Brad Bagby's Asylum of Random Thoughts and Musings

My reflections on the Final episode of Lost.

2010-05-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

For the past 6 years, Lost has captured my undivided attention with all it's intrigue and mystery. Now that the show has ended, I'm not sure how I feel about the way the End Game played out. From the initial plane crash to the revelation of the sideways flashes being some sort of Purgatory where all the characters meet before moving onto their next spiritual plane (aka Heaven?), Lost has managed to make Sci-Fi on Network Primetime TV cool again, which probably hasn't happened since Star Trek,( not that I was around when that happened, but can you name any big extremely successful sci-fi shows on network TV since then?). What I hope if anything, this show accomplished is that it creates a legacy to be carried on for years after. Being a serial that required every episode to be watched, Sci-Fi in Primetime show and succeeding, it deserves a legacy.

When the dust settled and we saw the show begin and end with the proper bookends of Jack's eye opening to the plane crash and Jack's eye closing as he dies (in the same location in the bamboo field with Vincent the dog no less), the finale executed a very poetic end to a beloved series. With the characters, we got closure as they found each other in Lost's personal non-specific religion's Purgatory. Kind of ironic that a long believed theory about The Island being Purgatory would be dismissed and come back as the reason we had a flash sideways universe. However, being that this is Lost, when we saw that all familiar logo (this time with a chime rather than the "boom" sound) we were still left with many questions unanswered. This is where the mixed feelings come into play. We were never told what made Walt special or why he had powers, never were we explained who built the temple and the statue, and we got vague at best answers for what the island was, what is the smoke monster, who the inhabitants before Jacob were, and what is the "light cave of goodness" really about. Furthermore, what was the consequences of detonating Jughead? The DVD is said to feature the island's unanswered questions, but a less-vague explanation to some of these questions would have been nice to hold us over. As my wife put it, maybe 3 more minutes with Christian would have put us at ease. I would like to think of this as Lost's way to create their own personal version of "Trekies", I can see us "Losties/Lostaways" debating the show for years after the finale.

In the end though, I liked the closure we got in the Lostverse afterlife. We saw our favorite couples finding one another again (Claire & Charlie, Desmond & Penny, Sawyer & Juliette, and finally Kate and Jack), it ended in a very "The Last Battle" way and for that the show ended with it's real purpose: showing us the love and lives of the main characters we grew with the last six years. Meanwhile the Island and it's mysteries are left in the air, as the show's MacGuffin.

For me, I view this as this generation's Star Trek. While i doubt we'll see a Lost movie, I really won't be surprised to see a spin-off down the line. There's a few open possibilities, such as Hugo & Ben's time on the Island or something during the Dharma years, and given the proper treatment, I think it may turn out decent, I'll give it a try. Should it happen? probably not, but it is a lucrative franchise with devoted fans, so in a few years, i totally see it happening. I'd want at the very least, a Lost theme park attraction, and why not? Harry Potter and Shrek gets one! I see a future of Lost collectibles, special edition DVDs, hopefully a Scene-It game, and a Lego set would be bad ass and please God make the Dharma Swan Station alarm clock a reality. I guess now I can understand how people became Trekies (even though i sort-of became a Trek fan recently with the new movie and such) because if there's every any Lost-cons I'm there geeking it up with my band of brothers and sisters who faithfully followed the show for 6 years.

Now that there's no more Lost, aside from having debates and discussions with fellow fans, or rotating the series at our home (like we do with LOTR) every so often, I will probably grow a grief-beard in honor of Dr. Jack Shepard (i'm almost there anyway). I'm a little sad to see it go, but like the show's characters "it was time to let go" and let it end. Plus it would really suck if the show became another ER where only 1 maybe 2 original cast members stay on while everyone else would be killed or wrote off. It was Lost's time, plus tired exchanges with people who haven't seen the show thinking it's just about survivors of a plane crash on a island vs our geeky over analytical conversations about what's happening would probably turn brutal and nasty if the show continued with both parties not being able to stand one another. Last but not least, I want to clear the record about Kate and Charlie. I actually liked them, but making off-color remarks about them verbally and on this blog were fun to do and I liked the mixed reactions for drinking the hate-kateraide. The only characters i hated were Nikki and Paulo...and Bai Ling. But they were responsible for ABC to finally say "Geeze make it stop..We'll give you a end date!! please no more!!". While I'll miss "water-cooler" talks about the latest episode (although i never once talked near a water cooler), or saying "Happy Lost Day", drinking when i see a "Jackface" and finally reading the transcript of the comic-con panels between seasons hyping the next season, I'm glad they got to end the way they wanted even if it generated mixed results.

For the final time: Namaste

The Netflix expirement: part III

2010-03-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

I began this test in late December when my sister-in-law gave me 3 months of Netflix. In that time I got to watch movies both new and old as well as re-watch a few classics that I haven't seen in years. Now that my 3 month trial period is over, I will now continue my subscription and since this is so much fun I will want to keep doing these every month and simply call them "Monthly Reviews". Here's what we watched this month:

"Darkman": Starring Liam Neeson- This was one of the "I've seen it a long time ago" entries. But man! what a fun movie to watch. Sam Raimi is at the helm of this flick a few years after his Evil Dead run. Bruce Campbell did some voice work and shows up as the final "mask" Darkman wears. Originally Sam Raimi wanted to make the Shadow or Batman but couldn't do either, so he made Darkman up. It was also originally going to star Bruce Campbell, but the studio objected...i think it'd made the movie better, but none the less it's awesome. 5 of 5 stars

"Alien": Starring Sigourney Weaver - I first caught this movie about 2 years ago and wanted to see it again....Yes, I really got in late on the game with the Alien movies. My parents didn't let me watch them and i kind of forgot about watching them when i was old enough to see them. A ill-timed visit by a raccoon on our balcony made it a little scary (heard the clanging on our balcony during the Chestburster scene). 4 of 5 stars

World's Greatest Dad: starring Robin Williams- Robin Williams can do a great job in Drama movies (see One Hour Photo, Insomnia) but this one pretty much sucked. I blame the writing really....and nude Robin Williams. Those are movie killers. With that said, Bobcat Goldwaith (yes the crazy voice guy from Police Academy) did a OK job with directing, but too awkward. 2 of 5 stars.

500 Days of Summer: Starring Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt- My friend Nick swears up and down that this was nothing more than 2 hours of boring hipster crap. To a degree I do agree, but it had some humor in it & I'm a bit of a sucker for the quirky stuff (damn you Wes Anderson!). So it wasn't THAT bad for me. But I really hope that since Marc Webb is now directing Spider-man (favorite superhero), I'm reasonably concerned. At least Sam Raimi made Evil Dead and Army of Darkness before Spidey. If Peter Parker is the slightest bit of a hipster I'm going to lose faith in any future Spider-man movies. (on a side note, Spider-man 3 sucked with too many bad guys and emo-Peter Parker, but what the hell? I didn't think it was bad enough to warrant a reboot, it was still better than the first Hulk, Daredevil & F4 movies which are or has the reboot going for them). 3 of 5 Stars.

The Rocketeer: Starring some guy who didn't do much afterwards & James Bond!- Another classic that had to be revisited! Originally planned to be a trilogy of movies, this film had the rotten luck of opening during a weekend that some small indie film called Terminator 2: Judgment Day came out and killed any hope for a good box office return. None-the-less it's a fun flick. Timothy Dalton (aka James Bond....for 2 movies) plays a good bad guy (see also: Hot Fuzz). John Locke himself (Terry O'Quinn) shows up as Howard Hughes and we also have Jennifer Connelly and the girl that plays Jan on the Office pop in as well. The blue screen effects are still pretty cool to this day. 4 of 4 stars

Adventureland: Starring Kristen Stewart & the kid from Zombieland- This really wasn't bad at all. Bill Hader and Zombieland boy keeps this movie from going bad and are hands down the best parts of the movie and generate a few laughs. Other than that Kristen Stewart is still Bella from Twilight but instead of lusting for sparkling vampires, she's after Ryan Reynolds, who for some reason is a mechanic at the amusement park, which is one of several things that aren't believable about this movie. Carnies and Amusement park workers are NOT that attractive..but anyway it's worth renting. 3 of 5 stars.

The 5th Element: Starring Bruce Willis- After reading a link about "Why real men love the 5th Element", I had to rent this again. Again this movie is pretty cheesy, but I'm now appreciating it in the same matter of how Army of Darkness is cheesy but fun to watch....but it has WAY WAY WAY too far to clear that bar. In that movie, Bruce Campbell leaks concentrated badassness because his body just can't keep it all in. On the other hand, Bruce Willis is a badass too (see Die Hard) but not too much of one in this movie b/c he gets his shit wrecked by freaking Bilbo, so that knocks him down a few pegs. But the weird robber, the stupid helmsmen, crazy Chris Tucker, and that bad ass flying ship makes the movie extremely enjoyable. read this article for a new look @ the 5th Element. http://www.doubleviking.com/real-men-love-the-fifth-element-6198-p.html. 5 of 5 stars (now with my newfound love for it through new eyes).

