Reviews and More

Episode 3×08 of Burn Notice was called “Friends Like These”, and was another solid entry in what has been a terrific third season overall. There was significant movement with the burn notice arc, and even a bit of a cliffhanger, as Fiona left. Will she be back? When? I don’t read spoilers, so I don’t know if the actress is signed for another season or not. Somehow, I don’t think this absences will be permanent, as she left rather quietly. Fiona would definitely go out with more of a bang if it were a permanent thing.

Odd Job of the Week: This time, Barry the Money Launderer is the client. His all-important ledger has been stolen. This is a notebook that has all the details about his clients and their money, and of course can cause a LOT of trouble if it falls into the wrong hands. Barry uses a physical book instead of electronic files because this “old school” system is easier to protect, but the would-be extortionists got to his girlfriend and offered her $100k for the location of the ledger. She gave it up, now Barry has to come up with $5 million to get it back, otherwise the details will be posted on the internet.

It doesn’t take long for Michael, Fiona, and Sam to get a lead on the extortionists. They grab a “foreign” man named Milovan Dragas and the real estate agent he was with traveling with. Sam tries to break Natalie, but she immediately starts crying, which gets to him. She insists that she knows nothing and was only helping show Milovan some properties. He threatened to harm her son if she didn’t cooperate.

While Sam stands guard over the prisoners, Fiona and Mike try to track down the ledger. Eventually they get to the bottom of the scam, which included a nice twist involving Natalie.

Burn notice progress: Strickler’s first job for Mike seems pretty straightforward. Some guys have raided a cache of military weapons and are planning to sell it. Michael needs to follow the “cleaner” of the crew in order to discover when and where the sale will take place. All this entails is taking pictures, so it shouldn’t be anything that Michael objects to. Michael handles the job very well, and as a reward, Diego calls to say that he’ll be in touch soon about the burn notice. Evidently, Strickler was able to deliver.

Character Development: Fiona doesn’t trust Strickler and cannot understand why Michael does. She thinks Michael has changed since getting involved with Strickler (that slap he laid on her might have had something to do with it). She refuses to stand by while Michael goes down this road, so she leaves Miami.

My Reaction: I liked this episode. It was good to see the gang helping out Barry for a change, especially since they’ve gotten a lot of favors from him over the years. Also, I thought it was great that Natalie was the boss, not Milovan. I didn’t see that coming at all, because the show hardly ever uses twists like that. I was surprised that Fiona was the one who got duped, though. She seems like the kind of person who’s skeptical about everything from fat burner claims to great real estate deals, so that didn’t fit in with her character, IMO.

I really hope that Fiona isn’t off the show. She used to grate on my nerves back in Season 1, but she is so much, much better now. I actually have enjoyed the character this year and would be sad to see her go. She’ll come back, won’t she?

Castle 2×06 — “Vampire Weekend”: To be honest, I wasn’t all that fond of this episode. I rarely like Halloween episodes, though, so perhaps that had something to do with my discontent. I know a lot of hardcore Nathan Fillion fans were excited that he busted out a costume from a previous character that he played on a series called Firefly, but since I knew nothing of that show, the bit didn’t really do much for me.

The mystery didn’t hold my interest either. Vampires and werewolves? Uh, totally not my thing. But I still thought it was pretty sad that the vic had witnessed his mother’s murder and was killed by the evil stepmother just to silence him. And for what? The dad seemed like a regular guy, not some rich, famous, and handsome catch. Was getting married and staying married to him really worth killing three people for? The motive there was kind of iffy.

I have to admit that I was totally faked out by Beckett’s costume at the end. I was expecting it to be Nikki Heat sexy, but that popout alien thing was funny. And Castle’s reaction made the whole thing work!

I can’t believe that Castle is my only regular show that’s on this week. No new episodes from House, Bones, or Criminal Minds, and even my backup TV Roundup show NCIS had the week off. Oh, well!

I love watching legal dramas (though for some reason I don’t have any on my current TV viewing list). Beginning with L.A. Law when I was a kid, and progressing through The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal, I guess I can say that all my “knowledge” of the American justice system comes courtesy of writer/producer David E. Kelley!

Boston Legal was the only show that I never caught during its original broadcast time, preferring instead to view the DVDs. I finished Season 4 last summer, but haven’t started in on S5 yet because I don’t have the box set. But that could change soon, as Buy.com has it on sale for $34.80, along with free shipping.

The Boston Legal Season 5 DVD set comes with four discs that feature all 13 episodes from the show’s final season. It also comes with some bonuses, including deleted scenes and trailers, as well as a bunch of featurettes about the characters and behind-the-scenes happenings during production.

