Hey kids. Two new reviews for you, one theatrical movie and one DVD.

The first is the horror flick Turistas. Actually, "horror flick" is a misnomer, since the movie's way too boring to be given that label. I'm happy to proclaim I've given it the worst grade in the history of my tenure at TheCinemaSource. Read the full review here.

The other is that weird halfway-mainstream, halfway-cult sitcom on CBS called How I Met Your Mother - Season One. Overall, it's a decent enough show, but for details, here's my review.

In the next couple of weeks, I'm pretty sure I'll have a review of the Matt Damon/Robert De Niro flick The Good Shepherd, and a couple more DVDs, including a 4-disc monstrosity version of The Chronicles of Narnia.

So the end of the semester is right around the corner and the work is piling up, so expect shorter commentaries. Luckily, I really liked this episode, so there's a lot less to complain about. Some random thoughts:

-Jordan finally reveals her pregnancy. Amanda Peet's pregnancy was in the news weeks ago, but aside from that I noticed it on the show last week, so it wasn't much of a surprise. But who's the daddy? My original thought was Danny, of course, but my roommate offered the tantalizing notion that it could be Jack. Now THAT would be interesting.

-The creepy reporter is back...however, she does nothing. Moving on...

-The production assistant who's been wandering around in the background ever since the pilot gets promoted! It was a nice, small touch, and I hope she keeps a decent-sized part.

-The best parts of the episode were, for me, the Darius/Lucy plotline. I like both these guys and I hope they stick around. This week they got a boost from guest star Mark McKinney, a longtime vet of sketch comedy (he's been on SNL and was one of the Kids in the Hall). Rare dramatic performance, and he was really good. I hope he sticks around, too.

-If I had thought out this column a little better, I probably would've started off by saying something about how this was the episode of interesting guest stars, etc, and I hope they all stick around, etc. That way I would've have had to say it individually three (now four) separate times. Oh well, too late now.

-Jordan's interview with the Time reporter? Hilarious, and hilariously stupid of her.

-I like that Harriet was shuttled to nothing more than a running-gag plotline this week, but...a comedian who can't tell a joke? Really? Like, is she seriously dyslexic or something?

Oops, time for class. Next time we get a Christmas episode. Until then...

I'm into the crunch time of my semester so these TV commentaries might run a bit shorter than the near-opuses they've lately been evolving into. Here's some very random points I have about this past episode, which resolved the serial-rape case (Mercer and Mr. R.A. were the culprits), and which was actually quite a good episode. Screw paragraph structure and transition:

-Look! Piz, Weevil, Mac, and Parker are back! (Parker being Mac's roommate -- I finally looked up her name.) Weevil was pretty useless...and Mac...and Piz. But at least we got to see them. I hate to admit it, but Piz grew on me ever since we started seeing his radio show.

-Speaking of Self-Deprecating Emo Boy, my random theory about him being the rapist didn't pan out. Sorry about that, buddy.

-Is the whole start-the-episode-at-the-end trend cool or getting old? I can't decide. They did the same thing with Studio 60 this past week, which may be why I'm jumping to the conclusion that its a "trend".

-Veronica is once again put in mortal danger, but this time a girl comes to her rescue, not Dad (Season 1 finale) or Logan (Season 2 finale). This time it was Parker. Despite not knowing her name for much of the season, I've liked her ever since the bowling episode, in which I realized she was hot. (Probably thanks to having hair again. What, too soon?) And for some reason, I actually liked her sizing up the situation and shouting "RAPE!" repeatedly. The kids in the dorm hall coming out of their rooms and effectively stopping Mercer and R.A. Dude was a nice display of unity.

-At the end, we're supposed to believe Logan gets himself thrown in jail so he can go all postal on the rapists after they attacked Veronica, right? Because that was just plain cool. Logan does something honorable and edgy at the same time -- it's a fine balance, but I hope they keep it up.

-My requisite Veronica/Logan complaint: glad they broke up, because the last thing you want that couple to do is get boring, but why the heck did they position it as though Logan was the bad guy? They've been setting it up the entire season that Veronica is the one who's losing her feelings for him and blowing him off, and now we get a total 180: "hey, I waited for you after class but you didn't show up." "Uhh...yeah...allow me to act very distant and break up with you." Veronica is not exactly the victim here, and their switch in mindsets was sloppy.

-And finally...Dean O'Dell is no more. I saw that one coming...well, like, ten minutes before it happened, anyway. And now we know what the second Season 3 mystery will be: the murder. Personally, I think murders and kidnapping and that sort fits the show's format better than rapes, so I'm looking forward to this one. Not exactly the uber-personal story I was hoping for, but now that we've warmed to the college characters a bit, here's to hoping the show finds a way to utilize the whole gang like it tried to in this episode.

Case closed?

This past episode of Veronica Mars ended with Veronica accusing the rape victims on campus of completely fabricating the entire thing to get the fraternities kicked off campus. The girls didn't exactly deny it, either. So while I really do like the idea that the girls completely made up the rapes -- it sounds logical enough and I was legitimately surprised -- there's a few tricky little points in here:

-Their motivation was to get back at the frat for humiliating their overweight friend? It was a horrible story, but to construct such an elaborate ruse lasting months seems a little like overkill.

-Was Mac's roommate in on it? Or did they drug her, cut off her hair, and make her think she was raped? If so, that's sick, sick, sick. Meaning, really cool and interesting.

