LOST S1 E23 “Exodus, Part 1”

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We have come to the first part of the first season finale entitled “Exodus Part .”  Now, the first part was a regular episode and the Part 2 was a double length episode that, in some parts of the world, was split into Part 2 & 3.  I will be watching it as one episode.

Exodus, Part 1 was a great return to storytelling that felt on pause for the past couple of episodes.

The flashbacks featured several of the cast members arriving for their ill-fated Oceanic Flight.  We see Michael and Walt at one of the low points of their relationships, Sun and Jin together waiting for the flight, Shannon turning in Sayid as an Arab that just left his bag unattended just to show off to Boone and Jack met Ana Lucia at the bar.  Ana Lucia is from the tail section of the plane and we will learn more about her in the second season.  We see Kate being tormented by Marshal Mars.  We see Sawyer being deported for headbutting an Australia official in a bar fight.

The Raft is launched successfully, sending Michael, Walt, Jin and Sawyer off on their adventure.  There is joy among the survivors because they hope that this will get them rescued.

But there is fear as well as Danielle had arrived with the ominous news that the Others were coming.  Danielle tells a story about when the Others came for Alex, her own daughter years ago.  She claimed that there would be black smoke in the distance.  Soon, the smoke was seen by the survivors as well.

Three things you can do… run, hide or die- Danielle said about the Others.

Image result for Black Rock LOSTThe idea of opening the Hatch and hiding everyone inside was floated around and Locke came up with an idea of using explosives to blow the Hatch open.  Danielle said that the dynamite was found at the Black Rock in the Dark Territory.  Jack, Locke, Kate, Hurley, Arzt and Danielle went to retrieve the dynamite. On the way, they nearly run into the monster, what Danielle calls a “security system.”  Turns out the Black Rock was a slave ship that was somehow stranded in the jungle.

There were several excellent character moments within the episode as well.

  • Sawyer told Jack about his meeting with Christian in a bar in Australia and how Christian had wished that he told Jack how much he loved him.  This was a wonderful scene and it helped to show Sawyer in a much more positive light.
  • Jin and Sun reunited just before Jin left on the raft.  Jin admitted that he was on the raft because he thought he was on this Island because he was being punished.
  • There was a humorous relationship between Arzt and Hurley.  Hurley could not pronounce Arzt’s name properly.
  • Walt took his dog Vincent to Shannon and said that she could keep him while he was gone.  Walt told her that Vincent helped him through the death of his mother and she could tell Vincent about Boone, if she’d like.
  • As everyone was wishing the raftees well, Sawyer looked for Kate, hoping that she would be there to see him off. She was not.

LOST S1 E22 “Born to Run”

“Born to Run” was the second consecutive LOST episode that felt like a filler, just in place to pass the time along until the big events of the season finale could get underway.  This one focused on Kate.

I am not fond of the way the character of Kate is played here.  She seemed to be inconsistent throughout the first season.  She is either shown as a manipulative, selfish con woman or she is a brave and strong leader.  I suppose the answer is that she is both, falling in-between the two, but the show tries to change it up with whatever it needs Kate to be.

This episode deals with flashbacks to show Kate accidentally getting her childhood friend/love Tom killed as she was trying to escape from the police.  Tom was a doctor and he had set up Kate with an opportunity to see her mother, who was dying from cancer.  Kate’s mother’s reaction was not what we expected because as soon as she realized that it was “Kathryn” visiting her, she started to cry out for help.

Tom was the original owner of the toy plane that Kate had gotten out of the Halliburton case.  I also have to take exception with what Kate had told Jack.  She said that the plane was from the person that she killed.  However, the death of Tom came during her attempted escape.  While she may be inadvertently responsible for Tom’s death, to say that she “killed” him is a bit of an exaggeration.

The episode saw the debut of high school science teacher Dr. Arzt, who claimed that they were starting on the cusp of monsoon season and that they needed to get that raft they were building launched as soon as possible.  It turns out that Arzt was full of baloney as it was revealed in the LOST: Missing Pieces episode “Tropical Depression” that Arzt was lying about the monsoon season.  Arzt, of course, has a explosive fate ahead of him in the season finale.

 

 

LOST S1 E21 “The Greater Good”

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After several strong episodes, “The Greater Good” felt like a placeholder episode that was filling in time between the arches of the season.

John Locke returned from the jungle with Boone blood all over his shirt, only to have Jack attack him and call him out as a liar. Jack, who was physically struggling from his attempted blood transfusion and lack of sleep, was not thinking straight, but Sayid certainly was.

The episode had several good dialogue scenes between Locke and Sayid, which would have been the highlights of the episode.