I’m kind of sad that the show is off the air. Denny Crane, Alan Shore, and Shirley Schmidt were some of my favorite television characters, so it’ll be hard to see them go. I’ll especially miss Denny and Alan’s scotch and cigar out on the balcony after a long day of legal wrangling… Nevertheless, I’m curious to see how the series ended. Was the finale a worthy farewell? I guess I’ll have to buy this box set to find out!

Moonlighting 4×12 — “Maddie Hayes Got Married”: This episode served to move things along in the extremely convoluted Maddie/David storyline. Here, David finally meets Walter Bishop, the man Maddie married in Las Vegas during her train ride from Chicago to L.A. Since Walter is kind of a mousy little man compared to astronaut Sam Crawford (Mark Harmon) and Dave himself, Addison is not at all threatened by him. In fact, David essentially laughs in Maddie’s face over her choice of husbands, and refuses to believe that she has anything in common with Walter. To prove his point and call what he perceives as Maddie’s bluff, David insists on throwing a huge wedding for the two. Walter likes the idea, but Maddie sees it for what it is.

– David had been getting on my nerves in recent episodes, but I couldn’t help agreeing with him here. Everything that he said to Maddie about Walter was absolutely true and needed to be voiced aloud. But of course stubborn Maddie refused to acknowledge that there could even be the slightest kernel of truth to what he said.

– The bachelor party scenes were kinda dumb, especially with Bert Viola dressing up as a stripper. Now I totally remember why I stopped watching the show during Season 4 — too much Viola! He’s stupid, annoying, and not the least bit funny. What kind of an idiot thinks that dressing up as a stripper is the only way to save face after the real stripper calls in sick???

– I can’t believe Maddie left her own wedding just to find out who David’s mystery woman was. That just goes to show how self-centered she could be at times. I mean, she was in a church full of people, with Walter at her side up there at the altar, but she left just because David rushed out.

– Well, that hospital scene at the end was worth sitting through the rest of the ep. At least Maddie and David finally admitted that they still love each other despite everything that has happened since Maddie took off for Chicago. But did I miss something along the way? How does Maddie know for sure that the baby isn’t David’s? When was that established???

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Jason (played by Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are trying to save their marriage. They are under a lot of stress from their failed efforts to have a baby, and regular therapy sessions haven’t worked for them. As a result, they want to go to Eden, a special resort that provides skill building activities designed to bring couples closer together.

The problem is that Eden is prohibitively expensive — unless they choose the group package. So Jason recruits friends Dave (Vince Vaughn), Joey (Jon Favreau), and Shane (Faizon Love) to bring their significant others along for a vacation. At first the guys are resistant, but Jason assures them that they can just have fun, enjoy the beaches, activities, and open bars while Jason and Cynthia do the couples’ therapy stuff. Reluctantly, the men finally agree.

Upon arrival at the resort, the couples learn that there are actually two separate retreats. One one side is Eden West, where the couples are confined. On the other side is Eden East, which caters to singles and is clearly party central at the resort. Joey longs to go to Eden East because he hasn’t felt connected to wife Lucy (Kristin Davis) in years, but resort host Sctanley (Peter Serafinowicz) is very strict about enforcing the rules and doesn’t let anyone wander over.

The rest of the film then shows all the crazy experiences the couples have on the island, as they’re all forced to partake in various therapy sessions and therapeutic activities. Along the way, all the couples learn things about themselves, and end up leaving the resort more in love with each other than before they arrived.

My Reaction: Couples Retreat was just about what I expected from a Vince Vaughn comedy. There wasn’t a significant plotline or any surprises, but the characters were likable, some of the situations were funny, and there were quite a few laughs along the way. I’m not sure that anything more could reasonably be expected from a film like this.

I have to say that the more I see Jason Bateman, the more I like him as an actor. Who would’ve thought that the little smart-ass Derek from Silver Spoons would still be around 25 years later? And I enjoy Kristen Bell’s work, too (which reminds me that I really need to rent some Veronica Mars DVDs soon!). Actually, I don’t think there was an obvious weak link in the couples casting — quite a feat for an ensemble project like this one.

Overall, I thought Couples Retreat was a decent film that at least didn’t make me feel like I wasted money on the ticket. I had an enjoyable time and was entertained for a couple of hours, but will no doubt forget all about this movie in a month. I give it 6 stars out of 10.