-No physical evidence of any of the rapes????? Did they mention that before? Seems a little important, no?

-If all this is true, then who attacked Veronica in the parking lot?

That last point is the clincher for me that the case is far from closed, not least of which because if this episode really meant to wrap up the rape case, there would've been a payoff, not justthe discovery. I have a feeling there's still very much a Secret Bad Guy in the picture who will reveal himself shortly, and he's the one to attack Veronica (and maybe rape Mac's roommate, although I still like the other solution, too).

Whoa -- brand-spanking new theory. Piz is the rapist. The reason he wasn't interested in Mac's roommate isn't because he's in love with Veronica -- it was because he already raped her and felt weird/guilty.

I'll momentarily stop with the random conjecture and come out and say I liked the implications of this episode. It made me legitimately interested in the rape mystery. However, the episode still contained two of my biggest beefs with Season 3:

1. No Mac, Mac's roommate, Weevil, or Piz. If the actress playing Mac isn't off doing a movie or something, I feel really bad for her. Dick reappeared and was actually pseudo-useful, while Wallace got a pity scene in which he literally does nothing. Veronica asks him for help with the numbers and then she figures it out. And while hot, it's a little telling that not only can't I remember Mac's roommate's name, I'm not even bothering to spend the extra thirty seconds to look it up.

2. For the first time, the Veronica/Logan relationship has become boring. Why? Because the show tells the exact same story in every single episode: Veronica and Logan grow distant from each other, they don't trust each other, then by the end things are patched up -- but only temporarily. It's part of the show's attempt to make more self-contained episodes, but if you're just going to open the same wounds over and over again, it's lame. And Veronica isn't exactly coming out of it smelling like a rose, either: Logan loves her and cares about her and she's tossing him aside like he's nothing. The writers need to split them up for good for a little while, make Logan regain some of his edginess (glimpses of vulnerability is cool, but the oh-so-puppy-dog look we got from him at the end was too much of an increasing trend), and reignite the spark further down the road.

Overall though, I actually find myself getting drawn into the politics of the Hearst campus. If the second big mystery arc after the rapes is able to utilize all the characters in interesting ways, give Logan back his edge (or at least get them out of their endlessly circular fighting routine), and get a lot more personal for Veronica, we'll be looking at an improved show.

To end, some random notes:

-Great reference to The Big Lebowski. I wish they had thrown a Lebowski line in there somewhere when Veronica was talking to Brandt or the dude in the wheelchair, but as it was, it was great.

-Could you believe the absolutely incredibly awful acting by Patty Hearst? I don't really have any idea who she is, but she was a "special guest star", and I get the irony of her actually being a Hearst and playing one on the show. But wow...terrible, terrible actress.

Just in time for the end of Thanksgiving is my review of the new DVD edition of Home Alone: a "Family Fun" edition. Lots of special features, some of them actually kind of cool, but the real draw is the movie itself. Man I love that movie. Read the review to find out more about my minor Yuletide obsession with it.

Oh, that picture? I'm setting aside its hilarious irony for a few moments as we deal with the lead story: goodbye, Ricky & Ron.

I was beginning to enjoy the duo of talent-deficient writers as being some of the few characters on Studio 60 to actually have shades of gray. (I almost just deleted that sentence, but the more I think about that, the more true it seems. Matt and Danny have great chemistry but are still the Liberal Smarty-Pants Boys; Harriet should in theory, but we've seen very little dimension; and Jordan is the flawed up-and-comer who wants to bring back respectibility to TV. I will happily admit, though, that Jack interests me greatly, especially after the Nevada Day episodes.)

Anyway, back what I was talking about. Were Ricky & Ron hacks, or just staff writers who wouldn't have been able to handle being in charge? Did they sell out Matt for not backing up his post-9/11 comments those years ago, or were they trying to protect the show? Was protecting the plagiarising writer a few episodes back honorable or stupid? And most of all, the great point that Ron makes to Matt: there's no argument that Ricky took a lot of (perhaps undeserved) crap after he was passed over for showrunner in the wake of Wes's breakdown. Matt's opinion, and by extension the show's, seemed to be that the duo were hack clowns, but a combination of sharp writing and a great performance from Evan Handler always had me wanting to watch them. (Or maybe I'm just partial to Handler because he guest-starred as Hurley's imaginary friend on Lost.)

As you may be able to tell from those way-too-in-depth bulky paragraphs above, I dug this episode. I got into it. Maybe it's because it was, I don't know, actually about the backstage politics of a late-night comedy show. (And not the epic "Aaron Sorkin argues with himself over the blue/red state divide" topic that the show had become.) Matt had the chance to screw R&R over again and force them to stay thanks to an outstanding option period that was expiring shortly, but he was a gentleman and let them go off to make an undoubtedly crappy "Peripheral Vision Man" pilot for Fox, based on their recurring sketch. (Nice jab at Fox, by the way.)

Now Matt is left with an empty writing room except for two characters I wanted to see more of anyway: the new writer Darius and the inexperienced writer Lucy (played by Lucy Davis, Dawn of the BBC The Office). It bodes well for the future of NBC's show (although not necessarily for NBS's, if you get my drift, but that's a good thing).

