Young Adult - Movie Review

★★★½

Starring Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elisabeth Reaser, Jill Eikenberry and Collette Wolfe. Directed by Jason Reitman.

This is anti-romantic comedy, a nice counter-argument to the usual fluffy "find a man" comedies where the preview shows him running to her in the rain at an airport, or the girl and her friend dancing to an oldie in their living room. This is about Mavis (Charlize Theron), an author of young-adult novels who's never grown up herself. One day she decides to win back her old high-school boyfriend Buddy. The fact that he's married and just had a baby is a mere obstacle.

When Mavis arrives in town, she runs into former classmate Matt (Patton Oswalt) the nerd who's still suffering from a savage beating at the hands of some fun-loving jocks. Mavis doesn't really care, unless Matt can somehow help her in her quest to land Buddy.

This comedy goes to some dark, sad places, and it's almost exhilarating how our heroine refuses to grow up, refuses to repent. There's a real sadness to Mavis underneath, and she's doing everything she can to make sure she stays shallow. To take a good look at herself might destroy her.

Acting nominations are deserved from Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt. This movie is good reminder that Theron is still a force to be reckoned with.

The Worst Ten Movies of 2011

I'll do my Top Ten after I've caught a couple more titles.

I have not seen such alleged stinkers as Big Momma 3, Beastly, Hoodwinked Too, The Art of Getting By, Spy Kids 4, One Day, Shark Night, Apollo 18, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, Creature, I Don't Know How She Does It, Dream House, Human Centipede 2, Three Musketeers, Like Crazy, Jack & Jill, I Melt with You, New Year's Eve, The Sitter or The Darkest Hour, but of what I've seen, these were the worst:

Dishonorable Mentions:

ATLAS SHRUGGED PART I - Maybe fans of the book will find some things to appreciate, but this rushed, unfinished production does Ayn Rand no favors.


CONAN THE BARBARIAN - This reboot is an ugly, unimaginative take on the character immortalized by Arnold Schwarzengger.  Marcus Nispel (Pathfinder) was the wrong hire for this material.

THE GREEN HORNET - Seth Rogen tries to remake the superhero movie in his own image, and the results are mediocre. Watching Jay Chou trying to speak English is akin to watching a cat trying to get peanut butter off the roof of its mouth. Christoph Waltz can't find the comedic notes for his villain role. If Jack Black tries to tackle the Green Arrow, someone tackle him.

GREEN LANTERN - You have Peter Saarsgaard as your villain, and yet he's made the subplot to the main villain - a giant cloud of evil. The overabundance of CGI does not compensate for the lack of thrills. Ryan Reynolds needn't worry about donning the green ring a second time.

KABOOM - Microbudgeted yawner about a party boy who wonders if, gee, maybe the end of the world is coming. But first, let's do drugs and dance!

THE OTHER WOMAN - An aftermath movie. Natalie Portman plays the second wife to a successful businessman, having snagged him by being his mistress. Then the baby they had together dies. Her marriage is becoming more and more loveless, and her stepson is the weapon his parents use against each other. Lisa Kudrow conveys deep bitterness as the first wife who had her life torn apart, but these are such awful selfish people to spend time with, I'd recommend it only as a cautionary tale for young woman thinking of sleeping with a married man. "Do you want this to become your life?"

THE ROOMMATE - This twist on Single White Female shows that Leighton Meester has talent and deserves better. No one else involved does.

SEASON OF THE WITCH - As corny and silly as you'd expect a medieval movie to be starring Nicolas Cage.


SOMETHING BORROWED - Kate Hudson was nominated for an Oscar once.  No, seriously, it's true.

THE TREE OF LIFE - A gorgeous 2 hour 25 minute slideshow. No real story. Just three boys living in 1950's Texas. And we go back to the creation of the world, and time passing, and waves crashing, and trees growing, and stars twinkling, and wind blowing through the grass, and the cosmos winking, and critics closing their eyes and chanting "Ohmmmmmmmm...." through the whole bloody thing. The Emperor has no clothes.

And now...

... the Worst Ten



10. DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK - The creepy-crawly creatures of this "from the mind of Guillermo Del Toro" effort are never scary, but that's not even the main problem. When Katie Holmes takes pictures of them to prove they're real, and the photos are all over the ground, it just cuts ahead to the next scene with still no one else believing her. Why did no one look at the pictures? I don't mind leaps of logic if they're not Herculean leaps.

