LOST
Season 3
Episode 19
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“The Brig”

Given the pet theory I’ve been nursing for quite awhile now (that Locke’s scumbag dad is the conman responsible for Sawyer’s childhood tragedy), I quickly smelled Locke’s lie. Still, it led to one of the most intense sequences this season, as Sawyer is trapped in the Black Rock with the man who destroyed his life and single-handedly made James the man he is today. (A sequence that also led directly into one of the most morbid endings I’ve ever seen on network television.)
Ultimately though, Locke used Sawyer. Sure, dear old Daddy deserved it, and yes, the old fart is responsible for Sawyer’s pain as well, but Locke used James. How honest is that in Locke’s journey to discover the Island’s mysteries?
At any rate, Sawyer now has the evidence of Juliet’s hidden agenda, so, uh-oh, Julie baby…

Speaking of mysteries though, so Juliet and Jack are sharing a secret, a secret Juliet says they should share with Kate, but Jack resists that idea. What is up with that? Has she told Jack about her secret tapes to Ben? (He was nosing around Sun last episode…)
I still think it was a mistake to tell Jack about Naomi (Parachute Girl has a name now) and the high-tech satellite phone thingie, but hey, let’s see where that goes.

Meanwhile, another of the many theories regarding the nature of the Island is tossed out there and apparently shot down. Here, it’s “the Island is Hell”; in episode 2.18 (“Dave”), it was “the Island is someone’s wild imagining.”
Of course, based on Daddy’s story of how he got to the Island, it seems that Ben’s “magic box” isn’t only a metaphor, it’s an outright lie. The man is such a mindf*cker.
So to the outside world, Oceanic 815 crashed into the ocean and all the passengers died. Is that a massive cover-up, or what? So if Dharma is keeping the gears moving so efficiently out there, how can they not know what’s going on on the Island?

Meanwhile again, Rousseau is scrounging around the Black Rock for dynamite? Whatever for? Honestly, I’m still dubious about the whole Alex is my daughter/Alex is Ben’s daughter/Ben conveniently stepped in one of Rousseau’s traps deal, that I’m leery about her motives. But, as with telling Jack about Naomi, let’s see where this one goes too.

Heading into this season’s home stretch, people.
And yes, gentlemen, you are dazzling us. (See Lost Episode 9 review. Archive: March 2007.)

(Image courtesy of aol.com.)

MASTERS

OF HORROR

Season 2

Episode 2

“Family”
Written by Brent Hanley; directed by John Landis

Harold Thompson (Cheers’ George Wendt, who is reportedly appearing as the Vice President of the United States in the upcoming House of Re-Animator*) has some new neighbors. But what David (The Last Days of Disco’s Matt Keeslar) and Celia (Dawson’s Creek’s Meredith Monroe) apparently don’t know is that George has a terrible secret, one that could prove fatal for them all.
Landis (perhaps best known for his landmark horror film, An American Werewolf in London) handles this story very well, showing us some interesting parallels regarding George: just as the bland suburban façade of his home hides a gruesome truth, so is there a psychotic insanity that lurks behind his apparently harmless exterior.
That theme is then expanded upon with a third, initially undisclosed truth which only surfaces in the film’s final act.

But, despite “Family” being one of the better episodes of the second season (certainly better than the season opener, “The Damned Thing”), it does have its share of hiccups, among them, a number of scenes which border on pure audience misdirection, scenes which may seem a bit illogical, in light of the third act revelation. They aren’t blatantly manipulative, mind you, but they do skirt a questionable area.
Given that though, the episode is still bolstered by Wendt’s creepy Harold, and Monroe gets to spout some choice lines she would never have uttered on the Creek.
It’s also written by Brent Hanley, who penned the script for the excellent American Gothic horror film (and Bill Paxton’s directorial debut), Frailty.

* William H. Macy’s the President!

(Family DVD cover art courtesy of anchorbayentertainment.com.)

(Originally posted 031107.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (7)

7.1 Okay. Colour me happy.
Superman Returns took home 5 of the 10 nominations it was up for at this year’s Saturn Awards. It won for Best Fantasy Film, Best Actor (Brandon Routh), Best Director (Bryan Singer), Best Writing (Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris), and Best Music (John Ottman).
It’s just too bad Parker Posey and Tristan Lake Leabu didn’t win in their respective categories (Best Supporting Actress and Best Performance by a Younger Actor).

