I don't know which is worse, ...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.

- Calvin

 

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Hancock is not a quality movie. The story structure is terrible. There's nothing really going on. But you know what? It was a pretty entertaining 90 minutes. Yes, it plays more like a collection of funny scenes, most of the good parts of which were in the trailer but I still enjoyed watching Will Smith play a drunk, assholish superhero and many lulls in the film were glossed over by Charlize Theron looking her best since 2 Days in the Valley.

The film is basically an hour of character study and half our of plot. It's like watching the pilot of a TV series and then having the rest of the series condensed into a half hour at the end. So while I wouldn't recommend the film to everyone (especially those who already know they don't like Peter Berg's films), I had a good time and would tell anyone who's looking to kill 90 minutes this weekend that it's a nice trifle/diversion. 

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Step 1: Mention your key attraction up top. In this case, it is J.J. Abrams. It's also smart not to mention the specific things he's worked on since saying "Lost", "Mission Impossible III", and "Cloverfield" will probably turn off more viewes

Step 2: If you are contractually obligated to put lesser people on, make sure their names are hard to read and their credits are even harder to make out. In this case, the writers from "Transformers" are credited below Abrams. I'm sorry but you really don't want many people knowing that the people who wrote a film so ridiculous that it almost made watching fighting robots unenjoyable are attached to your project. Maybe Michael Bay rewrote most of it but still the stink remains. (Sidenote: I tried to watch Transformers again since it's on cable and simply couldn't get through it. It is just beyond stupid and doesn't hold up after the initial "Oh cool! Starscream's ripping up fighter jets!" viewing)

Step 3: Don't have the poster actually explain anything and also add a couple of random yellow dots which will have Lost-ies blogging for months about what they could me and what they might be an allusion to.

Step 4: These guys apparently ignored this step but they probably should have done a little more with the title than spending 3 minutes playing with layer effects on Photoshop.

All in all, it's a nicely made poster and looks like the type of show that I'll ignore even though a handful of people at the office swear by it and won't stop discussing it at lunch. 

Posted by SoulHonky at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Upon looking over some more episodes, one thing that became glaringly obvious was that, while Blake Lively became the breakout star of the show, the show's Queen is B. Blair holds the show together and her storylines are usually the anchor.

- Episodes 1 - 4 focused on Blair and Serena's relationship.
- Episode 5 was pretty much a standalone aside from the introduction of Jenny onto the socialite scene.
- Episode 6 - 10 focused on the Blair, Chuck, Nate love triangle (with episode 9 being a bit of a break for Thanksgiving).
- Episode 11 was another Blair-centric standalone, this time focusing on Christmas (and her Dad and his lover).
- Episode 12 was pretty much a group standalone, School Ties.
- Episodes 13 - 16 focused on Blair & Jenny 

To me, the show started to come apart in Episode 15 because a second A-story was introduced and the show seemed to lose focus. The show's formula didn't really work with the Georgina stoy fighting for time alongside Jenny v. Blair. Because of this, moments that probably should have been stronger, such as Blair discovering that Eric is gay or Asher's character as a whole, were lost and treated almost as throwaways. Even worse, the two A-stories didn't mesh. Dan outs Asher to Gossip Girl/the Upper East side and it's no big deal but Georgina outing Eric to his own mother is somehow pure evil.

But the most problematic piece was that the battle was one-sided. Serena is an almost completely reactive character. She is almost never proactive in any situation (would Blair have let Jenny toss yogurt at her and not have, at least, tried to talk to her?) Even when Chuck was at his worst, Blair had some fight in her. Serena basically lets Georgina slap her around and then whines about not being able to whine to anyone about it. (And hell, she didn't even kill someone. She just didn't call because Georgina told her not to).

The season finale will hopefully tie up the loose ends of the Serena A-story and next season can start with the deflowered and single Blair looking to get her party on in the Hamptons. That way she could possibly be the devil on Serena's shoulder as opposed to Dan's Angel. And perhaps the writers could even let Blair be right a couple of times so that wet blanket Dan isn't always smugly judgemental.

There's hope yet for Gossip Girl but the Georgina/Murder folly is something that should be dealt with, pushed aside, and ignored in the future. Blake can be the star but Blair needs to drive the story.

Posted by SoulHonky at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This episode was the first downright boring episode IMO however the way they solved many of the issues could set it up so the whole murder and Georgina plots could be long gone when next season starts. That being said, it still followed the somewhat ironclad Gossip Girl formula which I've decided to, in between Scrabulous turns, to take a look at. Right now, the basic formula breakdown is:

Act 1: Introduce Big Event, set-up possible tension that could unfold at said event.

Act 2: Prepare for Big Event. Tensions rise and the act ends with secret being revealed (ep. 2: Blair knows about Serena and Nate; ep. 3: Chuck sees Serena going into Ostroff center)

Act 3: Antgonists plot trouble while, elsewhere, the Protagonists try to reach their goal, the efforts meet at the Big Event!

Act 4: The Big Event! Chaos ensues and the act ends as things fall apart as the event comes to a close. (ep.3: Blair calls out Serena as a Ostroff patient; ep. 4: Blair blows up at Serena for being the model/Dan is judgemental about what Serena did)

Act 5: The fallout from the Big Event (usually, everyone's upset) but then the original secret (be it: Serena and Nate, Eric's suicide, Blair confronting her mom about the photo shoot) comes out and sends someone reeling. (In the early eps, it's usually Blair)

Act 6: There's usually a heart-to-heart or two as well as a little morsel for the future (in the first eps, it was hinting about Jenny's turn to a socialite), and it ends with a couple being put together, either in a tumultuous relationship (Nate & Blair in Ep. 1/Jenny & Blair in Ep. 5/Chuck & Blair Ep. 7) or a renewed friendship (Blair and Serena in Ep. 3 or Dan and Vanessa in Ep. 6). I've only looked at the first few episodes in depth but the later episodes often have the couple's secret reveled (Serena catching Blair and Chuck in bed in Ep. 8)

I'm not sure when or if I'll get to a more complete breakdown but I'm hoping to have something for the finale next Monday so all other Gossip Girl fans can spend the offseason constructing their own episodes of Gossip Girl. Granted, I'm not sure any fans actually read this but, at the very least, it's a good study for me in terms of breaking down story and seeing how network shows are constructed.  

Posted by SoulHonky at 01:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Fort Hood" isn't exactly an anti-war song. It's more of a song about my own guilt for living life without thinking of the war every moment. I was invited by the USO to visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2006; I went over and gave CDs to wounded guys, most of them in their 20s, most missing limbs. It was tremendously moving. As we left the hospital, I was thinking that I wanted to never lose that feeling I felt, of incredible gratitude for everything in life.
Fort Hood is the base in Texas that's lost the most people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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