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Showing posts with label Katherine Heigl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katherine Heigl. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
I’m not in the habit of writing tributes to actors on their birthday, unless I have a mass of time at hand or I’m a big fan but I couldn’t help but sidle out a few lines for Kate Hudson. I’d be pushing if I called her one of my favourite actors; in fact I’m little more than indifferent towards her. It’s probably just my kneejerk propensity to defend the underdogs which makes me automatically come to her defence when she’s regarded as a bane to good cinema. That and the fact that anyone who was born of a Banger Sister can’t be all bad.
What’s so weird about Kate trajectory – upward and downward – was that you’d probably find more than a small throng who’d wager that she was robbed of an Oscar in 2000. I was in single figures at the time and the only interest I retain in the Oscar race that year is merely retrospective (and for the record, Marcia deserved it). I’m neither here nor there on Almost Famous in the first place, so I’m probably not as “offended” as diehard fans who’re insulted at how Kate has squandered her talents. Still, as some passably impressed with her work there I’m always more moved to remember her work in 2003’s Le Divorce as anything potential seminal. And, that’s an opinion that more often than not gets me into trouble....
Merchant Ivory’s quasi-comedic French tale is remembered most often with revulsion – just take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes’ page. I have no shame in admitting my appreciation for it - it's in my top 10 for 2003, and most of that stems from the great rapport Kate shares with her onscreen sister Naomi Watts. It’s not that I remember my fondness for Le Divorce unencumbered by her lesser moments (two opposite Matthew McConaughey, and a couple other missteps); and I don’t think the fact that she was the least memorable in Nine (another film I liked) is proof of her infallibility. She’s not exactly accountable for her extraneous character, right?
I suppose the problem with Kate is that after continuous poor script choices audiences begin to hold her culpable, which is unfortunate. Heaven knows why she chooses the scripts she chooses. Desperation? Folly? A terrible agent? I’m sincerely willing to believe that Kate has a(nother?) good performance up her sleeve. And not only is she the daughter of an Oscar winning Banger Sister, she has the same initials as a cinematic icon, but then she has the same initials as this Katherine – who’s the object of much loathing. But, then, I like that other Kate too. But, that’s a whole other post...
For, now I’ll wish this Kate a happy birthday. Hopefully she emerges from the cinematic doldrums sometime soon. Good lord, woman, you're 33 - no time like the present.
Friday, 10 September 2010
Jess reviews two films I'll probably never look at, The Hot Tub Machine and Killers. I continue to hold out that Katie Heigl will someday wise up and choose better scripts because I refuse she's suddenly turned into a horrible actress. It's a bit like a broken promise how her career has crashed and burned before it began...Castor is hosting a month long blog-a-thon as bloggers pitch movie ideas complete with actors and a director. I only posted mine yesterday, but thus far I'm completely smitten with Ruth's epic drama. It's a good read, and it's nice seeing the (hidden) talents of our fellow bloggers.
I spent a few days last summer reading Chocolat. The film is much more positive, and I like it for that...turns out so does Robert - which pleases me. That's one film that needs a few more fans.
Fitz took a look back at Sean Penn's Into the Wild. That's a film I only vaguely remember now, though I don't feel moved to rewatch it. I probably should, though. On the topic of Penn, though, do you consider him to be an actor/director? The Flick Chick includes him in her top 5 in that category.
PS. I know I owe you folks a long overdue review of The English Patient...but my computer has crashed (ominous score). So don't hold your breath, unless you're suicidal like Almasy.
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Saturday, 26 June 2010
My oh my. What a question, I've read a few titles for this day (skimmed is more the word) and I see the types they've chosen and I'm really at a loss as to what to pick. I'd always had three season finales on my mind, though I'm still not sure they're the best season finales or the most shocking. There's "The Gift" the season finale for Buffy, the Vampire Slayers Season Five. Then, there's the two parters "Deterioration of the Flight or Flight Syndrome / Losing My Religion" the Season Two closer from Grey's Anatomy and "Goodbye for Now/One Wonderful Day" from the First Season of Desperate Housewives. However they'll rank on the list of great performances they really are three excellent season closers.
