Monthly Archives: December 2013

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

23 Monday Dec 2013

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, WingNut Films, and Warner Bros. Pictures.

Images courtesy of New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, WingNut Films, and Warner Bros. Pictures.

Desolation, n. a state of complete emptiness or destruction.

Doesn’t it annoy you when people pick a word, maybe not even a particularly fitting word, to define an entire subject and then begin a discussion with a dictionarial definition of that word? Doesn’t it seem pedantic? Doesn’t it seem… almost sm[a]ug?

It’s been a while since I  saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. And it’s been even longer since I read the book. So I have no right to be smaug, or even just plain smug, about anything to do with this movie, and I’m pretty sure some fans are going to take umbrage with my subject matter. In my defence, I mentioned last time how difficult it was to write reviews for epic-length movies, and I still stand by that statement. There’s just so much action, so many characters, and so much plot development to keep track of that it all boggles the mind a bit. But let’s try to dive into that, shall we?

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GR Dailies: How I Met Your Mother – Bass Player Wanted

19 Thursday Dec 2013

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×13: “Bass Player Wanted”

If you read my last review, you know that I wasn’t particularly happy with the way the rehearsal dinner went. It was fine, yes, but there was nothing really good about it. So I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy this episode as much as I did—until the Mother showed up. I was pretty much hooked from that moment on.

It was Marshall versus the Machine once again, and he trudged down a country road while carrying his son and a suitcase. Then a van pulled up behind him, and who should be driving but my new best friend? She mentions that she’s the bass player in the band that’s playing the Farhampton wedding that weekend, but that she used to be the lead singer and is now about to be kicked out. Oh, and the van isn’t hers—it belongs to “the devil.”

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GR Dailies: How I Met Your Mother – The Rehearsal Dinner

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

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by Grace Crawford

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

Images courtesy of Bay & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox.

9×12: “The Rehearsal Dinner”

This episode begins with Barney handcuffed to a pipe in a laser tag security office. And that’s probably the highest point of the episode.

Remember back in season 9 when Robin planned Barney’s bachelor party and made it the worst night of his entire life? What you didn’t know is that, only a few short nights later, Barney announced that he was calling the wedding off and kicking Robin out of his apartment because he couldn’t handle the idea of marriage.

Nope, just kidding. Apparently Barney thinks that’s an awesome idea for a return prank, and as a result of such an excellent prank, Robin must be planning to get him back. And after he suggests the idea of a laser tag rehearsal dinner, obviously she’s going to plan that as a surprise for him. And excuse me for a second while I write that down, because frankly that idea is gold.

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The Way, Way Back

14 Saturday Dec 2013

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by Thom Yee

Way, Way Back - poster

Images courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

The Way, Way Back opens with Duncan, our main character, being asked to rate himself on a scale of one to ten by his mom’s latest boyfriend, Trent.  And if you’re a particularly sensitive person whose childhood wasn’t all that it could’ve been, that should be a polarizing moment for you.  That’s the moment when you know you’re either going to be all in, for every one of this film’s emotional struggles, or you’re just going to watch a decent movie that’s occasionally funny.  For me, it’s one of the greatest, most resonant and meaningful openings I’ve ever seen.  There’s so much in that moment, so much pain and torment and truth, and it completely sets the tone and direction of the rest of the film.

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GR Dailies: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The Bridge

11 Wednesday Dec 2013

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by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

Images courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television

1×10:  “The Bridge”

And so we come full circle.  Sort of.  Well, a character from the first episode is back.  So half circle.  Sort of.  I don’t know.  Whatever.

Here we are at the midseason point anyway, and I feel like I can definitively say that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not a good show.  Not by a longshot.  It’s not a tumbling travesty, but it’s doing little more than treading water, its producers content to make it an utterly average and typical show.  The most common complaint you’re likely to hear about the show is that it fails to make the most of its Marvel universe setting, and while that’s an easy observation to make, the problems with the show run much deeper.  Its characters are flat and lifeless, and its stories are boring and predictable.  Worst of all, from what I can tell from having read interviews and the general vibe given off by each episode, there just seems to be no ambition on the part of the creative team — showrunners, producers, and writers — to make anything special.  It’s become incredibly frustrating watching a show defined by superhuman potential realized in such a mediocre way.

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Oblivion

07 Saturday Dec 2013

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by Thom Yee

Oblivion

Oblivion images courtesy of Universal Pictures

Here’s a list of all the Tom Cruise movies I’ve seen and enjoyed:

Jack Reacher, all of the Mission:  Impossibles except II, War of the Worlds, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Minority Report, Vanilla Sky, Interview with the Vampire, Born on the Forth of July, Top Gun, and Risky Business.

I enjoyed all of those movies, I feel they were all a worthwhile use of my movie-going time, and I think they all benefitted from Tom Cruise’s performances.

When it comes to Tom Cruise movies (and just about every movie he’s in is a Tom Cruise movie, no matter how large or small his part), I always feel like I have to explain myself.  It was about eight months ago that I reviewed Jack Reacher, and everybody I talked to couldn’t get past the Tom Cruise part of that movie enough to go see it let alone take my review of it seriously (not that we’re really angling for our reviews to be taken seriously).  Sure, there’s the Scientology, the erratic behavior, the maniac laughter, the obviously manufactured-for-public-acceptance personal life… but none of that’s bad enough that it should necessarily be a drag on his box office returns. Continue reading →

GR Dailies: The Walking Dead – Too Far Gone

02 Monday Dec 2013

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by Thom Yee

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

Images courtesy of AMC and Fox International Channels

4×08:  “Too Far Gone”

One of the big surprises from last season’s conclusion is that the Governor got away.  He wasn’t shot, eaten, or tortured to death, and remained at large no matter what fate he seemed to have earned.  That’s something we all knew was going to come up at some point, and I’m happy to see that his return has been largely fulfilling.

The first moment we see Rick and Daryl arguing over Rick’s decision to abandon Carol was a sobering one for me.  Remember, Carol had been the one that killed the first two people with the virus, and… oh, who cares!  Man, I was tired of that storyline, and if we hadn’t had two episodes away from the prison, I think I would’ve been pretty sick of the whole show by now.  Sure, the last two Governor-centric episodes may have made the overall arc of the first half of this season a little uneven, but by now the affairs of the prison had become so overdrawn that seeing them all blown away by a tank (rather than worked through with reason or logic or “talking about our problems”) is a welcome relief.

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