Glee - Musical Comedy or Comedic Musical

I love musicals. There's something about a rousing musical number that I just can't get enough of. In recent years, there have been far too few examples of quality musical for me to partake of. The remake of Hairspray, the movie version of Rent, and a few musical episodes of TV shows are pretty much all we've had for a while.

We've also had quite the drought of good television in recent years, especially when it comes to new shows. The Office and 30 Rock continue to please in the 30-minute category, Lost and Chuck are both good but on hiatus until after the Winter Olympics, and Jay Leno has destroyed NBC's entire 10pm block. That's why Glee is such a breath of fresh air.

Glee is the tale of a high school teacher (Matthew Morrison) taking over the glee club after the last sponsor (Stephen Tobolowsky) is forced to leave. He recruits a ragtag band of vocally-talented misfits including an exceptionally talented and annoyingly driven star-to-be (Lea Michele), the quarterback of the football team (Cory Monteith), and a wheelchair-bound musician (Kevin McHale).

Glee is one of those rare shows that are genuinely funny while integrating music. Jane Lynch is hilarious as the champion cheerleading coach out to destroy the glee club, and each of the other characters have their own funny idiosyncrasies scatter in among their character development. My only real complaint on that point is that the fake pregnancy of Mr. Shu's wife Teri (Jessalyn Gilsig) has lost its charm, but that is the only part of the show that lacks charm. This show has definitely made it to my regular rotation.

Watch it on Hulu.

I'm a Winner!

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General Update

I find myself on the verge of a new chapter in my life, one that has be scared out of my mind. Starting tomorrow, I will be moving to Richmond, KY. Home of the EKU Colonels, Lake Reba, and now, Nathan Adkins. Money is tight and stress is high, but I still feel good about the whole thing.

I start at Best Buy on Saturday, which will be pretty awesome. I'm looking forward to being around computers in a work-related way on a regular basis. I lost my edge while at Walmart, but I'll be back up to speed in no time flat.

One of the things that is going to be interesting about this change is keeping myself fed. I would like to keep a log of the things that I eat and how cheaply I am able to do so. Should be fun. I have several recipes I would like to try out once I get the financial situation in a bit of control.

Julie & Julia

Over the weekend, V and I went to see "Julie & Julia" at the local Cinemark. First off, let me say this: theater chains are completely corrupt. The reason movie attendance is down is not because of the evils of pirating, nor can it be blamed (solely, at least) on the sorry state of our economy. The reason, by my completely arbitrary and unreseached estimation, is that going to the theater is expensive. On our trip, we bought too non-matinee tickets, a small popcorn, a large drink, and some SweetTart dots, to a total of about 30 dollars. Had we been seeing a 3D movie, the total would have been $5 dollars more for the two tickets. It's outrageous.

Now, once my heart had settled a bit (okay, to be fair, that's hyperbole; I expected it), we sat down to enjoy the film. I had the benefit of having seen no trailers and only one movie poster, so my preconceived notions of what the movie was supposed to be were fuzzy at best. I knew Meryl Streep was playing Julia Child, and that there was theoretically someone involved named Julie, but that was about it.

The film tells the story of an almost-30-year-old woman and her goal to cook her way through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in a year's time, and blog about it the entire way. It also tells the story of Julia Child becoming who we remember her as. The two stories are told in interchanging scenes as related events happen to the characters.

Meryl Streep is excellent as Julia Child. Now, that may be because I have no idea what Julia Child looked or acted like, as I have no attachment to her. Either way, Streep performed to her usual excellence. Amy Adams stars as Julie, the blogger. I'm a fan of Adams, but this performance didn't seem like her best work. Maybe I just can't separate her from her bubbly "Enchanted" self. This is not to say that she was bad in the role. I thought she was very good, just not as great as she has been in the past. All the supporting characters were good, but not quite as much so as the hilarious Jane Lynch. Her portrayal of Julia's sister was fun and funny.

My only real complaint was that the movie didn't seem to have an ending, but that's an issue you occasionally have with true stories. Real life doesn't always have an ending at all, let alone a happy one.

All in all, it was a fun biopic, and a great date movie. If you aren't bothered by a few less-than-perfect moments, it is highly recommended.

Push

I saw "Push" last week. Its the story about how precociously street-wise Dakota Fanning is, and there's something about powers thrown in too. She can apparently see the future, but she kinda sucks at it. Also, she gets drunk. How adorable.

In all actuality, it wasn't that bad. It was no cinematic feat, but I've seen much worse and enjoyed movies much less. There were a few interesting powers, though I could have done without the "Bleeders," these really annoying guys who yell like punks and make your ears bleed. I don't see why they couldn't behave like respectable Chinese characters and use martial arts to make you bleed. It would have been twice as cool, and 30 million times less annoying than that stupid yelling.

Final score: See it if you like superpowers and have super low standards. If you're still watching Heroes, this is a movie for you. (For the record, I still watch Heroes.)