You know I don't like choosing so I'll do a quick recap of each finale and tell you why they're OMG, WTF worth. They may not seem so shocking, but watching it makes you see it more. Still here goes - beginning with Grey's Anatomy.
Grey's Anatomy: Season Two Finale
Backstory, in case you don't know the show is about surgical interns. At the moment Izzie Stevens (an excellent Kate Heigl) is cutting Denny, her boyfriend's, LVAD wire because unless his condition worsens he will lose the chance of getting a donor heart and he may give up on life and head in to the light. WTF? I think so too...
Breaking it down, it goes like this - It opens with what we learned in the last episode. Burke has been shot OMG. Meredith has joined George with Izzie and Cristina informs them of Burke's test. Dr. Bailey, their resident, finds them all breaking rules and orders them out but Izzie shouts them down refusing to leave (W.T.F). Alex is at another hospital waiting for the tests to confirm whether Denny is critical or not, but the rude attending there refuses to wait (WTF). Eventually, though more lies, he does get the heart and Dr. Hahn grudgingly returns to Seattle Grace to take part in the surgery since Burke is incapacitated. Burke might not be able to use his hands again and Derek must perform on him (OMG). Denny gets the new heart, but for punishment the interns must help the Chief-of-Surgery's niece pull of a ridiculous prom (OMG - seriously?). Denny asks Izzie to marry him even though he's NEVER seen her outside of the hospital (WTF). All are called in for questioning, but no-one spills the beans even Alex, who Izzie dumped him to hook up with Denny. Eventually though Denny dies because of a blod clot (O. M. G.) and Izzie cries through the entire of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" eventually quitting the hospital surgical programme (WTF). Oh, and Derek and Meredith have sex in a closet and the episode ends with her there, unable to decide to choose between him and her current boyfriend (WTF - who the hell wouldn't pick Chris O'Donnell over sleazy adulterer McUnDreamy?)
Desperate Housewives: Season One Finale
Backstory: Somebody killed Deirdre, Mike's ex-fiancee from a decade ago and he's intent on finding the murderer. He believe it is Paul Young, who happened to kill another neighbour who was blackmailing his wife Mary Alice - leading to her suicide. Bree and her husband Rex are about to be separated (he's been unfaithful), her pharmacist is poisoning him to death, but no one else knows. Tom's ex-girlfriend is working at his company again and his wife is jealous and Carlos may be going to jail for some white-collar crime. Okay, good. Susan is walking around the street being her usual annoying self.
Rex gets a heart attack, but Bree is being passive aggressive and makes the bed before she drives him. (WTF). She realises it's serious and checks him in. Gabrielle suggests to Carlos that the baby she's carrying may not be his and he freaks out and attacks their new gardener, who's gay (WTF). Lynnette's ridiculous jealousy makes Tom lose his job (WTF! OMG!). Paul Young's son Zach is staying with a nosy neighbour Felicia, the sister of the woman Paul killed, who shields him from his father's location (she has actually sent Mike out to kill him OMG). Zack goes berserk when she doesn't tell him the truth and bludgeons her until he gets it (WTF! OMG!). The new neighbours arrive and though Edie sold them the house they refuse to let her show them around (WTF!). Susan's constant ridiculousness leads her over to Mike's house where Zack is waiting with a gun, she's trapped there for the rest of the episode (OMG). Rex's doctor realises that he has too much potassium in his blood and Rex immediately thinks Bree is poisoning him. He writes a note of forgiveness and dies, Bree receives the news cleans her cupboard of silverware and then sits down to wail (OMG). Gabrielle testifies that she was making her husband jealous which is how the mix-up came about, but her original gardener shows up and tells Carlos the news in court, who attempts to beat him up (WTF). Wait: there's more. We learn that Mary Alice and Paul took Zack to a new town when his druggie mother sold him to them. She returns three years later clean and wanting her son. A scuffle ensues and Mary Alice kills her (OMG WTF OMG WTF). They put the body in a box and put it out to sea. When Mike learns the truth from Paul he does not kill him, but goes home not knowing that Zack is there waiting with a gun (OMG).
