Fletch's Favored Five: 1988 in Film

Now, the fourth in a continuing series in which I count down my favorites from a particular year in film. Previous entries:

1997 * 1991 * 1984

I'm going to use my friend Wikipedia to kickstart my brain, year by year, and I'll throw out a Favored Five here and there. If you want to refresh your memory in a similar fashion, just go to Wiki and type "[four-character year] in film." Here's the one for 1988. I won't pretend that Wiki is the end-all, be-all of filmic knowledge or that these yearly lists are 100% accurate, but they're an excellent place to start and a great resource.

1988
Not a lot of surprises here - the films selected as my Favored Five are likely what you'd expect from someone who was 11/12 years of age in 1988. Ditto the movies I've not yet seen. The only thing that might surprise you is the inclusion of Frantic amongst my honorable mentions, over such higher acclaimed fare as Rain Man and A Fish Called Wanda, or even Scrooged. It's not to say that I don't enjoy those films, but I thought to myself how odd it would be to place such films high amongst my rankings, considered I've seen none more than a handful of times, whereas the ones that made the lists are films I can practically recite (in some cases).

Notable movies not yet seen:
The Accused
Akira
Dangerous Liasons
Eight Men Out
The Last Temptation of Christ
Midnight Run
Mississippi Burning

Honorable Mentions
Beetlejuice
Frantic
The Naked Gun
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Willow

5. Big - You know I love the next four a lot when a great film such as this comes in fifth. There's not much wrong with Big; I gave it a re-watching recently, and aside from some unavoidable aging (cars, toys used, general technology) and the dodgy "So, was Liz Perkins a pedophile?" question, it's just as meaningful and funny now as it was then.

4. Bull Durham - Unquestionably one of the greatest sports films of all time and I won't hear anything otherwise. Ron Shelton (White Men Can't Jump, Blue Chips, Tin Cup) remains the only writer I'm aware of that can write sports movies that feel authentic and fresh at the same time, and the fact that he spares us the "inspirational" endings of so many others only endears me to him more (even if he hasn't made a relevant film since 1996).

3. Bloodsport - If you've been coming here for any time at all, or are a friend of mine of Facebook, or in real life - basically, if you know me at all, then you know I ♥ this movie with all my ♥. So why is it numero très and not numero uno? Well, love of trash does have its limits, and as hilarious and (I'm sad to say) important to me as this guilty pleasure is, it's still a guilty pleasure, and the next two movies are far, far superior in quality while still holding a special place in my ♥.

2. Coming to America - Take your 48 Hrs. and your Beverly Hills Cop(s) and maybe even Trading Places - I'll take Coming to America as my choice for Eddie Murphy's best, if not funniest, movie. Not-really-cameos from Sam Jackson, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Louis Anderson and Vondie Curtis-Hall, Eriq LaSalle's jheri curls, Arsenio Hall getting most of the great lines, Sexual Chocolate, Darth Vader himself as a King, Murphy and Hall playing no less than five characters each, the Royal Penis - what more do you want?

1. Die Hard - There really can be no other option here. A no bullsh*t action movie that keeps the tension and comedy high and the stupidity low (Karl coming back to life is the only thing that really stands out). Movies with Heroes (shorthand for action flicks, fantasies, adventures, etc.) are only as good as their villains, and Alan Rickman gave us one of the most memorable in Bill Clay aka Hans Gruber. The inevitable sequels have inevitably taken off some of the luster from the franchise (go ahead, re-watch the second - it's pretty awful, to say nothing of the abominable fourth), but it served as the template for action movies for at least 15 years beyond its arrival. Kudos to Jim Rome for maintaining some of its cultural relevance.

Stained Glass Cinema Sunday (#79)

I'm not exactly sure which of these two will prove to be the harder one, but I think I've got it right. For the answer to last week's Expert poster (that no one got), see below.

BEGINNER


















EXPERT



















Standings:
J.D. - 17
Fletch - 14
Nick - 6
Wendymoon, Clive Dangerously - 5
Dreamrot (smacdonn) - 4
Jason/Daniel, David Bishop, Rachel - 3
Evan Derrick, Jason Soto, BD79, JLG - 2
Steel11Kane, TonyD, Luke Harrington, Adam Ross, Justin, Anders, Dave, Big Mike Mendez, Nic Cage, CaptainRon19, TJMAC510 - 1

Here are the altered/actual posters from last time:

The 3rd Annual Blog Cabins End of Year Spectacular (2009)

To see the list of all of films I've seen since 2009 started, click here. Otherwise, let the SPECTACULAR begin!!


