Sunday, December 13, 2009
- Besides watching a lot of tv shows and movies, I also subscribe to at least 10 magazines, ranging from sports, pop culture, entertainment, and hard news. They are weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly. I'm also a daily subscriber to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I subscribe to the premium pay-to-use section of the PG's website and espn.com. Yes, I am a information junkie, a pop culture junkie.
One of the reason I subscribe to some of the monthly magazines, like GQ, is that they often are only around $12 for a year subscription. So even if I don't read every issue, a year subscription is still cheaper than four issues on the newstand. - A number of magazines put out a sexiest women list. This was a good year for those. None of the usual suspects like Megan Fox and Scarlett Johansson were at the top of the list. Now I'm not saying that those girls aren't attractive. I'm just saying they're overrated. They belong on the sexiest lists, but not at or near the top. The media, both the mainstream entertainment press as well as the online bloggers, gets started on the hype on an attractive actress. The media puts out attractive pictures of the actress and the bloggers republish them over and over. The actress and/or the studios making their tv show or movie make sure there are no shortage of those pics and that they are top quality maxim-esque shots. The gossip rags help by putting them on the cover any time they can find an excuse.
Well this year, Maxim chose Olivia Wilde, who not only has the looks to get her the title, but also isn't part of the hollywood celebrity hype machine. She's known mostly for being a supporting character on a medical drama (House) and for one season as a supporting character on a nighttime soap (The O.C.). She's in the upcoming Tron movie, so maybe she'll start getting the Megan Fox level hype. On the other hand, Esquire magazine chose Kate Beckinsale. Another excellent choice that is not only not a 20-something, but is actually older than I am. She can play the girlfriend-type (I watch Serendipity way more than is healthy because of Kate's smile) and the sexy action type (any of the Underworld movies).
Lets hope the magazines keep choosing less obvious choices for their sexiest lists. Of course, I'm probably just saying that cause my personal list, if I had one, would differ alot from the magazine list. - One of my favorite sections of any magazines is the "What I've learned" in Esquire. Basically it's a one page item containing blurbs by a celebrity or other world-mover containing advice or lessons they've learned. I find them entertaining. One issue a year, which is the one I just got in the mail, contains a whole feature containing "What I've Learned"s from various people. Definitely one of my favorite issues of any magazine each year. Check it out.
- And as for more serious subjects, this was my favorite article all year. It's about how the autopsy of one of my favorite athletes growing up, Mike Webster, by a guy who wasn't even a fan of football, started a series of event that led to a battle with the NFL over concussions. Both fascinating and very sad.
- Getting away from magazines, an actress I've always like, Zooey Deschanel, guest-starred on her sister Emily's show Bones. Bones is a show I've watched since the beginning and enjoy. I was disappointed in how Zooey's stint. If you have a star of a tv show who has a close relative who is a film actress, a guest appearance by her should have more purpose than to have the star's film actress relative make a guest appearance. Zooey's character had nothing to do with the crime plot and seemed like it was stretched and strained to advance the Bones and her father relationship plot. Let's just say, I was extremely disappointed in that episode.
- The new James Cameron movie is coming out soon. Seems like every magazine has an article about it and every news magazine show on tv has a segment on it. I'm actually looking forward to it. With movies like Aliens, Abyss, and the first two Terminators, I think he has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sci-fi movies. I even think he could pull off Aquaman. In fact, it makes me wish he would take a crack at Battlefield Earth, a sci-fi novel I read when I was young, before I knew anything about Scientology, and thus see it as just good science fiction. I think would do an amazing job on not just a movie based on the first half of the novel, the half that John Travolta help made into a complete and total clusterfuck of a movie years ago, but also the second half of the novel which would involve even more aliens and special effects.
- So I finally saw the series finale of the tv show Monk. Not having cable I had to watch it on hulu. The first half was put on hulu that night, but the second half was delayed a week. Being curious, I glanced at the hulu discussion board and read a couple post about Stottlemeyer being the villian. I couldn't believe it. I stopped reading the discussion board immediately. Stottlemeyer has been Monk's biggest friend and supporter. So I kept saying to myself that it's been a mistake. When I finally saw the episode, I kept expecting Stottlemeyer to be implicated. He never was. He wasn't a bad guy. I looked back at the discussion board and could not find the post I had read. It must have been removed or I simply read wrong. This was a relief. The end of the series turned out to be perfect. One idea I have for a future blog topic is rating endings of tv series based on how content I am with how the series ended. Monk high up on the list with Cheers and Buffy. (Interesting sidenote: characters on Cheers and Buffy have both made appearances on spinoffs giving updates on where the other characters were at.) Monk's ending was both comforting and realistic.
