Watching this week's "The Choir" turned out to be tough because the director decided he needed to make all the choir audition a second time. One little boy reminded me so much of my son Ryan at the same age, probably around 10 or so. The boy was told that he wasn't in the choir anymore and he cried. I understand the need to cut people out who haven't got the voice for choir, but I thought it was unnecessarily cruel to kick those out who had already auditioned. He shouldn't have put them in the choir to begin with if they didn't meet the requirements. Watching that little boy cry broke my heart.
I want to love this show but that scene very nearly made it impossible for me to watch. I'm going to keep trying and try to forget the little boy's face but it's still imprinted in my brain.
Another student's father is allowed into the country to appeal a decision the UK government made previously that he couldn't immigrate. While that's a nice story, it didn't cancel out the rejected boy who cried.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Date Night
My friends and I went to see "Date Night" at the Carmike 10 theater tonight. I love Tina Fey and I like Steve Carrell and the trailer looked interesting. I thought it would be okay but it turned out to be hilarious. I should have known that with Tina Fey starring in the movie, it couldn't be anything but funny. Carrell and Fey play a suburban NJ couple, Phil and Claire Foster, a seemingly average couple with two children. The beginning of the movie was a little slow, I guess to set up what would happen next. One of the Fosters' couple friends are splitting up which causes the Fosters to question how stable their own marriage is.
They decide to break their routine and go into the city for a night out at an exclusive restaurant in Tribecca named "Claw" but they don't have a reservation. Phil decides to be adventurous and when the restaurant hostess keeps calling for the Tripplethorns, party of two, without a reply, he and Claire pretend they are the Tripplethorns. They are enjoying their meal when two thuggish looking guys come up to the table and threaten them. The Fosters follow the two out into an alley thinking they are in trouble for stealing someone's reservation but in fact, the real Tripplethorns are the ones that are in trouble and the two thugs think the Fosters are the couple who have stolen a flash drive from a local mafioso named Moletto. This is when the movie gets interesting and hilarious. Both Fey and Carrell have expert timing when it comes to comedy and my friends and I weren't the only ones in the audience who were laughing until our stomachs hurt.
J.B. Smoove, of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fame, puts in an appearance as a taxi driver and his personality fairly leaps off the screen to add to the pure fun of the movie. Other appearances by Ray Liotta, Mark Wahlberg, and James Franco add to the interest as well. All in all, I would give this movie a surprising 2 thumbs up!
They decide to break their routine and go into the city for a night out at an exclusive restaurant in Tribecca named "Claw" but they don't have a reservation. Phil decides to be adventurous and when the restaurant hostess keeps calling for the Tripplethorns, party of two, without a reply, he and Claire pretend they are the Tripplethorns. They are enjoying their meal when two thuggish looking guys come up to the table and threaten them. The Fosters follow the two out into an alley thinking they are in trouble for stealing someone's reservation but in fact, the real Tripplethorns are the ones that are in trouble and the two thugs think the Fosters are the couple who have stolen a flash drive from a local mafioso named Moletto. This is when the movie gets interesting and hilarious. Both Fey and Carrell have expert timing when it comes to comedy and my friends and I weren't the only ones in the audience who were laughing until our stomachs hurt.
J.B. Smoove, of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fame, puts in an appearance as a taxi driver and his personality fairly leaps off the screen to add to the pure fun of the movie. Other appearances by Ray Liotta, Mark Wahlberg, and James Franco add to the interest as well. All in all, I would give this movie a surprising 2 thumbs up!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Dr. Who Series 1 Episode 1: "Rose"
As an American who didn't grow up on the TV series, "Doctor Who," the first episode of the new Dr. Who (new since the 60s and 70s) strikes me as a mashup between Twilight Zone, the X-Files, Star Trek, The Next Generation and just a smidgen of "Back to the Future."
There was a Twilight Zone episode I watched as a kid in the 60s about mannequins coming to life. Each mannequin got to spend a week or maybe it was a month as a human each year but the episode begins with a young woman being chased and closed in on by mannequins and she is terrified (just as I was from what I could see between the fingers covering my eyes).
In the episode, "Rose", Rose Tyler, like the young woman in the Twilight Zone episode, works in a department store. She goes to the basement on an errand and the mannequins start coming to life. Luckily for Rose and me, Rose isn't a an AWOL mannequin at all but is a human who must run from the grabbing mannequins. The Doctor helps her escape the building where the menacing mannequins are still trying to capture her and her strange new friend, the Doctor.
If you don't understand the reference to the X-files I made in the first paragraph, well let's just say that like Fox Mulder, I *want* to believe in the possibility of life on other planets in other worlds. Dr. Who shows Rose that there are indeed a whole plethora of aliens living in strange worlds outside the Solar system.
And finally we come to Star Trek, TNG. The doctor is more than Captain Picard and Data combined but the similarities are that the Doctor is an explorer with a penchant for believing all life forms deserve to thrive. And of course Dr. Who, as we soon learn, can travel through time which he does with impunity though he isn't nearly as careful as Captain Picard about the 'prime directive' which prevents time travellers from changing events in the past. But then the crew of the Enterprise only casually observes the laws of the prime directive which is part of what made the series so much fun. And the same is true of Dr. Who.
The first episode of the new Dr. Who Series I, has the Doctor inviting Rose into the Blue Police box with him, leaving her boyfriend, home and mom behind, when after asking the Doctor if it's always this dangerous and running for the blue box when he answers, "yes." She becomes the Dcotor's companion then, traveling through time and space having adventures.
There was a Twilight Zone episode I watched as a kid in the 60s about mannequins coming to life. Each mannequin got to spend a week or maybe it was a month as a human each year but the episode begins with a young woman being chased and closed in on by mannequins and she is terrified (just as I was from what I could see between the fingers covering my eyes).
In the episode, "Rose", Rose Tyler, like the young woman in the Twilight Zone episode, works in a department store. She goes to the basement on an errand and the mannequins start coming to life. Luckily for Rose and me, Rose isn't a an AWOL mannequin at all but is a human who must run from the grabbing mannequins. The Doctor helps her escape the building where the menacing mannequins are still trying to capture her and her strange new friend, the Doctor.
If you don't understand the reference to the X-files I made in the first paragraph, well let's just say that like Fox Mulder, I *want* to believe in the possibility of life on other planets in other worlds. Dr. Who shows Rose that there are indeed a whole plethora of aliens living in strange worlds outside the Solar system.
And finally we come to Star Trek, TNG. The doctor is more than Captain Picard and Data combined but the similarities are that the Doctor is an explorer with a penchant for believing all life forms deserve to thrive. And of course Dr. Who, as we soon learn, can travel through time which he does with impunity though he isn't nearly as careful as Captain Picard about the 'prime directive' which prevents time travellers from changing events in the past. But then the crew of the Enterprise only casually observes the laws of the prime directive which is part of what made the series so much fun. And the same is true of Dr. Who.
The first episode of the new Dr. Who Series I, has the Doctor inviting Rose into the Blue Police box with him, leaving her boyfriend, home and mom behind, when after asking the Doctor if it's always this dangerous and running for the blue box when he answers, "yes." She becomes the Dcotor's companion then, traveling through time and space having adventures.
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