Reviews and More

There’s a new box office champion for the fourth consecutive week, as the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon holiday comedy Four Christmases debuted with a $46.7 million take to knock Twilight out of the top spot. This was a strong opening for Four Christmases despite generally poor reviews and word-of-mouth.

Twilight earned $39.5 million in second place, while the Disney family movie Bolt came in third with $36 million in receipts.

The heavily-publicized Hugh Jackman-Nicole Kidman epic Australia took in a disappointing $20 million, and proves once again that Kidman is simply not worth her high salary. When is the last time one of her movies actually earned some decent money?

Two other new films debuted well enough to place in the top 10: Transporter 3, which grossed $18.5 million, and the Sean Penn movie Milk, with a paltry $1.87 million in sales.

Here’s the complete Top 10 at the box office for the weekend ending 11/30/08:

1. Four Christmases, $46.7 million
2. Twilight, $39.5 million
3. Bolt, $36 million
4. Quantum of Solace, $28.1 million
5. Australia, $20 million
6. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, $19.6 million
7. Transporter 3, $18.5 million
8. Role Models, $7.81 million
9. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, $2.19 million
10. Milk, $1.87 million

There aren’t too many movies that I’m looking forward to seeing this winter, but I have to admit that Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise, is definitely one of them. It’s based on the true story of an attempt by German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler, and from the trailer, looks like it will be very good. Check it out (but beware of a bunch of quick one-second cuts that might leave you feeling a bit nauseous!):

I’m not a Cruise fan or anything, especially with as wacky as his behavior has been over the past few years. He hasn’t been right since dancing in his underwear while wearing Wayfarer sunglasses in Risky Business, but I’m willing to overlook the personal stuff to see this film. I can’t wait to read the first wave of reviews… I hope they’re good!

Whenever I look for a new author to read, one thing I’m sure to check is how many published works the author has to his or her name. Granted, that doesn’t always mean much in and of itself (just ask Harper Lee), but for the most part, it usually indicates that an author sells well enough to justify the publishing expenses. Authors that sell well probably have some talent and some interesting stories to tell, which makes me all the more willing to roll the dice on their books. Authors that publish entire series are even more attractive to me for obvious reasons.

Thus when I came across a bunch of Catherine Coulter FBI books at my library recently, I was intrigued enough to check out a few. Little did I know that Coulter is more renowned as a romance writer than anything else — otherwise, I probably would have skipped this terribly lame attempt at a “thriller”.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Sally Brainard is on the run after her high-powered attorney father was found murdered in his home. Sally can’t remember a single thing that happened on the night of the murder, and doesn’t want to risk being taken in as a suspect. So she heads off to the most obscure place she can think of: a little town called The Cove on the Oregon coast, where she hopes to take refuge with her Aunt Amabel.

Unfortunately, things don’t get any better for Sally at The Cove. Indeed, she starts hearing odd screams in the middle of the night and receiving threatening phone calls from her dead father. Surely she must be going crazy. After all, isn’t that what everyone thought of her anyway after spending six months in a sanitarium? To make matters worse, Aunt Amabel doesn’t exactly dispel the notion that Sally is losing her mind. There were no screams, it was just the wind. That wasn’t her father on the phone, it was a woman’s voice.

While Sally tries to figure out what’s happening to her, another outsider arrives at The Cove. This is James Quinlan, an FBI agent posing as a private investigator. He tells people that he’s there looking for clues about the three-year-old disappearance of a retired couple who vanished while traveling through the area, but he’s really there to track down Sally and get her side of the story regarding her father’s murder.

The rest of the novel then tells how Sally and Quinlan work together to figure out what really happened to her father in order to clear Sally’s name for good. There’s also a secondary mystery involving the town and its residents, as well as a romantic subplot involving the two leads.

My Reaction: Boy, oh, boy was I disappointed at the story that unfolded in The Cove. I suppose regular fans of Catherine Coulter would have known about and/or expected the romance angle, but I didn’t, so when all of that kind of stuff came up, I wanted to vomit. I mean, some of the elements in this novel were so sappy that they reminded me of Nicholas Sparks’ work. James and Sally fall completely, madly in love within a week of meeting each other? In the midst of a murder investigation? When Sally just might be stark, raving mad? Uh huh.

