What's on my Television?

While I have been prepping marines for painting, I have also been watching some Netflix goodies. One of my personal passions is movies and television. If given the opportunity I would love to work in Hollywood despite all the craziness a simple production worker would put up with.

My passion for film making, may be one of the reasons I love to DM role-playing games all the time. Its movie making, without the movie, but still with visual props and the interesting story telling techniques I love. In the future I will blog more about my role-playing sessions and views.

Here are some of my thoughts on what I have been watching this week:

Remember Me (2010)
My mother recommended this movie to me, saying I have got to see it. I looked it up on IMDB and it had Chris Cooper,  Pierce Brosnan, Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson. The cast, with the exception of Robert Pattinson are some of my favorite people in Hollywood.

The movie itself is a coming of age drama that opens with 11-year-old girl named Alyssa "Ally" Craig (Emilie de Ravin) witnessing the murder of her mother on the subway. It then jumps forward a decade to show her as a college student living with her over protective father.

The audience then is introduced to Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pattinson), a moody, direction less 21-year-old, who is auditing classes at NYU and working in a book mine. He has had a strained relationship with his businessman father, Charles (Pierce Brosnan) since his brother Michael's suicide.

Both of these characters are dealing with a tragedy and both of them find happiness in each other's company. What intrigues me about this film is how real the character's feel. Within the two hours you see them all grow as people, overcome some of their problems and generally learn to live again. That is really what this movie is about - learning to live in the moments we have since you never known with some terrible event that cannot control will befall you.

The ending is very bold. I never saw it coming, and when I did I stared open mouthed at the screen saying "No way". A few critics have blasted the movie for the ending, but honestly it was one of the most thought provoking pieces I have seen in a long time.

I warn you dear reader, do not look the movie up and ruin the ending - watch it unfold!

Saving Grace (2003-2007)
Saving Grace is a television show that aired on TNT about an Oklahoma Cop named Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) who lives a reckless life of booze and promiscuity. She blames herself for her sisters death in the Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In the series opener, Grace meets up with her "last-chance" angel, when after a night of drinking she runs down and kills a pedestrian with her Porsche. In desperation she calls out for God's help, and a scruffy, tobacco-spitting man who calls himself Earl (Leon Rippy) appears.


The three seasons of the show follows Grace as she tries to deal with the unwanted attention of her last chance angel and figure out who or what he is really. Earl's only goal is to convince Grace to have faith in God. 


What really intrigued me about the show was how it dealt with the topic of religion. The show does not promote any one religion but does use the story to discuss the topic of faith, and how difficult faith can be in such an imperfect world. In fact one of Earl's charges turns his faith to Islam! The show is never preachy and sort of makes you wonder if we each have guardians angels looking out for us or of people are just lucky.


The beat of the story was also unusual. Most episodes closed on a pseudo cliff hanger or thought provoking question. It made me want to see the next episode just to see how some part of the story played out. Also the character development is pretty rich and well done. 


Another underlying theme is that you cannot blame yourself for the evil in the world. Many characters suffer from this flaw and carry guilt from the death of a loved one thinking they were somehow responsible. This theme struck home with me because for a while I was carrying guilt for grievous crimes that a friend of mine committed before he took his own life. As people we think we have more control over the actions of others than we do.


Evil and hatred become personified in the series when we are introduced to a mysterious character who turns out to be a agent of the devil. The actor played the part well, and you will find yourself completely hating what he does.  


Finally the ending to the show is more abrupt than I wanted. However it was perfect ending for the character of Grace. I will not spoil the ending, because I did look it up before I saw it and it lessened the wow factor I think.


ThunderCats (2011)
I cannot wait for this show to start! I was reading up on the show's voice actors and discovered that Will Friedle has been cast as Lion-O. Some of you may remember him as the voice of "Terry McGuiness" in Batman Beyond. I cannot wait!