Other wins I’m happy for (and there’re loads of them):

Best Science Fiction Film: Children of Men
Best Horror Film: The Descent
Best International Film: El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Best Supporting Actress: Famke Janssen (X-Men: The Last Stand)*
Best Performance by a Younger Actor: Ivana Baquero (El Laberinto Del Fauno)
Best Make-Up: Todd Masters, Dan Rebert (Slither)

Best Network Television Series: Heroes
Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series: Battlestar Galactica
Best Actor on Television: Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Best Supporting Actor on Television: Masi Oka (Heroes)
Best Supporting Actress on Television: Hayden Panettiere (Heroes)**

Best DVD Special Edition Release: Superman II (The Richard Donner Cut)
Best DVD Television Series: Masters of Horror
Best Retro Television Series on DVD: Adventures of Superman (Complete 6 Seasons)

The Filmmakers Showcase Award: James Gunn (director of Slither)
The Service Award: Kerry O’Quinn (former publisher of Starlog Magazine)***

Congratulations, one and all.

It should be noted though that Lost got completely walloped, entering the awards with 6 nominations and leaving with no wins.
Their nominations were for Best Network Television Series, Best Actor (Racer X himself, Matthew Fox), Best Actress (Evangeline Lilly), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Emerson and Josh Holloway), and Best Supporting Actress (Elizabeth Mitchell).

7.2 Okay. Now colour me sad.
Battlestar Galactica may have taken home the award for Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series, but it’s been officially reported that the next season will be its last.
Yes, we all knew it was coming (they would have to find Earth, eventually), but still.

I can’t say it any better than the astounding Edward James Olmos did: “I think that this is some of the finest usages of television that I have been a part of in my life. Bar none. I’ve been doing this for 42 years. I’ve done some really good work in television and motion pictures but there really is nothing like this show.”****

So say we all.

7.3 And to return to Saturn for just a bit…
Jennifer Love Hewitt took home Best Actress in a Television Program or Series (for Ghost Whisperer), beating Lost’s Lilly and Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff, not to mention Medium’s Patricia Arquette and The Closer’s Kyra Sedgwick, both of whom have received nods from the Emmys, Globes, and the SAGs.
Boy, Love Hewitt must really be a good actress, huh?

* I did not like the film at all, but I love Famke Janssen and she did her best with what could have potentially been a great substantive role if the “Dark Phoenix” saga had not been reduced to a piddling subplot in X-Men: TLS. I mean, there’s a damn good reason why it’s called a “saga.”

** Hayden’s win here is all the more commendable given she was up against some strong competition from Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter and Lost’s Mitchell.

*** Starlog was one of the magazines that kept this young film freak entertained and informed in the dark ages of Before The Internet.

**** Quote from iF Magazine.

THR3E
(Review)

Based on the Ted Dekker novel and directed by Robby Henson, Thr3e opens with a prologue introducing us to police psychologist Jennifer Peters (Justine Waddell), who is being terrorized by the Riddle Killer, a serial loony who’s taken offense to Peters’ writing.
Ending with the prerequisite tragedy which will ensure the character’s investment in the subsequent narrative, this opening sequence gives way to seminary student Kevin Parson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Marc Blucas), whose thesis on the nature of evil is nearly overdue. Just when he’s about to get cracking on it though, he is inexplicably targeted by the Riddle Killer, who blows up Parson’s car to prove he means business.
We then quickly make the acquaintance of Parson’s teenhood friend and sweetheart, Samantha Sheer (Laura Jordan), and his aunt, Belinda (Three’s Company’s Priscilla Barnes) and her terminally dysfunctional household, as the film steadily gets into gear and moves towards its marginally effective climax (whose plot twist may or may not grab you, depending on how closely you’re paying attention, and how familiar you are with this type of psychological thriller).
And given the presence of that last minute plot twist, it’s clear that this is the kind of movie that hinges entirely on whether that curve ball works for you. Personally, I thought it was handled a lot better here than in other films (Hide and Seek, for one).
It is, however, a success both qualified and relative.

