Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Pushing Daisies Season Premiere

I am glad to see Pushing Daisies back, but alas, the season premiere was not as good as it could have been. Probably due to fallout from last year’s writer’s strike, this episode looked like they tried to smush a half a season of storylines into one episode. One of the aunt’s had a confession - Olive goes to a nunnery - it was all rushed and forced.

And one gripe - can we get past the “keeping Chuck secret from the aunts” bit? I mean, c’mon, the women are heartbroken, can’t you trust them with the knowledge that Chuck is still alive? It’s not like they’re the types to rush out and tell the media…

Still, glad it’s back…

Misha Collins on Supernatural

The folks behind Supernatural have been very kind to us ladies (and gay men) by providing not one, but two hunky leading men to enjoy. Season 4 now brings us another male hottie, Misha Collins, who plays an angel with sweet puppy dog eyes and hair slightly askew. His name is Castiel, and if you look at his pure angel essence, your eyes will burn out. (Disgusting, but kind of a neat special effect.) Now the demons are on the run, afraid that it’s all over for them. We shall see…

Supernatural has been one of my favorite shows since it premiered, but it never did quite make sense to me why they’d have so many demons running around with only humans to stop them. Were the angels out to lunch? To bring angels into the equation after three full seasons is the smart move on the part of the writers. This show never stays static or falls into the “demon of the week” trap. Supernatural displays the right balance between shows that can be watched as standalones and shows that carry forward the story arc. You can miss a few episodes but get back up to speed easily.

It’s too bad Supernatural is relegated to lower ratings on The CW, but I’m happy we have gotten at least four seasons out of it. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens this year with our new angelic helper.

Fringe: A First Look

Fringe is the latest tv show from J.J. Abrams, who has brought us great thrillers such as Lost and Alias. A cross between the X-Files and Alias, Fringe attempts to bring more of that “mysterious” television that has made Lost so popular. Fringe promises to cover topics from the X-Files but with that type of fast-paced action we’re used to seeing in Alias. Telepathy, teleportation, reanimation, dream communication, and other types of “fringe” science are what will be explored in the show.

With a nod to Lost, we have some sort of secret plot involving bio-terrorism and a large technology corporation. Strange icons (a butterfly, leaf, apple and frog) appear before commercial breaks, with a strange yellow dot that is sure to get fans wondering across the Internet.

Sadly, the premiere falls short of being brilliant. It is, in fact, convoluted and a bit unbelievable plotwise. (My feeling is that if you are going to cover fringe topics, then you better make your real world stuff believable to anchor the show.) We have a female FBI agent who is trying to save her dying sweetie. Somehow this leads her to release a crazy scientist from a mental hospital and set up an old lab in the basement of Harvard.

Watching this, you can’t help but wonder where the other scientists are who might be working on a cure, and how on earth can a scientist in a mental institution for 17 years be so comfortable with modern technology?

Other plot holes abounded: As an FBI “liaison,” she is sent with her partner to a storage locker to investigate a guy who boarded a plane in Germany. Already, this is not making sense to me. By the time the crazy scientist plugs her into a storage tank to get memories from her sweetie-in-a-coma, I had given up on the plot making any sense.

(And never mind that she missed the most crucial info once she was in her sweetie’s brain!)

The saving grace of Fringe is that the casting is terrific and the action is fast-paced. I’m hoping that once it gets past the weak pilot, it will turn into a decent show (like Eureka did). Sometimes pilots are horribly contrived just to get the setup going - once we get past that, it’s smoother sailing.

My grade: B-

The Spiderwick Chronicles

I just saw this on DVD. This is another children’s fantasy trying to ride on Harry Potter’s coattails. In brief: A family moves into a creepy old house, where a boy finds a book that opens the doorway to the fairy world.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fun movie, filled with action and paced well. The kids were great in it and the special effects were also pretty good. Where this movie disappoints is that it is way too rushed and does not take any time to explore the fairy world. Instead of letting us see the magic and wonder of the fairies, we are constantly bombarded with goblins and big nasty things snarling and chasing the kids.

This was a lost opportunity, I feel, and keeps the film from becoming a classic. Still, what we do see is entertaining and exciting (if perhaps a bit scary for really small children). Overall, I give it a B.

Is the Dark Knight the Best Movie Ever?

