Reviews and More

After a week off because of the baseball playoffs, House was back with an all-new episode last night. It was called “Mirror Mirror” and brought us the usual House formula — with a bit of a twist. Since I’m already late in getting this recap posted, let’s just get right down to the details. Here’s what happened in episode 4×05.

Patient of the Week: The show opens with two teenagers hanging out in an alley looking for someone to rob. They soon spot a promising candidate, but when they move in on him and take his money, the guy begins coughing like crazy. One of the teens gets worried enough to call an ambulance, which brings the vic to PPTH.

At PPTH, the competition for the three fellowship positions is still going on, with six candidates remaining. So once again, the bulk of the action revolves around watching the job candidates struggle to come up with the correct diagnosis in time to save the patient.

In the search for clues, House realizes that the patient, Robert Elliot, has Mirror Syndrome, which makes him mimic the personality of the most dominant person in the room. This leads to a series of scenes that give us some instant insight on a few of the regular players, as well as the candidates.

For instance, in an operating room that includes House and Wilson, Robert acts like Wilson, showing us that he’s actually the dominant personality in the friendship. We also learn that Grumpy (the Doctors Without Borders Guy) is there just because he’s bored; Kutner always needs to have something new going on, and that 13 is really a lot more scared than she lets on.

After a bunch of failed tests and treatments, House is finally able to figure out what’s wrong with Robert, thanks to his idea of pretending to be the patient in order to get him to talk about himself. It turns out that Robert was a salesman who regularly visited farms and regularly came into contact with pig feces. He contracted some kind of virus that way, but it’s fully treatable, so he’ll be fine.

Character Interactions: Foreman was back in almost-full capacity this week at PPTH. At first House objected, especially when Cuddy told him that Foreman was basically going to shadow House and be her “eyes and ears.” Of course, no one, not even Cuddy, has any real power over House, so he completely disregarded her. In addition, he told his candidates that if they want to continue to be in the running, they’ll pretend like the Foreman thing never even happened.

House and Foreman lock horns a few times early in the ep, but by the end, they come to some sort of understanding. Foreman has changed enough to be able to deal with House now, despite the fact that House hasn’t changed at all and still won’t be listening to anybody else.

On a side note, we see Chase running a betting pool on which candidate will be fired next. It seems like half of the hospital staff is in on the action, and they all show up at the lecture hall for the big announcement. That’s when House says that all the candidates sucked equally this week, so he’s not firing anybody. Chase wins the bet, and we then learn that he and House rigged the whole thing and will share the profits 50-50.

There were also some shenanigans between Cuddy and House, with Cuddy replacing House’s Vicodin with laxatives, and House threatening to replace her birth control pills with placebos.

My Reaction: I didn’t care too much for this episode. I’m really getting tired of having all these job candidates to keep track of and think the whole competition aspect of the show has already gotten old. Like I said two weeks ago, I just want House to pick his three people and be done with it so we can go back to the regular formula.

If I had to guess right now, I’d say that House ends up going with 13 and Kutner for sure, with the third spot being a tossup between Big Love and Cutthroat Bitch. It doesn’t seem like Grumpy will be around for the whole season and the other guy doesn’t really bring anything interesting to the table, so I think the four I listed are definitely the top contenders. We’ll see, I guess.

I thought I would hate Foreman’s return, especially since he was supposed to be watching over House — which, of course, is a storyline they tried in a previous season. But I found Foreman to be surprisingly tolerable (because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to control House at all), so maybe it won’t be so bad having him around again.

(Incidentally, I loved that scene where he stood up in the lecture hall and told the candidates that he hadn’t signed off on House’s latest treatment idea yet. Three out of the four people candidates just looked at him and continued walking out, while the fourth one flat-out told him that House is the only one they’re worried about listening to!)

I wonder what they’re going to do with Cuddy now that the writers have openly acknowledged that she has zero power over House. Even though she was never going to fire him in previous seasons, she still had ways of making his life miserable, like assigning him extra clinic duty or whatever. But even that doesn’t work now since all House does is send someone else to cover for him. So what is Cuddy’s purpose going to be? How can she keep House in check when he knows she won’t fire him?

Anyway, I didn’t like “Mirror Mirror” that much, but I’m hoping things improve as this very long, drawn-out job interview starts winding down. I heard the competition is supposed to last through episode 8, so just three more weeks!

