Glee

This is easily one of the saddest, if not the saddest episdoe of Glee ever. And it was Regionals week.

Here’s my take on the episode.

It began on a weird note. Sebastian of Wrabler’s fame. He now had somehow made nude pictures of Finn which he promised would be leaked if Rachel didn’t withdraw from McKinley. Naturally, this cased another disagreement between Finn and Rachel, but it, once again, didn’t last. Finn decided that he would prefer to win at Regionals than to have his private business still be kept to himself.

And then the tragedy came. While preparing for Regionals, we see that Karofsky (after news of his real sexuality were leaked at his new school), nearly hung himself. And cue the tears. This snaps everyone back to a sobering reality. Sebastian decides that in light of everything that had happened, he would not release the photos of Finn. Kurt felt guilty about the whole thing, having ignored all the calls he had received from him. Later, Kurt told Karofsky to look into the future, and I once again, nearly cried. Iit also forced everyone in New Directions to get serious, and they went around the circle to tell the others what they looked most forward too. Some were real, while others were funny. Mercedes, for example, couldn’t wait to meet Rachel Berry’s children. Rory, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to win at Regionals.

Now, to Regionals. (On a side note, Rachel decided that life was too short and told Finn that she wanted to marry him once they won at Regionals. And Quinn, reluctantly, gave them her blessing. ) The Wrablers were up first, and though they did well, and sang relevant songs, especially given everything that had recently happened, they weren’t as good as they had been when Blaine was in the group. As one review put it, Sebastian may have a great voice (and he does) but he lacks Blaine’s charisma (which couldn’t have been any more true). Then came this weird group, but we saw little of them. And then, to the New Directions, who sang three amazing numbers: Fly, Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) and Here’s to Us. All great songs, and two were great considering the recent events.  Fortunately, they won, and everyone cheered.  Even the Wrablers. It was a great moment.

Now, to Rachel’s and Finn’s wedding. All four of the respective parents still were less than pleased with the wedding and were trying to figure out a way to get out of it. Quinn, who had just been repointed to the Cheerios, had not yet arrived. And Rachel insisted on waiting for her.  In the meantime, Quinn was driving to get there, and opted to pick up her phone and text them back, as she did so, a truck slammed into her car. And the episode ended, just like that, with a horrid cliffhanger, leaving us to wonder if Quinn would survive and if Rachel and Finn would actually go through with their wedding.

The only other thing worthy of noting is that Sue somehow managed to become pregnant, leaving us to wonder over who the father may be.  Still, despite all the torturous cliffhangers, it was a great episode, with good songs done tastefully, and it made you cry without wrestling for the tears, they came naturally. Grade: A-

Oscar predictions!!

Best Picture
Will Win: The Artist
Should Win: The Artist

Best Actor
Will Win: Jean Dujardin
Should Win: Jean Dujardin

Best Actress
Will Win: Viola Davis
Should Win: Michelle Williams

Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: Christopher Plummer
Should Win: I guess Christopher Plummer though I have not yet seen his performance.

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Octavia Spencer
Should Win: Berenice Bejo

Why: Though I have only seen twelve of the twenty nominated performances, I still have valid opinions. For Best Actor, I really feel (and hope) that Jean Dujardin is going to win, because he did, after all, win the SAG award and the BAFTA, though Clooney is stiff competition. But I'm hoping that Dujardin pulls the upset, he deserves it so much more than Clooney. Brad Pitt is also great in Moneyball. For Best Actress, this once again, could go either way, either Meryl Streep or Viola Davis could win, and I'm going with Davis, though she and Streep both give a great performance and they have split the pre-Oscar awards, I hope Davis wins over Streep because The Help is just a much better film. That said, I felt that (out of the three nominees I have seen) Michelle Williams gave the best perfromance, disappearing under Marilyn Monroe's skin perfectly. For Best Supporting Actor, I have only seen Jonah Hill and Kenneth Branagh, but if anyone other than Christopher Plummer wins, I will shocked out of my mind. For Best Supporting Actress, I feel that Octavia Spencer has this one in the bag, having won tons of pre-show awards, and though she gives a great performance, I felt that Berenice Bejo was much better in The Artist, expressing so much by saying nothing. However, though I think that both Williams and Bejo were better, I will not be displeased with Davis and Spencer win because they do both deserve it. Well, either way it will be fun because this year, the Oscars are so unpredictable this year, it's great. Have fun watching!

