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Desperate Housewives Aims to Please
2007-11-12 23:03:00
So, last week I just got lucky with The Amazing Race.  This week, a team I liked, or, at the very least, didn't hate, got eliminated.  The problem is that there are so many teams out there I despise this season that I'm far less comfortable losing a team I like than I otherwise would be in a perfect world.  It might not entirely be their fault, I may hate them due to their similarities to one of my least favorite teams from the past, but Shana and Jennifer (the blondes) have to go.  One of them, in discussing how hard the show is, actually listed her not being able to get a facial as a big problem.  Do you think she is remotely aware of how utterly obnoxious she sounds? Maybe I'm being too harsh, maybe the blonde actually is just smart enough to realize that the only thing she has going for her in this world are her looks, she has neither brains, nor wit, nor a good personality.  Maybe she recognizes that without her daily facial the one goo...
More About: Desperate Housewives , Desperate

Nova Goes for a "Judgment Day" of its own
2007-11-12 21:32:00
Rarely, if ever, do I begin a review with the following statement, so please do pay attention: you should watch this week's special two hour Nova episode, "Judgment Day:  Intelligent Design on Trial."  The show focuses on the debate between the notion of Intelligent Design and the Theory of Evolution and to do so uses the 2005 trial Kitzmiller, et. al. v. Dover School District, et. al. Most simply, Ms. Kitzmiller and 10 other parents of children in the Dover school district in Dover, Pennsylvania sued the school board for ordering science teachers to read a statement stating that there were gaps in Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and that the idea of "Intelligent Design" (ID) was a viable alternative. Kitzmiller, the science teachers, and others believed that Intelligent Design was nothing more than Creationism using different terminology. If the trial proved them correct, Intelligent Design would not be allowed to be discussed in the classroom as...
More About: Goes

It's the Start of Something New, it's Day One
2007-11-12 17:39:00
The creation of the atomic bomb is an event that will be analyzed and discussed for generations to come. Was the success of the Manhattan Project a triumph or a disaster? Was the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki right or wrong? What did the people working on the Project believe about their actions?Many films have attempted to examine the thoughts and actions of those who worked at the Los Alamos Laboratory and other facilities around the country. One of these, the Emmy-winning Day One, is heading to DVD on November 13. The film focuses far more heavily on the scientists and their overseer, General Leslie Groves (Brian Dennehy), than it does on the science behind the splitting of the atom and the creation of the bomb. It also includes scenes with military and government personnel weighing the decision to use the bomb or not. By examining the men, their thoughts, opinions, and world views, the film is also able to examine the political factors that helped shape t...
More About: Start , S Day , Some , The Star

Don't Have The Princess Bride on DVD? A New Edition is Heading to Store Sh
2007-11-10 20:59:00
Everyone has certain movies that they fall in love with growing up.  It is always good to see as an adult that a movie that one remembers fondly is in fact a good movie.  It is nice to know that a movie that one loved is actually worth loving.  Such is the case with The Princess Bride , which comes to DVD, yet again, On November 13th.  Last year the film was released in both a "Dread Pirate" edition and a "Princess Buttercup" one.  This year, it's the "20th Anniversary Collector's Edition " and it contains several new documentaries:  Princess Bride :  The Untold Tales, The Art of Fencing, and Fairy Tales and Folklore.  The DVD also features a game, True Love and High Adventure:  The Official Princess Bride DVD Game.  For those unfamiliar with the story, The Princess Bride is a fairy tale about a man, Westley (Cary Elwes), and woman, Buttercup (Robin Wright), and their true love for one another. ...
More About: Store

The Logitech Harmony 880 is one of my Heroes
2007-11-06 21:45:00
It's often the little things that make me happy.  Take last night's Chuck, for instance.  The remote that Tang was using as the "master remote" was Logi tech 's Harmony 880.  I have one, and let me tell you that is a "master remote."  It can do anything and everything.  You plug that bad boy into your computer, download the necessary things from Logitech's website (or use their handy-dandy desktop application) and set up macro after macro after macro.  Except, the genius of the system is that Logitech's software takes you through everything step-by-step, so the process isn't all that complicated.  You want to set it up so you can watch your TiVo?  No problem, add "Watch TiVo" to the choice of activities, and then the program will ask you, piece by piece, which of your other devices need to be turned on (and to what setting) for that to be accomplished (TV, receiver, amplifier, etc.).  Yo...
More About: Heroes

