Rescue Me Review: Cowboy

This week, Rescue Me is all about second chances. For Tommy and Janet, for Damian, and all the boys of 62 Truck. We open in the aftermath of last week’s finale, which found Tommy and Janet connecting again in spite of a disastrous date after seeing an old friend of Connor’s. Tommy tries and fails to make morning-after breakfast for Janet and in his impossibly inarticulate (and highly entertaining) way, tries to express that he wants to try to repair their relationship for the umpteenth time.

Janet reluctantly agrees, with the following two caveats: this is Tommy’s very last chance—and if he blows it it will be the cruelest thing he has ever done to her—and he has to say goodbye to Sheila for good. Janet tells him that when he turned to Sheila when he was wallowing in post-9/11 and post-Jimmy grief, that it was “emotional betrayal.” I’m not sure that’s fair, because she had already given up on their marriage before he ever got involved with Sheila. But then again, who am I to keep track?

Next up: Needles and Feinberg go to HQ to try to convince them to reopen the firehouse. This was without a doubt the highlight of the episode for me. Feinberg knows the old fart head honcho who shut them down, so he goes in there and in his pathetic, bloated way tries to butter him up and convince him to reopen the firehouse. He fails miserably, mostly because he didn’t really try in the first place because he’s an obsolete pushover who doesn’t care. This is where Needles steps up to the plate and hits it out of the freakin’ galaxy.

He takes it to this geezer, chops him down and blackmails him the livelong day. He points out the little incident last week where the crew responded without gear to the burning school for deaf kids and pulled all of them out of there just in time to see the other firefighters saunter up in their cars. “I don’t know if you heard Dickie, but my boys had a bunch of saves at a school for deaf kids the other day. They responded in their own vehicles with no tools, no bunker gear, and they got every kid out safely, just as your trucks were rolling up…better late than never huh? Maybe you should have that painted on all of your vehicles.” Jab! Geezer hits back: “None of those men were authorized to report to that call.” Needles: “And none of those kids were authorized to burn to death.” Uppercut!

For the knockout blow, Needles pulls out a little homemade DVD with all of the footage on it, promising to deliver copies to all the major newspapers and, “just in case what I hear is true about print media being dead, this whole footage is getting posted on YouTube. That’s the newfangled interweb you’ve heard so much about. When you go home, have one of your grandkids type in ‘FDNY Turns Deaf Ear To Disabled Children.’” Bam! I swear, if I could have leaped into the television screen right during that scene, I would have tackled Needles and given him a big platonic, strictly non-sexual kiss on the mouth and squeeze on the ass. He more than made up for any crap he did last season with that scene. I mean that stuff was Network quality. The writing and strength of performance on this show continues to astound me.

From there, the rest of the episode centers on Damian trying to score with his new ladylove, and Sean and Mike trying to make firefighter-turned-terminal-cancer-patient Pat feel appreciated by taking him to meet up with former victims he saved, with very mixed results. We also get Tommy trying to follow Janet’s ultimatum and say goodbye to Sheila with no drama. Guess how successful he is?

Season 6, Episode 8: Cowboy (originally aired August 17, 2010)

For more on Rescue Me, click here.

Tuesdays at 10pm on FX

Photograph courtesy of FX and IMDb Pro.

Entourage Review: Somebody call A&E – Vince needs an Intervention

When we last left Vince, he was sprawled naked by his pool, passed out.  The omnipresent Sasha was by his side.  The partying continues this week, and for the first time Vince does coke, as easily as he would take a shot of tequila.  I know all of the guys love Vince, but Eric is the only one with the stones to actually confront Vince and call him out on things.  Drama idolizes his baby brother, and Turtle does too.  Eric does not idolize Vince.  He loves him like a brother, but wouldn’t be afraid to stand up to Vince if the situation warrants such action.  Remember when he quit?  And he was always the one who pushed Vince to read his scripts, show up to meetings on time, and be responsible.  Now Vince is living an “anything goes” lifestyle with no limitations.  When he does coke, it’s not in the presence of the fellas.  He’s surrounded by random people, Sasha, and Scott Lavin.  Billy Walsh also observes Vince’s new habit, but doesn’t say anything.

Vince’s behavior has caused the studio to lose confidence in him.  After showing up to the initial meeting for Air-Walker drunk, they want to make sure he has his head on straight.  Unfortunately for Vince, he doesn’t fare much better in the second meeting.  The director thinks Vince is “coked up,” and when word gets back to Ari and Eric, they are livid. And very worried.  Eric assures Ari that Vince has never done coke in his life.  Eric doesn’t know the new Vince.  New Vince is immersed in sex and drugs, succumbing to any vice placed in front of him.  Sasha is a terrible influence, and Vince is a follower at times.  It’s a shame that he had a great comeback, only to jeopardize everything he’s worked for.  His “handlers” aren’t doing a very good job of handling him, and I think it will take a rock bottom moment and a stint in rehab for Vince to get back on track.