The Five Best Films I Saw This Year (Academy Award eligible):
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. Moon
4. Zombieland
5. District 9

The Five Films That Barely Missed "The Five Best Films I Saw This Year" List:
1. Adventureland
2. Star Trek
3. (500) Days of Summer
4. Sin Nombre
5. The Hangover

The Best of the Rest that Didn't Make Either of the Above Lists:
The Messenger, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Up, Watchmen, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air

The Top Five Films I Didn't Get Around to Seeing This Year (I'm Guessing):
1. Un prophète
2. In the Loop
3. The Cove
4. Big Fan
5. Black Dynamite

The Five Worst Films I Saw This Year
1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
2. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
3. Paper Heart
4. The International
5. The Taking of Pehlam 1 2 3

My Five Ten Favorite Performances of the Year That Won't Win Any Awards:
1. Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover - Previous "winner" of one of these awards Ken Jeong might have literally put it out all there for audiences, but our man Zach G. did so figuratively (and almost literally, down to his tightie whities), playing a man-child the likes of which we'd not seen before. His non-sequiturs were off the charts awesome. Love him while you still can, because I get a strong sense that you're going to be Seth Rogen-sick of him by the end of 2010.

2. Tom Waits, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - One of the most appealing actors in the game...and he's a musician by trade. He might essentially be playing himself in every role (okay, not so much in Dracula), but his quirks and voice are matched so perfectly with a Terry Gilliam flick that it's wonder that this was their first significant partnership.

3. Rosamund Pike, An Education - Speaking of wonders, here's another one: how is Pike not one of the most in-demand actresses working (looking at her IMDb page, with four projects scheduled for 2010, perhaps she finally is)? She's beautiful. She's British. She's 31. And with performances like the one she gave here - playing a dim bulb, no less - it's clear she's talented. What's missing here? Why has she been relegated to crap like Doom and Surrogates?

4. Woody Harrelson, Zombieland - All it took was one short scene to turn Harrelson's Tallahassee from a pretty thin character to an endearing one. Yea, he kicks plenty of ass and cracks plenty of one liners (and searches madly for a sole Twinkie), but that one scene helped make him the most human character on screen.

5. Jason Segel, I Love You, Man - The spiritual cousin to James Franco's role in Pineapple Express (which topped this list last year), Segel let loose, played some drums, made up goofball nicknames, and was more or less endearing as could be as Sydney Fife. As with Pineapple, the film might be spotty - they even managed to make Paul Rudd unlikable - but it's worth seeing for Segel alone.

6. Selected cast members, Watchmen - Malin Ackerman gets all the blame, but she wasn't that bad. Carla Gugino, on the other hand...awful. And Matthew Goode wasn't exactly worth writing home about. But just about every other actor hit it out of the park, from Jeffrey Dean Morgan to Jackie Earle Haley to even a guy that doesn't have three names, like Billy Crudup.

7. Martin Starr, Adventureland - I'm still waiting for the Freaks and Geeks alum (yes, another, following Segel) to get his turn in the Apatow spotlight (I don't have Starz, so tell me if his part on Party Down is large or not), but he was given some meat to chew on in one of my favorites from the year, and he took full opportunity.

8. Karl Urban, Star Trek - I've been waiting for Urban to become a star ever since seeing him channel Brad Pitt in the latter two LOTR flicks. He seemed destined for bigger things, and got them (to an extent) in the form of two key 2004 roles: first as the pseudo-villain Vaako in the much-hyped letdown The Chronicles of Riddick, then as Jason Bourne's nemesis in The Bourne Supremacy. The problem is, those were more than five years ago. The only films he's had between those two and Trek are Doom (WTF? Again?), Pathfinder, and a New Zealand production (he's a Kiwi, after all) called Out of the Blue. Two bombs and a flick no one's heard of. Not promising. Then the role of Bones came along and he hit it smashed it. Yes, like just about every other Trek cast member, taking over a role someone else originated led to a bit of an impersonation going on, but Urban showed something he really hadn't yet (to my eyes, anyway): humor. And it suited him well. Make this man a star already.

9. Stephen Lang, Avatar - Yes yes yes, his character was thinner than generic paper plates - you know, the ones that are scarcely thicker than a sheet of loose leaf? No matter - Lang was hilariously over-the-top and captivating. Even those goofy scars were pretty cool. Though the "We're not in Kansas" line should be excised from all future versions of the film.

10. The missing half of Frank Langella's face, The Box - Sure, Dick Kelly, Langella's character had to have a large chunk of his face missing to match his back story. Whatever, we believe you. Added for quirky reasons or not, the missing piece turned out to be one of the creepier things about The Box, so even if it was pointless, it was effective.

And a Few that Have or Will Win Some:
1. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds - the saddest thing about Waltz's performance is that he's gonna have a bitch of a time getting audiences past it. Imagine if Ledger's Joker were his first role instead of his second-to-last. That's the kind of pressure he's dealing with.

2. Woody Harrelson, The Messenger - So glad that Woody got some more Oscar love. Even counting his 2012 hamfest, he had a hell of a year, and this was the type of killer performance that audiences should come to expect from him. I can't think of another actor that's capable of such highs in both the "serious drama" and "silly comedy" categories. The definition of versatility,

3. Sam Rockwell, Moon - I've had a love/not-quite-love type of relationship with Rockwell over the years, but his complete owning of the screen in Moon has put that debate to rest, at least for a while. His lack of love from the Academy is my number one snub.