Maggie Grace, who is the actress playing Shannon, gave a strong performance as a grieving sister looking for revenge on the man she blamed for the death of her brother.  While the death is an accident, an argument could be made that because Locke lied about the manner of the death, Jack was not able to sufficiently aid Boone.  It is also very possible that there was simply nothing that could have been done to save Boone and blaming Locke for Boone’s accidental death is unfair.

Either way, after Shannon steals one of the guns from the Halliburton case, she goes to shoot Locke.  Sayid prevents her from killing him, causing the bullet to glance off the side of Locke’s head.  Jack did not go to look at the injured Locke, just turning away from him instead.

In a more light-hearted part of “The Greater Good,” Charlie discovers that “Turnip-Head,” which is the nickname he gave to Claire’s baby (who will be named Aaron), loves the sound of Sawyer’s voice and Charlie forces Sawyer to read to the baby to keep him from crying.  This was after a funny scene where Hurley tried to get the baby to stop crying by singing “I Feel Good” by James Brown.

The flashback took Sayid to Australia where the CIA wanted him to infiltrate his old college roommate’s terrorist cell and find some missing C4.  This is one of my least favorite flashbacks for the season because it really made Sayid look like a horrible person.

“The Greater Good” was a filler episode that will lead into a considerably stronger end to the first season as Sayid will convince Locke to finally come clean about the Hatch.

LOST S1 E20 “Do No Harm”

Oh boy…

This was a tough one.  I had not been connected to Boone that much, but that did not mean that his untimely death did not come with an emotional wallop, because it was very effective.

The show did a smart thing for those who may not have been as connected to Boone.  Instead of it being a Boone flashback episode, they made it about Jack.  They showed you how the dying of Boone was affecting our favorite doctor and really playing on his desire to be able to save everyone so if you were not a fan of Boone, you could still feel the pain in Jack.

The show also balanced out he death, which fits into the theme of duality on the Island by having Claire’s baby born into the world at the same time as Boone was leaving it.

Boone’s death really amped up the rivalry between Jack and Locke, even though John was not seen in this episode.  Jack sees the death as a murder, since John did not tell him that Boone had fallen inside a plane and was crushed.  John had told him that he fell off a cliff.

This was the first death of a major character (sorry Scott) on the Island and it really drove home the idea that the survivors were not safe.  I remember watching the episode for the first time in shock.  I always assumed that there would be some way to save Boone since he was one of the main cast.  This was before the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones when audiences expect cast members’ deaths.  I remember being horrified that Jack was preparing to cut off Boone’s leg, not expecting the show to go that far.  It was both a blessing and a curse when they did not, because it meant that Boone was going to die.

This was the first appearance of Jack’s wife Sarah.  We saw their wedding and the lead up to the wedding.  We learned that Jack had saved Sarah by operating on the broken back she received in an auto accident.  The show implied that Jack was more in love with the saving of Sarah than with Sarah herself.  Jack and Sarah were very sweet together and the thoughts about what would happen to break them apart was tough as well.

 

EYG Top 10 Basketball Movies

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This week’s topic was Top 10 Basketball Movies, in honor of Uncle Drew that is coming out this weekend.  I am not necessarily looking forward to this one, but the Top 10 hosts are big fans of the sport.  And they added Mark Ellis from Schmoes Knows as a special guest.

Best part of the show this week was when Rocha went to fix the AC and Mark Ellis said that he could guarantee that Rocha would have the movie “The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh” on his list and then Rocha came back and it was his #10.  LOL

There were a lot more movies that were bad in this category than there were that I liked.  I worried that there would not be ten movies that I could get on this list.  However, in the end, I was able to find enough to fill it out.

I do have a couple of cheats though, starting at #10.

#10.  The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island.  Yeah, this is not a theatrical release and it is not a good movie.  But it is fun and it has Gilligan and the rest of the Gilligan’s Island crew.  I know this is just a stupid TV movie, but I really wanted to put it on the list.

 

 

#9.  Hoop Dreams.  This is one that I do not remember much, but I am certain that I saw it.  The film followed Arthur Agee and William Gates, two young African American who grew up in poor neighborhoods in Chicago.  It was considered one of the best documentaries of its time.

 

#8. Space Jam.  This one is up and down for me, but I love the Looney Tunes and Bill Murray so this movie was fun.  I was never a huge Michael Jordan fan, but it balanced out for me.  Marvin the Martian is one of my favorite Looney Tunes character and he makes it in this film too.

