tudyk (Firefly) in this as a hodgepodge mix of stereotypes, as a form of comic relief.  Megan Fox has also been replaced in this movie by Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.  She isn’t a good actress, but she’s not in this role for her acting ability – as proven by the very first shot of her is of her walking up the stairs, from behind, in a dress shirt and tiny underwear but no pants.  Bay is making it extremely clear why she was cast in this film from the get-go.  Besides, in a film about robots, who cares if the actors are robotic themselves?  They’re just matching the performances of their costars.

Read the rest of the review after the jump

PCP on DVD - Haven't I seen these before? 6 film adaptations reviewed.

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’m going to do reviews for 6 films that have either been made before as a TV show, movie, or video game:  Prince of Persia, Clash of the Titans, The A-Team, Sherlock Holmes, The Green Hornet, and Robin Hood.  Who says Hollywood lacks originality?

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – 2010, Rated PG-13.  116 minutes.  Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, & Alfred Molina.  My rating: 6 out of 10. 

This flick was based on the popular video game of the same name, but the plot was not as similar to the game as it could have been.  It is an entertaining film, in the sense that the action is fun, but a coherent narrative and strong acting are something the film is definitely lacking.  It’s a decent way to kill 2 hours, but personally I’d rather go and play the videogame again.  My personal highlight of the film is the character played by Alfred Molina.  He hams it up and steals the scenes he is in, and Kingsley is also good as the uncle of the titular prince played by Jake Gyllenhaal.  Jake isn’t too bad, but he is about as Persian looking as I am, which is to say not much.  As an adaptation of a videogame, this film is probably one of the stronger ones (and it is the highest-grossing one of all time), but as a movie on its own, it is only average.  Had this not been based on a video-game, it probably would have had a much smaller budget or not been made at all.

Read the other 5 after the jump!

PCP on DVD - Oscar pictures 2010 7 pack of reviews

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’m going to do new reviews for 6 films that were heavy Oscar nominees last year, and also reprint my review of Inception from last year that I wrote for my friend’s blog.

The Social Network – 2010, Rated PG-13.  Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake.  My rating:  10 out of 10.

If you’ve ever wondered how Facebook was created, or if you are a heavy Facebook user like me, then this is a film you have to see.  This was a great film from director David Fincher, the man behind two of my all time favorite films – Fight Club and Seven.  All of the cast members were great, and the script from Aaron Sorkin was outstanding.  The time jumps between the two different settlement hearings were a great way to tell the story and to keep things interesting and fresh during the story.  By not being linear, it actually makes the story more compelling.  It’s actually a great story, and I can see why Zuckerberg felt compelled to donate hundreds of millions of dollars right around the same time this film came out, because it totally makes him look like a giant douchebag.  Jesse Eisenberg was excellent as Mark Zuckerberg, he gave a great performance in this film.  He’s going to have a great future in the movies.  I loved his line about the Winklevi – “If you were the guys who invented Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”  Timberlake turns in a good performance as Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, who convinces Zuckerberg to drop the The from The Facebook to make it just Facebook.  As a user of Facebook since back when it was still The Facebook, I actually remember when they did that drop.  Andrew Garfield was also outstanding as the betrayed cofounder of the company, Eduardo Saverin, and I also liked Armie Hammer playing both of the Winklevi twins thanks to some computer trickery.  In short, it is a great film that truly does define our generation.

Read the other 6 after the jump.

PCP on TV - Lost Season 1 better late than never!

Welcome back to Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’ll be talking about the TV show Lost.  I never watched Lost when it was first on the air, and by the time I wanted to watch the show, all I heard about it was that it was confusing and if you were jumping in to it late, you would be totally… well, lost.  I knew this would be a show I’d like, because I love the work of J.J. Abrams, especially Fringe, and I love sci-fi in general.  So this summer I resolved to watch the entire run of the show on DVD.  I just completed power-discing through the first season (including watching 17 episodes in one weekend), and these are my thoughts and observations about this show. (WARNING:  mild spoilers ahead if you’re like me and never saw the show before).