And the sex scenes were so… Harlequinesque. I don’t want to go into details here, but oh lord, it was as effective as any emetic.

The mysteries were tangled, stupid, and wholly unbelievable — especially the one about ALL of the townsfolk conspiring to murder hapless tourists in order to fund public works and infrastructure. Um, give me a break here. How much cash does Coulter think people travel with these days? It made zero sense, and to be asked to believe that an ancient old woman was the mastermind behind it all? Sorry, no can do.

In short, don’t be fooled by descriptions that call The Cove a thriller. This is a romance novel with a couple of dumb mysteries and outlandish plot developments thrown in. If that’s your cup of tea, you’ll love it. If you’re looking for an actual thriller, keep right on looking!

Films about child kidnappings and murders are always hard to take, but the emotions involved are usually heightened whenever the story is based on true events. That’s the case with Changeling, from Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood. The movie recounts events that happened in connection with the disappearance of Walter Collins, nine-year-old Los Angeles boy who went missing back in 1928. I expected to have my heartstrings tugged at this one, but because some of the events were so absurd, I found myself shaking my head in anger instead.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers):Christine Collins (played by Angelina Jolie) is a single mom who works long hours at a telephone call center in order to support her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith). One Saturday when Christine and Walter were planning to go to the movies, Christine unexpectedly gets called into work to cover for a sick colleague. She reluctantly goes, leaving Walter home alone and asking neighbors to look in on the boy from time to time. After she returns a bit later than usual, she discovers to her horror that Walter is missing. She searches the neighborhood in vain, and then reports the disappearance to the police.

According to policy, the LAPD can’t act on the disappearance until the boy has been missing for 24 hours. Even after they do get on the case, they can’t uncover any solid leads. Months pass without word — until they get news of a boy in Dekalb, Il that matches Walter’s description. After interviewing the boy, who says that he’s Walter and is from Los Angeles, Capt. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) of the LAPD organizes a reunion with Christine. The police department has been under fire in the media for corruption, so Jones seizes on this opportunity to put the department in a good light by showcasing the story of reuniting a kidnapped boy with his mom. But Christine takes one look at “Walter” and immediately knows that it’s not her son.

Jones refuses to believe that Christine is telling the truth, saying the boy has been through a lot and could have changed during the five months he was gone. He urges Christine to take the boy home and “try him out” for a few weeks, which she inexplicably agrees to do. Further differences in height and dental records confirm that the boy is not really Walter, but when Christine tries to press the issue with Capt. Jones, he has her thrown into a mental institution.

The rest of the film then deals with how the case played out from there, with a radio preacher named Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) getting involved on Christine’s behalf and with the revelation that a serial killer from Riverside had been targeting boys in the area. An eyewitness places Walter at the killer’s farm, but there’s a chance the boy might have somehow escaped. Since Walter’s remains were never positively identified, Christine held out hope for the rest of her life that Walter would eventually come home.

My Reaction: If Changeling hadn’t been based on true events, I would have immediately dismissed this movie as highly improbable and pushing the bounds of believability. First of all, it struck me as completely ludicrous that officials would refuse to believe a mother saying that a certain kid wasn’t her son. I know that they didn’t have DNA testing back then, but medical records and testimony from others should have served as sufficient evidence even if the cops didn’t want to give the mom the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, it was totally creepy for the other kid to claim to be Walter, and I didn’t like how the film took so long to explain that boy’s motives. None of it made sense as it was unfolding on the screen, and that just took me out of the film altogether.

I thought the serial killer angle was much more interesting than Walter’s disappearance, so I wish the filmmakers had chosen to focus on that a bit more. I know it wouldn’t be possible for them to do that without a great deal of speculation about what might have happened, but still… it’s not as though every other event in the film was documented exactly as it occurred.

The performances in Changeling were pretty good all the way around. I particularly liked the young actor who played the serial killer’s unwilling assistant. Eddie Alderson was terrific, and certainly has a bright future in Hollywood if this role gives us any indication of his skill level. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a Supporting Actor nomination… he was that good.

Overall, Changeling was a decent film, but wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. It felt a bit too disjointed with the first half focusing on Walter’s disappearance and the imposter and the second focusing on the serial killer, which served to lessen the impact of both storylines. As a result, I give this film 6.5 stars out of 10.

