Friday Flix: Roswell

Welcome to another edition of Friday Flix. Since the BFF and I recently visited New Mexico, interesting in watching Roswell spiked, and as it’s available on Netflix, I gave it a go. I knew what this show was going into it (teen drama) but I’d watched Dawson’s Creek back in the day, so I figured it would probably be something like that.

For those that don’t know, here’s the Roswell description from Netflix:

In Roswell, New Mexico, human/alien hybrids Max, Isabel and Michael closely guard their true identities from enemies while forging romances with classmates and gradually discovering their destiny to save their home planet.

Seems like the perfect formula for a teen drama right? Girl meets boy who’s not human, and he’s the forbidden fruit, but he can’t stay away from her and no one can know their secret. (Sounds like a few other familiar plots out there, right?)

ROSWELL THE CITY

Having been to Roswell in person, they didn’t do a bad job pretending the part of California they filmed in was New Mexico. But I did notice the mountains in the background a lot (not really the case in Roswell), and sometimes the city looked way bigger than it actually was. But for those that have been dying to know, no, there isn’t a Crashdown Cafe in the real Roswell. Not even anything close. In fact, the real Roswell could take lessons from the show on how to promote tourism when it comes to restaurants. Not that I’m complaining too much. Big D’s Downtown Dive is still calling my name with those ridiculous Monte Cristo sandwiches.

Mmm… I still love you!

Anyways, I’d be willing to let these details go if the rest of the story was more interesting. And it was… for awhile. I made it 10 whole episodes before I decided lits (life is too short).

LEADING MAN

“I’m boring… so boring…” via Wiki

Roswell was out right in the height of major WB (now called the CW) popularity. We had Dawson’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Smallville for that matter. So a lot of these characters feel the same across the teenage drama-verse. Which is interesting to note a lot of this stuff is almost formulaic, but in the right hands can be fantastic, and in the wrong, boring.

Okay, if we’re being honest, I probably couldn’t stand a re-watch of Dawson’s Creek for the same reasons. The leading man. He had mysterious going for him, but once we realize he’s an alien pretending like he knows anything about what’s going on, blaaaah… He’s got that too perfect character vibe. He could be a robot and show the same amount of emotion. By episode ten I’m already ready for Liz to break up with his “yes-let’s-get-together-no-wait-I’m-an-alien-so-we-can’t” attitude.

Supposedly the leading man, Max, has loved Liz his whole life and risked everything saving her life, but risking a romance is too dangerous. Why? It worked out all right for Superman. Geez, it even worked out for Edward and Bella. I guess Max’s excuse is, well, I want to protect you from the difficulty being with me could be. *eye roll* *gag* I know, it’s all for drama, but Max is a robot who probably likes feeling like he has to suffer. *yawn*

“Did someone call my name?”

Let’s take Clark Kent from Smallville in the almost exact same situation. You know more than anything he wants to be with Lana (then Lois). And he’ll take whatever risks necessary, even to his own detriment. He’s a character of action. And when he can’t have Lana, he tries dating other girls in the meantime to see if she’s really the one.

Maybe that’s the problem. Roswell is too much about their relationship while Smallville is more about the superpowers and the relationship is a subplot. I don’t know. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments. Max is just dry, boring toast. Period.

Friday Flix: Adventure Time

What time is it? Adventure Time! Not that I need to convince many of you to watch Adventure Time. But since I got the first season on DVD and it’s what I’ve been watching, here we go.

I remember way back in the day when Adventure Time was nothing more than a sample Nicktoon of 7 minutes or so. Yep, that’s right, Adventure Time was originally a Nickelodeon product. But because the execs at Nick were a bunch of patoots and couldn’t see the potential in the short, it was Cartoon Network that gobbled the goodness up.

