“Inception” is one of those films that defy easy description. Though the reception to “Inception” has largely been positive and the box office highly profitable - a rare case of public and critical sensibilities lining up in tandem- one look at the message boards at any given major critical site shows a house divided. Continue Reading

Steve Carell and Tina Fey are amongst the most reliable comedians working in television today. Carell got his start on the “Daily Show,” before hitting it big with one of the few decent adaptations of a Brit sitcom, “The Office.” Continue Reading

When I was a kid, a local theatre used to have these children film festivals and I lived right down the street, so I would go all the time during the summer. One fateful week, they had a Ray Harryhausen film festival, and I got to see the Sinbad flicks, “One Million Years B.C.,” (aka the one with Rachel Welch in a fur bikini- an effect unto itself), “Jason and the Argonauts” (aka the one with the skeleton army that Sam Raimi ripped off…er, paid “homage” to in “Army of Darkness”), and last but certainly not least, “Clash of the Titans.” Continue Reading

The cut-out bins of America are littered with the corpses of musical efforts by actors-turned-singers, and the results have rarely been pretty. Think Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, even (shudder) William Shatner. Continue Reading

Mark Trammell

I’m pretty much a sucker for 3-D, but I always wondered why no one truly talented tackled the approach. Yes, I know Hitchcock did one back in the day- “Dial ‘M’ for Murder”- but that was a tad before my time.

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Triple threat Singer/Songwriter/Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg has quite an interesting background.

Her dad is French superstar crooner Serge Gainsbourg, best known for the steamy “Je t’aime Moi Non Plus,” originally featuring Brigitte Bardot, who Gainsbourg was romantically involved with at the time. Continue Reading

It’s always kind of disconcerting to see a once-promising filmmaker get sucked into the machinery that is Hollywood, but I must confess I’m somewhat surprised to see it happen with Kevin Smith. Continue Reading

“Crazy Heart” is one of those movies that feels so authentic, you can’t help but think it’s based on a true story. Indeed, it seems like nothing so much as yet another in the long line of bio-pics of musicians that have flooded the screens in recent years. The Kris Kristofferson story, maybe? Or maybe Waylon Jennings?
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It’s hard out there for a Mel. When we last left Mel Gibson, he was on top of the world, with hits like “What Women Want” and “Signs,” followed by a highly lucrative foray into directing with the ginormous box office smash “The Passion of the Christ.” Indeed, he was so powerful and successful back in 2006 as to get a big budget film spoken entirely in Mayan (!) green-lighted in Hollywood, like the only slightly less successful “Apocalypto.”
Then came the “incident.” It was an ugly situation, with a drunken Gibson spewing sexist and anti-Semitic comments as he was hauled off by Malibu police for DUI. My, how the mighty have fallen. Not the easiest thing to come back from, but old Mel’s giving it a go, anyway. And you know what? It’s not half-bad.
This is Mel in his most successful wheelhouse, playing a guy driven to the edge by some sort of injustice to avenge someone by any means necessary. It worked for him in “Ransom,” “Payback,” and, most successfully, in the “Lethal Weapon” series. And it still works in Edge of Darkness.”