 

 

#7.  Forget Paris.  Listening to the Top 10 Show, they mentioned this Billy Crystal film as one of their lists and I thought to myself that I had seen this movie.  So I looked into it and I had seen it.  I really enjoyed it.  Billy Crystal was an NBA referee and loved his job.  The scene where he ejects Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in his farewell game is excellent.  We also see Charles Barkley among other basketball stars in the film.  It may not be that much of a basketball movie as it is more of a rom com, but the film does look through the POV of a referee.

 

#6.  Trainwreck.  Here is the next cheat.  Trainwreck is another rom com, this one starring Amy Schumer and Bill Hader.  Lebron James has a role in the film, and he is actually quite good.  Bill Hader plays Dr. Aaron Conners, a sports doctor.  Schumer joins up with the NBA cheerleaders to make up with him.  Sure it is a bit of  a cheat, but it was close enough for me.

 

Related image#5.  White Men Can’t Jump.  Woody Harrelson and Westley Snipes star in this film as two streetball hustlers who set up cons to make money on unsuspecting players.  The film depends on the charisma between Harrelson and Snipes.  White Men Can’t Jump deals with many of the racial stereotypes that are involved in the sport of basketball.

 

Related image#4. Coach Carter.  Samuel L Jackson played the real life Coach Carter, who demanded a lot from his group of players.  The film highlighted the time when Carter suspended his undefeated high school basketball team for low academic performance.  The film looks at the lives of many of the players, including one portrayed by Channing Tatum.

 

Image result for teen wolf fox#3.  Teen Wolf.  Michael J Fox and his charisma made this movie way better than it ever had a chance to be.  When Scott Howard (Fox) realized that he came from a family of werewolves, he suddenly becomes much more popular and successful as a basketball player.  Yes, much of the basketball scenes are not very realistic, but I enjoyed them tremendously as a young person.  And the film has a good lesson about being who you are and not get lost in the fame or the popularity.

 

Related image#2.  Finding Forrester.  This was a second film that the Top 10 guys brought up this morning when I was listening to the program and I thought, I knew this movie.  I did not remember the title, but once they started talking about it, I remembered that I really loved this film.  Sean Connery is a reclusive author who takes Jamal Wallace under his wing, helping him with his writing so he could get a scholarship to a good school.  Connery is excellent here.

 

Image result for hoosiers movie#1.  Hoosiers.  Gene Hackman is Norman Dale, the new coach of the high school team from Hickory, Indiana, but he has a questionable past.  Based on a true story, the Hickory team was a very small team and Norman was a very strict and explosive type of coach (much like Bobby Knight) whose temper gets away from him on a regular basis and he gets ejected many times.  The team struggled with plenty of issues as Norman tried to establish his control over the players.  As they continued to improve, they wound up on quite a winning streak.  Hickory went to the state and, despite being undersized and the underdog, Hickory won the 1952 Indiana State Championship.  There are some tremendous on court basketball scenes in Hoosiers.  It has the great moment where Norman measures the hoop to prove that the height of the rim was the same in the little gym as it was in this huge venue.

 

Honorable mention:  Air Bud, Like Mike, Eddie

LOST S1 E19 “Deus Ex Machina”

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According to the web site Lostpedia, this episode’s title, Deus Ex Machina  “refers to a theatrical device which originated in ancient Greek theatre. This device consisted of a physical crane that lowered a character down onto the stage, the character representing a god. This god would help the characters with a sudden twist in plot. This term would come to mean any device within a plot that provided a sudden change, or solution, in plot” and that “Deus Ex Machina literally translates into “God from the machine” in Latin.”

In this John Locke specific episode, there are plenty of references to God in the Machine that you could look at literally, or you could look at the “sudden change” in plot that the phrase refers to as well.

Anthony Cooper is introduced and refers to himself as God when Locke told him that his mother had told him that he was immaculately conceived.  Cooper was later hooked up to a dialysis machine.  Cooper, John Locke’s father, is one of the most cruel and selfish characters introduced on LOST.  He returns to torment poor John (among others) across the entire run of LOST.  He is one of the worst of the worse when referencing the “Daddy issues” theme covered by the show.  Imagine, your own father conning you into giving up your kidney and then just casting you aside as if you mean nothing to him.

Of course, this allowed Terry O’Quinn some brilliant material to act out.  His scene breaking down in his car after trying to confront Cooper was heart breaking.

Of course, Locke was having a crisis of faith in the Island as well, stemming from his inability to find a way to open the Hatch.  Because of the doubt, the Island showed him a way.  Locke had a dream of an airplane that crashed on the Island.  He also had a dream of a bloody Boone talking about a nanny who accidentally broke her neck while working for Boone’s family.

Locke uses that dream to hook Boone into helping him.  Locke’s legs were also having trouble, as the paralysis seemed to be coming back.  Locke conveniently forgets to tell Boone about him being covered in blood in the dream as well.