In other news, a valuable lesson was on display in the episode, but it wasn't one of the preachy Sorkin variety. No, it was something much more practical: if there's an unlikable female character who's supposed to be likable, it can never hurt to take her clothes off. That's right, we saw a lot of Harriet this time, which was completely superfluous but nonetheless vaguely appropriate due to the subject matter of her side story: she's debating whether or not to appear nearly nude in a Maxim-like skin magazine. (Hence the hilarious irony of actually showing her almost-nude this episode.) Friends and co-stars Tom and Simon are telling her not to do it, and it was an interesting (if endless) argument. (Oh, by the way, this is also a straight-from-real-life scenario, as Sorkin's ex-girlfriend, the openly Christian Kristen Chenoweth, recently posed in Maxim.)

However: exactly how stupid is Sorkin trying to make her??

She fails (or refuses) to realize the following information, all of which are periodically revealed to her by her oh-so-wiser male counterparts: (A) The magazine that asked her to do it would be completely using her to "get naughty pictures of the church girl", as Simon put it. (B) The reason the sketch show has been able to pull off so many anti-conservative, anti-Christian sketches is because it can use Harriet's Christianity as a buffer against backlash. (C) The reason she's considering it in the first place is not to prove she's attractive, like she claims, but to get back at the evangelical group who cancelled her singing tour.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in this regard, the show is beginning to seem a little sexist. The last bit was pointed out to her by Matt at the show's end, another example of the benevolent liberal male god teaching the impressionable young woman underling a lesson. I would just chalk it up to coincidence, that the male/female dynamic is of less importance than the liberal/conservative dynamic, but in some respects Sorkin has done the same thing to Amanda Peet's Jordan. She's blindly idealistic, to the point that she doesn't even know her job is in jeopardy, and she's too young and inexperienced not to have Danny often give her sagely words of advice on damage-controlling her own bad-press situation. The hyper-smart-male/impressionable-young-female dynamic is what was really upstaging all of Sorkin's other themes this week, and it was a little weird.

Hey guys, I'm home for Thanksgiving, which is why you're reading this instead of a Studio 60 or Veronica Mars commentary. You'll both get those over the weekend, but for now allow me to indulge in the holidays and concentrate on spending some time in the good old hometown known as Marcellus, New York. Just to prove my heart is still in the right place, here's some stuff to tide over the folks who are on the computer, presumably hiding from strange relatives you only see this time of year:

-Just in time for the holiday season I wrote a review of Home Alone: Family Fun Edition, a special DVD release of that oh-so-classic movie. Check it out here.

-Veronica Mars has been greenlit for a full season - kind of. The CW, in all its strange pseudo-network-ness, has greenlit seven more episodes on top of the first thirteen, stretching the season to twenty episodes instead of the normal 22-24. The show isn't working any miracles, but the ratings are slightly up in the 18-34 demographic, and it retains a good portion of its Gilmore Girls lead-in.

-R.I.P. genius director Robert Altman.

And finally, I usually shy away from movie news as you can get that from about a billion other sights, but here's some stuff I've been keeping my eye on lately:

-New Line actively seeking to make The Hobbit without Peter Jackson's involvement? Read the gritty and depressing details from Peter Jackson himself here.

-Producer Lauren Donner apparently spoke candidly about the future of the X-Men franchise: they're moving forward with the X-Men spinoff Wolverine, and are actively trying to get Bryan Singer back for it before he goes off to make what should (in my mind) be called Superman Returns Again. She also specifically mentioned that should Gambit appear in any X-Men films down the road, she thinks Lost's Josh Holloway (Sawyer) would be perfect for the part.

-Casino Royale walked away with over 40 million dollars this past weekend, which was a tad less than Die Another Day and about the same as Happy Feet, but quite good for a new Bond. I saw it and overall it made a very good impression on me. (And exactly how hot is Eva Green?)

-The new trailer for Harry Potter 5 is out (and yeah, there is a quick clip of him making out with that Asian chick). What's more, Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuaron is making it public that he'd love to do another one. (And by the way, his next film, Children of Men, looks really cool.)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

Over at TheCinemaSource I got a new review of of the latest Christopher Guest movie For Your Consideration. But that's not all, there's also two spotlights of Christopher Guest and Parker Posey to go along with it, also written by yours truly. (So take a little break from obsessing over 007 and remember the little people.)

I blame Lost entirely for my tardiness.

No, seriously. For weeks it's been the same schedule: get home, eat dinner, write my Veronica Mars commentary, then watch Lost. (Schoolwork theoretically gets done in there somewhere as well.) This week? No Lost. The result? Totally forgot about my pal Veronica.

Which isn't to say I didn't like Tuesday's episode. And here I am a day afterward writing about it. There was actually a good deal to admire last week, as the drama was less in the abstract than in the here and now: Keith let her down. Logan is keeping secrets from her. Her teacher is having an affair with the Dean's trophy wife. Wallace is away for a few days. In other words, the producers must be desperate to hang onto those Gilmore Girl lead-in ratings, because all the men in Veronica's life are suddenly letting her down.

You know how I complained about the first few episodes, and the overarching rape mystery, about not being personal enough? This episode felt like it was actually about Veronica and her life, which was nice. (Well, not all of it. But we'll get to that.) I particularly liked the vintage college moment where Veronica goes on a food run for her randomly thrown-together roommates Piz and Mystery-of-the-Week Girl. And I liked when Logan came knocking on Piz's door later on asking where Veronica was: it didn't play out like the cliched scene where the boyfriend immediately suspects the worst and does something stupid. Logan and Piz know each other, and they were friendly, and Logan's worriedness about Veronica was something that Piz could relate to.