The Amazing Race Ends for One Unlucky Team (Lucky Me)
2007-11-06 00:01:00
I'm so happy The Amazing Race is back.  That show is a rocking good time, even when the premiere episode is only an hour instead of 90 minutes or two hours.  A single hour really isn't enough time for me to figure out who I like this season, but it certainly is enough for me to figure out who I hate (and, let's be honest, that's far more important in the reality genre).  And, who did I hate the most last night?  Oh, that's easy, Ari and Staella.  Staella was acceptable as a contestant and human being, but if Ari is as remotely shrill and obnoxious in real life as he appeared last night on the show, I can't imagine how he and Staella are friends (or, really, how he's friends with anyone).  I had absolutely no problem with them stealing the taxi, all's fair in love and money, it really was the man's voice that killed me.  Thank goodness they got booted, because one more screech from him and my eardrums would have s...
More About: Amazing Race , Team , Lucky

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones Comes to DVD
2007-11-04 07:31:00
Whatever other problems he may have, George Lucas does not do things in a small or half-hearted way.  His stories are big, his visuals are big, and his characters are certainly larger than life.  Even when his characters are small, they are big.  Thus, no one should be surprised that The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones , Volume 1, is a big boxed set of DVDs.  There are 12 discs in all, 7 of which contain feature length (roughly 90 minute) films, and the rest are filled with special features.  The features focus on Henry Jones Jr. (Indiana to you and me) between the ages of 8 and 10 (roughly) and then again at about 15 to 17 (depending on the exact year the episode takes place).  The younger Jones, who is featured in more of the episodes, is played by Corey Carrier, whereas the teenager is portrayed by Sean Patrick Flanery.The DVDs represent roughly one third of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which has presumably been retitled...

The Gang on My Name is Earl are Bad Boys... Again
2007-11-03 02:37:00
Last night My Name is Earl made a lot of jokes about living in a post-9/11 world. Is it too soon?  When such issues come up, I always fall back to Crimes and Misdemeanors - "if it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny." I think last night bent. I think last night's episode was funny. For me, enough time and distance has passed. More importantly though, the episode was not making fun of what happened on that day, the episode was examining our reactions to it, from the "if you don't go to the movies you're letting the terrorists win" rhetoric, to our complete inability to find Osama bin Laden.  I actually thought last night's episode to be one of the funniest this season. Seeing Cops go after Camden County's reprobates works for me as concept. It wasn't new to the show, this was their "other" Cops episode (the first aired last season), but it still worked. I don't think it's a concept that the sh...
More About: My Name Is Earl , Gang , Boys , The G

If the Devil is on Reaper, why not have The Godfather on Cane?
2007-11-02 03:36:00
I missed a day, sue me... I was gorging on Snickers and Butterfingers (and KitKat and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups). But let's talk about Tuesday night's Reaper for a minute even if it's old(er) news.Did I not tell you that the Andi/Sam thing was going to perpetually move from hatred to like and back and forth and never really progress anywhere? This week's episode was a microcosm of exactly that. The pendulum swung from hatred to friendship, maybe even a hint of more. Next week they'll be back to where they were two weeks ago and the week after it'll shift again, and then again, and then again, then it'll go to hiatus until January before it starts swinging more. It will never progress in a satisfactory fashion (maybe that's a season three development), but it will keep swinging.I was happy that the Andi/Sam storyline took a backseat to Halloween hijinks. I completely approve of Halloween hijinks. At least, I do as long as Halloween hijinks o...
More About: Devil , Cane , The Go , The G

Suite! It's the New Version of Roxio's Easy Media Creator
2007-10-31 22:33:00
The latest iteration of Sonic Solution's Roxio multimedia software, Easy Media Creator Suite 10 has more features than you can shake a stick at.  It purportedly can do everything from burning a DVD of shows recorded on your TiVo, to recommending music in your library based upon what songs you like at that moment, to helping crop photos so that they look just right on your mobile phone.  For the record, it can also, apparently, do everything in between.  As with all software however, some of these features work better than others.The suite's main menu breaks down all the various odds and ends into eight main items in order to make navigation more simple, which is a huge help as there is a ton of material contained in the software.  Even so however, reading the manual that accompanies the program is absolutely essential, as "MyDVD" creates DVDs in a different way than "VideoWave" or "CineMagic" and invariably one program will l...
More About: Version