9. PASSION PLAY - A drifter (Mickey Rourke) finds a woman with literal angel wings. An offbeat quirky comedy could have sprung from that premise, but instead we get a forlorn ponder-drama, where melancholy is chosen over mirth. Bill Murray wastes his time as a gangster who wants to keep her for himself, and the finale's terrible special effects make for the perfect exclamation point on why this film is such a mess.

8. YOUR HIGHNESS - This would-be parody never captures the quick wit of the Pythons nor the underlying sweetness of The Princess Bride. I think even Cheech & Chong would disown it. The R-rated stoner humor mixed in with medieval tropes never meshes, and it made me resent actor/writer Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green for getting this much money with this talented a cast, and this was all they could churn out.

7. SANCTUM - If you're going to make a movie about a group of people stuck in underground caves, it's imperative to always give the audience a sense of place. The whole thing was shot on sound-stages for all I know. It features paper-thin caricatures of people shouting and trudging down damp corridors and then dying one by one when they make incredibly stupid decisions.

6. DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT - One of those genre mashups that succeeds at none of its targets, not at horror nor comedy nor noir nor entertainment, with Brandon Routh completely miscast in the lead.

5. JUST GO WITH IT - Adam Sandler has lost it. I used to look forward to his movies, but what worked for him 10-15 years ago isn't working now. Between this, Grown Ups, and (what I've read about) Jack & Jill, he needs an intervention, and yet whenever he takes risks (Funny People, Reign Over Me), it's not as successful at the box-office. This comedy is about a man who pretends to be married to get one-night stands, but when he meets a woman he wants to continue seeing, his lies about his marriage expand and grow. There's so much effort put into the contrived premise that it kills whatever laughs might have been achieved.

4. RED RIDING HOOD - Well, the opening credits were cool. Other than that, director Catherine Hardwicke (the first Twilight) indulges her worst instincts in this ethereal medieval romance/murder-mystery where a werewolf is killing the townspeople at night. Our heroine Red (Amanda Seyfried) is torn between two village hunks, either of whom could be the killer lycanthrope, neither of whom have chemistry with her. Giant lanterns are hung on each red herring to the point it becomes obvious who the wolf is because the movie's tried to hard to make us think it's anybody else.

3. SUCKER PUNCH - Teen girls clad themselves scantily in fetishized costumes while fighting creatures in some dreamscape video-game of a movie pretending to be about female empowerment. Director Zack Snyder has had financial success adapting other people's work (Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen) but in doing his own, he shows he really is all style and no substance.

2. THE RITE - Deathly dull exorcism flick with Anthony Hopkins in paycheck mode as the older priest who winds up getting possessed himself. Colin O'Donoghue is the black hole where an engaging protagonist should be.

1. BREAKING DAWN PART I - I've been fine with the first three movies. I take them at face value. But this... this plunges new depths of cheese. The actors aren't improving. If anything it highlights their weaknesses. Taylor Lautner has never been worse. The first half-hour is about the wedding, the second half-hour is about Bella's pregnancy, and the final act is about vampires and Jacob patrolling to keep Bella safe while she delivers whatever a vampire-human hybrid baby is. Even die-hard Twihards will have to admit how bad this movie is.


UPDATE: I now believe HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN was the worst movie of 2011.  I say "believe" because it was so rancid, I couldn't watch the whole thing.  For what it's worth.

Atlas Shrugged Part I - DVD Review

★½


Starring Taylor Schilling, Grant Bowler, Matthew Marsden, Edi Gathegi, Nick Cassavettes, Jon Polito, Michael Lerner, Patrick Fischler, Graham Beckel and Rebecca Wisocky.
Directed by Paul Johansson.

The first rule of adapting a book into a movie is to make the movie accessible to people who haven't read the book. I have never read Ayn Rand's 1957 1100-page novel, but this movie is written with the seeming presumption that everyone watching the movie has read the book.

Now maybe if this had been made with a Hollywood budget, with better actors, a best director, etc., that wouldn't matter as much, but the holder of the rights had to get moving on this or lose them. The result is not unlike the first episode of Fox Business Channel's first attempt at a mini-series.