- On a related note, my favorite ending to a series wasn't the end of a tv series, but a book series. Stephen King ended his Dark Tower series in a way that was satisfying. An amazing feat considering he once wrote that he might never end the series and the series having such a big scope that any ending could only be disappointing.
- I didn't have a chance to write the last five days. So I had a lot of topics stored up which caused me to take a lot of time to write this. This blog is still a work in progress. Hopefully, I'll be able to start having the post be smaller and more often. But today, you're going to have to put up with this monster of a post.
Labels: Avatar, Bones, Dark Tower, Esquire, GQ, James Cameron, Kate Beckinsale, magazines, Maxim, Mike Webster, Monk, movies, NFL, Olivia Wilde, series finale, Stephen King, tv, Zooey Deschanel
Monday, December 07, 2009
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the tv show White Collar.
If you're reading this and haven't been following the tv show White Collar, I suggest waiting til you see all the episodes. This entry is about the twist thrown in at the end of the latest episode.
First, a brief summary of the show. It centers around Neal Caffrey, one of the world's best thieves, and Peter Burke, the FBI agent who is the only man to ever catch him. Neal escapes from jail not too long before the end of his sentence because he believes his ex-girlfriend, Kate, is in danger. But he doesn't find her. Instead he gets caught by Peter again and a deal is worked out. He can finish his now-extended sentence if he helps solves the type of crimes he's great at. When he's not with a FBI agent, he's stuck wearing a home-arrest anklet keeping him in a short radius in NYC.
Individually, each episode follows a formula that alot of shows follows. There's a crime that gets solved in a standard fashion and a step or two forward taken in the season-long mystery. Neal believes Kate is being held captive by a man who Neal only knows from a hand wearing a ring on Kate's shoulder in a ATM surveillance camera photo. Kate also left a clue behind. Each week Neal follows one clue to another clue to finally find out that the man with the ring will let Kate go if Neal gives up something he has stolen and hidden in one of his many stashes.
Now this is the part where I start discussing the twist ending. The fact that they talked about the man with the ring without giving any physical descriptions suggested that the man with the ring is someone the viewer knows. The candidates include Peter and a number of other FBI agents and Mozzie, a con artist/thief friend of Neal. Mozzie is played by Willie Garson, who is short bald and wears glasses. He often plays nerdy and/or gay characters. That originally lead me to suspect him to be the man with the ring because he's physically not what you would expect. Then Neal discovered that the man with the ring was a FBI agent, which made me suspect his actual identity. The twist at the end is that the man with the ring holding Kate until Neal gives up his stash is Peter.
This makes sense in some ways. Peter always comes off as aloof. So much so that, Neal often is wonders out "This is the guy who caught me?". It's believable that Peter is smarter and more devious than he seems. And if there's one piece that Neal has stolen that Peter particularly wants back, it's conceivable that he would go through the trouble of using Kate to get Neal to give up the goods. It also explains why, when Neal escapes and is caught again, Peter has little problem having Neal around. He can keep an eye on him.
Now here's the question. Is Peter a good guy or a bad guy? Up to that point, the show as a buddy comedy/detective series. Like 48 hrs or Lethal Weapon, it fit two guys who are operates. One is straight-laced and one sees the rules as flexible. If Peter is a good guy agent who came up with a plan for something that must be the most-prized of Neal's stolen items, then it makes sense because the chemistry between the two is still believable. This only works if Kate isn't kidnapped, but instead working with the FBI.
If Peter is a bad guy, a Keyser Soze of sorts, then it pretty much questions a lot of things seen in the show so far. And in my mind, it ruins not just the chemistry between Peter and Neal, but also Peter and his wife, who is the perfect wife. If she's with a bad guy, it totally ruins it for me. Also, if he's a bad guy, then this show ends when the mystery does, which seems to be only sustainable over one, maybe two seasons. And that would be only by making Neal run and instead of fleeing the country, working to bring Peter down. If he's good guy, he could explain and possibly patch things off with neal.
I'm still processing this whole thing. I welcome anyone's thoughts who have been following the show.
Labels: analysis, spoilers, tv, White Collar
Sunday, December 06, 2009
This television season, I've been writing on Plurk (http://www.plurk.com/PittsburghTom) giving brief reviews each week of How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. I've then declared a weekly winner and keeping track of the standings. Last week were repeats, but I never wrote the review for the episodes the week before. Starting with this week, I'll start posting the reviews and winner here. The season series stand at a 4-4 tie.