Continue after the jump for my thoughts on the show.

PCP on DVD - Apocalyptic 6-pack film reviews.

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  In honor of the failed May 21^st apocalypse that didn’t happen, today I’ll be tackling 6 movies that deal with an apocalypse in progress or on a post-apocalypse world.

2012 – 2009, Rated PG-13.  158 minutes.  Starring:  John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, & Danny Glover.  My rating:  5 out of 10.

Director Roland Emmerich is great at making things go boom on the big screen with stunning visuals and scenes of destruction.  In Independence Day he blows up New York, DC, and LA.  In The Day After Tomorrow, a tidal wave floods New York.  Here in 2012, he goes even bigger, with tidal waves cresting over the Himalayas, Los Angeles disintegrating under a massive earthquake, and the dormant volcano under Yellowstone going boom with a massive fury.  Despite its entire visual spectacle, the film itself isn’t particularly that good, just like most of his other films.  He gets decent performances out of the cast, with Woody Harrelson in particular standing out as a crazy conspiracy theorist who is actually way more right than anyone else around him.  Oliver Platt is also great as the slimy political operative doing his best to survive the disaster.  Danny Glover is stoic as the Black President doomed to have an apocalypse happen during his term.  Ever notice that in Hollywood, whenever there’s a Black President of the U.S. bad things happen?  Whether it’s Deep Impact, 24, The Event, or 2012, it seems Hollywood likes to really hose Black Presidents with misfortune during their fictional terms.  But back to the film, 2012 is great at showing off cool visual tricks, but in the end is rather dull because the visual tricks are so over the top that they move into the realm of complete implausibility, with things happening that the characters would never actually survive if it occurred in real life.  Worth watching if you have a huge hi-def screen, a blu-ray player, and a good surround sound system, but otherwise you can pretty much skip this one.  Go watch Independence Day again instead, its much more fun than this one.

Read the other 5 reviews after the jump!

PCP on DVD - Hyperviolent 6-pack

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’ll be tackling 6 extremely violent movies I recently caught on DVD.  These are guy movies through and through due to their extreme levels of violence. 

Predators – 2010; Rated R.  107 minutes.  Starring Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, & Danny Trejo.  My rating:  7 out of 10.

The original Predator with Arnold is a classic, but the sequels, especially the crappy Alien vs Predator films, never could live up to the original.  This one does what it can to reinvent the original, while still staying true to what makes it good:  lots of guns, violence, and action.  Instead of taking place in a jungle on Earth, the film takes place on an alien world.  The predators abducted killers from all over the globe and transport them to a planet that is basically one large hunting preserve for them.  It is a neat concept, and it allows the film to expand on the Predator mythology as well, introducing new varieties of Predators, new alien technologies, and other alien species as well, such as their hunting “dogs.”  Adrien Brody is actually surprisingly capable of holding his own as an action actor, something you aren’t used to seeing from him at all.  For the most part, the movie is pretty straightforward and not a lot of thinking is required, but I did like having Topher Grace’s doctor character as one of the characters, and not a soldier or gangster like the others, it is as if the predators intentionally chose a medic to care for the team.  This entry into the Predator franchise is just a tick behind the original in terms of enjoyment level, but it is far ahead of Predator 2 or the 2 AVP movies.

Read about the other 5 movies after the jump!

PCP on DVD - Bad movies 6-pack

PCP on DVD reviews:  Bad Movies 6 Pack

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 60 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’ll be tackling 6 lousy movies I made the mistake of watching recently.  These reviews are going to be super-short, because I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to on these films.

Legion – 2009; Rated R.  100 minutes.  Starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, & Adrianne Palicki.  My rating:  4 out of 10.

What this film lacks in subtlety it makes up for in stupidity.  A movie about a coming apocalypse and a war between man and heaven, and it takes places in a diner named “Paradise Falls.”  Wow, could you be any more obvious?  The film is poorly done and looks a lot better in the trailers than it does in full length.

