Has it really been more than a month since I posted my thoughts on Season 2 episodes of The O.C.? I guess so! I’ve been so busy trying to get through regular movies as well as all the DVD box sets that I’ve purchased recently that I sometimes forget about the shows I had queued up. See, once I finish watching something, I write it down on my To Be Reviewed list, which I keep on my desk. Unfortunately, because of the sheer number of items on the list, it’s impossible for me to keep up with everything in a timely manner. But enough of these excuses; lets get back to Seth, Ryan, Summer, and the rest of the Newport gang!
As usual, since The O.C. isn’t even on the air anymore, this post isn’t going to contain standard recaps of each ep. Instead, I’m just going to list a few thoughts that occurred to me while watching this block of episodes, which included “The SnO.C.,” “”The Chrismukkah That Almost Wasn’t,” “The Family Ties,” and “The Power of Love.”
– This is completely random, but I was watching bits of the series pilot again and saw that they had Ryan smoking while he was waiting outside the Cohen house while Sandy tried to convince Kirsten to let him in. Do you remember that? Well, the writers never addressed his smoking habit again! It was like, one minute he was a cigarette-smoking bad boy (yeah, there’s an original image) and the next he was a clean-cut Cohen all the way around. Ha!
– I don’t get why Caleb was so reluctant to admit the true nature of his involvement with Lindsay’s mom. He would rather have gone to jail than say he had an illegitimate daughter? Caleb said one reason for his silence was that he didn’t want to hurt Kirsten. Give me a break! She’s an adult, not a child. That whole thing didn’t make sense to me, especially since the revelation didn’t turn out to have the earth-shattering effects that Caleb thought it would.
– Ryan and Lindsay are a MUCH better couple than Ryan and Marisa ever were. I know that’s not how a majority of O.C. fans felt, but I can’t help it. Lindsay might be boring and bland, but at least she doesn’t freak out over every little obstacle life tosses her way.
– Marisa, on the other hand, continues to annoy with her incessant “angry teen” act. She comes off as more of a spoiled brat than anything else, and it makes me feel sorry for Julie Cooper — which I don’t think is what the writers intended. She is so tiresome that I usually end up fast forwarding through her scenes now.
– Seth’s whole “bad boy” routine to try to impress Alex was just dumb. A year ago, before Ryan arrived, Seth was a totally anonymous loser who didn’t have any friends at all. Now I guess he’s cool by association because he’s had three hot girlfriends in a row (Anna, Summer, and now Alex). Don’t get me wrong, Seth is my favorite character on the show, but even I feel this is stretching things quite a bit.
– Yes, I did say that Alex is hot, which is a 180-degree turn from what I felt the last time I posted about The O.C. But she fixed her hair between then and now, which made all the difference in the world. I can’t see past bad hair and couldn’t tell that Alex actually looked decent under those bangs and purple highlights. Now I know and I stand corrected.
– The double-date setup between Alex & Ryan and Seth & Lindsay was comical. Can you say awkward?? Yikes.
– I’m really surprised that Zach hasn’t started bothering me yet. I totally want Summer to get back together with Seth ASAP, so usually this would be the point where the fill-in significant others begin grating on my nerves. But Zach seems to be a keeper — especially when he hauled off and punched Seth outside the SnO.C. dance. That move was a long time coming, and Seth totally deserved it.
– What’s up with Sandy forgetting his 20th anniversary? That was way out of character and seems to spell trouble for the once-idyllic Cohen marriage.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for this block of eps. I promise my next O.C. post won’t be a month in the making!
I’m a big fan of Thomas Hardy’s novels, so I’m not sure how I could have missed the film Jude, which came out in 1996. I’d never even heard of this Michael Winterbottom film adaptation of Jude the Obscure until a few weeks ago when I was looking up some of Kate Winslet’s older work. I immediately added the title to my movie queue and finally got to it a couple days ago. Really, I shouldn’t have bothered.
I grabbed the Fifth Season of Friends from my brother last week and have been watching those shows for the past couple of days. I haven’t really watched any Friends episodes in syndication since the series went off the air a few years ago, so it’s been nice to check in with the gang. I’m surprised at how well this show has held up over time. Most of the stuff is still funny all these years later… in fact, I think Friends and Seinfeld are the only sitcoms I can watch over and over again like this.