The Five Films I Was Most Looking Forward to Last Year at This Time and the Results
1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Though it might kill loyal dweller Nick a little bit each time I say it, HBP was, despite still being an above-average film, a tremendous disappointment. Eight months later and I can barely recall much of what occurred. This was to be the great set-up to the two-part finale - instead, it was like watching a greatest hits package of the last few films.

2. Where the Wild Things Are - As you can see, this sniffed the top 10, but couldn't quite bust through. I think repeat viewings will make the final decision, but it might take five years for it to set in. I simultaneously vastly enjoyed it and was let down by it, which almost sounds like an apt conclusion for a Jonze movie at this stage in his career. Tremendous hype can only take you so far.

3. Inglorius Basterds - You could say that this more than any other lived up to the hype. It's gotten better in my mind as time has gone on.

4. 9 - F*cking Tim Burton and what'shisname from Wanted worked no magic here; I'd have been fine with seeing just the short version of this. Some great visuals, but not much else to chew on. And did they really have to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?"

5. The Box - Richard Kelly: same as he ever was. As will be my anticipation for whatever whacked-out nightmare he dreams up next - in other words, I'll be dying to see it, but half of that reasoning is to see how screwed up he can make it.

The Five Films I'm Most Looking Forward to for 2010
1. Machete - I'm not sure if Robert Rodriguez knew when making Grindhouse that he would be mapping out his own future at the same time just by making a joke Mexploitation trailer. Though not nearly enough people saw Grindhouse, those that did were smitten with the faux trailers, and this one was far and away the best of them all. And good god, what a cast.

2. Inception - I'm a little frightened by the Matrix-y vibe I'm getting from Chris Nolan's latest, but he's got a Season Pass with me. Nice to see Joe Gordon-Levitt in the fold as well.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - True, I was let down by the sixth installment, but that hasn't dampened my excitement for the two-part finale all that much.

4. Hot Tub Time Machine - Stupid? Perhaps. But 80s nostalgia is all the rage, and I feel as though this Cusack-starring comedy has the chance to tap into it better than anything else.

5. The Expendables - No Van Damme or Seagal on board hurts the "credibility" of this action extravaganza somewhat, but I'd be betraying my cinematic youth if I weren't on board for this one.

Finally, Mrs. Fletch's Top 10
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. Sin Nombre
4. Moon
5. The Messenger
6. Coraline
7. An Education
8. District 9
9. The Hangover
10. Star Trek

Honorable mentions:
She had Waltz with Bashir and Let the Right One In in her list, but since I've excluded them from ineligibility for myself, I'm applying the same rules to her and bumped two others up.

LOST Episode 1 Breakdown

A pretty solid season premiere last night, you can’t beat two hours of Lost after a 6 month hiatus, sure there were the usual solutions to their lame mysteries that made no sense, but we’ve grown to accept that over the years. So the big Season 6 Plot seems to be them doing two alternate timelines, one where Jack’s big plan to blow up the Swan worked, and one where it did not. They kicked us off with Jack on Flight 815, not crashing this time, just getting constantly annoyed by fellow passenger Rose (at least some things don’t change in alternate realities), and those disturbing old people PDA’s. Let’s just hope these alternate realities fizzle out quickly, do any of us care what would have happened to any of the people if the flight hadn’t crashed, I know I don’t, they’re mostly just regular folk, they even had to make a lame plot about Kate escaping from custody to try to make their lame alternate reality interesting.

Obviously Katie escaping from custody and outsmarting that cop for the 25th time is a little farfetched, but luckily it is not the only gaping plot hole in the absurd alternate reality. Right off the bat I suspected a dream or some lame flashforward fakeout from the producers since Jack’s hair was much longer than the buzz cut he initially sported on Flight 815. Then there was the fact that good old Desmondo was on the flight, even if the island had been blown up, and Dez’s around the world Sailing trip had been successful, why in the hell would he be flying from Austrailia to Los Angeles, the only logical explanation of course is that Desmondo’s powers carried over when the timelines split and he remembered the original timeline, and took Flight 815 so he could hang out with his old Island buddies.

Then they changed the Charlie timeline, originally when the plane crashed Chaz had just dropped his heroin in the toilet and was about to flush, so we’re now led to believe if the plane hadn’t crashed he would have picked the H out of the toilet and swallowed it? I’m not biting, plus if he was suicidal, there are a lot of better ways to do it than choking on a bag of H that is probably covered in that blue airplane toilet water. It was nice of Dominic Monaghan and Boone to come back for an episode for their lame alternate timeline, I was a little disappointed they couldn’t get Shannon, not like the actress has anything going on, and what was the explanation for where she was the whole flight while Boone and Locke chewed the fat. Also, humourous to think of Frogurt and Artz being pumped for the alternate timeline, so they could cash one more paycheck . Lastly, what was the deal with Christian Shepherd’s coffin going missing, didn’t Jackie find that coffin on the Island in Episode 2, so it had to be on the flight; there is a simple explanation for that one at least, that clerk Jack talked to clearly had a necrophiliac look to him, he was probably having some fun with Christian’s corpse in the back, and will return it to Jackie after a few days. That Christian is a dashing fella, we might also remember him as Bob Warner, one of the few lucky actors to pull off the double dip of the two best shows on tv, Lost and 24. Anyway obviously this alternate storyline is going to go on for a few more episodes and only continue to get lamer. If we wanted to see side by side alternate relaties we could watch that lame Gwyneth Paltrow movie or that episode of Scrubs where J.D. does/does not get caught checking out some girl’s rack.