The rest of the awful is after the jump...

PCP on DVD - Horror Movie 6-Pack

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have developed about a 50 movie backlog of films to review, of films I’ve watched over the past couple months.  I’ve had enough time to watch the movies and jot down some observations, but not enough time until now to actually write the reviews.  So, I will be doing shorter than normal reviews of these films until I am caught back up, in convenient multi-packs of movies by genre.  Today I’ll be tackling 6 creepy horror/thriller movies I’ve caught on DVD:  The Crazies, A Perfect Getaway, Orphan, The Orphanage, Drag Me to Hell, and Splice.

The Crazies – 2010; Rated R.  101 minutes.  Starring:  Timothy Olyphant; Radha Mitchell; Joe Anderson; Danielle Panabaker.  My rating:  7 out of 10.

The Crazies is a remake of a 70s horror film of the same name.  It’s similar to small town zombie outbreak films, but instead of the infection causing everyone to become the living dead, they instead go completely insane.  It has a couple mid-way decent scares, and some impressive gore sequences and creative violence, but overall it isn’t as scary as it could have been.  It is interesting to see Timothy Olyphant play a normal, noble guy however.  I’m so used to seeing him as a villain or as an anti-hero that to see him playing the true hero was a new experience for me.  I also liked the overall larger conspiracy behind the disease causing the insanity, and the lengths that the conspirators were going to attempt to keep things under wraps.  Not a terrible film, but not as good as it could have been either.

PCP on DVD - The Stepfather

Review:  The Stepfather.  Rating: 2 out of 5 stars. 

The Stepfather is a remake of a 1980s movie of the same name, although given how poor this movie is I’m not certain why they bothered.  This could easily have been a made for TV movie, and considering the cast of the film is all people I’m used to seeing on TV, that would have made more sense.  The movie stars Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck) as the title bad guy, who marries into the Harding family consisting of Sela Ward (Sisters, CSI: NY), Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl), Skyler Samuels (The Gates), and Braeden Lemasters (Men of a Certain Age).  The rest of the supporting cast is all familiar faces from TV too, including Sherry Stringfield (ER), Jon Tenney (The Division), and Paige Turco (The Agency).  The only person that is more of a movie actress than a TV one is Amber Heard (Zombieland), who is apparently contractually obligated to be in a bikini for the duration of the film.  Anyways, the reason I am talking about the cast of this film so much is because I spent more time going “where do I know them from?” than actually caring about the plot.  There’s very little suspense to the film, considering that the previews and the opening minute of the film make it crystal clear that Dylan Walsh is no saint.  Also, these are some good actors.  I have watched the shows that most of them are in, and that is why I gave this film a shot, primarily because I loved Dylan Walsh on Nip/Tuck.  Sadly, that was a mistake.  The actors in this film have done some great work on TV, and they deserve a better movie role than this piece of garbage.  Do not waste your time, you’re not missing anything.  The scares are weak, the plot boring, and the thrills and gore are missing.  Skip this movie.  If you don’t, you have no one to blame but yourself.

PCP on DVD - Law Abiding Citizen

It’s time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I will be talking about the film Law Abiding Citizen, which I finally got around to clearing from my Netflix queue.

Review:  Law Abiding Citizen.  Rating:  2.5 out of 5 stars. 

