First of all, a big RIP to Heath Ledger and condolences to his family, including his infant son that will never know his father.
I was never a Ledger fan, Brokeback Mountain is pretty much the only thing he made of superior value, and I’m not sure that’s how I’d like to be remembered. Who wants their legacy to be a romp with Jake Gyllenhaal? It seems really creepy now, but I remember being pretty happy when he bit it 15 minutes into Monsters Ball.
As for future non-family implications, apparently everything he shot as The Joker for The Dark Knight (coming in June) was completed. So they won’t have to get body doubles, or reshoot scenes with new actors. Good news for Batman fans, because if the thing had to be reshot, then it may have had to have been rewritten. And you know what that means.
Anyway, despite my feelings about him, no child deserves to be deprived of a father, no matter what the circumstances. Let’s hope the kid grows up right.
More pleasantly, I’m officially on board with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It took me a while to catch up — I actually had fallen asleep after a long day trying to go back-to-back on DVRing the first two episodes last week — but made it through the second two episodes last night. I’m not about to call it a classic, but it’s a well-made, well-meaning re-imaging of the Terminator mythology.
Some thoughts:
–It took me those whole three episodes to get used to Lena Headey as Sarah Connor and to get the image of Linda Hamilton out of my head. I went in with a totally open mind, but man, it was tough not to imagine what Hamilton was thinking about the whole thing. Back in the 90s, I officially nominated Hamilton as the unsexiest woman in Hollywood — her throne has since been violently usurped by Sarah Jessica Parker — but it doesn’t mean she didn’t make the perfect Sarah Connor. Headey was pretty good (and naked) in 300, but I didn’t think a Brit could pull off a truly American role. My bad. She’s not at Hamilton’s status yet — and no one ever could be — but she’s doing a bang-up job. So far.
–I’m a big fan of Dean Winters, who plays paramedic and former Connor fiance Charley Dixon, back from his days as Tommy’s brother on Rescue Me (and a short stint on 30 Rock). Here’s hoping they use him more.
–There is the whole running theme of “How do you plan for the future when it’s already planned for you?” It was the major theme of T2, and I was able to stomach it then. But I’m really hoping we don’t have to put up with it every stinkin’ week. That will be annoying. Just get that new Terminator up and running and let’s see where it goes.
–I’ll officially be creeped out if John and his robot protector (the looking-better-every-episode Summer Glau) even think about getting it on. The writers keep alluding to it, but it’s just gonna be plain freaky if something happens. You never saw the little fat kid trying to get it on with the robot girl in Small Wonder, did you?
–I can’t think of anything I truly despise about the show. In today’s world of scripted TV, that’s saying something.
As for its FOX counterpart on Monday night, Prison Break, well, let’s just say we’re all glad Terminator is good. Scofield and the boys are just making truly ridiculous jumps in logic and knowledge that officially have proven the writers and creators are just insane.
What’s worse is the the writing has become so whacky and corny it’s laugh-out-loud embarrassing. There are three new episodes left before they run out. And in one of those three episodes, mark my words, someone is going to say, “I don’t know anything anymore,” the go-to quote to officially end a show’s creative process. While Monday’s episode actually was pretty good (Awww, Linc and Sofia!), they’re putting themselves back into the position where there are just too many characters.
The reason the show worked so well for most of the first season was there were about 5 characters — and only 2 major ones — that got consistent screen time. They kept adding more and more characters to the point that eight people tried to escape. I thought they were on the right track when they started killing off characters in season 2 — and even killing off a major character in Sarah this year — but for everyone they get rid of, they bring in another and start giving an old character more screen time. If the writers would just chill out, go back to basics and make the story about Michael and Linc for a change, the show has more potential then ever. But we’re too invested in the other characters now for that to happen. Too bad. I’m pretty sure this will be my final season of Prison Break unless something drastic happens.
But when you talk about killing off characters, yowza! nip/tuck came through with its first shocker of its season when Christian accidentally dropped Gina off the 10th floor of an apartment building in the middle of adios sex.