That plane contains several crates of heroin stashed inside Virgin Mary statues.  We know there are connections to Mr. Eko with this plane from Nigeria that will be revealed in season 2.

Prior to the plane’s fall from the tree, Boone is on the radio on the plane and makes contact with someone.  Boone said that he was one of the survivors of Oceanic 815.  As the plane began falling, the response from the voice on the radio was “We’re survivors of Flight 815.

When the plane falls from the trees with Boone inside, this certainly is a deus ex machina, changing the direction of the story.  This is the inciting incident that ignites the real rivalry/feud/war between Locke and Jack that will run for most of the series.

We also get the great scene at the end where Locke is really losing his mind, pounding on the Hatch, and a light comes on from within, shining up into the darkness.  This was so unexpected and surprising that it was a great way to end such a tragic episode.

“Deus Ex Machina” starts several storylines that will drive the remainder of the season and move into next season as well.

 

West Side Story (1961)

I like musicals.  I did not know much about West Side Story outside of the typical.  Street gangs singing and fighting with each other.

So when Fathom Events showed West Side Story, the winner of 10 Academy Awards that year, I wanted to see it.

I have to say… I was disappointed.

First, the pre-show told me that Tony was played by the same guy who played Ben Horne and Russ Tamblyn, who was Riff, played Dr. Jacoby, both in Twin Peaks.  I spent much of the movie trying to see Jacoby and Ben in the face and movements of Tony and Riff.  It was a bit of a distraction.

Secondly, I kept waiting for songs that I recognized and I was surprised that I did not know very many.

While I thought the acting was wonderful and the dancing was amazing, I had some definite problems with the movie.

I did not buy the relationship between Tony and Maria (Natalie Wood).  They met one day at a dance and then were in complete love five minutes later.  Then, Tony kills her brother in the rumble after telling her that he was going to stop it from happening.  He came back to her after, she called him a murderer, and then they had sex.  What?  She was ready to kill herself at the end of the movie over his death when she met him one day before.  Since I had trouble buying their relationship, that makes everything else in the film not work.

Rita Moreno was tremendous, but I was unbelievably uncomfortable with the dance scene that was heading towards the Jets preparing to rape her in Doc’s shop.  In today’s world with the issues of immigration, the way they spoke to her during this scene made me hate these characters.

Some of the dance/music felt like the wrong tone for what was happening on the screen.

I was really bored in the first half of the film.  I will say that, after the intermission, I enjoyed the second half better.  The rumble scene was very solid.

The music and choreography was great but I keep going back to my problem with Tony and Maria and I just could not get past it.  After one day I just can’t believe that they would be that much in love to survive Tony killing her brother.

I am glad I saw it, but, for me, West Side Story is…

overrated

 

LOST S1 E18 “Numbers”

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Hugo “Hurley” Reyes is one of my favorite characters on LOST so it was way overdue to have a flashback episode featuring him.  However, little did I expect that Hurley’s flashback would forever be so ingrained on LOST mythology because the episode introduced the numbers.

4 8 15 16 23 42 repeated several times on Rousseau’s notes surprised Hurley.  Those numbers were the same numbers that he used to win the lottery.  And they seem to have placed a curse on him and everyone around him.

Hurley picked up these numbers during his time in a mental institution from a Connect 4 player named Leonard.  Leonard worked with a guy in the military named Sam Loomis and they picked up a transmission repeating those numbers.  We find out that the transmission was coming from the Island and it is also what attracted Rousseau’s boat to the Island.

The numbers are one of the most enduring mysteries of LOST and I believe that they are the one thing that is not sufficiently answered.  I believe that they never really had a good answer for the numbers so once they started using them, they could not stop.  The riddle of the numbers is like a MacGuffin, always being chased- especially by Hurley.

The interaction between Hurley and Rousseau during this episode is one of the best moments of the show, and should be considered one of the best in the first season.  Even crazy Rousseau is put at ease with Hurley’s friendly and kind nature.  Hurley gives Rousseau a big hug as well when she agrees that the numbers are cursed.  Hurley was so happy to find someone who believed him.

The episode does a tremendous job of creating a ominous and sinister tone surrounding those numbers as we discover the terrible things that happened to Loomis after he used them and the fact that Leonard wound up in the mental institution repeating the numbers to himself.  Hurley has lots of things happen as well.  His Grandpa Tito died.  His mother breaks her ankle.  The new house Hurley bought his mother catches on fire.  Lightning strikes the preacher at his Grandpa’s funeral etc.  It is enough to make anyone wonder.