“That was the best movie, ever,” my friend said as we walked out of a showing of The Dark Knight.

“The best? No way,” I said. “Good, yes, but the best ever?”

“Well, it’s at least in the top ten,” he replied.

So maybe this really is a guy thing, because I cannot for the life of me see how The Dark Knight could be considered one of the best films ever made, as good as it was for what it was.

Surely, classics such as Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind haven’t been forgotten? Or, if you are into things of a more sci-fi nature, how about the prodigious effort resulting in the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Or the original Star Wars? 2001? Blade Runner?

Granted, we haven’t quite had a serious film about a superhero that might be elevated to art, but I’ll say that The Matrix, with its post-modern superhero Neo, could certainly fit that bill.

When I saw The Matrix for the first time, I was absolutely blown away. It was not only technically brilliant and innovative, but it set a mood and tone that really messed with your head. You walked out of The Matrix questioning the very nature of your conscious reality. And you were entertained to boot.

The Matrix made me reevaluate my relationship to the world. It reminded me that the world is really just a temporary illusion, a brief stopping point in the eternity beyond.

In comparison to that feeling, my feelings upon leaving The Dark Knight were, “That was really good, but I doubt I’ll ever want to see it again.”

The Dark Knight was not brilliant or innovative. It was simply well-executed. It was an almost flawless action movie. But it was not deep, nor was it original.

So, as much as The Dark Knight has blown away the box office, I am going to make the bold prediction here that it is not going to become a classic that changes the way we see cinema in the way The Matrix did. Spider-Man, as you recall, also gets huge box office, but it will be seen as cheesy and dated in 20 years. Box office success does not necessarily mean lasting cultural impact.

Of course, The Dark Knight is anything but cheesy. It is filled with terrific action scenes and great performances. If anything, it will be remembered for Heath Ledger’s brilliant, tragic performance, so poignant now that we know that the emotional toll the role took on him played a part in his death. But beyond the great action and fast plotting, what does The Dark Knight give us that will stick in our minds later?

Hey, I think it’s great when a truck flips upside down from front to back, but if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it.

I recently saw No Country for Old Men, and while I’m not a fan of that kind of violence, nor do I go out of my way to watch Coen Brothers movies, No Country for Old Men was brilliant. I’ll remember it. It said something meaningful about the human condition.

The Dark Knight, in contrast, tries to be deep and meaningful, but cannot escape its comic book roots. “Gotham needs a hero,” Batman tells us. And yet, for all the apparent philosophical pondering on the surface, The Dark Knight is so busy piling on the plotlines and action that it loses its heart. The Joker is simply insane; Batman is typically stoic; our heroine is good and beautiful in the most generic way. Most disconcerting: Two-Face makes his dramatic shift without much real character development to back it up.

In fact, the only hint of heart and soul I found in the whole film was the scene involving the large black convict on the boat - you’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen the film already.

I was also greatly disappointed in the setting and cinematography. While I understand the trend lately is towards realism in sci-fi (Battlestar Galactica), I found Gotham to be flat and boring. I must admit I enjoyed Tim Burton’s retro-futuristic Gotham’s much better. While I didn’t expect that type of over-the-top Gotham here, I just wanted something more…dark. The entire film was too bright for a film called The Dark Knight. (I did think the final hospital explosion was well-done, however.)

This type of overdone realism in sci-fi will become out of vogue at some point, and the film will show its age later because of it. Mark my words.

As for the cast (beyond Heath Ledger): Super hottie Christian Bale makes a terrific Batman, except for his “Batman voice,” but he did not have much opportunity to shine here. Harvey Dent took up more focus. Maggie Gyllenhaal is a better actress than Katie Holmes, but the lighting on her made her look absolutely awful. With that, I just couldn’t buy that two hot men were so in love with her based on her bland personality and puffy face. (It’s not that I need her to be a supermodel. She just looked tired to me.)

On a more positive note, I’m always delighted to see Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in just about anything. These two truly gave the film some sparkle that was otherwise missing in our overly serious main characters. Gary Oldman is another favorite of mine, even with that horrible bushy mustache.

All in all, I’d give The Dark Knight an 8 out of 10 for its fast plotting, great action, and fantastic performances by Oldman and Ledger. But a classic? No, not quite.

