Elastic Pop

It almost embarrasses me to admit this but prior to watching the first season of Lost on Blu-ray, I hadn't seen any of those episodes. For some reason, I was late to the party and didn't start watching the show on a regular basis until midway through the second season. Created by Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber, the show was a huge success from the start, averaging 16 million viewers and garnering 12 Emmy nominations. If you're like me and missed the 'flight' when Lost originally aired, the recent release of seasons one and two on Blu-ray is a great way to get up to speed.

As a woman in my thirties, I understand I'm not part of the target demographic for ABC Family's hit series, The Secret Life of An American Teenager. After watching both DVD releases of the show, I truly don't understand the appeal. The premise is absurdly unrealistic and shouldn't be taken seriously as a real, dramatic look at how teenagers go about their daily lives. Created by Brenda Hampton, the same woman who brought us Seventh Heaven, that long running family drama with all sorts of religious undertones, seems to want to do the same thing here but with an edge.

On the face of it, golf doesn't exactly sound like titillating cinema. However, the 2005 film, The Greatest Game Ever Played manages to be exciting, dramatic and inspirational from beginning to end. Directed by well known actor Bill Paxton (Big Love), the film tells the true story of the 1913 U.S. Open championship. The legendary meeting between six-time British Open golf champion Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane), the greatest English player of all time and the untested young amateur Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) would play a major role in reshaping the face of golf throughout the next century.

I guess we'll never really know for certain whether Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was really supposed to be the end of the franchise. The publicity machine suckered fans in with the tagline, "Jason's unlucky day!" In hindsight, anyone who believed that Jason would actually die was as naïve as those kids at Camp Crystal Lake. No matter, the ploy worked and Paramount had a huge hit. The popularity and financial success of the film, which grossed over $32 million, resulted in the release of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning less than a year later, which was set up as a reboot of the franchise.

There was a time when, if a successful film actress made the transition to television, it was considered a major step down; an admission that their career was on the fast track to nowhere. Times have changed and it's not uncommon to see a successful film star make a guest appearance on television or star in their own television series. Oscar winner Holly Hunter has made the transition with her first television series, TNT's Saving Grace.

Created by Nancy Miller, the show focuses on Grace Hanadarko (Hunter), a heavy drinking, smoking, tough talking and promiscuous Oklahoma City detective. The basic premise of the show was set up during the series premiere in July of 2007: Grace meets her "last chance' angel when one of her drinking binges results in her running down and killing a pedestrian. Distraught, she pleads for God's help and a scruffy man who calls himself Earl (Leon Rippy) appears. Earl tells her that she's headed for hell and asks if she's ready to turn her life over to God. When he finally disappears, the person she struck is gone and it's as if the accident never happened. The only evidence left is a small amount of the victim's blood on her blouse, which she brings to her best friend, forensics expert Rhetta Rodriguez (Laura San Giacomo), to analyze. With Rhetta's help, Grace discovers that her accident "victim" is actually an inmate on death row, Leon Cooley (Bokeem Woodbine), who is also visited by Earl on a regular basis.

Though advertised as a sequel to the 2000 Jennifer Lopez film The Cell, this direct to video sequel has nothing in common with its namesake. That's if you don't count the short, clumsy narration in the opening seconds, a cheap gadget strapped to star Tessie Santiago's (likely cast for her similarity to Ms. Lopez) forehead and a few lingering rules of engagement. Though The Cell wasn't what I would call a great film, at least it had had some impressive imagery, tension and an occasionally captivating look into the mind of a psychopath.

The Cell 2 is so different, I was left to wonder if Writers/producers Alex Barder, Rob Rinow, and Lawrence Silverstein were shopping an unrelated script around town when a shrewd executive, noticing the vaguest of connections, decided to turn their concept into a sequel for a cult favorite.

Clint Eastwood has reportedly said that 2008's Gran Torino will mark his last appearance in front of the camera. If that's the case, his absence as an actor will mark a big change in the film landscape. From the time Eastwood became a star in the sixties, until the early 1990's he was the go to guy; he made westerns, action films and the occasional sequel.

As he grew older, Eastwood seemed to change his focus and start making more serious, dramatic pictures. He started directing the kind of movies that critics tend to fawn over and get lots of attention during awards season. In 2003 he directed Mystic River, a crime drama about murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse. In Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood presented a thoughtful take on World War II. In 2005, he found critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored and starred in the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood played a cantankerous trainer who forms an unlikely bond with the female boxer (Hilary Swank) he reluctantly trains after being persuaded by his lifelong friend (Morgan Freeman). The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as earning Eastwood a Best Actor nomination and a win for Best Director. Swank and Freeman also won Oscars for their performances.

The Three Stooges broke away from Ted Healy in 1934 to form their own act and become one of the most successful comedy acts in the world for the next thirty years. Best known for their short subject films, their trademark was very physical slapstick comedy, punctuated by quick one-liners and ridiculous storylines.

Sony has done an excellent job handling The Three Stooges Collections they've put together. The studio has released all of the Stooges shorts in chronological order with serious fans in mind. The shorts have been digitally remastered and cleaned up so that they've never looked better; they've been listed with brief episode descriptions and greeted with enthusiasm by Stooges fans young and old.

In the midst of financial problems, Warner Brothers was forced to close its independent picture wing Warner Independent. Some pictures on its slate found new studio homes, most notably Slumdog Millionaire, which was picked up by Fox Searchlight, released in theaters, became a big hit and went home with the Best Picture Oscar. Others like Spring Breakdown starring Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch and Parker Posey. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival but was unable to find a distributor. As a result, Warner Brothers recently released the film straight to video. However, unlike most straight to video fare, Spring Breakdown is well worth checking out.

As a fan of British comedy, I started watching American broadcasts of the classic British improvisational series Whose Line Is It Anyway? sometime in the early nineties. Built on the notion that a rotating gang of celebrities (particularly stand-up comedians), would play a series of games--Song Styles, Backwards Scene, World's Worst, Party Quirks, etc.--parts of which would be generated by the studio audio, both before and during the show. What made Whose Line Is It Anyway? So appealing was that nothing seemed forced or contrived, all of the participants and the host (the rather dry but witty Clive Anderson), seem to be having a great time.

Is it just me, or does 1969 seem like a long time ago? The idea of peace and free love seems like such a foreign concept to me, a person born in the early seventies who grew up in the midst of the Aids crisis and various international crises. However, having studied the sixties and heard about the Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock or The Woodstock Festival) more times than I can count, there's no denying that this one event held in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969 was something special. Clearly, most of the people there were driven by the music and their sincere belief in the values of peace and love.

In the early 1990's, Bruce Willis was one of the biggest action stars in Hollywood. Given the major success of the first two Die Hard films he was often cast in films in that genre. One can only believe that Willis thought his acting skills and box office clout would make up for what the script lacked, when he signed up for 1993's Striking Distance. Directed and co-written by Rowdy Herrington, the guy who brought us that 1989 gem, Roadhouse; Striking Distance is a real D-list action yarn starring a surprisingly A-list cast. I remember seeing this one years ago on HBO and sadly, it fairs no better in high definition. In plain language, Striking Distance will likely appeal to diehard (pun intended) Bruce Willis fans only.