State of the Airways Update ...
Just in case y'all didn't know? Justified is the best damn show on TV. Period. End of sentence. I love this show (and Tim Olyphant, and the writers of this show) so much is isn't even funny.
On other fronts, Detroit 187 is still rocking down the house. The last episode wasn't quite what I'd hoped it would be, but on an overall basis, I feel very secure saying it is the second best show on TV right now.
The Event? Welcome back, y'all. I'm so glad I stuck with this show. I found it too predictable in the beginning, but they're really paying dividends on loyalty now in way few shows that aren't 24 have ever done. Not the third best show on TV, but one of the ones I enjoy as much as anything I watch that isn't Justified or Detroit 187 (or Men of a Certain Age, which IS the third best show on TV, or Lie to Me, which runs too hot-and-cold to rank where it did last year but does star one of the top three actors working on TV in one of the top three roles on a TV series).
I'm also still loving Mike & Molly to a criminal degree. The Big Bang Theory manages to crack my geek ass up every single week. And somehow, against all odds, and despite my determination to detest it as I was 1000% certain I would before I watched it, I'm actually kinda loving Mad Love as much as I love Tyler Labine ... which is saying something, because I really love Tyler Labine the same way I love Jeremy Piven.
Edited to Add: Also meant to point out that, while Harry's Law is often fun in the context of its own idealized, sermonizing reality; it's beginning to wear a little thin in potentially terminal ways. I'll give it lots of rope-of-hope just because I love Kathy Bates that much, and I think I may love Nathan Corddry even more, but I'm worried it is already starting to David Kelley itself ... which would be a damn shame, particularly when Christopher McDonald has finally found the perfect, Alan-Shore-but-not-Alan-Shore character he so richly deserves and so hilariously and sympathetically plays.
On the movie front, I've hit some brand new ones and a few that y'all probably watched ages ago.
Rango, as I think I may have mentioned once or twice or twenty times, could not possibly have been better. (A+++)
Predators was watchable, but I will still never see either Adrien Brody or Topher Grace as badasses. Seriously, people. But Larry Fishburn? Okay, HE's a badass. (B-)
We watched MegaMind again and laughed as hard at it this time as we did the first four times we saw it. (A+)
Scott Pilgrim VS The World was something I had to see even though I didn't expect to make it all the way through it. To my surprise, however, once I got acclimated to their surreal, somewhat drug-addled way of moving through the narrative of the flick, it was unique and original and great fun, if not always entirely ... comprehensible. MUCH more enjoyable than I anticipated it being, incredibly original in a way that made me appreciate its risk taking even when those risks didn't always pay off, and much to my surprise, Kieran Culkin was the best thing about it, except maybe Chris Evans, who was hilarious. But Kieran? I had no idea he was that good ... and it was tres disturbing how much he actually looks like a Robert Downey Jr. did when he first hit the big screen. Interesting. (B+)
Winter's Bone is still in the queue, as is The Hurt Locker. Need to be in a less stressy, deadline oriented state of mind before we tackle either one of them. But an odd little flick called The Skeptic, that I'd never heard of until my husband TiVoed it, was actually quite good. We enjoyed it very, very much ... not quite Wind Chill, but not much is, right? And for something we'd never heard of until we watched it, and that was obviously made on a quite limited budget, pretty damn impressive. (B+)
From Paris with Love ? Pretty much exactly what I expected it to be: great fun and Travolta being entertainingly Travolta. Because I like action flicks that pay off as well as this one did, I grade high when I hit one that works, so it's getting an A- from me even though, were it not an action flick, I'd probably leave it somewhere in the B range.
A-Team. More or less sucked ass exactly as I expected it to ... and made me mad all over again, as did The Expendables, (don't even get me started!) that the MUCH better The Losers wasn't a HUGE hit while these two did much better box office than they had any right to. (D)
Prince of Persia ... much better than I expected. Very The Mummy Returns in it's level of popcorn entertainment, and the consistent Aladdin homages (including a near perfect, live-action shot-by-shot recreation of the marketplace chase) amused me enormously. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but very entertaining. (B)
The Other Guys sucked so bad we couldn't get through it, although Sam Jackson and Duane Johnson were kinda hilarious, and we did laugh so hard at their last scene that it almost made suffering through the movie to that point worth it. Almost, but not quite. (D-)
Killers was charming and entertaining. Not as much fun as the very similarly-themed Night and Day, but a fun watch nonetheless, and probably the first movie I've ever seen Ashton Kutcher in that didn't make me want to put a hit out on him by the time it was over just so I'd never have to suffer through another two hours of his insufferable, infantile mugging for the camera. But he was kinda fun in this one, and he and Katie had great chemistry. (B-)
Wanted to like Let Me In much better than I did. Not that I disliked it, exactly. But it left me feeling .... dissatisfied. But the creep factor was there, and the performances were quite good, so while I'd probably never recommend it to anyone as a "fun" movie or a "seriously good" movie, I don't want my two hours back, and that's something. (C+)
Last but not least, been DYING to see The Resident, and it was well worth watching. Solid thriller in many ways, but not a particularly well envisioned script. I think it suffered greatly from a first-time director, but the performances were absolutely top-drawer stuff. In fact, watching Jeff and Hillary (Swank) interact was THE reason to see the movie. Both of them are SO naturalistic in their acting styles and their scenes together (of which there were many), were outstanding. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie didn't really keep pace. The motivations (or lack thereof) driving the characters to act as they did were, at best, unclear and often self contradictory. To me, it felt as if the movie had been cut badly, and that essential scenes, particularly in terms of character motivation, were left on the cutting room floor.
There are, however, some deeply creepy sequences in the flick, and Jeff, in particular, is outstanding at creating a complex, layered psycho of a character that you kinda want to like, kinda feel sorry for, and mostly want to set on fire, all at the same time. Lee Pace was utterly wasted in his role, and while Christopher Lee had some great moments with Jeff, his character and the backstory behind that character is more-or-less the poster child of everything that bothered me about the movie overall: there was so much implied about who this guy was and his complicity in creating his grandson as the man that grandson had became, but it was all left there, hanging in the closet like a secret unwisely left unrevealed for unfathomable reasons. And that was frustrating. Very, very frustrating.
Overall I'd give the movie somewhere between a B- and a C+, but all JDM fangirling aside, he was so good in this movie, particularly in his interactions with Swank, that I'd give both of them full-on A's for performance ... which, given that Jeff's performance was my primary reason for seeing this movie in the first place? Not a bad endgame, although I would have much preferred to watch a really good flick like The Losers while thoroughly enjoying my favorite actor doing big chunks of very chop-heavy lifting. flexing his mad acting skilz by walking very dark and complex lines of characterization that, even in a movie that wasn't up to his performance, once again reminded me why Jeff is not only my favorite actor, but also one of the best actors on screen today.