Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance

Didn't know anything about the franchise before watching this, but wow, was this impressive. Thought it was just going to be robots hitting each other ala Transformers, but was pleasantly surprised. Animation, as with all Japanese animation, was superb. Action sequences were great...really suspenseful and held my attention throughout. Light-hearted moments were a relief, especially Pen Pen the Penguin, because, quite frankly, the overall tone of the movie is pretty depressing. Some very powerful scenes, including Eva 1.0 under auto-pilot horribly ripping the guts out of the Angel, and the final sequence where Shinji tries to save Rei from the Angel. Highly recommended. Count me in as a new fan of the series.

TV Roundup: Week of 23 November 2009

Not much to say of this week's Thanksgiving-themed episodes of HIMYM and Modern Family. Both were pretty ok. Light on the laughs department. The see-saw between Ted and Robin got old quick, and the resolution was pretty much telegraphed that Marshall would end up being the one to slap Barney all along. Didn't much care for the Lily subplot with her dad. The chaotic finale to the Modern Family ep was less satisfying than all the build-up. The plot device of having the quasi-mystery of who got hurt at the hospital and then flashing back to the earlier events didn't seem necessary, while none of the plots (Cam as clown; Manny seeking dating advice from his dad; Claire at the crafts table) were particularly funny.

Stargate Universe: "Life". Goodness, another turgid, turgid episode. The show seems to see-saw between watchable and unbearable eps, and this one's firmly in the latter category. Felt for TJ, who had the unenvious task of seeking folks out for their pysch evaluation. Rush was insufferable (what else is new?), while the personal storylines involving Young, Ming-Na's characters and Scott would have been more interesting had I been more invested in the characters, which I'm not.

No, we should be thanking *you*, 静茹

静茹's lovely tribute to all her fans! Set to the wonderful 爱是...

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: "The Northern Wall of Briggs"

Round 1 of Scar vs. Kimblee, though brief, was pretty awesome; the two nemeses recognizing each other, Scar preventing Kimblee from using his Philosopher's stone by driving a crankshaft through the latter's abdomen where the stone resides, Kimblee's crazed, scary monologue, after his escape, of how he loves his morbid task. Also great was Ed and Al's first meeting with General Olivier Armstrong, preceded by (another) pretty cool battle between the brothers and her aide Captain Buccaneer. Judging by Winry's remark, she probably knew that automail doesn't work well in the cold too. Next week looks like a real cracker, with the first substantial appearance of Sloth. The new episode can't come soon enough!

TV Roundup Week of 16 November 2009

Excellent episode of HIMYM this week. Was becoming less invested in the show, but this was a winner. Barney taking centerstage is always a plus, and Neil Patrick Harris gets amply opportunities to show off his comedic chops here. The various plays in the Playbook was nicely enacted, and I always love it when Lily and Barney interact.

Modern Family was a good episode too, especially the guest-star turn by Edward Norton as a haughty star whose ego far far exceeds his talents.

The Office: "Shareholders Meeting". Fairly ok episode. Highlight was how Jim dealt with Ryan's utter poor attitude, by Jim's own unique prankster style. Very nice. Pam's TH about almost forgetting to support Jim was an LOL moment. The main plot of the shareholders meeting didn't do much for me, with Michael doing his thing and falling on the side of grating. The office's excitement at seeing the limo was rather infectious though, and underlines the small town nature of the Scranton branch that a limo can generate so much commotion. I would be over the moon too in their shoes.

Parks and Recreation: "Hunting Trip" Hilarious episode. P&R is the funniest comedy around lately, and it's good form continues this week. Both main and subplots hit the target (pun unintended). The subplot with April and Andy fooling around in the office while everyone was away on the hunting trip was unexpectedly sweet in its on off-kilter way. Anything with Ron F*ing Swanson is comedy gold these days, and his TH about his hunting trip being stamped out once Leslie told him chirpily that she was tagging along was an LOL moment. Nice bit of pathos at the end too after Ron realized that Leslie, whom he had thought was the one who shot him, was actually covering for Tom. Good change of pace too to see Jerry, for once, being accepted into a circle (in this case being part of the regular hunting party together with Ron and Mark), instead of being the target of the office's ire.