And the ending! Finally some life-threatening excitement. I totally called the roofie-in-the-cafeteria, and Veronica hitting her car alarm before she's about to be attacked in the parking garage was great. (I didn't even mind that Logan just-so-happened to be one hundred yards away.) And the attacker started shaving her head before fleeing! Finally we're getting somewhere!

Alas, the bad:

1. If you're going to expand your cast, ACTUALLY USE THEM. No Wallace, no Weevil, no Mac, no Mac's roommate, no Dick. Remember how Season 1 started off with that guidance counselor that the show soon realized it didn't have a place for? I have a feeling one of the regulars might be written out in a similar fashion this season.

2. Veronica has an increased tendency to be (a) mean and (b) stupid. Mean, as in hating Logan so much for not revealing Mercer's alibi that she suggested the complete falsehood that she was cheating on him. That's just not cool: sure, I'm biased towards Jason Dohring's excellent portrayal of Logan, but he's asking you to trust him. Just listen to him. And stupid, as in, someone obviously slipped something into your drink and you decide to wander through a dark and empty parking lot in search of a car you're in no position to drive in? It screamed a bit too much "writing contrivance" for me.

3. THE MYSTERIES OF THE WEEK SUCK. I was watching this with some of my roommates, who are not normal VM viewers. Roommate #1 came in late and asked what was going on. "Um...she's trying to help this girl, uh...find her boyfriend," I respond. Roommate #2 laughs: "I was wondering how you were going to try to make it sound more interesting than that," he says. Why should we care? Yeah, I get the little tie-in at the end about actually trusting in the ones you love, a lesson that Veronica particularly needed to hear. But it was reeeeeeally lame and pointless.

Still, I was moved by the ending, in which Veronica is nursed to health by Logan and Keith. The whole final fifteen minutes in general reminded me of a sleeker, darker, more fun Season 1. For now, though, what we get is still pretty solid.

Hey guys, I just have a quickie-review for a DVD entitled Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters. It's an HBO documentary. And to be honest, it's pretty pointless, both the DVD and the review. But in the interest of my possibly ego-driven commitment to let you know about everything I write for TheCinemaSource, here's the review.

My love/hate relationship continues. NBC reportedly just gave Studio 60 a full season pickup. Which means the continuation of a good show, but my inner conflict over whether or not I actually like it is almost as dramatic as one of Aaron Sorkin's rapid-walk-down-the-hallway conversations.

How about this time instead of whining about how Sorkin makes every character a mouthpiece for himself, and pretends to give each side of the culture wars a fair shot but makes it ridiculously biased, I just talk about the episode? This'll be a fun experiment in will power.

One thing I noticed: how lame was that sketch about the cute courtesy call from the credit card company? (Holy alliteration, Batman.) I always kind of defended the show when people accused the comedy bits of being crappy, but...wow that was bad.

Anyway, in terms of actual plot, this was a continuation of last week's "Nevada Day", which means we got to see John Goodman play Sorkin's definitive vision of Middle America: an impossibly old-fashioned, heavily-Southern-accented, army-supportin', power-tripping jackass who somehow can banter very cleverly in a Sorkin-esque fashion. (There I go again...) But seriously: the point that everything outside of New York and LA "didn't wander in from the cast of Hee-Haw" is kind of ruined when the person who says it sort of looks like they wandered in from the cast of Hee-Haw.

In better, more optimistic news, I'm really liking Steven Weber's Jack Rudolph more and more. This episode we definitely got to see him at his high and low points. Low? Making a fool out of himself in Nevada and almost being arrested for being in contempt of the court. The high was his little bonding session with Danny and subsequent defending of Jordan from the Asian communists.

That scene was particularly shrewd: Jack was on his toes enough to know that yelling at the guy about Jordan's tabloid scandals would appeal to the guy's sense of honor. It was a gamble, but I liked it, especially how Jack got to stick up for Jordan while still just saving his own butt (from the menacing studio honcho Ed Asner). His comment to Danny about helping him get on the board in order to save Jordan was particularly interesting: is he just power-hungry or does he really like Jordan? I doubt he knows, either.

I must admit that Harriet grew on me a bit this episode. Usually she's annoying and the air of superiority bugs me; this time, since what's happening to her is legitimately unfair, I felt for her. After a seemingly neutral comment about her Christian views on homosexuality, she's finding herself spun in the media with a possibly Dixie Chicks-like fallout. The liberals accuse her of being homophobic, and the nail in the coffin, the Christian organization she's linked with accuse her of not being homophobic enough. As someone who personally adheres to the belief that moderation is key, I could relate to her.

Plus, she had Matt on her back the entire episode. Man, it seemed like his speechifying was getting a bit redundant. Matthew Perry has really stepped it up in this series and has my respect as an actor, but his character in the last few episodes has been little more than a shrill outlet for Sorkin's liberalism. I know the speeches are Sorkin's signature, but please, man: let the characters be characters.

Now that it's here to stick around for at least the next few months, here's to hoping: for improved ratings and an improved show.

As promised, posted today on TheCinemaSource is my review of A Good Year. And -- gasp! -- it's negative. Read it for yourself to believe it.