Aliens: Starring Sigourney Weaver- The text book example of how to make a sequel destroy the original movie!!! Space Marines, More Aliens, Bishop, and the Exo-suit are just a sample of the elements that make this movie freaking awesome! 5 of 5 Stars

Hot Rod: Starring Andy Samberg- This movie was pretty enjoyable. Lots of what i call "Comedy Star Sidekick Actors That Aren't Quite Stars Yet But Will Be Very Soon" (aka Bill Hader & Danny McBride). Delightfully silly and fun, but didn't pack as big of a bang as some other comedies I've grown to love. 3 of 5 Stars.

Dark City: Starring Rufus Sewell- This is one of several suggestions that Nick made for me to watch and since he introduced me to "It's Always Sunny" I trust his judgment. I imediately recognized the movie the minute i heard the bad guys hiss "Sleeeep". In fact without seeing this movie the "Sleeep" phrase my brother Tony and I heard in movie trailers for this movie became a stupid bored thing we did on long road trips when we'd catch each other falling asleep (that and a tireless game called "lets see how much stuff we can put on Tony while he sleeps" helped pass the time). Overall this was a fun trippy sci-fi and unlike The Fountain, it was mostly coherent which made it fun. 5 of 5 Stars.

11:14: Starring Hillary Swank, Collin Hanks- This was actually recommended to me by one of my old Hastings co-workers Lianna. It's one of those tangled web stories much like Crash, Snatch and the like. It really wasn't bad. Some of the people in the movie were completely retarded though, but it was cool to see how everything came together. 4 of 5 Stars.

Thanks for those who made recommendations to me! Next month looks like a bunch of Oscar Winners and Nominees with a few "Classics" for good measure.

The Netflix Experiment part II

2010-03-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

After my last blog entry dedicated to the unexpected and unfortunate passing of Zoey cat, I felt that I needed something easy but fun to read to get back to the tone of the usual stuff I like to write about, plus it's a good first step to move on. I decided to reveal the results of my 2nd month of my 3 month Netflix experiment. Basically for Christmas, my sister-in-law got me a 3 dvd at a time, 3 month pass. Due to the live streaming and the overall convienience we've decided to go forward and continue the subscription when the trial runs out. Also these were pretty easy to do and gain quite a few comments when the posts go from my blog to facebook, so I'll probably do one of these every month. Anyway This time around didn't do as many classic movies as last month and I had more recent releases. In addition I took advantage of the streaming feature to have a few more titles. So here's what I watched in February:

Star Trek: First Contact- Since last summer when i realized the CW here played a lot of the classic Star Trek Episodes, i began to Tivo them. Then came the new Star Trek movie, and then once the classic Star Trek episodes abruptly stop, I found out around 3 am, Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns came on a different channel here. Then I found all the old "Kirk era" movies at blockbuster and bought them out. Needless to say, I turned into a nerd this last year. I'm sure I've seen most of this one on USA at some point and time, but this is definitely the best of the Next Generation movies and ranks just behind the new movie & Wrath of Khan . Plus the Borg is awesome. 5 of 5 Stars

Star Trek: Insurrection- eh it was an odd numbered Trek movie, didn't expect too much of it. But there was some highlights like Jean Luc getting his mack on the age-less chick and going rouge. But other than that it seemed a little undercooked. 3 of 5 stars

Star Trek: Nemesis - And this is where for the first time an even-numbered Trek movie sucked. It really wasn't as bad as I heard it would be, but (Spoiler Alert!!) it seemed they really wasted Data just for the sake of killing off a major character. However, like Spock, Data really doesn't die, instead he lives on in the form of his retarded brother B4. Also, for a Jean Luc clone, the antagonist really wasn't threatening in the least bit...maybe the Romulans should have cloned Worf instead, because it's been a while since we've had an evil Klingon antagonist (the last one just quoted Shakespeare a lot). 3 of 5 stars

Surrogates- This is probably the closest we'll get to having Bruce Willis in a Terminator movie. It wasn't bad, but I'm also biased b/c I like Bruce Willis a lot (my wife claims it's a man crush). The thing I think made me not enjoy it to it's full potential is probably due to the fact I already saw the Matrix before seeing this. Had it not been for that this could have been a really awesome movie. But none-the-less Bruce Willis vs robots is still not a wasted 2 hours. 3 of 5 stars

Ratatouille- Seen it before, I just wanted to see it again. By far my favorite of the Pixar movies. 5 of 5 stars

The Fountain- 3 words: "What the F?" I don't know what the hell happened in this movie. I can't argue it's a wonderfully beautiful and artistic movie but I don't have the slightest clue as to how to describe it to someone. Initially I assumed it was about a conquistador finding the tree of life which breaks into the conquistador timeline, the modern scientist timeline, and finally the super-space-monk-astronaut timeline. Sounds cool and simple, but then the crap hit the fan and super-space-monk-astronaut is floating around in the conquistador timeline and i think at one time he turns into a meteor or something and also the conquistador drinks the sap from the tree of life and turns into a flower patch. Even wikipedia (my source for explaining complicated movies) doesn't know what the hell the movie is about either. It does somehow manage to slow down and make sense for 20 minutes here and there so that saves it but still what the hell? It's random crap that makes no sense, but it's BEAUTIFUL random crap that makes no sense. 2 of 5 stars.

Moon- Another re-watched movie from the summer. I really liked it a lot. It's basically Cast-Away but on the moon plus throw in some really good sci-fi twists and that's pretty much what Moon is about. Plus Kevin Spacey voices the computer/robot (the "Wilson" of Moon). Also, David Bowie's son directed so that was kind of cool. 4 of 5 stars

Terminator: Salvation- Like Moon, I caught this last summer. It's definitely better than 3, but not quite at the level of the first two. There is a few cheesy parts such as when the Harvester, a 50 foot tall robot, somehow sneaks up on Chekov (aka Kyle Reese in this movie) without anyone hearing it. Seriously shouldn't this thing be shaking the earth every step it makes like the T-rex in Jurassic Park? Anyway it's still a pretty enjoyable movie and even CG Arnold shows up at some point. 4 of 5 stars.

Neverwas- This was a movie I've never heard of when it came out, but I did see it when I worked at Hastings and wanted to give it a try sometime. This movie goes to show that Ian McKellan is freaking awesome no matter if he's a mutant, wizard or crazy old man. It did end a little differently than I expected it to (I expected a Narnia-esque fantasy ending), but it was pretty good none-the-less. 4 of 5 stars.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure- I've seen this movie several times and had to make Stacey watch it. Plus I thought this movie was freaking awesome in the old days but also a lot of movies I thought were awesome back then turn out retarded nowadays (like Cabin Boy). So I needed a rewatch. I also had the urge to see it after Paul Ruben's made a few Tonight show appearances and it still holds up today as a comedy gold mine. 5 of 5 stars.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand- This actually isn't a movie, rather this is a new show on Starz. After having tons of promo material at work for this new show, i decided to see the first two episodes. Basically it's 300 as a tv show, but toss in a little softcore porn (they are Romans after all), the modern profanity that was in Deadwood, and the most ridiculous CGI blood imaginable and that is what this show is like. Story-wise, it's pretty good, but the CGI blood looks like they employed someone that is still learning how to do CGI and there are SO many times in the span of 2 episodes where way too much of it is shown to "Army of Darkness" levels, but I think unlike Army of Darkness they were being serious about the blood. 2 episodes of that and I was done, I could care less what happens now, the crap CGI ruined it for me. As for the cast, the only noticeable people in this show are Lucy Lawless (who shows a few years too late what exactly was under all that warrior-princess armor) and the guy that played Johnathan from the Mummy movies. Everyone else seems to be 300 rejects. Horrible, but if you're into campy stuff you'll like it. 1 of 5 stars.

Brick- Seen it already, mostly rented this for Stacey to see. I personally liked it a lot, especially since I enjoy the Raymond Chandler hard-boiled detective stories which this movie plays into. This 2nd viewing of it made me realize that Claire from Lost has a small role in the film. Pretty cool and hip. 4 of 5 stars.

The Invention of Lying- This could have been one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. But about a hour into the movie, it takes a hard left turn and becomes an Atheist platform movie. Personally I didn't care about that part, nor was I offended, it's just a movie (I love Tarantino movies but they don't make me want to rob banks or anything, so the Atheist sub-plot wasn't going to convert me) . I think it would have been funnier had it been a minor detail and the movie stayed more focused on the romantic comedy portion of the film. A movie about a world where no one can lie (except Ricky Gervais' character) and where there's no imagination ("movies" are historians reading books) and people say exactly what's on their minds was enough to carry on the film without the whole Atheist subplot (which was a little worse than the robot subplot of Rocky 3). 3 of 5 stars.

Fletch- Never seen this classic before. I think i like this better than the vacation movies honestly. 4 of 5 stars.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist- Pretty fun movie, Micheal Cera in yet another awkward teen role, no big surprise there. 3 of 5 stars.

Hornblower: The New Adventures- Before dating Stacey, I never heard of Horatio Hornblower and Ion Grufford was just the guy who played Mr. Fantastic. She got me into this mini-series and I've enjoyed watching them. These are pretty good for a mini-series and it's a bummer that A&E won't be producing any more. This would make a great big screen series should they ever go forward with it. 4 of 5 stars.

