Fall Television Wrap Up

Now that the new TV season has gotten into full swing and I've had a chance to test the new shows a few times as well as get a feel for where my old favorites are going, I thought I'd give a wrap up of my impressions.

House:  I was totally skeptical about the House/Cuddy coupling this season, and I have to say I am more than pleasantly surprised.  The writers haven't just fallen into a relationship and made it so everything works - they really seem to be taking the time to make it realistic and show how two people would really go about working at creating a life together.  And I also love that the characters are taking it seriously - really trying to adjust their behavior and compromise on the issues of working and sleeping together so that they can make a go of it.  I feel the whole thing has been handled maturely and honestly, and I'm grateful.

Castle:  The best thing about Castle is the characters and their relationships - the best of these being between Castle and his daughter - and this season has kept up that tradition.  Basically my only response to the new season is HOORAY that Det. Beckett has finally got a good haircut!!  It was super cute short the first season, but last season her hair was majorly frumpadelic.  Glad to see the gorgeous Stana Katic finally has the do she deserves.

Glee: Are you going to hate me if I say that this season got off to a rocky start for me?  In my opinion, the best part about Glee is the way they tell some not so easy story lines within a framework of music that helps the plot hang together.  So far this season I have felt that the music has been more stunt driven (Britney Spears anyone?) rather than based on the plot - and what plot there is has been very thin.  They also seem to be moving into an "issue of the week" format, which is coming across as a little more heavy handed than their previous episodes.  This past week with the duets was a return to last season's form, so I hope this was only an awkward beginning to a great year.  I still love the show of course!

Running Wilde: I SOOOOOOO want to love this show.  Will Arnett is pretty much funny no matter what he does, and Keri Russell is so pretty I just want to stare at her for hours on end.  I do like how they have not only made the main character a rich doofus, but also made Emmy (the tree hugger bent on changing him) kind of a doofus too.  Like when she's being a martyr just to be a martyr rather than because it will actually achieve her goals or when they argue he points out the areas she is being a hypocrite.  It is very subtle sometimes, but I like that the writers have given both characters flaws - it could have very easily turned into a "the rich are bad and the poor are totally wholesome" type show (which is TOTALLY Emmy's ideal) and that would have turned it too preachy for me. I also think the daughter character, Puddle (and the actress playing her) is super adorable. That being said, the comedy is just... trying to hard.  They are trying so desperately to be random and quirky and funny, but only the desperation is coming across.  I hope they can find a gentler rhythm because this really could be a funny show, but I kind of feel it's heading for the chopping block.

Modern Family: Still pitch perfect, still hysterical, still LOVE it!

Fringe: While I like the new format of alternating between worlds, I am uncomfortable with Alternate Olivia being in our world with Peter and Walter.  Which I'm sure is totally the point, and I'm not sure how to fix it because I kind of like having Good Olivia in the alternate universe, unsure of who she is and unraveling the mysteries of what's going on over there.  I just really love Peter and Walter, and it's frustrating to me that they don't know they have the wrong Olivia - like my friends are being tricked, you know?  And I'm sure the producers would be thrilled to hear all of this because it's probably exactly what they are going for - we want our favorite characters reunited, but we also can't wait to see what mysteries they'll reveal while they are separated.  But overall I think the format is growing on me, especially as each story line develops, and in general I think the show has maintained quality and suspense very well.  So I'm not going anywhere.

Nikita:  I'm still not sure what I think about this show.  I definitely like it, but I'm not sure if that's just because this is the kind of thing I get sucked in to easily or because it's actually good.  From the first episode I felt like the tone could use a little bit of lightening up, but now that I've seen a few more episodes I understand the totally serious approach a little more.  But like I said, I love spy stuff, so this could be my own personal taste rather than actual judgment.  The best I can do is say that I am not entirely ashamed to be admitting I watch the show, so it can't be that awful.

The Good Guys:  I love this show, and I just want to mouth kiss whoever decided to put it on Friday nights!  okay, maybe only hug, but I am super grateful that they gave me a show I was going to watch anyway on a night when A) there are no competing shows on my DVR, and B) there was LITERALLY not a single other show I wanted to watch on.  Now we losers who stay home on weekends just need someone to start airing some decent programming on Saturdays and we're all set!

Well, that's it.  Anything I didn't mention has either been running smoothly and therefore not merited impression (ie, Bones, which is as awesome as ever), or I haven't seen it (ie, The Office, which  has fallen by the wayside due to DVR capacity and over scheduling on Thurs nights - I plan to catch up on Hulu).

What are you watching?

Hot Website: HauteLook

Have you heard about HauteLook.com yet? I forget the first time I heard about it, although there was a booth at the BlogHer Expo. It is a member's only website (free to sign up, they don't spam you at all) that offers great 48 hour sales on all kind of designer clothes, jewelry, home goods and kids stuff. I get an email once a day telling me what is on sale that day and I can click on the site and try and score 50% to 75% off. Pretty cool. They even have a new Sunday Farmer's Market feature for gourmet food items.