Buffy, The Vampire Slayer: Season Five Season Finale
Backstory: Glory is super evil, that's really all you need to know and she's planning on destroying the world by opening a portal that Dawn, Buffy's sister's, blood is the key to; hence Dawn is being held captive. Tara, Willow's girlfriend, has gone catatonic due to Glory's wiley ways.
The one way to stop the world is to kill Dawn, Buffy of course refuses. The gang decide then their best option is to avert the time of Glory's attempt since the world can only be stopped at a particular time (WTF). Xander proposes to Anya, who tells him to wait until the end of the world doesn't happen - OMG. Spike is finally allowed back into Buffy's house and the two share a heart-to-heart (OMG, so nice). The usual fighting hijinks ensue and there a lot of OMG moments (like Giles murdering Ben) but it's the end when Buffy KILLS HERSELF to save the world and we're all left doing a collective OMG WTF (this is the SECOND time she dis). Damn, I love this show.
Okay, that was one big splat of verbosity. This MEME is killing me, but I love it.
Monday, 21 June 2010
I don’t know who invented this word (in this context), it’s a bit silly. If you don’t know what a ship is go HERE. Its entry in the meme – especially since yesterday’s post is essentially a variation on it. Nonetheless, I give you five “ships” (ugh).
Romantic 'Ships
Spike and Buffy in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
I’ve never liked Angel, perhaps it’s because I generally find David Boreanaz to be annoying. Thus, I never really bought into the whole Buffy and Angel, true love yada yada ya. Since Spike easily trumps everyone in Buffy as far as I’m concerned the pairing with our heroine worked for me. Spike was still a badass (and a smartass) and he and Buffy still had their issues, but Gellar and Marsters had excellent chemistry.
Ross and Rachel in Friends
It’s probably the first television relationship that I was invested in. They were just supposed to be with each other, true much comedy came from them not together but they have good chemistry and Schwimmer and Aniston work well together. Those few episodes where Rachel was paired with Joey was just painful…and of course it’s the fairytale for all – a glamorous (if spoilt) and beautiful woman and a nerdy and somewhat neurotic man.
Alex and Izzie in Grey’s Anatomy
I was interested in their relationship even before they actually had a relationship. It’s more than just the physical, even though they do have some scorching chemistry but they play emotional opposite each other just as well. Of course with Heigl gone we might get Chambers paired with the exasperating Lexie (Chyler Leigh). They should just let him remain single. This relationship stands out as one of the best thing on Grey’s Anatomy.
runners up in order: Chuck and Blair in Gossip Girl, Chuck & Ned in Pushing Daisies, Rory & Jess in Gilmore Girls, Miranda and Steve in Sex & the City
Platonic 'Ships
Alex and Meredith in Grey’s Anatomy
I know, Grey’s Anatomy again. Sorry. I know I just spoke about the greatness of Alex and Izzie but maybe it was just me but there were moments in Season Two I was anticipating a relationship between our titular character and the resident delinquent. Both of them have severe commitment issues and though they’re not in a relationship their scenes together (though rare) are quite nice and they do work as friends. She was the one who convinced him to get married (and I know it's Cristina and Mer who have that unbreakable bond...but hmm, no).
Will & Grace in Will & Grace
As if you didn't see this coming. All chances of romance were off, but they still had amazing chemistry, ridiculous fights and undying love. Sure Jack and Karen upstaged quite often, but when it came down to the real relationships they had it going on.
runners up (in order): Chandler and Joey in Friends, Meredith and Cristina in Grey's Anatomy, Xander and Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
More of the meme HERE
Which ships float your boat?
