A Hit of New TV: Review

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT BE WARNED: I watched the episode and can say that I am fairly interested in what the show could become. It was pretty expository in the sense that the characters spelled a lot of things out assuming the audience was fairly unintelligent, but there are some really interesting storylines in the pilot episode. Particularly, the mystery surrounding J.J., the youngest of the superhero family who does not appear to have a power for much of the episode, seems to be promising as his potential power may play on the character's learning disability. I also really like Michael Chiklis' character because the character seems to act somewhat naturally  and realistically to getting the powers. He's giddy and excited and tries to see exactly what he can do with his super strength.  The weakness of his storyline lies with the police subplot of the episode and his wanting to be involved. I like the idea, of his wanting to step out of the shadows of being a sketch artist and an actual crimefighter, but the "villain" was weak and portrayed very poorly.  Additionally, I didn't buy any of the cops as being actual cops; they were just shells of characters and really rigid in their performances. And on that note, they were just plain dumb. The two detectives go in search of the episode's villain and upon seeing them, they call out his name, giving the guy an opportunity to prepare himself and actual fight back, which he does to deadly results. The cops were just amateurish and ridiculous. Definitely me least favorite piece of the episode.

Michael Chiklis (left) and Romany Malco

There was one part of both the mother and father's storylines that really interested me and made me want to see more, and that was their interaction with their adult friends/coworkers who found out about their powers. Chiklis' friend was in awe and the two acted like little kids just getting a new comic book, which made for very realistic (despite the superhero plot) television. And his friend was played Romany Malco, who was also in Weeds and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and who also happens to be awesome. Conversely, Benz's friend on the show was both shocked, interested and also showed signs of workplace jealousy over how efficient Benz's character can now be versus herself. That will be interesting to see. Plus, she's played by Autumn Reeser, who recently had a stint on Entourage as Ari's agent nemesis "Lizzie" and also played "Taylor" on The O.C. I've always liked her in the annoying sidekick kind of roles that she typically plays, and I think if they pursue a jealousy storyline, she could definitely provide for some interesting moments.

Julie Benz (left) and Autumn Reeser (right)

The daughter's storyline was a little too cliche for; she's a teenage girl who can read minds, even that of her cheating boyfriend! It just seemed silly and tired. I would say that at least they didn't rip off The Incredibles and have her power be invisibility, but I kind of secretly wanted them to do that. It would give her the ability to hear what people thought of her behind her back (she could easily hide in the locker room or something people are talking about her) and at the same time, it could also play with the idea that sometimes you just want to be invisible after an embarrassing moment.


Anyhow, it was just the pilot episode and I certainly will be tuning in come the fall. It had its ups, and some downs with some of the dialogue that just made things too painfully obvious and sometimes "7th Heaven"-y (gag me) but I am hoping those kinks will be worked out for episode 2. So, tell me what you thought of the episode!

I said good day, sir!
-E

A Hit of New TV

So by coincidence, this next bit is about a new superhero-themed show coming to ABC called No Ordinary Family. The gist is: they have superpowers, but it stars Michael Chiklis (The Shield) and Julie Benz (Dexter) and I think it looks pretty good.

 
Anyhow, ABC released the pilot online for the first 50,000 visitors. Here's the link:

http://abc.go.com/watch/noordinaryscreening

You will need the following password, which is case sensitive to access the video: Extraordinary

I haven't watched yet, so I'll maybe post some thoughts after, and let me know what you think!

I said good day, sir!
-E

A Hit of LOST Season 6 on DVD

So today, LOST Season 6 hits store shelves.

It was one of my favorite shows on TV and now it is officially over (at least in my opinion, once it hits stores, there's really nothing new to expect.) But, I am happy to say that it is ending with something new. The new DVD has an epilogue made exclusively for the 5-disc set entitled "New Man in Charge". Though not packed with answers, just like the show, the epilogue does give us viewers a few little gifts in the form of some solving some unanswered riddles that the show left us with.