The 2006 independent film Half Nelson is not the kind of thing that I would ordinarily go out of my way to see, which is probably why I’ve waited so long to watch it. But there was just so much buzz about Ryan Gosling’s performance as a drug-addicted school teacher that I finally broke down and decided to rent it last weekend. Unfortunately, like most movies that generate a lot of media attention, Half Nelson failed to live up to the hype — at least in my opinion.
I’m not really big on “chick flicks” (despite being a woman), but every once in a while, I’ll break down and watch a few. Last weekend was one of those times, and I ended up watching the 1999 film Anywhere But Here starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman. I generally like Sarandon’s work (as long as I remember to overlook her political views) and I’d seen Portman in a couple of things before, so I figured I’d enjoy this movie. How wrong I was!
I can’t call myself a Wesley Snipes fan, but I have enjoyed several of his movies over the years, including Major League, White Men Can’t Jump, New Jack City, and Mo’ Better Blues. Heck, even Passenger 57 was an okay action movie for something made 15 years ago. I haven’t been paying much attention to Snipes’ career recently, but I just took a peek at his IMDB.com page and saw that almost all of his recent movies are straight-to-video (or DVD, I guess) efforts, including 2005’s The Marksman (which I didn’t know was STV before I rented it). What happened to Snipes? What did he do to piss off the powers that be in Hollywood?
I’d heard so many good things about author Michael Connelly that I spent most of the summer listening to several of his audiobooks, hoping that I would discover the intriguing stories that his fans credit him with. Unfortunately, while I’ve found his works to be somewhat interesting, I don’t like the way he writes his main characters. I don’t sympathize with them, don’t root for them, and don’t want them to win. As a result, his books are a chore for me to get through, so I’m admitting defeat. Having just finished The Poet, I’m giving up on Connelly for now. I’m just not his target audience.
Last night’s episode of Entourage was called No Cannes Do, and it seemed like not a whole lot happened in the 30 minutes. I was hoping for something more, especially since there’s only one episode left before the traditional mid-season hiatus, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. At any rate, the recap is going to be short and sweet today, so let’s get right to it.
I read an article a while ago about what the real-life salaries of some top TV characters would be. It was pretty interesting, and I wish I would have bookmarked it at the time because I’ve wanted to double-check some things.
When I was growing up, two of my favorite books were Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller. I still revisit those books from time to time, and they still make me cry, even though I know exactly what’s going to happen to the dogs at the end. My love for dog stories extends to the silver screen, so I’m usually willing to watch any film that tells of the relationship between a child and a canine companion — which is why I rented 2005’s Because of Winn-Dixie earlier in the week.
The Upside of Anger is a 2005 film starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner. Having just seen — and enjoyed — more recent works from these actors (The Bourne Ultimatum and Mr. Brooks, respectively), I thought it would be fun to check out their earlier collaborative project. I wasn’t disappointed, as The Upside of Anger ended up being a good film that I ordinarily wouldn’t have bothered with.
I debated almost all summer long about whether I should go see Ocean’s Thirteen at the theater or just wait for it to come out on DVD. I liked Ocean’s Eleven, but thought Ocean’s Twelve was pretty bad, so that’s the reason I was torn about Thirteen. In the end, I decided that waiting until Ocean’s Thirteen hit the bargain theater seemed like a good compromise. Tickets over there are just slightly more expensive than renting a new release DVD, so I’d still be able to see the film on the big screen, but I wouldn’t feel as ripped off if it turned out to be bad. It turns out that I was satisfied with what I saw, but didn’t think I missed out by waiting this long.
Now that I’ve finished Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, I’m one step closer to my goal of reading every Agatha Christie mystery novel in order. Published in the U.S. in 1939, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas was Christie’s 24th novel. This was the 17th novel that featured Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, which strikes me as a bit odd. I know Poirot is the character most associated with Christie’s books, but I had always been under the impression that she basically had a whole stable of detectives that she relied on (Tommy and Tuppence, Miss Marple, Harley Quin, Parker Pyne, etc.). Maybe these other characters star in her short stories; I don’t know. At any rate, here’s my review of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas.