All Recent Reviews http://www.screenerd.com/all_reviews/rss dav 2008-01-15T02:13:28Z Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/lost0405 Lost , Season 4, Episode 5, "The Constant" Ah, time travel. How I do love you. You have been the basis for some of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time (Back to the Future, T2) and some of the worst (every other movie about time travel). But no matter what movie you’re in, you render the plot utterly illogical if not incompressible. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in that pinnacle of time travel movies, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure , and its ambitious but flawed follow-up, Bogus Journey . In the latter, the eponymous heroes, Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan, do battle with their arch nemesis by remembering later to go back in time and put useful weapons (a sandbag, a person-sized cage) in convenient places. They simply make a mental note and, poof, they have exactly what they need. [Wasn’t that actually a trash can? I remember Keanu saying “a trash can, a trash can” in one scene. Maybe that was the first movie –ed.] (Yeah, one of the flaws of part 2 is that they reused the same jokes –s.) maybeitssteve 2008-03-11T01:36:38Z The Worst Villain on Lost is Not Who You Think http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/Lost0404 Lost , Season 4, Episode 4, “Eggtown” One of the most basic metaphors of the show is the idea of the island as a tabula rasa or blank slate . That means for most of the characters, being stranded on the island is a chance to put the sins of their past behind them and get a fresh start on life. But one exception to this rule is Kate. In her flashbacks we find that she is manipulative, impulsive, and brutally violent. And on the island she is exactly the same. In this episode alone she effortlessly fools Hurley into revealing the location of Miles’s prison and enters into a sort of Faustian bargain with Miles to learn whether the rescuers are planning to haul her back to prison. She then (unwittingly, at least) assists Miles in blackmailing Ben, and even finds time to – yet again – give poor Sawyer blueballs. I’m beginning to think Kate might actually be the worst villain on the island. In the flash forwards, meanwhile, we see Kate looking sort of Jane Austen and on trial for her numerous past offenses. I couldn’t even keep track when the judge rattled them off – were all the ones we’ve seen in other flashbacks accounted for? Did he name crimes we haven’t seen? At any rate, a pre-beard Jack is dramatically called to the stand as a character witness. His testimony is fascinating: Jack states that only eight people survived the crash, Kate saved them and helped them to shore, where they almost starved to death. So for the first time we get a sense of what the general public has learned about the weird and tragic happenings on the island – absolutely nothing. What has led Jack and the other survivors to create this fiction, and preventing anyone from trying to rescue the other Losties? How does that fit in with Hurley’s and Sayid’s flash forwards? And why, as we learn at the end of the episode, is Kate raising Claire’s baby, who Jack is so afraid to go visit? While we’re absorbed with these questions, we almost miss the fact that we’re watching the most asinine courtroom scene ever on television. I was actually encouraged, at first, to see the trial set in a realistic looking courtroom with hung ceilings, putty-grey walls, and fluorescent lights. But around the time the judge said “I’ll allow it” in response to a question, I realized that the trial was ludicrous. Are we really supposed to believe that out of all the crimes Kate committed, including arson, murder, and armed robbery, the best witness the prosecution could dig up is Kate’s mother? (And doesn’t mom’s testimony – that Kate confessed the crimes to her – count as hearsay ?) After a melodramatic mother-daughter confrontation, Kate’s mom conveniently has too much cancer to testify, and Kate gets off with probation or something. Of course, we knew that already since we already saw an even more future Kate where she was at least free enough to meet Jack by an airport runway. For all the imaginative surprises the Lost writers can serve up, they sure do drop the ball on basic television plot devices. denny 2008-02-25T19:52:22Z Who Will Win...Best Editor? http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/best_editor Talk about the Academy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sunday, always revolves around the major categories: Best Picture, Best Actor and Actress, Best Director, etc. That's because acting and even directing are easy for the average moviegoer to understand and form an opinion on. A couple of the more technical categories, like visual effects  and costume design are more obscure but still simple to grasp. (And how does the ring of "three time Oscar-nominee Transformers " strike you?) But what exactly is editing? If you're just assembling all the shots and forming them into a coherent movie, isn't that just part of directing? Well, no. (Unless you're " Roderick Jaynes ," which is just an editing pseudonym inexplicably used by the Coen brothers.) Even knowing that, I have never walked out of a theatre and said, "Damn, that was some sharp editing." Today Slate posted an interesting video of film editor Mark Helfrich attempting to explain what makes the movies nominated for Best Editing worthy