On HIMYM, it was the thanksgiving episode, or should I say the Slapsgiving episode. It was a classic, as any of the show's "Slap bet"-related episode are. Chris Eliot was the only weakness of the episode. His style of comedy clashed with the rest of the show. But how could you not love the fact that the episode ended with a commercial for the Slap Bet game.
On BBT, the main plot centered around him being humiliated by a Kripke prank. Sheldon goes back to Texas to hide at his mom's. This means another hilarious appearance from Laurie Metcalf. It ends with Sheldon getting revenge on Kripke in a prank I would like to try.
For a second week in a row, BBT put on an episode that would win most weeks, but all HIMYM had to do was say the word SLAP then live up to the expectations. HIMYM takes the lead 5-4.
Labels: BBT, competition, HIMYM, tv
Monday, April 30, 2007
Okay, I want to get a posting in so I can keep up at least one posting each month. Really quick, I'm not working right now. I got laid off. This time it was a more friendly layoff than previous ones, but it was for basically the same reason: too many people at my company and not enough work for them to do.
So if anyone knows anyone anywhere looking for software engineers, more specifically dealing with Java or C#, let me know.
In the process of interviewing I did achieve another of my yearly goals. I had a job interview in Delaware, a state I had never been to.
I have had a lot of job leads and alot more are coming. My biggest issue seems to be getting past the phone interviews. I'm not good at talking about myself to begin with, but put me on a phone with someone I've never talked to and I'm even worse.
Oh, well. I'll survive.
I have alot of stories to tell and most will wait til another day. I have the tv shows How I Met your Mother, 24, and Heroes on tape I want to go watch. (Don't get me started on them cancelling Drive already.) But one story I'd like to tell now. Today, a headhunter was setting up a phone interview for me. She emailed me the information to my hotmail account and I replied that I got the information. I'm now using the beta version of the new hotmail that has similarities to gmail. The hotmail beta went crazy and sent the reply confirmation to the headhunter over two hundred times!!! That's right. She calls me up to tell me that I'm email-bombing her. Luckily she was understanding. I did have 200 copies of that email in my sent folder. Anyway, apparently the only reason it stopped sending is because it hit the maximum amount of emails I am allowed to send in a 24 hour period. So right now, I can't send any email from my hotmail account. When 24 hours go by, I hope it doesn't continue sending those emails.
Anyway, I'll definitely try to write another post this week, if not more.
So if anyone knows anyone anywhere looking for software engineers, more specifically dealing with Java or C#, let me know.
In the process of interviewing I did achieve another of my yearly goals. I had a job interview in Delaware, a state I had never been to.
I have had a lot of job leads and alot more are coming. My biggest issue seems to be getting past the phone interviews. I'm not good at talking about myself to begin with, but put me on a phone with someone I've never talked to and I'm even worse.
Oh, well. I'll survive.
I have alot of stories to tell and most will wait til another day. I have the tv shows How I Met your Mother, 24, and Heroes on tape I want to go watch. (Don't get me started on them cancelling Drive already.) But one story I'd like to tell now. Today, a headhunter was setting up a phone interview for me. She emailed me the information to my hotmail account and I replied that I got the information. I'm now using the beta version of the new hotmail that has similarities to gmail. The hotmail beta went crazy and sent the reply confirmation to the headhunter over two hundred times!!! That's right. She calls me up to tell me that I'm email-bombing her. Luckily she was understanding. I did have 200 copies of that email in my sent folder. Anyway, apparently the only reason it stopped sending is because it hit the maximum amount of emails I am allowed to send in a 24 hour period. So right now, I can't send any email from my hotmail account. When 24 hours go by, I hope it doesn't continue sending those emails.
Anyway, I'll definitely try to write another post this week, if not more.
Labels: 2007, 24, Drive, email, goals, job search, new years, states, tv, work
Monday, February 12, 2007
This weekend, I got nothing practical done, but I did relax. I also got a few movies in. My yearly total is now up to 22.
