Season Finale of NCIS: Los Angeles

NCIS: Los Angeles is one of my favorite shows currently on TV and I have been a fan since the very first episode that aired on NCIS.  G. Callen, played by Chris O'Donnell, is my favorite character and I adore watching him evolve over the episodes.  The finale for season 3, however, had me distressed.  Callen murdered an evil man in cold blood while TV crews watched and was immediately arrested for it.  Looking at it from the character's perspective, you understand why Callen wanted this man, the Chameleon, dead as he had killed some of Callen's colleagues.  But Callen always seems to have self control when it counts.  He's an orphan whose mother was murdered in front of him as a child, he was never accepted in any of his many foster homes, and he doesn't even know what his first name is.  He has endured this tortured childhood and yet become a valuable member of NCIS.  He has turned his life around.  While he is always on the edge of loosing it, his inner strength and values of right and wrong always surface in the end before its too late.  But not this time.  It was disturbing to me as I don't want my favorite character to loose his humanity. It is the glue that holds him together when everything else in his life is falling to pieces.  I hope that in the premiere of season 4 redemption for Calen is achieved or at least shown as a possibility down the road.  I am very curious to see how the writers turn this plot twist around.

Snow White and the Huntsman

So I went out with friends last night to see Snow White and the Huntsman not expecting much except for the hotness that is Chris Hemsworth.  In return I was pleasantly surprised at this magical interpretation of the Snow White tale.  This turned out to be a great film.  While I am not a fan of Kristen Stewart, her acting and English accent were quite good and I actually liked her in this role.  Chris Hemsworth was perfect in the role of axe bearing hunter extraordinaire with his sexy english accent.  But, Charlize Theron stole the show as the evil queen. The special effects/makeup for her transformation was amazing.  All of the familiar Snow White elements of the story were there, the evil queen, the apple, the dwarfs, the kiss, but it was presented in a fantastic grown up way that gives the story a whole new life.  Props go out to the director, cast and crew for this creative interpretation.  The only thing I didn't like about the film was the ending.  *Spoiler Alert* - When Snow White becomes the queen she stands in front of her subjects with a fanciful stick in her hand (what?) and looks out as everyone praises her.  The Huntsman comes in and looks at her with a smile, in return she looks at him with an expression of constipation.  Strange to say the least.  She has just become queen and can do and have anything she wants and she looks at him, the man who brought her back to life, with a distressed look.  What???  Then the movie ends.  No embrace, no, kiss, nothing.  Total fail on the ending!

Avengers!

     This was an exciting movie, and a funny one too!  I wasn't sure what to expect as I have had mixed reviews of some of the individual character films.  I loved Captain America and the first Ironman film but Ironman 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk (2008) were just passable flicks in my opinion.  I think that the genius of this film is the fact that no one character has more screen time than another.  We get just enough of each character to like them but not enough find them annoying.  The banter between characters is also a huge plus - Ironman and David Banner bonding over their intellect - loved it!  I had never heard of the character of Hawkeye but he was fantastic both in looks and in character (way to go Jeremy Renner).  I was so glad he didn't stay with Loki for long.  And speaking of Loki, he was a great villain in this film, much better than he was in Thor.  The Hulk was probably my favorite character in the end as his comic timing was right on target.  When he punches Thor out of the blue and then throws Loki around like a rag doll, I was laughing so hard I was in tears, brilliant!  He was the character I have known about the longest as I was a huge fan of The Incredible Hulk TV series growing up.  His two films have fallen so below the mark that I was afraid they would screw him up again in this film, but they didn't, he was great.  Also, by using Mark Ruffalo's likeness for the Hulk they fixed the egregious CGI issues of the past.  This was the first time I didn't miss Lou Ferrigno as the big green guy.
     And now for the few dislikes of the film...the aliens that Loki was working with didn't look real and their big ships looked like sea turtles in the sky.  The Hulk was able to control himself way too fast, wasn't that his main struggle at the beginning of the film? And then once the aliens attacked he was able to quickly bring it under control enough to work with his friends.  Just a little too fast guys and no explanation of how either.  Overall, this was a great flick, kudos to Joss Whedon for the direction and the script!