Despite the classic Lostiness of throwing in a lame plot line, all the other storylines they have going on seem to be firing on all cylinders, the H-bomb team teleported through time to wherever Sun and her gang are at, another solid brawl between Jack and Sawyer and the “heart-breaking” goodbye between Sawyer and Juliet (I don’t care what Irwin’s readers think, Penny and Desmond, they aren’t). At least Miles got a chance to use his talking to the dead powers, as I requested. Also awesome to see the ghost of Jacob, turns out Hugo’s insanity really worked out for the good of the team, hopefully Jacob and Hurley form some kind of super team like Pat Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg. They did finally show us the temple and sure enough there was quite a team of Others hanging out there, leading us to the patented Lost contrived way to add new characters at the beginning of a season. Let’s delve into that quickly…

In Season 2 they had the tail section joining up with team (Ana Lucia, Libby, and Bernard, three misfires right there), some psycho Scotsman hanging out down the Hatch (Yes! Desmondo!), as well as a kidnapped ballooner they suspected of being an Other (Ben, another strong character). In Season three they introduced the Others (Juliet and Tom, not bad) and had two random wierdos pretending they were there the whole time (Nikki and Paolo, so hated the fans made the producers kill them off). In Season 4 Widmore’s team came to the island for some wacky hijinks (Farady, Miles, Charlotte, and Lapidus; Faraday and Miles added something to the table). In Season 5 they already had too many characters, but still felt the need to add a bunch of Dharma bit players through the time traveling angle (Rog Linus, Phil, Horus, Radzinsky), a couple old school Others (Alpert’s role was dialed up, a Young Hawking and Widmore also served to annoy) and some new plane crash survivors (Ilana is the only one left I think). Now in Season 6 it appears the Temple posse is the latest bunch of actors to join the cast, namely that John Lennon wannabe and samurai wannabe, possibly Cindy the annoying flight attendant also, after one episode I would say the chances of them panning out are pretty remote.

On the other side of the Island nothing really happened, Jacob’s old enemy revealed that he was the smoke monster, and that yes he really can’t pass through ash, then he yelled at Ben and kidnapped Alpert, some pretty uneventful happenings after the crescendo of killing Jacob, but it looks like they are setting up a faceoff against Jacob’s enemy and it looks like he’ll be staying in John Locke’s body or at least his smokey counterpart. Hopefully Team Jacob can rally and pull off the upset, a strong move by Jake preserving Sayid, that guy is kind of badass, definitely a good fella to have on your side in any upcoming war. So all in all a decent first episode, we’ll just have to wait and see where the rest of the season takes us…

Initial Thoughts #3

Last Week: JSR pwned you all, getting 10/12 movies. Step ya game up (everyone else); nice display, JSR.

I'm going to give you the initials of a number of characters from a movie. It won't always be the same number of characters, and the initials won't always stand for a proper name. You name the movie. Simple enough? I thought so.

The Movies
1. MM, FR, BC
2. BG, AC, RP, IH
3. EF-H, AM
4. AM, BM, B, DD, LD
5. CD, AS, "N"L
6. DQ, M, L, VC, R
7. M, G, I, S, C, V, J
8. MM, LM, JK, TK,AP
9. WE, DH, VE, ME, CBB, JR
10. SW, MB, OP, AS, M
11. HH, AB, TM, GK, DM, MM
12. NC, CT, BG, R, G

Good luck!

Standings:
Arjun, Jack's Smirking Revenge - 1

Correct answers so far:
1. Old School (JSR)
2. National Treasure (JSR)
3. Spies Like Us (JSR)
4.
5. Bull Durham (JSR)
6. Total Recall (JSR)
7.
8. Rounders (JSR)
9. Tombstone (JSR)
10. Transformers (JSR)
11. Hudson Hawk (Alex)
12.

The Films I Saw in 2009 (ok, not all, plus a couple of 2010 ones)

What you'll see below is a listing of every film that I saw in the theater since the last End of Year Spectacular. Reviews were written for all except the few where noted. The films are sorted first by the rating I gave them, from best to worst, then by date order - so the top of every rating is the most recent of that rating and the last is the oldest.

I've also added up or down arrow images to a handful of films. As I'm sure many of you do or did, when I looked back on the films I saw and the ratings I gave, some of them didn't sit well with me. In other words, just because a film earned an "It's in the hole!" rating some months back, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll place in my Top 5 or 10. Additionally, I've marked off those films I saw in 2009 that were officially from 2008 and therefore ineligible for top prizes either at the Academy or here (ditto the few 2010 releases included). Damn the nether-world of list-making!

So what you have is the official pre-cursor to the End of Year Spectacular, which I've been putting off not for procrastination's sake (okay, that's not entirely true), but so that I could see the prestige films before the Academy Awards hit.