And Hurley was fresh out of the institution himself.  While we do not know why he wound up there (yet), we learn he was there.  Hurley is also fairly sensitive to anyone calling him crazy.

There have been a lot of theories about what the numbers meant over the years,but I am not sure that anything specific has ever been explained.  It might just be one of those LOST mysteries that will never be fully revealed.

LOST S1 E17 “In Translation”

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Typically Sun and Jin’s flashback episodes were my least favorite of the series, mainly having to do with the need for captions at the bottom of the screen.  However, “In Translation” was a definite exception.

This episode recounted the events from “House of the Rising Sun” but from the perspective of Jin.  It showed how Jin got involved in Sun’s father’s business and how it dragged the kind-hearted man into the world of organized crime.  You understood and connected more with Jin here than you did in the previous viewing here.  The storytelling of seeing first how Sun saw these moments to be balanced how Jin saw them is a fascinating technique.

We also get the big reveal to the remainder of the survivors of Sun being able to speak English.  The raft that Michael had been working on ending up on fire and he blamed Jin.  To be fair, Jin’s hands were burned and he was acting as if he were guilty.  When Sun exclaimed for Michael to stop attacking Jin, the whole group came to a sudden halt.  Hurley dropped a funny line with “Didn’t see that coming.”

Locke came into the situation and blamed the Others for burning the raft, but he already knew who had done it.  John asked Walt later over a game of backgammon why he burned the raft.  Walt said that he liked it on the Island and he was tired of moving.

The romance of Jin and Sun goes through many ups and downs on the Island and it is one of the main story points.  They are certainly at a low point here as Jin leaves Sun alone and goes to help Michael to start rebuilding the raft.

Sun, on the other hand, feels free enough now to go to the beach in a bikini, something that Jin had reacted to negatively earlier in the episode.  Jin has always had a problem with Sun showing too much body, going as far as having her button the top button.  Sun’s freedom here is an important step to the eventual reunion between husband and wife.

The Shannon-Sayid love story started here, picking up on parts from previous episodes and, taking advice from Locke in his “wise man of the Island” act, Shannon decided that everyone gets a new life on this Island and that she would not be concerned with Boone’s thoughts.  It appeared that Boone’s revelations in “Hearts & Minds” was short lived.  Maybe John needs to tie him up in the jungle again.

LOST S1 E16 “Outlaws”

This one was really good.

We dive into the past with Sawyer, aka James Ford, and what brought him to Sydney.  He had been pointed in this direction in his effort to find the man who conned his mother and father out of their money and led to his father’s murder-suicide of James’ mother.

The episode started off with a frightening scene of little James being told to hide beneath the bed by his mother as we hear pounding on the door.  Just the thought of what that little boy had to listen to and live through really humanizes the redneck asshole that Sawyer becomes.

Then, he was sent to Australia by an old accomplice, Hibbs (played by the one and only Robert Patrick).  Hibbs told Sawyer that he had found the man whom had stolen his childhood and sent an angry and vengeful Sawyer on his path.

Sawyer found the man working at a shrimp shop, but he does not kill him at first.  Sawyer winds up in a bar where he encounters Christian Shepherd, Jack’s father.  The two of them talk over drinks and Christian uses the phrase “that’s why the Red Sox will never win the series.”  Christian convinces Sawyer to stop drowning his sorrows in alcohol and to go take care of the business.

So Sawyer does.  He goes and shoots Frank (played by Jeff Perry, who would go on to be Cyrus Bean in Scandal) only to find out that Frank never went by Sawyer and that Frank owed Hibbs money.  Hibbs sent Sawyer after this guy expecting that Sawyer would kill him, which he does, but not for the reasons he thought.

Meanwhile, on the Island, Sawyer is being harassed by a boar that seems to be targeting Sawyer’s things.  Sawyer takes off after the boar, looking for revenge.  Kate tags along, hoping to get the gun back from him.

While in the jungle, Sawyer hears the whispers and they sound as if they are saying, “It’ll come back around” which was the last thing that Frank said to Sawyer before he died.

The whole Sawyer vs. the Boar Island adventure was remarkably entertaining and gave us insights into Sawyer, Kate and even Locke.  Locke showed up midway through with a sweet story about his step-mom and how she believed her dead daughter was reincarnated into a Golden Retriever.

Kate and Sawyer had played a drinking game of “I Never” which started fun and really became personal as they continued.  It was revealed in the game that both of them had killed a man, further connecting these two outsiders.

Sawyer’s story is one of the more tragic ones on LOST and the things that happened to James Ford really shaped who he would become.  But among all of the tragedy, you can see the good man inside of Sawyer and you can relate to everything he does.