As a lover of designer clothes on a pauper budget I like getting a crack at great sales without having to spend hours scouring the internet on my own. So far I haven't bought anything through HauteLook, but I have been tempted several times. I also like that they send me one email a day letting me know about the latest brands on sale, and I can click or ignore as I choose. There has been no other spamming of any kind, so signing up didn't put my name on any kind of lists as far as I can tell.



Now, I'm going to be perfectly honest here, and tell you that if you click on this button and register for the site, I will get $3. I realize that this reads like a totally sponsored review, but I assure you, that $3 is the extent of my self interest in telling you about this site. The fact is I was a member of HauteLook long before I went to BlogHer and was given this offer, and I had planned to tell everyone about the site anyway.

Inception

I wanted to see it the moment I saw the poster with the tops of buildings spelling out he word Inception. The previews of buildings folding in on themselves added to my excitement, and seeing it was from Christopher Nolan, the genius behind Memento only sealed the deal.

I have been reluctant to write this review because frankly, there is little I can think of to say about this movie beyond "it was awesome." A spectacle of both visual art and mindbending storytelling, this is not a movie you go into to doze through. Inception requires focus, both from the characters trying to perform it on screen, and by the audience attempting to unravel the mysteries.

In the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio and his team of thieves use technology to go into people's dreams and unlock their deepest secrets - useful work for corporate espionage. The act of inception- planting an idea deep in someone's subconscious- is thought to be impossible, and known to be dangerous. The concepts of traveling through dreams and subconscious are not necessarily easily comprehended, but due to the ability of film to completely render different levels of dream as reality, the plot is not as complex to follow as it could be (this would NOT work as a book). As the characters move ever deeper through layers of dreams within dreams, the movie keeps pace with each layer, allowing for great clarification and reminder just exactly what is happening.

And the tension! You have truly not seen a thrilling conclusion until you have seen this movie, and the climactic scene which takes place simultaneously on several different dream levels moving at different speeds - the ticking time bomb qualities of the slow motion action is truly suspenseful.

The other thing I enjoyed about this movie is the fact that rather than relying on CGI, actual sets were built for even the most fantastical sequences (yes, an actual folding Paris set, although I'm going on a ledge and suggesting that was scale, haha). Because we are so used to digital effects (and they are SO good now), you don't realize what a difference this makes until you see tiny Ellen Page struggling to move enormous swinging mirrors, or the realism in the fight taking place in a hallway with ever changing gravity. The weight of these props adds such gravity (mind the pun) to what are literally fantastical dreamscapes, and just helps blur the line between reality and dream even further.

I cannot stress enough that this is movie that is worth your time and money to go see on the big screen. I have had the seed of desire to see this movie planted in my head ever since that first glance at a poster and the reality exceeded any expectations I might have had about this film.

ps: I totally called the ending.

Nookie

My husband was just gifted a Nook by his company, which in turn means I was gifted a Nook by my husband. I like that it is slim and sleek, although I wish it had a color screen because I think it might be best for magazine and newspaper reading since I love having a real book in my hands. I also think it is wonderful for travel since you can bring a ton of books without overloading your luggage - gone are the days of filling my suitcase with five novels only to be finished by day three of my vacation.

Upon using it, I was surprised to find that I didn't miss the tactile sense of having a book. I thought that pushing a button and waiting for the next page to load would be annoying, but it really wasn't, and it wasn't any more uncomfortable holding the nook than holding a book for hours at a time - and I could do it one handed WAY more easily. reading only one (small) page at a time did slow down my rate of speed somewhat (I typically read about 100 pages an hour), but not so much that I wasn't still able to finish a 322 page book in one day.

So far, there is only one aspect that bothers me about the nook. Typically, I just browse the book shelves for something that appeals to me and pick it up on a whim - usually in the chick lit or thriller categories. Sure, there are books with reviews so intriguing that I just have to read them for myself, but in general it is pretty random when I buy a book. And I know that after I read it, if it isn't something I see myself rereading over and over, I can sell it back to the half price bookstore, or share it with family if it is good enough. I can't do that with the Nook. Sure, there is a program where you can lend the downloads for two weeks or so, but you don't have anything physical to lend, and you definitely can't sell it back and get money to buy a new book. Which means that the money I spend on ebooks is literally only for the WORDS of the book. Which means I better be damn sure I want to read that book, because I'm not "investing" in anything physical that I can maybe recoup some of my expense from. And that level of pressure has made it very hard to choose what to download. I don't plan of ever giving up real books, so when browsing the ebooks I find myself thinking, "no, not that one, my dad will want to read that too" or "that one is too frivolous and stupid to merit a download." It seems like only the most important and personal of books are going to fall into the slim category of being download worthy, and that is really not how I read.

Although, I am admiring the fact that nobody can see what it is I'm reading. Maybe I'll take up romance novels.

