Weekend in Reviews

Light on movies, heavy on TiVo catch-up this weekend.

Samurai Girl - I have an affinity for ABC Family and Disney Channel original movies because I like cute, frivolous, cheesy stories where everything works out perfectly in the end. So last month I TiVo'd ABC Family's miniseries Samurai Girl. It's about Heaven Kogo, a Japanese girl orphaned as a baby and adopted by one of the richest families in Japan. Turns out that Heaven's father is actually an evil mobster who's trying to use her to become...more powerful? It was a little unclear exactly what he was going to get out of the big plan. Anyway, there's like a gang war or something and Heaven has to thwart her father's plan in order to save herself and her friends. The leading man was played by Brendan Fehr with whom I'm familiar from his days as teen aged alien Michael Guerrin on Roswell. I'm well aware I might be the only person here who watched Roswell, certainly the only one who'll admit it, but whatever. I think we all know by now that I have no shame. So back in the Roswell days Fehr was sporting some truly atrocious hair (first season it stuck straight up on his head, second season it laid down on his forehead and curled up around his collar and ears, third season it was long and curly and both of the last two were extra super greasy) and his character was full of attitude and stupidity. He wasn't terribly appealing. Now, he comes off as a mature, responsible, grown man with a shaved head and so...he's kinda good lookin'. Oh yeah and the movie was cute enough to keep me up until midnight rather than waiting a day to find out how it ended.

My Own Worst Enemy - I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, pilot's are really tough. Under the best circumstances, they've got a LOT of exposition to get through but the more complex (or convoluted) the premise of the show, the more exposition you get and the more boring and/or confusing the pilot. Such was my issue with the first 1/2 or so of this pilot. It was just boring. Christian Slater screwed and then killed a chick in the first 5 minutes and still it was boring. That didn't seem like a very good sign. But fortunately it picked up by the end and I was seeing the potential for fun. It gets a season pass, we'll see how they do keeping the fun spy stuff up and the boring blah, blah, blah to a minimum. Also, they should give Christian Slater more wickedly funny stuff to say and do, that's really where he becomes fun to watch.

Saturday Night Live - I am just going to start by saying that I detest Sarah Palin. The possibility that she could become the President of this country scares the living crap out of me. And I have loved every single impression of her that Tina Fey has done. I wanted to hate her on Saturday Night Live, but unfortunately for me, she was a really good sport about it. Mark Wahlberg was also pretty funny. Lot of self parodying going this weekend. On a side note, I have a huge crush on Seth Meyers.

I also caught up on episodes of Chuck, House, Private Practice and Samantha Who? and saw a play...

Enchanted April - The play was put on by the Arizona Theater Company, it starred several Broadway actors including Kathryn Meisle (Tartuffe). It's the story of four British women in 1922 who leave the dreary weather of London for a month-long holiday in Italy. It was the funniest play I believe I'd ever seen. Fantastic cast, fantastic writing, gorgeous set pieces. I highly recommend it to anyone in the Phoenix area looking for something to do.