#19 Crank: Ever since discovering The Transporter on cable, I've been a fan of Jason Statham as a action hero. He was also great as Handsome Rob in The Italian Job and, although The Transporter 2 wasn't as good as the first one, Statham still kicked ass. So I wanted to see this movie in the theatre. I didn't make it. I got it from netflix the past week. First of all, the movie has a gimmick of a plot. The movie starts off with him watching a video of a bad guy telling him that he was injected with something that would stop his heart painfully in a short period of time. Apparently, adrenaline pumping delays the death. So he has to find out who did this and get revenge and the antidote while keeping his adrenaline up. The movie makers defines many ways for him to do it, including fighting, sex, caffeine, pills from a hospital, energy drinks, and electric shock. Since the movie starts with him already drugged, the backstory is squeezed between action, so it doesn't get a full explanation. Amy Smart plays his girlfriend, although that's as much as you find out about her. She's really only there to facilitate the "sex" part of the adrenaline burst. Fans of Napoleon Dynamite might get a kick of Pedro as a cross-dresser. Anyway, if you're a hardcore action fan, this movie is worth paying for a rental. Otherwise, catch it on cable.
#20 X-Men: The Last Stand: This doesn't stand up to the previous two X-Men movies, but it's still a really good comic book movie. The one problem I have is that they've now made Magneto too powerful. If he can bend and move the Golden Gate Bridge, he can pretty much dominate more than he does. In a world, full of metal objects, he could hold cities for hostage. Anyway, I saw all the X-Men movies multiple times in theatre and have no regrets, so this movie gets a multiple-viewing movie rating.
#21 Smokin' Aces: This movie is about a Vegas magician-turned-gangster-turned-snitch who is in hiding (not very well since everyone knows where he is) while his lawyer makes a immunity deal with the FBI. During this, a number of teams of hitmen are out to get him for the million-dollar reward. The back-plot is complicated and stretches reality, but it doesn't matter because this movie is all about the action sequences. Afterwards, I compared this movie to what the new Ocean's Eleven would be if directed by Tarantino, only this movie wasn't done with Tarantino skill. Between the FBI, the assassins, and three different group of mobsters, there are alot of characters which allows for a lot of roles for recognizable actors. Alicia Keys did a really good job in her first real acting role and Ryan Reynolds managed to be respectable in dramatic scenes, which is an accomplishment considering he was Van Wilder. I saw this movie at a pre-noon showing which means it was even cheaper than a matinee (which also means it's about the same price as a full-price ticket when I was in high school). It was worth more than that price. I give it a pay full-price at the theatre rating.
#22 Beauty Shop: This movie I only watched because I wanted to watch a comedy on tv and this was the only thing on. I think it's a sorta spinoff of the Barber Shop movies. It's a watchable movie. Has some kinda funny moments. The Kevin Bacon and Alicia Silverstone characters, though, are painful to watch. If you like cultural-and-gender stereotype-based humor, this is not a bad movie to watch, but I wouldn't pay for it. This is definitely a watch-on-cable movie.
I've also been watching a few tv shows in mass on dvd, recently. I watched the entire second season of Numb3rs and the first two discs of the first season of Bones. Both really good detective-crime-solving-with-a-twist show. The former uses math and the latter uses dead bodies and science. I got a little laugh that the titles of the episodes describe the body. For example, two episodes titles are "The Boy in the Bush" and "The Man in the Bear". (Yeah, you read the second one correctly.)
The other tv show I've watched in mass was My Guys, which had a marathon last sunday of its entire first season. I recorded it on dvd. It's a pretty good sitcom about a woman who hangs out most of the time with a bunch of guy friends. It's worth watching if you can avoid getting annoyed by the relationship-as-sports metaphor in the voiceovers. They were good after the first episode, got tiresome fast, and ventured into the vicinity of annoying around episode nine.
#19 Crank: Ever since discovering The Transporter on cable, I've been a fan of Jason Statham as a action hero. He was also great as Handsome Rob in The Italian Job and, although The Transporter 2 wasn't as good as the first one, Statham still kicked ass. So I wanted to see this movie in the theatre. I didn't make it. I got it from netflix the past week. First of all, the movie has a gimmick of a plot. The movie starts off with him watching a video of a bad guy telling him that he was injected with something that would stop his heart painfully in a short period of time. Apparently, adrenaline pumping delays the death. So he has to find out who did this and get revenge and the antidote while keeping his adrenaline up. The movie makers defines many ways for him to do it, including fighting, sex, caffeine, pills from a hospital, energy drinks, and electric shock. Since the movie starts with him already drugged, the backstory is squeezed between action, so it doesn't get a full explanation. Amy Smart plays his girlfriend, although that's as much as you find out about her. She's really only there to facilitate the "sex" part of the adrenaline burst. Fans of Napoleon Dynamite might get a kick of Pedro as a cross-dresser. Anyway, if you're a hardcore action fan, this movie is worth paying for a rental. Otherwise, catch it on cable.