Meanwhile, Ari and Lizzie manage to call a truce.  Initially her problem with Ari was a professional one.  She just wanted the promotion that she felt she deserved.  Teaming up with Amanda made it personal.  Lizzie has a change of heart and decides to leave Amanda’s agency.  She turns her incriminating audio tapes over to Ari, in exchange for his promise to find her a new job.  Ari puts in a call with Dana Gordon, who says she will give Lizzie a look if Ari can secure Lenny Kravitz for an upcoming movie the studio is filming.  That’s how things get done apparently: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.  Everything has a price.  Especially fame.  I hope Vince realizes this before it’s too late.

Season 7, Episode 7: Tequila and Coke (originally aired August 15, 2010)

For more Entourage, click here.

Sundays at 10:30pm ET/PT on HBO

Photographs courtesy of HBO and IMDbPro

True Blood Review: Everything Is Broken

True Blood fans can officially consider the proverbial gauntlet thrown down as Sunday night’s episode drew the most serious battle line of the entire series thus far. Yes, Jason is still mysteriously bewitched by the infinitely dull Crystal, Arlene is still fretting over the impending birth of Rene’s evil spawn, Lafayette and Jesus are still gleefully consummating their budding romance, Sam is still having problems with Tommy’s increasing rebellion, Tara is still grappling with the trauma of her recent past, and Bill and Sookie still manage to find new ways to get naked on screen. However, despite this seemingly endless list of varying degrees of filler, Russell Edgington has, to my delight, properly staked his claim on the throbbing pulse of Season Three. The underground, cutthroat world of vampire politics and its subsequent repercussions facing True Blood’s supernatural alterna-society have been wisely thrust into the spotlight among a dizzying procession of fluffier storylines all fighting for the enraptured viewers’ attention. While the activities of more peripheral characters and the context of their subplots certainly aren’t uninteresting to me (for the most part, anyway), I’m thrilled that Episode Nine provided clear focus on the bigger picture for what may lie ahead for the residents of Bon Temps and beyond. Russell’s plight, as we’ll discuss, has a far more insidious and dire potential impact on the story as a whole than any other characters’ current quandaries. Let’s investigate.

As Russell flees back to his palace to begin grieving the loss of Talbot – by this, I mean clutch his slain partner’s sludgy remains and howl with despair – Eric makes an equally harried trip to Fangtasia to both update Pam on his staking of Talbot and brainstorm on a temporary refuge from Russell’s lethal angst. Knowing he’s in for a world of trouble, Eric’s characteristically cool demeanor has devolved to a full-fledged panic as he vehemently rejects Pam’s idea to crash at Sookie’s and is visibly agitated about the imminent revenge Russell is sure to seek. When barmaid Ginger asks if their stress is a result of the “V-Feds” prowling the bar, Eric and Pam exchange looks that adequately express the fact they had no idea such visitors were present. Uh-oh.

The V-Feds are an imposing troop of rifle-toting commanding officers decked out in Robocop gear and led by AVL representative Nan Flanagan. Nan has paid Fangtasia a visit to check for traces of V dealing and interrogate Eric about the recent “disappearance” of the Magister. The V-Feds are a threatening enough presence by themselves, but perennial talking head Nan has ditched her Meet The Press garb for a black vinyl trench coat and slicked-back ‘do reminiscent of The Matrix or Blade Runner to emphasize the severity of the situation. As Nan informs Eric his statement will also be dispatched live to the Authority, a chillingly sterile scene depicting the mysterious entity as a lineup of Secret Service-looking men staring inquisitively at a giant screen has a ominously sci-fi feel to it – George Orwell meets Philip K. Dick, perhaps.

Despite knowing Big Brother is watching him, Eric eloquently explains Russell’s history of tyranny throughout the centuries, citing a succession of instances in which he had witnessed a suspicious gang of werewolves instigate a massacre at Russell’s whim. Including the murder of his Viking family and his experiences as a soldier in Nazi Germany in his statement, Eric is honest and forthcoming about the reasons behind his intent to exact revenge on Russell after a millennium of pent-up anger and resentment. Nan is incredulous at first, making note of Russell’s generous donations to the AVL and asking Eric why he hadn’t reported these alleged, treasonous actions earlier. Eric replies that his beef with Russell dates back long before the AVL or the Authority were a twinkle in any vampire’s eye and his admittedly selfish objective superseded any obligations to the government. Furthermore, he tells Nan, Russell’s financial contributions are simply designed to distract the AVL from his actual disdain for the Great Revelation and the entire concept of vampires and humans peacefully co-existing. After the Authority whispers an unintelligible message in her ear, Nan informs Eric Fangtasia will be on non-negotiable lockdown until his testimony is analyzed and a verdict is reached.

