Cast Offs

Did you know that British television airs the occasional penis shot?  Cast Offs kind of does, in the first episode, but it pushes the envelope in so many other ways that you almost don't even miss the penis.  This show is six episodes long, and tells the story of six people with disabilities that are dropped off on an island for three months and left to survive on their own.  With cameras watching them, of course.  However, it's not true.  The disabled people aren't REALLY left of their own to survive, they are just disabled actors filming a show about disabled. . .okay, it's a fake documentary.  But a really good one.  The island doesn't involve any contests, or voting.  The episodes follow what is happening on the island, the squabbling, the sex, the politcally incorrect cripple and retard jokes, but each episode focuses on one of the cast members during a series of flashbacks.  We kind of get to know them a little bit before the island, and how each one came to be.  The results are not always pretty. The writers wanted to show that disabled people can be as cruel, selfish, petty, and human as the normal people can.  It worked.  It is very difficult to look away from each episode, so get your snacks ready ahead of time.  The actors all have the real disability that they portray on screen, and most were cast before the show was written.  Mat Fraser, who plays Will, the guy with arms like a seal, has been a drummer for 15 years and is an accomplished Martial Artist, and actor.  Victoria Wright, who plays April, the girl with Cherubism and a HUGE chin, is a first time actor, is studying to be a lawyer, and is married.  The handsome Peter Mitchell, who was planning to play pro soccer before his car accident sent him to a wheelchair, is also a debut actor.  It is as fascinating to look these people up in real life as it is to watch them try to survive the island.  You don't feel sorry for them, that's for sure, and like I said, there is that flash of penis.
(you can watch at casttv.com)

Avatar: The Movie

This review will be short.  Many people (hypothetically, since many people don't read this blog) will disagree and be miffed at my opinion.  Oh well.  Dear James: REALLY? YOU SPENT FIVE YEARS MAKING THIS?  I get it, there was a lot of comuter work, technical work, blah blah, I get it.  And it was pretty cool, especially in 3-D.  But could you have spent fifteen minutes on the story?  I already saw Dances With Wolves, and since I watched it on video, it only cost $1.99, not the $13.00 I had to shell out for this slop.  Actually, I paid $26.00 because I told my friend Laurie that I would buy her ticket before I knew how much it was, and then I couldn't really back out, could I?  And another thing.  What were the tails for?  Why did the tall people have tails?  What's the point of giving a character a tail if you aren't going to ever address the fact that they have tails?  Is the tail used to connect with the animals?  Of course not, that's what HAIR is for.  Ugly hair.  And the animals.  Did every single animal need to have six legs?  That's all you could come up with?  EVER SINGLE animal gets six legs?  Lame.  I really wanted to like this movie, but I just didn't.  One kid a few rows in front of me was so bored he was texting on his phone, and I had to throw a piece of ice at him.  Best part of the whole movie.

The Blind Side (the movie)

Do you know what the term "the blind side" means?  If you don't, you still won't after seeing this movie.  It's never explained, which I think is kind of strange, because IT'S THE TITLE OF THE DAMN MOVIE!  I read this book about five years ago, which I know is a bad way to start a review of any movie, but i can't help it, it's true, the book is better.  Not a LOT better, but still better.  At least it explains what the blind side is. 
The movie is about a wealthy white southern family taking a poor, hulking, black teenage boy into their hearts and home.  Good formula, true story.  The kid starts out with a terrible grade point average, he barely speaks, and clearly has some kind of torrid past.  He acclimates with the family, they teach him to play football, (left tackle--protecting the blind side) his grades get better, and he goes on to play football at a great university.  If that sounds kind of terse, and if you like it, go to this movie. Because that's how they tell the story.  It's like a flat rock skipping on a lake.  Why does the mother suddenly pick the boy up from the side of the road?  Don't know.  Why doesn't the wealthy white family feel afraid of having a large black kid from the projects live in their home?  Don't know.  What motivates the black kid to get better grades and play football?  Don't know.  No matter what happens in this movie, you never get to know why it's happening.  No character development whatsoever.
And then there's the cast.  Sandra Bullock does a wonderful job in this role.  It's a departure from her ususal whimsical roles, and she does it well.  However, she looks terrible as a blonde. Which is too bad, because the only reason to see a movie with her in it is because she is usually pretty hot.  In a suburban mom kind of way, which my friends will tell you, I tend to like.  The worst cast member is the little boy who plays the young son.  I think they tried to cast a little nerdy boy who is supposed to come across as endearing.  That did not work.  The kid could not have been more irritating.  Weird crooked teeth, cowlick in his reddish hair, and WAY TOO MANY lines.  He is like a fly buzzing around your head while you are trying to eat a sandwich.  They made that boy more of a main character than the main character himself.  God, he was annoying.  (no offence to his parents, i'm sure he's a great kid in real life)  Then, randomly, Kathy Bates played the black kid's tutor.  Love her, right?  NO.  She looked dumpy and fat, and for some reason I just kept noticing that her forearms looked like overstuffed sausages.  I don't think that was the plan, but I could not look away.  The most interesting thing about this movie was the white watch that Sandra Bullock wore in most of her scenes. It looked just like the one my manager Megan at work got from her boyfriend for Christmas.  I kept trying to get a better look at it too see if it was the same one.  Blind side, indeed.  More like blindsided.

