Hi folks! Sorry I’m a couple hours late in posting the winner of the Burn Notice Giveaway, but I wasn’t able to get online before this.
The lucky name plucked at random from all the entrants was Mary J. of Clarksdale, MS!! Your very cool prize pack will be in the mail soon.
Thanks to all who entered, and please keep checking back for more great giveaways in the near future!
I’m not much of a Sunday morning news watcher, preferring instead to catch up on my reading or take in some NFL pregame shows during the football season. So, as surprising as it may sound, I never saw a single episode of Meet the Press hosted by Tim Russert, and barely even knew who the man was prior to his sudden passing on June 13 of this year.
The amount of press coverage devoted to Russert’s death and the number of tributes from the most powerful people in Washington made me more interested in his life, and when I saw Matt Lauer’s interview with son Luke Russert, that sealed the deal for me. Russert seemed like a fascinating character, so I decided to read Big Russ & Me, his 2004 homage to lessons learned from his father. I was not disappointed.
Summary: Big Russ & Me by Tim Russert is part autobiography, part tribute to his father, also named Tim Russert. The author opens by describing his father’s World War II experiences, which he believes were fundamental in shaping the elder Russert’s morals, values, and work ethic. The elder Russert became a man who worked two jobs all his life in order to support his family and give them what they needed — something that his son never forgot.
The author then spends several chapters talking about what it was like growing up in South Buffalo in the 1960s, attending Catholic school, and eventually putting himself through college and law school. Russert describes a simpler time when kids played outside all day long, when families ate dinner together, when going to someplace like McDonald’s was a treat, and when teachers were respected. Russert’s tales of his school days were particularly interesting, as he showed that hard work and sheer determination account for about 95% of a person’s ultimate success in life.
Russert then turns his attention to his work career, talking about how he began working for local politicians in Buffalo before catching on with Daniel Patrick Moynihan as a staffer on Moynihan’s first Senate election campaign. That ended up being the job that changed Russert’s life forever, as he developed the right contacts and made a name for himself in Washington, D.C.
Through it all, Big Russ was there to offer sound advice and fatherly encouragement, for which Tim was very grateful — a sentiment the author expressed consistently throughout the book.
My Reaction: In looking back at Big Russ & Me, I found the most interesting parts of the book to be about Tim’s school and work careers, which is a good thing since those topics take up a bulk of the pages. In fact, despite the title of the book, Big Russ remained a shadowy figure for the most part. Sure, there were the introductory chapters about his Army career, but beyond that I learned very little about the man. He worked in the Sanitation Department and drove a delivery truck. He liked baseball and football. He helped Tim buy his first new car. That’s about all I figured out from the pages.
I learned a great deal about Tim Russert, however, which is really why I read this book to begin with. I think Russert’s story is an amazing one, especially since it’s not a cookie cutter tale of someone making it big in D.C. I loved the fact that Russert put himself through college and law school, and that he didn’t go to Ivy League or otherwise notable schools. I get tired of seeing every powerful person in Washington sporting the exact same résumé, so reading of Russert’s ascent was quite refreshing.
Overall, I thought Big Russ & Me was a fairly good read. It’s more about Tim Jr. than his father or about their relationship, but it could hardly have been very interesting otherwise. It’s a nice, easy book to get through, not overly long and with just a couple of boring parts. I recommend it!
What if the compulsory military draft were reinstated in America? How would today’s young men react to something that hasn’t been used since 1973?
These are the questions that screenwriter Robert Malkani poses in the 2007 film Day Zero, and you’d think that an exploration of these issues would be interesting to watch. Unfortunately, the film flounders in the hands of director Bryan Gunnar Cole, leaving viewers with characters that are little more than clichés and events that hardly seem plausible.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): It’s an unspecified year in the near future, and America’s War on Terror is going nowhere. The all-volunteer military system isn’t giving the government the number of soldiers required to sustain the war, so compulsory conscription — the draft — is reinstated. This time around, the upper age limit is 35 rather than 25, thereby making millions more eligible for service.