Private Practice 2×07 — “Tempting Faith”: I thought this was a very solid episode from beginning to end. I liked how the obvious differences between Addison and SWAT guy were finally addressed (and look at that — he was wearing a new shirt!), because it’s clear that the whole blue-collar thing had to come up at some point. What wasn’t clear was whether or not Addison and Kevin actually broke up. When they were talking at the hospital, it sounded like it was over, but when Addie returned home, she told her brother that Kevin is “her boyfriend”. I don’t know, maybe her “don’t quit on me” speech got to him. (Aside 1: Their mother’s name is Busy?? Aside 2: I was sooo hoping that the intruder was Mark Sloan! Aside 3: Addison has a $25 million trust fund waiting for her? Wow!)

The other storylines were fairly interesting as well. I was happy to see Cooper finally stand up to Charlotte because she treats him like an afterthought far too often for that relationship to be a healthy one. Now let’s see if she tries to get him back, and if he goes for it. Good to see Pete’s girlfriend back too (what’s her name?); hope she becomes a recurring character for at least the rest of the season. And Naomi has finally moved on from Sam. Good. Now maybe he’ll do the same and everyone can just get on with their lives.

Bones 4×11 — “The Bone That Blew”: This was another great episode of Bones as well! I’m very happy with the way the writers have decided to tone down on all the constant flirting between the two leads and instead just give us little moments, like the two minutes at the end of the ep when Booth and Brennan were watching Brennan’s dad with Parker. That’s much better than clobbering us over the head with all the sexual tension stuff, as they were doing earlier this season.

Anyway, I like the idea of Brennan’s dad working at the museum. I think this will add to the human dimension of Bones’ character, and maybe soften her around the edges just a bit. Plus, he does have some good ideas, like that wind tunnel experiment that he helped Hodges with. Speaking of which, how cool was it to see Hodges acting giddy about an experiment again? That hasn’t happened since Zack broke out of the institution. (And yay! for no mention about Angela’s lesbianism this week!)

House 5×09 — “Last Resort”: This whole storyline felt familiar to me, as though I’d seen something similar before. I watch so many movies and TV shows, however, that it’s impossible for me to remember the details. But the scenario of someone holding a gun on doctors and forcing them to treat him, while testing out meds on other people first, was totally like déjà vu.

Anyway, I hated how Thirteen had to be the doctor trapped in there with House and the gunman. I can’t stand that character, and dislike how she always has such a major role in each episode. How about giving some equal time to the other doctors?

Not a whole lot else to say about the ep, as it followed the standard House formula, besides the hostage situation, of course. The House/Cuddy interaction was just right again, and I’m relieved to see that the writers are handling this angle very well considering all the potential for problems.

Entourage 5×12 — “Return to Queens Blvd.”: I loved how Vinnie fired E. He actually had a point about all of Eric’s missteps in terms of not listening to Ari, so I wish that whole thing had been allowed to carry over for at least one more episode. I thought they made up far too quickly — though I suspect that their relationship has been damaged at least a little by the firing.

It’s cool — albeit a bit odd — that Vinnie got the lead role in a Scorsese film. It’s odd because if his acting wasn’t good enough for Gus Van Sant, why would it be good enough for Scorsese? And Vinnie as a modern-day Nick Carraway?? Sorry, but I just don’t see that at all. The good part about this storyline is that Vince is working again, so we’ll finally get something other than all the depressing career crap that has been going on for the whole season. Back to big spending and partying!! (And yay for Turtle and Jamie-Lynn Sigler lasting this long!)

Two years ago I embarked on the rather ambitious project of reading all of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels in chronological order. Ambitious, I say, not because the books themselves present difficult reading material (they’re a breeze), but because she was such a prolific writer during her career. Indeed, there are about 66 full-length novels in all, and I’ve only finished 37 of them — in two years.

Quite frankly, even though Christie’s novels usually prove to be fun, I’m getting a bit tired of reading her stuff and am thinking about abandoning the project for a time. Well, at least I was, until I finished The Hollow. Then I remembered that there’s nothing quite like a good Christie murder!

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Dr. John Christow and his wife Gerda have been suffering through a troubled marriage for a few years now. Christow has been having a long-standing affair with artist Henrietta Savernake, and meek Gerda can do nothing but turn a blind eye to her husband’s philandering ways. To make things worse, everyone in the Christows’ extended family and circle of friends knows about the affair, which only adds to Gerda’s humiliation.