Back in Bon Temps, Sookie and Bill extend their post-coital bliss with a shower together, after which they engage in a refreshingly adult conversation about the nature of their relationship. “Normal couples do not do this, Bill Compton,” Sookie declares, as the two heave a werewolf carcass onto a tarp. No, Sookie, they do not. When Bill mentions the importance of trust between them, Sookie confronts him about the dossier on the Stackhouse family he has in his desk. Oh yeah, Bill’s startled expression says. That. Bill, reverting back to the chivalrous methods of the 1800s, covers his tracks by insisting his intent was to find out who and what Sookie is in order to “protect” her. Sookie informs Bill in the plucky, girl-power way she does best, that this is the 21^st century and, as his girlfriend, she is “not a thing to be protected.” Bill appears to acquiesce, but his rather dodgy reply to Sookie’s inquiry about Russell’s interest in her powers suggests he may still be withholding pertinent information from her.

Also enjoying their morning after is Jesus and Lafayette, a twosome I’m happy to report has successfully maintained their googly eyes from last week (“two days in a row” alone is a self-admitted “record” for Lafayette). A gussied-up Ruby Jean emerges, hilariously singing the praises of Lafayette’s extensive cosmetics collection. Noticing “LaLa” (okay, I love that) is uncharacteristically fresh-faced for a change, Ruby Jean marvels that he doesn’t have his “mask” on, and her “son is shining through” as a result. Aww. When she asks if Jesus is “responsible for this,” Lafayette at first responds with a defensive “No!” then pauses and offers a sheepish “Yes,” giving his mother a chance to reconsider previous misconceptions on her part. “Maybe God loves fags,” Ruby Jean ponders out loud. Thank goodness Alfre Woodard is an acting dynamo – a lesser thespian would render such dialogue unlistenable.

As for a couple I’m decidedly not rooting for, Jason and Crystal’s relationship seems to have mercifully hit the skids as he returns to his house to find a furious Fenton under the impression Crystal has been kidnapped and held at Jason’s house against her will. Confused, Jason exclaims that Crystal sought him out and is escaping both her betrothal to Fenton and the entire Hotshot life she’s known up to this point. Instead of backing Jason’s claim, Crystal reveals herself as the perpetuator of Fenton’s misunderstanding and even fuels the fire by impulsively shouting that Jason also raped her. Good lord. As Fenton lunges toward Jason, Crystal clocks him upside the head and issues a brief mea culpa to an exasperated Jason that she didn’t know what else to say when Fenton showed up. Sheesh. Crystal’s next brilliant idea is to tie up Fenton, make sure an incriminating bag of V is in his pocket, and call the cops while he’s still unconscious. Jason, somehow still not picking up that this crew isn’t just a bunch of meth-cooking rednecks, misinterprets Crystal’s cryptic clue that rope is the only sufficient restraint for Fenton since he can “escape handcuffs.” “What is he, a magician?” Jason asks. Oh, Jason. Apparently the naked, deer-eating tweaker from last week wasn’t a red enough flag for him.

When Jason and Crystal show up at the police station the next day (Jason for work, Crystal as his “ride-along”) they’re given the bad news that the sheriff’s deputy, the lovably doofy Kevin, was the unfortunate soul to be dispatched to Fenton’s whereabouts and is now in the hospital in critical condition courtesy of a blitzkrieg from the Hotshot bunch. Upon receiving this news, Jason realizes drastic action is needed and he recommends to Andy they use the bag of V found in Fenton’s pocket as probable cause to raid their camp and lock up the entire gang once and for all. Andy dutifully agrees and shoos Jason away before opening his desk drawer and pointedly handling the bag of V he’d just said had been locked in the evidence cage. Hmm.

Poor Sam just can’t seem to catch a break, as he gets a late-night phone call from Terry complaining about “girl noises” coming from Tommy’s apartment. Eww. Sam, forced to interrupt his heart-to-heart with a reeling Tara, heads over to find Tommy naked with a strung-out, topless Merlotte’s regular whose first name he can’t keep straight. Tommy agrees to keep it down, but tells Sam to take a hike after rhetorically asking him if he’s trying to act like his landlord or his dad. As irritating and inconsiderate his actions might be, Tommy’s newfound freedom after a life of the continuous abuse he’d had to endure is sure to result in a bit of reckless abandon. I’m just sayin’.

Just when I’m about to garner a bit of sympathy for the little twerp, however, he and Arlene come to blows during work after she confronts him about stealing her tips. His ability to lie to her face without so much as a blink, in combination with his colossally entitled attitude regarding the matter (come on, you know he took the money) knock him back down a notch or two in my book. Arlene starts to cry and confides in Holly, the new waitress who’s also in Tara’s new trauma survivors group, that she’s not carrying Terry’s baby, but Rene’s, and is concerned not only for the “pure evil” that Rene’s genetics may carry, but also for Terry’s reaction when he finds out. Arlene is far from my favorite character, but Carrie Preston knocked this scene out of the park, successfully expressing Arlene’s turmoil and giving the character a depth previously unseen. When Arlene admits she doesn’t want the baby but can’t morally stomach the thought of an abortion, Holly again alludes to her possible supernatural abilities when she tells Arlene, “there’s other ways to resolve it.”