Under the Dome by Stephen King

About a year ago, my friend Kelly came back from a weekend in Miami, and was really excited to tell me about her trip.  "Tina, I spent the whole weekend lying on the bed with the patio doors open reading Duma Key, Stephen King's new book!  It was so good!"  It was December here, and I could think of a few better things to do in Miami than read ANY book inside, much less a Stephen King novel.  It had been years since I had picked up anything that he wrote, but I really do trust Kelly's book taste, so I tried it, and it was great.   I was so glad to have liked it, that I tried some other Stephen King books, and hated them.  So when "Under the Dome" came out, I was wary.  For one thing, the book is so thick I could drop it in the center of my dining room and serve lunch to my friends on it, and that scared me a bit.  I circled around the idea of the book cautiously, looking at it out of the corner of my eye when I was in a bookstore, or reading a review or two online.  Last week, I was in the Barnes and Noble at the Mall of America, and there was a display as high as my head of this book in the store.  I picked one up, and started to read.  I had to move to some chairs, because I couldn't put it down.  Forty-five minutes later, I forced myself to pay for the book and go home.  Three days and four hours of sleep later, I had done it.  I had read all 1,075 pages.  It was worth every minute.  I'll tell you a little bit about it.
An invisible dome clamps down around and over a small town in Maine (surprise, it's Maine!).  Before long, the people on the inside and the people on the outside figure out it's there, and the people on the inside soon realize that the dome isn't going anywhere for a while, if ever.  Things are not looking good for this town in Maine. The rest of the story is about human nature:  how people deal with themselves, with each other, with power, with greed, with fear, with hunger, with hope, with hopelessness, with death, with pets, and all kinds of other things that you normally don't have to think about every minute of every day under normal circumstances.  And, of course, good versus evil.  King peppers the story with catchy adages and with a million bible verses (who knew the bible would come in so handy for the bad guys), and some fun facts like how the chevrolet bowtie was born.  As long as it is, the book is fast paced, and it is imperative that you find out what happens next, page after page.  However, if you are going to Miami soon, I recommend leaving the book at home and reading it when you return.  It wasn't THAT good.

Ellen does Oprah

Did you see Ellen DeGeneres on the Oprah show?  Before I even get started, let me say, for the record, that I like Ellen.  Now I can get started.  First of all, she did not look so good.  Her new, boyish(er) haircut was trimmed above the ears, and someone should have told Ellen that her ears are pretty big.  Doesn't she have people?  I know that it's not nice to make fun of something people can't help about themselves, but I'm lamenting the haircut, not the ears.  She was funny and charming for the first half of the show when she and Oprah laughed about Ellen's quest and realization of the quest to appear on the cover of O.  Then Oprah asked her about what it felt like to have the Ellen Show cancelled, and I had a hard time sympathising at this point.  It hurt her feelings that after six years, her show was cancelled, and no one told her until her assistant did.  Probably because she is gay, she thinks.  (i am paraphrasing in this post, no direct quotes).  Really?  Because no one else's show has ever been cancelled before.  Everyone else gets treated so well by Hollywood executives.  And then she almost ran out of money.  She actually did say that.  Almost ran out of money.  And then there was this little sad face that she made. Personally I have almost run out of money about a million times. In fact, I am almost out of money right now.  I'm sure it's because I'm gay.  Come on, Ellen.  Then, after the cancellation, no one would pick up her talk show, or even call her back.  Probably because she's gay.  No one will call me back, either, or pick up my talk show.  Probably because I'm gay.  (fine, i don't have a talk show, but i'm sure it's because no one would call me back if i called them, because i'm gay.)  She talked about those hardships, and how she just learned that she had to be herself, and then she would be happy, and that's why she now has a beautiful wife and a successful television show.  Uhm, no.  It's because you are famous, and have whole boatload of money, and are even more famous now than you were before because you are gay.  Then we got to see some home video of Ellen and Portia's wedding, which was amazingly beautiful.  The bride was beautiful, the flowers were beautiful, the way they looked at each other was beautiful, and the helicopters hovering overhead taking pictures were beautiful.  I'm happy for you, Ellen, I really am, but I just can't feel sorry for you.  Please just stick to jokes.