Zoey: In Memorandum

2010-02-26T10:02:00.000-08:00

Author's Note: Usually I do a lot of fun/silly notes on this blog, but for the first time in a long time I wanted to drop a serious entry. In the book "Me Talk Pretty One Day", Author David Sedaris, mixes the funny with the sad. Inspired by his essay "The Youth in Asia" where he recounts a few family pets and their lives, I found it fitting to throw in an inspired serious entry between my LOST fandom and movie/pop culture/ random complaining entries. Plus, I think this is my own personal way to deal with the loss of a pet. So this really is more for me than anyone else, but if you happen to read this, I promise my next entry will be funny.

Zoey entered our lives just a little over a month ago. A friend of Stacey's was looking for a home for her since Zoey didn't quite get along with her bunnies. We weren't looking for another cat, but we decided after weighing the pros and cons to take her in. Not so much because we wanted another cat, but mostly so that our cat Gilbert could have a playmate that wouldn't mind his sneak attacks as much as we did. Within a few days, the two were great friends (that's all they'd be since Gilbert is neutered and didn't care so much about her looks). We'd occasionally be woken up by the playful hoots between the two cats who decided playtime would begin once the lights go out rather than during the daytime when they would take a 2o hour nap instead. The impact of introducing Zoey into our lives was immediate. Our arms and legs would no longer bear evidence of a Gilbert mauling and we were able to get a collection of funny and cute pictures of the two together.

With no name besides "Kitty" or "the cat", we decided to pick a name for her and even reached out to our facebook friends to help pick a name between "Zoey" or "Isis". She technically would be known as "Madeline" at the Denver Dumb Friends League, but her previous owner and us did not enjoy the name so much. So we compiled a list of possible names. We had a few fun and pop culture inspired names like "Petra" or "Ripley" were eliminated earlier. It was a close call but in the end the name "Zoey" became the winner. The name Zoey, by the way, came from the TV show Firefly. She also subsequently earned a few nicknames in her time. Zoe-bot was a common one for her, and I likened to calling her "Ol smokey-face" due to her gray face. Had she lived longer, several more would likely follow as we call Gilbert several things depending on the mood of the week, that's just how Stacey and I roll.

Zoey fit into our family rather quickly. Soon she would give "nose kisses" to us when parting or greeting and sometimes for no reason at all. And like Gilbert, she was intrigued by the mystical world of the shower. She was a little more adventurous about trying to enter the "magic rain-box" and even got a quick splash or two when we decided to turn on the shower head. After that experience, she'd hold off her investigation into the shower until after it was used and the water was off. She was a quick learner, she also picked up on the fact that when treat time came, we liked to make the cats do a small "trick" and put their front paws on our knees before being rewarded.

Zoey often would like to engage in long conversations with us (usually whilst doing her crazy "exorcist kitty" head spin). We didn't have much to talk about really, but she did like meowing "answers" to us. Since she officially became a part of our family, we bought her a kitty bed and new collar. When Stacey would have to go to work she often enjoyed exploring the balcony while I'd wave goodbye to her, but since it was too cold we had to compromise on cold nights by having the fireplace going. She would often be found sleeping in front of the robust fire I started, I believe this was a fair compromise to her.

Although she wasn't as mischievous as Gilbert, Zoey often found her way into mischief. With her being so tiny and light, she found that she could stealthily jump on top of the fridge without us knowing until something would move, or Gilbert would express his jealous meows "to tell on her". She was also responsible for our impromptu pillow barrier in front of our couch after she had a expedition not under, but INSIDE the couch, causing one major headache rescue mission for Stacey and I.

Zoey became sick on Sunday and threw up her food from earlier in the day, in the past Gilbert would do the same thing but we were recommended to not feed him for 12-24 hours, then try a small amount of bland food. So we did this and Tuesday it seemed she started to show signs of recovery by playing with Gilbert. That night she even tried to sleep in bed with us...which we allowed until it became uncomfortable. By Wednesday she seemed extremely bad and would not eat at all despite what was offered to her, that night she slept between Stacey and I all night long. Thursday we took her to the vet where it was discovered that she was in really bad shape and we elected to try to save her by paying for an overnight visit and an IV line. The outlook seemed very grim and it was doubtful she would make it throughout the night. Knowing that in all likelihood, that she would probably die overnight, Stacey and I did a few farewells to her before leaving. Zoey managed to survive overnight and shortly afterward the vet gave Stacey a call saying that Zoey is getting worse and needed us to approve euthanasia and invited us to say our goodbyes. I was unable to go to work due to running a few minutes late and not knowing if I could afford another "late occurrence" following the snow delays the week before. I didn't want to take a chance so I called in absent (better a day's pay cut than a permanent one). On the way home Stacey phoned me and told me the news and I met with her at the vet office. After having Stacey sign the paperwork for the euthanasia , the Vet brought Zoey in to spend a little time with us before having to euthanize her. She was heavily sedated and swaddled in a few blankets to keep her warm and comfortable. We didn't want to spend more time to delay the inevitable but we both sadly held and caressed her assuring her that we love her and will miss her. She would just stare up at us, which I believe she knew that this was our farewell to her. I didn't want to stay for the actual euthanasia, so I said bye to Zoey and despite her heavy sedation, she managed to lift her head high enough to give me one final "nose kiss".

I made a B-line to my car where I cried for the first time since Stacey and I were going long distance with our relationship 2 years ago before moving to Colorado. I was done for the moment when Stacey came back out. I was assured that Zoey went peacefully and didn't have any convulsions or show any pain. Being a student at a Vet Tech school, Stacey was asked if she'd be interested in attending Zoey's autopsy. She was able to attend and immediately got into "work mode", so to everyone and later, my surprise she was able to go through it without crying. Which is good, since she'll have to deal with this sort of thing after she's done with her program and this was a good test for her. The autopsy would reveal that Zoey had abnormally small kidneys, which she was born with. Because of this defect she was not able to handle things most cats could, the non-toxic flower we noted she chewed on from a bouquet I got Stacey for Valentines Day could have been too much for her, making it one of several possibilities. This was comforting to know, since she was born with this, she would have inevitably been in this position later in life or have suffered a chronic kidney disease. We also realized that in all likelihood we'd probably have not been able to save her anyway as she died of (or was dying of) acute renal failure and we did and paid for everything we could to possibly save her. In the end, hard as it was, I was glad to say goodbye to her, rather than get a voicemail and immediately having to deal with customer's complaining about a 2 dollar increase in their bills for the rest of the day.

Although she was with us for a month, Zoey was a major part of our family and we were glad that her final month she had a playmate and enjoyed her final days before growing ill. She leaves behind a void which will be very hard to fill and will be missed.

Zoey Bagby
Dec 22, 2008- Feb 26, 2010

The Netflix Expirement

2010-01-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

So for Christmas, my sister-in-law Stephanie got me 3 months of Netflix for free. Having never used the service, I've decided that this would be the best way to catch up on my "To watch" list. So here's a few reviews of movies that I finally got to see (some are old, some new).

The Third Man (1949) starring Orson Welles
Harry Lime isn't too far behind Charles Foster Kane in my book! This movie is extremely close to topping Kane in quality. Set in Vienna post WWII, this thriller/mystery is worth watching. Although Welles doesn't show up until well into the last 1/3rd of the movie, when he's onscreen it's awesome. The rest of the cast are entertaining as well. This is one that definitely stands the test of time. 5 of 5 stars

Blade Runner (1982) Starring Harrison Ford
This one has been on my list for a very long time, so naturally I made it part of my first batch. Sadly I wasn't captivated by it as expected. I liked the storyline, but just something about it didn't just click with me, which makes me sad. However I do believe that part of the reason is that I've seen references in movie magazines and such that make reference to the is "Deckard really an android?" question, and I guess i was expecting a "I am Tyler Durden" moment instead of the subtle moment at the end of the movie. However I do plan to give it another try eventually to see how i ultimately feel about it. 3.5 of 5 stars

Ghost World (2001) Starring Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi
I've seen this one before, but Stacey hasn't and for some reason I brought it up a few days before setting up the Netflix account. It's a pretty fun independent comedy (with Scarlett Johansen before she became a big name) and I didn't know until recently it's based on a graphic novel (probably b/c the ones i read are about superheroes and stuff and not teenage girls facing post-High School Life). 4 of 5 stars

UP (2009)
Freaking Pixar! They know how to make cartoons for all ages, but they also know how to make you sad. The first 10 minutes of this movie were so depressing. But with that said, this is a toss-up with Ratatouille as my favorite Pixar movie. 5 of 5

Extract (2009) Starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis
The last good Mike Judge movie made was probably Office Space, so it was nice to see his workplace humor and memorable character form show up in this movie. The whole plot of the movie is about sexual frustration basically and we all know that's freakin hilarious right? What i loved about the movie though is the guy who played Champ on Anchorman plays probably the most annoying neighbor ever , it was one of those characters that you want to stab in the neck with a pencil, but yet probably the best part of movie (just like Milton in Office Space). However long-hair and bearded Ben Affleck and Mila Kunis were pretty annoying so that knocked a few points down. 4 of 5 stars

Day That the Earth Stood Still (1951)
This movie had the Blade Runner effect on me. I expected myself to like it but it just didn't do wonders on me like I was anticipating. For the time it was made, i agree it was pretty good, but it just didn't captivate me like i wanted it to. 3 of 5 stars

RocknRolla (2008) Starring Gerard Butler
This took a bit of time to get into but then it becomes a lot like Snatch. Although not as good as Snatch, it was still pretty cool. Guy Richie once again makes a invincible Russian antagonist which makes me now think Russians just can't get killed no matter how many times shot or ran over. This is supposed to be the first of a trilogy but with Sherlock Holmes doing pretty good, I'm not sure we'll see "The Real Rocknrolla" anytime soon or at all. 4 of 5 stars