Incidentally, I also had the tricky task of writing a positively-spinned spotlight interview with Russell Crowe. He's a well-spoken guy. Check that out here.

It's here, and just like that...it's gone.

No, I'm not talking about the monster, the hatch, or Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's career security. I'm talking about Lost as a whole. In their interest to cut down on the number of momentum-killing repeats, the show will run at least sixteen episodes straight through from February until May. However, that means we are now treated to a lengthy hiatus after just six episodes. If only it had been eight...or ten...or fifty-two. C'mon, guys, just work a little harder. Pssh.

Actually, I really liked this episode. (Except for those boring Kate flashbacks -- a waste of Firefly's Nathan Fillion.) Going into it knowing that nothing would be resolved helped a little, but I was impressed with how they brought everything to a head so swiftly.

First things first: I feel pretty bad for all of the original actors not named Matthew Fox, Evageline Lilly, and Josh Holloway. How many lines has Claire had this season so far? And the subplot with Locke and Sayid post-Eko-death was just plain weak. What, two scenes, Locke sees a weird inscription on Eko's stick, and they're done? And where the heck have Sun and Jin been since the second episode?

Then again, they're all on a hit TV show and shouldn't be complaining. This is the first real structural problem the writers have had keeping every character relevant, and with a cast that's hovered around fourteen regulars, that's not bad.

Anyway, back to the episode at hand: Jack was being a bit of a jackass, no? Once again, I'm sucked into the awesomeness of Ben. So watching him, quite plainly, ask Jack to save his life, was compelling. I felt sorry for the guy. I mean, there's always the wonder that he's playing with everyone's heads, but this time he has a spinal tumor and will die if not helped. He was visibly shaking, telling Jack he'd get him whatever he needed to do the surgery. He's putting himself out there...

And Jack shoots him down.

Which leads me to my main complaint of the episode: I feel the writers meddling too much. They want to give away who the Others are, but not yet, and not so fast, so they stop Jack from saying what I'm fairly convinced any sane person would say:

"Fine. I'll operate on you. But only if you tell me WHO THE HECK YOU PEOPLE ARE."

Makes sense, no? I'm usually one to support the writers in their desire to withhold answers, but when its at odds with logical thought, the seams start to show a little bit.

Ah, but Jack did realize he could use Ben's surgery as a bargaining tool! And wouldn't you know, he choose the most dramatic and dangerous way to do it: essentially, a high stakes game of Chicken. Ben puts his trust in Jack and goes under the knife, and a few seconds in, Jack ruptures something or other. It's all good, because there's about an hour window until the damage is irreversible, and Jack is using that hour to try to secure his friends' safety.

Well, at least Kate. He saw her and Sawyer snuggled up together on the monitors after their little roll in the cage (more on that in a second), so who knows if he still wants Sawyer to survive. And yet -- his little dangerous stunt did (at least temporarily) save Sawyer's life! (I'm choking on irony.) "Pickett", a.k.a. The Other Who's Kind of a Tool, was about to finally kill Sawyer for vague reasons involving the death of his girlfriend which Sawyer had nothing to do with, but no matter, because Jack came through on the walkie-talkie just in time. (I especially like the nicely circular touch of having Jack reference his and Kate's first conversation; how things have changed, yes?)

Unfortunately, Kate failed to tell him, at least before February, that they're not on the same island as their old castaway friends. Whoops. I am rather curious to see how they'll all get out of this one.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: Sawyer and Kate had presumably very smelly but nonetheless totally hot sex. (In the daylight with video cameras! As a close friend suggested to me, maybe the Others just run a hidden-camera porn business.) This only supports my theory that the Others only brought them in order to get Kate impregnated -- notice how Pickett only went after Sawyer after they did the deed?

Thoughts on the show's return in February? I just hope Ben survives, because really, he's ridiculously cool either way. He's a good man underneath a web of mystery? Awesome. He actually is as dangerous as Juliet says (even though I totally believe she's the dangerous traitor, not him)? Awesome. Until then.

Keith, you dog!

When I found out the name of this episode of Veronica Mars was "Hi, Infidelity", I was frightened at the prospect of (a) some forced "don't worry Logan is still a rebel" cheating action from Veronica's boyfriend, or worse, (b) our hero advancing her relationship with Mr. Hyperactive Child (Piz - and to be fair, he made a better impression on me this week compared to in the past). But no - Enrico Colantonio finally got it on with his former Just Shoot Me co-star Laura San Giacomo in his oh-so-predictable subplot. Still, the drama was nicely done, especially with the out-of-the-blue car crash.

I liked this episode. I liked it better than maybe any of the other Season 3 episodes so far. For once, I cared about each person's storyline. Wallace once again showed off the classy guy he is by choosing his professional dream of engineering over a short-term sure thing like starting on the basketball team...okay, well, maybe not realistic, but certainly goal-oriented.

Also good: the whole awkward double date bowling. The show's always been good in its understated-humor scenes, and it was kind of nice to see New Girl's personality for once, which actually turned out to be charming...in the whole blonde, high-school-mentality, shrieky way. (Okay, fine. She's not bad looking, either.)