Stargate Universe: "Time"

Very good episode this week. Was about to rail at the initial Kino POV that it was all style for no good reason, when it turned out that TPTB had a good reason. The production designer did a really good job with the jungle setting, and the rain especially accentuated the torridness of the attacks by the planet's creatures. Despite being done probably like a gazillion times before in scifi, I liked the solar flare time travel bit. Scott making use of the solar flare to send a new Kino back in time to tell the crew what exactly will happen in the future nicely sets up the second part.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Episode 32

Relatively slower-paced episode this week. Grumman's disguise was fun, and effective. Didn't recognize it was him till he was standing next to Roy. Highlight of the episode was Ed and Al's visit to the Bradley household, with Selim and Mrs. Bradley humanizing King Bradley with personal snippets of his family life, while Ed and Al obviously knew the horrible truth. My heart broke when Bradley exited and there was his newly appointed personal assistant, Riza, waiting for him. Roy's trusted aides, and his most faithful companion, well and truly have been taken from him. Scar and Marcoh's cat and mouse with Kimbley's troopers was filler material, though it does set up what looks like a real doozer of a battle next week.

The Office: "Murder"

Michael having the entire office to role-play in the titular "Cluedo" like scenario in order to distract them from the rumor that Dunder-Mifflin is going under came across as somewhat unbearable at times. This is especially so when Michael insisted on continuing when the office had heard from Oscar that the company had asked the accountants to withhold payment to suppliers, and when Michael refused to take Wallace's call because he was so insistent on remaining in character. However, as is the trademark of "The Office", even when the premises aren't delivering joke-wise, they almost always have a great payoff. In this case, Jim following Michael's lead in everyone role-play in order to hide the bad news that he had just heard from Wallace. Andy and Erin are shaping up to be Jim and Pam: The Early Years 2.0. Ed Helms is slowly revealing a soft side to Andy (but wisely not so much as to make the change too unbelievably drastic), while Erin is easily likeable being so perpetually perky, so this could actually work, even if first impressions are that the writers might be treading familiar ground. Love the tag with the standoff when it was revealed that Pam was in on the zaniness too, and I also enjoyed the throwaway running gag of Ryan donning ultra-douchebag outfits.

Stargate Universe: Season 1 Episode 7

Fell asleep in the middle of watching the episode, so can't really give a review of it, and don't really feel like watching it again, but what I saw, I didn't like. Again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the show tries to be serious like "Battlestar Galactica" but it just doesn't come across with the required heft, and there's simply not enough likeable characters to plaster over all the flaws and keep the audience watching. If it continues in this vein, I'm not sure I'll be blogging about it any more.

Parks and Recreation: The Camel

Another strong installment. The running gag with the murals returns, and this time takes centerstage as finally the offensiveness of their contents forces TPTB to have the different departments come up with alternative suggestions to the theme of "The Spirit of Pawnee". Poor Jerry, who quite clearly came up with the best mural, fudges his speech and the rest of the folks were too busy laughing at his faux pas to notice the actual mural itself. Fun to watch Tom becoming increasingly enamoured with the abstract mural he paid an art student to concoct for him (including him tearing up during the tag!). Mark's mural was, as Ron put it, very pleasing and calm to look at, and probably would have won if they had gone with it. But Leslie's eventual decision to go with the montage of everyone's mural suggestions was in keeping with her character and tone of the show.

Best. Song. Ever

听了百万遍都不会厌的超棒歌曲! There aren't enough superlatives in the English language to describe how awesome this song is :)

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: "The Promise Made for 520 Cenz"

Excellent, excellent episode. No other show on TV matches FMA:B right now in terms of consistent excellence. Highlight was Dr. Knox's reunion with his family, pitch-perfectly done. Tender, heartfelt...his monologue especially as he poured tea brought me to tears. Ok, so admittedly I cry rather easily. Still...extremely affecting moment. Another highlight was seeing Roy and Riza's farewell. Just really nicely done here...conveying how they feel about each other without either of them saying anything direct. The animation, writing, direction and voicework here is simply superb at bringing across such nuance. And in an episode packed with events, Kimbley, the nefarious Crimson Alchemist, is now free (through no small help by Envy), and on the hunt for Scar. Which brings us to the nice twist from the last episode, that Marcoh isn't, in fact, dead. Still, Scar disfiguring him was pretty brutal, and in front of young May Chan, no less. Kimbley vs. Scar sounds like a real battle royale. Laugh-out-loud moment of the week, without a doubt, goes to Ed's drawing of Xiao Mai. Dude really doesn't like pandas :)

TV Roundup: Week of 2 November 2009

Parks and Recreation:
Superb episode this week. Ron taking centerstage is always a treat, and libraries being vilified like they've never been vilified before was hilarious. The Andy-Mark-Ann subplot inevitably suffers by comparison.

