The Gleek Critique: "Asian F" Episode

Kurt apologized for being upset over Blaine's audition and promised to support him.  Image property of Fox.

Mike Chang finally gets a front-and-center storyline in tonight's episode!  His father is concerned when Mike brings home an "Asian F" (which is just an A-) and reminds him that he can't get into Harvard with bad grades.  He also feels that Mike would be better off dropping out of the glee club, since it's only a distraction.  But Mike's heart lies in dancing, and he just can't let it go.  So he decides to audition for the part of Riff in the school's production of West Side Story, leading to a touching moment with his mother who encourages him to pursue his dreams.

Mercedes' boyfriend convinces her that she is much better than Rachel and that she should fight to be on top.  And while it's nice to see Mercedes receiving support and gaining some new-found confidence, it's not so great to see her turn into a selfish diva.  She starts showing up late, giving excuses and generally snapping at everyone.  Finally she goes head to head against Rachel for the lead role of Maria.  And in an interesting turn of events, Rachel fears that Mercedes may be better than her and decides to run for student council president... which doesn't go over so well with Kurt.  But in the end, Rachel ends up with the role after all and Mercedes joins Shelby's new glee club.

Meanwhile, Will wonders why he hasn't met Emma's parents yet so he takes it upon himself to contact them and invite them to dinner.  However, he soon discovers that Emma hasn't introduced them yet because she is embarrassed of them.  Her parents are "ginger supremacists" who only like red-headed people.  They also have a tendency of mocking Emma for her OCD, something that Will will not stand for.  The visit has Emma reverting to some of her obsessive habits, and Will kneels down to pray with her as a sign that together they will overcome it.


The Pros:

• Mercedes' rendition of Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight" was very good, but my favorite would have to be her impersonation of Effie in the song "It's All Over" from the musical Dreamgirls.  She and the other members of the club sang all the parts and it was pretty neat in my opinion.
• Gotta love when Brittany and Mike sing and dance!  Brittany's "Run the World (Girls)" originally by Beyonce was full of great dance moves and girl power, and Mike's performance of "Cool" (from the musical West Side Story) was very very good.  I really thought Mike shone brightly tonight and proved that he really is a pretty good singer... and actor.
• Kurt quit being a baby and is happy for Blaine like a good boyfriend should be.  I loved when Blaine said, "You always zig when I think you're about to zag."  Very sweet.
• I liked the scene when Mike danced with his mother.  Priceless.
• Mercedes and Rachel did a great job with "Out Here on My Own" from Fame.  Too bad they hate each other...

The Cons:

• Finn's character has disappeared lately.  I would like to see him do... something.  I don't know.  Anything really.
• Double-casting is lame!  I would have liked it if the directors actually chose Mercedes over Rachel if they really thought she was better. Their decision was a cop-out.
• I always miss Sue when she isn't featured...

Movie Reviews: We Drew Straws, and 50 is Your Number

Continuing with yesterday's post, today I am posting three more movie reviews!  I bet you are just riddled with joy.  Or not. Straw Dogs was already out a couple of weeks when I saw it, but both What's Your Number? (which I saw at the midnight showing, actually) and 50/50 just came out this weekend.  I saw the first two with Michelle, but Brian came with me to see 50/50.  You can read his review of the movie at his blog Addiction to Film.

Straw Dogs AVERAGE

James Marsden plays David Sumner, a screenwriter from LA who moves with his wife Amy (Kate Bosworth) to her hometown in the south.  Tension between Sumner and the locals begins to brew almost immediately, especially with Amy’s ex-boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard) who still lusts after her.  The movie is a disturbing look at how far you can push someone, and involves a rape scene that is very unsettling—partly because it’s filmed in a sexy manner.  Kate Bosworth was the weakest component to this picture, in my opinion, because I never understood or really believed any of her character’s actions.  From what I hear, the original movie was much better.

What’s Your Number? AVERAGE

Anna Faris can be really funny, but sometimes she falls short.  I think in this movie she fell a little short.  While What’s Your Number? had quite a few laughs and chuckles, it wasn’t nearly as funny as say, Bridesmaids (the opening sequences are almost identical), which had me laughing in hysterics.  Faris plays Ally Darling, a woman who is concerned that she’s had sex with too many men, so she tries to look back at her exes and see if one of them might really be the one after all.  Her neighbor, Colin (Chris Evans) helps her out on her quest and I don’t think it’s a “spoiler alert” to say that the two fall in love.  It’s a chick flick, people.  We all saw this coming.  The movie, however, is pretty darn cute and both stars show lots of skin if that’s what you’re into!