Sookie, finally able to enjoy some alone time, is wistfully paging through a family scrapbook of various pictures and newspaper clippings. Just as she comes across an interesting headline about her grandfather crediting his heroism during a local fire to a “sixth sense,” Hadley interrupts with a phone call asking Sookie to come see her at the Monroe aquarium (thanks, Hadley – we might have actually been onto something). Sookie arrives and is surprised to see Hadley’s young son, Hunter, whom Hadley fears may be also be a telepath. After confessing to Sookie she had been involved with Queen Sophie-Anne and revealed the Stackhouse Secret, possibly piquing Russell’s curiosity, Hadley admits she’s terrified Hunter may be possessed with powers, too. Indeed, Sookie administers her unofficial telepath test and she and Hunter engage in a brief thought-to-thought conversation, much to Hadley’s horrified chagrin. Before Sookie can squeeze any more information from her, Hadley is taking a hike and dragging Hunter with her, apologizing to Sookie for any trouble she may have caused.

Bill, enjoying a long day’s slumber, is strangely awakened by water dripping through his floorboards. He pushes his door open and is transported to the twinkling fairy paradise we spied two weeks ago — the home of both Sookie’s guardian angel of sorts, Claudine, and a number of  feminine hygiene commercials. Bill, understandably, is awash with confusion at not only his sunlit surroundings and all-white getup, but also his newfound ability to walk on water in this mysterious locale. He and Claudine spot each other, and she is convinced his presence in her world can only be explained by Sookie’s death. Bill vows Sookie is alive and well, and unwisely attempts to feed on Claudine (smooth move, Bill). She zaps him with the same lightning fingers seen from Sookie in times of self-defense, and Claudine gives Bill an ominous warning to stay away from Sookie and her “light.” Bill demands he be told what Sookie’s supernatural capabilities consist of, and what she is, exactly, if not human. Later, at Sookie’s house, a visibly shaken Bill confesses his unintentional visit with Claudine to Sookie, and informs her he now knows What She Is. Really? That sure seemed easy. I assume Claudine, like Sookie, is unglamourable, so I have to wonder why she’d give up such pertinent information to Bill so quickly. Perhaps he’s just full of it and doesn’t actually know what he thinks he does, but my skepticism regarding this storyline being resolved so neatly is certainly palpable. I have a feeling the full knowledge of Sookie’s powers and their meaning won’t be entirely revealed for some time. Claudine knows better than that! Right?

Back at Fangtasia, an exhausted Eric has begun to bleed from his ears and nose (?!) and is dubious about his future. Assuming the worst, that the Authority will sentence him to execution (or a grief-stricken, ravenous Russell will find him first), Eric initiates a touching conversation with Pam about her need to deflect any responsibility from herself regarding his current predicament and become a maker in the event of his death. Before things begin looking irreparably doomed for Eric, Nan pops in to inform him the Authority has reached a verdict in his case. Apparently, from a governmental point of view, the situation is a “political tar baby no one wants to touch,” and Eric is instructed to never mention his contact with the AVL or the Authority, and any record of the case will be expunged. The Vampire Rights Amendment, Nan explains, is too close to ratification and a scandal as epic as the one Eric has the ability to ignite is too politically dangerous to address. Eric asks what, if anything, is to be done about Russell and his assured mission to destroy the Great Revelation and its progress, and Nan gives him a surprising answer: kill Russell himself, off the grid, and bring Nan his fangs, or she’ll have Eric’s. Well, then.

I should mention that while this conversation is taking place, Russell is on the roof holding an ornate glass jar containing Talbot’s remains. This elaborate urn of sorts has not only already become an internet sensation since Sunday, having been given both a catchy name (Jar ‘O Talbot, among similar others) and a Twitter account (seriously), but is also Russell’s confidant on the show, a creepy reminder of his inability to process Talbot’s death and a reason for him to delve into his devilish ways with further zeal than ever seen before. “They will suffer,” Russell tells Jar ‘O Talbot, repeating with deeper intensity, “They. Will. Suffer.”

After a brief check-in with the ongoing saga of Jessica and Hoyt, in which he confesses he can’t stand his new girlfriend, the doll-loving, God-fearing, biscuit-baking Summer (“Can’t do much antiquing after dark, can we?” she chirps to Hoyt, pointing out one upside of dating her instead of a vampire), and is only with her because it beats mooning over Jessica, Crystal is next shown having a conniption over Jason’s plan to raid Hotshot with Andy. While I understand her hesitation to sever family ties, Jason’s level of frustration seems to be matching my level of confusion about his unwavering devotion to this chick in the first place. From what I’ve heard, Crystal in the books is far more enticing than the shrill, mopey hillbilly we’re given on the show, and I daresay Jason Stackhouse is out of her league.