Chuck and Heroes Abuse My Trust (and Faith)
2007-10-30 23:39:00
Is there anything worse on Heroes than the Hiro in the past storyline? I so hoped when they put him in the past as a cliffhanger at the end of season one that it was going to be good. I really thought it could be, but it isn't. Kensei is an idiot. I'm fine with that, I'm even fine with his betraying Hiro. I don't mind Hiro's falling for the princess either, but there has to be more to the story than there is. Last night they even ruined the one part of that story I liked - Ando (and the audience) only seeing what was happening due to Hiro's having left the story for Ando to find. It would have been a far better tale if we remained as in the dark as Ando. The show established that conceit a couple of weeks ago, and it's worked wonderfully; Ando's reactions to Hiro's tale are all far better than the tale itself. Why kill the device at the end of the episode? Wouldn't it have been smarter to have Hiro show up in the present and then reco...
More About: Abuse , Faith , Trust , Chuck

Some Desperate Housewives Square off with Bob and Lee
2007-10-29 20:54:00
I like Desperate Housewives , I know that I complain about it on a regular basis, and am going to do so below, but I do like the show. It's funny and over the top, it's just not as funny and over the top as it used to be. The first season set the bar so high, I just don't think the producers have ever obtained that level again. On with the complaints…Bob and Lee. I think they're great additions to the show. I hope that they will have the opportunity in the future for a truly serious plotline, but for right now the show seems to be working them into the overarching story slowly, bit by bit (it's a good plan). But, I want to know some things about the way in which the fountain-sculpture plot unfolded, so please, enlighten me in the comments section below. First question: if Bob and Lee knew that the homeowners association was nominating a new president (and they did because they talked to Lynette about it), why did they not attend that meeting? That way one of them coul...
More About: Some , Square

Nova Issues a "Marathon Challenge"
2007-10-29 18:40:00
This week's episode of Nova takes something of a different tack than the usual episodes. Gone are stories of history, great discoveries, and cutting edge science. Instead, this week's episode focuses on running the Boston Marathon .Months before the event, Nova put together a marathon team representing a cross-segment of society. There are 13 members of the team, some in decent condition, but the vast majority, if not overweight, are "over-fat." These "over-fat" people, while they weigh an average amount, have far too high a percentage of body fat. This is, the show tells us, a more and more common occurrence in our society and something that our marathoners hope they are able to rectify.The 13 members of Team Nova, as the group is called, are followed through nine months of training. Each member does solo runs during the week and then on the weekend they get together for a group run. They are directed in their training by their head coach, Don Mege...
More About: Issues , Challenge , Halle

Lullaby, and Goodnight, a New Baby Einstein Takes Flight
2007-10-28 17:01:00
With over two dozen DVDs on the market, the Baby Einstein brand has to keep pushing to find new and innovative topics. They have done just that with their latest release Baby Einstein - Lullaby Time. As the name implies, the DVD is full of lullaby music. The music is accompanied by pictures of babies either with parents, alone, or with stuffed animals. For the most part, the infants are in their pajamas and clearly preparing for bed. Additionally, some scenes feature soothing views of the ocean, tranquil shots of clouds, and the usual assortment of toys and games that the Baby Einstein line of DVDs are known for. The DVD is, very consciously, a soothing blend of imagery and music. As with all Baby Einstein DVDs, one gets the sense that every single frame of the production is thought out in advance, with the most minute of details considered. The point of it all is to prepare your child for going to sleep. Even the lamb puppet that hosts the DVD eschews the usual wackiness an...
More About: Flight

It's True That I'm Getting Older, But I Still Don't Know How I Feel About a
2007-10-28 16:59:00
Nip/Tuck is a show that constantly reinvents itself. Rather than following its name however and going for little tweaks here and there, the show routinely undergoes total and complete makeovers. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) are always at the heart of the tales, and they in fact change very little, but everything else shifts like buildings during an earthquake. For a couple of seasons the show is about work and family, then it is about a serial killer, then family, now it is about our two doctors moving to Los Angeles from Miami.McNamara/Troy had been a hugely successful practice in Miami, but the beginning of this season finds our doctors unable to get any clients to grace their new digs. In a town that is all about name recognition, McNamara and Troy are two unknowns. After an unsuccessful attempt to troll for clients at a bar (it seems that every attractive woman in the city already has a plastic surgeon of choice), they come across Fiona Mc...
More About: True , Feel