So You Think You Can Dance Season 7

I'm not going to talk about what you think I'm going to talk about. Ok, I'll mention it: The shake up this season, pairing contestants with "all stars" from past seasons. Doesn't bother me. I kind of like that they have decided to showcase the contestants on their own paired with people who are not also competitors - allows focus on who you really want to vote for, and eliminates the risk of any contestant being unfairly paired with an anchor that brings them down. I think they still could have had a top 20 - it is a really a shame that more talented dancers couldn't have been included and showcased within this season, but whatever. Just keep the talent and amazing choreography coming and I'm happy.

No. What I want to talk about is that stage. It is awful. Fox are you .listening to me? IT IS AWFUL! The back wall is all lit, making it VERY hard to see the dancers at times (which, um, hello? is kind of the point), and I apologize to whatever theater it is and whoever chose the location, but every piece performed on that stage, no matter how intricate the costumes and intense the dancing, looks like a really expensive, super fancy high school talent show. Bad bad bad. I get that this stage is bigger than the old one, but honestly, all that does is make the contestants look small and inadequate because no matter how they try they cannot fill the space.

The old stage could be viewed from all angles - allowing the television viewer to see each piece from the most important angle, and as a result feel like a much more intimate part of the show. With this new stage we only get to see from the front (and blinded by lights half the time), which limits our involvement in the dance. before it was special to see it at home - we got a better look than the studio audience. Now we are relegated to the cheap seats. The old stage allowed the dancers to enter from all angles - down stairs in the back, up from the audience in the front, making each piece exciting and interactive. Now we have stage left and stage right; pedantic and predictable, and it cripples the creativity of the choreographers. The old stage had versatile, but subtle lighting, and a lighter colored floor. as a result you could see each dancer and each movement perfectly for the brilliance it was. This stage has blinding back lighting that causes glare in the camera ALL THE TIME, and a black floor which disguises the dancers' movements if they are in any dark costumes. Tonight Alex Wong did an amazing leap front and center stage that was almost completely obscured by the camera angle and his black pants blending into the floor. Criminal. And shame on the producers/directors/set designer/location scouts/whoever is responsible for this travesty of a stage. You want to perk things up after season 6 ratings were low? Don't worry about the format. Worry about the stage you are putting your dancers on. Go back to the old set and let them shine.

The Ghost Writer

This movie could have been really great. Nice cast (Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams) decent plot (a ghostwriter for the former British Prime Minister gets caught up in intrigue) - it could have been a nice bit of thriller. But instead it just kind of settled for going nowhere. There were no clues, no unraveling of secrets or twists, just lots of bleak, colorless scenery which was meant to be sinister but struck me more as morose.

Did the movies suck? No. I certainly did not spend the two hours in the theater wishing I was elsewhere, but neither was I riveted and energized by the snail's pace of the story telling and the depressed, introverted characters.

Best line of the movie: "They can't drown two ghost writers. They're not kittens."

Best scene in the movie: the very. last. one. And honestly, that scene alone is worth watching the whole movie for because while I may have not felt excited or enthralled during the movie, I sure felt that way leaving. (because of the last scene, not because it was finally over, haha)

Basically, it was a movie with a lot of potential that someone just got lazy about. I would imagine that it is hard to write a good twisty, thrilling screenplay, and clearly the people involved in this film not only agreed, but found it unnecessary. It's too bad.

ps: this film is by Roman Polanski, so if you do want to see it, please try your best to do it for free. That depraved fugitive doesn't deserve a single red cent or glimmer of recognition as anything other than a criminal and pervert. Hollywood should be ashamed that they continue to work with him or recognize his work in anyway, but then they never have been too big on morality. As for me, I am embarrassed to say I paid $2 to see this movie in a theater. I can only hope that the theater owners get most of that rather than it contributing to a child molester's evasion of justice.

Book Club Book Four

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This was an interesting book. The story and the characters were so full of sadness hopelessness and isolation. Lonely in personal prisons of their own mistakes and pasts, and not interested in redemption or happiness. And yet the book itself I didn't find sad. The writing was so stylized and beautiful that it kept the reader at a distance from the characters - they were more like a beautiful picture full of sorrow that you might look upon with interest and detachment rather than friends you might suffer and grieve with.

This can serve as either a condemnation or recommendation of the book, I suppose, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, I don't feel like it is generally a good idea to keep the reader at a distance from the characters and story of a book because it doesn't serve to keep them interested and motivated to see it through to the finish. On the other hand, in this instance I think if you truly empathized with the people in this book you would be too depressed to finish the book - these characters have given up on themselves in so many ways.

I have a hard time deciding what I want to say about this book - the writing is so elegant and lovely; the story so dark and somewhat uneventful. I think if the writing hadn't been so enchanting, the characters so damaged that I kept hoping for some happiness for them, I would have been bored to tears and unable to finish. As it was I breezed through with my hope for their hopelessness and the rhythm of the words.


Up Next: Nada. The book club has been canceled due to only 4 people showing up (2 of whom hadn't even read the book). So I guess I'll just try to review anything I read that is worthy of it - which won't be much since I revel in the quick, trashy read. Have any suggestions or books you'd like to see me review - send 'em to practicalpablum at gmail dot com.