To view a review of any of these film, use the handy dropdown menus in the sidebar - you can search either by rating or by alphabet. Of course, it needs updating badly, but you can't rush these things...


YOU'RE THE BEST...AROUND
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
District 9
The Hangover
Let the Right One In (2008 release)


IT'S IN THE HOLE
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
The Messenger
Where the Wild Things Are
Zombieland
Inglourious Basterds
Moon
Star Trek
Adventureland
Up
Waltz with Bashir (2008 release)


DARN TOOTIN
Avatar (not yet reviewed)
Sherlock Holmes (not yet reviewed)
Up In the Air
A Single Man
Invictus
The Road
Precious
An Education
The Box
Capitalism: A Love Story
The Hurt Locker
(500) Days of Summer
Outrage
Sin Nombre
Lymelife
Terminator: Salvation
Watchmen
State of Play
Duplicity
I Love You, Man
Coraline


DECENT FELLOW
Brothers
The Men Who Stare at Goats
A Serious Man
Paranormal Activity
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Cold Souls
The Informant
9
Extract
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Away We Go
Sunshine Cleaning
Monsters vs. Aliens
The Class (2008)
The Reader (2008)


WHATEVER
Daybreakers (not yet reviewed; 2010 release)
The Book of Eli (2010 release)
Crazy Heart
Ninja Assassin
2012
The Invention of Lying
Surrogates
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Paper Heart
Bruno
The Taking of Pehlam 1 2 3
The Brothers Bloom
Management


PUNCH ME
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The International


MAD AS HELL
(none - yay!)


Totals:
2 2010 releases, 60 2009 releases, 4 2008 releases = 66
You're the best...around: 4
It's in the hole: 10
Darn tootin: 21
Decent fellow: 15
Whatever: 13
Punch me: 3
Mad as hell: 0

LOST Season Preview Part 2

All right, back for Part 2, for Part I which covers the intro to the season and what is going on with the People off Island click here, now let’s get into the main plots and what is going on at the Island…

People on the Island – Current Time

Sun Kwon – As you may recall Sun went to the island to try to track down Jin, and instead found herself abandoned by her old Island buddies and left to fend for herself against Linus, some Jacob worshippers, and what she thought was John Locke in the current time, she’s been typically annoying, but thankfully relegated to a background player in the Mexican standoff between “Locke”, Linus and Alpert. Her goal for the final season is to reunite with Jin and her kid back in Japan. Our goal for her is no Sun-centric episodes this season.

Benjamin Linus – Old Linus really went off the deep end at the end of last season, his whole life all he’s ever wanted is to make Jacob happy, then he spazzes out and stabs the fella upon their first meeting. For a master manipulator like Linus, it has got to be embarrassing being played like a fiddle by Jacob’s enemy. Linus should continue to be a major player this season, and hopefully we’ll get some more backstory on him, those never fail to be interesting, I’m still wondering whatever happened to his girlfriend from back in the day, the producers have been threatening to introduce her for two seasons…

Ilana – Ilana as we know is the annoying bounty hunter that kidnapped Sayid and who couldn’t act; until she arrived on the island and we found out that she was some kind of Jacob groupie, but sadly still couldn’t act. She and her posse seem to have some insight into the island, they were the ones who figured out someone else had been using Jacob’s cabin (Enemy as Christian Shepherd), and they tried to warn Riccardus about the fake John Locke, but arrived too late, we’ll probably find out the back story behind this group and how Jacob recruited them, and how they came up with their little group question “What lies in the shadow of the Statue?” Frankly I think Desmond’s insider question was cooler, “What did one snowman say to the other?”

Jacob’s enemy – And here he is, this guy has been trying to kill Jacob since back in the Black Rock days, and as Jacob said to him in the finale, it looks like he finally found his loophole. The loophole was using Linus to kill him, evidently. From what we know of Jacob’s enemy, he does not age, can assume the appearance of dead people, gets trapped in circles of ashes, hates Jacob, and may or may not have some relationship with the smoke monster (or may be the smoke monster, I’m still a little confused on that one myself). Anyway as everyone figured out in the finale, he’s been posing as John Locke and playing Ben into killing Jacob, which apparently has been a plan in the works for quite a while, dating back to a time loop where he (as Locke) had Richard tell Locke to kill himself. He’s also posed as Christian Shepherd and Ben’s daughter, now that he finally achieved his goal of killing Jake, we will have to see where he goes from there, does he now assume leadership of the island, will he and Richard face off in duel of demigods? All we know now from the preview I saw, is it looks like he’s staying in Locke’s body for the time being, probably for the best since his original body back in the 1400s gave Walt a good run for worst actor.

Frank Lapidus – Lapidus hasn’t been up to much, mostly just getting knocked unconscious by everyone, he is getting recruited by team Jacob, so he will probably be a player in the faceoff against Jacob’s enemy if he tries to take over the island.