Angelina Jolie was once looking at starring in an Atlas Shrugged movie, but here we'll have to settle for Taylor Schilling, known to me as one of the leads of NBC's short-lived nurse drama Mercy. She plays Dagny Taggart, a 26-year-old running the largest railroad company in the US in 2016, along with her brother James (Matthew Marsden). The country's in turmoil since gas and oil prices have skyrocketed, and several talented successful businessmen are disappearing. And about every six minutes, someone asks the mysterious question, "Who is John Galt?"

But here's the thing. Why should I care who John Galt is? Who is Mortimer McGillicuddy? Who is Joe Shlobosky? Context, people!

The Taggarts are bumping up against Hank Reardon (Grant Bowler), who's developed a new type of steel that's twice as strong at half the weight.

The movie is obviously made on the cheap, yet it's about the rich and elite few who make the country run by the power of their own brilliance and general awesomeness. It's nothing but esoteric conversations between two or more people about events and ideas, in corridors, in lobbies, at parties.

Some of these ideas are worth discussing, some of these ideas might make more sense on the page, some of these ideas might be antiquated now that it's not 1957. But another big problem with this movie is these ideas need to build to something, and after 91 minutes of conversations about things happening we never get an emotional connection to, it ends with a cliffhanger.

The Trip - DVD Review

★★★

Starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.
Directed by Michael Winterbottom.

I remember watching a clip from this movie four or five times about a year ago. The movie actually didn't hit US theaters until the summer, and now it's on DVD and Netflix Instant. The clip was of the two stars both doing their Michael Caine impression, and it was pretty funny.



If I'm understanding this right, the two actors did it as a six-episode series for BBC, but this is a two-hour edit-down for theatrical release. They play versions of themselves, two actors touring the countryside, reviewing restaurants for an article Streve will write. Steve is longing to get back to Hollywood movies, while Rob is perfectly happy with his career in British TV.

It's not much more than an excuse for the two to riff and play off each other, but that is enough. it made me laugh a few times, and there's a nice undercurrent of regret from Steve as he reflects on his career and where he wants to be in life, even as he digs at the annoying but content Rob. It's a trip worth taking.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night - DVD Review

★

Starring Brandon Routh, Sam Huntington, Anita Briem, Taye Diggs, Peter Stormare and Kurt Angle.
Directed by Kevin Munroe.

Whatever problems Superman Returns had, I didn't think Brandon Routh was one of them. I liked him as Clark Kent/Superman. But here he is completely miscast. Or maybe Bryan Singer (Usual Suspects, X-Men) is better at getting performances out of his actors than Kevin Munroe (TMNT).

Routh is Dylan Dog, a sardonic, conflicted private investigator who specializes in the undead. The role requires someone with star-power and charisma to pull off, and Routh can't. I kept thinking how much more salvageable this might have been had it starred Timothy Olyphant.

Dylan works in New Orleans, home of vampires, werewolves and zombies. It combines noir cliches with horror and comedy, and none of it works. The mystery's uninteresting, the comedy's flat, the creatures are about as scary as a community church's hell house.

Any random episode of HBO's True Blood or WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer is better. At least Jonah Hex was twenty minutes shorter.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Movie Review

★★★½

Starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright, Steven Berkoff, Joely Richardson, Geraldine James and Goran Visnjic.  Directed by David Fincher.

I've read the book and seen the Swedish movie, and yet I was still enthralled by this version. David Fincher is a slick director, one of the most reliable working today, and he knows how to piece together a procedural. The dense story of Steig Larsson's murder mystery would need over three hours to not feel rushed, but Fincher managed to do it in two and a half.

Daniel Craig is Mikhael Blomkvist, disgraced editor of Millenium magazine, who resigns after losing a libel case. He gets a call from an eccentric millionaire Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, who's always great). Henrik's niece was murdered forty years ago, and he wants Blomkvist's help to solve it once and for all.

Blomkvist needs a research assistant and he gets one in Lisbeth Salander, one of the great recent female characters. Here she's embodied by Rooney Mara (The Social Network), and she makes the role her own.