Observe & Report (2009) Starring Seth Rogen
A few funny parts, too many parts that aren't and try too hard. 1 of 5 stars

The Wrestler (2009) Starring Mickey Rourke
Bravo! Mr. Rourke. It doesn't take long to see exactly why Mickey Rourke was nominated for an Oscar. Great storytelling. 4.5 of 5

Bottle Rocket (1996) Starring Owen & Luke Wilson
Thanks to this movie we were introduced to Wes Anderson and the Wilson Brothers. Not nearly as good as Rushmore or Life Aquatic, it's still pretty fun to watch. 3 of 5 stars

Miller's Crossing (1990) Starring Ethan Coen
This was one that Stacey and I were split on. She hated it, I very much enjoyed it. I really think i've seen this before, but it's a fun Italian mafia vs Irish mafia flick. Fun as a movie it is, I'm pretty sure when people with machine guns are shot, they probably won't stand around shooting the gun for 30 seconds in every direction....but it's funny. 4 of 5 stars

Green Street Hooligans (2005) Starring Elijah Wood
Pretty much Fight Club in England. it's a decent film and some good fight scenes show up. Do hooligans really hate journalists though? That's the only thing i sort of scratched my head over. I thought they'd hate people on opposing teams a lot worse. 3 of 5 stars

Ronin (1998) Starring Robert De Niro
I love Robert Di Niro. And he's probably the only thing i liked about this movie. That and the car chase. Could have been cooler but then again I may be expecting too much after seeing Heat.
3 of 5 stars

A Scanner Darkly (2006) Starring Keanu Reeves
This was pretty interesting and it's the second Phillip K. Dick movie I watched this last month. Filmed and then animated over, it was a interesting watch. The movie itself was alright and Robert Downey Jr. was awesome anytime he was onscreen. Although the movie was alright, what's really cool is the story behind the story it's based on. This was Phillip K. Dick's semi-autobiographical story about living in LA during a time he was pretty heavy into drugs. The excerpt at the end of the movie lists people "who were punished entirely too much for what they did" that lists people who died or suffered permanent damage b/c of drugs came right from the book. Pretty cool and makes me want to read it. 4 of 5 stars

Haven (2004) starring Orlando Bloom
The cover of this DVD makes it look like another "Crash" and the film kind of steers that direction, however a lot of sloppy editing kind of ruins it. 3 of 5 stars

Away we Go (2009) Starring Jim from the Office!
Pretty much a grown up version of Juno which substitutes weird made-up slang, hamburger phones and cross country running training for a weird Maggie Gyllenhaal, and a bearded Jim from The Office. 4 of 5 stars

Getting "Lost" again Pt 5 of 5

2010-01-26T12:46:00.001-08:00

It has finally come to this, the massive 103 hour project of re-watching Lost seasons 1-5 before the sixth and final season have officially ended for me moments ago with just a week to spare. So here is my last entry with a look back at season 5. Remember to read this blog on http://bradsasylum.blogspot.com so that you can see it in the way I want it to be read (pictures look better, no cut-off sentences by facebook, ect)

Overall, Season 5 was probably my personal favorite season, Season 4 was good and sometimes I feel that season 4 may be the better of the seasons, but with all the sci-fi elements mixed into Season 5, I'm pretty sure it's my favorite most of the time. It begins a little confusing enough with all the time traveling shenanigans but it comes into it's own once the time traveling stops during the time of the Dharma Initiative (aka the group of people living on the island before the crash that Ben Linus & the others wiped out, they also built all the hatches on the island).
So lets kick off with what i consider my favorite episodes of Season 5

"Jughead"- Within a few moments of this episode Daniel Faraday (aka Twitchy) goes from a Swiss cheese-memory addled physicist to a major power player (although his rocket test in season 4 was pretty important). We learn that Charles Widmore was an other, "Jughead" is introduced, and Richard Alpert looks the same in the 50s as he does in 2008 (He's totally going to be revealed as a Highlander.) Present day we learn that Desmond named his son Charlie (aww) and that Oxford pretty much covered up Faraday's time travel experiments after he went from rat testing to human testing. Plus as a bonus, I'm pretty sure one thing i missed the first time around or didn't read into was when the Others first catch Faraday & Co. Ellie asks Faraday "You just couldn't stay away could you". Naturally, I assumed with the jumping back and forth through time they'd encounter the Other's at an earlier time to prompt her saying that, but not the case as they only bump into the Others at a later time period, so I'm thinking crazy ol Faraday has done this dance before, hence why he was crying at the Oceanic 815 crash discovery footage on his TV and not knowing why, or even why he knows so much about the Island.

"LaFleur"- I love everything about this episode. Sawyer finally becomes a leader without Jack or Locke getting in the way. Being the skillful conman he is, Sawyer is able to safely con his way into the Dharma Initiative where he, Juliet, Miles, Jin and Faraday spend 3 years with pot brownies, Geranamo Jackson playing on the airwaves and that paranoid Crazy Bastard Radzinsky. Plus Sawyer gets to shack up with Juliet for 3 years, who's considerably much better than Kate, thus making Sawyer the character who gets laid the most on Lost (Juliet, Kate, Ana Lucia, and pretty much everyone he conned pre-crash, including his baby-momma Cassidy, who is also Kate's friend...i wonder if Kate ever told her?)

"The Variable"- After being gone for a good portion of the season Faraday returns to the Island on a mission beginning with wanting to know how in the Hell the Oceanic Six were able to return to the Island in the same time period they are living in. Faraday then goes off the rails and decides that whole business of "whatever happened, happened" is a crock and decides that he can prevent Oceanic Flight 815 from ever crashing by detonating "Jughead" (whom he instructed the Others to bury), which would create a chain of events that will domino effect to the point where 815 never crashes, so the frieghter never comes, the smoke monster never gets explained still, and everything is cool and people won't have to die (which sucks b/c that means Artz, Nikki, Paulo, Boone, and Frogurt will get to live on to annoy the piss out of everyone.). Daniel's plan was great and everything except for the part where he goes into the Other's camp to get killed by his own beastwhore mother. We also learn Widmore is Faraday's dad. Worst.Parents.Ever.

Season 5 VIP
This is probably the easiest choice in this series of blogs, hands down Sawyer owned season 5. We saw him go from a scavenger, conning, sort of a jerk survivor to a much more mature character. His years as "Jim LaFleur", Dharma's chief of Security were probably his best. Secondly, he beats the bloody hell out of Jack in a fight I've waited 5 seasons for. Don't get me wrong I like Jack, but he has moments where he needs a beating and Sawyer was there at the right place at the right time to deliver. No other character except Faraday came close to shining as bright as Sawyer this season.

Re-evaluated Characters
Ok it's painful to admit, but I didn't find Kate annoying this season. It took me 5 long seasons to admit that. I really can't find a reason to not like her this season (and trust me I tried). Other seasons she would get caught by the Others, having her longtime boyfriend killed in police shootouts, and she poisons Captain Mal from Firefly (who's a cop she married while on the run, which makes her a helluva master of disguise or makes Nathan Fillion's cop a idiot). Anyway she turned out to be a decent person after leaving the island and taking care of Turnip-head (aka Aaron) as her own child since Claire's MIA, she also takes care of Sawyer's daughter, and even makes Jack happy...but then also helps create my favorite lost character "bearded pill-popping depressed Jack" when their engagement is called off.

Also I found Crazy Bastard Radzinsky to be worse than that weasel Phil (I purposely capitalized "crazy" and "bastard" as this is a more fitting first name than "Stu"). Initially Phil annoyed me but second time around Crazy Bastard Radzinsky was a lot worse. As weasel Phil is just annoying and an inconvenience mostly, Crazy Bastard Radzinsky is crazy, stubborn, and mean. I think I liked him more when he was just a blood splatter on the ceiling of the hatch. I did however cheer when Phil got skewered in the season finale.

And Now For Something Completely Different.....
That's it for this blog series looking back at Lost. The season begins next Tuesday and so far from promotional pictures this final season should be fun and we'll see a few old friends along the way. Plus I'm glad it's starting now with the whole Conan vs. NBC/Leno mess, it'll be good to see quality TV that won't get pulled off the air by airheaded executives....even though they may have Lost: The Next Generation when they start to miss the ratings in a few years, but as far as the castaways we know and love now, it's better to end now than to be a watered down show after a few seasons and for that I'm happy. With a week to spare, there's a ton of special features on the DVDs that I've been wanting to get to so now I'll have time to watch bloopers, deleted scenes and the "Mysteries of the Universe- Dharma Initiative" sounds particularly interesting.
Anyway below is how I think this is the best way to end this blog series.
Remember to drink when you see a "Jackface"!

Getting "Lost" again Pt 4 of 5

2010-01-18T16:01:00.000-08:00

In my continuation of my look back at "Lost" I have now finished Season 4 of Lost (didn't take nearly as long and still one of the better of the seasons). Again, I must remind you that if seeing on Facebook please go to my blog's homepage at http://bradsasylum.blogspot.com/, the reason being that all the cool pictures I pick and so on, show up much, much better on the actual site.

