Reviews

Pleasant if fundamentally flawed show. The basic problem with this show is that tries to combine the blue sky appeal of other USA network shows while combining sometimes serious psychotherapy. As a result, the show has serious tonal issues and ends up not being very good at either. However, the show manages to still be moderately enjoyable because of one reason: casting. I feel that in television (not so much in movies unless it's a romantic comedy), casting talented actors and having sympathetic characters can go a long way and can forgive a multitude of sins. Army Wives in particular is a great example of this (and has a more talented cast than this show), but this show really works well at the top because of Callie Thorne's magnetic star quality and excellent counterbalancing from supporting players Mehcad Brooks and Scott Cohen. They help make this show more than the sum of it's parts, if not quite enough to make this a "good" show. Even so, it's not have bad as escapist entertainment.

This is quite simply, the best show that I have ever seen. What makes this show so great is the same reason why the Emmy's snubbed it year after year: its not a comedy and its not drama. No, Buffy The Vampire Slayer is a romantic-drama-horror-comedy that has something in it to please everyone. You'll laugh and you'll cry (well almost anyway) and you'll go through all the growing pains of being an adult as if your doing it as well. Even though this show is a fantasy, it may be one of the most true to life TV shows I've seen outside of Everwood (another excellent show by the way). It has themes of being in the world but not of it, heartbreak, first love, rejection, responsibility, and sacrifice most of all. The show dropped of a little bit in quality after the Scobie gang graduated from high school but it still was not only one of the best shows on TV, but the best of anything period. It wasn't until the final 7th season that the show became hard to watch and to where there were other things on TV that were worth watching more. So if you haven't seen the show, give it a chance and start from the very beginning. Just about every person I let borrow my seasons of the show after I recommended it became hooked too! You might also become hooked as well.

Season 1: 9/10 Season 2: 9.5/10 Season 3: 10/10 Season 4: 7.5/10 Season 5: 8/10 Season 6: 7.5/10 Season 7: 6/10

This is a really good show. It takes awhile to find its legs and to get into the characters, but once it does this show really takes off. The thing I like best about this show is that it doesn't insult your intelligence. It's clever in how it introduces new ideas and it hardly ever feels forced and clichéd (even though it sometimes is). Kristin Bell is a very talented actress and without such a strong lead this show wouldn't work very well. Reality shows that aren't very realistic like America'a Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance are being devoured for no good reason so it's nice to see something fresh that you can actually relate to. It also contains the mystery and intrigue that make Lost a popular show but is better because it actually solves those mystery's and is more satisfying as a result. Anyone that's interested in watching a well done, entertaining serialized show should pick up the first season. You won't be disappointed!(Well, the first season at least)

This is one movie that packs a punch. The ending of this really stunned me but kept in line the rest of the movie's tone. Linda Fierentino's character didn't change in any way from beginning to end. Most movies will try and tack on a happy ending or make an unappealing character have redeemable qualities and it's refreshing to see something that doesn't do that. There are some things that don't hold up well when you really think about it (namely the cookie scene)but it's written well enough to have everything seem very believable as your watching it. Anyone looking to watch an entertaining anti-Disney movie should check this one out.

This movie was very disappointing. While there was nothing really bad about it, there was nothing really good about it either. It was as if Bryan Singer plastered every cliché he could think of and then tried to fit them together. Sometimes doing this works. My Best Friend Is A Vampire and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls have every cliché you can have yet they're still entertaining because they don't take themselves too seriously. They're also short so your quickly entertained and don't have time to think out the plot holes and the lack of originality. This has a bunch of filler that doesn't work like Louis Lane being married with a child and the whole thing just collapses under its own weight. I hate to say it, but this pales in comparison to Smallville and Smallville isn't even that great of a television show. If you want to want to watch Superman at its best then watch either Smallville or Superman II (Superman II in particular).

There are two kinds of films that I like. One, films that are good (The Godfather,The Empire Strikes Back, Traffic) and Two, films that are campy but entertaining (My Best Friend Is A Vampire, Evil Dead 2, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls). This film, if you've seen five minutes of it, belongs to the second category. Granted, there's plenty of mediocre fare I like too (Kiss of Death, G.I. Jane, The Day After Tomorrow), but there's hardly anything more fun than a crazy movie that doesn't take itself too seriously like this and Better Off Dead.

This is one of the most entertaining things I have ever seen despite it having every cliché and '80s trend (music, fashion)in the book. When I babysat my little brother and sister during the summer of '00, we watched our recording of this from Comedy Central just about every day. We tried doing it with other good movies such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Dead Poet's Society, but it just didn't work the same because this movie maybe has the best replay value outside of Star Wars and The Godfather that I've ever seen. Despite its campiness, it is entertaining throughout and never lags. The only downside is the bad acting of RSL's girlfriend and best friend in the movie. Everyone else from the surprisingly star studded cast (Kathey Bates, David Warner, Rene Auborjonis) is top notch. This is a guilty pleasure at its absolute best! If you take this movie with a grain of salt, you WILL enjoy it!

This is a very good show. The writing, the sets, the costumes, and the plots are all very impressive. But the show suffers from unlikable characters and fact that so much is going on. When people watch comedies they just want to laugh and to watch characters that they feel familiar and comfortable with. Shows like Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond are not only funny, they're also fairly simple and its easy to pickup on them without seeing it for awhile and yet viewers will still get enjoyment from watching it. Arrested Development isn't like that. You really need to watch it from the beginning or in a condensed form like DVD to really get into it. Otherwise the shaky camera thing and the complicated goings on will steer you to away to something that's more simple and easy to watch. People don't always have the time to get emotionally involved and they just want to laugh at something while eating dinner. I really enjoyed watching this on DVD but the episodes of this show just don't stand alone very well. (BTW Fox did keep this show on as long as they could, if you were a network head you'd do the exact same thing)

Crash was a good movie that struck a nerve not only with people that live in Los Angeles, but with people I know from the military as well. The movie was a lot like "Traffic" in how it took a controversial subject, car jacking and violence, and spread it along 4 or 5 different stories that directly and indirectly intertwine with each other. Each is done well and then the movie abruptly ends after 1 hour and 50 minutes. This left me feeling a little shortchanged because none of the stories lead anywhere. One hour and fifty minutes just isn't long enough to properly develop 5 different stories. Heck it sometimes isn't enough for one. "Traffic" is a similar movie (about drugs and violence instead of carjacking) but is superior because its 2 1/2 hours long and properly develops the stories. I'd normally give "Crash" about a 7 but I'm giving it a 1 while giving "Traffic" a 10 because I feel the ratings should be reversed (Crash has a 8.2 while Traffic has a 7.8). A good movie but one of worst best picture winners in recent memory.