I wanted to love this movie.  It stars Jamie Foxx, who is awesome in most everything he does, and Gerard Butler who used to be awesome.  He was King Leonidas in 300 for crying out loud, but lately he's been choosing some pretty bad movies (this, Gamer, the Ugly Truth, and the Bounty Hunter).  Filling out the rest of the cast are some familiar faces including Colm Meaney (O’Brien on Star Trek: TNG & DS9) as a detective involved in the case, Bruce McGill (Collateral, Runaway Jury, My Cousin Vinny) as the district attorney that Jamie Foxx works under, and Leslie Bibb (Iron Man 1 and 2) as the required eye candy for a movie like this to have, but their characters are rather two-dimensional and not really any focus of the plot at all.  The plot is pretty conventional - guy's family gets killed, guy goes for revenge, and the system is so messed up he has to take justice into his own hands.  Only been done 100 times before.  They try something new, to make it a mystery as to how he's still killing people on the outside, while locked up in jail.  I don't want to blow the ending yet, but basically it is somewhat lame and filled with the mother of all plot holes.  Although there were a few good creative kills in this movie, ultimately this movie could have been so much better than it was, and because it was disappointing, it only gets an average score.  Watch it if you've got nothing better to do, but pass it up if there's anything else on.

SPOILER ALERT:  only keep reading past here if you've already seen the movie, as I will now discuss the ending.  Again, SPOILER ALERT- as reading past this point will tell you the ending of the movie so you've been warned.

PCP - Top 10 Worst Movies Ever Made

NOTE - originally posted by me on my friend's blog back on 9/27/10

Time for your next hit of PCP:  Pop Culture Panorama.  Today I’m gonna give you a taste of the worst movies ever made.

In my time watching movies, I have watched a number of awful movies.  Some I watched because there was absolutely nothing else on TV, some I watched because all new movies in a theater need to be screened before tickets can be sold for them, in order to make sure they were assembled properly.  One of these I even watched on a dare, but thankfully other than my time wasted and brain cells killed, I never paid to see any of these.  These 10 movies are so bad, they make Gigli look like an Oscar winner.  In order from bad to worst, these are the 10 most awful pieces of garbage I have ever wasted time watching.

10.  Bloodrayne. Never have so many good actors made such an awful piece of garbage.  Clearly they were all here for the paychecks and nothing else.  Directed by the extraordinarily awful Uwe Boll (he’s got 3 movies on this list), the videogame adaptation starred Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3) as the title character.  The supporting cast was deep, including appearances by Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs), Meat Loaf (Fight Club), Billy Zane (Titanic), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar), and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) hamming it up as the villian.  Not even Kristanna Loken topless could save this movie.

9.  Teenage Caveman.  This straight to video disaster is completely and utterly awful.  It’s so bad it’s good, in a train wreck sort of way.  My then girlfriend (now wife) and I caught this on cable in college and we laughed our asses off at how awful this movie was.  You know you’re watching a bad movie when there is a scene that has one character stating that she knows she’ll die if she has sex with another character, due to his superhuman strength, but then she goes for it anyways because she wants him so bad.

Read more after the jump!

PCP on DVD - Year One

Note - this post was originally posted by me on my friend's blog on 10/24/10

Review:  Year One.  Rating 1.5 out of 5 stars.

For a movie with this deep of a talented comedic cast, this movie was not funny at all.  It was so bad that not even the outtakes at the end of the movie were funny.  This movie had a huge cast, including Jack Black (Tropic Thunder, Kung Fu Panda) and Michael Cera (Superbad, Juno) as the stars, and appearances by Oliver Platt, David Cross, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Vinnie Jones, Hank Azaria, Olivia Wilde, Xander Berkeley, Horatio Sanz, Bill Hader, and Paul Rudd.  It was written and directed by Harold Ramis, the writer ofCaddyshack, Stripes, and Ghostbusters.  You’d think with a cast like that, this movie would be a riot.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t even come close.  It barely generates any chuckles and absolutely no laugh out loud moments.  Michael Cera plays the same wimpy nerd he plays in every movie he is in, and Jack Black is playing a raging idiot, like many of his movies.  It is the same characters they always play, just in a biblical setting that doesn’t even come close to being in the right time period – having the story of Abraham and Isaac taking place at the same time as the story of Cain and Abel, while they were many generations apart in the bible.  The only bright spot in the film is the fact that it has Olivia Wilde in it in a small role.  She’s smoking hot in anything she’s in, and she’s the reason this movie wasn’t scored even lower.  However, this movie is just flat out bad.  There’s a reason it bombed at the box office.  Don’t bother wasting your time because this one is totally not worth it.