So looking back at Season 4 the gameplan changes for our Lost castaways as "Rescue" comes. From Hurley being arrested in present day LA saying he's "One of the Oceanic 6" to Locke moving the Island, this season was pretty consistant in quality, there were no B-squad special episodes like Nikki and Paulo's episode featuring Artz, Shannon & Boone, nor were there any episodes dedicated to Jack's Tattoos, everything was straight-forward. Now that Darleton had a end date, they could move foward and not have to stall anymore and the result was a great season.

Looking back at Season 4, here is my top 3 picks for the best episodes of Season 4:

"The Constant"- Without a shadow of doubt, this is probably the best episode of Lost to date and resides at my personal favorite episode. Centered on Desmond, this episode followed our favorite Scott as he becomes unstuck in time transferring between the present 2004 and 1996. Very reminiscent of "All Good Things...." (aka last Star Trek: The Next Generation episode) this one is a classic and also mullet Faraday is a classic too. Plus crazy confused Desmond is awesome!

"The Shape of Things to Come"- Everyone's favorite lying salamander-esque villain Benjamin Linus is in full geared bad-ass mode in this episode. Was it just me or did this feel like a Indiana Jones feeling episode with the globe-treking that Ben does and the Smoke Monster filling in as the God Storm at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc. Plus we get to see Ben and Sayid team up and that was pretty awesome. But what really should be worth noting is that Ben does have a heart when his "Daughter" Alex gets a metal slug in the brain from Keamy.

"Cabin Fever" - Locke, Ben and Hurley go searching for Jacob's cabin, but to be honest everything in this episode doesn't hold a candle to the flashback meeting between child Locke and Richard Alpert in what should be a recruiting attempt. I firmly believe that this moment will play out really big in season 6. Richard shows John a set of items including a compass, a vial of sand, a baseball glove, a book of laws, a comic book and a knife apparently belonging to Locke in a past life. It would seem Locke chose the sand (from the island?) and the compass correctly, but instead of choosing the book of laws as the scene (and most likely Richard) suggests should be the right option, little Locke picks the knife causing a hasty exit from Richard. Also worth noting is that Christian Shepard appears in this episode for the first time not in a suit suggesting that "Cabin Christian" may not be Christian at all (my guess is that it's the "Man in Black", who appears to be Jacob's enemy).

*Bonus* "Ji Yeon"- Lost knows exactly how to pull a sucker punch. This entire episode made us believe that Jin & Sun made it off the Island together since it showed Sun about to give birth and Jin making a mad dash to get a present before going to the Hospital. But it turns out that the Sun story was a flash-foward while Jin's was a flashback with the episode ending with Sun and Hurley "visiting" Jin.....AT HIS FREAKING TOMBSTONE!!!

Season 4 VIP(s):
To be perfectly Honest I could see a few people at this spot. But the two that stood out most this season was Ben and Sayid.
For Sayid, he secures his place as the man to go to when you absolutely, positively have to kill some bad guys. His flashfowards are intriguing as he starts killing off possible Charles Widmore associates at the order of Ben. Later we see him busting Hurley out of the mental institution. On the Island, Sayid teams up with the Others to rescue Ben and to take out Keamy and his men.

Ben on the other hand is hard to turn down and deny the honor of being a standout this season. But after seeing he somehow can summon the smoke monster, that makes him awesome. Also he shoots Charlotte (who's a bitch pretty much) and that was awesome, but she had a bulletproof vest. Also we learn that in the grand scheme of things everyone is Ben's bitch even when he's handcuffed and getting the crap knocked out of him. Finally you know you have a good character when his "I wasn't telling the full truth" moment never ever gets old and anyone that can take out armed guys with a collapsible baton is awesome.

PS: I wish they had more drug-riddled Jack, I think that's when I best enjoy the character. The first disk menu on the DVD for this season has him soaking in all his craziness with maps of islands and such...it's glorious.

That does it for my look back at Season 4. Just one more season to finish before the final season begins!

Getting "Lost" again Pt 3 of 5

2010-01-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

In my continuing blog series, I am taking a retroactive look back at the show Lost in celebration of it's last season (until Disney/ABC decides to make Lost: The Next Generation). I'm mostly doing this for myself and my fellow Losties who routinely get into Lost conversations. If you are just now getting into the series and stumbled across this keep in mind this is very spoiler filled. Also, as before please see http://bradsasylum.blogspot.com/ for the real post, formatted in the way i intend it to be...facebook always screws these up.

Overall season 3 was a mix for me. Usually Season 2 gets a bad rap as being the worst season, but as mentioned in my last installment, I really don't think it had as many black marks against it as Season 3 does. Look at it this way, Season 2 gave us Desmond & Benjamin Linus as well as the tail section survivors. Season 3 did give us Juliet, Richard Alpert, and the unkillable cycloptic Russian Other Mikhail. But at the same time they solved the baffling mystery of what Jack's tattoos mean (I'm being sarcastic), and who could forget Nicki and Paulo (actually now that i think of it, pretty much everyone can). However this season had some amazing moments which came after ABC gave the go-ahead to set an end date.

As before I'll break down my top 3 episodes of the season, reveal my pick for that season's VIP, and finally re-evaluated characters.

First of all let's take a look at what I consider the best of Season 3.

"The Man Behind the Curtain"- Definitely in my top 5 lost episodes, this episode shows the previously unknown history of Benjamin Linus as well as the Dharma folks. I personally think this episode will be essential in Season 6 one way or another. So much mythology in Lost was dropped here. In the Ben flashback we meet Annie, Ben's childhood girlfriend, who has yet to pop back up. Personally I think Charles Whidmore killed her or she died in childbirth causing Ben to be the person he is today & it could explain his hellbent quest to find out why women die during childbirth on the island. Secondly, We find out that Richard Alpert is ageless!!! Interestingly though, this is the first time we see him not clean cut and wearing all black (could this be an alt-universe Richard since he was clean cut when Sayid shoots Harry Potter...er...a Ben?). Finally worth noting is that in Ben's classroom the children are learning of Volcanoes (which maybe why the statue is only a foot now, and may caused the Adam & Eve skeletons in the caves found in S1). The present day storyline also "shows" us Jacob for the first time. (but is it really Jacob?).

"The Cost of Living"- This is the Swan Song for Mr. Eko. It's such a shame that the actor wanted to leave Hawaii because all 3 Mr. Eko centered stories are some of the best and strongest stories ever to show on Lost. It seems that Ol Smokey wasn't too happy about losing his staredown with Mr Eko last season. Even with the cheeseball line at the end, this episode was pretty much a fitting farewell to one of Lost's better characters.

"Flashes Before Your Eyes"- Oh those kooky Desmond-centered episodes. Apparently when he turned the key at the Swan Station, Desmond seemingly traveled back in time with a sense of Deja Vu of his time on the island. Here we meet Mrs. Hawking, who seems like a interesting Character until the beastwhore killed Faraday down the line. None-the-less, this was an important episode, especially right before seeing the 5th season.

Season 3 VIP:

This was a little bit of a challenge but I think we have yet another tie on our hands. Charlie was fun and all in the past but desperately needed a "Even though you're on the B-squad, you're the B-squad Leader" talk. However in his last moments he made a selfless sacrifice to save everyone...or did he doom most of them? Anyway aside from the fact that he could have easily escaped out of the underwater hatch and had a bottle of MacClucheon whiskey on the beach with Desmond, but that didn't happen. Either way, good job Charlie, you're dead but you're not worthless anymore.

Ben on the other hand, while creepy as "Henry Gale" in season 2, was at his best this season. From conning Sawyer to putting a bullet into Locke, Ben was probably the most fun character to watch this season. And as stated in the top episodes portion, Wizard behind the Curtain, is probably going to be essential to the final season. Also Ben single handily takes out all the Dharma Hippies as well as his daddy in one afternoon.

Finally
Fun Fact: Did you know that Rob McElhenny (aka Mac from It's Always Sunny) was one of the others? Here's the link . In past seasons I would indulge in the occasional set report, but I've mostly avoided it this season. However it's nearly impossible to not hear a few whispers of the upcoming season, including that many past characters will be returning. So hopefully we'll see Aldo show back up even though he's not an important character, but it'll still be funny to see him pop up again.

Fun Fact: When "A Tale of 2 Cities " came out, not only did it kick off season 3, but it kicked off the birth of "Jackface". The popular meme involves all the crazy faces Jack makes while acting like a 2 year old in the empty shark tank he's being held captive in. This is also a fun drinking game as well where you drink every time a "Jackface" shows up. more info here

Getting "Lost" again Pt 2 of 5

2009-12-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

***if seeing on Facebook please go to http://bradsasylum.blogspot.com/ instead, facebook never publishes these the way i want and messes up the pictures. Also for those of you that are Lost Virgins, this contains spoilers.****

In my ongoing mission to re-watch all the seasons of Lost before the final season drops on Feb 2nd, I officially have a little over a month to watch the next 3 seasons. Fortunately, season 3 is the last of the long seasons, so seasons 4 and 5 will be easy. This season for me was a little under-rated, for some it's the worst season, but it's the season that gave us Eko, Ben, and Desmond so it could be argued as one of the most important seasons.

Once again, I'll start off with the top 3 episodes of season 2.