A half-hour earlier, I was asking if there was any kind of sex Christian hadn’t had on the show after being semi-forced into a romp with a hooker while Gina watched (and while Julia was looking like death warmed over sick in bed, has she ever looked worse on the show?). That answer came quickly, as he went into HIV-positive Gina one last time on a rooftop following his announcement that he acquired a restraining order against her. Next thing you know, we see the last of Gina, as she’s falling to the ground, still grabbing for Christian. I can usually smell a nip/tuck twist from 30 miles away, but I never saw this coming.
That’s probably because of the plight of poor Jessalyn Gilsig, who just left a pretty nice supporting role on Friday Night Lights to come back to nip/tuck to reprise her role as Gina. Two episodes into that arc, she gets offed, right when she was making things interesting out in LA. She’s now been killed two episodes into Prison Break, been booted from FNL (at least she can go back there) and dropped off a building in nip/tuck. Didn’t she die in Heroes too last year? She’s better watch herself or she’s going to become the Owen Wilson of TV shows.
Enough about Gina. I want a Hearts and Scalpels spin-off. I find everything Freddie (Oliver Platt) says hysterical, and think Aidan Quinn (Bradley Cooper) could be the best (very) minor character on TV right now. I still half-expect him to say “They’re overpopulated in this region and they’re decimating the grubworm population!” but he’s been a perfect addition to the cast, and you can already see why he was made so over-the-top stupid Hollywood, because you can already see Sean turning into him. A great contrast.
And when is Sean ever going to have something normal in his life? Is it an impossibility for that to ever happen? Even his agent is looney bin material. For once, just give him a nice, non-porn star, non-cheating, non-anorexic, non-Christian sloppy seconds, girlfriend he can be happy with for at least a month. Please, the poor guy deserves it.
Mike Sadowski is pretty boring, but here's the quick scoop: Lifelong NEPA resident, Abington Heights grad ('93), Elizabethtown College grad ('97), sports reporter ('97-'99), news and cops reporter ('99-'04) and pretty much doing everything at the Read Full
terminator, nip/tuck and more . . .
First of all, a big RIP to Heath Ledger and condolences to his family, including his infant son that will never know his father.
I was never a Ledger fan, Brokeback Mountain is pretty much the only thing he made of superior value, and I’m not sure that’s how I’d like to be remembered. Who wants their legacy to be a romp with Jake Gyllenhaal? It seems really creepy now, but I remember being pretty happy when he bit it 15 minutes into Monsters Ball.
As for future non-family implications, apparently everything he shot as The Joker for The Dark Knight (coming in June) was completed. So they won’t have to get body doubles, or reshoot scenes with new actors. Good news for Batman fans, because if the thing had to be reshot, then it may have had to have been rewritten. And you know what that means.
Anyway, despite my feelings about him, no child deserves to be deprived of a father, no matter what the circumstances. Let’s hope the kid grows up right.
More pleasantly, I’m officially on board with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It took me a while to catch up — I actually had fallen asleep after a long day trying to go back-to-back on DVRing the first two episodes last week — but made it through the second two episodes last night. I’m not about to call it a classic, but it’s a well-made, well-meaning re-imaging of the Terminator mythology.
Some thoughts:
–It took me those whole three episodes to get used to Lena Headey as Sarah Connor and to get the image of Linda Hamilton out of my head. I went in with a totally open mind, but man, it was tough not to imagine what Hamilton was thinking about the whole thing. Back in the 90s, I officially nominated Hamilton as the unsexiest woman in Hollywood — her throne has since been violently usurped by Sarah Jessica Parker — but it doesn’t mean she didn’t make the perfect Sarah Connor. Headey was pretty good (and naked) in 300, but I didn’t think a Brit could pull off a truly American role. My bad. She’s not at Hamilton’s status yet — and no one ever could be — but she’s doing a bang-up job. So far.