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The end is finally near, and you would think after five seasons that die-hard “Lost” fans would have a leg up on…well, pretty much everything. However, you would be wrong. Sure, certain mysteries have been explained over the course of the series, but newbies would be shocked at how many answers are still up in the air… pun definitely intended.
For instance, we still don’t know exactly what the island is. Is it purgatory? A virtual simulation? An online videogame? An alien craft left here long ago? That last one would certainly explain how it can be physically moved to another location. Yes, that’s right, newbies, the island was actually moved at one point. Don’t ask me how, it just was. The only thing I know is that it happened by turning a so-called “donkey wheel,” another device we know precious little about.
Nor do we know the significance of the numbers. Or why there are polar bears on a tropical island. Or why Walt seemingly has supernatural powers. Or what kind of “game” Widmore and Ben are playing, what the “rules” of the “game” are, and, for that matter, how Widmore was able to break them. Or who Jacob and the “Man in Black” are, and whether they are playing the “game” as well. Do Widmore and Ben work for Jacob and/or the MIB? Or are they mere pawns in the twosome’s own ongoing “game” who merely think they have some semblance of control over the island?
Then there’s the Dharma Initiative. Clearly, the DI was there with the intent of studying the island- and its recruited inhabitants as they themselves performed various activities- and knew that the island was “special.” Yet, how did they discover the island in the first place? Okay, we know that the Lamp Post Station had something to do with that one, but how did someone figure out that there was even was an island in the first place? How many people know about it? Who runs the DI, and to what end, ultimately?
Yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions on “Lost,” and in typical “Lost” fashion last Tuesday’s premiere left even the die-hards with more questions than answers. (Beware those who haven’t watched the premiere yet- Spoiler alert!)
When we last left our castaways, they were in the process of setting off a Hydrogen bomb, in order to “reboot” time. Or something. Juliet bashed the bomb, it apparently went off, and/or there was a “time flash,” and the show ended for the season. The big question was, were the castaways successful? Did they make it to a time where the plane never crashed in the first place? Or was it a failure and nothing changed whatsoever, costing them the lives of possibly two of their people: Juliet and Sayid. The answer: Both. I think.
To wit: the premiere presented us with what appears to be two distinct and possibly separate timelines: one in which the plane does indeed land safely and the crash never happens, and another in which the castaways appear to have jettisoned themselves from 1977 back to present day (if you have to ask…). The big question is, of course, which one of these is real? Are either of them real? Or are they both real and represent two possible outcomes of detonating- or not detonating, as the case may be- the bomb?
Creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the primary creative driving force behind the J.J. Abrams-produced show, have dubbed this approach a “flash-sideways,” and that sounds about right. We start with the flight-formerly-known-as-ill-fated. We see most of our main castaways, yet with subtle differences. Didn’t Jack get two bottles of booze from that stewardess instead of one? Wasn’t Rose the nervous flyer? Where’s Shannon? And what the hell is Desmond doing there? For that matter, why does Desmond seem to disappear later?
Meanwhile, concurrently, we have the “survivors” of the hydrogen bomb: Jack, Sawyer, Juliet, Kate, Sayid, Jin, and Hurley. Juliet and Sayid are both in dire straits, and the change in environment seems to indicate that they are now back in the present. On the bright side, this would seem to indicate a reunion of Jin and Sun is inevitable (yay!), yet on the other hand, Juliet and Sayid don’t look so good (boo!).
Enter an assumedly dead Jacob, who appears to Hurley and tells him to take Sayid to the Temple, a place heretofore only seen from the outside on the show. There he will supposedly be healed. When they arrive, they are met by a mostly new group of people, some of whom are assumedly the Others, and some of who were on the plane, including the Stewardess that gave Jack the booze and used to be one of the “tailies” (aka those who were in the tail-end of the plane and crashed on another part of the island from our main cast). There are also two new characters, who I have dubbed Fu Manchu and Skinny Lennon (as in John Lennon) in lieu of their actual names, which have yet to be presented.
Once inside, Sayid is held down under what one assumes are “healing” waters in a pool, yet, as one of the denizens of the Temple points out, the waters are unclean where they used to be crystal clear. Is this because of Jacob’s “death,” in the previous season finale? Or is it because Sayid has done so many evil things and thus, cannot be healed and the unclean waters are meant to warn them from putting Sayid in the pool in the first place?
It’s hard to say, but by the end of the show, Sayid is up and talking, so something must have happened, good or bad. Or both. The prevailing theory seems to be that Jacob has possessed Sayid. The problem is, why would Jacob possess a “bad” character and the Man in Black possess a (mostly) good one in John Locke? Are their very presences enough to wipe the slates clean in their respective hosts? Or is Jacob actually the bad guy and the MIB the good one? Seeing as it’s been equally tough to determine whether Ben or Widmore are good or bad guys (or Eloise, for that matter), it’s impossible to say. That said, Ben was clearly on team Jacob until he felt Jacob betrayed him and subsequently killed him, while the MIB clearly hates Jacob since he instigated Ben to do it in the first place. That doesn’t necessarily mean that MIB is bad and Jacob is good, however.
Needless to say, it’s a lot to take in, and viewers will no doubt be endlessly debating what exactly is going on this season in the months to come. Of course, that’s exactly why so many people have latched on to the show in the first place. When was the last time a show has inspired so much theorizing and debating?
“Lost” is a one of a kind experience, and there is no doubt it will continue to be dissected and explained for years to come on internet chat rooms, in books, and in spirited discussions among its fans. Lord only knows how it will all come together in the end, but what a long, strange trip it’s been while it’s lasted. And I, for one, can’t wait to see the next chapter.

Mark Trammell

Staff Writer