of the award: denny 2008-02-22T18:20:43Z But He's a Neat Monster http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/Dexter0101 Dexter , Season 1, Episode 1, “Dexter” Dexter is the first show, as far as I know, that has been syndicated to prime-time network television during its continuing run on premium cable. ( Sex and the City , the Sopranos and The Wire have also been syndicated, but to basic cable channels like TBS.) The drama about a forensic scientist-slash-serial killer who murders other serial killers premiered on Showtime back in 2006. But due to a dearth of new programming – thanks to the late writers’ strike – CBS decided to broadcast the entire first season of Dexter beginning last Sunday. The actors had already been overdubbing their lines with sanitized dialogue in expectation that they would one day be syndicated, and the show’s producer said there was actually very little in terms of violence to cut. But that didn’t stop the Parents Television Council from issuing a knee-jerk condemnation of the show’s network debut. If you haven’t heard of them, the Parents Television Council is, in short, the enemy. This is the organization that sponsors letter-writing drives to the FCC or advertiser boycotts when, say, someone blurts out a four-letter word during a morning show, or flashes a bit of hiney on a police procedural. They are part of the engine driving the culture of outrage and apology that pretends to shield the supposedly eggshell-like psyches of American children. But how many young children, really, are watching CBS at 10 p.m. on a Sunday? Blocking a show like Dexter wouldn’t help kids – instead, it prevents educated, informed viewers like you and me from watching a potentially enlightening and fascinating series. In reality, these morality campaigns are less about kids and more about forcing a specific viewpoint and infantilizing adults. denny 2008-02-22T17:17:34Z Nighty Knight http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/KnightRider01 Knight Rider, Season 1, Episode 1 Okay, I realized when I started this blog that I'd be forced to watch a lot of bad T.V. Previously I would wait about three seasons for a show to build up some significant buzz before renting all of it on DVD. Now, for the service of our readers (all 3 of you), I'm subjecting myself to T.V. as it happens, with all the risk that entails. Which brings me to Knight Rider . As with the prolonged trend of remade movies, nostalgia is big again on T.V. Before recently, however, most old television shows returned as cheap, unfunny films ( Dukes of Hazard , Brady Bunch , et al). But with the semi-success of Battlestar Galactica , producers are now subscribing to the revolutionary notion that they can remake old T.V. shows as...T.V. shows. The problem is most of these old shows we remember so fondly actually suck hard. (Remember ThunderCats ? No. You really don't .) I think the quality of any remake is inversely proportional to the competence of its antecedent. The original BSG, for instance, barely made it out of its first season. Whereas Knight Rider - surely preposterous in its premise, but not without its charm and David Hasselhoff-supplied star power - lasted six. [ Sadly, no algebra can explain why shows like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks were cancelled after barely a dozen episodes, yet JAG was allowed to march along for 10 full seasons. -eds ] maybeitssteve 2008-02-19T20:28:41Z A Very Special Valentine's Day Episode http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/Lost0403 Lost, Season 4, Episode 3, "The Economist" The opening golf course scene totally made up for the fact that, as I watched it, I was sitting at home alone on Valentine's Day. Who needs a date when you have Lost , the ultimate lonely nerd salve? In fact, the show has many of the traits of an actual significant other. Sometimes it’s funny, sexy and exciting; other times it’s cloyingly emotional, mean spirited and just plain incomprehensible. And like a real relationship, Lost can occasionally draw things out for far too long. But not tonight’s episode. Tonight’s episode was jaunty, lean and consistently surprising. Not only did the flash forward show us a Lostie not drowning in self pity, [ until the end – ugh –eds ] but it also gave said character a nice little story arc, full of turns and reversals. And just when I felt the whole thing edging toward over-sentimentality, the guns came out. I won’t give away the subject of the flash forward, or what happens during it, because the surprise is half the fun. Let’s just say the first scene exudes the kind of menace I want to see from this show more often. maybeitssteve 2008-02-15T17:23:27Z Strike Out http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/strikeout For real this time: the Writers Guild of America strike is over . The final deal between the writers and studios is complicated , as union wage deals tend to be. The gist is that writers will be getting a small slice of the internet revenue pie, just not as much as they originally asked for. But that’s how compromises work: win-win-win . Sometimes. The real winners are, hopefully, we the TV viewing audience. And our award will be delivered, well, some time within the next few weeks. Possibly months. As if TV wasn’t already a confusing patchwork of schedules, we’re now forced to read TV-columnist tea leaves to find out when shows are coming back. The most comprehensive list I’ve seen so far is this continually-updated post from