I love the fact Fincher kept this in Swden and didn't try to Americanize it by putting in in New England. It's faithful to the source material and yet makes the right adjustments to streamline the storytelling aspects.  It was as satisfying to me as Fincher's Zodiac.

I'm saddened this isn't doing better at the box-office. It means we won't be able to see Fincher do the other two books.

Monday's Box Office Estimates

For December 26.

1. Mission Impossible 4 - $16.71 million ($78.65) - 11 days
2. Sherlock Holmes 2 - $11.55 ($90.56) - 11 days
3. War Horse - $7.51 ($15.03) - 2 days
4. Alvin & the Chipmunks 3 - $7.35 ($56.94) - 11 days
5. The Girl w/ the Dragon Tattoo - $6.65 ($27.78) - 6 days
6. Adventures of Tintin - $6.4 ($24.11) - 6 days
7. We Bought A Zoo - $6.15 ($15.6) - 4 days
8. The Darkest Hour - $2.5 ($5.5) - 2 days
9. New Year's Eve - $1.64 ($34.29) - 18 days
10. The Descendants - $1.33 ($33.72) - 41 days
11. The Muppets - $1.21 ($76.91) - 34 days
12. Hugo - $1.18 ($44.93) - 34 days

For a 2 1/2 hour movie with no stars beyond "director Steven Spielberg", War Horse is doing quite well and domestically outgross Steve's other December movie, The Adventures of Tintin.

Box-office for December is still down overall compared to last year.  (I like to think it's because audiences are protesting the movie studios behind the internet-censoring bills SOPA and PIPA.)  But Mission Impossible 5 is likely.

Random Movie Stuff - 12/26/11

- Here's the first photo from Magic Mike, a male-stripper comedy from director Steven Soderbergh.  It stars Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer (Beastly), Matthew Bomer (USA's White Collar), and Joe Manganiello (HBO's True Blood).  It's loosely based on Tatum's experiences as a stripper before his acting career took off.  The movie's scheduled to open June 29.  Soderbergh also has Haywire opening next month.

- Dan Aykroyd has joined the cast of Dog Fight, a political satire starring Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis as two warring candidates.  It also stars Jason Sudeikis, John Lithgow, WIll Forte and Brian Cox.

- Alan Taylor, whose directorial efforts mainly comprise of HBO fare like Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, will be the new director for Thor 2.  Kenneth Branagh directed the original.

- Seth Rogen will star in The B Team, about a master spy who is kidnapped, so his support team must go in to save him.

- What do Tom Hulce (Amadeus), Jon Polito (Miller's Crossing), Derek Jacobi (Anonymous), Wesley Eure (TV's Land of the Lost), Guillermo Diaz (TV's Weeds), Sean Maher (Serenity), Roger Rees (TV's Cheers), Denis O'Hare (TV's True Blood), Jonathan Slavin (TV's Better Off Ted), and Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans) have in common?

- The Top Ten Movies according to Christy Lemire, of Ebert Presents At the Movies:

1.  Martha Marcy May Marlene
2.  50/50
3.  The Myth of the American Sleepover
4.  The Tree of Life
5.  Bellflower
6.  Melancholia
7.  Take Shelter
8.  Hell & Back Again
9.  Beginners
10. Bridesmaids

The Help - DVD Review

★★★½

Starring Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Ahna O'Reilly, Sissy Spacek, Cicely Tyson, Chris Lowell, Mary Steenburgen, Mike Vogel, Brian Kerwin, Aunjanue Ellis, Anna Camp and Nelsan Ellis.
Directed by Tate Taylor.

The story begins and ends with Aibileen (Viola Davis), a long-time maid in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. She's been raising white kids her entire career while suffering the condescending racism from her employers. She runs into Skeeter (Emma Stone) an aspiring writer who comes back home from college and is furious to learn her family's maid Constantine (Cicely Tyson) had been fired. Skeeter looked at Constantine as the one who really raised her, and she starts thinking about a story, a book about the injustices suffered by "the help."

Now this is not a Spike Lee tackling of racial turmoil. We don't see any burning crosses. This is more of a Fried Green Tomatoes-flavored take on the South. It's funny, it's touching, and it's buoyed by a great cast. Davis and Stone are stand-outs, as is Octavia Spencer as Minny, a maid with attitude who will suffer no fools when treated poorly. Also really good is Bryce Dallas Howard as the villainous Hilly, the town's central socialite, the main Heather.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams - DVD Review

★★★

Directed by Werner Herzog.