A Few Things to See on Hulu

Hulu is quickly becoming one of my favorite websites because I can watch a bunch of movies and TV on demand, without having to go out and get a rental or wait for whatever is in my Blockbuster queue to arrive. Here are a few things I’ve recently caught on Hulu:

The Fifth Element
Now a classic sci-fi film from the 90s, The Fifth Element is on Hulu in its entirety with only a few short commercial breaks. Boy, how I miss the 90s and how freakin’ over the top we were. Sci-fi was just a lot more colorful and humorous back then. Now it’s all grey and dreary and “realistic.” Blah. The Fifth Element is so totally wacked in moments that it would have been a complete failure were it not for Bruce Willis, Chris Tucker, and a surprisingly good performance by Milla Jovovich (in her trademark white bandages and skinny little bod).

Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
OK, not really sci-fi for the most part, but these are really worth a watch. I remember seeing them a long time ago and forgot how good some of the episodes are. While a few are predictable, many are well-written with surprising twists and turns. Hitchcock himself makes the show with his goofy black humor. Keep an eye open for stars before they were stars.

Regenesis
A Canadian TV show about biotechnology and all the gory things that go along with it (such as massive viral outbreaks), Regenesis is OK - something to watch while you are doing something else. The first two episodes featured a deadly virus run amok and a mysterious boy who claims he is a “clone.” I wasn’t blown away by the two episodes I watched (it seemed like a cheesier version of House meets CSI meets the movie Outbreak), but some reviewers loved it. I’m willing to give it a few more episodes before making my final decision on it.

Battlestar Galactica Meets Planet of the Apes

I had one of those lazy Sundays where I just got caught up on Battlestar Galactica…from season three right into season four. There’s something to be said for watching the whole lot at once - you aren’t constantly waiting for those incessant cliffhangers.

And how about that ending, eh? Well, I sure didn’t expect the kind of happy earth reception we had for the original series, where the kids got to play a baseball game with their super jumping skills thanks to the gravity differential. No, this earth was a bit darker.

I was wondering, actually, when they would place our earth in the BSG timeline. Would it be in our early history or in our future? Obviously, the writers chose our future. I think the only thing that could have possibly improved on BSG’s mid-season finale would have been if we got to see a shot of the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand, with a bunch of clothed apes coming out to meet the crowd.

Then Dr. Zaius (the ape) could greet Dr. Gaius (Baltar) and we’d find out that the apes were actually cylon-ape hybrids all along. Or something like that.

A Really Great Book and DVD Trading Service

Just a heads up: On occasion you’ll see me review a book or DVD here and I’ll be giving it away for free. I’ll be doing this through Bookins, which is a fantastic online book/DVD trading service. What you do is sign up and then earn points for giving your used books and DVDs away. You can then use those points to get other books and DVDs. You just pay $4.49 for the shipping (ONLY when you receive).

I’ve been so excited about this service. It is beyond easy to use. The great thing is that if you have old books and DVDs to give away, you don’t have to pay to ship them out. You go to the website, print out a label with postage, and the receiver pays the shipping.

I’m on a mission to promote them a little bit more because I’d just like more people taking my books and DVDs. (OK, I do get some free “points” through referrals, but no cash.) If there’s one downside to this service, I find that some of my books can sit there for a long time without getting taken. So sign up using my link here and then when I have something available and post it here, you can be the one to get it.

Ghostly Photo Blog

Recently, more anomalies have been showing up in my photos…anomalies such as those mysterious “orbs” you may have heard about. While skeptics say they are just dust on the camera lens, others think they may be signs of the paranormal. Whether they are real or not, I find them to be a ton of fun. So I have put up a new photo blog to share pictures of orbs and other ghostly apparitions. Please check it out at:

http://www.orbsandghosts.com

Torchwood’s Owen Harper

WARNING: SPOILER if you haven’t watched the series recently! So am I the only one who will not be missing Owen on Torchwood? I could never get his appeal. Somehow he was this sex-god with women, and every woman on Torchwood was in love with him, but he was just so unappealing to me, physically and personality-wise. But where Torchwood really lost it for me was when Owen became the living dead man. So somehow, his body was dead, and he couldn’t recover from a wound, and yet he was able to SPEAK, which meant he was breathing. This was some of the worst, unscientific sci-fi nonsense I have seen in ages. I was really glad when they just finally offed him. Farewell, Owen, but sorry, I’m not going to miss you.