Drop Dead Diva

Yeah, I know, Lifetime.  I know who watches that channel.  Fat old ladies who have a lot of cats.  And a few other people.  But mostly the ladies with the cats.  I can't even remember how I found this show, but I did, and here is what I think about it.  I think it is freaking awesome.  It stars Brooke Elliott who had been working on Brodway for several years before this show.  Brooke plays a woman who was a young, aspiring model who is killed in a car accident.  In death, she finds herself in heaven's admitting room, and refuses to accept that she has died.  She pushed the "RETURN" button, and returns.  But not as herself.  She returns as Jane Bingum, an overweight lawyer without much of a social life, who died at exactly the same time taking a bullet for her boss.  Suspend disbelief.  But it works.  Jane finds herself with the memories of her old self, and the brains of her new self.  She starts taking cases that the old Jane would not have bothered herself with, (as you would expect--slightly odd, off kilter, never going to win type of cases) and finds herself winning.  But her fiance from her old life works at her firm, and she loves him so much, and of course he thinks of her as good old Jane from the office, not knowing who she really is.  Two story lines, I guess.  The cases wrap themselves up neatly in each hour long episode, but the angsty love story continues throughout the season.  I know this sounds kind of lame, but the show really pulls it off.  Jane, despite her socially unacceptable extra weight, is really very pretty, and she has a compassion that doesn't seem contrived, even for Lifetime.  The show has managed to secure quite a few notable guest stars including Paula Abdul, Rosie O'Donnell, Tim Gunn, Jorja Fox, and Liza Minelli to name a few.  Margaret Cho is also a supporting cast member working as Jane's assistant, and even though she is toned down from her usual flamboyant self, she is still fun to watch.  Although she does spend a little too much time in pants that give her a camel toe, which in my opinion, is unfortunate.  It reminds me of that stupid movie, "Run, Lola, Run" where that girl wears those ugly, tight, green and white pants.  But I digress.  This show plays on your emotions a bit, but not too much, it has made me laugh out loud a few times, and more than once has made me cry a little bit. But the crying part might have something to do with me feeling sorry for myself, not attractive, NOT ATTRACTIVE!  I have even bookmarked the Lifetime website on my computer just to watch this show, but if you want to catch the whole season I recommend that you find it on Casttv.com.  No downloads, no sign-up, no payment. Just shared streaming video.  Don't take my word for it, watch it yourself.  Just don't tell anyone.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

What a strange book.  Written by the guy that wrote "The Remains of the Day", I expected something very different than what I found.  Mr. Ryder, the main character, arrives in a European town that reamins unknown throughout the book.  He is a celebrated musician, and is clearly there to give a performance in a few days.  From the first page, which begins at his arrival, to the last page, which just ends, this book read like a dream.  Not like a dream as in, "oh, that was so amazing, it was like a dream!" but more like Mr. Ryder's whole time in the town seemed like it was taking place in a dream.  People, places, and things shift around him in a very unlinear way, and he moves within it, semi-conscious of its being strange, but taking it all in stride anyway---kind of.  That's all you need to know about the plot.  Each of the 38 chapters has the feel of a run-on sentence, and the 535 pages seem to get yourself and Mr. Ryder nowhere, but I found that I still wanted to read on.  If you like to spend very little money on entertainment, and if you are a slowish reader, this book could keep you company for up to a year.  Not bad, not bad.