Richard Alpert – Alpert really burst into the limelight last season being a major player in both the past and present plots thanks to his immortality powers. He seems to have all the answers, so obviously he’s going to be around as the answers unfold. He was pals with Jacob, and it will be interesting to see if he has crossed paths with Jacob’s enemy over the numerous centuries they’ve all been chillaxing on the island. Also let’s not forget that he told Sun he saw the whole Jack-Sawyer team die, though he wasn’t at the Swan so some more past events could unfold, only time will tell. One of the few interesting theories put forth by the Lost nerds is that Richard Alpert, or R.A., is actually the Egyptian god Ra, since the Island seems to be focused on Egyptian mythology, this one is interesting, I could see Jacob, Alpert and enemy all being Egyptian gods playing chess with all the people on the Island over the centuries.

People on the Island – Past

Jack – Jack went through quite a transformation in Season 5, he went from unquestioned leader to a background player and Locke disciple, finally making his big power play in the finale by killing a bunch of Dharmas and detonating a hydrogen bomb on the Swan. Jack still got the lionshare of touches off the island, as the focus was on him and Kate and their doomed relationship, so doomed was it that it motivated him to blow up half the island. Where this detonation lands him is still up in the air going into tonight, but at least we know he won’t just teleport to LA and go back to doing surgeries, that wouldn’t make much of an interesting Final Season.

Kate – Kate was still spazzing and running around getting into trouble all season, even if Jack was content to kick it in the janitor’s closet, Kate still hopped on any chance to get in trouble, whether saving Little Ben’s life, fighting off Dharmas to bring Faraday to his mother, recruiting Sawyer and Juliet to fistfight Jack, and then after that fizzled out, switching sides to join into a gunfight to detonate a bomb. Kate is obviously poised to be a major factor in the final season, let’s just hope they don’t rehash the tired Sawyer/Kate/Jack love triangle angle for yet another season.

Sawyer – Sawyer took over Jack’s leader duties during the season, and also settled down and became domesticated with Juliet. Sadly this really took Sawyer away from what he does best which is being a jerk, making snarky comments, and occasionally coming through in clutch to everyone’s surprise. Sure a little character development is expected over five seasons, but turning Jack into Locke, and Sawyer into Jack is a little bit of a stretch. They tried to have Miles assume a poor man Sawyer role, but it didn’t really pan out. Hopefully Juliet’s untimely death will give Sawyer some edge and maybe he’ll go off vigilante style in this final season.

Hurley – As discussed they are developing all the characters, except Hurley, who still is just as lame as ever and just hangs out calling people dude and doing stuff that is supposed to be funny, the only mildly amusing thing he’s done is trying to write Empire Strikes Back before Lucas, couldn’t they have made him go completely psycho after getting out of the mad house, that would at least be interesting, running around telling everyone on the island he’s a millionaire from the future and acting zany. The character is pretty stale, sadly I don’t think the actor has the range to pull of anything but fat, annoying guy with awful hair. It’s a safe bet he’ll just be in the background doing his usual Hurley things this season and not adding to the plot.

Sayid – Is Sayid going to make it seems to be one of the “cliffhangers” of last season’s finale. Sayid went off the deep end a bit after his wife was killed (by Widmore?), and Ben had him take out a bunch of Widmorians. Once he got back to the past he went rogue, tried to kill the young Ben Linus, then apparently roamed through the jungle for a month or so killing people at random until he joined up with team Jack again. Who knows what Sayid will be up to after he somehow survives that gaping bullethole in his gut, probably a safe bet that he’ll add to his team high kill total though.

Jin – Jin finally got his own plotline last season, as he skipped through time getting into some hijinks with Rousseau and her wacky gang of Frenchmen, it was a decent plot and filled in some blanks about Danielle and some early history of the Island. And of course, Jin was the “cliffhanger” “death” of last season, why the producers always feel the need to do these lame fakeouts is beyond me, no one is ever fooled, was anyone surprised when they “brought Jin back to life”. Jin unlike the rest of the gang doesn’t get his kicks from gun fights and blowing stuff up, he’s just looking to get reunited with his wife and go home, maybe meet his daughter. Let’s just hope if he ever does get reunited with his lost love, they don’t put him on the shelf like they did with Des.

Miles – Miles was mostly relegated to Sawyer’s sidekick during the season, I don’t think he even used his talk to the dead powers once. Miles however was the one who figured out that maybe them setting off an H-bomb was the Incident that his father was always talking about in those videos. Hopefully Miles gets a chance to chat with some corpses and if he bumps into Ilana and her team again maybe he’s figured out the answer to that “What lies in the shadow of the Statue” question by now, those guys did try to recruit him remember.

Rose & Bernard – Painful, just painful, is it really necessary for these two to make an appearance in every season, Paolo and Nikki were more popular. The fact that they are supposed to be the voice of reason, and were acting like they were too cool for the gang was again painful. Let’s just hope these two don’t appear in the Final Season, their flashback episode was hands down the worst, most pointless episode in the history of the show.

Hopefully that brings everyone up to speed for the big premiere tonight, let's just hope this final Season can live up to the hype and wrap up all these loose ends they've left, with a a satisfactory conclusion, and some solid episodes to finish this baby up strong...