50/50 AWESOME!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in this dramatic comedy as Adam, a 27-year-old guy who discovers—quite unexpectedly—that he has cancer.  His best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) does his best to keep Adam’s life happy, mostly by trying to get him laid after his girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) cracks under the pressure and leaves him.  His mother (Anjelica Huston) wants to take care of him, naturally, but it’s ultimately his psychiatrist-in-training Katherine (Anna Kendrick) who helps him to deal with everything.  50/50, written by Will Reiser and directed by Jonathan Levine, manages to infuse quite a lot of genuine humor into a pretty bleak subject and the result is a very real and relatable story of human mortality.

Love movies?  Check out my MoviePage!

Movie Reviews: I Don't Know How She Abducts the Dolphin's Money

I have seen a lot of movies within the past week and I have a certain friend who has been nagging at me to get my reviews posted... so here they are!  Well, some of them.  There are so many that I didn't want to lump them all into one gargantuan post, so I'll be doing them in groups.  Two of these four movies were just plain awful, one was really cute and one was flat-out terrific.

I Don’t Know How She Does It AWFUL

Sarah Jessica Parker plays Kate Reddy who juggles a busy business career and a family.  So how does she do it?  Well, she doesn’t.  She’s sort of a frenzied mess, and so is this movie by director Douglas McGrath and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna.  It’s a comedy geared for women that is not once funny or particularly moving.  In fact, it’s really dull and has nothing interesting to say about the working mom, even though the characters talk and talk and talk and unnecessarily give interviews to the camera.

Abduction AWFUL

Taylor Lautner is the cute-as-a-button boy-next-door with a nice set of abs that has no business having a career as an actor.  An underwear model?  Sure, why not.  But an actor?  Hell to the no.  In Abduction he plays teenaged Nathan who discovers his baby picture on a missing persons website and soon finds himself on the run from bad guys and CIA agents… and the result is just a lot of second-rate action sequences and abysmal acting.  This movie by director John Singleton is so bad it’s almost funny, and it somehow manages to make seasoned actors like Sigourney Weaver look like they’d be better suited for community theater.

Moneyball AWESOME!

Brad Pitt stars as Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane who feels like it is impossible to put together a winning team on such a tiny budget when all of the best players get snatched up by teams who can pay them more.  He gets an idea—sparked by Peter Brand (played by comedian Jonah Hill showing great skill in a serious role)—to draft players based off of computer-generated analysis.  Although everyone thinks he will fail, he sticks to his beliefs and revolutionizes the game of baseball.  Director Bennett Miller does a fantastic job at delivering a powerfully motivating message without ever getting cheesy, and the performances are all top-notch.

Dolphin Tale ADMIRABLE

Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr. and Ashley Judd all star in this family-friendly film about a dolphin who loses her tail and the boy who never gave up on her.  Young Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) untangles the poor animal and instantly forms a bond with her.  The dolphin's story inspires many people with disabilities and helps Sawyer to come out of his shell.  There were brief moments in the film that felt overly silly or unimportant—like a crazy people-attacking pelican and a five-minute sequence of a toy helicopter zooming around the aquarium—but overall the feel-good film was heartwarming and very inspiring.

Read Brian’s reviews of I Don’tKnow How She Does It, Abduction and Moneyball on his new movie blog Addiction to Film!

Love movies?  Check out my MoviePage!

Wake Me Up When September Ends

When I was serving a mission in Chile, I was scheduled to go home in September of 2007.  My last few months in the field were spent listening to fellow missionaries sing Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" to remind me that the end of my mission was drawing near.  Nowadays, whenever the month of September draws to a close, I inevitably think of that song.

This month has been a very interesting one for me, mostly because I am now back in school.  It's a strange thing, really.  After taking a two-year break from the classroom environment with all the homework, tests and stress that come with it, I at first felt very out-of-place and ill-equipped for success.  Luckily I am only enrolled in two classes at the moment, so my workload hasn't been too overwhelming... yet.

My favorite of the two is British Literature: Beginnings to 1800 (English 2610).  My professor is a delightful woman who is full of energy and great insight, carefully orchestrating the class discussions so that I always feel I am learning something without ever feeling bored.  We have read and analyzed Beowulf, Judith, The Wife's Lament, selections from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (focusing on the "General Prologue" and "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"), selections from Malory's Morte D'Arthur and we are now moving into the 16th Century with Sir Thomas More's Utopia.  Very interesting stuff, even if I feel like all my time outside of class is spent reading!

The other class I am taking is Ethics and Values (Philosophy 2050), and I am getting tired of everyone laughing and saying, "You sure need that one!"  Ha ha.  I'm gay so I have no values... ha ha.  I get it.  Besides, the class isn't what people think it would be.  Instead of going into Aristotle and his philosophies, for example, we spend class discussing things like healthcare, immigration, and political correctness.  Every week I am required to watch two hours of political commentary (an hour that is liberal and an hour that is conservative) and report on the topics and opinions conveyed.  Overall, I find the subject matter interesting, but the professor lacks a clear objective when he is teaching and the result is a two-and-a-half-hour class period of his rambling.

