"Kings"

One of my favorite shows on TV is being cut short on NBC -- "Kings" will be ending in a few weeks. The show is set in a future time in the city of Shiloh in the country of Gilboa. A loose retelling of the story of King David, (his daughter is Michelle, or "Michal") the show's visual symbolism is amazing. The crown of butterflies on David's head, when David avoids a sniper thanks to a lone dove, smoke blowing in two different directions -- all examples to watch for. You can catch up on the series thanks to Hulu.com now through September 20, 2009. After that you'll have to buy (or rent/Netflix) the DVDs of the series. My favorite aspect to the show is the formality in speech, in particular with King Silas (Ian McShane). In "Pilgrimage" he says a prayer that I really love; I'll repeat it here for Steph and Ethan:

My Family - always in my heart when not in my eye. May the time apart enrich the time spent together. May there be enough love left over until the next time we join hands. Amen.

The Dark Knight & Hancock

This weekend I saw "The Dark Knight" as well as "Hancock". DK was, in a word, awesome! Christian Bale is the definitive Batman and Heath Ledger is hands-down the best Joker. Bale easily portrays Bruce Wayne in a way that Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney (was that even worthy of 'Batman' status?) never could. Let's hope he continues the Batman saga and doesn't disappoint with Terminator 4. Ledger's performance as The Joker was evil, dark, unyielding and overall stellar. It's a shame he will no longer be able to give another powerful performance. Dark Knight's two and half hours didn't feel that long thanks to the intense action and steady plot. No spoilers here but one question for my audience -- where can I get one of those Batmobiles?

"Hancock" was a decent movie and worth seeing in the theater (compared to the wasted $17 dropped on "The Happening"). Will Smith was good in this movie and the one-liners were hilarious! Jason Bateman's role was nondescript basically serving as a cast filler to make the story work with Smith and Charlize Theron bringing the brawn and beauty, respectively.

NBC Pilots: Journeyman, Chuck, and Bionic Woman

Thanks to the miracle that is Tivo, and to the partnership with Amazon's Unbox service, NBC is offering broadband-connected Tivo users the ability to download the commercial-free pilots for NBC's fall shows gratis.

I snagged Journeyman, Chuck, and Bionic Woman.

Let's start with "Chuck". The general idea is that Chuck receives an email from his former college roommate shortly before said roommate is killed. The email contains "all of the government's secrets subliminally embedded" into images. (Don't get me started on how the email transmitted millions of images in about a second.) Chuck is a nerd and works for the TV equivalent of Geek Squad. He's assigned a hot attractive CIA agent to protect him against those that would harm him. The show also features Sarah Lancaster ("What About Brian?") as Chuck's sister. This show is over-the-top -- the action shots, the plot, all of it. It's only hope is that the ladies in the show keep enough guys interested to prevent early cancellation.

"Bionic Woman" is interesting and dark. Yes, the story loosely follows the original. Her name is Jamie Sommers. As many of you will recall -- you take one attractive, young, and seriously injured woman and implant fifty million dollars of nano-hardware and you get one Bionic Woman. She sees incredibly far away, can hear anything she wants, has super strength and a lot of people want to kill her (because she wasn't their first choice of a candidate for the uber-secret program). I expect this show will last at least one season. It's well shot, has good special effects and kept my attention.

Finally, "Journeyman" is a modern day "Quantum Leap" sans Al and with a lot more leaping. Dan randomly is put into the past, some of which is quite familiar to him. He comes back to present day randomly but each time he's in the past he learns a little more of what he's there for. His present day family thinks he is crazy, but can he prove otherwise? The pilot was very well made... I loved it and hope to see this show excel.

So, if you have Tivo and don't want to wait -- start clicking!

Bad-ass Bourne

First came Identity, then Supremacy, and now Ultimatum. One of the greatest action movie series ever created.

Steph and I joined Michael and Sarah this weekend to see the third installment in the Bourne series. It did not disappoint.