In southern France, there is Chauvet Cave, closed now to the public because it has cave drawings on its walls that they estimated are 30,000 years old. It was a remarkable archaelogical discovery, but before France had it sealed, they allowed filmmaker Werner Herzog in with his cameras to document history.

Looking at cave drawings might seem like something you catch on the History Channel anytime, but these drawings are thousands of years older than any discovery in history. Herzog's a fine host, inviting us to ponder our existence, wondering what these ancestors might have thought if they'd known their works would be so immortalized.

Fright Night - DVD Review

★★★

Starring Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, David Tennant and Imogen Poots.  Directed by Craig Gillespie.

I don't remember much about the original.  I remember liking it.  I remember liking William "Herman's Head" Ragsdale, Amanda "Married with Children" Bearse, and Roddy MacDowell taking on vampire Chris "Prince Humperdink" Sarandon.  And the poster was cool.  That's the main thing I remember.  That poster.

Everything old is new again, and the movie gets a very fitting update.  Jerry the vampire (Colin Farrell) lives in Las Vegas, where everyone's up at night and no one stays too long so no one can keep track of who's coming and going.  Charley (Anton Yelchin) is doubtful when his friend Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) approaches him about Jerry's true nature, but it isn't long before Charley sees the proof.

Charley then goes to visit Las Vegas showman Peter Vincent (David Tennant), a cross between Van Helsing and Criss Angel, to see what he knows about fighting real vampires.

What's nice about this version is it pulls off the balancing act between horror and comedy.  There's laughs to be had throughout but Colin Farrell's Jerry is one dangerous creature, and I liked the all-in-one-take car chase when Jerry's going over and under the car to try to kill the people inside.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Movie Review

★★★½

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov, Josh Holloway, Tom Wilkinson, Anil Kapoor, Samuli Edelmann and Lea Seydoux.
Directed by Brad Bird.

Tom Cruise has turned the Mission Impossible movies into his own James Bond franchise, and while I've enjoyed all of them, I can't say I've loved any of them. The first one was a fun mystery, the second one was John Woo's parody of himself, and the third one was fast and fun, but all three were pretty disposable. This one's easily the best in the series.

Cruise, for the couch-jumping hullabaloo and the Stepfording-of-Katie-Holmes kerfuffle and the Scientology bruhaha, is still one of the coolest movie stars working today. He's back as superhuman spy Ethan Hunt, a Jason Bourne with a perfect memory. This time around he has to stop a nuclear activist trying to start World War III so Earth can be rebuilt from the ashes.

Movies on one level are supposed to transport the viewer, and here we go from the Kremlin to Dubai to India. Director Brad Bird brings a lot of sensibilities he displayed in The Incredibles, and that's a good thing. We get sweeping shots of the cities, we get heroes barely avoiding sudden death. I saw it in IMAX, and when Cruise has to step out of the world's tallest building in Dubai, it feels like we've gone out on the ledge with him. That's exactly what I would want.

And it's funny. The makers have Cruise, they have co-action-star Jeremy Renner, they have the sexy Paula Patton, and they make full use of the comic potential of Simon Pegg's chatty Benji. One thing Iv'e appreciated about the MI franchise is while Cruise is the star, Ethan can never accomplish his missions without a team.

This was Bird's first live-action directorial effort (he also did Iron Giant and Ratatouille), and the transition is seamless. I look forward to whatever he does next (which happens to be about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.) ((Wow, he's younger than me. Man, I've made some wrong choices in life.))

Random Movie Stuff - 12/23/11

Thursday's Box Office:

1.  Mission Impossible 4 - $6.42 million ($32.44) - 7 days
2.  Sherlock Holmes 2 - $4.75 ($58.75) - 7 days
3.  Alvin & the Chipmunks 3 - $3.97 ($36.94) - 7 days
4.  Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - $3.31 (8.37) - 2 days
5.  The Adventures of Tintin - $4.43 ($8.01) - 2 days
6.  New Year's Eve - $1.17 ($29.34) - 14 days

Tom Cruise is back.  Mission Impossible 4 looks like the movie of the season, on pace for a $45 million weekend.  It's also doing well overseas.  The other movies could all qualify as "disappointing."  Sherlock Holmes 2 and Alvin & the Chipmunks 3 opened under expectations, and now so has The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  If US box-office were all that mattered, The Adventures of Tintin could be called a bomb, but since it's already made $237 million otherwise, it'll be fine.