LOST Season Preview Part 1

Greetings all, new beat writer here at the Blog Cabins, I’ll be covering the final season of LOST in a weekly column. Some people may know me from my critically acclaimed “Sportsbook Hustle” weekly column over at THN. Well, with football winding down, and everyone’s favorite show LOST firing up, I told our old pal Irwin that I was toying with the idea of writing a weekly LOST blog. He quickly offered me a contract, then ordered me to write a season preview before the big premiere.

Hopefully there are still quite a few LOST fans floating around - I know I myself have turned on the show numerous times. They have put their fans through quite a bit over their five seasons, whether with timewasting episodes, retarded “mysteries”, or pointless plot twists. Apparently, the producers got mad at their nerdy fans hanging out on message boards all the time breaking down every retarded detail of every show, and exchanging moronic theories, so in retaliation they just inundated the show with retarded mystery after mystery that had no possible explanation to shut them up. Who knows if it worked, but it did give us some god awful episodes, probably hitting a low point with the episode about the mystery of Jack’s tattoos (actual solution to the mystery: Matt Fox has some tattoos, LOST retard solution: they have magic powers that make Asian people hate him).

But for all their awful episodes and plot lines that go nowhere, they always come through with some powerhouse episodes and they seem to be working toward some final resolution, even if during Season five they painted themselves into a corner and just said “F it, let’s get crazy and start doing some time travelling” (originally they had claimed that the show could happen in our world). Plus, we’ve all been around for 5 years, so we might as well see this baby through to the end. I’m still holding out hope the producers will give the fans another giant "F You" in the final episode and have the whole thing have taken place inside Hurley’s mind in the psycho ward. Anyway, I’m putting together a little teaser to catch everyone up on where we are going into the premiere, because lord knows I’d forgotten most of the intricacies of the plot before catching up last month on Hulu, plus even if you just watched the whole season yesterday you could still get confused. But that’s why I’m here. Here is where we left all of the characters…

People not on the Island
Desmondo – A pretty uneventful season for our favorite Scotsman, (and of course favorite character), he and Penny were off island, so didn’t get involved in a lot of the hijinks, he did get shot by Ben Linus and issue quite a beatdown, but we aren’t really sure what lies ahead for him, we do know he is the only one who is unaffected by time shifts and whatnot, so if there is some alternate reality or something Desmondo could be a major player with his memory of all past events. We can only hope Desmond is prominently featured this season, as he's been the focal character for like 3 of their best 5 episodes (with "the Constant" being a consensus #1).

Charles Widmore – We still aren’t sure what old Charlie has up his sleeve, he wants to take over the island somehow, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen, including sacrificing his son Faraday, antagonizing Ben Linus, threatening Desmond, and just being a general douche. But at least we did learn last season through those timetravels that even when he was young and an Other he still was still a massive douche.

Penny and Charlie Hume - These two have just been hanging with Desmond, while he was relegated to background player in Season 5, only question left here is whether Ben Linus is going to give another try to evening up the score with Chuck Widmore by taking out his daughter.

Eloise Hawking – We learned quite a bit about Eloise in the last season. She is Daniel’s mother, former leader of the Others, old flame of Charles Widmore, runner of the Lampost Dharma station, and of course as we already knew a notorious timetraveler and sage. But how is she so powerful? Upon my rewatch of Season 5, I figured it all out. After she iced her son, Dan Faraday, she gained possession of his journal, which had the secret of time travel, Desmond’s exploits, and numerous island and future events. Also it’s no coincidence that now that the written date of the journal has passed she claimed that “For once, I have no idea what is going to happen.” She should still be an important supporting character; she was willing to sacrifice her son’s life for some endgame that she and Widmore are building towards…

Walt – Walt is off the island, roaming around, annoying everyone with his creepiness, tough break for the producers here, they said they knew they were going to jump ahead a bunch of years, so Walt aging from 10 to 14 would fit into their plot, what they weren’t planning on was him going from cute little kid to creepy looking teenager who can’t act. The kid is terrible. Walt the character does still have some superpowers, allegedly, and he still thinks his pops is on the island, so I’m sure he’ll be popping up in the Final Season, probably in a scaled back role though, they don’t want his awful acting submarining the show.

Aaron – This 3-year old kid is a much better actor than Walt, plus with him just being a little kid, they can always switch him out for some other baby if he ages poorly, the main question with this guy is whether he will be reunited with his mother, and if being raised by Kate for 4 years did in fact turn him evil as that oracle predicted all the way back in Season 1.

Wormfood
John Locke – John Locke, as we all know by now, is deceased - apparently Jacob’s enemy has used his dead guy DNA copying power (much like he did with Christian Shepherd’s corpse) to wreak havoc on the island. It was a hell of a run for good old Locke. He did end up winning his little war of faith/science with Jack in the end, as now Jack has turned into a poor man’s Locke, (right down to blowing stuff up). It looks like his body will be sticking around for the final season, but no more John Locke.