Remember that Veronica Mars Season 3 DVD giveaway that I posted about last week? Well, the deadline was yesterday, so now it’s time to announce the winner. Molly C. of Boston, MA is the lucky fan who will receive the box set from contest sponsor M80.

Congrats to Molly, and thanks to everyone else for participating!

Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was the sixth of the season, which means we’re already a quarter of the way through. This one was called “I’m Not That Guy,” and focused on Marshall for a change. Even though I love Marshall and thought there were a couple of great moments in the ep, I felt it was a big letdown after last week’s effort. Here’s a closer look at what happened.

Marshall/Lily: Marshall has two job interviews: one with the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) and one with a major corporate firm. The NRDC position is Marshall’s dream job, as the whole reason he’s becoming a lawyer is to help save the Earth. But Lily convinces him to at least listen to the pitch from Jeff Coatsworth (played by John Cho), one of the higher-ups in the corporate firm.

Marshall does meet with Jeff, and is instantly seduced by the offer of a big salary, the promise of representing one client only, and the fact that Jeff knows Patrick Swayze. Marshall then wrestles with the idea of following his dream or becoming a “sellout”. In the end, he chooses to go with the money because that will mean a better future for the four children that he wants to have with Lily.

Speaking of Lily, we see that she was secretly hoping all along that Marshall would take the big money. It turns out that she has been racking up credit card debt for years now, and the only way she’ll be able to pay it off is if Marshall helps her.

Ted/Barney: Barney finds a porn film with the name Ted Mosby in the credits. He later looks the guy up on the Internet and finds that the actor lists the same hometown as the real Ted Mosby, Shaker Heights, OH.

Ted is bewildered by the whole thing, so he and Barney go to a porn convention where this doppleganger will be signing autographs. The guy ends up being someone that Ted saved from an ass-kicking when they were kids. He never forgot what Ted did for him, and took on Ted’s name as his stage name as sort of a tribute.

My Reaction: I didn’t like the Barney/Ted subplot at all, even though Barney had some good lines (as usual). I don’t know… I guess I just don’t find porn to be as amusing as other people do!

The Marshall plot started off well, but I got bored with that pretty quickly too. I did enjoy the Swayze wave and the NYC walk of shame, but thought the whole thing was little more than a B-plot and didn’t deserve to be the focus of the ep.

I liked that Lily has a secret shame — especially because I see that it will be addressed again in the next episode instead of dragging out across several weeks.

Again, nothing about Ted’s future wife. No yellow umbrella, no dating, nada. Maybe next time?

There was a made-for-TV movie called A Smoky Mountain Christmas that came out about 20 years ago. It starred Dolly Parton, John Ritter, and Lee Majors, and, from what I hear, was actually a pretty good movie. I don’t know that it would want to make people rush out to book Pigeon Forge cabin rentals for the holidays or anything like that, but the movie does have a 6.6 rating on IMDB, which is not bad at all.

Anyway, I am putting together my Christmas viewing lineup already and will add this to the list. I just need to get ahold of the DVD somehow (hopefully I can rent it), which might be a bit tough considering that this film was made-for-TV.

I’m in the mood for watching different things this year, so no It’s A Wonderful Life, Love Actually, Elf, A Christmas Story, or any of my other yuketide standards this time around. Time to broaden my holiday horizons!

Last night’s episode of Desperate Housewives was called “Art Isn’t Easy,” and mostly served to push a few of the main storylines ahead. We got a bit of progress with Danielle’s baby, Carlos and Gabby’s affair, and Katherine’s big mystery, but I still didn’t think there was enough substance to keep the episode from being boring. Here’s a closer look at what happened to our favorite Wisteria Lane inhabitants.

Lynette/Susan/Bob/Lee/Katherine: Bob and Lee put up a custom-made metal sculpture/water fountain thing in their yard. It’s supposed to be art, but everyone else in the neighborhood thinks it’s an eyesore. And when they turn the fountain on at 6am so that it makes an unbearable drumming noise as the water splashes on the metal, all bets are off as far as Susan and Mike are concerned. The thing is right outside their bedroom window and they can’t sleep with that racket.

So several neighbors, led by Katherine Mayfair, decide to revive the defunct Homeowners Association. Katherine thinks she’s going to run for president unopposed, but when Lynette learns that her children’s tree house could be the Association’s next target, she decides to toss her hat in the ring.