This Means War

This was a great movie, not Oscar-caliber by any means, but a great, fun, enjoyable and entertaining film nevertheless. The movie begins with a great-action sequence involving two best friends and CIA agents, FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) going after the bad guys, eventually killing one of them, but not his brother, who will be out for revenge. However, because the mission was supposed to be covert, their boss (a chilly Angela Bassett, great in her small role) benches them, forcing them to their desks.
Then there is Lauren, a sweet, lovable, and for some unknown reason, single woman. It is her best friend, Trish (a trashy Chelsea Handler, who makes the movie funny with her crass jokes), that puts up Lauren's profile on a dating website. It is through the website that she hooks up with Tuck, but later that evening has a meet-cute with FDR. And thus, she begins dating both of them, but for the most part, it is only dating them. And each guy comes up with some cute dates, both of them want to end up with her, but they know that only one of them can. It nearly tears up the guy's friendship.
In the end, Lauren ends up choosing one of them, but only after finding out that each guy knew about the other, and knew that both of them were seeing her. In addtion to this, each guy knew that the other was spying on Lauren, tapping her cell phone, because of 'national security' reasons, and as FDR promptly answers, "Patriot Act." Lauren goes paint balling with Tuck, a dog shelter with FDR, trapeze jumping with Tuck and fancing dining all-around. And then, she meets the families: FDR's grandmother (Rosemary Harris) who greatly delights in the fact that her grandson has finally brought a girl for her to meet, and Tuck's young son, Joe. And both occasions go well. But Lauren has to choose, so Trish proposes that she has a sex tie-breaker.
Lauren does choose, only after a nasty battle with the bad, guy brother. Lauren chooses FDR, and Tuck is happy, mainly because he gets back together with his ex-wife, Katie (Abigail Leigh Spencer), who finds him attractive once again after his true colors are revealed, he, his wife and son are one, big, happy family again. FDR and Lauren are also moving on with their relationship, by the end, they are engaged, and then FDR drops another bomb on Tuck, leaving the end with a cliffhanger, but it was still a great ending, considerably better than The Vow.
Though the film combines tons of genres, including romance, action and rauchy sex-comedy, but it blends together fairly well, and the performances are a bit more than acceptable. My one major problem with the film are the names of the two main male characters, FDR, seriously that is an awful nicknamed, while at least Tuck is a decent one, but come on, screenwriters, pick better names for your characters. Still a great movie, and if you and your boyfriend can only see one film on your date, pick this one over The Vow. Grade: B

NCIS: Secrets

Secrets, indeed. This episode was aptly titled. And it was interesting. We finally got to meet Tony's ex-fiance, Wendy, who no longer teaches preschoolers, but instead, had become a whistlebowing journalist.
The case was also interesting. In a flower shop, the owner and a marine are murdered. NCIS is called out to investigate. It turns out that both murder victims were part of a vigilanty-type group of superheroes, out to protect the neighborhood against crimes and evils. Wendy (Tony's ex-fiance) is a reporter writing a story on such topics. Though it is later found out, that she lied in the investigation, she is fortunately not the killer. (I would have disowned the show if that turned out to be the case.) She was simply refusing to name one of her previous sources, in not naming the navy captain, Jack Wallace. The murderer turned out to the be the bodyguard of another one of the superheroes, who was killing people so the crime rates would go up, and thus property values would go down, so more money could be made by his employer. Yeah, the plot was sort of crazy, but the local superhero cult was an interesting touch, though I wonder if it actually exists.
The real story was between Tony and Wendy, now a divorced, though wealthy, single mother of young Fred. She and Tony still have a spark, and after her car is bombed, Tony is assigned to protect her. And, out of nowhere, shocking me to the core, they have a great make-out scene, and who knows where it would have ended, but then Fred and his nanny walked in, forcing it to end. But the sudden ending fooled no one, and Fred firmly warned Tony that it cannot happen again, which it doesn't.
In the end, Tony and Wendy still are not together, thank goodness. As it turned out, Wendy was the one who abandoned Tony not long before their wedding, because she wasn't ready to be with the love of her life, but now, apparently, she is. However, she leaves Tony because she knows that there is someone else in his life that he cares for deeply, and he should tell her. Perhaps neither of them will ever be happy. Who knows, either way, it was still a decent episode, and many questions finally had an answer, though some new ones were created. Grade: B+