Now Lucy Angkatell has invited the Christows and a bunch of other people, including Henrietta, for a weekend at her estate called The Hollow. Gerda hates going there because she is socially awkward and never knows what to do or say, but of course she acquiesces for John’s sake.

On their first night at The Hollow, the party is interrupted by the sudden appearance of movie actress Veronica Cray, who, as it turns out, was John’s first love. Rumor has it that he almost married her, but something happened in their relationship and he ended up with Gerda instead. Most people believe that he still harbors feelings for Veronica (and vice versa), a belief that is seemingly supported when John abruptly leaves the party with Veronica and doesn’t return until early morning.

The next day, all hell breaks loose as John is found shot dead out by the Angkatell’s pool. Gerda is standing over his body with a pistol, so everyone pretty much assumes that she shot him. Everyone, that is, except Hercule Poirot, who arrives at the Angkatell estate for lunch just in time to see this scene unravel before his eyes. Things take an even stranger turn when John cries out, “Henrietta!” with his final breath and when Henrietta takes the gun away from Gerda and promptly fumbles it into the swimming pool.

The rest of the novel then deals with Poirot’s investigation into Christow’s death. As usual, Christie throws plenty of twists and turns the reader’s way before the final reveal. And also as usual, many will be kept guessing right to the very end!

My Reaction: There were quite a few characters in this novel, so it took me a while to figure out what roles each one was playing. This is actually quite usual in Christie books, and is always the most boring part for me. Once the intros were over, however, I was able to get into the mystery very quickly, mostly because I was intrigued at how a case that looked so cut-and-dried could turn out to be so problematic for the authorities.

I fell for almost all of Christie’s misdirections and thought for sure that Henrietta or Veronica had murdered John, while setting Gerda up to take the fall. Of course, that’s precisely how it was supposed to look until the very end when Christie revealed the truth. I’m so bad at picking up on clues and foreshadowing that I missed every arrow pointing to the real killer’s identity. But in going back to review some of the pages, I saw that Christie did indeed play fair. It’s entirely possible to work out the solution if you pay close attention.

Overall, The Hollow was a very intriguing read, and was one of the more enjoyable Christie books I’ve come across in a while now. Could this be one of her best? I don’t know; I’m just barely halfway through her canon!

Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “The Naked Man”, and for me at least, wasn’t very enjoyable at all. The entire ep consisted of a running joke about one of Robin’s hookups who claims to have an extremely high success rate of bedding women with a technique called The Naked Man.

Basically, all Mitch does is come up with an excuse to get into her apartment (saying he has to use the bathroom or whatever), and then he disrobes while the woman is out of the way. When she comes back, she’ll instantly want to sleep with him because of a combination of pity and/or awe that someone would be desperate enough to try something like that. Mitch tells Ted that it works two out of three times.

Ted passes the info onto the gang, and they all end up trying their own version of The Naked Man. And sure enough, it works two out of three times with Ted and Lily scoring, and Barney striking out.

– I didn’t think the naked man premise was funny enough to build an entire episode around, so I was kind of put off on this one right from the start.

– There’s no way in hell that this so-called “technique” works two out of three times! Well, maybe if the guy looked like Ted or Barney, but certainly not Mitch!!

– I liked Robin getting into at Mexican standoff with the burglars. In fact, I think that was the only moment in the entire show that elicited so much as a smile from me.

– Marshall saying that the only reason anyone should ever have sex is love was beyond ridiculous. Has he always been that much of a Polyanna?? I mean, give me a break!

– At this point, the only reason I’m even watching the show anymore is to see some Barney/Robin interaction. If the writers insist on ignoring that story, then I’ll just stay away until they get around to it. Because everything else? Is just sooo boring right now.

Although I’m getting pretty tired of the Apatow crew appearing in so many comedies these days, I have to admit that I like Jason Segel well enough to see almost anything that he’s in. That’s why I decided to give Forgetting Sarah Marshall a try, despite the fact that annoying (to me) Apatow regular Paul Rudd is also in the film. Thankfully, Segel was up to the task of carrying the comedic lead, and Rudd had a relatively minor role, making for a pretty enjoyable feature overall.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Segel stars as Peter Bretter, a musician who composes the score of a hit weekly TV series called Crime Scene. Peter has been dating the star of Crime Scene, Sarah Marshall (played by Kristen Bell), for the past five years, and absolutely idolizes her. He does everything she wants, is content to hold her purse during red carpet photo ops, and doesn’t mind living in her shadow. So when Sarah suddenly breaks up with Peter — while he’s standing naked in his apartment — he’s dealt a crushing blow.

