Smash – Season One

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Smash – The Complete First Season
  • tv.com: link

smash-season-one-dvdNBC’s attempt to cash-in on the success of Glee and American Idol produced an up-and-down first season of the soapy backstage goings on behind the scenes of a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe.

Katharine McPhee stars as Broadway newbie Karen Cartwright, the most talented member of the cast eventually chosen by the show’s director (Jack Davenport) as the show’s lead, even if he is dating her main competition (Megan Hilty). Other storylines involve the various love lives of the musical’s writers (Christian Borle, Debra Messing), bedhopping, drug problems, and the struggles of the show’s producer (Anjelica Huston) in both her personal and professional life.

The addition of Uma Thurman late in the season as a Hollywood celebrity who lacks the singing and dancing chops necessary to pull off the lead of a musical offered the role of Marilyn to keep the flagging production afloat, is, like everything else about the First Season, only partially successful.

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Castle – Significant Others

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Castle – Significant Others
  • tv.com: link

Castle - Significant Others

Castle’s (Nathan Fillion) life gets infinitely more complicated when Alexis (Molly C. Quinn) returns home from school suffering from mono, his ex-wife Meredith (Darby Stanchfield) arrives unannounced, and Beckett (Stana Katic) moves in temporarily while her apartment is being fumigated. And then there’s that pesky murder of prominent female divorce attorney to solve.

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Fatale #11

/ / Comics

fatale-11-coverRather than start a new arc, the latest issue of Fatale offers up a single issue devoted to an experience from Josephine‘s past on the run in 1930’s California during her early days dealing with her curse.

Still unable to control her effect on men, Josephine’s journey forces her to seek out author Arthur Ravenscoft whose horror pulp story rings a little too familiar with our protagonist. In that empty old house Ravennscoft shares his own experiences with the cult and shows Josephine something which will make her flee his home in terror.

The one-off works well not only giving us more of a glimpse into Josephine’s past (and how the early days of the curse nearly destroyed her and any man who came into her path) but as an isolated horror story as well. We’re also introduced to a police man who had the unfortunate luck to encounter Josephine and become trapped under her spell so completely that her disappearance leaves him despondent with only one one way out. Worth a look.

[Image, $3.50]

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Samsara

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Samsara
  • IMDB: link

samsara-blu-rayNearly five years in the making, director Ron Fricke‘s attempt to capture the Buddhist idea of samsara (the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth) on 70mm is an intriguing proposition. Filming in more than 25 countries across five continents, Fricke and his team captured shots across the globe of nature, temples, ruins, cityscapes, their various inhabitants, and more.

Samsara doesn’t have a narrative structure in the conventional sense, but the amazing amount of timelapse footage from Fricke and his team paints a beautiful (and occasionally creepy) picture of our planet and its inhabitants sometimes set to music and sometimes set only to the natural sounds of the surroundings.

As as a cinematic achievement Samsara is impressive, however some viewers may find the film’s lack of structure or more coherent message disappointing.

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The Mentalist – Days of Wine and Roses

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Mentalist – Days of Wine and Roses
  • wiki: link

the-mentalist-days-of-wine-and-roses

The CBI is called in to investigate the murder of a rising young model who was killed in the park after sneaking out of a California rehab center. Meanwhile, Lisbon continues her investigation into Tommy Volker (Henry Ian Cusick), who has gotten away with a pair of murders including a witness she promised to protect.

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