And is anyone really surprised it’s Cartoon Network that took a chance on Adventure Time? If there’s one thing I really miss not having cable, it’s the Food Network. But an almost tie would have to be Cartoon Network. Shoot, I remember when CN was just a fledgling network too. Good times…

Anyway, back to Adventure Time. What is it about? From IMDB.com

A human boy and his brother – a magical dog – set out to become righteous adventurers in the Land of Ooo.

To be honest, this show is very absurdist in its approach to plot—a bit like the Simpsons. But having been a film school kiddie, the thing is you start to feel like you’ve seen everything, so something like Adventure Time comes as a breath of fresh air. I like the absurdism because life generally doesn’t make much sense either, at least while you’re in the middle of living it.

To give you another reference, it’s kind of like the kiddie version of Napoleon Dynamite style humor. Stuff just happens, often in strange or unexpected ways. Of course for Finn and Jake, it’s far more adventurous.

Friday Flix: Boys Over Flowers

Okay, I’m cheating just a little bit on this one, since this is a TV series and not a movie. But it’s still worthwhile I promise. Let me introduce you to a Korean drama called Boys Over Flowers. I can’t remember how I stumbled onto this little gem, but I’m so glad I did.

Boys Over Flowers is originally a Japanese manga. There’s a Japanese anime and even a Japan version of the TV show. I haven’t seen the anime, so no comment. But on the TV show, I tried watching it, but I found Jun Matsumoto to be all wrong for the male lead. It’s probably the Korean version’s fault. Lee Min Ho does a much better job. (It’s probably from watching Jun be a “dog” in Kimi Wa Petto).

Anyways, the plot from Wiki:

Geum Jan-di is an ordinary girl whose family owns a dry cleaning store. While delivering dry cleaning to a student at the prestigious Shin Hwa High School, she saves his life by stopping his attempt at jumping off the roof and is given a full swimming scholarship. She attends Shin Hwa High and soon is terrorized by the leader of F4 (the four richest and most popular boys at the school) Gu Jun-pyo.

Although Jun-pyo persists on bullying her, he begins to find himself attracted to Jan-di. However, Jan-di has a crush on Yoon Ji-hoo, Jun-pyo’s best friend.

Let the love triangle romance begin!

PREJUDICE OF THE POOR

Let’s face it. Most of us aren’t rich and probably a lot of us harbor some angry envy toward those that are—especially when they’re snobbish about it—more especially when it was something just handed to them. It’s a subject matter that appeals to a wide audience, so they’ve already built up story sympathy that way.

And just to sweeten the pot, the show us how poor the female lead, Jan-di, is. She has a job, Mom and Dad both have jobs—oh, and Dad has a gambling problem. So getting that swimming scholarship seems like it would be a big boon to Jan-di, only it isn’t. She doesn’t want to attend a snobby, rich kid school. And, it seems, every hates her for being poor in the first place. See how much conflict they’ve already set up in the beginning?

Friday Flix: The Decoy Bride

And we’re back with another edition of Friday Flix. I considered doing this post on Valentine’s Day, but comics demanded they had their place and since it was Thursday at that time anyway, well… Here we are.

Today we’re featuring, The Decoy Bride, starring Kelly Macdonald, Alice Eve, and of course David Tennant. Yeah, I think a lot of us would watch a movie just because David Tennant was in it. So, I did.

The description from IMDB.com:

When the world’s media descend on the remote Scottish island where a Hollywood actress is attempting to get married, a local girl is hired as a decoy bride to put the paparazzi off the scent.

THE GOOD

That should be obvious, shouldn’t it? David Tennant. And he uses his Doctor Who accent. And he does a fantastic job with his character. Plus I loved a certain scene where he ends up “playing” the bagpipes. It might be worth it just for that.

Our heroine, Katie (Kelly Macdonald), is also quite hilarious as awkward small-town girl. You might recognize her voice from Brave. Anyway, it seems they wrote most of the script for her—at least in that she has some great awkward girl moments that will make you both squirm and laugh.