Modern Family: "En Garde"
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I thought nothing could possibly come close to "Parks and Recreation" this week, but boy, did this match it blow for comedy blow. Laugh-out-loud from start to finish, and I lost count of the number of great one-liners in this. My personal favorite was Phil proudly proclaiming his son to be the future real-estate mogul "He's gonna drink your milkshake". The whole Manny fencing plot was pure comedy gold, and also very nicely tied in to the (by now obligatory) "family is good" moment of the week, which didn't seem out of place at all and indeed rounded off the plot well. Claire and Mitchell's history as figure skaters also provided its share of the laughs, especially Mitchell's snide remarks about why their team was named "Fire and Nice". Phil and Claire's TH as they do the rundown on their kids' potential (Alex is the best at everything...she'll settle on something eventually; Ashley's good-looking...she'll find someone who's the best at something; Luke...we kinda dropped the ball on that one...yea, we kinda did) was another LOL moment. All in all, solid solid installment. The next episode can't come soon enough!

The Office: "Double Date"

The double date between Michael/Helene and Jim/Pam was painfully awkward, to say the least, but cringingly funny. A highlight was seeing Michael gradually realize that he doesn't really want to be dating a woman older than he is because he still wants to, or have the option to want to, do things like a triathlon or bungee jumping. Prior to this, it was nice to see Pam coming to terms with Michael dating her mom when she saw how sweet Michael was being to Helene on her birthday by having their table at the restaurant specially decorated and especially the very thoughtful gift of the scrapbook. Things went off the wheels, however, upon the aforementioned realization by Michael, and he proceeded to dump Helene on her birthday in front of Pam. Clever touch of showing that Pam and Michael are both sides of the same coin when it came to potentially avoiding unpleasant situations, with each trying to weasel out of it by claiming the higher ground (e.g. Pam trying to avoid going to the lunch by pretending to be tied up with work; Michael pretending that his reason for breaking up with Helene was because he didn't want to make Pam awkward). Jim refusing to let Pam off the hook in terms of going to the lunch was hilarious, and harks back to Pam similarly dragging Jim back in "The Dinner Party" when he was on the verge of escaping Michael's titular dinner party. The plot then took a turn for the slapstick with Pam's punch of Michael in the parking lot, although it does set up the laugh-out-loud moment when Toby told Pam it was ok for her to do so as long as it's outside the office premises, and then Toby proceeding to teach Pam how to punch to inflict the maximum possible damage on Michael! The subplot of Dwight and Andy trying to one-up the other in terms of being polite was fun in the initial part, but ran out of steam a little towards the end. It was probably not helped by the fact that it was built on a fairly incredulous premise of Dwight wanting the entire office to ow him favors so he could cash in those favors later to oust Jim. Even by Dwight standards, it was pretty unbelievable. Still, an enjoyable episode overall.

Stargate Universe: "Water"

Ok episode this week. Felt like a rehash of the second episode on the desert planet, when the team needed to mine resources from an inhospitable planet due to a shortage back on ship (in this case water). To be fair, the writers did admit the similarities, though, in the many references back to the earlier ep, and even the sand alien from that ep made an appearance here. Eli's holier-than-thou chastisement of everyone else for lying to Young when he was off-world about the alien situation was off-putting, and again relegates the character several notches down in my favorite character list for the show, which admittedly runs pretty thin. Though the situation with Young not leaving Scott behind after the latter fell into a crevasse was predictable, I did like the portrayal of Young being a good commander again (and that's not mentioning him entrusting the ship to TJ and telling her she'll do fine). It's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, but the show really needs a strong moral anchor right now. The alien attacking Gorman was pretty horrifying, though I don't think the various homages to the "Alien" franchise, e.g. Greer wielding the flame thrower, the ice planet etc, worked that well as homages. Again, the show is aiming too hard for "Battlestar Galactica"-like gritty realism, reinforced by the brief scene at the end where Young had to deal with the various mundane complaints of the residents. But it just comes across so far like a kid trying to act grown-up, and it's not working so far. Would the show work better if it lightened up and adopted the approach of its SG franchise predecessors. I'm not sure, but there's only one way for the producers to tell.