Desperate Housewives 6×05 — “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid”: I didn’t really get into this episode of Desperate Housewives, as it pretty much seemed like filler and didn’t advance any storylines along. My favorite scenes involved Bree and the motel maid. I could understand both their points of view. First, as the maid said, Bree thought she was above every other cheating housewife just because she wore pearls or something. It was good that someone finally called her out for not being as prim and proper as she likes to appear. But at the same time, I had to agree with Bree’s justification. She did want a divorce, only to be outright refused by Orson. What is she supposed to do, resign herself to a lonely, loveless marriage just because of some antiquated “vows” that she apparently doesn’t believe in anyway?

– How could Gaby be surprised that people were questioning her parenting skills. She wasn’t watching the kids when they went flying down the stairs, so it totally was her fault that the other girl got injured. But the girl’s mom really overreacted there, especially with pulling the girl from the birthday party. I absolutely hate that kind of petty crap.

– Susan with a gun. It didn’t take long for that accident to happen. I can’t believe everyone was so blase about Katherine getting shot. Sure, the bullet just grazed her shoulder, but she could have been killed. And yet everyone was willing to laugh it off and brush the incident under the rug? Whatever.

– Hmm, they finally explained why Tom lets Lynette control everything. That was a bit of a redeeming scene for Tom, but I fear that the character is so far gone at this point that he’ll never become likable in my eyes.

– The Bolens continue to be weird. So the wife has cheated in the past too? They have stacks of cash, passports, and a gun kept in a lockbox? The gun is registered in their real names? Well if they were criminals, why would they bother to register the gun in the first place? None of this makes any sense.

The Batman film franchise “rebooted” a few years ago, with Christian Bale taking on the role of the caped crusader in Batman Begins and continuing with The Dark Knight. The two newest films have earned hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide, and are clearly a hit with fans. But even so, I thought the older films from the ’90s were pretty entertaining, which is why I want to buy this Batman DVD Collection.

The Batman DVD Collection features the following four films: Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), and Batman & Robin (1997). Three different actors played Batman in those films (Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney), which kind of detracted from the quality, but I loved some of the villains, including Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, Jim Carrey as the Riddler, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.

I’ve seen each of the films only once, and not since their theatrical release, so I don’t even remember what happened in any of them. Watching this DVD collection would be like seeing them all for the first time again.

I don’t think any bonus features are included, but with the collection being on sale for $10.98, I think I can live with that! Four movies for less than 11 bucks plus free shipping? Maybe I’ll get two, so I can give one away as a stocking stuffer when Christmas rolls around. Sounds like a plan!

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The film opens with four armed men boarding a New York City subway train. The men, led by Ryder (played by John Travolta), proceed to quickly take over the train, holding the passengers hostage. When Metropolitan Transportation Authority employee Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) notices that the Pelham 1:23 train is no longer moving, he gets on the radio to the driver to find out what’s going on. Ryder picks up and demands $10 million to be delivered in one hour or passengers will start dying.

Garber is not trained to handle hostage situations, so he defers to NYPD Emergency Service Unit Lt. Camonetti (John Turturro), who gets on the radio with Ryder to begin negotiating. But Ryder insists that he will only talk to Garber, so Garber is back in play. By this time the NYC mayor (James Gandolfini) also arrives at the Rail Control Center to monitor the situation. The Mayor begins speculating about why Ryder would ask for a relatively small sum like $10 million, when he notices that the stock market is going crazy. He figures out that the $10 million is likely just a ruse, and that the real goal of the terrorists is to make a killing in the market.

As the film unfolds, viewers learn that this is indeed the case. It is revealed that Ryder sold short and invested in gold, earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million for his antics on the Pelham train. After the usual hostage film developments (delays with the money, screamed threats, hostages getting killed, hostages getting saved at the last minute), Ryder eventually makes off with the money. But as he’s trying to escape across the Manhattan Bridge, he comes face to face with Garber, who has no choice but to shoot him.

My Reaction: I wasn’t really planning on seeing The Taking of Pelham 123, but it was shown on a long flight I was on recently, so I figured what the heck. John Travolta is not one of my favorite actors, particularly when he tries to play a “crazy bad guy”, and sure enough, his performance annoyed. But The film as a whole wasn’t as much of a disaster as I thought it would be.

I think Denzel Washington saved this for me. He was the perfect choice to play Garber because Washington always exudes that cool, unflappable demeanor, which was exactly what Garber needed in that situation. I liked how Garber and Ryder’s relationship developed. There seemed to be a mutual respect going on there, but fortunately it never crossed the boundary into friendship. That would have been a major misstep. Thankfully, however, the Ryder character was so completely unlikable that this particular angle simply wasn’t possible — which paved the way for Garber to be able to shoot Ryder in the end.