While Jason continues trying to convince Crystal she’s better off if her abusive fiancé and father are in jail, both men strut into Merlotte’s looking for her. Before Crystal and Jason can approach them, Sam goes ballistic and seems to unleash his pent-up frustration on Calvin’s face like a scene in Fight Club. The sequence is actually difficult to watch as Sam punches Calvin so furiously the altercation reaches the point where people have stopped gasping and begun staring in stunned silence. Tommy appears both mildly disgusted and mildly impressed, while Jesus and Lafayette load an unconscious Calvin and his bludgeoned face into the backseat of Jesus’ truck to take him to the hospital. Crystal rides along, in spite of Jason’s ardent protests to the contrary.

Meanwhile, Tara is alone in a secluded corner outside Merlotte’s (because that makes sense) and suddenly gets confronted by the reemergence of Franklin (finally!), back after a sabbatical where he clearly let his head re-inflate. Despite his utter delusion and through-the-roof ickiness, I have to say he’s been missed these past couple of weeks. Franklin notes with sinister disdain that Tara didn’t mourn his “death,” but he will surely mourn hers. Tara, having finally made a step toward recovery, tells Franklin exactly how she feels about him and says he may as well kill her because if that’s the only way she’ll be rid of him forever, she welcomes the freedom. As Franklin spends a torturous amount of time showing her his fangs, Jason suddenly appears, shotgun in tow. Franklin, always the smart-aleck, points out that Jason can shoot all the ammo he’s got, to no avail – his bullet wounds, no matter how numerous, will heal. With that, Jason fires his first round and Franklin unexpectedly explodes into a lifeless, bubbling pile of guts, Lorena-style. “Not if I have wooden bullets,” Jason retorts. Guess that Fellowship of the Sun safety kit came in handy, after all.

Finally, in the episode’s hysterically disturbing denouement, Nan (the self-professed True Blood purist) is seen snacking on a prostitute in the back of her limo, en route to an AVL press event in Portland. As Nan busies herself, the television inside the limo broadcasts the local evening news. The anchor is in the middle of a story about the upcoming Vampire Rights Amendment, and seems briefly distracted by strange noises coming from somewhere off camera. Suddenly, Russell appears at the news studio, on camera, and rips the anchor’s spine out of his body during the live newscast. I’ll pause to let you reread that if you didn’t get a chance to actually see it. What happens next is Russell’s captivating delivery of his gloriously horrifying manifesto about the AVL’s attempt to disguise vampires’ actual bloodthirsty intentions and instincts to feed on humans. As Russell reveals his desire to wage war on the human race, the final lines of his diatribe are the most chilling: “Why would we want equal rights? We are not your equal. We will eat you. After we eat your children.” Before I’m able to begin to pick my jaw up off the floor, Russell fixes his gaze to another in-studio camera without missing a beat, switching his tone and playfully tossing the newscast to its next segment: “And now for the weather. Tiffany?”

Recapping this scene in plain text simply doesn’t do it justice, as Denis O’Hare’s show-stopping performance is what made it the sensation it is. With only three episodes left, I can honestly say the complete lack of werewolves in this episode and the possibility of a Big Reveal in terms of Sookie’s identity pale in comparison to the major plot development courtesy of Russell and what his declaration of war means for the future atmosphere of True Blood. Nan and the AVL are surely in for a media frenzy and a non-stop parade of PR damage control on their part, while Eric’s covert assassination mission may prove to be all the more difficult in light of these events. Crystal, as far as I’m concerned, had better show me something worth seeing quick, or any possible interest I could have in her is as dead as Franklin. Personally, I’m anxious to see what storylines will be resolved by the end of the season and what will be left hanging for Season Four. I’m thrilled with the increased focus on vampire politics and society, and Russell’s staggering sermon was not only worthy of a season finale in itself, I dare say it was a highlight of the entire series for me. While watching, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Peter Finch’s legendary rant in Network: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” While True Blood certainly boasts one of the most noteworthy and diverse cast of characters on television, I have no qualms admitting I could watch an entire show consisting of Russell, Eric, Pam, Nan, the Authority and Jar ‘O Talbot. Sookie who?

Season 3, Episode 9: Everything is Broken (originally aired August 15, 2010)

For more on True Blood, click here.

Sundays at 9pm on HBO

Photographs courtesy of HBO and IMDbPro

White Collar Review: Game On

This week on White Collar, Neal, Peter, Jones, Diana and a cooperative Chechan mob boss all put on their best poker faces to take down an adoption scam. Game on.

We join White Collar as an exchange takes place with a woman, Catherine, selling stolen jewels from her employer for $100,000 to an undercover Neal. She is arrested but the surprise is that her five-year-old son, Ollie, is asleep in the backseat of the car during the exchange. Catherine reveals to Peter and Neal that she adopted Ollie recently from Chechnya but could lose him because the birth mother now wants him back. Her international adoption lawyer, Luke Donovan (John Larroquette), has recommended Catherine pay off the birth mother, which is why she stole the jewels. Neal and Peter become suspicious of Donovan and theorize that he is extorting money from his clients using the threat of birth mothers and their adopted children as leverage.

Peter meets with Donovan and questions him about Catherine and his adoption work but a sly Donovan proclaims his innocence. On Peter’s way out of Donovan’s office, he sees “Clark the Shark” entering, the enforcer for Chechan mob moss, Kaz Abramov. Peter’s gut reaction—there is some sort of connection between the Chechan mob and the possible adoption scam.