The film focuses on a group of three New York City friends who each react differently to the draft notices they receive. Writer Aaron Feller (played by Elijah Wood) is scared to death of the thought of going to war because he worries that he won’t be able to acquit himself well as a soldier. He’s neither strong nor brave, and fears that he would simply freeze up in battle.
James Dixon (Jon Bernthal) is a cab driver who is actually looking forward to serving his country. He believes in the war, believes that he would be helping to eradicate terrorists, and wouldn’t dream of abandoning his country in this time of need.
George Rifkin (Chris Klein) is an up-and-coming attorney whose life is just now starting to come together. His wife is recovering from a recent round of chemotherapy, and Chris wants to spend as much time as possible with her. He also wants to stay at his law firm, where he believes he’ll be moving up to bigger and better things soon.
The film focuses on how each of these men deal with their own feelings about the draft and how they prepare to report in 30 days. Each reaction is vastly different, but they all take solace in their mutual friendships at some point and reach out for support in different ways.
My Reaction: As I said above, I thought the basic premise of Day Zero was actually pretty interesting, and I was looking forward to how the filmmakers would explore the different themes. However, because of the poorly written characters, viewers didn’t have an opportunity to connect with any of them, making it nearly impossible to care how they decided to address their futures.
I thought the Aaron Feller character was the least believable of all, from the moment he first appeared on screen. Would a man in his late twenties actually throw up after receiving a draft notice? That reaction just seemed so out of place to me. Sitting and brooding? Sure. Throwing things in anger? Of course. Crying? Perhaps. But crawling to the toilet to vomit? For some reason, that took me right out of the movie, and I never quite got back in.
And why is it that Aaron’s friends couldn’t see that the guy was going bat-shit crazy right in front of their eyes? If nothing else, the shaved head and the freakin’ neck/skull tattoos should have clued Dixon and George in about Aaron being off kilter. Yet all they do is make one or two throwaway comments about whether or not Aaron is ok, and then focus on themselves again. Nice friends.
I thought George’s reaction was the most believable. I could definitely see a guy like that doing everything in his power to get out of reporting — even going so far as to try to chop off his own finger with a meat cleaver. Yikes, I admit I had to turn my head away in that scene, as I really thought he was going to do it!
Overall, Day Zero ended up being more tedious than not because I simply couldn’t identify or sympathize with any of the lead characters. I give the film 2 stars out of 5, and am disappointed with the result as I thought this had the potential to be so much more.
I have to admit that I was never much of a Will Ferrell fan back during his Saturday Night Live days or his early starring roles in such stinkers as A Night at the Roxbury or Superstar. But over the years, he’s kind of grown on me, especially when he takes on different projects (Stranger Than Fiction) or plays a character that’s not completely obnoxious from the beginning of the film to the end.
So while I still don’t venture out to the theater to see Ferrell’s movies when they’re initially released, I do eventually check them out on DVD — which is why I ended up renting Semi-Pro last weekend. Too bad this flick turned out to be a highly predictable affair with few laughs or redeeming qualities along the way.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Set in the 1970s, Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon, a wannabe playboy who scored big with a #1 single (called “Love Me Sexy”) and used the profits from the song to by an ABA basketball franchise in Flint, MI called the Tropics. Jackie then stays on as owner, coach, promoter, and player.
At a league-wide owners meeting one day, Jackie learns that the ABA will soon be a thing of the past, as the ABA’s small markets can’t compete with the fan base of the growing NBA. Once the current season is over, the NBA will absorb four ABA teams, and the rest will just fade into obscurity. Jackie proposes that the NBA take the top four ABA finishers of the season, a suggestion that the other owners readily accept.
Jackie then acquires former NBA benchwarmer Ed Monix (Woody Harrelson), who once won a championship ring with the Boston Celtics. With Monix’s help, Jackie is convinced that the Tropics can turn their season around and vie for a spot in the NBA.