In Other News:

- Amanda Seyfried will star in the Linda Lovelace biopic called Lovelace.  She will be joined by Sharon Stone, Wes Bentley, Hank Azaria, Chris Noth, Bobby Cavanale, Juno Temple and Robert Patrick.

- Woody Allen's next film has had its title changed to Nero Fiddled and will take place in Rome.  It will open in limited release in May.  It stars Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz and Roberto Benigni.

- Director Spike Lee may reunite with Clive Owen (Inside Man) for his remake of Oldboy.  It stars Josh Brolin as  a man who's kidnapped on his daughter's birthday and held prisoner for 15 years without explanation.  Once freed, he seeks revenge on his captors, if he can figure out who they are.  Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre) has also been offered a role.

- Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, has been pushed off its March 2nd release date to sometime in the fall.

- Remember when Disnay Animation said they were done with fairy tales?  Then they saw the receipts for Tangled.  Now they're making Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, due for release on November 27, 2013.  They're titling it Frozen.

- Dax Shepard (NBC's Parenthood) will write, direct and star in Outrun, an action comedy that will co-star Bradley Cooper, Kristen Bell, Kristen Chenoweth and Beau Bridges.

- HBO has cancelled Bored to Death, Hung, and How to Make It in America.  It has renewed Enlightened, starring Laura Dern.

My Top Ten of TV 2011

1. BREAKING BAD (AMC) - Last year's heartbreaking finale, where Jesse has to kill Gale in order to save Walter White, led to a full season of suspense where Walter keeps trying to figure how he can kill Gus before Gus kills him, and Gus is one smart man. Giancarlo Esposito created in Gus one of the great all-time menacing TV villains. Few things are scarier when Gus's smile disappears. He gave Emmy-worthy work, but so did Aaron Paul as the tormented Jesse, and Mark Margolis as the silent old cartel man who gets one last stab at revenge. In the first season, Walter was a chemistry teacher just trying to make ends meet. Now his transformation into Heisenberg is complete, with that final revelation that Walter is just as capable of Machiavellian maneuvers as Gus. Next season, the final one, will surely be an epic showdown once Jesse realizes how Mr. White manipulated him.

2. COMMUNITY / PARKS & RECREATION (NBC) - Any other year I might have put The Office here too, but I must acknowledge it's lost a step without Steve Carell's Michael Scott. But Community's surreal study group and P&R's misfit public servants are the best hour-block of ensemble comedy on TV.

3. JUSTIFIED (FX) - This Kentucky law show upped its game in the second season by casting Margo Martindale as the drug-dealing matriarch Maggie presiding over her three dangerous sons, throwing up new roadblocks for Raylen (Timothy Olyphant). This show is 1/3 procedural and 2/3 building drama, one of the most satisfying on TV.

4. GAME OF THRONES (HBO) - I'm a fan of the books, and I can't imagine anyone doing a better job of bringing them to life than what they've done here. Sean Bean and Mark Addy were spot on as old friends and soldiers now serving as the two most powerful men in the kingdom. There was scheming, backstabbing, heartbreaking betrayals, and mesmorizing performances. Tyrion's my favorite character from the books, and Peter Dinklage has played him as exactly as well as I could have hoped.

5. THE GOOD WIFE (CBS) - Julianna Margulies has just about erased my memories as nurse Carol Hathaway. She was born to play Alicia Florick - lawyer, lover, mother, wife. Each week there's an interesting case, but also each week the intrigue increases, especially now with Alicia's estranged husband (Chris Noth) as the state district attorney.

6. HOMELAND (SHO) - Remember how good Damien Lewis was in Band of Brothers? Now he's an Iraq War vet returned home and under deep suspicion by the CIA that he might be a sleeper-cell terrorist. Claire Danes gets to showcase what she can do as a bipolar agent, really really good at what she does, as long as she's on her meds.