Meanwhile, Mozzie manages to break into Sara Ellis’ (Hilarie Burton) house and retrieves the FAA cockpit recording. Neal is not ready to listen to it and hides it in his apartment. Unfortunately, Sara realizes that someone, she assumes Neal, broke into her house and took the package. She immediately makes him take a polygraph in the FBI office, which Neal passes with the help of a pushpin.

Back to the case—Peter and Neal discover that Abramov is running an underground gambling club. As always, the crafty Caffrey uses his cell phone to gain entrance to the club and learns that Donovan is down $200,000 to Abramov. Neal, as Nick Halden, manages to talk his way into the upcoming poker game, that Donovan is also taking part in, but needs a $100,000 buy in from the FBI.

At the bureau, Jones, Diana, Peter and Neal concoct a plan. Donovan needs to win the poker game to repay Abramov. If Neal wins, Donovan will become desperate enough to extort another couple, which will be undercover agents Jones and Diana, in order to catch him red-handed.

Later, Mozzie stops by Neal’s apartment to check up on him and the recording. Neal, who is not yet ready to listen to the cockpit tape, assures Mozzie they will listen to it together when he is ready. In this scene, we learn an interesting tidbit about Mozzie; he was in foster care but never adopted. Moz is furious when he hears the current FBI case involves an adoption scam. He instructs Neal “crush him (Donovan).”

Diana and Jones are an attractive and convincing “married couple” as they meet with Donovan, who agrees to help their adoption. Afterwards, Neal asks Peter for help in discovering Donovan’s “tell,” a sign that he is lying. Peter meets with Donovan and recognizes his “tell,”—blinking twice. While this is occurring, a determined Sara shows up at Neal’s apartment with the police to search for the stolen FAA package. After the package is found, Sara has Neal arrested until Peter arrives and talks her out of it—explaining that Neal’s judgment is skewed when it comes to Kate which he assumes the tape is related to. Peter also tells Sara that Neal is critical to the FBI adoption scam case. Thanks to Peter, Neal is free to go to the poker game, no limit Texas Hold’em. The game is narrowed down to two players—Donovan and Neal, and of course, Neal wins.

The FBI’s takedown of Donovan continues according to plan. After losing the game, Donovan calls Jones and Diana to scam them for money to pay Abramov. He wants $200,000 brought to his office the following day. Donovan pushes up the meeting by a half hour because he plans to flee the country and not pay Abramov. However, not only does the FBI show up early, but so does Abramov and his crew. After a stand off with Abramov, Peter offers to look the other way at Abramov’s illegal gambling if he helps shut down the adoption scam. With Abramov’s help, who finds it disgusting that Donovan is using children for money, and after staging Neal getting “beaten up” by the Chechan mob, Donovan admits to running the adoption scam. This confession is what Peter is waiting for and they arrest Donovan.

Catherine and Ollie return to the FBI with good news, that she is on probation with community service and can keep Ollie. They also thank Neal and Peter, who seem to have a soft spot for kids.

Later, Sara pays a visit to a shirtless, yes a gorgeous shirtless, Neal at his apartment. She asks about Kate and reveals that she listened to the FAA recording. Sara moves back into my good graces when she hands the recording to Neal and says, “I don’t know what possessed you to drag me into this but I’m in.”

The episode comes to a close with Neal and Mozzie listening to the tape and discovering Kate telephoned someone just before the explosion.

In June, I had the opportunity to spend a day on the set of White Collar—coincidentally, while this episode was being filmed. On my tour, I walked through the Burkes’ home and the FBI office, saw the poker table and FBI surveillance van plus met the cast including Hilarie Burton, who was wearing that spectacular blue dress…it was fun to see this particular episode come to life. Congrats to White Collar writer, Matt Negrete, on a phenomenal first episode.

This week’s episode was a homerun for the entire cast including guest stars John Larroquette and Hilarie Burton. Weren’t Jones and Diana fantastic undercover as a married couple?

White Collar is superb at weaving bits of information about the Kate/music box mystery throughout the episodes and leaving us wanting more. White Collar has it all—comedy, drama, crime and, of course, bromance. I’ve enjoyed each episode thus far this second season and my impression is that each week they get better. So much so, I’m not sure I could pick a favorite.

As an aside, are you following Jeff Eastin on Twitter? You should be. Each week during White Collar, one of my favorite things is discovering the interesting facts that he tweets, like, “Donovan is a nod to Jeffrey Donovan,” from Burn Notice or “Our conman consultant, Simon Lovell, is seated screen right of Neal (with glasses)” during the poker game.

Also, according to Jeff Eastin, we will “learn a lot about Mozzie in next week’s White Collar” plus see an undercover Peter Burke. Check out the promo. Until next week Collars…

Season 2, Episode 6: In the Red (originally aired August 17, 2010)

For more on White Collar, click here.  You can follow Poptimal on Twitter @poptimal.