Sunday, 20 June 2010
They say a picture is worthy a thousand, so I suppose a video is worth a million. On that logic here are two million words...
Look at both and tell me which kiss is...better.
This is lovely for nostalgia...
This one is just...great...
Incidentally, both are first kisses. Which do you prefer?
Of course, this is all for the MEME.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
This one was a bit easy, I wasn’t choosing an episode of Friends because I think I’ve watched my favourite episodes an equal amount of time and even though the show I was going to focus on has a bloc of somewhere around 25 episodes I adore the one I was deciding on came easily, too easily perhaps. Then I realised I had come down to two episodes and didn’t know which to pick…
The show I’m choosing is Grey’s Anatomy; it’s probably time for the medical drama to close-up shop…and then again, no. Even though it’s nowhere near as excellent it could be, it’s still one of the saving graces on TV. Its second season (and parts of the third) still exists as a period of innovation unparalleled on most ABC shows and I’ll always love it for that. It eventually came down to two episodes from that same season and I was really torn as to which. Should I choose the excellent super bowl episode “It’s the End of the World…As We Know It” with all its excellent thrills or should I choose the season-finale two parter (but still one episode to me) “Losing My Religion/Deterioration of the Flight or Flight Syndrome”. The very reason that season two and three stand out is because it’s before the departure of Kate Walsh and Isaiah Washington and before the introduction of Eric Dane – who’s never been a favourite of mine; he’s not a particularly good actor either. In the end I decided I’d focus on the former one, it’s my blog after all – I could always return to the season finale some other time.
I’m not American so the super bowl doesn’t mean much to me, but it’s notorious for precipitating excellent episodes of TV (remember Julia Roberts on Friends?) and it was no different with Grey’s Anatomy. Note, this is probably not my favourite episode or anything, but it’s somewhere near the top and with good reason. Even for a non-fan of Grey’s it exists as an excellent standalone episode of network TV. It also has Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey in the dark and twisty register that I love her in. The episode begins with her Meredith getting a premonition about impending doom. Show creator Shonda Rhimes notes on the DVD commentary (yes, I have the DVD) that she wanted to set up all the things in the episode so that even someone who was not a regular watcher would not be lost, and she does. With just a few minutes we get the main dynamics, Sandra Oh’s Cristina is the assertive one; Heigl’s Izzie and T. R. Knight’s George are a little irresolute and Meredith is in the depths of despair.
The episode begins in the most normal of ways. A patient is admitting with a shrieking wife. It’s one of the usual things on Grey’s Anatomy, psychotic patients. All this is paralleled with the excellent Chandra Wilson’s Dr. Bailey’s return to the hospital in time to birth her baby under the watchful eyes of Kate Walsh’s Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd. What makes this episode a super bowl one is the discovery that the patient in ER actually has a homemade bomb in his stomach which paramedic Hannah (played excellently by Christina Ricci) has her hand in. From then on the hospital goes into lockdown and we wonder if Meredith’s death premonition is forthcoming. It doesn’t of course, but that doesn’t make the episode any less tense or moving. It depends too much on theatrics to be the show’s best episode but it’s still excellent in more ways than one with all the main cast member’s turning in excellent performances, along with the guests.
Episode Grade: A+
Number of times scene: at least 15
The meme continues, check back daily for more posting...
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Did anyone watch Grey’s Anatomy’s season finale last Thursday? Season six has been a bit hit and miss, and without Izzie something just a feel a little off, I’m no fan of those Mercy Westers. Still, everyone knows that if one thing’s notable about Grey’s Anatomy it’s that the season finale is usually quite strong, and last Thursday’s double dose of “Sanctuary / Death & All His Friends” was easily one of the best instalments of the last season.
