Review: Knight Rider (2008 edition)

Repeat after me:

"Thank you, Peter.

"Thank you for subjecting yourself to the wooden acting of Justin Bruening, Deanna Russo, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Susan Gibney, and even Bruce Davison.

"Thank you for listening to them actually improve on David Andron's obvious, painfully-bad script, as hard as that may be to believe.

"Thank you for not turning off the television as soon as you saw David Hasselhoff's name in the guest-star credits, and for actually staying around until his mercifully-short-yet-still-too-long self-aggrandizing cameo.

"Thank you for sitting through the crapfest that was Knight Rider so that we don't have to subject ourselves to it, and if, through some horrible twist of fate, it actually goes to series, for warning us that it's not only as bad as we thought it could be... but worse."

Review: The Departed

Fifteen months after seeing The Departed at the theatre with daughter Tammy, I watched it a second time, thanks to the magic of DVDs. I'd say that I enjoyed it slightly more on the return trip, although overall my reaction was about the same. Here are my thoughts from November 2006 before I add to them:

"I'm not a big Martin Scorcese fan, as I've had mixed results with his movies. Among his films that I've enjoyed are Taxi Driver, King of Comedy and The Last Temptation of Christ; but on the negative side of the ledger are Raging Bull, Casino, and The Aviator. And since I generally don't like gangster movies, I've never even tried Goodfellas. So I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle on Scorcese, in general.

I'd heard that The Departed was essentially a remake of another film I hadn't seen, Infernal Affairs. But the film it reminded me of was No Way Out. Both stories involve the search for a mole within an organization, although there are actually two moles in The Departed. In each film, the key element of suspense revolves around the question of whether the traitor will be found, and if so, how? In No Way Out, leading man Kevin Costner is put in charge of the search, and a series of coincidences and poor decisions by him make it apparent that he may in fact implicate himself as the mole, although the actual identity of his quarry isn't revealed until the end of the film (and I'm not about to spoil it here).

In The Departed, we know from the get-go that Matt Damon is a crooked cop on the payroll of big-time badguy Jack Nicholson, while state trooper Leonardo DiCaprio is sent into Nicholson's organization early on to infiltrate it on behalf of the staties. Once again, though, the coincidences start to show up as they had in the other film. For example, both men fall for the same woman, despite the fact that the two moles don't know each other. The plot also asks us to believe that she'd be attracted to two such different personalities, out of all the men she meets in the course of her day. They learn of each other's existence around the same time, but of course don't know who is who. They each use cellphones to check in with their real employers, and yet manage to shield that fact at every turn, even to the point of DiCaprio text messaging the cops while sitting the back set of Nicholson's car while it speeds to their destination. Similarly, Damon sends off a warning text message from the midst of a big gathering of cops in a crowded room just as they're about to catch Nicholson red-handed in a criminal act. In other words, lots of symmetry around the two leads, which frankly stretched my credibility a little bit.

But overall it was a very compelling story, and moved along at an impressive clip. Tammy pointed out the movie was almost 3 hours long (a little more than 2.5 hrs, actually, at 152 mins according to IMDB) but it certainly didn't seem to drag at any point. Most of the acting was first-rate, even DiCaprio who I normally don't like. I thought Damon basically just re-cycled the same smart-ass character he put on the screen in Good Will Hunting, but that may just be me (I didn't like that character then; and I didn't like him here). Nicholson was fun to watch, as he almost always is.

The final several minutes were a bit much, with too many dramatic events happening machine gun-like, one after another. The audience we saw it with laughed out loud at one scene that was clearly not supposed to be funny (people died). I think that was just a reaction to the over-the-top nature of the final act. It didn't seem to be of the same high quality as the rest of the story.

I expect any Scorsese fan will love The Departed. Others will likely enjoy the suspense and top-notch acting, may be put off a bit by some of the violence, and will find the ending a bit of a let-down. But I doubt they'll be bored!"

The coincidences actually bothered me a bit more this time around, as so many of the events seems to rely on the symmetry between the two young lead roles and there's really no plot-supported reason for it. The reveal at the end, of a second mole within the police force, also seems to come out of left field.

So why did I enjoy it more than the first time I saw it? Well, I could appreciate the acting more now that I wasn't having to work so hard to follow the twists and turns of The Departed. Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin, in particular, really shine in their supporting roles. It really is an ensemble piece, and every one of them stepped up and delivered solid performances.

Rating: *** 1/2

War Is Over (If You Want It Or Not)

It's looking more and more like the High Definition DVD Format War may be all-but-over. I've certainly been pulling for Blu-Ray ever since buying my PS/3 over a year ago, but in that time I've only invested in about 4 movies in the new format, for fear of being stuck with a Betamax library in a VHS world. A few recent, high profile business decisions that have favoured Blu-Ray just may have pushed the debate past the tipping point and knocked HD-DVD down for the count. If things continue in this direction then the prospects of me buying Blu-Ray movies and favourite TV shows in the future will go up substantially.

Indiana Jones IV Trailer

The wait ain't gonna be easy, either!

SMG to appear at Buffy Reunion

After years of refusing to be involved in any Buffy-related events (both during and after the show), Sarah Michelle Gellar has agreed to attend the reunion event at the Paley Festival (what I hear is TV's version of Cannes) in March. This news left me with mixed emotions. Happy that she's agreed, and sad that I'm not going! Hopefully someone puts the video on youtube!

Confirmed attendance:
- Amber Benson (Tara)
- Nicholas Brendon (Xander)
- Emma Caulfield (Anya)
- Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia)
- Eliza Dushku (Faith)
- Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy)
- Seth Green (Oz)
- James Marsters (Spike)
- Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn)
- Joss Whedon

Yet to RSVP: Willow, Giles, Angel.

The Host (2006)

The Host surprised me. About fifteen minutes in, I was beginning to write the film off : the characters seemed buffoonish, stereotypical, and a bit like they'd wandered out of a sit-com. Perhaps this was considered side splitting to some, but my patience was starting to wear thin. If I was supposed to relate to this hulking idiot and his subservient father as they worked their snack bar alongside the Han River, it was becoming increasingly clear that I wouldn't. Enter the idiot's perfect little daughter (of course she's perfect!) and I let out a sigh of loss--my loss of time having watched the film this far, loss at the money I'd spent to see it.

Then as the idiot takes some cooked shrimp to a customer sitting on the lawn near the river (because the idiot had eaten one of the customer's previous shrimp legs, and the father had to make it up to the customer, this lesson passing the idiot son by), someone sees something hanging off a nearby bridge.

Then things go very, very horribly wrong. And suddenly all that pretence of goofiness that went before was revealed as the misdirection that it was. I sat up straighter on the couch. Here we go, I smiled.

Like Cloverfield, The Host is a monster movie that focuses on how this would affect 'normal' people, instead of the usual approach of barking generals and worried scientists. As the dysfunctional family (the idiot, the father, another alcoholic son and a slightly self destructive daughter)try to regain what they've lost, the film kept surprising me with unexpected moments of heartbreaking sadness. Of scenes where the simplest mistake can carry such horrendous consequences. And of how in any disaster, the moments of true heroism are the ones no one sees.

Even now, three days on, certain scenes keep replaying in my head. I can now see why this film made so many top ten lists, both in North America and abroad. I just pray that no one tries to remake it for American audiences...or did J.J. Abrams already do that?

*****(5 out of 5)

What's The Post-Strike TV Landscape Going To Look Like?

It's all conjecture at this point, but it still makes for interesting reading!