Reminder:  if you want to see my rating history (1-10 scale) of every movie I’ve ever seen, you can see it here:  http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=1099042

PCP in Theaters - The Town

NOTE - this was originally posted by me on my friend's blog on 10/7/10 when this was actually still in theaters.

Review:  The Town.  Rating:  4.5 out of 5 stars.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had this movie circled on my calendar for months.  I read the book this was based on,Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, over a year ago and loved the book.  As soon as I heard it was being made into a movie, I was very excited.  Then they announced that the film would be directed by the same director as Gone Baby Gone, another phenomenal film set in Boston.  So, I was very psyched for this film.  The Town is the 2^nd directoral effort from the director of Gone Baby Gone, so the director had set a high bar for himself.  It turns out, he actually can direct.  If you weren’t aware, the director of those two films was the star of this one, Ben Affleck.  He may not be the world’s best actor, but he actually can direct very well.  He’s a big fan of doing close-ups on his actors and then letting them do the work and it actually works very well.  It helps that The Town has such a talented cast, including Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) as Affleck’s extremely unstable partner in crime, Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) slumming it as Renner’s white trash sister who has a past with Affleck, Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) as a traumatized bank manager that starts a relationship with Affleck, and Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as the FBI agent trying to bring them down.  It also has small roles that pack a punch from Oscar winner Chris Cooper (Adaptation) and Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father).  Despite Affleck being the main character, Renner really steals the show, proving that he is definitely a talented actor with his psychotic performance here.
Read the rest of my review after the jump.

PCP in Theaters - Easy A

NOTE - this was originally posted by me on my friend's blog 9/23/10 when this was actually in theaters.

Review: Easy A. Rating:  4 out of 5 stars.

Easy A caught me off guard.  I was expecting it to have a couple entertaining moments but to not actually be that good.  It turns out it was great.  I was laughing out loud at a number of moments in the film.  Emma Stone was awesome as the lead Olive, and she had a ton of great lines in this film, the writers really helped her out a lot with some awesome dialogue.  I think I laughed the most though at her parents, Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada) and Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile), who were two of the coolest movie parents I’ve seen in awhile, very hilarious.  Amanda Bynes (She’s the Man) was also good though as the over the top caricature Marianne, the resident crusader on campus, and great small roles are also given to Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3), Lisa Kudrow (Friends), and Malcolm McDowell (Halloween), especially the latter 3 steal the scenes they are in.  Easy A catches you off guard because it makes you think it is going to be yet another lame teen comedy, but it actually has a lot of depth and some good satire of other popular teen films, with some nice 80s references thrown in also.  Rare these days for a teen comedy, you actually start to care about the characters by the time the film is over, and you want to visit their world again.  With its very witty dialogue and memorable characters, Easy A has also joined my holiday wishlist for movies I want this year.

PCP on DVD - Boondock Saints II

NOTE - this was originally published by me on my friend's blog on 9/24/10.


Review: Boondock Saints II.  Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.

I really really wanted to like this film.  The first Boondock Saints is one of my favorite flicks.  It clocks in at # 4 on my favorite  guy movies list and it was a cult classic.  The sequel, a decade in the making, tries really hard to live up to its predecessor.  In fact, it tries way too hard.  And that is my chief problem with this film.  In an attempt to top the magic of the first film, everything in this film is trying as hard as possible to top the first film.  The whole time I’m watching this, I have a sensation that the actors and director are just forcing everything, and it pays off negatively.  Julie Benz costars as an FBI agent involved in the case, and her horrendously over the top awful southern drawl just sounds like nails on a chalkboard every time she opens her mouth.  She fills in for Willem Dafoe as the intelligent law officer involved in the case, and he was way better in the first film than she is in this one.  The action scenes are bigger, and the film has a higher body count, almost double of the first film, but they aren’t as good as they could be.  Director Troy Duffy is trying too hard to be John Woo, but he just can’t compare to the action legend.  The plot is largely strung together with baling wire, there’s not a lot of meat here to this story.  The acting is nothing to write home about either.  The only performance I liked was of Billy Connolly, aka Il Duce, who has some great moments in this film.  I do like how they explained how Il Duce came to become such a feared hitman, but that was the only highlight of the movie for me.  All in all, I was thoroughly disappointed in this movie, especially when compared to the original.