Glee: Hearts

This was an interesting episode and considerably better than the last two. In this show, we finally get to meet Rachel's dads, Hiriam and LeRoy, played to perfection by Brian Stokes Mitchell and Jeff Goldblum. And they did not disappoint, though it took me some time to figure out what they really were up to. They showed up in the auditorium, totally supportive of Finn and Rachel being together and getting married. In fact, they even invited Finn and his parents over to there house and pushed Finn and Rachel to spend the night together for a night of "teenage love-making". I was shocked and wondered what they were up to, but then I got it. They were setting them up, to prove that marriage was going to be extremely difficult and was not something to be taken lightly. It took less than no time for Rachel and Finn to get into a nasty fight, because Finn snapped at her, saying that he was not going to spend the rest of his getting her drinks. But then, in less than no time, and with no explanation, they were back together, but after all, it was Valentine's Day. That was the only bad moment in an otherwise flawless episode. Also, Finn and Rachel opted to announce their engagement to whole Glee club, and some of them reacted well, while others did not. Santana: "You have my permission to spend the rest of your life unhappily married to Finn." Puck, who is not one to talk, asked when the due date was, a question that was never answered or even acknowledged. In the meantime, you would think that Puck would have his hands full of the house full of sorierty girls that were all his Valentine's Day Date.
The other plot lines: Mercedes finally broke the news about her and Sam to Shane, and he took the news hard (he even cried about it), but she felt as though she had betrayed Shane (which she had) and was not ready to date anyone until she figured herself out better, which makes tons of sense. Also, in the most ironic moment of the show, she sang the Dolly Parton/Whitney Houston classic "I Will Always Love You" and she sang it brilliantly, even better than Jennifer Hudson's performance at the Grammys, and Sam's purely emotional face helped. You could just see his heart break, again. And Shane looked equally devastated.
And then there was Sugar, the ultra-rich girl, who finally got a good amount of screen time. She successfully paid the rest of the money so New Directions could go to Regionals. And then she threw the biggest Valentine's Day parties on the face of this Earth, but only couples were allowed. Cue Rory and Artie to fight over who would win her heart. And fight they did, but nicely, by giving her tons of presents, including bringing a real dog into school, and swooning her with love songs. In the end, the homesick Rory won, because Sugar felt worse for him than Artie. Artie still came to the party, albeit single. And probably, lonely.
In the meantime, Kurt was missing Blaine something awful, but was still getting tons of presents from a secret admirer, whom Kurt assumed was Blaine, but it turned out to be his old nemesis, Karofsky (aka David) who professed his own love of Kurt to him. Kurt, natually, was touched but made it clear that his heart belonged only to Blaine, which left Karofsky noticably hurt and mad.
Santana and Brittany were also facing their own dilemma. Principal Figgins called them in the office and told them that they could no longer kiss in public. Santana was upset over this one. And that part of the plotline was never really solved.
Also, the other winner from the Glee Project, Samuel Larsen, finally showed up, in the form of the former homeschooled, son of a Bible salesman, Joseph Hart. And he did well in his small part, and sang "Stereo Hearts" quite well. It was up to the Christian Club to sing the Valentine's Day grams to everyone, and Santana ordered (and paid the expensive ten dollars) them to sing a song to Brittany, and after mulling it over and, for Joseph, praying about it, they followed threw. And all was right in the world. Blaine returned from eye surgery and the show ended with a great rendition of "Love Shack".
This was a really good episode, and despite the multiple plotlines, everything blended together quite well, and the performances were really top notch. The songs, including the nice medley "LOVE" sang beautifully by Tina and Mike, were all really great, especially Mercedes's excellent "I Will Always Love You". And there were some great lines, all-in-all, a great episode with only one minor problem, how do Rachel and Finn make-up? Oh, well, I guess we'll never know, and that makes me sad. Grade: A-