–I’m a big fan of Dean Winters, who plays paramedic and former Connor fiance Charley Dixon, back from his days as Tommy’s brother on Rescue Me (and a short stint on 30 Rock). Here’s hoping they use him more.
–There is the whole running theme of “How do you plan for the future when it’s already planned for you?” It was the major theme of T2, and I was able to stomach it then. But I’m really hoping we don’t have to put up with it every stinkin’ week. That will be annoying. Just get that new Terminator up and running and let’s see where it goes.
–I’ll officially be creeped out if John and his robot protector (the looking-better-every-episode Summer Glau) even think about getting it on. The writers keep alluding to it, but it’s just gonna be plain freaky if something happens. You never saw the little fat kid trying to get it on with the robot girl in Small Wonder, did you?
–I can’t think of anything I truly despise about the show. In today’s world of scripted TV, that’s saying something.
As for its FOX counterpart on Monday night, Prison Break, well, let’s just say we’re all glad Terminator is good. Scofield and the boys are just making truly ridiculous jumps in logic and knowledge that officially have proven the writers and creators are just insane.
What’s worse is the the writing has become so whacky and corny it’s laugh-out-loud embarrassing. There are three new episodes left before they run out. And in one of those three episodes, mark my words, someone is going to say, “I don’t know anything anymore,” the go-to quote to officially end a show’s creative process. While Monday’s episode actually was pretty good (Awww, Linc and Sofia!), they’re putting themselves back into the position where there are just too many characters.
The reason the show worked so well for most of the first season was there were about 5 characters — and only 2 major ones — that got consistent screen time. They kept adding more and more characters to the point that eight people tried to escape. I thought they were on the right track when they started killing off characters in season 2 — and even killing off a major character in Sarah this year — but for everyone they get rid of, they bring in another and start giving an old character more screen time. If the writers would just chill out, go back to basics and make the story about Michael and Linc for a change, the show has more potential then ever. But we’re too invested in the other characters now for that to happen. Too bad. I’m pretty sure this will be my final season of Prison Break unless something drastic happens.
But when you talk about killing off characters, yowza! nip/tuck came through with its first shocker of its season when Christian accidentally dropped Gina off the 10th floor of an apartment building in the middle of adios sex.
A half-hour earlier, I was asking if there was any kind of sex Christian hadn’t had on the show after being semi-forced into a romp with a hooker while Gina watched (and while Julia was looking like death warmed over sick in bed, has she ever looked worse on the show?). That answer came quickly, as he went into HIV-positive Gina one last time on a rooftop following his announcement that he acquired a restraining order against her. Next thing you know, we see the last of Gina, as she’s falling to the ground, still grabbing for Christian. I can usually smell a nip/tuck twist from 30 miles away, but I never saw this coming.
That’s probably because of the plight of poor Jessalyn Gilsig, who just left a pretty nice supporting role on Friday Night Lights to come back to nip/tuck to reprise her role as Gina. Two episodes into that arc, she gets offed, right when she was making things interesting out in LA. She’s now been killed two episodes into Prison Break, been booted from FNL (at least she can go back there) and dropped off a building in nip/tuck. Didn’t she die in Heroes too last year? She’s better watch herself or she’s going to become the Owen Wilson of TV shows.
Enough about Gina. I want a Hearts and Scalpels spin-off. I find everything Freddie (Oliver Platt) says hysterical, and think Aidan Quinn (Bradley Cooper) could be the best (very) minor character on TV right now. I still half-expect him to say “They’re overpopulated in this region and they’re decimating the grubworm population!” but he’s been a perfect addition to the cast, and you can already see why he was made so over-the-top stupid Hollywood, because you can already see Sean turning into him. A great contrast.
And when is Sean ever going to have something normal in his life? Is it an impossibility for that to ever happen? Even his agent is looney bin material. For once, just give him a nice, non-porn star, non-cheating, non-anorexic, non-Christian sloppy seconds, girlfriend he can be happy with for at least a month. Please, the poor guy deserves it.