No Ordinary Family is a new series from ABC about the St. Cloud family, a typical dysfunctional family with an unhappy dad (Michael Chiklis; The Shield, Fantastic Four), Overworked mom (Julie Benz; Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Dexter), peer pressured daughter (Kay Panabaker; CSI), and son with a learning disorder (Jimmy Bennett; Shorts).  They go on a vacation to Brazil and wind up in a plane crash.  All of them survive and they make it back to their normal lives.  Until they slowly learn that they all have superpowers, which they think are from an odd substance in the lake their plane crashed into.  The series is from Greg Berlanti (Eli Stone, Brothers & Sisters) and Jon Harmon Feldman (Tru Calling, Reunion).  Christina Chang (Live Free or Die Hard) is in a supporting role as a cop at Chiklis’ precent (he’s a sketch artist).  Also in supporting roles are Romany Malco (Weeds) as Chicklis’ best friend and the always awesome Autumn Reeser (The O. C.) as Benz’ lab assistant.

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Fierce People is set in 1980′s New Jersey, a masseuse/coke head gets a wealthy man to hire her for the summer to get her life straightened out and to better her son’s life. The son uses this summer to make anthropological observances of the people of the town and estate.  While doing so he quickly learns many lessons about life, love, and wealth. It’s directed by Griffin Dunne (Practical Magic) and written by Dirk Wittenbornbased on his book of the same name.

 

The ensemble is great, especially a young(er) Kristen Stewart who plays the granddaughter of Donald Sutherland’s rich patron and love interest to Anton Yelchin’s lead character of Finn. Diane Lane is excellent as always as well. And Elizabeth Perkins puts in a great performance, although one not too off the mark from her Weeds character.  Also the usually not so great Chris Evans does a good job too.

 

There is a particularly memorable scene with Mya (Stewart) and Finn and some paint. And that’s only one in a series of wonderfully shot memorable scenes. But that’s not the only reason to see this film. It’s a well written, well acted, and well directed piece of work.

 

I definitely recommend checking this out.  It’s available on DVD:

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The Joneses is a film about a fake family who are really salespeople, using things in their life and convincing people to purchase them.  Kind of like a marketing tool.  It’s written and directed by Derrick Borte and stars David Duchovny, Demi Moore, Amber Heard, and Ben Hollingsworth.

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Sherlock is brought to us by Steven Moffat, the man who brilliantly updated the story of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde a few years back with Jekyll, and who is currently in charge of Dr. Who. This time he’s taking on the worlds most famous detective. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson. This is no period piece. It takes place in modern day London and uses things like text messages (actually txts are a large part of the show’s style). Also in this upgrade Watson is an Afghan war vet and Sherlock has a nicotine patch addiction.
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Rookie Blue is the latest show on ABC’s summer schedule.  It’s a comedy/drama/crime show about a group of rookie cops in Los Angeles.  I’ve managed to fit in 3 episodes of the show so it’s time for a review.  First what drew me to this was the presence of Missy Peregrym (Reaper, Stick It).  She’s super adorable and I’ve enjoyed her performances in everything I’ve seen her in.  Also it sorta reminded me of the reality show Rookies which was both hilarious and also sad (one of the rookies died).  And I wasn’t wrong.  It is sort of like a fictional Rookies mixed with a little bit of Grey’s Anatomy back when that was watchable.

 

The ensemble is decent but hasn’t yet developed any chemistry, probably because in most of the episodes they’re all separated or broken into smaller groups.  They do need to work on that.  Also it seems the show is still finding it’s legs.  Some of the drama falls flat, but there are some good moments of tension that work well.

 

This is by no means a great show, hell currently it’s not even that good, but there is potential and it is incredibly watchable.  I’d say give it some of your time and see if it’s your thing.  You might just find a diamond in the rough.

 

 

The third outing in the Twilight series is entitled Eclipse.  This like the previous two installments features a screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and Media Decay favorite Ashley Greene.  This time they’ve brought on another new director, David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night).

 

The plot is kinda simple but spoilery for anyone who hasn’t watched the other 2 movies.  So you might wanna stop reading if you don’t want to be spoiled at all, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.  Basically a vision reveals that a band of new vampires is headed to kill lead character Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire boyfriend and his vampire family can’t protect her alone so they turn to the werewolves, one of whom has quite the crush on Bella, for some assistance.

 

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Splinterheads is an independent comedy/drama written and directed by Brant Sersen (Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story).  It’s about a loser named Justin (Thomas Middleditch) who’s lived at home since his father died taking care of his mom (Lea Thompson) and his grandfather (Edmund Lyndeck) who officially becomes the world’s oldest man in the opening minutes of the movie.  He’s tormented by the local cop who his mother recently broke up with (Christopher McDonald).  One day on the way to work he stops at a gas station and a beautiful con woman named Galaxy (Rachael Taylor) rips him off.  That night he and his friend visit the carnival that has just set up in town and he encounters her working there.  The next day he comes upon her again walking along the road and joins her on a geocaching trip, until it’s interrupted by her fellow Splinterhead (the term refers to the carnival workers that don’t run the rides or sell concessions but who have to con people into playing games, etc.) abusive boyfriend (Dean Winters).

Trailer below:

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Dare is a character study drama about 3 high school students, one a virginal do-gooder and aspiring actress (Emmy Rossum; Poseidon, The Day After Tomorrow), her best friend (Ashley Springer; Teeth), and the bad boy cool kid (Zach Gilford; Friday Night Lights).  It was written by David Brind and directed by Adam Salky (Recruiter).  This was quite the confusing movie.  Not because of the plot but because I actually had to sit and think about whether I enjoyed it or not.  Yep it was one of those.  Check out the trailer and my thoughts below:

 

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Wild Things Foursome is the third sequel to the movie Wild Things (Blu-ray), which was followed by the straight to video sequels Wild Things 2 and Wild Things – Diamonds in the Rough. This 3rd sequel is directed by Andy Hurst (Diary of a Serial Killer) and written by Howard Zemski & Monty Featherstone (Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy).  The eye candy here is mostly provided by Jillian Murray (Fifty Pills) and Marnette Patterson (various tv guest spots, Stormship Troopers 3).  The male eye candy is provided by the effeminately named Ashley Parker Angel (Apparently from a boyband named O-Town).

The plot is pretty all over the place but basically it involves a cop investigating a rich guy’s murder and it seems like everyone is in on it, including his son and his girlfriend.  Click on more for the trailer.

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Pretty Persuasion is a dark comedy written by Skander Halim and directed by Marcos Siega (Veronica Mars, The Vampire Diaries).  It’s about a group of girls at an upscale private school (Evan Rachel Wood, Adi Schnall, Elisabeth Harnois) who accuse their teacher (Ron Livingston) of abusing them.  But the leader of the group might have a secret plan in store.  Rounding out the cast is James Woods as Evan Rachel Wood’s character’s coked up father, Selma Blair as the teacher’s wife, and Jane Krakowski as a lesbian local news reporter who is breaking the story.  Check out the trailer below.

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