The rest of the film then deals with the team’s efforts to win ballgames, attract fans, and grab that final NBA berth.
My Reaction: I obviously didn’t go into a Will Ferrell movie viewing expecting to see an Oscar contender, but I was still very disappointed with how lame Semi-Pro was. There were hardly any funny jokes at all, and the storyline was extremely boring. There was no tension, no surprises, nothing to allow me to identify with any of the characters…. I didn’t care if the Tropics made it to the NBA or not, so I was barely even watching by the end (preferring to answer emails instead).
Plus, it seemed as though Will Ferrell was playing the exact same guy from Blades of Glory. He was just an obnoxious, out-of-shape “athlete” with no positive characteristics at all. I know Ferrell has a bit of range as an actor (see Stranger Than Fiction, as mentioned above), so I’m thinking he was just after a quick and easy paycheck here. What a ripoff for viewers.
Overall, I didn’t think Semi-Pro was worth watching at all. Perhaps diehard Ferrell fans will find something to enjoy in the film, but it’s just a waste of 90 minutes for the rest of us. I give it 1 star out of 5.
Whenever you shop online, there’s a chance that your personal information, such as name, address, and credit card numbers, could be compromised, which could in turn lead to a bit of worry (at the least) or a nightmare battle against identity theft and fraud (at the worst). I personally do a lot of online shopping, so I’m always looking for ways to provide myself with additional protection. That’s why when I heard of a service called eBillme, I decided to give it a try.
eBillme is an easy and convenient way to pay for purchases made at top online retailers like Tiger Direct and Buy.com. eBillme works exactly like online bill pay with your regular financial institution, so instead of using a credit card or third-party payment processor, you simply add eBillme to your list of payees and pay for your purchases that way.
For example, I recently bought the Season 3 DVD box set of Moonlighting from Tiger Direct. During the checkout process, I selected eBillme as my payment option, and submitted my order without having to enter any sensitive information like a credit card number or bank account number. After that, I received an email from eBillme containing my transaction details, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to add eBillme as a payee at my bank. I was able to complete the whole thing in just a few minutes without a hitch.
Overall, I was very impressed by the way eBillme works. I feel much more confident shopping online when I don’t have to enter a credit card number during checkout, so this is an option that I’m going to continue using whenever its available. Check out the eBillme site for yourself, and give them a try the next time you shop at a merchant that offers their services!
As a huge fan of the early seasons (1-6) of The X-Files television show, I was extremely thrilled to hear that a new stand-alone movie was being released. The film would revive characters that had been off the air since the seres bowed out in 2002, and was frequently described as an homage to the fans by writer/director Chris Carter. Never having been fond of the alien mythology arc (I’m still not sure I understood exactly what happened there), I was looking forward to this “stand-alone” movie.
I began to worry a bit as preliminary reviews from major critics heavily panned the flick. It was dull, they said, and lacked focus and excitement. I passed those off as being written by people unfamiliar with the series. But when fans also started slamming I Want to Believe, my heart sunk. Surely these people would have been pretty lenient, right? Nevertheless, I decided to skip The Dark Knight and spend my $8.50 to see Mulder and Scully in action again. What a huge mistake!
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The film’s timeline coincides with the television series, which is to say that six years have passed in the lives of Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Neither works for the FBI anymore. Scully is a surgeon at Our Lady of Sorrows hospital, while Mulder spends most of his time alone in a remote farmhouse clipping out newspaper stories of unexplained phenomena.
One day Scully is approached by Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) and Agent Mosley Drummy (Xzibit), who ask for her help in locating Mulder. No, they’re not looking to arrest him for past infractions of Bureau rules; instead, they need his assistance on a current case. A young FBI agent named Monica Bannan (Xantha Radley) has been abducted, and now they’ve got a disgraced Catholic priest saying that he has psychic visions of Bannan’s whereabouts and who has already led the FBI to a severed arm. Whitney and Drummy want Mulder to talk to Father Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly) to determine if the guy is a fraud or not.