The Vow

This movie disappointed me. I'll explain.
Though it is advertised as the perfect Valentine's Day date movie, I disagree. In this film, Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum) Collins are the perfect couple, but then a tragic car accident occurs, wiping Paige's memory of the last five years. In her mind, she's still a law student and engaged to this jerk named Jeremy (Scott Speedman), and she's also still on excellent terms with her parents, the Thortons (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange, more on them later). Leo is devastated, as anyone would be, and thus he becomes determined to make her fall in love with him again. But it's not easy, and it appears that Paige doesn't want to remember. She's confused, and doesn't understand the decisions that she made. She still thinks she eats meat, when in reality she's currently a vegatarian.
Leo even asks her on a date and she goes and they have a great time, but that moment of closeness doesn't last. In fact, they completely fall apart, and Paige goes back to her life five years in the past (in law school and dating Jeremy), only to find herself eventually ending up back where she was before the accident (taking art classes and starting to date Leo again), only she's five years older.
That is the plot. On the surface, it looks good, but it was poorly written. Paige's parents are rich, but they hold a devastating secret, and one that they keep from her so things can go back to the way things were before the accident. Her father (Sam Neill) had been having an affair with her (former) best friend, Diane. Her perfect world is shattered. Even Leo, who had never met her parents until after the accident, knew but wanted to earn her love back.
Though there is plenty of chemistry to go around, Paige seems too much like a little girl, crawling back to her parents, abandoning her husband, though she and her sister, Gwen both like him. But yet, things don't seem to be working out. Leo divorces her, after some persuading from Paige's daddy.
The film ends with Paige and Leo going out on a date, leaving too many questions unanswered. Then titles appear saying the couple who inspired this film are currently married with two children, but the wife never recovered her memory.
I wish that they would have recreated the events that actually happened, because that certainly would have made a better film than this. Rachel McAdams is at least decent in her weak role. Channing Tatum isn't awful, though he never seems to be into his role, and his narration is sad and weak when it should be much firmer, but he is a good guy and the hero of the film, and though you feel sorry for him, you should feel sorrier for him. Sam Neill, covered in slim, and Jessica Lange (a two-time Oscar winner) have talent that is completely wasted in this film, and especially for Lange, there is nothing for her to do, anyone could have played that role. As many reviews have been saying, the film leaves you wanting more, and it totally does. You want more everything, you want the actors to feel confident in their roles, in how they say their lines, and you want that happy ending, which is only alluded to. As a result, the film is far from the perfect date movie, in fact it's probably one of the worst date movies, even The Notebook is better and that ends with the two main characters dying together. That's how bad this film is. Grade: C-

Glee: The Spanish Teacher

This was another weird episode, though it was not nearly as good as NCIS. This episode guest starred Ricky Martin, but it wasn't nearly as good as the ones that guest starred Gwenyth Paltrow as a variety of substitute teachers.
Will apparently is having trouble with his skills as a Spanish teacher, never mind that he was wonderful in season 1, but not anymore. So he goes to night school to brush up on his Spanish skills which is where Ricky Martin comes in. After spending some time working as a teeth model, he truly wants to make a difference so he begins teaching. And he is a native speaker so he can speak Spanish perfectly. So Will, determined to win the tenure so he and Emma can always be secure, thus he brings in David (Ricky Martin) and opts to liven up the Glee club by telling them to incorporate Spanish into their songs for the week, sometimes it works, but when it doesn't, it crashes and burns. Will's song, towards the end, is absolutely awful, he dresses as a matador, and Mike and Brittany run after him like bulls. It brought the episode down a letter grade, that's how bad it was.
In other news, Sue wants to have a child. So she asks the guys from the Glee club to provide her sperm for her, she asks Will the same thing. All of them decline, thank goodness. But she finds another donor, so maybe she will end up having a baby. That would be interesting.
Also, Roz Washington the former Olympian, now swim coach, takes over the Cheerios and teaches them some new moves, and Sue hates this, thinking she will take over her job. When finding out the Sue wants a child, Roz bursts out "From who's vagina?" A line later repeated by Santana, to great effect. There were some great lines said by Roz, but Sue had no good comebacks, something that is out of character.
And Rachel, while watching Twilight with Kurt and Mercedes, announces that she and Finn are engaged, and Kurt at least freaks out. He confronts Finn about it afterwards, and begs Finn not to give up on his own future, he should not spend the rest of his life holding Rachel Berry's purse. But Finn says that Rachel is the only good thing going on in his life. But that is all from that plot line, so Finn and Rachel are still engaged. Somehow.
But Mercedes needs to choose between Sam and Shane, her boyfriend. And after talking to Emma, and not speaking to Sam for a week, she decides to walk up to him to spill her guts, Shane walks up and she goes off with him.
Will is cruel to Emma about her pamphlets but then he later apologizes, and after all, she is the one who gets the tenure. And Will is going to become the new history teacher and David will be the new Spanish teacher. So all is right with the world. Grade: B+ but Will's horrid song brings it down to a B-.