Peter does the usual guy things to try to get over the breakup: he drinks too much, has sex with lots of random women, and becomes a slob. But none of this is helping. He still thinks of Sarah, and can’t imagine a life without her. After having a total meltdown at work, Peter figures he should get away for a while. He goes to Hawaii, where he and Sarah had always planned to vacation, and promptly runs into Sarah — with her new boyfriend, singer Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) in tow.

With some help from the sympathetic desk clerk Rachel (Mila Kunis), Peter manages to snag the best suite in the hotel. It’s right next to Sarah’s suite, however, which makes her think that he’s stalking her. Peter must now decide whether to stay in Hawaii and deal with the Sarah problem head-on, or run away and try to work things out on his own. He stays.

The rest of the film then shows how Peter slowly comes to grips with the idea of losing Sarah for good. He reflects on his relationship with her, realizes how much of himself he sacrificed for her sake, and is eventually able to let her go. Along the way, Peter actually becomes friends with Aldous, gets to reject Sarah outright, and embarks on a new relationship with Rachel.

My Reaction: Forgetting Sarah Marshall enjoyed tremendous word-of-mouth buzz while it was in theaters, so I was looking forward to seeing this one. I think I might have let the hype get to me, however, because I was expecting the film to be a lot funnier than it was. Yes, there were several big laughs and numerous smaller chuckles along the way, but I wouldn’t call it a great movie — even as far as rom-coms go.

For one thing, it got a little tiresome seeing Peter be such a sad sack for 99% of the film. Yes, he had just broken up with the love of his life, yada, yada, yada, but still… his character was such a downer most of the time that I started to get a bit impatient with the movie. Plus, I had a hard time believing that Rachel would fall for Peter when a) he obviously still had issues with Sarah, and b) she would pretty much be a rebound girl (even though Peter said he was completely over Sarah).

Another thing that bugged me about the movie was the Paul Rudd character. He was completely unnecessary to the plot, and the fact that Rudd was cast just goes to show that the Apatow crew are looking out for each other. Or maybe my personal distaste for Rudd is clouding my judgment here. I don’t know, but I haven’t liked him in anything he’s done, dating all the way back to his days as Mike on Friends.

That being said, Forgetting Sarah Marshall was still a decent film. I thought Russell Brand was hilarious in most of his scenes (with a character that could very easily have bugged if played a different way) and I liked Kristen Bell a lot. If you can stand a few too many extraneous scenes and unnecessary characters, this film is worth watching. I give it 6.0 stars out of 10.

The teen vampire romance story Twilight, based on the hugely popular Stephanie Meyer book series, was the runaway winner at the box office this weekend, earning a massive $70.6 million to knock Quantum of Solace out of the top spot. Thanks to heavy fan anticipation and midnight showings, Twilight got off to a fast start and never looked back, despite relatively lukewarm reviews.

Quantum of Solace, meanwhile, earned $27.4 million in second place, bringing its cumulative gross to over $100 million in North America.

The Disney family film Bolt racked up $27 million in ticket sales during its first week of release, which was good enough for third place, while something called The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas earned $1.67 million, putting it into the Top 10 for the first time.

Here’s the complete Top 10 at the box office for the weekend ending 11/23/08:

1. Twilight, $70.6 million
2. Quantum of Solace, $27.4 million
3. Bolt, $27 million
4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, $16 million
5. Role Models, $7.23 million
6. Changeling, $2.64 million
7. High School Musical 3: Senior Year, $2.01 million
8. Zack and Miri Make a P*rno, $1.7 million
9. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, $1.67 million
10. The Secret Life of Bees, $1.27 million

I very rarely bother going to see comedy films while they’re still in theaters, unless the movie in question has generated lots of good reviews or word-of-mouth buzz. This happened with There’s Something About Mary (a film I never would have seen based on previews alone) a decade ago, and more recently with Tropic Thunder over the summer. I really had no intention of going to see the Paul Rudd-Seann William Scott flick Role Models either, but was swayed by a couple of positive reviews from top critics including Roger Ebert. What a mistake that turned out to be!