At first, Mulder thinks this is merely an FBI ruse designed to lure him out into the open, but Scully immediately dismisses that notion. The FBI could get him at any time, she points out. So Mulder finally agrees to go see what Father Joseph has to say.
Quickly falling back into their old roles, Mulder is inclined to believe the man, while Scully can’t get past the fact that Father Joseph is a convicted pedophile. Even after Father Joseph leads the agents to more body parts and cries tears of blood, Scully refuses to accept that he has psychic abilities. Mulder, on the other hand, begins working the case in earnest, believing that there’s still time to save Agent Bannan.
The rest of the film then follows Mulder and Whitney’s investigation, as Scully retreats to the sidelines to deal with a terminally ill patient at the hospital. And in true X-Files fashion, even though the case is resolved, the question of whether or not Father Joseph was truly having psychic visions is not.
My Reaction: I was extremely disappointed with The X-Files: I Want to Believe, as it bore little resemblance to the show that I once loved so much. Instead of tight, taut storytelling, viewers got a rambling narrative that was slow to develop and then far too quickly resolved. Plus, I didn’t even think the story was a classic X-file of the sort that Mulder and Scully used to deal with on TV. Yes, the priest might have been having psychic visions, but that was so tame compared to some of the things Mulder and Scully saw over the years.
Moreover, the “B” storyline, that of Scully’s dying patient, served to slow the film down considerably. I realize that the storyline was supposed to show how Scully still has to struggle with her faith even though she’s no longer at the FBI (a Catholic promoting the use of aggressive experimental treatment instead of deferring to God’s will), but still… it was boring as hell and felt so out of place.
While Duchovny played Mulder much as he did on the TV show, managing to get a few good one-liners into the dialogue and everything, Anderson seemed to take Scully in a whole different direction. She was far more hostile, and, well, whiny than I remember her being from the TV show. How many times did she get in Father Joseph’s face about his past crimes? Yeah, we get it… he’s a pedophile and she abhors him. Just move on for the sake of plot advancement, please!
And what was with all the in-depth analysis about Father Joseph telling Scully, “Don’t give up”? That has to be one of the most commonplace phrases out there, yet Mulder and Scully spend several minutes debating the meaning. WTF? If someone said “Don’t give up” to me, I’d just be like, “Yeah, okay” and move on. For some reason, that scene totally annoyed me.
Frankly, I’m far too bummed about what I saw to continue writing out all the problems I had with the script. Suffice it to say that if this is indeed the last we ever see of The X-Files franchise, I’m going to pretend I Want to Believe never happened. I give this film 2 stars out of 5.
The Dark Knight easily held onto the No. 1 spot at the box office for the second consecutive week, earning another $75.6 million domestically to bring its 10-day total to a record-setting $314 million. These numbers have some industry insiders speculating about the possibility of Dark Knight overtaking Titanic as the highest-grossing movie of all-time. The Chris Nolan superhero sequel has a long way to go to reach those heights, however.
Second place went to the new Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly comedy Step Brothers, which earned a healthy $30 million in its debut. The former Talladega Nights co-stars have proven to be a successful comedy duo, teaming up this time to play 40-year-olds who end up sharing a bedroom when their parents get married.
Last week’s second-place film, the Meryl Streep vehicle Mama Mia!, slipped a notch to third place after earning $17.9 million. The somewhat surprising hit has now racked up a cumulative gross of $62.7 million — outstripping its estimated $52 million budget and putting the film in the “profitable” category.
The other new release of the weekend was The X-Files: I Want to Believe, which took in just $10.2 million — barely enough to cover Orlando vacations for the cast and crew! The film comes 6 years after the television series went off the air, and its low budget (around $30 million) coupled with a very un-X-Files storyline, yielded a finished product that has been hammered by critics and fans alike.