The effectiveness of Thr3e’s climax is compromised by a number of things.
Firstly, there is no art at all to the narrative structure, and the proceedings are riddled with awkwardly placed flashbacks.
The flashbacks are then made even more problematic by terrible performances from the supporting cast playing the younger versions of some of Thr3e’s main characters.
Wince-worthy performances can also be found amongst much of the rest of the supporting cast, including Waddell and Barnes. When the Riddle Killer (whose voice distorter gimmick comes off as a lame rip-off from far superior grandmasters like Scream’s Ghostface and Saw’s Jigsaw) calls Peters a bad cop who wrote a bad book, he neglected to mention, “Oh, and by the by, you’re a bad actress too.”
Barnes meanwhile, acquits herself far better in Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (reviewed here: Archive March 2007). As Thr3e’s loony Belinda, she’s mostly borderline burlesque, as are the other members of the nuthouse she calls home. Here, the dysfunction feels more contrived than authentic, again diluting the potency of the story’s climax.

Beyond the bland storytelling and the largely questionable performances, there is also the particular problem of having a climax that by its very nature, has to be talky, as opposed to one characterized by action. Even if you didn’t see the plot twist coming (and you can, if you take careful note of the peculiarities of how some characters act), it’s still a distracting thing to be conscious of the fact that, Boy, these are some Chatty Patties, huh? (And when one of the characters is played by Bill Moseley, who on occasion sounds like Tom Gottlieb—who does VO work for You Don’t Know Jack and trashy reality dating show, The Fifth Wheel—the distraction level gets pretty high.)
There are also some details that aren’t even addressed, such as how Kevin’s stalker became so knowledgeable about explosive devices. (Of course, I guess all that was required is a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook, but I would have appreciated a mention at the very least.)

Fortunately, there are a couple of good things to write home about. Laura Jordan as Sam is possibly the best actress in the lot, and Blucas is at least tolerable as the film’s protagonist. Though they don’t completely make up for the majority of bad performances in Thr3e, they at least go a long way to making sure the audience isn’t constantly groaning and rolling its eyes in exasperation.

Ultimately, Thr3e is not as bad as many of the other psychological thrillers of its ilk, though it could have been significantly more effective had the direction and acting been given more attention.

Parting shot: Thr3e is from FoxFaith, Twentieth Century Fox’s faith-based division handling the company’s “growing portfolio of morally-driven, family-friendly programming,” their tagline: “Films You Can Believe In.”
It’s funny though, the fact that Home Alone and Home Alone 2 are part of that portfolio.

(Thr3e OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com.)

28 WEEKS LATER

(Review)

We open with Alice (Catherine McCormack) and Don (Danny Boyle crony Robert Carlyle), cooking dinner. Then of course, we notice the lights are out and they’re running low on canned goods. And there’s a photo of another family in the kitchen.
London is in the bloodied teeth of the Rage virus, and husband and wife are in a cottage with a bunch of other survivors, all shellshocked and coping as best they can with this unimaginable catastrophe.
We all know this is an idyll, of course, a false one, as fragile as a soap bubble. And yet, when the bubble does burst and the chaos explodes on the screen, it still gets you, by golly.
And thus does Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later grab you by the balls, and never really quite lets go.


Roughly half a year after the events depicted in Danny Boyle’s welcome shot in the arm of zombie cinema, 28 Days Later, England is slowly being repopulated. Civilians are being brought into places like District One, a cordoned-off urban area with electricity and running water (and a pub!), guarded by NATO and the U.S. Army.
Don is reunited with his children, Tammy (Imogen Poots, seen for a bit in V For Vendetta) and Andy (newcomer Mackintosh Muggleton), who were away on a school trip when Rage first spread into the British populace.
Their arrival meanwhile, has alerted District One’s Chief Medical Officer, Scarlet (Rose Byrne, seen recently in Boyle’s Sunshine; review in Archive: April 2007), who is concerned about the lack of protocol regarding such young repatriates, a concern poo-pooed by the higher-ups.
And, as kids will be kids, Tammy and Andy sneak off into the quarantine zone to return to their home for one final time.
And Tammy and Andy, apparently never having seen a horror movie before in their lives, are in blissful ignorance of the fact that this is the catalyst for All Hell Breaking Loose.