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Danny (played by Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott) are two energy drink reps who go around to elementary schools pitching the Minotaur drink brand as an alternative to drugs. One day, Danny, who is upset because he realizes he has spent the last 10 years in this dead-end job and because his girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) turned down his marriage proposal, flips out when he sees the company truck being towed and ends up damaging school property. Danny and Wheeler are then brought up on various misdemeanor charges and must perform 150 hours of community service to avoid jail time.

The two are sent to a program called Sturdy Wings, which is essentially like a Big Brothers deal. Danny is paired up with Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a lonely teen whose only joy in life is playing a fantasy game called L.A.I.R.E., while Wheeler is matched to a 10-year-old boy named Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) whose claim to fame is that no big lasts longer than a day with him.

Of course, at the beginning, Danny and Wheeler hate their community service assignments, dislike being around kids, and have nothing in common with their matches. But as the film progresses, the two men grow to develop genuine relationships with Augie and Ronnie, and emerge as better men because of the experience.

My Reaction: I was able to enjoy Role Models to a point, but then the film got bogged down in repetitive jokes and an inexplicable decision to play out the entire third act on the L.A.I.R.E. battlefield. Apparently, the writers think that the absolute height of comedy is to have young kids drop f-bombs and to have adults curse up a storm in the presence of kids because that’s basically what the Wheeler-Ronnie relationship amounted to. This was funny at first, but after the initial shock value wore off, it just became tiresome.

And I don’t get why so much time was spent on L.A.I.R.E. in the third act. Yes, Augie was a funny character in that sort of nerd-in-a-fantasy-world way, and yes, I get that the writers wanted to show how much Danny had come to care for Augie. After being resistant to the whole idea of L.A.I.R.E. for two-thirds of the movie, he finally gives in and plays as a way to connect with Augie. But did we as an audience really have to sit through a good 15 minutes of that stuff? Or to see the guys ridiculously dressed up as KISS band members? Those scenes weren’t funny at all; just dumb and boring. Wow, what a miscalculation on the writers’ part to devote so much time to this stuff…

Overall, while Role Models was definitely watchable and even funny in some parts, it simply doesn’t live up to expectations based on the positive reviews it has received. I give th film 5.5 stars out of 10, and recommend that you not bother catching this one in theaters.

Last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy was called “In the Midnight Hour”, and was actually pretty good — if you choose to ignore the whole Izzie/Denny storyline, which is just too stupid for words right now. I mean, Izzie is having audible sex with a freakin’ ghost? All I can do is pretend that didn’t happen and simply pay attention to the rest of the show. Fortunately, there were a few other good things going on.

– I think Mark Sloan might now be my favorite character on Grey’s. He has totally grown on me in the last season or two (I hated him when he first arrived in Seattle), and is probably the most consistently likable guy in the hospital. He even makes Derek more interesting: that supply closet scene with Little Grey was funny, and the fact that we learned how Derek’s mom made Derek take Mark in when they were boys (because Mark’s parents weren’t around) was awesome. And letting that girl lean on his shoulder to sleep? Total “awww” moment there!

– This current crop of interns is just all kinds of crazy. Why would they think it would be a good idea to practice surgeries on each other, and why aren’t their residents around to supervise them? Don’t you think Cristina as an intern would have been a much more likely candidate to perform an appendectomy on a fellow intern than Lexipedia? And yet Yang never did anything that stupid because Bailey was always around. It just goes to show that all of these guys suck at being residents, and despite the chief’s lecture about being better teachers, nobody has taken his words to heart.

– I liked the scene where Bailey looked at Alex, Meredith, Cristina, and George and told them that she’s not making a speech to their interns for them. The whole thing about how they were Bailey’s babies and she’s done raising them was pretty cool, and made me think about early seasons and how young these guys were, how little they knew back then. They really have grown up, and while I don’t agree that Bailey has “raised” them right (they have ALL broken the rules or failed in some big way), the sentiment in that scene was nice. Maybe I just miss old Grey’s….

– Why did Derek have to take in a stray? Has Lexipedia left her apartment or something? Is she no longer going to live with George? I can’t believe she’s still in love with that clueless idiot. Although I thought she was stupid for going through with that unauthorized appi, I liked her George smackdown when she said that was the first thing in a long time that wasn’t done as an attempt to get him to notice her.

