|
November 3rd, 2007
300 Special Edition
It took quite a while for me to get through the Seinfeld DVD review (Almost 30 days!) and after taking a while to get through all the commentaries, the episodes, and the extras, I got back on track with three DVD reviews finished over a span of seven days. The first of those will be posted this week. I will post the next three every Saturday, which will help me stay on a weekly track for hopefully November as I finish the Prisoner 10-Disc DVD review. This week's DVD comes to us from the mind of Frank Miller and the direction of Zack Snyder. It is the two-disc special edition of the great action movie: 300. Enjoy the review, and check back next week for another one (I'm thinking another comic book themed movie, maybe an animated one). Enjoy.
November 4th, 2007
Family Guy / American Dad 11/04/07
Family Guy featured Stewie finally going through with his goal of killing Lois. She is away on a cruise with Peter and Stewie goes over there, guns her down (in graphic fashion for a cartoon) and she goes overboard. We fast-forward a year and the family has moved on, except Chris, who thinks she is still alive. Stewie lets on to Brian that Lois was murdered and Brian investigates. Stewie, feeling the heat, throws away his gun and pictures of Lois dying. Of course, Peter just revealed to his pals that he took out life insurance on Lois right before she died. They are suspicious and investigate, and find the gun and pictures Stewie just threw away! Peter goes on trial and he is about to be sentanced to life in prison when Lois shows up and reveals Stewie tried to kill her! This is a to be continued, and it was a very good 100th episode. It was funny in some parts (the slow cop, Peter dating a stick figure, and Joe dressed as Lois to fool Chris) and left with a decent twist. We all knew Lois wasn't dead but her return was handled well.
American Dad was solid as usual. We learn Francine is adopted and her parents are Asian. They stay at the house, take it over, and makes Stan determined to find her birth parents in hopes they are better than her adopted parents. Stan finds them, they are wealthy, and they have Asians as their maids and cooks. Francine is totally against finding her birth parents so Stan can't reveal he has found them. So Stan, being the great guy he is, finds some skeletons in their closet (or trunk) and finds a will that excludes Francine. Francine's real parents turned out to be real assholes and when Stan's house goes on fire (because of Steve and his fireworks, which caused him to lose a finger and when he finally touched a girl's boob, he had no feeling in his hand) and its Francine's adopted parents that saved him! This episode featured a good musical number and was very enjoyable, even though it had a moral to it.
I missed the highlight show that aired before Family Guy but I am sure it will be on the DVD. From what I saw it wasn't too great. 2 for 2 on Fox tonight.
November 9th, 2007
Dr. Strange DVD Review
I will keep this entry brief, I have just added the Dr. Strange DVD review onto the website. It was an animated feature made by Marvel Studios specifically for DVD. Up next week is a Beatles-related DVD and I am almost finished with a DVD review of a show that was in my top ten of all time! What could it be? Check back in a few weeks to find out!
November 11th, 2007
TV Shows for the week
Well I missed Heroes on Monday so I caught it on the G4 reairing earlier this evening. Their post-game report of the show was pretty awesome, too. Anyway, the show has dragged a bit up to this episode and it really brought the exciting twists and turns we were used to in Season One. HRG finds a painting of Suresh with a gun and believe Suresh is the one who kills him. He tells Suresh this and after Nikki (under control of Nightmare Man) inflicts herself with the virus, which his blood can't cure, the Company sends him to get Claire. He doesn't know what to do and tells the Company his motives with HRG (what a dumbass). He takes a gun and goes after him. Nightmare Man, as mentioned, makes Nikki go after the guy running the Company now (Bob or something?) but she resists. Parkman finally stands up to his father and traps him in a mental prison, freeing him and Molly. West finds out the truth about Claire Bear, that her father is HRG. HRG also finds out that Claire demonstrated her powers and tells the family they must move, but Claire Bear is staying. Brief side note, my wife was watching Sleepless in Seattle this past weekend and one of the characters name in the movie was Claire Bennett. Hiro stops White Beard and seemingly kills Kensei. He returns to the present and learns his father is dead. Peter gets a glimpse of the future, meets his mother there, gets his memories back, and returns back to the present. He ends up face to face to, well, I can't spoil it for you. This was a great episode.
Family Guy and American Dad were both pretty decent this week. Family Guy featured Stewie taking the family hostage, killing Cleveland, taking Brian to the CIA headquarters (where Stan Smith and Bullock try to stop him) and finally takes over the world! Lois had enough and stops Stewie, but she can't bring herself to kill him. Stewie has no problem with that and he would've killed his mother again if not for Peter. Peter kills Stewie but don't worry Family Guy fans, the last two episodes were just part of a simulation Stewie had been running. Brian's chat with Stewie at the end about the payoff of the two-parter was pretty funny. I'd grade this about a B+.