Tuesdays at 9/8c on USA Network

Images courtesy of David Giesbrecht and the USA Network.

White Collar Q&A: Catching Up With Marsha Thomason

You may know Marsha Thomason from her other shows Las Vegas or Lost but she is currently starring as FBI Agent Diana Barrigan on White Collar. Agent Diana Barrigan is one tough cookie and seems to be able to do it all—from going undercover as a high class call girl, while looking fabulous I might add, to arresting perps or being an integral part of the FBI team.

In a recent Q&A conference call, I caught up with the dynamic Marsha Thomason. Here are eight facts on Marsha/Diana that are certainly worth knowing.

1. Marsha reads a lot on set.

She’s currently reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. “I just actually started, I literally just like put it in my bag and I’ve read a page. It was recommended actually by a hairstylist on the show. I just finished reading American Music, which actually the DP [Director of Photography] on our show, Russell Fine, gave to me because his friend, Jane Mendelsohn, is the author. But that’s what I just finished reading. It was really wonderful, a beautiful love story.”

2. Favorite Episode From Season 2:

“Need To Know” was my favorite episode (the second episode in season 2 when she went undercover as the call girl with Neal). Marsha also enjoyed last night’s episode, “In The Red” and said it was “another fun one for me, another one where I go undercover. My favorite ones [are] where we go undercover because I get to play another character on top of the character I’m already playing.”

3. Any similarities to her character, Diana?

“We look alike, which is kind of weird. Am I similar? Yes, she’s a ball buster. Which I guess is something that could be said about me. She really has a sense of doing the right thing and I have that. I couldn’t imagine having a job where I had to wear a suit every day. But other than that, I think there are many similarities between us.”

4. Pros & Cons of NYC:

“Well, the pro is that it’s New York City, hello. The con is that it’s so bloody humid right now and I’m in a suit all the time. They come and powder me, so I look like I’m smooth and cool.  Underneath I’m literally dripping with sweat. It’s so hot all the time. It’s kind of chaotic, but I like that. For me right now, it really is just the heat.”

5. Marsha on Diana’s motivation to get out of bed each day:

“She just really loves solving crimes. She likes putting bad guys away. Of course, we all have a sense of right and wrong, but she really has a strong sense of that. She doesn’t really deviate from it. So I think for her, her passion for being a FBI agent and going to do that job everyday really is just getting the bad guys and helping innocent people.”

6. Any challenges for Marsha on set?

“Well, there are a couple. One of them is some of the language that we have to use on the show. In the pilot I had on my very first day, it was this little speech and there was this big scene where we bust into this warehouse. I had to say something about, “exigent circumstance means we can do the blah, blah, blah.” I had no idea what exigent circumstance was or how to say it in an American accent. I managed to get one take out and then something happened and the second take, I go, “exigent circumstance, blah, blah.”  And Tim [DeKay] looks at me and I look at him like I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. Just say your line.”

“Some of the action I find a little bit tricky. I enjoy it very much, but it can get very technical. Something as simple as the handcuffs that we use, obviously they’re not real handcuffs because we’re dealing with actors and not perps. And so when you hook them on, the mechanism, it can just go around and around and around. In other words, it makes them really difficult to get on. They bounce back, and I just look completely inept.”

7. What she would like to see happen with Diana:

“I’d really like to see the relationship with Neal explored a little more. I work with Tim [DeKay] a heck of a lot on the show. We have a lot of scenes together. But Neal and Diana, it’s kind of a slow build, so I’m really looking forward to seeing that storyline develop.”

Marsha would also like to Diana interact with her girlfriend, Christy. “I ask them [the writers], “Hey, when are we going to meet Christy?” And they’re like, it’s coming, it’s coming. But I’m hoping we meet Christy soon because I’ve shot quite a bit of footage in Diana’s house, but Christy is never there.”

8. Will Neal give up on trying to make himself attractive to Diana?

“No. Absolutely not. His ego is too big. You’ve seen the way women swoon when he walks into a room, because no, it’s sport for him. He’s the guy that fakes art and steals and does all of that stuff for sport. There’s no way he’s ever going to give up.”

Marsha Thomason is extremely amiable, down-to-earth and fun. On a side note, I enjoyed listening to her native English accent during the call, which she speaks without on the show. Hey writers, can Diana go undercover and use her English accent during an upcoming episode?

Make sure you tune in to see White Collar’s Marsha Thomason in action as Agent Diana Barrigan on Tuesdays at 9PM on USA Network.

For more on White Collar, click here.  You can follow Poptimal on Twitter @poptimal.

Images courtesy of Eric Odgen and the USA Network.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Alternate Ending: How The Movie Originally Ended

Back in February I had the opportunity to catch a work-in-progress version of Scott Pilgrim vs The World. I was blown away by the movie and could not wait to watch it again. Luckily, I was able to catch a screening of the finalized film during San Diego Comic Con along with it’s changed ending. See Scott Pilgrim vs The World: Beyond Epic by Bilal Mian.