I'm always a big fan of seeing the reasonable side of unreasonable characters -- it's just plain cool when done right -- and here we got glimpses of the nice sides of two jackasses. First was Lamb, in legitimately-collaborative mode when Veronica gave him the campus-rape tip. I've kept a close eye on Lamb ever since he let Veronica and Duncan go after they were caught sneaking into Meg's parents house in Season 2 -- I mentioned it before -- but the show has been relentless in making him a complete jerk since then. Here we caught a glimpse of his underlying desire to do the right thing, which I guess I'm a sucker for. (Once again: don't abruptly turn him into a heartless villain, Cassidy-style...please?)

The other, a more major point: the T.A. in Veronica's class. The main plot of the episode followed her trying to figure out who set her up to make it look like she plagiarized an essay, but in the end it turned out to be what amounted to a very roundabout way of giving someone advice: her professor's a lecherous jerk, and the T.A. didn't want Veronica to get too close to him, lest she get hurt like he was. Gee...that was...nice of him. Veronica seemed to have the same reaction: "Do me a favor...don't do me any more favors."

But wait! Back to the serial rape storyline. It got tantalizingly close to heating up at the end of the episode, when we find out Mercer, the dude Veronica tipped Lamb to, was arrested. Logan
shows up and tells her he was with Mercer the night of one of the rapes. But he can't tell her where or why...

SECRETS! Da da duh.....

What will happen with Keith's new flame? Will that girl at the hotel desk show up again? If you were in Veronica's class, would you think she's the stuck-up, curve-breaking, elitist-with-the-rich-boyfriend, bitchy brown-noser the rest of the class thinks she is?

Let's face it, the answer to the last question is probably yes. But since when has public opinion stopped her? Until next time...

Hey guys, it's been since Flags of our Fathers that I've had a review up, mostly because I've spent the majority of my time slogging through the twenty-three Season 3 episodes of NBC's surprisingly entertaining Las Vegas. But now that I'm done, I give you my Las Vegas: Season 3 review.

Now that that's done, more reviews will be coming up shortly: Russell Crowe's A Good Year by the end of the week, and a handful of more DVDs after that. Stay tuned...

Ah, the flashback-reconstruction episode. This episode, part one of a two-parter, begins at the end: Tom Jeter is arrested and stuck in Nevada, and Jack, Danny, Simon, and some Asian people are futilely trying to get a redneck judge (guest star John Goodman). How did he get arrested? Who are the Asian people? Why are we in Nevada? Jump back a week in time and awaaayyy we gooooo.....

In terms of plot, I liked the episode and thought it was up to par with the rest. In terms of theme, we're still getting a very loud dose of Sorkin Editorializing. Case in point this time is John Goodman's judge. Clearly the villain, and the Studio 60 people's worst nightmare: a guy with a southern accent!

Yup, in Sorkinville that means he's the judge in a small town, he's a churchgoer, he has a big family, he's insuffrably arrogant, heck, he even just got back from a fishing trip. Luckily for me, this is a perfect example of Sorkin's hypocrisy I've been whining about: he claims to present both sides of the blue state/red state divide (which just plain doesn't exist anyway), but when he gives the Christian Right their moment, they appear as travesties: crude caricatures like the judge.

Alas. It's fairly well publicized that the show has gotten very poor ratings, so my love/hate relationship with it may not last for very much longer. I just feel if the show's Big Theme hadn't been about evangelicals and liberals and politics, but actually about, oh I don't know, something to do with the backstage goings-on of a sketch comedy show, it would've been a lot better (and maybe slightly more appealing to the masses that have rejected it). But we'll never know.

In my continuing series to take a closer look at each major race, I bring you the Best Actress edition. It's shaping up to be a fairly solid year for this category, although it still remains far less competitive than the Best Actor race thanks to the lack of many leading roles for women. Here are the major contenders, again, in no order whatsoever:

1. Helen Mirren, The Queen

Mirren's performance of the most recent Queen Elizabeth is the first, and so far the only, lock. Right now she's the frontrunner for the win. The reviews are behind her, and the film is still doing quite well in limited release (it even cracked the top ten this weekend). No way she won't make it into the top five.

2. Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

The surprise blockbuster of the summer got rave reviews for Streep. However, it didn't get rave reviews for the movie, and if most people think of it as forgettable entertainment, Streep could be left out. Still, if there remains little competition, she could easily get a nomination: she's Meryl Streep, after all.

3. Penelope Cruz, Volver

She's getting rave reviews for Pedro Almodovar's new flick, and even though the film's reviews haven't reached the heights of Talk to Her (or even Bad Education), Almodovar is a strong director who has a past with the Academy and makes female-centric movies. Cruz's return to form in Spanish-language dramas should allow her, at this point at least, to find a spot in the nomination list.

4. Kate Winslet, Little Children

The good? The critics loved her performance and the movie. The bad? It floundered at the box office and it was released too early. If she finds love in the critics-circle precursor awards, she could make it. If not, she'll be forgotten.

5. Beyonce Knowles, Dreamgirls

This is the movie that everybody is buzzing about but nobody's seen. Will it live up to the hype? If it does, there's still a big chance that Knowles won't make it in, because her role, as far as I know, isn't exactly Oscar-baiting. Still, she could be caught up in a wave of accolades and land in the top five.

6. Annette Bening, Running with Scissors

She got good reviews. Unfortunately, she was the only good thing most critics said about the movie, and the harsh reviews have stopped the box office cold. Now I'm trying to think of a pun about her not getting a nomination that involves the title of the movie. Got one: "If you run with scissors, chances are you're going to get cut...from the Best Actress race!" Any good?

7. Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

The requisite Judi Dench British movie Oscar nomination. It's worked in the past, so why not this year?

8. Cate Blanchett, The Good German

The jury's still out on this one, but unlike Dreamgirls, Blanchett appears to have a much more Oscar-baiting role, and with George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, it has a high pedigree. (Although the black-and-white might limit the box office.) Oh, and Clooney tried to stir up some buzz himself when he point-blank stated, "Cate will get nominated for this." We'll see.

9, 10, 11. Nicole Kidman for Fur, Renee Zellweger for Miss Potter, and Sienna Miller for Factory Girl

Three famous actresses (okay, maybe not Miller, but that could help or hurt her). Three biopics. Three real-life roles: Diane Arbus, Beatrix Potter, and Edie Sedgwick, respectively. Right now, the buzz is actually more in favor of Factory Girl, although Kidman (whose film looks a bit too weird) and Zellweger have the bigger Oscar pedigree. Will they all crash and burn? Will one break through? We'll know soon...

(These Oscar columns are published weekly from early Fall through the Oscar ceremony at the end of February.)

Neither of these are noteworthy enough to make a new post out of. But both of them together? Still not enough -- plus, they're completely unrelated. But I'm doing it anyway.

-From the ongoing Lost vs. Criminal Minds duel comes this quick article. The author puts a light spin on the whole thing that's kind of hilarious.

-The new upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles computer-animated movie that's coming out in March has debuted a series of posters, one for each turtle. For some reason they've been out for a few weeks without my knowledge. But they're awesome (I especially like the newly-Matrixish Donatello):

HERE BE SPOILERS.

I know I give you a rough idea of the plot every week, but this ain't no filler episode we're talking about here. If you haven't seen it, STOP READING RIGHT NOW.

But to start off, let's go with some lighter, slightly creepier news. A comparison:




Yup, same person. Tomorrow, Elizabeth Mitchell, better known to Lost fans as Juliet, will be reprising the role of Mrs. Claus she originated in The Santa Clause 2 again in the newThe Santa Clause 3. That's right: Juliet the Other = Mrs. Claus. Little kids everywhere should be screaming.

Back to the episode. A number of cool developments, although the big one I was pretty angry about, to be honest. The initial reaction has subsided, but I still think they could've done it better. First, the good stuff:

• Paulo and Nikki get a proper introduction. Instead of the way-lame intro the writers tried to sneak in back in episode three ("When were you planning on telling us this, Hurley?" Nikki shouts as if we've ever seen her before), we actually get the sneaky little in-joke that I was hoping for. Locke invites "everybody" (i.e., "even the extras") along for a trip into the jungle to the Pearl Station and possibly find Eko, who ran off that way. "We should go," Nikki says to Paulo. "You're always whining about not being included." Nice.

• Eyepatch Man. A lot of people complain about new mysteries being introduced, but I love them. Who is this guy? Another Desmond-type loner from the school of hard-knocks? Another Kelvin-type creep? An Other mole? An Other outcast? Plus, him appearing on the monitor in the Pearl was legitimately a scary moment. Nice.

• Juliet's trying to play Ben in the sweet videotape scene. Or maybe she's just trying to play Jack. Nice. Actually, this requires a bit more explanation than a bullet can provide, so please join me...

...back over here. Okay. Is she just playing Jack? Early in the episode, Ben admits to Jack that the X-rays from last episode were his, and he's dying from a spinal tumor. In a remarkable moment of candor (or just more lies, darn you Others for me not ever being able to tell!), Ben reveals that he had an elaborate plan to break Jack, convincing him of the Others' goodwill and making him a willing operator on Ben's spine. Now that Jack knows, the plan is shot, so Ben simply offers what appears to be the truth: please consider operating on me, because you crashing here might be the miracle that saves my life.

But then we get the best scene in the episode by far. Juliet comes in and puts a videotape in the VCR. Jack says he doesn't want to watch a movie, but she puts it on anyway, and starts talking to Jack about how great a man Ben is and how Jack should really do the surgery. But on the TV screen is not a movie. It's Juliet, holding up signs: "Don't listen to what I'm saying." "Ben is a very dangerous man." Kill him during surgery, because "no one would ever know." And perhaps most curiously: "some of us want a change." There's clearly a bigger power struggle going on behind the scenes of which we have no knowledge.

So what's going on? Who's telling the truth? My best guess is that the whole "dangerous man" routine is B.S. Juliet wants to kill Ben because of her own interests, probably power-driven interests. Maybe I'm biased because Ben's bulgy eyes had me at hello from day one, but I'm more inclined to trust him than Juliet, who unsettles me even more than whatever gave me massive gas this morning.

And besides, I just really don't want Ben to die.

Because...

That's right...

We already had to deal with the death of another way-too-cool-for-words character. (Literally. He barely ever spoke.)

Mr. Eko.

Also known as The Curse of the Tail Section.

Also known as The Curse of Whoever Gets Pulled Over While Driving.

Yes, for all the cool developments, this was Eko's (last) episode, as he sees more visions of his brother Yemi. It is kind of a cool moment at the end, when he finally comes to terms with his violent past and tells the vision of Yemi that he isn't sorry: his life of crime was a result of saving his brother's life when they were children. He's finally at peace with himself.