Dual Movie Review - Bolt and Inkheart

Bolt
In a year with "Wall-E" and "Kung-Fu Panda," it's easy to overlook a movie like "Bolt." Disney's most recent venture sans Pixar finds a dog who has been led to believe he is actually the superhero he portrays on television. When he accidentally finds his way from Hollywood to New York, he must return home to rescue his person.

This is standard Disney fare. Blah blah blah friendship blah blah blah love blah blah blah be yourself. It's all pretty standard, but its wrapped in a shell that is just fun enough to be entertaining. The colors are bright and crisp, which seems to be a theme in the new non-Pixar Disney movies, if "Meet the Robinsons" is any indication. The voice acting was excellent, as well. Within a few minutes, I had forgotten that I was listening to John Travolta and was instead listening to Bolt. With a distinctive voice like his, that's a pretty big feat, one helped a lot by the pacing of the story and the visual effects.

I don't think "Bolt" would rank any higher on my list that any Pixar movie, even a weaker showing like "Cars," but it is an enjoyable film that kids will love and an adult will enjoy while its on.

Inkheart
"Inkeart" takes us to a world where Brendan Frasier's character has the power of the "silvertongue," which causes the things he reads aloud from a book to be transferred from the book into the real world. When one of the villains he accidentally read out wants him to do some more reading, Frasier and his daughter have to save the day.

You may notice that I didn't put the name of any of the characters above. That's because I forgot them, which is really representative of the entire movie. It is mostly forgettable. With that said, there are some cool aspects. The visuals were pretty spectacular, with the exception of the minotaur. All the animals in the menagerie of half-read animals were realistic looking, but the minotaur looked like an oversized muppet. The CGI was impressively decent, given the quality of the rest of the film.

On the other hand, it felt like the movie could never decide what tone it wanted. There were little comedic bursts awkwardly placed throughout what was mostly a dramatic second and third acts, and the prostestations of the great-aunt were over the top most of the time. Of course, some of this can be forgiven since this film seems largely made for children, but the issues are there all the same.

This is a movie that I should have loved. I love books, I love reading, and I love all things "Wizard of Oz" (which in this movie includes flying monkeys and the twister). Unfortunately, it could never find its legs and present anything memorable. I don't think it was a particular waste of time, but it sure wasn't a good use of 90+ minutes.

Twilight (or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)

With this inaugural post on my new blog, I have a confession: I'm a fan of the Twilight books.

I first heard of them when Breaking Dawn came out and all the fuss was happening. Somehow I managed to miss it for years, though I admit to not being quite "on the pulse" of young adult literature. Once I had learned of it, I decided that I should give it a chance, since so many people went so crazy for it. Within a week I had read the series and enjoyed it thoroughly. It is almost guaranteed to be flash-in-the-pan writing, forgotten nearly as quickly as it was discovered, but most books are like that. This one at least had the advantage of being enjoyable.

The movie came out about a week ago, and I finally got a chance to see it. I wasn't particularly looking forward to this (bad memories of The Golden Compass dance through my head), but I was interested enough to seek it out. Having seen it, I have a few thoughts.

Cinematography/Videography
The camera work in this film was absolutely atrocious. At its best it's standard Hollywood fare with nothing particularly special going for it. At its worst, it actually distracts from the film. There are at least two instances of cheesy "bedroom shots," (though I believe both of these are in a forest) in which the camera pans up and away from the characters as though something were getting ready to happen that they couldn't show. Neither the facts from the book nor the context clues of the movie support any such claim and, in fact, directly contradict it. They may as well have used a PowerPoint-style screen wipe to switch to the next scene.

Score
The score started out fine, but went downhill very quickly. In conjunction with the "bedroom shots" I just mentioned, the music would swell and emphasize a point that just wasn't there. This, in itself, is not an unforgivable crime, but when the choice of music is so bad, there is little mercy left in my heart. It sounded as though they had ripped off a Lifetime movie's soundtrack for its instrumentals.

Special Effects
This was one area in which this movie could have truly shined. I may be mistaken, but I believe there have been action scenes in the past which have made use of CGI to great effect, right? I'm not just imagining that? Honestly, I've seen better effects in SciFi specials (for the uninitiated, those are notorious for their bad effects). Had the movie been made for less, I would have understood and accepted this as a budgetary constraint. This movie cost $37 million to make, and it looks like they just put Pattinson on a skateboard in front of a green screen. Even in a fantastical situation like this, there's nothing natural about it.

Acting
Serviceable. Nobody brought their A-game, but it didn't look like anybody phoned it in either. As the /Filmcast said, the best performance came from Pattinson's hair, which also seems like where most of the money went.

In spite of all that, I actually enjoyed the movie. I like seeing a story I know shown on film. If I hadn't read and enjoyed the books, I doubt I would have liked this even a little bit, but as it is, I thought it was a perfectly fine movie. I'll probably see it again one day in the not-to-distant future.

Until next time, have fun.
-Nathan