PCP - Top 10 Guy Movies

Originally posted by me on my friend's blog le-noir.com on 9/20/10

Some movies are just not for all audiences.  The movies on this top ten list are all movies that are for men.  Check your pants.  Are your genitals outside your body?  If so, then this list is for you.  If you haven’t seen the majority of these movies, check your pants again, because your man-card will be revoked shortly if you don’t add these to your Netflix queue immediately.  This list is filled with the best movies that I have seen for guys.

10.  Taken.  Why is Taken on this list?  It may not be the greatest revenge movie ever, but it is definitely one of my all time favorites.  Why?  Because Liam Neeson is just flat out badass in this movie.  I’m so used to seeing him in dramas and serious roles, so to see him taking names and kicking ass is an awesome change of pace.  His Bryan Mills is so awesome in this movie, I think he’d take out Jack Bauer if the two of them ever met up.

9.  Army of Darkness.  Although not as violent as most of the movies on this list, this film is definitely a guys movie.  My wife always hates it when this movie comes on TV, because she knows she’s just lost me for the next 90 minutes.  This is one of those films that women just don’t get.  Between the cheesy special effects and memorable corny one liners spouted by the awesome Bruce Campbell, this movie is simply a ton of fun.  “Hail to the king, baby.”

Welcome to PCP: Pop Culture Panorama

Hello and welcome to your first hit of Pop Culture Panorama (PCP).  My name is Mike and I will be your guide into the realm of pop culture.  I’m 29, married without kids (yet), and I watch insane amounts of movies and television.  I was in the film club in high school, where we watched classic films and then discussed them.  I took film courses in college at the University of Michigan.  Also, I worked in a movie theater through high school and college, so I watched every movie that came out between 1998 and 2004.  And I do mean every movie.  I have watched some amazing flicks and some awful disasters.  I’m not talking Pearl Harbor or Gigli levels of bad, I’m talking House of the Dead or From Justin to Kelly bad.  I feel that watching bad movies and mocking them can be just as much fun as watching a great film. I endeavor to watch every movie I can, either in theaters or when it comes out on Blu-ray, regardless of genre.  I have about 200 movies in my Netflix queue, and I have a home theater with a projector at my house.  My wife and I also have a movie collection with almost 800 titles we own.  I am a master at 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon and can quote a ton of movies from memory.  I also have a DVR with about 20-30 shows I regularly watch with my wife, so needless to say I watch a lot of TV and movies.

When I review something, I do it from the point of view of a movie fan, not a movie critic.  I started reviewing movies as a hobby because I felt that a lot of critics got a lot of movies wrong.  When I go to watch an action movie or a horror flick, the critics might have given it one or two stars, but my friends and I often thought it was awesome.  This is because critics are looking at a film from a technical standpoint, where movie fans leave the movie thinking about whether or not they were entertained and if they want their money back.  I have two different standards for reviewing films, one for “popcorn” films and one for “Oscar” films.  This is how I can give a movie like the Dark Knight the same rating I gave Schindler’s List, a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, even though they are two radically different types of films. I rate all movies on a scale from ½ a star to 5 stars, or in other words 1 to 10.  My friends, coworkers, and family have come to trust and respect my opinion on pop culture, seeking me out for reviews before they go to see a film or commit to watching a TV show, and I hope that you will too.

Over the coming weeks, I will try and get uploaded as many of my previous reviews of films as possible.  In the meantime, if you want to see my rating history (1-10 scale) of every movie I’ve ever seen, you can see it here:  http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=1099042