Assignments for both classes have been minimal thus far, but currently I am studying for a big test in my Brit Lit class and sometime in October I have to lead a class discussion on pornography and prostitution in Ethics and Values.  After those get graded I'll have a much clearer picture of how I'm doing, but for the moment, I'm doing just fine!

Aside from school, not much has changed.  Brian is still working for Culinary Crafts and he's been getting a lot of hours lately.  He brings home twice as much money as me, which doesn't exactly make me feel awesome.  I'm still at the movie theater, but am seriously considering a new job because minimum wage just simply doesn't cut it.  Brian and I went apartment hunting the other day, and if we are ever going to move out I'm going to have to bring home some bacon!

Our financial situation isn't completely bleak, however.  We have finally paid off all our credit card debt!  Yay!  And we actually have a sizable dollar amount in our savings account, which is rare for the two of us.  So in that aspect, things are looking up.

Enough about money, though!  September has had plenty of fun moments!  We've seen lots of new movies, Glee's new season started, Brian took me up to Thanksgiving Point for the first time and later today I am going bowling!  Brian's sister Courtney celebrated her "sweet sixteen" on the 27th, my sister Renee turned eighteen on the 28th and our friend Michelle's birthday is today!

September really has been good to us, and I hope that October can be even better.

The Gleek Critique: "I Am Unicorn" Episode

Brittany is dressed as a unicorn, and Kurt is concerned it's "too gay."  Image property of Fox.

Brittany wants to help Kurt run for student body president, but her campaign ideas involve lots of pink, glitter, unicorns and rainbows.  Kurt doesn't want to be seen solely for his homosexuality, so he tells her they aren't going to use the posters she made.  However, she's stubborn and goes ahead and puts them up all over the school without his permission.  Kurt, of course, is upset about this, and it doesn't help matters that he's seen as too flamboyant to play the male lead in the school musical...

Speaking of the school musical, Coach Beiste and Ms. Pilsbury are co-directing it along with the help of Artie.  Mr. Schuester was going to do it, but he decided instead to focus all of his attention on New Directions.  He's putting the kids through a "bootie" camp to improve their dancing.  Obviously Finn is struggling the most...

And since Mr. Schuester wouldn't let the tone-deaf Sugar join New Directions last episode, Sugar's father has hired Shelby Cochran to start a rival glee club at McKinley that she will star in.  Having Shelby around creates some drama for both Rachel and Quinn.  Rachel now has to see her estranged mother at school everyday and somehow come to terms with that.  Quinn isn't sure she's ready to be a part of her baby's life, which Shelby adopted at the end of Season One.  However, with some nudging from Puck, she decides to get her life back in order to try and gain custody of her daughter!

The Pros:

• Brittany's definition of a unicorn (someone who knows they are magical) was pretty adorable.
• I loved Sue's comment about Quinn's "thin, forgettable alto."  Mostly because it's true.
• A great duet between Lea Michelle and Idina Menzel!!  "Somewhere" (from the musical West Side Story) was moving and I thought they fit it nicely into the plot.
• Kurt's rendition of "I Am The Greatest Star" (from the musical Funny Girl) was a lot of fun to watch!  No wonder Coach Beiste said, "He owned that song like it was his prison bitch."
• I loved when Santana said (of the posters), "This is toned down.  In the original the unicorn was riding you." Ha ha ha...
• I like that Finn is now working at Burt's garage.  Smart move, writers!
• Sue's exploitation of Quinn's life to further her anti-arts campaign was pretty funny.  And I really loved when Mr. Schuester told Quinn straight up to quit blaming everyone else for her problems!  Someone had to do it...
• Blaine's audition singing "Something's Coming" (also from the musical West Side Story) was fantastic!!  I LOVE BLAINE!

The Cons:

• Only three songs??  That's it?
• Seriously, I'm loving Season Three so much that it's hard to find things to complain about...

The Gleek Critique: "The Purple Piano Project" Episode

Rachel singing the intro to "You Can't Stop the Beat," image property of Fox.

I started my day with a text from my friend Rebecca saying, "Happy Glee Day!"

Yes, that's how excited we gleeks are about the start of Season Three!  Don't judge.

So Mr. Schuester is trying to motivate the glee club after their loss at Nationals last year, so he's come up with a crazy scheme to let their inner musician shine through!  Purple pianos are placed sporadically around the school, and every time they pass one they are supposed to break into song!  Crazy, right?  And Mr. Schuester is naive enough to think that this will recruit people...

However, instead of turning kids on to music, it's turned them off.  In fact, the purple pianos have motivated Sue Sylvester to run for political office with a personal vendetta against the arts in schools.  Mr. Schuester is appalled of course, and it seems like those two will be at odds forever, even despite last year's emotional truce at Sue's mother's funeral.  Sue is just evil, I guess.  So evil that she's roped Santana back in to the dark side.  She and the other Cheerios torched one of the pianos and Mr. Schue had to kick her latina butt out of glee.