At the vote, Susan ends up being the one to break the tie and determine which woman becomes president. She votes for Katherine, as she thinks her husband’s needs should come before Lynette’s kids.

After Katherine wins, her first stop is Bob and Lee’s house, where she tells them to get rid of the fountain at their earliest convenience. That’s when Bob says that they have a friend in Chicago who knows what Katherine’s husband did at the hospital. If Katherine makes them get rid of the fountain, they’ll tell everyone her big secret. She walks away completely defeated.

Bree/Orson/Danielle/Phyllis: Bree is livid when she discovers that Phyllis took Danielle out of the convent. She and Orson go to Phyllis’ to talk to Danielle, who insists that she’s staying with her grandmother, and, since she’s turning 18 soon, there’s nothing Bree can do about it.

Later on (with a little help from Andrew), Bree and Orson decide that the best way to deal with Danielle is to bribe her. They promise that she can go to college in Miami and have a convertible to drive if she’ll just follow along with the original plan about passing the baby off as Bree’s. When faced with the choice of spending time either with Florida frat boys or 75-year-old men, Danielle packs her bags.

Gabby/Carlos: Victor’s away on business, so Gabby and Carlos plan on hooking up at a hotel. Before she can get away, however, Gabby notices some guy in a van that’s been parked on her street for hours. She figures it’s someone Victor hired to tail her in his absence, so she disguises herself as a boy and slips out of the house that way.

While at the hotel, she runs into John the gardener. He’s there with his pregnant wife, and he’s pretty miserable. In fact, he wants to get back together with Gabby, but she wants nothing to do with him this time. Carlos overhears this discussion and has a change of heart about the whole affair. He thinks they should stop sneaking around, break up with their significant others, wait a respectable amount of time, and then get back together again.

Gabby reluctantly agrees with the plan, but wants one last kiss before they part. As they lock lips, the guy in the van outside starts snapping away with a camera. It turns out he’s working for Edie, and now she has indisputable proof of the affair.

My Reaction: While I thought this episode was an improvement over last week, it wasn’t entertaining enough to capture my full attention while I was watching it. I kept glancing at the clock wondering when it would be over, and wasn’t all that interested in seeing how any of the storylines unfolded.

I thought the whole Homeowners Association plot was a snooze, despite the fact that it gave rise to some funny one-liners. It seemed like that was a pretty elaborate setup just to reveal the fact that Bob and Lee are in on Katherine’s secret. I felt like there should have been a bigger payoff since almost half of the episode was devoted to that story.

Oh, and let me just go on record as saying that I can’t stand Lee. His meanness and pettiness bug me to no end. He’s not even one of those characters that I “love to hate.” He’s just annoying and adds nothing to the show. Hopefully Bob will break up with him and get a different partner soon. Ugh. (On the bright side, at least they’re not shy about blackmailing others. They fit right in already!)

I wonder what Edie is going to do with those photos of Carlos and Gabby. She’s already proven how pathetic she is, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see her try to use them to get Carlos to marry her ASAP. Why anyone would want to be with a man they have to coerce into marriage is beyond me, but like I said, we’ve already seen how pathetic she is where Carlos is concerned.

Anyway, not that great of an episode this week. I allowed myself to watch the promos for the next ep, and that one looks a lot better. At least we’ll get a resolution to the stupid fake pregnancy thing!

A couple months ago I was sent some samples of a product called Gloves in a Bottle. This is a shielding lotion that, according to the product description, bonds with the outer layer of skin in order to “keep the bad stuff out and the good stuff in.” Gloves in a Bottle is supposed to work well on dry, cracked skin, as well as on tougher ailments such as eczema and psoriasis, so I was excited to try it out — particularly with the colder weather coming on.

The lotion is very light and gets absorbed instantly without leaving a greasy residue. I usually hate the feeling of lotion on my hands precisely because of the residue that most of the cheap products leave behind, so I was glad to see that Gloves in a Bottle was different.

My hands felt smoother and softer after the very first application, and after several weeks of use, I noticed a definite improvement in their overall appearance. Specifically, I had fewer problems with my cuticles and no longer had cracked skin in the areas between my fingers, so it really worked for me.

The best part of using Gloves in a Bottle, in my opinion, is the fact that the lotion doesn’t wash off. As someone who washes my hands quite frequently throughout the day (because of dogs, kids, and, yes, a bit of OCD!), I appreciate not having to worry about reapplying my lotion each time I wash up. I just use a tiny bit of Gloves in a Bottle every four hours, and I’m all set.