New York magazine. (But I ask you, New York magazine, whither comes It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia ?) Here’s the short list of what matters to us here at ScreeNerd: Battlestar Galactica : First part of the final season begins on April 4, the rest will inexplicably air in the fall or in 2009. (WTF? Just run the whole frakking season.) Heroes: No new episodes until this fall. Lost: Already in progress, but the total episode order for the year will likely be cut down from 16 to 13 episodes. The show could benefit from a compressed season anyway, forcing them to cut the extra fluff. The Office: Will air 6 to 7 new episodes, beginning on April 10. Pushing Daisies: No new episodes likely until the fall. Reaper: Will produce 6 to 8 new episodes; no indication of when they will air. Weeds: Will start up again this summer. One thing I will miss about the strike is the incredibly watchable time-wasting on late-night shows like Conan O’Brien , The Daily Show With Jon Stewart , and The Colbert Report . And when those three guys conspire to waste time together, well, it’s pretty hilarious. Check it out after the jump: denny 2008-02-14T16:03:21Z Name that Tune http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/Game My Tivo inexplicably failed to record Jericho last night. So instead of a review, I thought I'd post about this amazing game my co-workers and I made up. It's called... ummm... Theme Song Challenge. Sure, that'll work. Here’s how you play: You and a challenger sit at opposing computers so that you can't see each other's monitor. Both contestants sign on to YouTube and take turns calling up different television show theme songs for the other to guess. Every one you get right earns you a point. The person with the most points wins. This game is AMAZING. In my first match, I confounded my co-worker with the theme from Alf , which is the perfect theme, totally familiar but completely unplaceable. It sounds more like bad elevator Muzak than the intro to a show about an alien living with a suburban family. My co-worker hit back with 227 (nice!) and then showed his age with Manimal and Great Space Coaster . I riposted with Airwolf, a total pass, only he had never heard of it. (Me: It's like Knight Rider except with a helicopter. Him: The helicopter talked?! Me: No, it was just a bad-ass helicopter.) [ If I was in a metal band, we would totally cover the Airwolf theme. –eds ] Then disaster struck when he tried to play the theme from Gimme a Break , whose very first line is "Gimme a Break." Foul! Minus 2 points. [ If you need an edge, Wikipedia has a helpful list of TV themes with no lyrics. – eds ] maybeitssteve 2008-02-13T22:58:57Z Meet the Rescuers http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/Lost0402 Lost , Season 4, Episode 2: "Confirmed Dead" Lost is probably the one show to date that has most successfully integrated with the web. In fact, having any inkling about what the hell is up with that island practically depends on participating in a devoted community with infinite time and infinite resources at their disposal to connect all the dots. Have you ever nosed through Lostpedia ? Just look at how often the numbers come up – I bet you had only ever spotted an eighth of those. Speaking of which, would you like to know the meaning of those mysterious numbers? It’s right here on YouTube . Honestly. The video is canon, and was produced by ABC. Of course, in order to see it, you had to assemble a bunch of fragments though an “alternate reality game.” (What? You mean you didn’t go straight to sublymonal.com right after watching that Sprite commercial ?) This essential piece of the Lost puzzle has never been shown on air and may never find its way onto a regular broadcast. But there it is, on YouTube of all places. [Don’t you see? By linking to all these we are actually becoming part of the viral marketing campaign, thereby perpetuating the cycle of...fuck it, nevermind. I want a Sprite. –eds] denny 2008-02-12T22:55:25Z That's One Skinny Killer Robot http://www.screenerd.com/reviews/Terminator0101 “Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles” has a long name. I’m trying to remember if there’s ever been a good show with a colon in the title. I’m coming up with nothing. Maybe there’s a reason for that... The pilot picks up shortly after the events of Terminator 2. Apparently the writers, like the general public and possibly the governor of California, want to forget that T3 ever happened. Sarah randomly decides to go on the run again after settling down with some dude for a couple months, much to the dismay of her son/future messiah. John doesn’t understand why they have to leave. After all, didn’t they destroy Skynet at the end of the movie? Wasn’t the future apocalypse averted? Well, that didn’t stop a third sequel and it sure as hell isn’t going to stop this show. Soon enough, a glowing-red-eyed Terminator is on their trail. But that’s okay, because Summer Glau is here as the most waifish Terminator ever. If you didn’t buy Kristanna Loken going toe-to-toe with Schwarzenegger, you’re not going to buy this. [ Yet for some reason, we bought it in “Firefly.” It’s all about the crazy. -ed ] Glau also comes equipped with more human-like emotions, leaving open the possibility for some truly bizarre man-on-robot romantic tension. John: “What model are you? You seem...different.” Terminatrix: "I am." Honestly, that may be the only thing this show has going for it. maybeitssteve 2008-02-09T02:07:46Z