Who Wants to Use the Potty? What if Pocket Snails Helped Out?
2007-10-28 01:42:00
Trying to figure out how to get a toddler to go to the bathroom in a potty as opposed to using a diaper can be a daunting task. Potty training is an absolutely essential part of a child's growth and development, and yet (or maybe consequently) it can be one of the most frustrating. Any and every aid available to parents to try and help with this task is welcome. A new DVD, featuring the Pocket Snails , entitled Pocket Snails: Potty Adventure has recently entered the fight to help the potty training process. The Pocket Snails are a group of three snails, who, as their name suggests, live in a young boy's pocket. The snails, Gordon, Dale, and Buttons, go around helping Jake (the boy in whose pocket they reside), and in this case Jake's little sister, Wendy, learn about certain things. As the title makes clear, this time around it is how to use the potty.Upon learning that Wendy is going to be potty trained, the snails take it upon themselves to use their Potty Steps ...
More About: Nail

Veronica Mars's Final Season Comes to DVD... I Don't Know Whether to be Hap
2007-10-27 20:32:00
The third season of the cult television show Veronica Mars moved the private eye, played to perfection by Kristen Bell, from high school to college.  Once one accepts the conceit present in so many shows that make this move that somehow the important players in the gang all decide to go the same school, there is much fun to be had in this final season.  In an effort to boost viewership, the third season eschews the season long mystery and in its place has a couple of multi-episode mysteries as well as stand alone episodes.  Despite this change in the storytelling structure, all the hallmarks of the show's first two seasons are present, from the noir mysteries, to Veronica's problems with her love life, to her ever so snarky comments.  The first of the two multi-episode mysteries deals with rapes happening on the campus of Veronica's new school, Hearst College.  The plot was initially brought up when Veronica went to visit the school during a seas...
More About: Season , Final

How Did 30 Rock Get a Hold of My Life Story?
2007-10-27 04:46:00
Okay, 30 Rock is getting just plain scary now. I have no idea how they figured out about my life and decided to mock it and me, but they did, they have, and I'm getting really nervous. I'm more than a little afraid Tina Fey is going to knock on my door in the middle of the night and waterboard me until she gets more stories for Kenny. Last night, as you may recall, the head page, Donny (Paul Scheer), threatened to send Kenny to CNBC, to exile him to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey for losing his jacket. Well, upon completion of my year in the Page Program, where did I end up but exiled to CNBC in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey? (Not that I didn't have a great time working with lovely people in Englewood Cliffs -- hi Brian and Rich!) And it was there, in Englewood Cliffs, that I worked with Paul Scheer. Do you see what I'm getting at? There is clearly some book about my time as a page hidden in one of the writers' offices at 30 Rock, and they're taking the st...
More About: Life , Story , My Life , My Life Story

Let's Just Pretend This Was Published Thursday
2007-10-26 17:15:00
For reasons various and sundry, while written on Thursday this didn't get published till today. Please accept all "last night's" as "Wednesday night's" and any "tonight" as "last night." Was I imagining things or last night on Bionic Woman did they rejigger the old school bionic sound and play it when Jaime was jumping around the rooftops? I think they did and I know I liked it. But, you know me, I can't leave well enough alone, so let's talk about my problem with the episode…For some, inexplicable reason, the show tried to pawn off the cute TA guy as the bad guy when the instant the bearded TA guy showed up we knew it was him. I actually got really confused and had to re-watch parts of the episode because it was obvious the bearded guy was the enemy. Seriously, I went back to check and see if I had missed where bearded guy was crossed off the list and he never was, thus, I couldn't fathom why Jaime was wasting her time with the other TA. I should be a spy apparently.There...
More About: Published

Starz Sinks its Teeth Into Bloodsucking Cinema
2007-10-26 04:56:00
Throughout the month of October the premium movie channel Starz has been airing their "Fear Fest." As one can guess from its name, it mainly consists of horror movies. As one must remember, Halloween is at the end of the month.One of the other things that Fear Fest incorporates, though, is a brand new documentary entitled Bloodsucking Cinema that focuses on vampires throughout the course of cinematic history. The documentary airs as a part of Starz's Starz Inside series and is hosted by Richard Roeper. Complete with talking heads speaking from critical, industry, and fan boy perspectives, the documentary, after a brief introduction, quickly heads back to F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu and the origins of the vampire movie. Rather than simply going through the evolution of the vampire movie from that time to this however, it jumps back and forth from modern era vampire films to the past and back again. While this is an interesting way to tackle the topic -- most doc...
More About: Teeth , Sinks