23rd Psalm
Easily my favorite episode thus far in Lost history. This episode makes me sad that Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje didn't want to stay on the show because I'd love to have seen more Mr. Eko episodes. Darleton had big plans to make Eko stick around longer and to even be the recipient of the visions Desmond gained in Season 3 ( such a shame.) This episode is by far one of the best stories in Lost. Eko being a merciless drug dealer turned priest was every bit surprising as it was good. We even got to see Eko 1-up John Locke's Season 1 staredown against the smoke monster... Plus that plane that rid us of Boone? Yeah that was Eko's dead brother's plane!

Two for the Road
I liked the shock factor at the end of this episode. For the most part I didn't care about Ana Lucia being chaperon for drunk Christian Shepard in Australia (even though it showed us that Claire and Jack are half-siblings). Funny as it was, I wasn't surprised about Sawyer and Ana Lucia's fling (which Sawyer would later so delicately put as "I screwed her" when having a moment of bonding with Jack). The real shock came at the end when Bernard and Eko become the last of the Tail Section survivors and Micheal cements himself as the biggest douche on the show.

Live Together, Die Alone
Finally! We get to see Desmond's story. So many cool parts, Ben being shown as the leader of the Others, Locke getting hit with the Jesus stick and crying about it, we learn why Oceanic flight 815 crashed, the four toed statue is shown and not brought up again until 3 seasons later and finally, The Kurrigan being shown as Desmond's Dharma Hatch buddy....if you didn't catch that reference you need to rent Highlander immediately. (Also did you know that Clancy f'n Brown does the voice of Mr. Crabs???)

Season 2 V.I.P
A very very hard choice, Locke had some great stories, Eko won fans with his backstory and Ben went from being a guest star to a main character with a very awesome line about milk.
Being the indesisive person I am, I can't choose between Locke and Eko. I know Ben had some moments but He really came into his own in the next 2 seasons so we'll leave him off this time. Locke was at the center of all the Hatch mystery moments, had some great moments with Ben/Henry Gale and his incident with the blast doors gave us a cooler map than the one Sayid stole from the French Lady's lair (where he was probably raped...just saying). Eko was a welcome addition and had the strongest and most appealing backstory in the series. Plus it's fitting that the two people who had a stare-down with Smokey and lived share this spot (although Eko doesn't go 2 for 2 later). Finally the Eko & Locke scenes are awesome.

Re-Evaluated Characters

Didn't really have any this season. I did hate Rose & Bernard and got mad that they got their own flashback episode and then I kind of liked them but then again I got more happy about seeing Vincent (the dog) than I was to see them after they were MIA for the full season last year...so maybe that doesn't really count.

Overall, fun season despite the WAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLTTTTT cries. Thankfully that didn't get dragged out into the next season. Best of all this season gave us mysteries such as the food drop that have yet to be answered. Also like WAAAAAAAAAALLLTT, Libby and the flight attendant seems to have a bit of significance, but with only 16 episodes left, kinda doubting that we'll find out what is going on with them.

Now time to kill off Season 3
Brad

A Few Must See Christmas Movies

2009-12-01T13:50:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been in the Christmas mood. Between buying movie themed ornaments, gearing up for our trip to Abilene in a few weeks and probably this being our first Christmas married, I'm just a few degrees away from Clark Griswold (but without the lights) when it comes to being excited about Christmas. Plus we get to begin several of our own traditions.

Speaking of Clark Griswold here are some of my recommendations for movies to watch this time of year to get into the Christmas Spirit (which with me movies will always make the traditions list). Plus I'm intentionally leaving out old classics like "it's a wonderful life" and so on..leave those movies for your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Scrooged- Sure you can watch the hundreds of adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" or you can watch Bill Murray in his prime as a very Scrooge-like TV Network Executive. Plus with an abusive Ghost of Christmas Present and a shootgun toting Bobcat Goldwaith, what's not to love about this great flick.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas- Not talking about the Jim Carrey live action movie, I'm meaning the very old cartoon. If you don't watch this you might as well not celebrate Christmas. (on a side note: Have anyone else noticed how stores seem to not have the Mike Myers live action Cat in the Hat? Did they pay a lot of money to make it simply disappear out of embarrassment? I don't even think the Guru is on shelves either, perhaps Mike Myers is more powerful than imagined.)

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation- This is probably my favorite installment of the Griswold's Vacation movies. From the oversized tree to the excessive lights and decorations, all the way to Cousin Eddie showing up. This is probably one of the best Christmas comedies made.

Elf- I almost forgot to add this one on, this is one of the last great Will Ferrell movies and plus in a few years time it could maybe surpass Christmas Vacation.

Home Alone- Yeah yeah this movie was freaking awesome as a kid because it would inspire you to actually make traps like this...I didn't since my mom told me that the robbers would have really died and I wouldn't want that grief on me so i refrained. Now in retrospect, Kevin has horrible parents and the robbers were wusses to get schooled by a 8 year old...or however old Mcaully Cullkin is in this movie.

Nightmare Before Christmas- Before it was a Hot Topic staple, this was a pretty fun christmas movie

A Christmas Story- Ralphie's quest for a Red Rider BB gun is definitely a must see staple for Christmas. In recent years TNT have been airing it on 24 hour straight marathons and as many times as I've seen it, this one never gets old I still laugh at the frozen flag pole dare, the really mean Santa, and "Ralphie's Pink Nightmare."

A Charlie Brown Christmas- Like "The Grinch..", this one is an oldie, but goodie. Plus that poor poor tree always seems to work it's way into holiday conversation without fail (ie: "I wish i had a charlie brown tree, this one we have is too much work..")

And finally my personal pick for the best Christmas movie and a must see:

DIE HARD!!!

Looking at the cover, it looks like a shoot-em-up action movie. But that's not true. It's really a story about a New York Cop trying to go Home to see his family but then some terrorists try to eff that up for him...but this is John "yippi ki yay motherf***er" McClain and that's not happening on his watch. So it's really about family which is what Christmas really is all about. You may want to watch Die Hard 2 after this one because it totally happens again...geeze this family has the craziest Christmases.

Bonus:
"A Star Wars Christmas"

This is a very very hard to find movie, George Lucas became so embarrassed with it, that a dvd or video has not and probably never will see the light of day. Anyone who knows where to find the full length show online will be my hero. From what I gather it's about the Star Wars gang trying to get Chewbacca and his family into the spirit of "Life Day" and Leia sings some stupid song to the tune of the Star Wars Theme. Clips are on Youtube and they are hilarious but man i want to see this trainwreck in it's full capacity.

Getting "Lost" again Pt 1 of 5

2009-11-30T15:02:00.000-08:00

***if seeing on Facebook please go to http://bradsasylum.blogspot.com/ instead, facebook never publishes these the way i want and messes up the pictures****

Hey haven't put a post up in a while, mostly because I've been working and haven't had time to write entries (plus I've been lazy).

So Lost is coming to a end on Groundhog's Day this year. Personally I will be sad that it's over, but happy that they are ending on their own terms and before they lose most of their best characters as they become more in demand to take part in movies. So this is something i hope to finish before Groundhog's Day, every other night or so Stacey and I have been watching all the old episodes of Lost and after every season is re-watched I'll put a post about the best episodes, season VIP's, and a few other goodies.

First off let's cap off with my top 3 favorite episodes of season 1.

"Walkabout"

This was the 4th episode of Lost and it holds a special place to me as after viewing this episode I became a Lost addict. I first saw this episode about mid-season when ABC re-aired a few old episodes. Prior to this the show had a few WTF? moments such as the introduction to the polar bears and the smoke monster, but learning that the bad ass knife-wielding, boar-killing John Locke was crippled before the crash was by far one of the best reveals overall in Lost. Not to mention Locke has a staredown with the smoke monster and re-emerges out of the jungle with a slain boar on his shoulders entitling him to be dubbed "Badass prime" of Lost.

"Outlaws"-

If it wasn't for "Walkabout" this would be my favorite Season 1 episode. I already began to like Sawyer in earlier episodes, but this cemented him into a personal favorite for me. This episode has Sawyer on a hell-bent mission to kill a boar that destroys his tent, of course with this being Lost, Sawyer hears strange whispers prior to waking up to catch the boar rummaging through his tent. Flashbacks show Sawyer's ongoing attempt to find and kill the con-man, whom caused his father to kill Sawyer's mother and himself in a murder-suicide. Acting on a tip by an old partner, Sawyer travels to Australia to avenge his parent's death. Turns out Sawyer was tricked into killing a guy that owed his old partner money...whoops! This episode was also the first time Lost played "6 degrees of your favorite castaways" by showing Jack's dad meeting Sawyer in a bar in Austria (cool here but got WAY overused in season 2).

"Exodus"

Season Finales are always great, they leave you hanging and wanting more. Generally as a rule I shouldn't include season finales of Lost on this list, but this one had some great moments. Charlie got hit in the head with a bunch of rocks causing Sayid to treat his wound Rambo-style (gunpowder + Fire= awesome... plus he said "this will not be pleasant".) Also we saw the most bitchiest, annoying Lost character ever, Artz get blown into pieces. Too bad they didn't do this in the future to Nicki and Paulo. But most importantly, we got to meet the coolest member of "The Others" besides Ben. I don't think we learn Tom's real name until season 3ish, but my friend Josh Montgomery and I referred to him as "Steamboat Willy". Plus the hatch finally opens.