In a world where zombie films are currently very much one of the horror sub-genres du jour, and where even the undisputed master’s fourth go-around lacked significant bite, 28 Weeks Later detonates at ground zero and quite decisively raises the stakes for the rest of the zombie lot to follow, among them, Romero’s fifth Dead film, Diary of the Dead, as well as a remake of Romero’s Day of the Dead, by Halloween: H20 and Friday the 13th Part 2 and Part III helmer Steve Miner.
(And yes, technically speaking, the 28 films feature the “infected,” but let’s call a spade a spade, gentlemen. And besides, they also play by the same rules and display the same conventions as zombie cinema. And if any of you still have trouble with that, shall we all agree to “apocalypse cinema,” then?)


And, as with Days, which featured excellent performances from its ensemble, Weeks has a good cast across the board.
Byrne, as she did in Sunshine, brings much-needed humanity to the proceedings (and in apocalypse cinema, that’s indispensable), and you can’t go wrong with Carlyle (one of the very few bright spots, along with Tilda Swinton, in Boyle’s disastrous adaptation of The Beach). If there are some of you out there who only know Carlyle through The Full Monty, well, here’s your antidote.
The curiously named kids are great too, as is Jeremy Renner (terrific in Michael Cuesta’s Twelve and Holding, and soon to be seen in the Brad Pitt-starrer, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). As Doyle, an Army sniper, Renner is the ostensible physical male lead; the sensible man of action in these sorts of movies.
Heaven help me, even Harold Perrineau is credible here as chopper pilot Flynn. I may not have liked his turns in The Matrix sequels and thought he was the weak link in the Lost ensemble (not to mention what he did to Ana-Lucia and Libby), but what Perrineau does here with his helicopter is unprecedented in the annals of horror movies. Utter bloody mayhem!


The canny move Fresnadillo and co-writer Rowan Joffe make here is to present us with a situation where not only do the survivors have to worry about getting infected, they need to worry about the military too. (It’s to the credit of Weeks that one of the film’s most intense and harrowing sequences is precipitated not by blood-vomiting madmen, but by the threat of bullets raining from the sky.)
The last time war seemed this insane on the cinema screen was Sam Mendes’ Jarhead.* And this is war, with an infected populace as the enemy. (And where the uninfected are simply potential enemies, like sleeper agents waiting to be triggered not by code words, but by a drop of blood, or saliva.)
Even District One is nothing so much as an occupied zone, with the military presence undeniable and unmissable.
Ultimately, Fresnadillo and company present us with a grim situation where you can’t even trust the military to be on your side when the chips are down.


As an entry in apocalypse cinema, you can’t go wrong with 28 Weeks Later. Some of the imagery in here is powerful and indelible, from piles of multi-coloured plastic garbage bags, to the black, oily smoke from bonfires burning the dead. And when the fit hits the shan, the frenetic hand-held shots and staccato editing from Days are here as well, put to good use, placing us in the middle of all the mad, gory action.
The tension is unbelievable in some spots here, and in a lot of ways, 28 Weeks Later plays like the nastier cousin to Days, uninterested in taking any prisoners at all.
Schizophrenically enough, it also plays like the nicer cousin in some bits.
The emotion is more overtly presented in Weeks than in Days, and the central dilemma which faces Don and his family is played out over the length of the film to interesting effect, thus providing an additional layer below the tale of survival which is the visible aspect of the narrative.


All in all, this one’s a keeper.
Boyle and Alex Garland (executive producers this time around) have proven that the 28 films, like Romero’s Dead movies, have the potential to interest us not with recurring characters (as is the usual rule with a franchise), but with a situation rich with narrative potential.
(I’m still of the mind that the Alien franchise should have taken a page from that book after Ripley’s death in Alien3, instead of forcing the issue with Sigourney Weaver in Alien: Resurrection. But that’s a whole different story.)
So if they can stay on their game, and come up with another story that isn’t “just another zombie movie,” then I’m all for 28 Months Later.
Years, too.
But maybe not Centuries… That could be pushing it…

* Sorry, not much of a war movie guy. I think Jarhead was the last “war movie” I saw, and it isn’t really even that. (Not in the way, say, Eastwood’s double whammy of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima are “war movies,” at least.)