Oh Tuesday Night Television, What am I Going to do With You
2007-10-24 23:50:00
Reaper is about to disappear from my TiVo. I liked the first episode, I thought it funny and clever, and have been more and more and more disappointed with every episode that has followed. I think the series is trending down, and based on the fact that last night's viewership was dismal, many of you out there seem to agree with me. As you may recall, last week I complained that the Andi/Sam relationship needed to progress or die. Last night, virtually the entire episode was Sam lamenting his inability to get together with Andi, the exact problem I said had to go away. I understand that my complaining about something one week is not going to lead to an immediate change, but I have the distinct impression that the producers of the show think I'm misguided in this assertion. Their goal, it seems after last night, is to ratchet this whole non-relationship issue up. I could almost forgive them if I thought it was going to go somewhere, but I don't think that's the ...
More About: Television , Night , Tuesday , Going , With You

Oh Veronica Mars Girl, You're one of my Heroes
2007-10-23 23:23:00
Every week I find so much to like about How I Met Your Mother.  They're always doing something different and wacky and just plain old awesome.  Barney established the "Vicky Mendoza Line" last night with a graphical look at how to judge girls on a hot versus crazy scale (not to be confused with other techniques for identifying crazy-hot girls).  It is the very idea that Barney codifies such things that is funny.  Even if no one has actually codified such a scale in the real world, people think in these terms.  Speaking of the crazy and hot scale, I haven't quite decided where Sarah on Chuck lies on the x,y plane.  Sure, she appears normal, but I'm convinced there is crazy lurking below the surface. You can't possibly think I'm wrong about that, can you?  Maybe it's a season three or season four development (if the show gets that far, the ratings are not outstanding), but I have to believe that she's got some da...
More About: Veronica Mars , Heroes , Mars , Girl , Veronica

Bouncing Here and There and Everywhere, They are the Care Bears
2007-10-23 22:36:00
Care Bear s , the toy, television show, movie, cross-platform wonders from the 1980s are back. They have been completely re-imagined as CGI, and still have the unbounded optimism that was their hallmark twenty years ago. A new Care Bears DVD release, Care Bears: Oopsy Does It! features some of the classic bears along with a new character, Oopsy Bear. Oopsy is the one Care Bear who doesn't have a belly badge. Instead, Oopsy carries a multicolored pencil which he uses to draw various badges from time to time on his belly as a joke (they do not provide Oopsy with any special abilities). As Oopsy's name indicates, he is accident prone, the Care Bear equivalent of Clumsy Smurf if you will. It is important to note that just like Clumsy Smurf, Oopsy's oopses are not the product of malice, he is just unlucky. In this new feature, Oopsy is helping some of the other Care Bears, including the classics Grumpy Bear, Cheer Bear, and Funshine Bear, put together a new amusement par...
More About: Care , The Car

Laughlin is Lost, but the Housewives are Found
2007-10-23 04:12:00
I was going to spend plenty of time today talking about how I don't really "get" Viva Laugh lin . I think that having the actual vocal tracks play so loudly along with people singing sounds terrible. Also, if I counted correctly, last night's episode only featured two and a half songs, one of which wasn't even sung by anyone in the cast at all, though it is never a mistake to play "Fat Bottom Girls."But, I don't have to do that as CBS has pulled the series in order to start airing The Amazing Race. Wow. That was fast. The first scripted series of the season is down, and only days after its first episode. Take that, pundits who said that scripted shows wouldn't be canceled so quickly this year due to the possible writers' strike (mark your calendars kiddies, the contract is up in less then two weeks). Shows what we know. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the show's cancellation. I didn't think that either of the episo...
More About: Lost

Meet The Robinsons? Actually, We've Met.
2007-10-21 17:13:00
Time travel stories are difficult to tell.  When watching a movie that focuses on time travel, the audience is often quick to point out the multitude of story problems and paradoxes that ought to make the entire film unspool far differently than it does.  When the film in question is an animated movie put out by Disney and geared for children, as with Meet The Robins ons, the target audience is probably somewhat less demanding.  It is lucky for Disney that this is the case, as Meet the Robinsons is riddled with plot holes, paradoxes, and a multitude of ill thought through notions.  While children in the audience won't be picky about these, it does lessen the enjoyment for adults.  The movie focuses on young Lewis, an orphan who fancies himself an inventor.  Sadly for Lewis, none of his inventions work, that is, until he decides to come up with a machine that will tap into people's hippocampus in order to show trapped memories.  Just as Lewis...
More About: Meet The Robinsons