Season 1 VIP

Jack Shepard- I know he becomes frustratingly annoying and whiny in future seasons (Season 3 and above), and that Locke should really win the VIP slot with the whole "I was crippled but now i'm not, i fear no smoke-monster, and I killed Boone" thing he has going, but Jack solidifies himself as the leader of our favorite castaways this season and we know that he goes downhill from here and that alone makes that Season 5 beatdown between him and Sawyer all the better.

Re-evaluated Characters
This is a category I've made specifically to see what opinions have changed since first watching this show. First off, I didn't care for Jin and Sun. They didn't nessarily make me care for them to begin with (Jin was a dick mostly this first season) and I only had gratification with them when we found out Sun had an affair with the Chrome dome that was teaching her English. However later seasons I've grown to like both Jin and Sun.

The same cannot be said for Waaalttt!! and Michael. I liked them in the beginning. They teased a lot with Walt being all spooky and magical but after this season that seemed to have died out. They may still have a little something in store this final season but really who cares now? We got more gratifying stories with Locke, the others, Jacob & the Man in Black, Faraday, ect that I will be perfectly fine if we don't go back and touch on what's going on with Walt. Plus they tease about bringing back Characters from the past seasons, but I'm doubting that they bring back Michael after his well documented diss on Darlton.

Til next time,
Brad

The joy of laughing gas...aka funny things that happened when i was in la la land

2009-09-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

So this is my first blog since getting married all of 2 1/2 months ago. A few temptations came up to write like "the best It's always sunny episodes", "reviews of stuff i finally saw", and "Lost rewind: a perspective on the past seasons", but i got lazy, however, I now have something to write about.

About a week ago, I had probably one of the most painful toothaches ever while i was at work. After visiting the dentist, he told my my wisdom teeth has got to go...and a tooth i had a bad root canal on, which the back portion broke off a few weeks after the procedure and remained that way for at least a year. So yesterday I went to get all 5 teeth removed. Everything began pretty normal, I talked to the nurses about the Broncos/Cubs game and how much everyone was booing for Jay Cutler. Then came the gas, about 5 minutes inhaling the gas I told the nurse I wasn't feeling anything (i was getting a little heavy eyed but i wanted more) so she turned it up a bit and left the room. Suddenly, within my chest it felt as if there was a constantly giggling person deep inside. Of course, I tried not to laugh and my mouth kept making very twitchy smiles. Shortly, I began making my lips form a "O" shape, for some reason this was funny to me. Then Dr. Lurcott came in to get everything started.

"This is going to be the part you're not going like very much Brad" he said, as he began to give me the local anesthesia shots (9 or so in total). As he began the other side of the mouth he said "here's some more" to which i replied "numf ve vff ouutta ve". He removed the plastic keeping my mouth open. "what was that Brad?" he asked. "I vaid numbf ve shiff out of me". He replied by laughing, then I realized that i was being a little to comfortable with my language and dropped a S bomb in front of someone i only knew less than 3 minutes, so i immediately said "Sorry doc, iff's ve gas". He was cool with it and said he gets it all the time. After I was nice and loopy and couldn't feel my mouth the procedure began. Thankfully, I didn't feel anything at all but lots and lots of pressure as the first two teeth were pulled. After the first tooth was pulled, i noticed how much blood was on the doctor's index finger, i also noticed when he tried to open my mouth wider the bloody finger touched my chin. "his damn bloody finger just touched my beautiful beard...i'm going to sue him" I thought to myself. The next few minutes, I just thought of nothing but very very random stuff, especially of the gas and how I wished i could feel like that all the time, or how i can be on laughing gas at work so I wouldn't hate my job, then i took a turn left and started having inner conversations with myself over star wars and marvel superheroes, which i "told" myself "Brad you are such a freaking geek, it's a miracle you're married and not a virgin".

My thoughts were interrupted when the doctor began working on the "bonus" tooth i had to remove (the one that had a botched root canal) for some reason this one was hard to remove and the doctor spent a good while trying to pull it. When he finally, removed it he decided to let me rest my jaws before doing the other two wisdom teeth. For some reason I thought I'd tell him "That tooff wav a bitff huh?" he replied yes and laughed and once again I apologized for another profane word and once again blamed it on the gas. As he worked on my other final teeth i drifted off again into the nerdy world of my random geeky thoughts until the procedure ended. For some reason I didn't remember him pulling the last tooth, in fact all i remembered was the one on the top jaw being pulled. "All done Bradley" to which i replied "holy shiff" and once again apologized.

They began giving me oxygen to get out of the laughing gas loopiness, and then had me wait until the doctor returned. I remember looking in some magazine but immediately putting it away once i came across a random article on sex dolls, I already made a first impression with this group as someone with a loose tongue, the last thing i wanted them to think was that i was into that stuff too (which i'm not, but the pictures were funny because one had a guy totally making out with one). Once the Dr came back in, I had to have the nurse play translator as I was mixing charades with mumbles to ask if i could get a doctor's note for work since my job right now consists of constantly talking to people on the phone for 10 hours a day.
Once i got my oxycodone and antibiotics as Stacey and I were leaving for some reason I thought I'd be able to tell her everything i said and thought in the room and about the squirrel that was on a dumpster when we were leaving, which obviously was lots of mumbles to which Stacey told me just to "shut up and tell her later".

The rest of the day, I spent gauzing myself, attempting to eat applesauce (which with a lip 3 times it's normal size and a numb mouth is quite impossible without most if not all of it falling out of my mouth and onto my lap/crotch area). Once i got my mouth to regain feeling, I tried again with much better success. Next dental work will be the replacement tooth I'll get...but i'm spending at least a month to recover.

When did Amazon become so funny?

2009-05-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

Usually my nightly routine after work is after avoiding being attacked by the kitty and saying hi to Stace (who's usually in bed when i come home) consists of 2-3 hours online looking at stupid crap. It's fun to me and I can't stop!! However, in my usual rotation of funny websites (Fark, Digg, Cracked, et all), I now should add Amazon.com.

Usually this is where you'd go to find that obscure movie you wanted. Or perhaps to pre-order something you want. However lately there's been an awakening of really really funny user reviews online for the most pointless crap. Here I bring to you the best of what i found (so far) and give an official "bad ass rating" based on customer reviews. So of my findings Thus far we have a mystical magic wolf shirt, some sweet "fightin" pants, and...Uranium. Hope you enjoy!!(still figuring out html coding so bear with me)

Exhibit 1: The Magical Wolf shirt you'd find at Wal-mart or Goodwill...or even my Dad's Closet

Randomly Selected Quotes From Reviews

"This new shirt gave me the ability to hunt out deals at Walmart. Hit on chicks without throwing up. Pee in parking lots and not care. Bite through metal. And now at midnight my parents basement is filled with my screams, thanks AMAZON!!"-Leviticus St. Cloud
~~~~~
"I read an article on this very shirt and its magical properties. I read that it attracts women like feces attracts flies. So being the 28 year old morbidly obese virgin I am, I promptly ordered it."-T. Rafalik "Teen Wolf"
~~~~~
"After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to 'howl at the moon' from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth."-B.Govern

BAD ASS RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 CHUCK NORRISES

Exhibit 2: The Awesome Pants of Yesteryear

Randomly Selected Quotes From User Reviews:

"I was searching for clothes that speak to me.. These pants not only spoke to me, they entered my soul and transformed me. When I get out of my bitchin 78 camaro wearing these bad boys, there's no question who the boss man is..
You can easily go commando in these and feel even more manly. Your junk swings freely and using the restroom is that much easier.." - Alan E. Schmidt "Monkeyhead"
~~~~~~

"Until recently, I've had trouble finding pants that are both fashionable and conducive to my chosen fighting style (a lethal mix of Filipino stick fighting, Thai kick boxing, and Oklahoma pig grappling). Jeans have always proven constrictive, while corduroy chafes. Sweatpants are comfortable, but hardly something one would wear out to, say, Olive Garden or Old Country Buffet.

No, I needed something that would enable me to dish out a neck-high snap kick while still looking classy and cool.

These are those pants." - by Head Cheeze

BAD ASS RATING: 3 OUT OF 5 MR. Ts

Exhibit 3: Uranium Half-Off!!!

Randomly Selected Quotes From User Reviews:

"The quality of this Uranium is on par with the stuff I was bying from the Libyans over at the mall parking lot, but at half the price! I just hope the seller does not run out, because I have many projects on my list including a night vision sasquatch radar, an electromagnetic chupakabra cage, a high velocity, aerial, weighted Mothman net and super heated, instant grill cheese sandwhich maker." - Kyle J. Von Bose

~~~~

"Mixed with a little garlic, some finely chopped basil and pine nuts this makes a fine alternative for pesto. And it has an added advantage which is that if the lighting fails in your home it will produce sufficient illumination to make your kids and pets glow in the dark, enabling you easily to locate them." - J.D.Annis

BAD ASS RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 Bruce Campbells

my "explosive" thoughts on the Lost Finale

2009-05-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

***don't read if you haven't seen the finale yet ***

2010 is a very long ways away and Darlton (producer,Carleton Cruz and co-creator Damon Lindelof) didn't so much as give us the slightest hint of what the hell happened at the end other than a Bizzaro title card and someone's eye opening. Not even a small taste of what to expect. In the last 4 seasons we got the following:

Season 1: Oh crap, Steamboat Willy just stole Walt (who'd later become WAAAALLLTTT!!!!)& maybe killed Sawyer!!!