 

LOST S1 E15 “Homecoming”

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To me, this episode of LOST was a tale of two parts. The Island material was tense and taut and full of excitement while the flashback felt like a waste of time and a distraction.

Ethan returned, cornering Charlie in the jungle and demanding that Charlie return Claire to him.  Ethan stated that if he did not return Claire, that Ethan would kill somebody in their camp each and ever night that she was not brought back to him.

This clearly caused tension among the group, with the survivors setting up a perimeter with guards posted to keep watch.  However, that did not keep Ethan out as he was able to enter their camp on the beach via the water and kill Scott (not Steve).

Meanwhile, flashbacks looked at Charlie, between gigs as Drive Shaft, trying to find a girl he could steal from to fund the heroin addiction.  However, Charlie fell for a girl named Lucy, and tried to make it work by getting a real job.  As I said, not as compelling as the Island adventure.

Jack broke out the guns from the Marshal’s case and he, Sayid, Kate, Sawyer and John set up a plan to capture Ethan.  They needed bait… and that would be Claire.

‘And the trap works, with Jack being able to subdue Ethan in a fight while the others surrounded them.  Unfortunately, before Ethan could answer any questions, Charlie, who had picked up Jack’s loose gun, shot Ethan multiple times in the chest in retribution for what he had done to Claire (and Charlie being hanged from a tree).

I enjoyed most of this episode, but there were a couple of things that did not go over well.

  1. Claire has amnesia.  This is a tired old plot point to keep where Claire was taken secret for a longer period of time.  It is very cliche and seems like a lazy way to do what they wanted.
  2. Ethan’s death itself was just a way to keep viewers from knowing information.  I didn’t hate it, but it could be frustrating to some.
  3. The flashbacks were meant to show where Charlie’s feelings of being unable to protect someone came from, but it felt way too forced.  The flashbacks were a waste of time.
  4. Again, the focus is on the drug problem in the flashbacks and was played for more humor than anything else.
  5. Nothing is really done or mentioned about Charlie’s straight up murder of Ethan, who was subdued and captured.

 

Poor Scott, RIP.

LOST S1 E14 “Special”

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Let’s talk about Walt.

“Special” refers to the young son of Michael (one of the bigger jerks on the series) named Walt.  “Special” is actually quite a good episode as we focus on the father/son relationship and the tragic background of Michael and how he is prevented from being in his son’s life.

However, much like “Raised By Another,” this feels incomplete after seeing the whole seasons because there is a story that is set up involving Walt that never gets to be fully played out.

The reason was the actor who played Walt, Malcolm David Kelley, was written off the show in the early part of season two because of the fact that the actor was nearing puberty and would begin growing at a rate that would not work for the show.  The show was not progressing as quickly in story time as it was in real time and Walt shouldn’t be growing as much as he would be.

Because of this, the psychic powers that Walt displays in this episode and some of the future ones (especially involving the Others) was underdeveloped, and, unfortunately, feels that way.

Damon Lindelof, LOST writer and executive producer, on the DVD of season one said “We sort of have ideas. ‘Gee, Walt’s reading a comic book about polar bears, and a polar bear shows up.’ Or, ‘Walt is reading a book about birds, and a bird flies into the window.’ I know what I mean by it, but I think when the audience starts getting disconnected is when you tell them what to think, which is: Walt is psychic.”

The episode did involve an intense scene involving a polar bear (special effects notwithstanding) trying to get to Walt with Michael and John Locke desperately trying to save him.  Michael also becomes the first character to be struck by a vehicle (in flashback).  There were many other examples of characters being struck by a vehicle (mostly a bus) as the show moved on.

Another standout point was the return of Claire from the world of the Others.  She arrives back right at the end, being discovered by John and Boone.

Much of Michael’s behavior can be explained by the flashback in this episode.  He had such a jealousy over Walt and Locke’s relationship because how Walt was taken away from him a a child and is raised by Brian, Susan’s new husband.  I’m sure that was a tough thing to deal with, losing your son’s love and the place in his life to another and Michael is afraid of that happening again.  Especially since Walt does not seem to be interested in anything Michael has to say.

Still, Michael is anything but patient with Walt and certainly shows his hot temper.

The raft is mentioned for the first time here as well.

I wish we could have explored the abilities of Walt in more detail as he is shown as someone that Brian was scared of and later the Others wanted no part of Walt.  Walt’s story is not sufficiently handled, though there is not much you could do.

LOST S1 E13 “Hearts and Minds”

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Boone and Shannon pulled the old “Greg and Marcia Brady” in LOST episode 13 of the first season.

