The Messenger is about a soldier (Ben Foster) who was badly wounded in Iraq and with 3 months of service left is assigned to the Casualty Notification Office. It becomes his job, along with his mentor/partner (Woody Harrelson) to inform soldiers next of kin as soon as possible after they are killed. It’s directed by Oren Moverman and written by Moverman and Alessandro Camon. Both are troubled men and while Harrelson’s character deals with alcoholism, Foster’s deals with the loss of his girlfriend (Jena Malone) and his feelings for a wife they notified about her husband’s death (Samantha Morton).
So first off most people searching for this movie are just looking for naked pictures of Jena Malone. I do not blame you. Besides being a terrific actress, she’s also very attractive. So click the censored image to get a bigger uncensored version.
Another week another episode of The Real World. This week we finally get to see some of Josh’s music skills and meet Mike’s family. Also Erika remains whiney. Let’s get started.
This episode starts with Mike meeting his local Congressman from Colorado, Jared Polis. It turns out he is the first openly gay elected congressman. Mike says he never considered politics as a career before but is getting more interested in it. Mike confesses his mom told him he should hide “parts of himself” while on the show (read: don’t say your gay) to protect his future. But now he has a role model. Also he takes a picture of a picture for some reason:
Alright everyone it’s here. The Friday Night Lights season 4 finale. This season certainly started off rough but it had a lot of greatness packed into it and it really went out on a high note. Between last week‘s episode and this episode, it’s just some of the best TV around right now. I cannot wait for the 5th and final season. Let’s get started.
This episode starts off at a press conference being held basically to promote unity through the town for the big Panthers and Lions faceoff. It’s being called “The Big Cat Clash”.
There’s even a trophy. Anyway the coaches and captains are supposed to act like they get along so they do. Meanwhile the Riggins brothers are far from being comic relief this week.
They meet with a lawyer who tells them that if they plead guilty he can get other charges like tax evasion dropped and they could wind up with 1-5 years. This is pretty bad timing since Billy just had a child.
The Deep End is an ensemble drama on ABC set in the world of a high class LA law firm. It mostly focuses on a group of first year lawyers newly arrived at the firm and thrown into the deep end. It has an ensemble cast featuring some great actors you’ve probably seen before like Norbert Leo Butz (best known to me for his part as Roger in the Broadway production of RENT), Tina Majorino (Veronica Mars, Big Love), Billy Zane (Titanic), Leah Pipes (Sorority Row) and a whole bunch more recognizable faces. It’s sort of ABC’s attempt at a Grey’s Anatomy set in the legal world or a Ally McBeal type show. You’d think maybe ABC would hold off on a show like this after they had a tremendous legal show, Eli Stone, and cancelled it.
Sorority Row is a horror/slasher film that was released last year. It’s plot is pretty simple. A bunch of sorority girls are throwing a party and decide to get back at a guy who cheated on one of them by playing a prank. So one girl gives the guy (who is incidentally another of the girls’ brother) fake roofies to give to the girl (played by Audrina Partridge of fake reality show fame). The girls all gather and watch on a webcam from the next room while he tries to have sex with her unconscious body (doesn’t this sound wonderfully funny? Apparently it is as the girls crack jokes the whole time), then she pretends to have a seizure or something and die. They drive him and her out to an abandoned mine (you know cause there’s just abandoned mines all over the place) and pretend like they’re going to dump her body there. When the girls split up for a second, the guy who is freaking out actually takes a tire iron and shoves it through her chest, actually killing her. Then they have to actually dump her body in the mine. This is all only slightly more complex then I’m making it sound.
This movie has received a ton of press and awards already so you probably know the plot but if you don’t here’s a simple summary: The Hurt Locker is about a military bomb squad unit in Iraq. The squad gets a new leader who’s a rogue type. The film follows the squad’s day to day operations during their deployment.
David Bowie’s Reality Tour travelled the world in 2003 and 2004. A DVD was shot in Dublin over the course of November 22nd and 23rd 2003. This dvd has been available since October of 2004. But since Bowie is now pretty much retired after suffering a heart attack during the Reality Tour (his final tour to date) they just recently released a CD version as well as digital versions.
You can preview the tracks using the handy Amazon widget:
This newly released audio only version includes 3 additional songs: Fall Dogs Bomb The Moon, Breaking Glass, and China Girl. I personally attended The Reality Tour when it hit NYC and can tell you that it was a great show. The set is both a compilation of greatest hits with a bunch of new songs from the new Reality album. Reality unfortunately wasn’t a huge hit. I still defend it though as it has some pretty good songs on it. But even if you skip over those you still have a live show featuring tons of great classic material for a pretty good price.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is a movie about Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia), a teenager who with a friend attends a mysterious freak show where it turns out the freaks are really supernatural in nature. Through a course of events he winds up having to become the assistant to a vampire (John C. Reilly), becoming half-vampire himself in the process and joining the Cirque to save his best friend’s life. But his best friend may not be such a great person after all.
The movie is directed by Paul Weitz (American Pie, American Dreamz) and written by Weitz and Brian Helgeland (Salt, Conspiracy Theory). It is based on the first three booksof the Cirque du Freakseries of Young Adult books by Darren Shan.
Alright. Once again I have to say I’m sorry. I’m a week late again. I’ll spare you any excuses and promise to do better. Let’s just get going.
Last week we were teased with cute, adorable, thinks she can sing Erika saying she wants to go home on the “Next on…” But when I went to DVR this there was no aftershow so safe assumption is that she didn’t. However I got my wish for a big Erika episode. You know how they say be careful what you wish for? Yeah…
Tegan & Sara returned to New York City after a triumphant start to their Sainthood tour last October with 2 sold out Town Hall shows. This time was very different. They’ve embarked on the North American leg of the tour and did not include a New York date. Instead on January 27th the following appeared on their website:
we’ve decided, quite spontaneously, to offer an opportunity for some of you to spend an intimate night with us at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. perhaps it’s worth noting that my use of the word intimate only applies to the small-ish size of the venue and the stripped down nature of the material we will be performing. i wouldn’t call it an acoustic performance so much as a night of reinterpretations of the well worn and well loved album versions you’ve come to love.
With that small bit of info and the onsale date a couple of days later and the fact that the show would be February 15th we were left to fend for ourselves. It wasn’t until the tickets went onsale that we learned they’d be $75. That is a lot more than Tegan & Sara shows usually cost, and a lot more than Music Hall of Williamsburg shows usually cost. In fact I know quite a few people who didn’t buy tickets because of this price.
For those of you non-New Yorkers reading this, The Music Hall of Williamsburg is a very popular venue located in Brooklyn. It is also very small. It’s capacity is about 550, and was formerly a great venue called Northsix (it’s on North 6th Street). So shows there tend to be small and sell out very fast.
Anyway obviously I bought a ticket and let me now guide you through my evening with my favorite two Canadian twins.
of the 
series of Young Adult books by Darren Shan.