NCIS: Life Before His Eyes

This was easily one of the most fascinating episodes of NCIS ever, certainly it creates tons of discussion. Gibbs walks into a diner and after a quick cup of his necessary coffee, someone pulls out a gun and shoots at him. And then a freeze frame appears, and then the flashbacks begin. Some of them are real, while others are imaginery.
The plot from the case that started the day before the shooting of Gibbs: a naval officer is from dead on a nearly abandoned ship, and another critically injured civilian man is found in the next room. As it turns out both people have been found to have huge deposits deposited in their bank accounts in the past few days. A third man, Michael Rose, is found to be a part of their group as well. They have been selling intelligence to the Chinese, and Michael has been having second thoughts about this, though he did need the money to keep his home from bankrupcy and send his son to college. But Michael just couldn't do that, and so he killed his comrades to save the lives of others. He begs Gibbs to help him, but Gibbs refuses. Stephen (Michael's son) is the one that shoots at Gibbs the following day.
That case certainly wasn't the most interesting, but the flashbacks made up for it.
Weird Scenario #1: Gibbs had seen Ari and was able to keep him from shooting and killing Kate, something he had always regretted. This scenario was interesting. It flashes forward to a hosiptal scene where Tony comes running in, Abby telling him that Kate will kill him, and then a weird shot of Sasha Alexander before a doctor hands Tony a baby. Yes, that's right. Kate and Tony got married and successfully reproduced. I was shocked too. My mind was blown. But in this alternate reality, Ziva was still with Mossad, and Tony had to interrogate her for some reason. And he fumbled purposely with her name, including calling her Tiva (the combined name for the two ot them as a couple). It was certainly the most fascinating alternate reality.
Weird Scenario #2: Gibbs tracked down Hernandez (the man responsible for Shannon's and Kelly's death) but couldn't follow through on the shooting. This caused him to become anger and bitter. When Abby and McGee (who are dating) and Ducky arrive to tell him the good news about Kate's baby, whom she names Kelly (in this alterante reality, we don't know who the father is, but I assuming that it is still Tony), however, Gibbs cares little. Not even poor Ducky can get through to him
However, it was Weird Scenario #3 that really finally hit a cord with Gibbs: In this one, Kelly and Shannon were never killed, but instead they are the ones who receive the bad news, Gibbs has been killed while still overseas. He never became an agent, he never helped all those families, never caught all those killers, and who knows what even happened to everyone else in the show. Gibbs finally realizes that he could never have both: a family and his wonderful, vivid career. He realizes how important his career is.
Back to Reality: Gibbs suffers a shot in the shoulder but doesn't fire the gun, instead two other men grab Stephen and prevent him from doing anymore damage. He returns the next day to solving cases. All is right in the world, or is it? We'll never know.
Although the episode was fascinating and told us so much about Gibbs, including meeting his mother, some major players were missing. Namely Sasha Alexander. Because the episode was filmed over the holidays, Sasha and Lauren Holly (who portrayed Director Jenny Shepherd) were unable to come for the filming, so tricky techinques had to be used to get them in the episode. For the brief scene with Kate, when Tony finally comes into the hosiptal room and tells her that she lost weight, any seasoned NCIS watcher would be able to tell that the footage had come from the season 2 episode SWAK, but somehow they did manage to get away with it. Although another question remains, why would they film such a pivotal episode over the holidays? One can only wonder, still, this was a great episode and one that I will certainly watch again. Grade: A-

Glee: Michael

This episode was not nearly as good as Yes/No, and that is unfortunate. Mercedes begins the episode by mentioning how upset she was that for sectionals, she wasn't able to sing any Michael Jackson songs, and so the whole Glee club decides to focus his songs for the week. And thus another theme episode begins. The plot was thinner and weaker than the latest new episode, and the songs weren't nearly as well done.
The main plot dealt with the New Directions going head to head against the Wrablers, where both Blaine (Darren Criss) and Kurt (Chris Colfer) attended.  But now the Wrablers are headed by the cute, but horribly nasty Sebastian, who loves Blaine but hates the New Directions with a passion, especially Kurt. After hearing from Blaine that they were preparing Michael Jackson numbers, and so the Wrablers announce that they will also do that. So the two groups meet and have a show-off that ends horribly for Blaine as Sebastian tosses some tainted slushy in his eyes. Santana takes the jab personally, and later has her own sing-off with Sebastian, singing easily the best number of the show, Smooth Criminal, with two guys in the middle playing the cello as though their lives depended on it. But Santana, sneaky as she is, taped a recorder to her underboob and captured the confession that Sebastian had laced the slushy with rock salt, but it was meant for Kurt. Yet, the New Direcitions opt not to turn the information over to the police, instead they want to crush the Wrablers at regionals and want Sebastian to be there so they can enjoy it all the more.
There were also two other side plots. Sam somehow gets Mercedes to sing a debut with him, which she does reluctantly, though it ends with a kiss. And that was it.
And then there was Finn and Rachel. Though Kurt got his letter for NYADA, he is a finalist, but Rachel had still not received hers, so after talking to Quinn (who strongly discouraged Rachel from accepting), she still said yes which made both of them very happy, and then at the end, Rachel finally gets her NYADA letter, she is also a finalist. And yet another cliffhanger. Too bad the episode wasn't any good, not really, the songs were weird, and largely unknown, and some of them, especially the last one just didn't blend in with the show, but it could have been worse, much worse, but unfortunately, it is probably one of my least favorite episodes of the season. Grade: B-