In one of the creepier (and not in a good way) episodes, we discover some tidbits about Shannon and Boone. For one, the are actually STEP- brother and sister. They are not related by blood, but that does not make the fact that they spend the night prior to boarding Oceanic Flight 815 having sex with each other any less weird.

Boone, who had been helping Locke excavate the Hatch, wanted to tell Shannon what they were doing and, because of that, Locke tied him up and drugged him so Boone would go on a vision quest allowing him to learn how to grow and continue to survive on the Island.

The vision quest led to Boone imagining that he had seen Shannon killed by the Monster.

When this first aired, I had sussed out the fact that this was an illusion to Boone and I was right about how Locke drugged Boone with the paste he put on the head injury.  When Shannon was killed in the episode, I knew that it wasn’t real.  Ironically, at the time, I remember thinking how TV shows did not kill off main characters and that Shannon was a main character.  Of course, Boone dies just a few episodes later.

This episode does make us wonder about the motives of John Locke.  He looks to be a darker force than we had seen him before.  When Charlie says that the one person he would put his faith in to save us all was John Locke, that was meant to be a statement that the audience found contradictory.  There is more effective character development in this episode fro John Locke than for Boone.

There were some things that we saw in “Hearts and Minds” that would become staples of LOST movie forward.

  •  This was the first time when our main survivors are shown to have crossed paths prior to the Island as Sawyer is shown being arrested in Sydney while Boone is reporting Shannon’s boyfriend to the police.  Many characters are shown to cross paths outside the airport/airplane as the seasons progress.

 

  • Kate became the second person to discover the truth of Sun being able to speak English.  Sun is also shown in her garden, which becomes more important as the series goes on.

 

  • Sayid discovers the magnetic anomaly that messes up the compass.  Sayid dismissed it as a broken compass, but we know this is a major piece of the story moving ahead.

 

  • The Sayid – Shannon relationship started to pick up as well.

 

There was a hilarious scene between Hurley and Jin where Hurley is trying to catch some fish, but steps on a sea urchin.  Hurley panicking and begging Jin to pee on his foot as he points to Jin’s crotch area as Jin is desperately confused is one of the funniest things we have had on the show up until this point.

This was one of the season’s weakest episodes so far and it shows that Boone and Shannon were not as beloved as many of the other survivors on the Island.  Neither of these characters would last for too much longer.

 

LOST S1 E12 “Whatever the Case May Be”

The twelfth episode of LOST focused on Kate and her attempt to retrieve a briefcase that She and Sawyer discovered while swimming in a pond.

The story was a bit of an excuse to look closer at the character of Kate, as most of the episode is dedicated to her.

Kate is quite the contradiction among the survivors because we know that she was the fugitive that was being escorted back to the US by Marshal Edward Mars.  Mars constantly warned Jack and us, the audience, how dangerous Kate was, yet we had no idea why Kate was being so dauntingly pursued by him.

Then, Kate is shown on the Island as an extremely likable, competent and friendly person.  She hit it off immediately with Jack and she is regularly shown as one of the top heroes on the show.  We got a definite switch in what we have seen with Kate during this episode as the liar and sneak came out strong in an attempt to get this briefcase back from Sawyer.  This is the first time on the Island where we see the type of person Kate could really be.

In the flashback, we see how Kate was involved in a bank robbery with a group of men, calling herself “Maggie.”  The robbery, for Kate, was all just a way to get into a safety deposit box that was in the bank.  Kate shows off some real bad ass skills and some coldness when things came down to what she wanted.

Yet, she was still contradictory because she refused to allow the other bank robbers to do anything to hurt the bank manager, going as far as shooting them to keep the bank manager safe.

Back on the Island, Jack has started to get wise to Kate’s lies and her deceptions.  Kate had told Jack that the key to the case was in Mars’ wallet, so they had to dig up the body and find it.  However, the key was not in the wallet.  Jack saw through Kate’s attempt at sleight of hand, and caught her with the key.

In the end, getting the case back from Sawyer (where Jack pulled some darkness of his own in what was most likely a bluff), they opened it up and there was a toy airplane inside (along with guns and ammo).  The airplane is what Kate wanted and, when pressed by Jack, Kate admitted that it belonged to the man that she loved and killed.  She broke down in tears after this, but Jack was not comforting her at all.  Jack most likely was still not sure what, if anything, she said was true and what was a lie.

Trying to make sense of the Kate that we know compared to what is being told to us is fascinating, and Evangeline Lily does a remarkable job of playing the character.  She is effervescent and gorgeous while still showing off how bad ass she can be.