Friday Flix: The Amazing Spider-Man

Welcome to another edition of Friday Flix. This week we go super—or at least there’s a superhero involved. It’s The Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. This was one of those movies I kept meaning to see last year and it just never happened. Thank you free Redbox code for giving me a movie to watch on a cold, snowy day!

Let’s get to getting.

The description from IMDB.com:

Peter Parker finds a clue that might help him understand why his parents disappeared when he was young. His path puts him on a collision course with Dr. Curt Connors, his father’s former partner.

We start the movie off with Peter Parker as a kid, I’m sure meant to create immediate sympathy between us and Petey, because he’s a poor little cute kid. You’re always going to feel something for them cute things, right?

I was a bit skeptical of Andrew Garfield. To me he looked like a Backstreet Boy in a red and blue suit. But his performance surprised me. Instead of being the geeky kid everyone tolerated, he was the weird loner everyone tolerated. It works. And I did like him as Spider-Man. In fact, I think he makes a better Spider-Man than Tobey Macguire. (Note I only said Spider-Man, not Peter Parker).

Backstreet’s back, all right!

THE TROUBLE WITH REBOOTS

My biggest problem with a reboot so soon to the last set of Spider-Man movies it the previous movies are still too fresh in my mind. And for me, if you subtract the semi-disaster that was Spider-Man 3, you’ve still got quite a memorable and well-told franchise. Sam Raimi, Danny Elfman, and a guest appearance by Bruce Campbell! And in Amazing we have…that Brit guy, that girl and that director who did…

Although it had been 5 years since SP3, it still felt like the other movies had just come out. Batman Begins had 8 years between it and the last Batman atrocity. But I think we can all agree SP3 was certainly no Batman & Robin.

I think the writers had the right idea starting out. The mad scientist has the appropriate motivation, fixing an arm. They kept the Osbornes physically out of it so we didn’t have too much throwback to previous movies. But somehow the story still struck me as unoriginal. I know there’s nothing new under the sun, but I wanted to come away from the movie agreeing a reboot was necessary. I didn’t.

CONVENIENCE AND THE UNEXPLAINED

I guess it’s movie logic that because your father was a scientist you automatically would understand every complex thing he was working on when you discovered the files containing his top-secret work. I suppose you could say he just brought the formula he found to the mad scientist, but the way the computer somehow knew whether or not it would work was unbelievable to me too. At least the spiders made a little more sense. (Gah! When they all fell on him I about died! I’m serious!)

His favorite place to chill when he’s reading advanced metaphysics.

But supposedly him and the lead girl (whose name I still can’t remember, despite reading it a few times for this) go to a science high school? But so why do they have a basketball team and a weird jock bully if it’s a science high school? Wouldn’t most of the students attending the science high school be less bullysome, and not like Flash? And it seemed awfully convenient that she happened to work in the lab and would know how to make the cure they needed to save the day in the end.

I also didn’t buy into him “developing” his own webs. I suppose technically he stole the idea from OsCorp, but I couldn’t really buy the amount of webs he was using in the movie. Even the BFF turned and asked me, wouldn’t he have run out by now?

NOT SO AMAZING

Raindrops keep falling on his head…

Most of the movie I found myself wishing we were watching Spider-Man 1 or 2 instead. It’s a shame we couldn’t take the Brit kid’s Spider-Man and combine it with Tobey Macguire’s Peter Parker somehow. I also missed Rosemary Harris and Cliff Robertson tons (Aunt May and Uncle Ben).

It’s not a terrible movie, and I didn’t hate watching it. I was just left with a big, “So what?” And less motivation to watch Amazing 2 whenever it hits theaters. I think I may go pull out SP1 & 2 this weekend. It at least inspired me to do that much.

What did you think of the Amazing Reboot? Was it Amazing? Not? Do you love the Brit kid way more than Tobey, or were you missing Tobey as well? What do you think of reboots? Is there a wait time they should give the movies before “rebooting” them? Let me know below.