Season 2: Desmond is blowed up oh nooooo!!! and Micheal and WAAAALLLLTTT leave while Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are bound and gagged by the others to maybe become experiments/polar bear food.

Season 3: Crazy Jack and Kate get off the island...unknowingly to us Locke Died.

Season 4: Island disappears, people leave the Island to be "rescued" we find out Locke Died.

and this is what we get
Season 5: ???????, Locke's dead but Evil Locke (no goatee sadly) lives on perhaps possessed by a devil.

Despite not knowing if our Lostaways are sent back into the present, past or if they are just sent into a million pieces around the island, I was SO FREAKING HAPPY TO SEE SAWYER BEAT THE LIVING PISS OUT OF JACK. Unfortunately Dr. Blockhead didn't get any sense knocked into him. but seriously that was worth staying a fan this long for, I been waiting for that for a long time. It turned out a worthless fight when Sawyer and Jack's shared love interests decided to let Jack blow up Jughead anyway leaving Sawyer without any support except for Miles who spoke up WAY too late. I'm sure Jack would still be lying on the jungle floor bleeding if Juliet didn't catch Sawyer looking at Kate. Stupid fickle women.

Secondly, It was great to see a few people come and go. I was glad to see that snooping annoying jackass Phil get skewered to death...jackass. Also,I know back in the day I was very annoyed with Rose and Benard being focused on more b/c i didn't care about them, but I've grown to like them, but despite that I was more happier with seeing Vincent the dog come back. There's alot of theories out there now that Rose + Benard = Adam and Eve skeletons way back in the first season. Still possible, but I don't know if the detonation of Jughead caused them to go wherever it is everyone went, so that might be a kink in that theory. Although they "died" or "have been dead" or "dying" I don't know if it's the end of the line for Sayid, Locke (the good one) or Juliet. If any of them were dead as in "not on the show after this" it'd be Juliet, she set off a nuke a foot away from her face plus she'll be in a remake of "V" this fall. However, I hope she comes back because I'm a fan of Sawyer and Juliet, Kate's damaged goods, just let Jack have her.

Now as for the Jacob stuff, pretty cool but we only see him one episode before Ben kills him and evil-Locke kicks him into a fire. Pretty cool new character but I'm sure he'll be back. I'm still deciding if he's a god, angel, demon, or whatever in a "game" against the black shirted other guy, god, angel, demon. The only thing I am making a theory of is that ship at the begging of the episode was the Black Rock (the granddaddies of the Others with Captain Richard Alpert) and this was where Jacob "failed" and flight 118 is his next chance at doing whatever it was he wants to do with bringing people to the Island. Also WAAALLLTT's dream about Locke being chased by people wanting to hurt him is probably that swarm of Others waiting to kick his evil doppelganger's ass. Although shocking, it's pretty depressing that Locke has been dead the entire time and shapeshifting anti-Jacob has been playing us half the season, which means Locke got screwed pretty bad. But who knows, maybe he'll get another touch of life/become Jacob's new vessel.

Finally, what the hell happened when Jughead when boom? I don't think we'll open with everyone in LAX not knowing each other like Faraday said it would cause. Instead i think something else is going to happen. In the words of Faraday's beast-whore-son-killing-mother, "Fate has a way of self-correcting". With that thought I think the season will either begin or end with the crash of flight 118, we'll have Charlie, Micheal, WAAALLLTT!!!, Eko, Claire, Boone, Shannon, Ana, Libby, Frogurt, Artz, Sayid, Good-Locke?? all back but everything goes bizzaro different. Best of all Nicki and Paulo won't even show up. That's at least the vision i have. But we'll see in 9 months!

Random Thoughts and tidbits for May

2009-05-07T00:25:00.000-07:00

So last time i did a blog that WASN'T just movie lines to make people guess, I went on a rant about how Deadpool looks in the new Wolverine movie (which i was told to save my money because it sucks), since i haven't seen it yet in theaters or online I won't say anything but they did greenlight a Deadpool movie which hopefully gives less Deadpool shooting lasers out of his eyes and more classic scenes like this

Funny stuff, anyway this is why i love the character.

Big stuff coming up. Getting married in 44 days, and we FINALLY found an apartment! Our "top picks" had great reviews like "i lived next door to a prostitute" or "my car got broken into" and "this place has a bedbug problem". Finally we did find a good place, lots of Russians it seems, 3rd floor, 1 br and we'll have a deck and fireplace GREAT SUCCESS!!

So things like that has kept me a little busy from Scrubs so I don't get to reflect on it like Dru or Richard did, but I HAVE been following lost and as much as I love the season so far I was pissed about ONE THING:

Yep...they killed off one of the best people on the show since Desmond showed up in season 2. So Interesting character who Guarantees a great episode dies, while boring annoying characters live...

No joke, i literally got excited when I thought she got shot tonight!! But it was Sayid killing Roy from the office (who's a dick in 2 shows now). Anyway one more episode left and that's it for the year with Lost. I'm a little sad next season is going to be the last. Tonight was maybe/maybe not Scrub's last season, but i think I'll miss Lost a lot more. I'll need a new obsession this time next year.

What else... oh I found something I want to make I'm so making those and that'll be how i'll get rid of the boxes in the apartment when i move in. I maybe should wear THIS SHIRT while I'm killing boxes with the wolverine claws. Nothing says I'm a badass like Wolverine claws and a shirt that (according to the reviews on Amazon) has magical powers.

Well enough random stuff for now,
Brad

Geek Rant of the week (assuming this becomes weekly)

2009-04-03T00:08:00.000-07:00

It all began with a leaked picture of a action figure..

THIS FIGURE!!

That little Barraka looking guy is Deadpool...according to the package for the upcoming Wolverine movie. Nothing to really freak out over really, Deadpool is bald, and horribly scared up hence why he wears a full body costume as seen here.

This is the Deadpool in the comics, a pretty cool character he's deadly, and he's also hilarious with his quips and insane moments of talking to himself or to those thought boxes in the comics. So naturally, this figure did not bother me at all, i mean I can live without the red and black costume, and the blades looked taped on...something that Deadpool probably would do fighting Wolverine, just to be funny.

However since this toy photo leaked, something much more bigger leaked...like the entire freaking movie of Wolverine!!! I admit sometimes I do watch movies (not downloading) without seeing it in the theaters while it's still in it's theatrical run, there are ways to do it, but if it's a movie i REALLY REALLY want to see (Watchmen, Quantum of Solace) I'll go to the theater, but if it's one I really don't want to see (Twilight)I watch it in this way. I have not seen this leaked movie but it's nearly impossible to not hear some of the feedback if you're a internet/pop culture geek like me...and now I'm getting nervous.

From some pissed off geeks, the toy shown earlier IS Deadpool. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I don't want it to be. This is the same baldy in the last trailer shooting lasers out of his eyes and a closer look at the toy IT HAS NO MOUTH!!! how do you make the "merc with a mouth" mouthless? anyway I hope that if they do the rumored Deadpool movie they at the very least give him a mouth if this is the real person.

However, I am a bit optimistic as when Batman Begins came out I was a little bummed out about Liam Neeson not being Ra's Al Guhl and Ken Watanabe was playing that role instead. He was billed as Ducard as Watanabe was billed as Ra's respectively, and as i sat in the theater I kept thinking Neeson would be a good Ra's and then the big reveal was Neeson WAS Ra's. So here's hoping.

Now after that rant I feel like a giant nerd...I should go to sleep or something.

PS: If Deadpool wasn't enough of a departure of a cool character, The Cobra Commander, best known for kicking puppies

will look like like this, this summer

-Brad

Things to come (aka resulutions and predictions for the new year)

2008-12-31T11:19:00.001-08:00

In a few hours 2008 will be no more. Personally it was a pretty good year, i worked my first professional job, I proposed to the woman I've been dating for the better part of the last 3 years, I got to start a new life in Colorado, and there were some really cool movies out.

There are a lot of great things happening in 2009, along with my wedding, several good friends of mine and people i know are tying the knot this coming summer. anyway with 2008 on it's final day I wanted to put out a few fun predictions.

My predictions for 2009

>> Fox will allow Warner Brothers to release The Watchmen after a masked vigilante stuffs the president of Fox into his own refrigerator during a interrogation to change his mind.

>> Miley Cirus will end the recession by unveiling a new currency called "Hannah Montana fun bucks."

>> There will be remakes of the remakes of the hulk and punisher movies announced.

>> Kanye West's career will crash when his ego decides to start a solo career.

>> Desperate to make more revenue refridgerator companies will start marketing thier products as proper nuclear bomb shelters (worked for Indy 4).

>> Heath Ledger will win an oscar for his performance in the Dark Knight. no punchline, i think he has a good chance.

i was kinda bored, anyway I'm looking forward to the new year, it's going to be a HUGE year and I'm looking forward to every little bit of it.
Happy New Year!

2008-12-29T22:27:00.000-08:00

It's been a little over a year hiatus since i posted a blog in any shape or form, but I think it's time to return to the world of blogging.
I am currently living in a circle of my own personal hell i call unemployment, but thankfully I was hired for a job (starting in feb) and thank God, I was worried i was going to have to resort to turning tricks or something to stay afloat. I just need to find something to do for the next 34 days. Today I made a blog. now to figure out what to do the other 33 days