SPOILER ALERT!: We see a few new faces and a couple of old faces, one in particular that was certainly welcome (and definitely needed some resolution). We also get answers to what the Hurley bird was (it was featured briefly in a few episodes and appeared to screech out Hurley when it flew by. We also got an answer to where the food drops came from and why they kept coming even though the Dharma Initiative closed twenty years before the show's main timeline took place. So, all in all, I enjoyed the epilogue a lot and you can actually view online.

Here's the link if you want to take a look, but I warn you, it will not make sense to anyone who hasn't seen LOST:
http://c0up.posterous.com/lost-season-6-epilogue-new-man-in-charge

I said good day, sir!
-E

Your First Hit of E(ntertainment)!

Don't you always remember the first time you had some E(ntertainment news)? I sure do. It was early on in my internet career when the web wasn't quite what it is now and when people actually referred to it as the web. It was probably sometime around my tenth birthday or so, and I'll explain why I remember it being around there in just a few paragraphs. I discovered a site called upcomingmovies.com (which has since disappeared after Yahoo bought it up in later years). It was run by a man named Greg and the website updated daily on news about, yes, you guessed it, movies coming to theaters in the near future. The site was amazing and at the time (at least to my knowledge) was one of the only places to go to find out immediate news about the entertainment industry, namely film and television news. I could go on every day and find updates on anything from the alleged Spiderman film being planned or dare I say it, very early news and rumors of what would one day be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Ok, so it previewed movies both good and unfortunately for the latter of these two films, the bad).

In any event, the site created an addiction for me, an addiction to E(ntertainment news....not sure how long I'll keep putting that in parenthetical...maybe it'll be there forever...who knows?! ) that would only become worse (even worse than my StarBucks addiction of late). I had the world of film and television at my fingertips and I could learn about the ins and outs, the deals, the mergers, and the dealbreakers, and pretty much anything else I wanted to know about, even if the movie was coming out in ten years (the site had an extensive catalog of information on films only rumored for future release...hence Crystal Skull.)

So since then, I've been reading and reading from some great sites about the latest entertainment news, and there are so many that I love, but none more so than Zap2it, ComingSoon, MovieHole, and EW (shoutout to Michael Ausiello's ridiculous ability to scoop out the latest information quicker than anyone else I've read.) But I wanted to do something different than those sites who do a great job with their reporting. I wanted to take the news, bring it to you and tell you what I think because obviously, my opinion is so very important (but so is yours and I really want to hear from you audience, you wonderful, nonexistent audience, you!). This blog will be a conversation about E.

So, here's just a few things I would like to point out when it comes to some of my bias that will become utterly apparent in the blog in the future.

1. I am not a fan of Michael Bay films. There are many reasons, but seeing as this is the internet, I will leave it there and any apparent disliking of his future films will be understood and we can move on quickly. If you really want to know, refer to an old episode of my college entertainment news show called "Backstage Pass". I go on a rant about him and Transformers for a few embarrassing minutes.
2. I hate spoof movies. Don't get me wrong, but I really enjoyed Airplane! and shamelessly, Scary Movie 3 (both by the same director, mind you), but other than that, I think the others are garbage and those "writers", who shall remain nameless right now, have in recent years taken the film industry to its lowest levels with their lame, half-hearted attempts at humor, and I use the term humor very loosely.
3. I will see any movie even just once (yes, that does include films from the first two points, but that doesn't mean I have to like them).
4. I love independent features, even if I only see a handful of them a year. They continually remind me of the power of filmmaking and the lack of respect the public gives them for not going to see them! However, I will say that to go to an independent theater is like trying to find Megan Fox's acting skills. They are usually just in the city and that's always a hike.
5. I am tired of remakes, "reimaginings", re-whatevers! Let's get original people! This means you, TV, Movies, and yes, music (how many times are these "artists going to cover somebody else's music? Most of the time it's for no other apparent reason than money. If that's the case, you're not artists!)
6. I apparently like lists.

Ok, so there you have it, the first post in what is destined to be my sad attempt at running my own entertainment blog. Postings will obviously never be this long, and thanks so much if you actually made it all the way down here. It gets kind of lonely down here, so I appreciate the company!

I said Good Day, sir!
-E