7. AMERICAN HORROR STORY (FX) - It was trippy, campy, and one heck of a Halloween roller coaster ride. Jessica Lange's Constance was a Tennessee Williams delight.

8. TOO BIG TO FAIL (HBO) - William Hurt was front and center as Hank Paulsen, scrambling behind closed doors when he realized the entire world's economy might collapse on his watch. Also good were Billy Crudup as the buck-passing Tim Geitner and Paul Giamatti as the horrified Ben Bernanke.

9. THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES - "Oops." Come on, I bet you $10,000 they're frankly fundamentally grotesquely great!

10. LATE NIGHT with JIMMY FALLON (NBC) - I don't watch that much, but he has the best YouTube clips of any late-night talk-show host. I must have watched his and Colbert's cover of "Friday" ten times.

　
Honorable Mention:

V FINALE (ABC) - This show suffered toward the end of its second season, with every episode being another where the Fifth Column fails against Anna. But that last episode, where the action ramped up and no less than three major characters died, was an excellent springboard for the next season. That never happened.

Other good stuff:

DEXTER (SHO), MODERN FAMILY (ABC), BIG BANG THEORY (CBS), BOARDWALK EMPIRE (HBO), HELL ON WHEELS (AMC), BOSS (STARZ), NEW GIRL (FOX), SURVIVOR (CBS), THE WALKING DEAD (AMC), TRUE BLOOD (HBO), THE AMAZING RACE (CBS), THE MIDDLE (ABC), CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (HBO), LOUIE (FX).

I'd also add THIS WEEK (ABC) when Jake Tapper hosts, THE OFFICE (NBC) when Steve Carell was still on there, the Red John finale of THE MENTALIST (CBS), the work of Scott Caan on ENTOURAGE (HBO) and HAWAII FIVE-O (CBS), the new blood of Vanessa Bayer, Paul Brittain, Taran Killam and Jay Pharaoh on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (NBC), and any time Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart appear on each other's shows.

My Worst Ten of TV 2011

1. KIM KARDASHIAN - The fact that Kim can get paid $17 million to televise her wedding to Kris Humphries only to divorce him 72 days later is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and the worst.

2. MAN UP! (ABC) - The six-hundredth sitcom about immature, emasculated guys. It was obnoxious and unnecessary.

3. NICK SWARDSON'S PRETEND TIME (COM) - I tried an episode. It mixes his stand-up with sketches starring him. Neither the sketches nor the stand-up are funny, so I don't see this Sandler coattail-rider lasting much longer.

4. THE PLAYBOY CLUB (NBC) - This series never had a chance (why make a show about the notorious club as a soap opera, a female-centric genre?) but for me it was brought down by Eddie Cibrian's laughable Don Draper impression. It's akin to one of those Syfy movies where they take the same plot as a blockbuster but replace Tom Cruise with C. Thomas Howell.

5. JAMES FRANCO at THE ACADEMY AWARDS (ABC) - They tried to go young, and Anne Hathaway was game, but her co-host froze her out. Franco looked like a guy who regretted saying yes to the gig but couldn't figure out how to get out of it.

6. MEET THE PRESS (NBC) - Tim Russert was king, so that was a big chair to fill, but David Gregory just can't do it. It's the least lively, least informative of the Sunday morning news shows. I watch parts of ABC's This Week, FNC's Fox News Sunday and NBC's Chris Matthews Show almost every week, and sometimes CBS's Face the Nation. Meet the Press? Irrelevant.

7. PERFECT COUPLES (NBC) - Another Friends/Coupling clone, with two semi-charming leads surrounded by two-dimensional duds.

8. HARRY'S LAW (NBC) - Exhibit A that David E. Kelley is going senile. Kathy Bates's performance can only cover so much of the silly plotting and grandstanding lawyer monologues, with some of the least convincing closing arguments ever.

9. I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER (FOX) - Jaime Pressly deserves better than this vehicle about two neglectful moms who've spoiled their daughters, and now they're reaping the benefits of their daughters being monstrous mean girls.

10. DONALD TRUMP - Not only was his the worst Comedy Central roast ever (thanks, The Situation), but he raised his vulgarity to new heights by teasing a run for the presidency, and trying to moderate his own debate where he'd pick someone to endorse. Stick to Celebrity Apprentice, Don.

