Reviews and More

Monday night’s episode of 24 was number 6×20, so we’re coming close to the end of the season here. The “action” (I use that term loosely today) took place between 1:00AM and 2:00AM and covered CTU’s lame efforts to try to track down Cheng. There was also a bit of drama over at the White House, with the usual late-season twist. Here’s a closer look at what happened during this hour.

CTU: Doyle brings Jack and Audrey back to CTU (separately). Audrey is taken to medical where she awaits examination and questioning from a Division-appointed shrink. Jack is taken to a holding cell where he begs Doyle to let him in to see Audrey.

When the shrink gets to Audrey, he can immediately see that she is non-responsive and that her body shows signs of hundreds of injections. This means the Chinese used drugs to torture her and try to get her to talk. The shrink believes the only way to get Audrey talking again right now is to inject her with even more drugs. Of course, one possible side effect is death, so….

Doyle objects to this course of action, and tries to convince Nadia to do the same. Nadia makes a half-hearted plea with the shrink, but he says he outranks her, so she drops it. Doyle then takes matters into his own hands by going into the holding cell to apprise Jack of what’s happening, then letting Jack “overpower” him, escape, and rescue Audrey.

Jack does this and drags Audrey down to a room on the lower level. He disables the keypad on the door lock so they’ll be able to talk for a while. Audrey is pretty much unresponsive to Jack as well, though at one point she seems to squeeze his hand in recognition. She doesn’t say anything about Cheng, however, until Nadia and a team of agents come crashing through the door. That’s when Audrey pipes up with “Bloomfield,” which may or may not be a location where Cheng was holding her.

Jack is escorted back to his cell where he gets a surprise visit from James Heller, Audrey’s father. Instead of gratitude or anything approaching kindness, Heller tells Jack to stay away from Audrey for good. Everyone Jack touches ends up dead, and Heller doesn’t want that for his daughter.

White House: We get more skeevy Daniels and Lisa scenes full of innuendo about their relationship. Then Daniels sends Lisa home to get a change of clothes or something. When she arrives at her apartment, there’s (predictably) a man waiting there. His name is Mark Bishop, and he’s apparently an intimate acquaintane. At any rate, the two soon fall into bed together, then Lisa jumps into the shower to get ready to go back to the White House. While she’s in there, Bishop downloads some stuff from her PDA and then makes a phone call saying he has the data.

Meanwhile, the Russian President calls Daniels and tells him he knows the Chinese have the circuit board. If the Americans don’t get it back soon, he warns, Russia will have no choice but to attack a U.S. Army base (in Asia, I think??) in retaliation. Daniels says they’re working on it.

Everyone wonders how Suvarov could have gotten that information so quickly. Tom Lennox says there’s a leak in the White House, and later on it’s established that Lisa is the one. Daniels confronts Lisa and tells her that she better cooperate — or else.

My Reaction: It seemed like a whole lot of nothing happened in this episode. We got two seconds of Cheng racing away in his Hummer, followed by another guy testing the circuit board only to realize that it’s been damaged. Then it took half the episode to get Audrey to say one damn word, and another 20 minutes to establish that Lisa was the one giving up information. BORING!!! I’m just about ready for this season to end….

Even though I work from home, my days are still jam-packed with activities. I usually wake up between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m., and then it’s right to the computer to check emails and start writing. Later on, I try to get some networking done (by visiting other blogs), take care of administrative tasks, watch movies and TV shows for this website, and of course tend to my family’s needs all day long. The only oasis in my hectic schedule is the two-hour break that I allow myself for lunch, during which time I flop on the couch with a big stack of my favorite magazines.

I have to confess that celebrity and gossip magazines like People, Us Weekly, Hello!, and Star are right at the top of my reading list. Reading all that Hollywood gossip has been a guilty pleasure of mine for years, and is my favorite way to unwind in the middle of my busy days. I also love ESPN the Magazine, Racer X Illustrated, and Motocross Illustrated (MXi).