I don’t expect you to just take my word for it about the effectiveness of Gloves in a Bottle, so go read some doctor testimonials on the official website and try the product for yourself!

I think I’m one of the few people out there who felt bad for Ben Affleck when he was going through that two- to three-year period where it seemed that every single move he made was bad for his career. From dating Jennifer Lopez to churning out box office bombs like Surviving Christmas, Gigli, Paycheck, and Jersey Girl, Affleck went from Oscar-winning golden boy to tabloid fodder in record time.

But in the past couple of years, he’s chosen to stay out of the limelight as much as possible. He has only appeared in a few films, has been spending time with his family, and, more importantly, has decided to get behind the camera for a change. Gone Baby Gone represents Affleck’s directorial debut, and the positive critical response to the film made me want to see this in theaters. I did, and wasn’t disappointed.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Four-year-old Amanda McCready (played by Madeline O’Brien) was apparently abducted from her Boston home one night. Her mother Helene (Amy Ryan) and her aunt Beatrice (Amy Madigan) make impassioned pleas through the media for Amanda’s safe return. The cops assigned to the case are getting nowhere in their questioning of the neighborhood residents, so Beatrice and her husband Lionel (Titus Welliver) turn to private detectives instead.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his girlfriend/investigative partner Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are from the neighborhood and should be able to get answers out of the people who are refusing to talk to cops. As official representatives of the family, Kenzie and Gennaro are entitled to get details of the investigation that aren’t readily available to the general public. After reminding police chief Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) of this right, Kenzie and Gennaro are promised the full cooperation of lead detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton).

During the course of the investigation Kenzie and Gennaro learn some disturbing things about Helene McCready. Far from being a caring mother, she’s little more than a cokehead and drug mule who often left Amanda home alone at night so she could go to the corner bar to hook up with her boyfriend Skinny Ray. Moreover, it turns out that Helene and Skinny Ray had recently stolen $130,000 from the drug dealer they made deliveries for, a guy named Cheese (Edi Gathegi).

Helene confesses about the money and tells the detectives where she hid it. After making their way to the spot, they find that Skinny Ray has been brutally tortured and murdered — likely by one of Cheese’s minions out looking for the dough. The detectives recover the hidden stash, and then set up a middle-of-the-night meeting to exchange the money for the little girl.

But all hell breaks loose during the exchange, and things don’t go as planned. From there, the storyline takes several surprising twists and turns while showing us what really happened to Amanda (and why) before wrapping things up with a thought-provoking conclusion.

My Reaction: I thought this was an incredibly well done film, and shows that Ben Affleck has an amazing amount of promise as a director. True, he didn’t take any chances or try anything innovative in Gone Baby Gone, but he did display a knack for being able to set a convincing scene and populate it with real people. “Gritty” is an adjective that has appeared over and over again in other reviews of this movie, and that’s really the right word for it. This is not a visually appealing film; it gets down and dirty — where it belongs.

I also liked the choice of Casey Affleck in the lead role of Patrick Kenzie. Sure, he doesn’t have the screen presence of big-name stars, but I think that’s precisely why he worked out so well. Patrick Kenzie was an everyman, not a hero. He was just a regular guy who didn’t know what he was getting into when he agreed to help with the Amanda McCready investigation. As such, the audience gave him a lot of leeway: he was allowed to be scared, allowed to make mistakes, and allowed to second-guess his actions — things you don’t expect a hero to do.

There were lots of twists in this film, none of which I could have ever predicted since I hadn’t read the Dennis Lehane novel beforehand. I welcome these types of surprises that keep me guessing, as long as they are logical and fit in with the story as a whole. The ones in Gone Baby Gone definitely adhered to those guidelines, so I was pleased with that aspect as well.

And finally, what a question to leave the audience with. Was Amanda better off with a mother that barely paid any attention to her or would she have been better off with the Doyles? Everyone was talking about that as they exited the theater, which was pretty cool. It was definitely a tough call, but for the record, I think Patrick made the right one.

Overall, I thought Gone Baby Gone was a very good film that actually deserves all the critical acclaim it has received thus far. I give it 7.5 stars out of 10 and recommend that you watch it!

I caught a couple of scenes from the 1995 movie Casino earlier today. It had been forever since I’d last seen that movie, so I totally forgot a bunch of the details. For example, I didn’t realize that there was a character named Tony Spilotro in the film. Was that based on the real-life Chicago mobster of the same name who lived in my hometown of Oak Park for a time?