(28 Weeks Later OS and images courtesy of aintitcool.com.)

LOST
Season 3
Episode 18
(WARNING:
SPOILERS)
“D.O.C.”

Crackerjack cliffhanger right there!
But let’s backtrack, shall we?

So Eyepatch Dude is still alive?! And Desmond makes a deal with him to help Parachute Girl (who’s apparently multi-lingual like nobody’s business). Urg. These people.
And what does Eyepatch Dude do? He tries to steal the satellite phone thingie. And they still let him go!
Why do I think Charlie’s supposedly impending demise will have something to do with Eyepatch Dude? If so, it’ll all be on Des’ head, for letting the bugger go.

Meanwhile, Juliet helps Sun by bringing her to the medical station, where an ultrasound machine is kept in a secret room. The size of the fetus can help them determine when Sun conceived. If it was off the Island, then fantastic; if it was on, then she’s in the deep doo-doo I mentioned in my review 2 episodes back.
And in the flashbacks, we see Sun as a newly-married woman, approached by Jin’s mother, whom Jin was told was dead. Well, not only is she alive, she’s also an ex-prostitute! So Sun is blackmailed into getting the woman a hundred thousand dollars (I think was the sum) to keep her mouth shut regarding her former profession, money Sun asks from her father.
Interestingly enough, the price of her father giving her the money is that he’ll “promote” Jin, which is how Jin ended up being Mr. Paik’s enforcer!
In all of this, there are a bunch of really great scenes: Sun secretly meeting her father-in-law; Sun and her father, making the deal that will get all that blood and guilt on Jin’s hands; Sun and Juliet, in the medical station, where she confesses to her infidelity with bald hotel owner guy.
Man, I’ve always loved Sun, and this episode was a motherlode of Sun Moments.

Of course, she’s got about two months left to live, so… arrrggghhhh!!!
As it turns out, the baby is Jin’s. (Apparently, just as the Island is particularly brutal to pregnant females, it also ups a guy’s sperm count into the stratosphere; in Jin’s case of being infertile, well, it apparently just made him fertile. What a chauvinistic Island!)
So Sun’s got this death sentence on her now. (First Charlie, now Sun!)

And Juliet’s making tapes for Ben. And apparently remorseful about it.
Okay. Sorry for calling Juliet a “two-faced lying slag.”
Still.

And back to that cliffhanger.
Parachute Girl comes to and says that Oceanic 815 was found, and that there were no survivors…
Hmmmmm…

Parting shot: Fine. If Juliet really busts her a$$ to save Sun’s life, then maybe I’ll consider getting her off my Sh*t List.

(Image courtesy of sparklies.org.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (6)

6.1 Congratulations to Hayden Panettierre, who graduated high school at the tail end of shooting for Heroes’ first season. So there was a special graduation ceremony during the Heroes’ wrap party, with series creator Tim Kring presenting Hayden with a diploma from Heroes High.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Hayden is hands down one of the best of the Heroes ensemble, no mean feat, that, and she’s not even at the legal drinking age!

6.2 Well, it’s a pleasant surprise, I’ll say that much.
I’m referring to the announcement (at variety.com) that Lost will run for 3 more seasons, then wrap in 2010. What, with all the doomsayer talk of plunging ratings, a part of me was psyching itself out for the possibility that Lost would take its bow at the end of season 4 (or at least till it hit its 100th episode, as I recall one of the key creators once pointed that out as a nice round number to aim for as the show’s end).
According to the deal struck between Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and the ABC bigwigs, there will be 3 more, shortened seasons (16 episodes each), to be aired without repeats (as per 24). That makes 48 episodes, plus the final 4 for this season, so we’ve got 52 more episodes to go, people.
That’ll be a grand total of 119 episodes, nearly an entire season over the 100 mark. Brilliant.

6.3 Returning to Heroes, in case you guys didn’t know, Alex Maleev did the art for the paintings Sylar made after absorbing poor Isaac’s power. Like Tim Sale (who is the artist responsible for Isaac’s paintings and 9th Wonders art), Maleev is a comic book artist perhaps most widely known for a critically-acclaimed run on Daredevil.

(Image courtesy of comicbookresources.com.)