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Casey999
Reviews
Fringe: Brown Betty (2010)
A Great Episode
I'm not sure there are really spoilers here, but I checked it anyway, just in case.
Don't listen to the naysayers. This episode is excellent. It allows the cast to play their characters in a noir like context, but as Walter views them and himself. It foreshadows some future relationships and is filled with laughs and moments that made me smile.
Maybe this isn't for everyone, but I think it's one of the best stand alone episodes. Sure it's got references to the overall story arc, but a new comer can watch it and enjoy it too.
Finally, the goofs section for this episode make no sense. Windows didn't exist during the story, but large flat screen panels and 200x era cell phones did? Really? This is Fringe. The story takes place in an alternate universe where the 40's and 2000's all exist at the same time.
Shark (2006)
James Woods is great.
I have a friend who's an attorney. For as long as I've known him, he's said he can't watch movies or TV shows that revolve around trying cases. He says they're too unrealistic to suspend disbelief. As a rule, I think he's missing out on some great stories. I know all the speeches the lawyers give that aren't during an opening or closing won't happen in a real court, but I can accept that it's required to make the show work (lest you end up with a TV show where the stars have few lines).
With that said, I find the show's story structure silly. It's not that the stories aren't interesting (some more than others). It's that it's ludicrous to have the D.A. show up on every crime scene. To bring the case to court before it's been investigated and frankly to have the D.A. doing all the investigating.
Instead of a great court room drama, we get just another Cop show, albeit one where the police apparently don't gather the evidence and turn it over to the D.A.
I almost wonder if the reason Woods wants out is because the entire story structure is so implausible. Heck, why does an investigator for the D.A., more often than not, lead the police on raids to get a suspect? I wanted to like this show and for a few episodes, I did, but having DAs and ADAs acting like cops more than lawyers makes it impossible to suspend my disbelief.
Howard the Duck (1986)
So Bad it's good.
Make no mistake, thismovie is bad. That they spent 30 millin dollars (or something like that) on it is incredible. The duck doesn't look real, and it doesn't look like they tried to make Howard look real.
All that said, I saw this when i was 20 or so (on video) and thought it was great. Not great like Schindler's List or even Almost Famous, but great nevertheless.
A duke that's in a band called Howie and the Heartbreakers, who's been on the cover of Rolling Duck and a master of Quackfooey. It is what it is, and I enjoyed it.
As I said elsewhere, if I had to rank it out of all of Lucas' films, I'd say the first 2 and 3/4 Star Wars (can't sit through the last 30-45 minutes of jedi..and no it's not the ewoks that bug me), American Grafitti and Tucker are the only films that I think are better...granted the rest are crap, but unlike Howard the Duck, they're unwatchable crap.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)
DS9 Is the best trek ever
Gotta love all the DS9 bashers. We have IMPRATOR telling us that it was all a soap opera -- a common accusation. The reality is that while there were frequently little things dropped in that gave the diehards something to enjoy (no different that TNG), most episodes were 1 or 2 show arcs.
Imp says it got exciting at "near the end" when they brought in Dorn and the Defiant. The reality is they came in during the 3rd season. If someone watching can't figure out who is liked and disliked, then they must tune in once every few seasons. If you do that with any show that has on going characters (TOS, TNG, DS9 et. al.) you're going to have problems.
The fact is that DS9 is easilly the best Star Trek to date. Saying they didn't go anywhere is both wrong and besides the point. The first 2 seasons were largely on the station, but the action came to the station. How does it matter? The point of Star Trek has always been morality plays. It's been about the people. Regardless, by season three the entire dominion arc was in full swing, and the war that followed was easilly the most action packed in any of the Trek series.
If you're looking for TOS where everyone loves(and it's debatable if Bones really loved Spock in TOS) each other, you won't get it...at least not right away. But that changes. This is no different than TNG. Almost everyone disliked Ensign Ro and she didn't like them much either. By the end, it was a very different story.
Watching DS9 on DVD, I now see that they set up much of what later happened in the series in the first few episodes of the show. There was tons of foreshadowing. However, I didn't realize that the first time through, and if you missed most of those episodes, you still could follow.
Bottom line is this is the series that TV Guide called the best Trek ever. Maybe it didn't start out that way, but I can promise you by season 3 (and I think it was really by the 2nd half of season 2) it was every bit as good as TNG. And that's saying a lot.