If Only Mrs. Pritchard Could Be President
2007-10-20 22:04:00
The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard is, well, amazing.  Focusing on politics in England, the show centers itself on the unlikely character of Ros Pritchard (Jane Horrocks).  Ros, as the series opens, is the manager of a Greengages grocery store, but she doesn't remain as much for long.When two candidates standing for a seat in Parliament start a fight with each other in front of Ros's store, Ros gets involved.  Initially Ros just breaks up the fight, but soon after she has a few choice words for the press about the candidates.  Before too long, Ros is giving more and more interviews and running for the seat herself all while forming her own political party.  Then, quicker than one can blink an eye, other people (mostly women) are joining her party and running in their districts.  Pretty soon, current MPs are defecting from their parties to Ros's, most significantly Catherine Walker (Janet McTeer) a shadow minister in the current administration. ...
More About: President , Char , Resident

Kenny the Page and Jim & Pam and Earl
2007-10-19 21:19:00
I find myself impressed by Jim and Pam. These two kids actually went out and helped Dwight Schrute last night. I find Dwight to usually be an irredeemable character and deservedly the butt of numerous jokes. Even so, feeling bad for him, Jim and Pam did what they could to make Dwight feel better about losing Angela. Even more strangely, they did so after spending a night at Schrute Farms Agro-Hotel or whatever Dwight was calling his bed and breakfast. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fantastic that they went out and helped a guy in need, but it was Dwight, so I can't promise that it's the sort of thing that I would have done given the opportunity. However, I think The Office was trying to show that they are a show with heart (and perhaps a soul) and therefore they made sure that our favorite couple did what they could for a coworker (I won't say "friend") in need. But, I already knew the show had heart, so I didn't need to see it displayed in...
More About: Page , Kenny , Earl

How to Hoax Some Other Folks
2007-10-19 16:32:00
I am constantly amazed by the words "based on a true story."  The words are awfully tricky.  Movies that advertise those five little words walk a very thin line.  The story that they tell needs to be mainly true to life, and yet be appropriately "tweaked" in order to make for an interesting movie.  Go too far in either direction and the filmmakers will never be forgiven.  Richard Gere's latest film to appear on DVD, The Hoax , more often than not manages to negotiate the difficulties successfully.  The film, directed by Lasse Halström, follows the exploits of Clifford Irving (Richard Gere), as he tries to convince first a publishing company, and then the world, that he is collaborating with Howard Hughes on Hughes' autobiography.  In reality, Irving is collaborating with a different writer, Richard Suskind (Alfred Molina), and has never met Hughes.  Rather, the two of them have decided to pull the wool over the ...
More About: Some

Kitchen Nightmares Starts Visting Restaurants I've Eaten At
2007-10-19 00:28:00
How nice was it to see that that Pushing Daisies continued last night to explore how Ned figured out the rules to his "gift."  I think they answered several of my questions from the first episode, including what dies when he brings fruit back to life.  I still want to know about whether it's an equal and opposite reaction or whether it does not need to be "equal."  We saw flowers die last night as Ned was bringing peaches back to life for his pies.  Does it have to be flowers?  Why could it not be a customer?  I think the show will get there eventually, and I am beginning to have some faith in it.    It all makes me wonder if I'm too harsh, I want to know things like the the rules during the first episode and have a tendency to believe that if I'm not told them it's because they haven't been thought out.  At the very least, I need promises up front that the rules are in place.  Maybe it...
More About: Restaurants , Kitchen , Kitchen Nightmares , Nightmares , Ares

Hooking in an Audience
2007-03-16 20:58:00
You want an idea for a hook? Here’s an idea for a hook: no hook, just good writing and good characters. Can we just avoid nonsense for a little while and concentrate on doing things well rather than having a silly hook?In case you’re wondering, I watched Raines last night. Jeff Goldblum, as the title character, was good, but I think he’s always good. He’s a fun actor who delivers lines in the oddest way. I like him. Here, in Raines, he plays a detective, and a homicide detective at that. The story starts off strong enough, with Raines explaining, in a voiceover, the difference between hard-boiled detective fiction murders and real world murders. It’s good, it’s smart, it’s solid writing, and it’s more or less all downhill from there. You see, Raines sees dead people. They come back and talk to him, at least in his imagination. He thinks out the murders and figures out who the victims were by bouncing ideas off them and changing around ...
More About: Audi , King , Audience , Hook