American Dad had the short opening this week. Hayley wants to go to France to rebel and live her own life but Stan won't let her. He secretly placed her in a mindwashing school when she was younger and says the trigger words that puts her under his control as a trained spy assassin. He makes her marry the son of a senator (a gay man who sounds strangely like Capote) but doesn't break his control of her in time and learns that only one thing can stop these brainwashed agents, killing their handler. This leads to Hayley shooting Stan and Stan waking up. We think it could be another ruse but he really was shot. Hayley is better, though, and all is back to normal. There's a funny bit with Stan and Klaus that paid off in the end, though the story with Steve and Roger opening their own PI business (after watching Sleuth TV) had a lot of potential, but unfortunately went nowhere. This would be a B in my book.
November 17th, 2007
Imagine Deluxe Edition
Well, I forgot to post this yesterday but then I remembered that I don't even know if I post reviews every Friday or Saturday. So I figured if I posted it at least during the weekend it'd be fine. So up for your reading pleasure today is John Lennon's Imagine: Deluxe Edition DVD review. I love that it is a deluxe edition despite it being only one disc. I don't know if I own a "Deluxe Edition" of something that is only a single disc. Still, it brought the awesome and check out the review. I have one review left to be posted, one of my all-time favorite TV shows ever and I am reviewing another current favorite TV show. Check back next week for another review. I did catch Heroes on Monday, I just haven't had time to post since this week since grades were due at school on Thursday and it ate up a bunch of my time. Look for it on Sunday again. That's it for now. I am working on a massive TPL (33 books!) and I hope to have it done by Tuesday.
November 18th, 2007
The Week in Television 11/12 - 11/18/07
We have a lot to talk about this week.
Heroes 11/12/07
This was a strong episode coming off a very good one last week. We finally see what happens in the four months since the end of Season 1. First up is Nathan flying off with Peter, Peter telling Nathan to let go, Peter exploding and Nathan being horribly burned. Nathan falls to Earth but Peter swoops down and catches him. Nathan goes to the hospital and Peter is picked up (captured) by the company where he first meets with Elle. He meets another ally there, Adam (Kensei) and Peter thinks he's getting help for his powers but learns from Adam he's just a prisoner. They both escape and Adam helps Nathan heal. Peter tries to run but is captured by the Haitian and has his memories erased. The Haitian wants him to start over. We also learn about Maya and how she developed her powers, but it wasn't anything we haven't seen before. DL survived the gun shot wound and became a fireman, even saving a little girl. Nikki starts taking meds to control Jessica but then stops taking it. Another personality takes over and she books it to LA. DL goes over to bring her home and pisses off some dude, who shoots him point blank, killing him. It was pretty graphic for network TV, too. Back to Peter. He remembers everything at the end and he and Adam go to save the world. Very good episode here.
Family Guy 11/18/07
Peter and family are at a Veterans Day Parade (which has a float for future war veterans containing all African-American children) and Peter turns super-patriotic, even wanting to ban immigrants. Of course, he finds out he himself is an immigrant. His mother tried to get an abortion in Mexico when Peter was born and she never got his US citizenship. He is fired from his job and tries to work immigrant jobs, but fails. He soon starts working for Carter Pewterschmidt and almost starts a revolt with the other Mexicans there when Carter offers him his citizenship. Peter accepts and its back to normal for the Griffin clan. Not too funny an episode, though the Superman 5 cutaway was funny. Superman goes to see Lois and sees she is pregnant so he flies away. Other than that I thought the episode lacked any humorous moments and really the story was pretty boring. C+.
American Dad 11/18/07
Stan is a super-tough CIA agent but it isn't what it seems. Turns out, during a card game, Stan reveals he is actually a virgin when it comes to killing someone. From here we have a 40-year-old virgin type story where Roger (playing a guy named Chilly) and two of Stan's friends from the CIA try to get Stan his first kill. He can't find a suitable victim until Steve, who shunned his father when he heard the news, is picked up by a local pedophile who just moved in. Stan confronts him at the water park and after their confrontation Steve accepts Stan for who he is. Stan fires at the pedophile, misses, and kills his friend. Well, at least he has his first kill. This was a pretty good episode. There was a story that actually carried throughout the whole show and provided some chuckles at certain points. Call it a B.
Game of the Week:
I watch a lot of sports on TV. Most of it is hockey and most of that hockey is the New York Rangers. The best game I saw this week is not a hockey game though, but a sport I have watched a lot this year and have followed for the last 5 years or so. That is women's college volleyball. I have been following SJU since I was a junior in college and even after I graduated I regularly attended their games. It's free and it's fun. Dolores and I have watched SJU morph from a mid-level Big East team into a veritable powerhouse. Last year they went 14-0 in the Big East. They were upset in the second round of the Big East tournement, and almost made it into the third round of the NCAA tournement. They were awesome this year, too, going 13-1 in the Big East for their second Big East Regular Season title in a row. They shared it with Louisville, who also went 13-1. SJU's only loss was to Louisville this year, when they were on the road. Well, they played the Big East tournement this past weekend and both Louisville and SJU blew through the first two rounds and met each other in the final. I thought SJU would keep it close but thought they couldn't stand up to Louisville. I was gladly wrong. They played today on the Marquette campus and SJY destroyed them in the first 2 games by scores of 30-24 and a laugher ar 30-14. They play a best of five and after the ten-minute break between the second and third set we were treated to a very close game which SJU eventually won, 30-26. SJU won their first ever Big East Championship, earned an automatic bid in the NCAA tournement and capped off a season where they were ranked almost from the beginning. It was the best game I saw this week and I was so happy to see them win. Let's Go SJU!