Here’s the complete Top 10 for the weekend ending 7/27/08:
I’m always on the lookout for different, established authors to read, so when a friend of mine recommended David Baldacci, a man who has published 15 novels to date (many of them bestsellers), I decided to give his works a try. Since I wasn’t familiar with any of the titles, I just selected The Simple Truth at random.
Published in 1998, The Simple Truth was based on an event that actually happened, which tends to make things more interesting for me. Moreover, President Bill Clinton selected the novel as his favorite of the year — an endorsement that I thought would count for something.
Alas, once I finished The Simple Truth, I realized it was just a run-of-the-mill thriller that didn’t impress me a whole heck of a lot.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Michael Fiske is a bright, gifted young attorney who has spent the last three years clerking for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. One of the strategies Mike uses to separate himself from the rest of the clerks is to arrive at the court early and sift through unread appeals in the mail room to get a bead on any cases he thinks the justices would want to hear. The day he finds an appeal from a convict named Rufus Harms is the day his life changes forever.
Harms is currently serving a life sentence in a Richmond military prison for murdering a little girl 25 years ago. But he recently received a letter from the Army that could prove his innocence. Though the contents of the letter are not revealed to the reader early on, it’s clear that some powerful people would be compromised if the letter was made public. In fact, Mike is so blown away by the letter that he smuggles it out of the court (a felony), and tries to verify the claims by visiting Harms in prison.
Within an hour of leaving the prison after seeing Harms, Mike is murdered and the scene is doctored to make it look like a robbery gone bad. His estranged brother John comes out to identify the body, and in the process meets Sara Evans, a colleague of Mike’s at the court — and an ex-flame. Sara knew that Mike was working on something big in the days leading up to his death. She shares this info with John, and the two start thinking that maybe robbery wasn’t the real motive after all.
From that point forward, John and Sara team up to conduct their own investigation into Mike’s death and the Rufus Harms case. Along the way, John and Sara manage to get into several life-threatening situations, fall in love with each other, and put the pieces of the puzzle together before the bad guys add them to the growing body count comprised of people involved in the case.
My Reaction: Although The Simple Truth wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be and doesn’t stand up to a close examination of the plot, I nevertheless thought it was an engrossing read. At least the pacing was quick, with very few distractions (besides the utterly dreadful romance aspect) to slow things down.
I have to say that I was disappointed when Mike Fiske was killed off so early in the action. He seemed to be the most interesting character in the whole book, so I didn’t like having to switch off and focus on John — dull and annoying by comparison — instead. Although John improved a bit as the story progressed, I never fully warmed to him as the protagonist.
As far as the plot itself, I appreciated the fact that there were lots of twists, turns, and surprises throughout the narrative to keep the action flowing. Even though 90 percent of the twists were unbelievable or highly coincidental, at least the author made an attempt to spice things up. Sure, the mounting body count became laughable after a while (were the conspirators really just going to kill everyone that ever crossed their paths?), but things could have been worse, I suppose.
The only plot development I could have done without was the whole John and Sara hookup. Never mind that she made her movies the day Mike’s body was identified or that she went from brother to brother. True, those points were dumb, but they didn’t bother me as much as the fact that Sara and John ended up in bed together within, what, 24 hours of meeting each other?
I hate it when writers do this. God, would anyone really act that way in the midst of a murder investigation? Especially when the victim was your brother or the man who asked you to marry him? Why do authors seem to think that every single novel needs a “romance” component? Yes, sex sells, but isn’t that what the Harlequin section is for?
On the whole, The Simple Truth was a decent read. It didn’t turn me into an instant David Baldacci fan, but at least I’m still open to trying more of his novels in the future. If you’re looking to get into Baldacci’s works, I wouldn’t start with this one!
I’ve been spending so much time watching comedies (30 Rock, My Name Is Earl) recently that I’ve kind of neglected my usual dramas. But a couple days ago I decided to get back into Without a Trace — and was immediately surprised by how much I missed the show!