– Chandra Wilson is still one of the best actresses on television and it’s an affront that she’s still Emmy-less. At this point, I’m not hopeful that she’ll ever win the prize. She’s done her best work in Seasons Two through Four (she was actually the best thing in the stodgy season Four) but she’s been passed over continually. The highlight of the show has always been the acting and Wilson, Pompeo, Chambers and Ramirez each brought their A-game. Incidentally, these five continue to be the best actors on the show (even if Chambers and Ramirez are never remembered for their work).
– Dr. Webber (aka James Pickens Jr.) was on the ball throughout the episode. He’s been battling with his alcoholism for some time now, and it was a good moment seeing him confront those issues in attempt to save his hospital. I suppose this would mean that he returns to his job as Chief – and really, it’s about time. Derek really wasn’t the man for the job.
– Was it just me…or was anyone else thinking that they’d kill off Patrick Dempsey? Really, I wouldn’t have been too sad about it. For someone with so many admirers he strikes me as one of the blandest leading ladies. I now in the whole MerDer legend, Meredith is the one everyone hates but I’ve never liked the two together.
– What ever happened to Mandy Moore? Every now and then Mandy Moore reminds me that she’s just a little better than people give her credit for. Sure, her guest performance consisted mostly of playing dead and fumbling with bedpans – not exactly heavy lifting. But it did remind me of the promise she has (had?).
– Where do we go from here? Is Meredith going to get depressed, dark and twisty because of her miscarriage – I’ll admit I like dark and twisty Meredith. Are Lexie and Alex going to hook up? God, I hope not. That’s a loathsome idea. Back in season four I had thought that he and Cristina were heading somewhere (granted, back in season three I thought he and Meredith were heading somewhere)…so I’m probably not a good judge of these things. And with Hunt finally manning up and choosing Cristina does this mean Teddy will finally be leaving? I sure hope so…
Ranking the Seasons…
Season Two
Season Three
Season One
Season Five
Season Four
Season Six
Ranking the Season Finales…
Season Two
Season Five
Season Six
Season One
Season Four
Season Three
Did you watch the season finale? Thoughts? How would you rank the finales and the seasons?
Monday, 26 April 2010
Friday, 9 April 2010
I’ve been busy lately, and I haven’t been watching as much of anything as I usually do – especially television. It’s old news by now, but I was bit dismayed by the news of two departures from television shows I usually love. Emmy Winner Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy and Paul Schneider (one of the lone persons of normalcy on the hilarious Parks & Recreation), have left their posts on their respective shows. I’ve been following Grey’s sporadically this season, because of time issues. Sure, it’s not as good as it used to, but I’m still a (tempered) fan. I’ve always been very fond of Heigl’s work, but her character had become so shrill I wasn’t too sure what the writers were up to. Poor Justin Chambers (who I feel was robbed of Emmy love last season) can’t even catch a break with Alex. I figure there’s no romantic steadiness imminent for him, since he and Heigl’s Izzie severed their marriage of a few months. Grey’s just isn’t the same without the original people, even T. R. Knight, who was won’t to annoy me on occasion, saddened me with his departure. I really would like for Grey’s to get back on track, for their sake at least (I still love Pompeo, Chambers, Oh and Wilson) but I’m not too sure how’s that working out.
I’ll be missing Schneider too on Parks & Recreation, I will admit that I preferred his weird chemistry with Poehler’s Leslie Knope to his romance with Rashida Jones’ Ann. They were just both too normal for each other. Schenider presented a balance to Parks & Recreation with his sedate humour and sense, and even though I’m glad he’s pursuing his film career after his excellent turn in Bright Star, it’s still sad when an original leave. I’m not so worried for the fate of the show, though. With the excellent cast, things are looking good…if only they’d get Megan Mullally back for another guest stint… and Schenider says he’s willing to return to the show if his schedule permits, so I guess all bets aren’t off.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for consistency; I’ll admit I don’t like when things change, but what are your thoughts on cast members leaving their TV shows. Sure, life must go on, and careers will grow but it always pains me. Then I heard Charlie Sheen is threatening to leave Two & A Half Men. That doesn’t bother me so much; they just cancel that atrocity.
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