One can only hope they're kidding

My wife & I have been watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning, although it's never been my favorite show. I tend to find most of the women insufferable - especially the lead trio - and consider the men to be the show's redeeming quality. The show sunk to new lows recently when it started trotting out the Denny-returns-as-a-ghost garbage, a blatant attempt to revisit a long-buried romance from two seasons ago! When is enough enough? The man died and, regardless of how cool a character he may or may not have been - I'm in the latter camp - his run ended, meaning the show - and his fans - need to let it go. Drift off into the fantastical one too many times and you run the risk of producing a modern day Ally McBeal, inspired one minute and forgotten the next.

Gut-check time...

Sometimes, a television show comes out of nowhere and surprises you. I admit that I've been a fan of Prison Break from the start, including its increasingly implausible plot twists, and I'm happy to say that my faith was recently rewarded. Watching William Fichtner's Mahone calming pushing hired gun Wyatt - who had previously murdered Mahone's young son - into the water with a cinder block cuffed to his arms was brilliant. Totally warranted, totally worth it, and not even a semblance of a copout from a show I have at times worried about... Kudos, Mahone, and kudos to you as well, Prison Break!

Journeyman, take 2

I can sense it already - I'm about to get sucked into a show that I know will get canceled very, very soon. This happens to me with some degree of regularity, the most recent examples being Daybreak and Journeyman. The thing is, I know these shows are not long for this earth when I start watching them, yet I'm swept in nonetheless. This season's contestant is Life on Mars, a show about a New York cops who finds himself - via some means or other - "stuck" in 1973. He exists there -he has a job, he owns a car, etc. - so it's not a case of traveling through time. Intriguing premise, solid premiere, but I wonder how sustainable the concept it. After all, will this have an ongoing mystery, or will it morph into a standard cop show., albeit with an unusual fish-out-of-water element? Alas, we may never know...

The long wait is officially over

The time period from late May until early September can be a rather long one, especially for someone who watches as much television as I do. I have about a dozen or shows that I follow somewhat religiously, but I don't bother flicking through the stations during a typical evening. As such, summer becomes a wasteland of TV nothingness, saving for a little-known addiction to old Law & Order episodes. Finally, summer is at an end, which means school is back in session, the weather is getting cooler, and network TV is back in session! With the return of Prison Break this past week, the fall season is now back in swing. Over the next few weeks, regular programming will return to the air, and not a moment too soon. Order is restored.

Thunder, rumbling in the distance...

Tropic Thunder entered this summer with a lot of hype, and, as its release date neared, solid reviews poured in as well. Praise was heaped upon Robert Downey Jr. and a not-so-secret "cameo" by Tom Cruise. So, is it worth the hype? Eh... The film is decent, but hardly memorable. I won't bash it and say it's unworthy, but it's not as memorable as Stiller's ten-year-old hit There's Something About Mary. Downey is good, but his role isn't the classic it is portrayed as. Cruise, however, is hilarious, including some gut-busting dance numbers. Those along might be worth admittance, but, then again, can a YouTube appearance be far behind?

Have we seen this one before?

I'm not oblivious when it comes to movie reviews. In fact, I tend to peruse a great many of them, just to get a feel for the general consensus about a film - in addition to a little competitive snooping. That being said, I went into Doomsday with fairly realistic expectations. I heard that it was a knockoff of everything from The Road Warrior to Waterworld. Granted, I happened to like both of those movies, each more so than the average film buff. I gave Doomsday a try, and, while I wouldn't say that I regret it, don't look for a recommendation any time soon. Neat premise - a country is isolated after a plague outbreak, left to die over a period of 25+ years. Alas, the plague resurfaces outside of the quarantined area, just as life is spotted inside the quarantined area. How did they survive? Do they have a cure? Send in a crack team of military & scientist types to find a cure and bring it back. Well, at least I thought it sounded good. Alas, somewhere along the way, things got a little lost...

Attack of the killer... vegetation?!