I have to admit that I wasn’t too keen on a few of the early Season 4 episodes (mostly because I don’t like the new agent Elena Delgado), but things have definitely picked up now that I’ve made it to the middle of the season. Yes, Delgado still bugs me and yes, some of the cases are still repetitive, what with victims being kidnapped or killed for their term life insurance policies or whatever, but a few of the episodes have been terrific.
For instance, I particularly enjoyed 4×07, called “The Innocents”. The subject matter was depressing, but the episode was extremely gripping and tense throughout the entire hour. I hadn’t been on the edge of my seat for a WAT episode for a long time, so that was a welcome change!
I also thought the very next ep, 4×08, called “A Day in the Life” was a strong effort. I didn’t exactly like seeing the case from the victim’s family’s point of view, but I appreciated the fact that the writers tried something different — and that ep makes me realize how much the regular cast means to the success of the show.
At any rate, I’m fully back on board with Without a Trace again, and hope the rest of S4 continues to be this good!
Last night’s all-new episode of Burn Notice was called “Trust Me”, and was the best of the young season thus far. It was classic Burn Notice, with an interesting Odd Job of the Week, as well as some solid progress in the main story arc of finding out why Michael was blacklisted in the first place. Plus, there was a healthy dose of Madeline thrown in for good measure — making for a solid hour of summer TV!
Odd Job of the Week: Fiona has been attending Madeline’s weekly poker game, and it’s there that she learns about Diane’s son Andy, a 30-something cell phone salesman who borrowed $200,000 from a loan shark in order to get in on an investment opportunity with a club owner named Zeke. When the investment deal went south, Andy was left with no money to pay off his debt, resulting in several visits from the loan shark’s enforcers. Fiona says that Michael can help solve the problem.
After getting more info from Andy, Michael and Fi realize that the guy was straight-up conned, so they immediately start working on a plan to make Zeke target Michael as the next mark. Michael then poses as a rich oil tycoon from Texas with money to burn, and they set the sting in motion. Of course, Mike, Sam, and Fi are able to outsmart Zeke and his partners, getting Andy’s money back just in the nick of time.
Burn Notice Progress: Michael’s still trying to find out anything he can about his new handler Carla. He picked up on the fact that she spoke Urdu, so his next stop is the Pakistani Consulate, where he poses as a journalist to go into a fellow spy’s office while Sam creates a disturbance out front. Michael swipes some insignificant papers, then arranges to meet with the spy Wasim to work out an exchange.
Wasim at first refuses, saying that Michael’s asking price — Carla’s file — was far too steep for the documents he actually took. But Michael sets up a few more traps, and soon Wasim has no choice but to cooperate. He hands over the file, which presumably will give Michael a starting point as he tries to learn how Carla fits into his burn notice.
Character development: Madeline tries to find out why Michael and Fiona are no longer together, telling Mike that she doesn’t want him to end up alone. They have a bit of a heart-to-heart about the situation, with Madeline actually coming around to Michael’s point of view and agreeing that maybe he and Fi need to take a break for a while.
My Reaction: I really liked the Odd Job of the Week in this episode. I know some people think it’s a bit tiresome to see Mike and Fi adopting all these different personas to help random strangers out of jams, but I find it to be a lot of fun. It kind of reminds me of Alias in the way that these spies are always playing different characters to achieve their ends. Last night’s bit about scamming the scammer was fun, and again, I believed that these guys could actually pull something like that off.
I’m not all that interested in the Carla angle yet, but it’s good that Mike isn’t simply running into dead end after dead end. I like his resourcefulness and how he knows exactly where to go to get what he needs. I have a feeling Carla isn’t the one that burned him, that she’s just a low-level handler, so I won’t hold my breath waiting for Mike to get answers from her. This must be leading to someone higher up.
Overall, this was a great episode, and one that I won’t mind watching again once the DVDs come out. Can’t wait for the next one!!