#20 X-Men: The Last Stand: This doesn't stand up to the previous two X-Men movies, but it's still a really good comic book movie. The one problem I have is that they've now made Magneto too powerful. If he can bend and move the Golden Gate Bridge, he can pretty much dominate more than he does. In a world, full of metal objects, he could hold cities for hostage. Anyway, I saw all the X-Men movies multiple times in theatre and have no regrets, so this movie gets a multiple-viewing movie rating.
#21 Smokin' Aces: This movie is about a Vegas magician-turned-gangster-turned-snitch who is in hiding (not very well since everyone knows where he is) while his lawyer makes a immunity deal with the FBI. During this, a number of teams of hitmen are out to get him for the million-dollar reward. The back-plot is complicated and stretches reality, but it doesn't matter because this movie is all about the action sequences. Afterwards, I compared this movie to what the new Ocean's Eleven would be if directed by Tarantino, only this movie wasn't done with Tarantino skill. Between the FBI, the assassins, and three different group of mobsters, there are alot of characters which allows for a lot of roles for recognizable actors. Alicia Keys did a really good job in her first real acting role and Ryan Reynolds managed to be respectable in dramatic scenes, which is an accomplishment considering he was Van Wilder. I saw this movie at a pre-noon showing which means it was even cheaper than a matinee (which also means it's about the same price as a full-price ticket when I was in high school). It was worth more than that price. I give it a pay full-price at the theatre rating.
#22 Beauty Shop: This movie I only watched because I wanted to watch a comedy on tv and this was the only thing on. I think it's a sorta spinoff of the Barber Shop movies. It's a watchable movie. Has some kinda funny moments. The Kevin Bacon and Alicia Silverstone characters, though, are painful to watch. If you like cultural-and-gender stereotype-based humor, this is not a bad movie to watch, but I wouldn't pay for it. This is definitely a watch-on-cable movie.
I've also been watching a few tv shows in mass on dvd, recently. I watched the entire second season of Numb3rs and the first two discs of the first season of Bones. Both really good detective-crime-solving-with-a-twist show. The former uses math and the latter uses dead bodies and science. I got a little laugh that the titles of the episodes describe the body. For example, two episodes titles are "The Boy in the Bush" and "The Man in the Bear". (Yeah, you read the second one correctly.)
The other tv show I've watched in mass was My Guys, which had a marathon last sunday of its entire first season. I recorded it on dvd. It's a pretty good sitcom about a woman who hangs out most of the time with a bunch of guy friends. It's worth watching if you can avoid getting annoyed by the relationship-as-sports metaphor in the voiceovers. They were good after the first episode, got tiresome fast, and ventured into the vicinity of annoying around episode nine.
Labels: 2007, goals, movies, tv
Sunday, January 14, 2007
I'm rushing this post because the season premiere of 24 is about to come on.
Now that new episodes of tv shows are starting up, I probably won't be watching movies as much, but I did get to see movie #6 this weekend. I saw Casino Royale. I saw it before New Years in the theatres. There were movies I hadn't seen that I want to see, but I had a free ticket coupon that expired this weekend and it was only good for movie out more than ten days and I didn't feel like seeing any of the other non-new releases. I really did like the movie. It's different than any of the other Bond movies, especially the newer ones. There are no fancy gadgets that would seem out of place in the real world today. And the main bond girl, Eva Green, alone makes it worth seeing. It was definitely worth paying the full price the first time and it was definitely worth seeing a second time.
Okay, time for 24 to start. Last season, the first minute had me saying, "Holy Shit!" over and over and over. So, I definitely don't want to miss any this season.
Now that new episodes of tv shows are starting up, I probably won't be watching movies as much, but I did get to see movie #6 this weekend. I saw Casino Royale. I saw it before New Years in the theatres. There were movies I hadn't seen that I want to see, but I had a free ticket coupon that expired this weekend and it was only good for movie out more than ten days and I didn't feel like seeing any of the other non-new releases. I really did like the movie. It's different than any of the other Bond movies, especially the newer ones. There are no fancy gadgets that would seem out of place in the real world today. And the main bond girl, Eva Green, alone makes it worth seeing. It was definitely worth paying the full price the first time and it was definitely worth seeing a second time.
Okay, time for 24 to start. Last season, the first minute had me saying, "Holy Shit!" over and over and over. So, I definitely don't want to miss any this season.
Labels: 2007, 24, goals, movies, tv