Jacob – After all their building up to Jacob, they went ahead and killed the fella in his only episode. We found out that he’d been scouting all the people from Oceanic 815 for a long time, and has Richard Aplert’s anti-aging powers. He will probably pop up in a few flashbacks this season as they try to explain some of the mysteries they’ve built up, and they can always go to the fallback of “Uhhm Jacob is a god, so uhhh he used his God powers” to get themselves out of any corners they’ve painted themselves into. Also Jacob’s last words, “They’re coming,” is the big question going into the premiere - the main suspects are Jack and the gang somehow getting mystically transported 30 years into the future.

Daniel Faraday – Seems Farady had it all figured out, other than the concept that approaching the Others brandishing a gun and shooting people might not be the best way to get a sit-down with his mother. Whether his theory on constants and variables in time-traveling pan out remains to be seen, but it will be interesting finding out what happens post-hydrogen bomb explosion.

Juliet Burke – So they offed Juliet, having her blow up a hydrogen bomb with her dying efforts, and if you think they killed her off because the actress got a better gig on the show “V”, you would be correct. At least it is smart of the producers to give themselves some slack with the characters so they can kill off a character and adjust the plot accordingly. A couple unresolved Juliet plots may be wrapped up in a roundabout way, mainly the one about all pregnant women dying, and I’m sure she’ll do some cameos in flashbacks.

All right I'm running a little long, so I'll break this baby into two posts and be back tomorrow with Part 2 to update you on the characters we left on the island...

Stained Glass Cinema Sunday (#78)

Congrats to TJMAC510 for getting on the board with the Beginner level poster last week; it should come as no surprise that J.D. took home the two points awarded for the Expert one.

BEGINNER


















EXPERT


















Standings:
J.D. - 17
Fletch - 14
Nick - 6
Wendymoon, Clive Dangerously - 5
Jason/Daniel, David Bishop, Rachel, Dreamrot (smacdonn) - 3
Evan Derrick, Jason Soto, BD79, JLG - 2
Steel11Kane, TonyD, Luke Harrington, Adam Ross, Justin, Anders, Dave, Big Mike Mendez, Nic Cage, CaptainRon19, TJMAC510 - 1

Here are the altered/actual posters from last time:

TGITDNMAR (1/29/10)

It's that time again for TGITDNMAR, which (obviously) stands for Thank God It's The Day New Movies Are Released.

When in Rome
Edge of Darkness
"Hi. My name is Fletch, and I will go to see bad movies if I have to."

"Hi, Fletch. Welcome to the group - admitting you have a problem is the first step."

"Thanks. I feel doubly guilty about it because I'm one of those people that tells others to quit bitching about sequelitis and remakeitis, insisting that if they'd just have the temerity to stop attending crap, Hollywood would get the message and stop making it. But see, (my wife and) I like going to the movies. We enjoy the theatrical experience. We don't have Netflix, we rarely rent, especially lately (maybe twice in the past year). We have a DVR and the HBO family of programs and TCM and any other commercial-free channels we may not be aware of at this moment, so that enables us to catch up on much of what we might've missed (or not missed yet still feel compelled to watch - I'm looking at you, Eagle Eye). We don't mind having a healthy chunk of our entertainment dollars going to a theater.

But damnit, is it too much to ask for one halfway decent option a week? WTF is this crap?!?"

"We feel you pain, Fletch. But are you willing to break this cycle?"

"I dunno. When we get hard up and have seen all of the things we want to see - and have even stretched it with others like Daybreakers and The Book of Eli - we usually just don't go as often, making it out maybe once a week instead of twice a week or so. But frankly, when we go much more than seven days without a hit, we start to go a little nuts, clawing at our skin and biting the heads off of those that attempt to engage us in normal behaviors. We start to consider seeing the likes of Leap Year and whatever Nic Cage might be out that week, if only because I have some sort of sadomasochistic relationship with him. It can be painful sometimes, but a release is still a release. Only when something is monumentally bad (Strange Wilderness) do I really regret it, though my wife might disagree."

"What about this week? Are you feeling vulnerable, like you might relapse? Are you being tempted by either When in Rome or Edge of Darkness?"

"You're goddamned right I'm feeling vulnerable. The last thing I saw was The Book of Eli, and that pretty much sucked, and must have been two weeks ago. And this week's new releases look like garbage - how many times must we see the Angry Dad movie [thanks to Simon and Jo for that one] before that sh*t is deemed staler than Wonder Bread from 1984? Oh, but it's combined with the Vigilante Revenge movie that we've never seen before. Throw in a heaping pile of Boston Mel Gibson and I'm about ready to watch The International again. And by the way, more Boston? Can a friggin' movie be set in Milwaukee for chrissakes? How about Atlanta? There are other cities in the US and the world-at-large.

Oh yeah, that's right, like Rome. Forgotten Sarah Marshall. Has that Josh Duhamel guy ever been in anything remotely good before? And if you say that Las Vegas TV show, I'll bet on black like Wesley Snipes (whatever that means). Just meh.

So yeah, we'll probably relapse, but I sure as hell hope it's not with either of these piles. The Blind Side, here we come." *groan*

"Please leave our group."
Fletch's Chance of Viewing (in the theater):
When in Rome: 8%
Edge of Darkness: 11%