November 20th, 2007
Heroes 11/19/07
I missed the first twenty minutes of the show (thank you, New York Rangers. You guys played like shit last night, caused me to lose my temper and made me miss the first twenty minutes of an awesome episode) but the last 40 minutes was easily one of the best episodes of Heroes, ever. The twists and turns kept a-comin'. Note for those who haven't seen it, spoilers ahead. First we have Claire being captured by the company and Suresh, who is quickly turning into a real company-guy. HRG, in turn, kidnaps Elle, who is the daughter of Bob, who runs the Company. They decide to swap the daughters and when Claire tries to fly away with West, Elle shoots them down. This pisses off HRG who shoots Elle in the arm and is about to shoot Bob in the head when Suresh shoots HRG in the eye, just like in the painting! DAMN! West and Claire escape. That would've been shocking enough but then we see HRG regenerate at the end of the episode!! This damn near almost floored me. In other news, Parkman interrogates Mama Petrelli but can't find out who the woman is in the picture. Hiro time-travels to see his father one last time and he even sees his father's killer. Yep, you guessed it, it's Kensei. I kind of expected that but it was an awesome reveal. We learn that Kensei was pissed he was locked away by these people for 30 years that he is picking them off one by one and his teaming with Peter will only add more intrigue. This was just an amazing episode.
November 22nd, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, it's Thanksgiving already. I can't believe how fast the year has gone. This is the official start of the holiday season and tomorrow will be absolutely insane with Black Friday. Me, I am not one for shopping whether it's Black Friday or May 5th. I do all my shopping online anyways. I just want to wish everyone reading a Happy Thanksgiving.
Also, since I won't get a chance to post tomorrow, I will throw up this week's DVD review. This was one I was anticipating watching since I got and its one of my favorite television shows of all time. Yes, it's The Prisoner 40th Anniversary Complete Series. This was just awesome to watch again, as its been a few years since I sat down to watch all 17 magnificent episodes in a row. Click on it to read. I still have a big collection of DVD's to review (including Futurama Volumes 2 and 3, Office Space, Daredevil Director's Cut, Family Guy Vol. 5, Robot Chicken Season 2, Superman Doomsday, Full House Season 2, a Judge Judy DVD and two new DVD's that arrived yesterday, Help! and NHL Game 7 Collection) and I just finished one yesterday which will be up here next week. Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving!
November 22nd, 2007
Black Friday / Family Guy 11/25/07
Well, Black Friday has come and gone. I was upstate for Thanksgiving night, all-day Friday and I left on Saturday afternoon before returning home. Now my parents live right near the Woodbury Commons which I avoided at all costs. My brother worked there on Black Friday morning (12am-7am) and said it was crazy crowded. I didn't partake in the early morning shopping festivities but I actually went out with Dolores around 2-3pm and picked up some cool stuff. We went to K-Mart but they didn't have anything too great there. We then went over to Target where they had some awesome sales. We actually bought two bikes (something we had meant to do since the summer) and it was funny seeing us try to fit them into the car. We had no luck so I went back into Target to buy a huge tool set for $20. I took the two wheels off and somehow got the bikes in the car. We left them there until we drove all the way back home to Middle Village. Besides the bikes and the toolkit we also got a garbage can for the kitchen paper recycleables, a 50-pack spindle of CD-R's for $5.00 and 5 DVD's including: Click, Annie, Devil Wears Prada, Da Vinci Code (2 Disc Special Edition) and Ghostbusters 1&2 Set. The first three DVDs were $4.00 and the last two were $9.00. They were too good to pass up. We listened to Christmas music all the way back home but we won't be decorating until next week (the start of December). So that was my Black Friday and weekend in general.
Over on the TV front, Family Guy was bit of a disappointment. Basically, Peter causes Meg to fall into a coma after he asks her to swim through their flooded house for beer and Peter vows to treat her like a princess when she awakes. She does and falls for the intern doctor that she first saw when she woke up. They go out but Peter's interference causes them to break up, until Meg reveals she's pregnant. It's wedding bells for the two. Well, not really. Meg reveals she read the test wrong, tells the dude she's not pregnant and he runs off. We then go to Conrad Twitty for a musical number to end the show. There was a crazy plot with Stewie and Brian trying to flip a house, too. Like I said, it wasn't too funny and was altogether forgettable.
That's it for this weekend. I'll be back here maybe tomorrow or on Wednesday for my Heroes thoughts.
|