Whoops, that means his character arc is finished. The monster shows up and gives Eko a massive beatdown, and while he drifts away into death envisioning himself with his brother, he whispers a final warning to Locke: the rest of them are next.

My thoughts on all of this? Just to be cool, I'll take the normal template and reverse it:

THE UGLY: The death might be the result of behind-the-scenes drama that I don't really care to know much about.

THE BAD: Absolutely terrible death scene. Remember how Shannon got killed under really cool circumstances that propelled the show in cool ways? And Ana-Lucia got killed under even cooler circumstances that also drove the show forward? And Arzt got killed in the most ridiculously cool circumstance ever? Eko got slammed into the ground by sentient black smoke. (Also, no more Eko Speeches. Remember the Rebuilding-the-Temple Speech? And the Dog-in-Hell Speech? Those things were works of beauty.)

THE GOOD: I'm trying to stay positive here, which is the real reason I'm ending with this. The good part about Eko's death is the one hint we got to the nature of the monster. After Eko confessed to Yemi that he wasn't sorry, Yemi responded, "you talk to me as if I'm your brother". So does that mean Yemi was actually just a manifestation of the black smoke? If after saying that, Yemi had dissolved into the black smoke, confirming this, and then killed Eko, the sequence would've totally been redeemed. Think about it -- would that mean that Jack's vision of his father was actually the black smoke? And Hurley's friend Dave? And Shannon's vision of Walt? And Kate's horse, and maybe even the polar bears? And are there two different Monsters, the one that Locke saw (which he revealed was like a beautiful "ball of light") and the black smoke? And the "good" version manifests itself in good, character-redeeming ways (Kate's horse), whereas the "bad" version manifests itself in ways that confuse and torture the characters (Jack's dad, the vision of Walt)? And maybe even the two versions share a God/Satan dynamic? And maybe they even sort of are manifestations of God and Satan?

Unfortunately, Yemi didn't dissolve into the Monster. He walked away and the black smoke came later. And so, I would be more excited about it if we actually had some sort of confirmation that Yemi and the Black Smoke were the same entity. As it stood, the final scenes were muddled and therefore the drama was undercut. But as you can tell from the run-on-theory-orgasm above, the future possibilities are suddenly very appealing.

Let's hope next week lives up to the hype, because we got three long months to wait before the rest of the season is run straight-through. Expect a cliffhanger...

OH, SNAP. Among other adventures this week, Veronica got revenge on a trashy eight-year-old girl by getting her dad arrested. Turns out Pop was the one who stole Veronica's necklace, and she even gets to rip it off the little skank's neck. OWNED.

Actually, this was a pretty good episode, mostly because of reasons which fall in line with my critique of this season in general: the two wildly lame new characters were nowhere to be found, their screen time instead being replaced by veterans Weevil and Sheriff Lamb.

What were their names? Piz the Emo Boy and Mac's Roommate Who Was Raped? Wow, after writing that, it sounds a little insensitive...but since the writers have failed to develop her enough for me to care, I'll blame it on them.

Anyway, in terms of the plots: (A) Two guys with masks and fake guns hold up the dorm-room-casino and steal Veronica's necklace, which belonged to Lilly; (B) Keith is hired by the Hearst dean to track down his wife's ex-husband in order for him to be reunited with his son; and (C) Wallace cheats in class.

The Keith thing was a little too...well, boring (and maybe I was being lazy or obtuse, but it took me a little while to figure out what was actually going on...I get that the dean's stepson needed a bone marrow match, which is why they contacted the father, but why does Keith tell the dean he could go to jail?)

The other stories were good in part because we got to see the dark side of our beloved characters. Wallace bought the answers for his engineering test in a moment of weakness; Veronica, meanwhile, accuses Weevil of the robbery and necklace-thievery. I must say, the latter was a particularly ugly moment for Veronica. The writers have certainly set it up, since we've seen she has major trust issues and had a small amount of evidence to back her up, but...how long has she known Weevil? How many times has she pulled him out of jail? How many times has he proved he's a loyal friend to her? Kind of a bitchy move to point the finger at him, Veronica. Just saying.

We also got to see more of Lamb as he "helps" with the case, which was nice, as I've always contended that he's the most underrated character on the show. One of the best moments of the series still remains in the Season 2 episode in which he arrests Veronica and Duncan, then lets them go without a word. It's nice to shade a standard-issue-jerk character like that with shades of gray, and I kind of wish they did it more. I certainly hope he doesn't end up being ridiculously evil out of the blue (R.I.P., Beaver. I mean Cassidy.)

Oh yeah, and very little happens with the serial-rape plotline. And considering that's where the whole Male vs. Female theme is being played out, it was nice to have the occasional episode devoid of stereotypical males arguing with stereotypical feminists. Let me know when I'm supposed to start caring about that plot, okay?

So it's been about a month with the new format so far, and in my quest to put this in tip-top shape I've made a few improvements. You might've already noticed the "TV Commentaries" section added to the right, which I put up as soon as I realized those are features I'd be doing regularly. Also added is the News/Random section, where I throw everything that doesn't belong to the normal features. This makes the "Post Archives" section at the bottom completely useless, which is lucky since those links never worked anyway for some reason that I never bothered to figure out. So I got rid of them.

Ahh. Already I can breathe easier...