Most of the film seemed like a retread of stuff we’ve all seen in hostage movies before. I wish the screenwriters would have played up the stock market angle a bit more, as that was the only unique/interesting part of the whole plot.

Overall, while The Taking of Pelham 123 wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, it was far from good. Act II was pretty boring, and the film seemed to drag in a lot of places. This is not something I feel compelled to watch again. I give the movie 6 stars out of 10.

House 6×05 — “Brave Heart”: This episode was kind of boring for me, and bordered on supremely cheesy in some parts. For instance, that whole “autopsy” scene where the patient suddenly woke up… did the show really go there? How ridiculous! And Wilson talking out loud to Amber every night?? Hey, I can understand going through a mental recap of your day to a dearly departed loved one, but doing it aloud with a house guest in the next room? Uh, I don’t think so. Wilson just came off as utterly pathetic rather than sweet. He needs to get over her soon.

I thought the Chase stuff had the potential to be interesting, but I was wrong. I’m already tired of him and all his baggage from what he did to James Earl Jones. I read somewhere that this is the incident that paves the way for Jennifer Morrison’s exit from the show, which sucks. That probably means that Thirteen will be back to a regular role soon thereafter. Boo!

Castle 2×05 — “When the Bough Breaks”: This was another great Castle episode! I’m telling you, this show is on a roll here in the second season! I absolutely love the continued chemistry between Castle and Beckett, and enjoyed all the scenes where they realized that this might be their last case together. I thought for sure that Castle was finally going to ask her out, first at the book launch party when she read the dedication, and then at the end when it looked like he was leaving to write the Bond series. In fact, I think the end would have been the perfect time for it. First, he asks her out to dinner and she accepts. Then, they get their respective phone calls letting them know that they’ll still be working with each other. After that, they have to deal with the whole dinner date thing and decide whether to keep the date or cancel now that they’re still partners. Oh, well.

I know it will be practically impossible to sustain the UST for years and years in a believable way, but I hope the writers can figure it out. I think that like David & Maddie and Mulder & Scully, these two are actually better apart than they would be together. The only couples that I liked more after they finally got together were Josh & Donna from The West Wing and Barney & Robin from How I Met Your Mother (though the jury’s still partially out on them). I would hate to see the Beckett/Castle chemistry get messed up from a premature pairing.

Criminal Minds 5×05 — “Cradel to Grave”: I thought this was a very strong episode. Initially, I figured the case would just be a ripoff of recent headlines, with the unsub keeping the women around for sex and then leaving the resulting offspring in the dungeon as well. But the writers included sufficient differences in the script to make the storyline far more interesting than if they had simply chosen the lazy route.

What was with all the electronics down in the dungeon, though? They had some expensive-looking medical equipment and stuff. How did the unsubs, who lived in a rather modest house, afford those things? Also, didn’t they have an ultrasound machine? I could’ve sworn I saw one of the women getting an ultrasound. If so, then they would have known the sex of the baby well before it was born, right?

I’m not sure that I like this development of Hotch stepping down and putting Morgan in charge. This reminds me of House still being on the team while Foreman is “in charge”. Won’t the rest of the agents still turn to Hotch for validation of theories and so forth? Why wasn’t Rossi chosen to replace Hotch as the leader? I don’t particularly care for that character, but he has more experience than Morgan and is the senior agent, so promoting him would make more sense. Meh, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see where this leads.

For as much as my husband and I like to buy tech toys, it’s a bit surprising that we don’t have any kind of camcorder at all. Instead, we just rely on our digital camera’s movie mode, which is not very good at all. Sometimes I feel guilty that the only “home movies” I have of my son are a bunch of short clips filmed with the digital camera!

We’re certainly not averse to buying a camcorder, provided that we get a good deal on it. In fact, this Sony HD handycam that I saw over on Buy.com this morning seems to be just what we’re looking for. This handycam comes with a long list of terrific features, including 15x Optical/180x Digital zoom, geotagging, 1920 x 1080 hi-def resolution, slow motion recording, still image capture, highlight playback, a 120GB built-in hard drive, and much more. This is clearly a high-end camera, as evidenced by its $1,000 retail price tag.

But Buy.com has reconditioned models on sale for half price — $499.99. The reconditioned models have been professionally inspected to ensure that they meet manufacturer standards regarding resale, so there’s no reason to be concerned about quality or performance. Moreover, most reconditioned products come with warranties similar to those that brand-new products have, which nice for added peace of mind.

I would love to have a video camera like this so we can start making “real” family movies. Maybe this could be our joint Christmas gift this year!