Let's get something straight. Bourne is NOT a Bond. Bourne doesn't have neat gadgetry, a sports car, a tuxedo, nor the want to charm anyone. Instead, he has a book, a newspaper, bare hands, and street clothes. I won't spoil anything for those of you that have yet to enjoy the latest in the series. You will [hopefully] notice that the end of Supremacy was actually well into Ultimatum. We learn just how Jason Bourne/David Webb came to be and why he is seriously, undoubtedly, pissed off. (The whole promised-one-thing, doing-another trick.)

Matt Damon is an action hero (ahem, the chase in Morocco). He doesn't need Ben Affleck getting in his way. Julia Stiles is back -- at first as eye candy, but you realize she's wrapped into the plot more than ever before. And, if there's not a fourth movie, a lot of people will always be asking questions.

See this movie, my friends -- only after you've seen Identity and Supremacy, of course. It rocks.

RedBox and the Golden Arches

After seeing RedBox on Engadget and in my local McDonalds as well as the McDonalds near my work I just had to give it a try.

One dollar ($1) per night with no late fees. You just pay $1 for each night you have it past 7:00pm. If you visit RedBox.com you can get your first night free. Some McDonalds have these inside and some are in the drive-thru. And, you can return the movie to any RedBox location. You can rent online to reserve your movie for pickup at the vending location of your choice.

Why is this better than NetFlix? Simple -- little to no waste. Steph and I were on the $17.99 plan at NetFlix which was unlimited rentals with 3-at-a-time. Most months we watched 3-4 movies. That was $20 (with tax) for 4 rentals, or $5 each. So, we changed to $9.99 which was 1-at-a-time unlimited and we watched 3 movies in 2 months. That was $20 for 3 movies or just shy of $7 per rental. We were giving our earned cash away for nothing.

We have a Series 3 Tivo and can download through the Amazon Unbox service. This has the pros of never being out of stock and you can have the movie of your choice in 15-30 minutes download time. You also get 30 days to start watching it and once you start you get 24 hours to finish it. There's no driving and no return necessary. What it is not is DVD quality video and is only stereo sound (not Dolby 5.1 or DTS). And at $2.99 a pop it's only marginally better than NetFlix.

What I find with RedBox is that the 3-4 movies we watch cost us $3-4 in total, not each. If we don't have time to watch we don't pay anything. We have to pick up the discs and take them back but it's not like we aren't out and about daily (and often several times a day).

So, here's to you, Golden Arches, for partnering with one of my new favorites -- RedBox.

Bruce is back

Having seen the first three Die Hard movies (numerous times) it is essentially impossible to ignore the latest movie -- "Live Free or Die Hard". I won't spoil anything for anyone, you can read the plot online if you want, but the movie is undoubtedly 'Die Hard' in nature. Things explode, a couple of bullets are distributed, cars are wrecked, and the body of a man endures impacts, blows, and injury beyond imagination. Sure, there are a couple that-would-never-happen scenes but overall it is one great action movie. Yes, fellas, take your wife. Steph liked it, too!

POTC: At World's End

Sorry for the blogging hiatus -- work's been extremely busy lately. Steph and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End today at the new NCG theater in Gallatin. The new theater's DLP setup and digital sound made Keira Pirates look outstanding on the big screen.

Not the best in the trilogy I don't think, but still quite good. The spoilerless plot summary is that Elizabeth (Keira Knightley -- yeah), William and Barbosa want to rescue Jack from "Davy's Locker" (death) but all of them for a different reason (Barbosa owes a debt, William wants to rescue his father, and Elizabeth... well, watch it). Standing in their way, of course, is Lord Bennett & the East Indies Trading Co. Johnny's as great as ever, and "Jack" The Monkey is at his best yet, but more of this installment centers around Elizabeth [and why shouldn't it] and William. So, what did you think of this one?