Are You Going To Finish That?

We had dinner out tonight with Robert and his family and Ben (a big shout out to Ben for organizing the event). It was at Red Robin. Based on past comments, I know some people don't like Red Robin, but I do. It's a cheap night out. Five dollars for each of the kid's meals, five dollars for mine, and then a regular meal for Ginger. My meal is cheap because I just get the Chicken Tortilla soup (and hopefully remember to ask for it without the leeks on top). After that I can mooch off whatever the kids don't finish. Yea, that's right, I've turned into that guy. I remember years ago back when I was on a bowling league (this was pre kids) one of the guys on the team (we'll call him Clark) would sometimes bring his daughter to the game with him. And she would have some dinner or something and once she was done, he would eat after her. At the time, I remember thinking "That's crazy". I mean, think of their germs (especially from a kid). Who in their right mind would do such a thing. Apparently I would. Amazing how having a kid makes you suddenly do all those things you once swore you would never do. Point in fact, I've found myself sometimes saying "Because I said so" to the kids. I mean seriously, when did that happen?

Here in the US tonight is season premiere of the second season of the new Doctor Who show (season two started a long time ago over in the UK). Here's hoping the new good Doctor is actually good since I really liked the first season. I've heard there's a spin-off of the show called Torchwood coming soon, but I don't know when that will be out though. Funny story about that, Torchwood is actually an anagram of "Doctor Who". From what I heard they were so worried someone would make off with copies of the first season of Doctor Who before they aired that they mislabeled them on purpose with the anagram Torchwood. Someone later really liked the name and decided to create the spin-off.

Now that the new TV season has started, I expect I'm going to be watching less and less movies now, so I figure I would crank out a couple of reviews of some of the recent stuff I've watched. For the most part, I'll try to keep the following spoiler free.

First up is Lord of War. This movie is terrible. I hated it. I almost rated it as only one star in Netflix, but I went ahead and gave it two. Why you ask? Because the cinematography is very well done. Other than that, there's nothing good about this movie. The intro tries to be clever in showing the life of bullet from the bullet's point of view, but this just comes across as gimicky and pointless. The movie at times tries to be preachy about guns causing all the world's violence, but it doesn't even do that well. The 'story' for lack of a better word isn't that interesting and doesn't even go anywhere. The stories of the people around the main character might have been interesting, but we don't get to see those. All in all, I'm disappointed I wasted a Netflix rental on this one. It took me 4 nights to get through it. And near the end I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it and it just wasn't enjoyable.

Next up, Friends With Money. This movie actually has a lot in common with Lord of War. There are lots of differences though. There are multiple characters and stories all progressing simultaneously. The problem is it feels like you're coming into the story in the middle, and when the movie ends, you don't feel like the stories have really gone anywhere. There's not much in the way of emotionally likeable characters here either. This was a movie from Ginger's queue that I selected, so it's partly my own fault (that's two winners I've picked there).

And lastly, I made it through all six discs of 24 Season 4. I picked this up based on recommendations of people that season four got better than season three. After watching it, I'm not so sure. They've apparently decided people can't focus on one story line for the whole 24 episodes now. I remember first season was one long story. Then season two was one overarching plot and dealing with the fallout (no pun intended) of that plot comprising the entire story (oh yea, and there was a 'Kim' subplot that was completely worthless). Season three was one long plot divided into mini subplots of episodes where the story seemed to reinvent itself every six episodes. Season 4 seems to be many many small subplots none of which last longer than 2 to 4 episodes. Perhaps this isn't as noticeable when you watch over the course of an entire season and this is their way of keeping it 'fresh' so to speak, but when viewed in it's entirety it seems overly contrived. And here's a major issue I have, and I've actually had this complaint about the franchise since season two, but on the DVD when you select an episode, there's a preview image that usually contains a scene from the episode. And for some reason they make that image one of the major plot points that occur in the episode, usually with the scene being a huge spoiler for upcoming show. Because of this I've taken to covering my eyes and only looking at one spot on the screen so I can avoid seeing the image. I do remember one time back in season two one of the images had a picture of one of a character after they had fallen and were lying in a puddle of blood, had I seen that beforehand, I would have had prior knowledge of that character's fate and had the 'wow' and 'surprise' factor removed. I shouldn't complain just about TV DVD shows doing this (although that's where I've noticed it the most), but movie trailers are basically doing the same thing these days. Heck, some of them actually show the end scene money shots right there in the trailer. I can't stand it. Whoops, I appear to have gotten off topic. Anyway, the acting and production quality of 24 is really well done. I just wish they had more respect for the viewers and didn't keep veering the plot into these mini subplots every couple of episodes.