I've seen some suspect horror movies in my day - we did, after all, spend excessive amounts of time in college debating the merits of Carnosaur - but The Ruins might be a new low. A journey to ancient Mayan ruins produces a chilling encounter with killer... vegetation?! Yes, that's right - the malevolent force in The Ruins is a twisting mess of overgrown vines. The horror! I thank my lucky stars for 90-minute run times and the ability to watch DVDs on 2x or 4x speed.

Redefining what it means to be "Best Picture"

Some are calling Wall-E the best Pixar film ever and a dark horse candidate for Best Picture at next year's Oscars. Were they watching the same film I was? Visually, I would not think to question anything about the movie, as it is truly top-notch. As far as the story goes, however, I must say that it lags behind a number of prior efforts, most notably Toy Story. The movie tries to club its audience over the head with its environmental message, and the pacing can drag at points. Is the film entertaining? Certainly, and I am happy to have viewed it. I will not, however, urge others to run to the theater to see it as soon as possible. Only one film this year has brought out that kind of reaction in me, and, oddly enough, it was Iron Man. Maybe The Dark Knight can give me a second option...

Where does the time go...

Summer being what it is, television tends to become a little less relevant. Spare me the sob stories about the great options cable gives us these days! Summer is here, which means top-notch programs like Lost, Survivor, and 24 are not. What's a guy to do? I usually use this time to catch up on the films I may have missed throughout the year, but, last night, I found myself reaching back to my college days for The Rock. For those who don't know, this is around the time when someone had the clever idea to make Nicholas Cage into an action here. Face/Off, Con Air and The Rock all hit theaters within the span of a couple years, but this rollicking little break-into-Alcatraz number might be my personal favorite. Does this mean I buy Cage as an action star? Not necessarily, but the film moves along at a brisk pace, its from an era before Michael Bay fell too much in love with himself, and it heralds from a time when films were produced by Simpson and Bruckheimer. With the former's passing, the latter now rules film and television. Oh, where does the time go?

That was some marketing campaign!

Before the film had even started, I already had my headline: "Cloverfield is more marketing campaign than movie." In case the name doesn't sound familiar, this was the J.J. Abrams effort that featured grainy footage of New York under siege. By what? Unknown. Buzz built around the film's trailer, which showed precious little, and the film opened with a boffo weekend this past January. A few months later, I finally was able to squeeze this film in, and, much to my surprise, it's actually a very entertaining movie!

The best of our lifetime?!

Entertainment Weekly recently released its list of the best / most influential television shows of the past 25 years. Topping the list was The Simpsons, which struck me as a bit of a surprise. (Considering its fawning critics, I was not surprised that The Sopranos ended up #2 on the list.) Personal favorites like Survivor (never fully appreciated), Lost, and Friends also cracked the top ten, but the most intriguing item up there had to be The X-Files, a show that whose presence is only occasionally invoked when discussing today's television landscape. Was it groundbreaking? Sure. Did I enjoy it? Usually, although no one seems to care for the way the series sputtered to its conclusion. Then again, some would argue that shows like Lost would not even be possible without The X-Files. Maybe so, in which case a tip of the hat is definitely in order...

Is that why it's called Special Edition?

Watching Aliens: Special Edition for the first time, I cannot say that I saw anything that added substance to the final film. Aside from Bill Paxton (aka Hudson) having a legitimate beef with director James Cameron for cutting so many of his lines, I didn't see much of interest. Most bizarre was an extended sequence on the planet's surface with Newt and her family before the aliens even move in. Interesting, maybe, but not ultimately that exciting, and it makes the movie look rather dated. As for Paxton, despite the decreased screen time, he should be grateful that the final version trims the majority of his most inane chatter. Thankfully, he gets to keep the classics. "That's it, man. Game over. Game over."

Or should it be when is the island?!

Nothing can top the mind-bending finale of Lost's 2006-2007 season, but I won't hold that against Lost, which delivered a whopper to close the 2008 season. Where did the island go? Did it move in space, or did it move in time?! Let's just say that seven months is a long time to wait for such an answer...