The best part of my whole magazine obsession is that I found a website that offers dirt-cheap subscriptions to all of the titles I listed above. In most cases, we’re talking less than $20 for a whole year — and I always get the magazines on time and in great condition. That sure is better than shelling out $3, $4, or $5 for every single issue, so I can’t imagine why anyone would stick to buying magazines from the newsstand. If you want my advice, I say subscribe, subscribe, subscribe!!

It’s not often that I go to the theater to see movies. I much prefer waiting for the DVD release so I can watch the film on my own terms: start it when I want, take breaks when I want, re-watch certain parts, etc. In other words, it usually takes a pretty compelling movie to goad me into paying $10 for a ticket. I felt that the first big blockbuster of the summer season, Spider-Man 3 (with its monstrous $258 million budget) would be a good candidate.

Before getting to my review in earnest, I’d like to point out that I am not familiar with the comic books at all. I’ve never read a Spider-Man comic in my life, so there’s a lot of backstory that I’m unaware of. Nevertheless, I think the films are made so that the average fan can enjoy them even without having read Stan Lee’s works. That being said, let’s get on to my review.

Spider-Man 3 more or less picks up where the second film left off, and then goes in a completely different direction. So we begin with Peter (played, of course, by Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) completely in love with one another. Mary Jane knows Peter’s identity as Spider-Man, and she’s willing to accept it. Peter, back in school now, is ready to propose to Mary Jane, and gets Aunt May’s blessing (as well as her wedding ring).

Peter is also still feuding with one-time friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) because Harry is under the impression that Peter killed his father, the Green Goblin. Harry has been tinkering in his father’s lab, and has succeeded in turning himself into a new version of the Goblin. He flies around on what looks to be a snowboard, but instead of wreaking havoc on New York City in general, he targets Peter/Spidey in particular.

The first part of the movie shows Peter dealing with these two people, and we also get a glimpse of what’s to come in the second half. Flint Marko, the robber who shot Uncle Ben, escapes from prison, and while running from the police, gets trapped in some kind of molecular disintegrator that causes him to turn into the Sandman. As Sandman, Marko causes all kinds of destruction around the city, so of course we need Spider-Man to come to the rescue.

The second half of the film also brings us to the point where Spider-Man gets that sleek black outfit that has been featured in all the previews. Spidey’s costume turns black when a “symbiote” from a meteor lands on earth and binds itself to Spider-Man. This substance enhances Spidey’s powers, but also causes him to be more aggressive. In addition, the symbiote will give rise to a new enemy when Eddie Brock turns into Venom.

It seems like there’s a lot going on in this film, and there is. But with a running time of 2 hours, 20 minute, director Sam Raimi is able to wrap everything up before the credits roll. The story is easy to follow, and makes as much sense as these comic book movies can make.

My Reaction: I enjoyed Spider-Man 3, but not as much as the previous two films. The FX were much more advanced in this latest version, so the whole thing looked slick and very cool. But I thought the story was a bit lacking, and the ending dragged on far too long.

Furthermore, I felt that there were a couple of scenes that could have been edited out entirely without detracting from the work as a whole. For instance, I thought it was funny when Peter started dressing in black and was walking down the street like he was the coolest guy ever while everyone just stared and rolled their eyes at him. But I thought it was too much when this act carried over to that date scene in Mary Jane’s nightclub (where Peter danced all over the room). I thought that part was boring and had passed the point of being funny a long time ago.

Also, I didn’t get a feel for what the villains were after. Sandman wanted money to treat his sick daughter? Okaaay… so why didn’t he just smash his way into a bank in the middle of the night and get it? Why do stuff during the day when all of NYC is out and about? And what did Venom want? Just revenge on Parker? Meh. It’s much more interesting when the villain is after world domination!

Overall, I give Spider-Man 3 7.0 stars out of 10. It’s not as good as the previous two installments, but it’s still worth the price of admission!