Movie & Television Arts

Lost: “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1″

Part one of the two-part season finale, “There’s No Place Like Home,” barely delves into the most intriguing aspect of last week’s captivating “Cabin Fever,” Locke’s plan to move the island (they’re saving that one for next time). The hour functions more as setup for what’s bound to be a gripping three-hour installment that the L.A. Times has already called “a three-tissue affair.” Last year’s finale, “Through the Looking Glass,” was the game-changer. It looks like “There’s No Place Like Home, Part 2″ will be the tearjerker.

(Spoilers after the jump)

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Baffling NASA press release

May 7, NASA issued a press release to say that Wednesday (May 14) at 1pm Eastern Time (that’s 10am here, I think) they were going to announce that some galactic “object” they’ve been looking for for 50 years has been found. Very enigmatic. If they discovered intelligent life, would they put a stupid press embargo on it for a week? Would they have to preface it with “there’s no reason why these aliens ought to immediately invalidate every world religion except for Buddhism and I guess Bahai’ism. Really, there isn’t.” It’s probably just a messed up old asteroid but  we can hope, can’t we.

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Iron Ma’am

You’ve seen it, yes? If not, here it is. Pretty P.C., in my view, since what it’s mocking is the kind of more sophisticated tranny comedy that died with Billy Wilder.

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Gloria Grahame: Bad Girl So Good

Nice piece in Bright Lights about icon of film noir Gloria Grahame. While the author denigrates her performance in Oklahoma (perhaps because it invalidates the thesis of doom) this is a devoted—perhaps slightly lascivious—account of the career of one of the genuine bad girls. Meanwhile, over at Davekehr.com there’s an account of 1952’s The Sniper, a recently rereleased (to TCM) made-in-San Francisco noir that may have anticipated Vertigo (50 years young this week).

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You Only Live Twice Still Masterpiece, Declares Former 11-Year-Old boy

The Simpsons last night referenced You Only Live Twice (in one of those weird boomerang plots that the writers come up with when they don’t have enough material for one episode) with a hollow volcano from where Mr. Burns was trying to launch a missile. My brother, Rodger, and I were nudging each other at Speed Racer during the ninja attack, when an assassin tries to drip some poison down a string into the sleeping mouth of one of Speed’s relatives. Some ninja movie fans claim that poisoned string bit was stolen from this 1962 Japanese movie,  which still seems like the cleverest way of killing a character this side of dropping henbane into their ear while they nap. And I should repeat Pauline Kael’s comment that the opening sequence of YOLT was better than 2001; obviously this film needs the Criterion Collection treatment, with bearded scholars explaining the subtle depths missed by contemporary critics…. 

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Lost: “Cabin Fever”

I’m going to keep it short because I’m preoccupied with another project at the moment, plus this episode is so remarkable I’ve been rendered speechless. It even resurrected my favorite recurring Lost catchphrase, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” That line is to Locke the one-time preemie/ex-paraplegic/perennial outcast what “B.A.D.: Balls, Attitude, Direction” was to an asthmatic Nicolas Cage in the Kiss of Death remake.

Okay, I’m not quite speechless, but I feel like I’ve run out of words to say about the Locke-centric “Cabin Fever.”

(Spoilers after the jump)

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What Would Jesus Do?

Just coincidentally, but maybe not, the documentary Inside a Cult about the Strong City sect of New Mexico airs tonight (May 7) at 10pm on the National Geographic channel—the same day that the AP reports that New Mexico officials have arrested the leader of the apocalyptic coffee klatch. Turns out that leader Michael Travesser (nee Wayne Bent, how perfect is that?), age 66, is being held on three counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor. Turns out, as discussed in the film, that Travesser/Bent, who says he is the Messiah and dresses in sack-cloth robes straight out of a Be Kind Rewind remake of The King of Kings, claims that God has told him to lie down with the wives of his followers and to have young girls get nude in his bed. Why is it that these fringe religious types always decide that the first commandment is a little one-way wife-swapping with the acolytes? Is this really what Jesus would do?

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Margaret Seltzer: the girl Herbert Kornfeld

Watch this video and and lament. The girl in question is Margaret Seltzer, who sold a memoir about her hardcore gang banger life in South LA; convinced the New York Times she was a hcgb/in South L.A., and then was exposed as a big fat faker from the San Fernando Valley. Here she is telling us about how it is out there: did you know the homies don’t consider themselves Americans, they think of themselves as South LA gangbangers first?” It’s hard out here for a chimp (you ain’t knowin)/riding through the skies in a blimp/When Alfred Knopf come knocking on the door/and you got no prose and you poor…”

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Lost: “Something Nice Back Home”

On Tuesday’s American Idol, Paula Abdul revealed she’s a time traveler when she gave Jason Castro her critique of a performance he hadn’t done yet.

There could only be one explanation for that and other instances of erratic behavior.

She’s been exposed to electromagnetic radiation, and it’s caused her to become unstuck in time and utter creepy, incoherent comments.

The A.V. Club jokes that Jason Castro is her constant, but I think we know who her constant really is.

Yep. Just stay in touch with Skat Kat, Paula, and he’ll help you get through American Idol’s never-ending commercial breaks time rifts.

Speaking of constants, I saw an interesting theory somewhere on the Web last week about why Ben Linus can’t kill his nemesis Charles Widmore (Alan Dale)—maybe Widmore is Ben’s constant. If so, it would make their feud even more interesting and complicated. Ben wants the bastard to die, but he can’t survive without him.

(Spoilers after the jump)

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Up in the Sky—It’s Iron Man!

Tonight’s the night, and Robert Downey Jr. is apparently on the verge of a total career redemption, thanks to Iron Man. The initial review are good, better than good. Here’s what Richard von Busack had to say in his review on Metroactive.com (hot off the presses, if that image has any meaning in cyberspace). 

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