Dishonorable Mention:

FRED ARMISEN as OBAMA - I will bring it up every year until Saturday Night Live rightfully gives the job to Jay Pharaoh.

Sasquatch Wrangler

I came across this job posting for Executive Senior Vice Director of Sasquatch Wrangling, so I applied. (Plus I know a couple guys at their company.)

Action Team,

I am the perfect candidate to cover any and all sasquatch-wrangling duties.  I lived in the Northwest for a time, where its family roamed, even shook hands with one upon occasion.  (We bonded over how poorly they’d been depicted in Harry & the Hendersons.)  I have reviewed your requirements and can answer each.

-          I have two rats, two dogs, and eight children, so I am proficient at feeding live creatures.

-          I also have plenty of experience at cleaning cages. (See previous sentence.)

-          Who doesn’t love a walk through the forest?

-          I can comb anything out of any place. (See three sentences ago.)

-          I own THREE snow-scrapers.

I am also a daily-challenge relisher, a short-time-frame project-driver, and I’ve been known to show pictures of my girl back home right before gunfights.  Oh, and I’m always three days away from pension.

As to the right-hand column requirements:

-          I have worn night-vision goggles before.

-          Is identifying an M-16 blindfolded and underwater close enough?

-          I have mad written and furious verbal communication skills.

-          I did P90X about a year ago and came up with a killer body and play tackle football every Saturday on the MVHS practice field with a bunch of guys ten years younger than me. (Join us if you wish; we usually start around 12:30.)  So I’d have no fear in a bar fight, despite my killer body going to complete goo in the past four months.

-          Can drive stick.

-          MicroSoft Suite is my prison wife.

-          Can play harmonica, but only songs I wrote myself.  They sound great blindfolded and underwater.

-          I actually did win the gold-looking medal in the steeplechase.  It looks suspiciously like a James Garfield $1 coin, but they tell me it counts.

Your perks and benefits sound awesome.

I have attached my resume.  I hope I have made it sufficiently boring in case the person reading it is wearing a tie.

And tell Joel I said “Hi.” Then add something after the “Hi” he finds so hilarious, he wipes a tear and then talks about missing me.

The Descendants - Movie Review

★★★
Starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Nick Krause, Judy Greer and Matthew Lillard.
Directed by Alexander Payne.

I'll start by saying my wife didn't like it. She said it was too slow and she was bored.

I liked it. But I went in expecting a movie that would live up to all the award buzz it's been receiving. I've seen more than one critic call it the best movie of the year. It's good. It's fine. The acting is terrific. But this won't make my top ten, let alone my best movie of the year.

George Clooney plays a real-estate lawyer whose wife is in a coma after a boating accident. He's used to being the backup parent, letting his wife deal with their two daughters (Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller) so he can focus on work. But with her out of the picture, he has to reconnect. He also, with his cousins, owns a trust of a million acres on one of the Hawaiian islands. They're trying to decide if they should sell and to who.

The movie does a good job of displaying how the personal and professional life blends and overlaps, and it has some funny moments, but overall I'd call it a drama. You can tell it's from the man behind About Schmidt and Sideways.  And it could trim the ruinning time by ten minutes and not lose a thing.

Random Movie Stuff - 12/18/11

- Ben Kingsley may reunite with his Hugo co-star Asa Butterfield in Ender's Game.

- Reese Witherspoon will star in Devil's Knot, about the West Memphis Three. It's the true story of three young men who were convicted of killing three boys in 1993, but after several years and a couple documentaries made demonstrating their innocence, they were finally freed. Witherspoon would play the mother of one of the victims, who was sure they were guilty but over the years came to believe them and fought for their release.

- Rachel McAdams is in talks to reunite with her Sherlock Holmes 2 co-star Noomi Rapace in Passion for director Brian DePalma.

- James Frain (Water for Elephants) has joined the cast of The Lone Ranger, starring Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Tom Wilkinson.

- David Fincher (Se7en, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is still working on developing an animated film based on the Dark Horse comic-book character The Goon. He's also still looking at doing an origin story of Captain Nemo, a prequel/reboot of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.