– I read somewhere that Denny might be around until February sweeps. Oh, please God, NO!!!!

Private Practice 2×06 — “Serving Two Masters”: Some parts of this ep were good, but others were just… meh. I don’t like how Shonda Rhimes uses the exact same approach here as she does on Grey’s Anatomy as far as having the patients of the week reflect the issues that the main characters are going through in their lives. For instance, that elderly black couple was obviously supposed to call to mind Sam and Naomi, and Naomi’s speech at the end about how the husband will always love the wife but nevertheless has to move on was obviously the impetus for Sam to say he’s ready to start dating again. It’s just so heavy-handed to have stuff like this happen week after week. That being said, I’m a sucker for older couples who profess their undying love for each other, and have to admit that I teared up a bit when the wife woke up from her surgery!

I’m surprised that Addie and Kevin seem to be moving forward in their relationship, as I thought they were done for sure after Addie followed him to a friggin’ crime scene! Which, by the way, was hilarious — especially when the squad cars surrounded her and the one guy asked if she was calling someone inside that building! I loved the shout-outs to Derek and Mark, and am still holding out hope that Mark will eventually find his way back to Addie again. (But for the love of god, PLEASE stop wearing those stupid SWAT t-shirts!! I’m sure real SWAT guys find time to change clothes before going to their girlfriends’ houses every night. Heck, even the GA doctors change out of their scrubs before heading home.)

I did not see the “Dell is a dad” thing coming, but I like this extra dimension to the character. It’s not surprising that he never mentioned this before, because none of the others actually ask him about his personal life anyway. I wonder where this storyline will lead….

Bones 4×10 — “The Passenger in the Oven”: This was a pretty good ep, though not as strong as the last one. I enjoyed having Booth and Brennan outside of the Jeffersonian for the entire episode, and trying to solve the murder with improvised tools was pretty fun. I also thought the final sequence, with Booth trying to convince the D.A. to sign the arrest warrant before the plane touched down in Shanghai was awesome! Bones usually doesn’t bring suspense or tension, so that scene had a really different feel to it.

I’m still tired of the Angela/Roxie relationship, so I wish the writers would stop shoving them down our throats every week. Angela and Hodgins were wonderful together… why did that have to change? Sigh.

House 5×08 — “Emancipation”: This episode veered from the typical one-case formula, and I actually liked it. It’s not something I’d want to see every week, mind you, but it was a nice change of pace. Plus, it was good to see Foreman actually being a doctor rather than just sitting around giving House admonishing looks. He’s supposed to be a first-class neurosurgeon or something, right? It’s odd to have him doing nothing all the time.

The main patient of the week, the emancipated girl of the title, was a bit weird. Something about the actress creeped me out. It might have been that she looked way older than 16, or it might have been the two red dots on her forehead that were left after the team did some test or other. Whatever the reason, I didn’t care about her plight at all. And once Taub and Thirteen launched into that “make it personal” argument? Ugh, forget it!

The House/Wilson scenes seemed kind of pointless. It was funny at first that Wilson wasn’t talking about the Cuddy thing, but the writers went to that well a few times too often. I wonder how long this angst is going to play out before House takes action. I’m betting that he’ll do something horrifically jackass-y to drive Cuddy away, and then win her back somehow. Meh.

Entourage 5×11 — “Play’n with Fire”: Hey, Turtle’s real name was revealed: it’s Sal! On most Entourage-related forums that I read, fans don’t really like this character because he’s the one true hanger-on in the group. But I’ve always had a soft spot for him because he’s the only one who seems like a genuinely nice guy who would go to bat for his friends in any situation. It was cool to see him being appreciated by Jamie-Lynn Sigler… who is surprisingly likable as “herself” on this show. Hopefully the writers will stick with that.

I can’t believe that the movie studio would shelve Smoke Jumpers instead of replacing either the director of Vince. And frankly, if there really was such a terrible conflict between the two, I’d think the supporting actor would be replaced first. But whatever, the important point is that Vinnie and the boys are going back home. Didn’t they do this in one of the earlier seasons? Or didn’t they threaten to? This whole thing feels like a rehash for some reason, but I don’t watch shows closely enough to be able to pull up all the details from memory alone….