Also, I noticed that the casino name in the movie was the Tangiers — the same name used by the TV show CSI for the casino/hotel where a bunch of crimes take place. I guess it’s much safer not to use real Las Vegas hotels as settings for all that murder and mayhem!

I didn’t like Casino when it first came out in ‘95, and I still wasn’t very interested in it when it was on in the background today. Maybe if a director other than Scorsese had handled the material I would have appreciated it more!

I’m trying to get back into doing more movie reviews despite this being the height of my television viewing season. Towards that end, I went out to the theater to see not one, but two new releases over the last couple of days, with the critically-acclaimed Michael Clayton being one of them. From what I’d read of this movie beforehand, I expected to be treated to a tense, intelligent corporate thriller from first-time director Tony Gilroy. But while the film seemed headed in that direction, it never quite made it there, as far as I was concerned.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): George Clooney stars as Michael Clayton, a one-time prosecutor who for the past 17 years has had a far murkier job description (that of “fixer”) at the powerful law firm Kenner, Bach & Ledeen. It’s his duty to clean up any big messes that the firm’s clients, or, occasionally, the firm’s lawyers, leave behind.

In the opening scenes of the movie, we witness Clayton in action. He’s the guy who gets the 2am phone call telling him to go take care of a client involved in a hit-and-run. He’s also the guy who’s sent to Milwaukee when a high-ranking attorney, Arthur Edens (played by Tom Wilkinson) suffers a complete meltdown during an important deposition, suddenly deciding to strip naked and run through the parking lot.

It turns out that the Edens problem is bigger than it first appears. That’s because Edens is lead counsel in defending one of the firm’s largest clients against a multi-billion dollar class-action suit, and the case is finally on the brink of being resolved after several years of continuances, discovery, changes of venue, and other legal red tape.

When Clayton steps in to try to handle Edens, he learns that the man has developed feelings for one of the plaintiffs in the class-action suit and has probably been leaking sensitive information and/or documents to her side. News of Edens’ indiscretion reaches both Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack), one of the firm’s named partners, and Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), the client’s in-house counsel.

From there, things get even more complicated as each of the major players works to achieve his or her ends. Bach wants to sweep the Edens mess under the rug so the client doesn’t sue for incompetent representation and so that a merger with a London firm can go through. Crowder wants to settle the case favorably so she can keep her job. And Michael just wants to put in a day’s work so he can earn $75,000 to pay off his debts.

The film wraps up pretty much as you’d expect it to, with Michael Clayton coming out ahead in the game. There weren’t many surprises along the way, but the conclusion was satisfactory given the preceding events.

My Reaction: While watching Michael Clayton, I got the feeling that I was seeing a good film, but not a great one. While the dialog and performances by the four main characters were excellent, I felt the story was a bit weak in some places. The setup in the first hour dragged on, and the payoff wasn’t as big as I thought it would be (a hidden cell phone to capture the confession? Really?).

I was also expecting there to be a few more twists and unexpected events along the way. Usually whenever critics proclaim a thriller to be “smart,” they mean that the screenwriter throws a few curveballs that catch us completely off guard. That didn’t happen in Michael Clayton. I’m not saying the film was entirely predictable; it just wasn’t surprising in any way either.

That being said, I appreciated the fact that the story was clear enough to follow without needing to have every little detail spelled out. I think as a moviegoer you’ll agree that there’s nothing worse than being 45 minutes into a film and not having a clue what’s unfolding on screen (*cough* Syriana *cough*).

Overall, I thought Michael Clayton didn’t quite live up to all the high praise and Oscar buzz surrounding its release. Yes, it’s an engrossing story with interesting characters. But as far as corporate legal thrillers go, I had the feeling that I’d seen all these people and situations before, which is why I’m giving the movie just 6.5 stars out of 10.

I was doing some fact-checking for some old movies earlier this morning when I got sidetracked reading about Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. Besides the usual gossip, rumors, and speculation about their private lives, I discovered that each one has a Mont Blanc limited edition pen dedicated to them. How cool is that? I have never heard of another movie star who can make the same claim, but if I’m wrong, please correct me.

These are some very nice looking pens too. If there was some way I could justify spending a couple hundred bucks on a writing instrument, I wouldn’t mind trying one of these things out for myself!