Meanwhile Rachel and Kurt go to meet up with some other kids who love musical theater, and lo and behold, there are other talented people in the world!  They start feeling like they are simply big fish in small ponds and that perhaps they aren't good enough to ever make it on Broadway.  And they aren't the only ones unsure about their futures.  Finn has no idea what he wants to do, and Quinn suddenly thinks she's a rebel.

But at least they have Blaine now!  Yes, folks, he has left Dalton and joined McKinley High!

The Pros:

• "I have pepperoni in my bra."  "Those are your nipples."  Ha ha ha!  Sorry, but that was just funny.
• Will's Superman lunchbox.  Love it!  And it's adorable how Emma packs it for him, while he's making lunch for her.
• I'm happy that Kurt and Rachel are friends now.  I feel like last season they hated each other then loved each other at random, but their touching scene together this episode makes it seem like their friendship is real!  No wonder Ms. Pilsbury handed them a "Me and My Hag" pamphlet...
• Great songs!  The mash-up of the Broadway classics "Anything Goes" and "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" was phenomenal!  Loved that girl's voice (even if her face was kinda creepy).  I also really enjoyed "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead" and "You Can't Stop the Beat" featuring lots of Rachel Berry!
• I'm happy that Blaine is at McKinley now!  That means I can see more of him.  And was "Unusual" great or what?  Loved it!
• Quinn's Ryan Seacrest tattoo.  It's so weird that it's awesome.
• Mercedes has a boyfriend! Yay!
• All in all, I'm feeling positive about Season Three!

The Cons:

• Quinn suddenly being a "bad girl" with pink hair, tattoos and a smoking problem just seemed a bit... sudden.  And unbelievable.
• Santana needs to pick a side already!
• I'm getting SO TIRED of the school not recognizing that the glee kids are talented and awesome!  Seriously?  You're going to throw food at them?
• Sugar's singing voice!!  AAAH!  So awful!  I'm also unsure whether or not I'm going to like this character.

Movie Reviews: Driving is Contagious

Contagion movie poster, image property of Warner Bros.
Drive movie poster, image property of FilmDistrict.

Contagion ADMIRABLE

Director Steven Soderbergh’s thriller about a pandemic quickly killing off millions of people is stylish, straight-forward and highly entertaining from the get-go.  Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a business trip to Hong Kong feeling sick—very sick—and moments into the film she is spewing foam out of her mouth and convulsing before dying unexpectedly.  Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) finds that he is immune to what scientists are discovering is a deadly virus with no known cure and is left to grieve while protecting his daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron).  Meanwhile Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and a crew of scientists and medical authorities (including Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle and Elliott Gould) all race against time to discover the origins of the virus and how they can best stop it.  All while blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) and the rest of the world deal with the fear of world destruction.

Contagion was a very interesting look at how connected our world is and how very easily we could all be affected by something so sinister.  The movie reveled in believability and created interesting characters and situations that could potentially arise from a pandemic of that nature.  Casting so many well-known and gifted actors really helped to give the film authority and a reason to invest ourselves in their characters, but unfortunately some of the storylines got lost along the way leaving some of the actors underused.  But aside from a few plot lines that lacked resolution, I felt that the movie did a very good job of painting a frightening—yet ultimately hopeful—depiction of the personal trauma and political banter that would derive from such a threat.

Drive AWESOME!

Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is a calm, cool and collected film noir that is as gritty and brash as it is stunningly stylish and horrifically beautiful.  Ryan Gosling stars as a part-time stunt driver and mechanic who is very withdrawn and mysterious.  At nights he drives the getaway vehicles for various criminal heists—never getting involved and only driving.  But things get messy when he falls for his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan).  Her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) returns from prison and if he doesn’t do a job for some guys, they will come after Irene and their young son.  Gosling’s character—unnamed, mind you—agrees to drive for him, but things go awry and soon the driver must break his own rule and get involved in order to protect the woman he loves.

One of the things that I loved about Drive was that it was very controlled.  Every scene seemed necessary, every shot was given importance, and the characters weren’t overly “talky”.  It’s a nuanced film that isn’t afraid of silence, only employing a soundtrack at the crucial moments.  Another thing I loved was the beautiful photography, paying very close attention to lighting and framing.  My favorite scene takes place in an elevator and the whole thing is shot in a very surreal way, where time seems to stand still.  It’s stunning.  The scene quickly goes from dreamy and romantic to raw and brutal, and even the shocking violence is handled with an artistic flair.  Drive is simply captivating.

Read Brian’s reviews of Contagion and Drive on his new movie blog, Addiction to Film!

Love movies?  Check out my MoviePage!