By the way, Sawyer trying to break into the Halliburton case was very funny.  I loved the little scene of Michael and Hurley laughing at Sawyer’s attempt to pick the lock.  Again, it was little moments like this that really solidified this as a great show.

Other things that happened besides the Kate specific stuff included Sayid asking Shannon to translate from French some of the writing on the maps that Danielle had written.  This still played into Shannon’s overall feelings of being worthless, something that Boone is continuing to tell her.  Obviously, these comments are hitting home on Shannon even though I do not think that Boone realizes how much they hurt her.  Eventually, Shannon went back to Sayid and told him that she recognized what was written as a song “La Mer” from an animated movie she watched while in France.

The other bit included a very sweet interaction between Charlie, still suffering from nearly dying last episode by hanging, and Rose, who called Charlie out on his depression.  Charlie’s pain and frustration over being unable to protect Clair really is emotionally powerful in the little screen time it is given.  I felt myself tearing up a couple of times as Charlie recounted his pain.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I saw a double feature of the Jurassic World films tonight.  The first Jurassic World (the fourth of the franchise) was a fun film, but I found it less entertaining than I did on first viewing. I saw some flaws that did not bother me the first time.

Then the second one started.

And I wished I was watching that first one again.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is not a good movie.  I was very disappointed with it.  Yes, the dinosaurs looked good.  The CGI was great and the film was shot exceeding well by new director J.A. Bayona.  But that is about the end of the positives I can say.

No, there is another.  Chris Pratt is always entertaining.  He is playing basically the same character that he always plays, but he does that very well.  Also, Bryce Dallas Howard was better than she was in Jurassic World.  Plus, she did not run anywhere in heels.

The rest of the film was brutal.

It seemed to jump into horror movie cliche world with jump scares and with characters doing stupid things because it was needed for the plot to work.

The storyline was needlessly convoluted with plotlines that felt like they were tossed in for no reason.

Three years since the events of Jurassic World finished off the theme park, Isla Nublar, the island where the dinosaurs remained, suddenly became an active volcano (which would have caused trouble for the amusement park as well).  A debate began about whether or not the dinosaurs should be saved or allowed to go extinct once again.  Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is on the pro saving team as she has been working for dino rights.  Ben Lockwood (James Cromwell), the old partner of Hillard, contacted her with a plan to rescue the dinosaurs and take them to a new island sanctuary.

Lockwood has Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) organizing everything and he suggests to Claire that she talk Owen (Chris Pratt) into returning to help save his old friend Blue the velociraptor.  There are military guys along led by Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine) and they aren’t going to turn on our heroes…wink wink.

That is not a spoiler, by the way since it was shown in the trailer, as too much of this movie was.

After the first half of the movie on Isla Nublar, the film heads off to Lockwood’s estate, in what looked like a castle for the second half of the film.

The first half of the movie on the island was okay.  There were still people who were doing stupid things, but at least it was somewhat entertaining.  The second half at the Monster House was considerably less entertaining and had many more rolls of the eyes.

Another character that we were introduced to was Lockwood’s granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon).  She was here because there needed to be a kid involved in a Jurassic World/Park movie or else they take away your writing card.  Then, he story is just SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STUPID!  Her story comes completely out of left field and then is never touched on again.  Her inclusion in this movie, with this ridiculous plot point, makes zero sense.  The young actress Isabella Sermon was fine as the character, acting wise, but the writing of that character is so inane that it really felt shoehorned in for some odd reason and felt as if she was in the wrong movie.

The writing here is really below expectation.  The plot is slow and derivative.  The dialogue is tough to listen to.  The characters do so many stupid things it was painful.

There were several scenes that felt as if we had already seen them in this franchise, and the reason we had already seen them was that they were, in some cases, shot for shot repeats.  There is a fine line between nostalgia and lazy writing and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was stomping into that direction.

And that ending… SPOILER… I guess I am just going to wait for Blue to learn how to talk, gather all the dinosaurs together, and become the leader of her people.  There is a distinctly Planet of the Apes feel to the end.  I will say that I did not hate the end, but it did feel a bit unlikely.  END OF SPOILER.

Oh, and Jeff Goldblum returned as Ian Malcolm, speaking in front of Congress about whether or not the dinosaurs should be saved.  Now, if you have seen the trailers for this movie, you have seen almost the entirety of Goldblum’s appearance.  So if you are going to see Goldblum bring back his iconic character, just pull up the trailers on YouTube and you can save yourself some money.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a dumb movie with excellent special effects and a reasonably engaging lead actor and actress.  There can be some enjoyment watching the movie, if you aren’t bothered by a lack of plot, storytelling or logical/intelligent characters.  I was bored with the film is several spots because I usually need more than just the spectacle.

2.3 stars