Praise for Person of Interest

It took me a while to get into the show Person of Interest but I am now a huge fan.  I knew I had to give the show a try since it is another J.J. Abrams production and I usually love his creations.  Undercovers from last season was a big disappointment though so when it took me a while to get into this one I was afraid it was because it would be another bomb.  It turns out it just needed a few episodes to get the characters established.  Jim Caviezel is perfect in the role of John Reese, ex-CIA operative who is presumed dead.  He is lethal to those who deserve it and protective of the innocent.  Finch, played by Lost's Michael Emerson, took me a while to get used to.  As I was a huge Lost fan, it was difficult at first not to see him as Ben every time his face appeared onscreen.  Now, however, he is transforming into the character of Finch before my eyes.  Making Detective Carter a more essential part of the team has added a nice element to the story and the flashbacks of Reese with his former girlfriend make him more human and vulnerable to the viewer.  The only thing I don't like is that the show is not available on iTunes, such a bummer.

WB Ultraviolet Digital Copy Rant

     So I just bought my copy of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 which was a wonderful ending to an extraordinary film/book series and yet I'm upset at the same time.  Why? Because the Bluray set no longer comes with an iTunes digital copy.  Instead you get an Ultraviolet digital copy.  Now I'm all for new technology, in fact I love it, but if you come out with new technology, it at least has to contain what the previous version did and then add new features to it.  Ultraviolet does not and that is what angers me.  On the surface it looks like another way to have a digital copy of a movie on your computer, but once you read the fine print you find out that it is a step back instead of a step forward.  The digital copy you get ONLY works with the Ultraviolet technology which is a new program you must download to your computer, kind of like iTunes so I'm not mad yet.  Then after you set up two accounts (one with Ultraviolet and one with Flixster - kind of a pain but still not too bad) you can download the movie to your computer.  Great! To get it on your mobile device you have to download the Flixster app (no biggie) but then here is where the first problem appears.  At the moment, you can only stream the movie to your mobile device if it is an iPad or iPhone.  This becomes a problem if, like me, you have unreliable wireless internet or if you have a wifi only iPad.  So now, I'm at a doctors appointment, waiting, and I want to watch my movie but I can't because there is no wifi.  All the other Harry Potter films are iTunes digital copies, so I can watch them right away because they are stored locally on my iPad, but I can't watch the final destruction of Voldemort.  They say that downloadable copies are coming to mobile devices eventually which will help with this issue but unfortunately when you read the fine print you realize that there is another HUGE problem.  You can only download the digital copy that you purchased 3 times.  So that would be once for your computer, once for your iPad and once for your iPhone.  But, what if you switch computers? Or what if your phone falls into the pool and you have to buy another one? Or what if you got a lemon of an iPad and Apple replaces it for free.  You have already used up your three downloads at this point so now you can no longer have the movie on that particular device.  Also embedded in the fine print is that this particular digital copy only lasts for 3 years.  So after 3 years, I can no longer watch my digital copy that I bought on any of my devices.  Of course the idea behind this is to prevent piracy, but what it does instead is further hamper the honest citizens of the world who are trying to do the right thing and buy digital copies instead of using torrent sites to get them.  Now I'm not saying that the iTunes system is perfect, because it still has issues too, but at least with the iTunes copy I can put it on any 5 computers, deactivate accounts on computers I no longer own and put the digital copy on as many mobile devices as I want.
     So what this new system leaves me with is a choice.  I can buy the Bluray/DVD copy and use freeware to burn myself a digital copy (not exactly legal but it should be since I own it) or I can only buy the iTunes copy (the quality doesn't come close to Bluray and I can't watch it on my big TV without Apple TV) or I can do what Warner Brothers really want and buy copies in all formats making me even more broke than I already am.  (Of course I have left out the last option of using torrent sites from now on to get my movies, but I'm just not that kind of girl.  I'm trying to be good and honest here WB and you are throwing that honestly and loyalty back in my face!)