If you have not seen Scott Pilgrim vs The World STOP! This article contains spoilers for the end of the movie and a few other scenes.

If you’ve seen the movie then please read on.

The Original Ending

The first significant change comes after the fight with Evil Exes Five and Six, Kyle and Ken Katayanagi. Scott jumps off the stage to confront Gideon, but is intercepted by Knives. The scene plays out the same as the finalized version of the film till the very end of the clip. Scott walks away, leaving Knives by herself in the crowd. As Knives looks in the direction that Scott left, the black box that gives out character information as seen early in the movie (e.g. Scott Pilgrim, Age 23, Rating Awesome) pops up again displaying Knives Chau, Age 18.

The next major change occurs after Scott “deals” with Nega-Scott. Meeting up with Knives on the street, Scott and her look off into the distance where Ramona stands in the street. A silent understanding takes place between Ramona and Scott where each understands that Scott is better suited to be with Knives. Ramona walks off into the darkness and Scott and Knives share a kiss. The movie comes to an end with the two of them at the arcade laughing, having a good time playing the Ninja DDR game.

And that’s that. The original ending for the movie.

Personally, I prefer the new ending that can be seen in theaters. It flows better with the movie. For those that have seen the movie, you can definitely see that the film hints towards this ending.

When I initially saw the original ending I felt a bit sideswiped by what just happened. After dwelling on it a bit, I came to terms with the ending, but I could possibly see others being put off. I would definitely say the “Knives’ Ending” is more of a character building ending than the “Ramona Ending.”

Hopefully viewers will get a chance to see the original ending as part of Extras on the Scott Pilgrim DVD/Bluray.

Photo by Kerry Hayes – © 2010 Universal Studios.

Eat Pray Love Review: A Tear-Jerker You Should Watch

A friend once told me that her improvisation coach talked about Julia Roberts being unable to play anyone other than Julia Roberts. I can see how that could be true, but who said it’s a bad thing? In the case of Eat Pray Love, Ms. Roberts does an excellent job at bringing the character of Liz Gilbert from the pages of a script to life on the film screen.

Based on the New York Times best selling book of the same name, the film is about a woman, who is told by a medicine man in Bali that she will have two marriages, loose everything and gain it back, and that she would return to visit him.  After experiencing a devastating divorce and a recent rebound relationship, Liz travels to Italy, India, and Bali to reclaim her life.

This film can certainly be classified under chick flick with the amount of women inside the movie theater, but it was a damn good one. The story begins with Liz having what most women aspire to have, a great career, a loving husband, and a new house. But we soon learn that something is wrong with the picture because she isn’t happy. She soon realizes that she doesn’t want to be married and goes through a divorce with her husband Steven, artfully played by Billy Crudup. Next she meets David (James Franco), an actor who becomes her rebound boyfriend. But soon she feels just as alone and unhappy as she did during her marriage. Liz resolves to spend a year abroad to “deal with herself”. As Liz travels to Italy, India, and Bali she learns valuable lessons on how to achieve balance in her life, through nourishment, prayer, and love. Along the way she meets people who teach her different ways to live as well as giving her the opportunity to make a difference in their worlds.

I thought the acting in the film was incredibly well done. Everyone brought their roles to life with depth and sensitivity. The best part is that I wasn’t even paying attention to whom was playing whom because they all became their characters to me.  I particularly loved Richard Jenkins, who made me teary-eyed as his character talked about almost killing his son because he was driving drunk. Javier Bardem as Felipe, the divorced man Liz meets in Bali, came across the screen with humor, passion, and vulnerability.

The movie also had beautiful cinematography, showing New York City, Rome, India, and Bali. There is nothing like amazing cityscapes and picturesque exotic locations to help those on a soul-searching journey.  Of course it could be the very thing that critics may complain about, that films such as Under The Tuscan Sun have already done this formula, a woman rediscovering herself in a foreign country. That is a legitimate critique.

The movie may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I believe that we can all learn some valuable lessons from Liz’s experience – such as forgiving yourself, finding balance, contributing to other people, letting go of our attachment to what life is supposed to look or feel like, taking big bold risks, and living in the present. The film did an excellent job in bringing these messages across in a way that I could relate. The target audience may have been women, but still I’d like to think that it doesn’t matter what gender you are because we all go through problems and have to deal with ourselves.

It may be formulaic, but I really enjoyed it. It was inspirational to see a woman really struggle with herself to figure out what it is that she wants and needs in her life. While not everyone might be able to just drop everything and travel the world for a year, it makes for a good movie to vicariously live through and perhaps take inspiration from for our own lives.

Photos by Francois Duhamel – © 2010 CTMG, Inc

Next Food Network Star: Q&A with Susie and Aarti

Aarti was crowned the winner of this season’s Next Food Network Star and in a Q&A with winner Aarti Sequeira and judge Susie Fogelson we discuss toughest moments, Aarti Party and why Aarti was the best for the job.

Aarti Sequeira

Aarti Party
The filming of Aarti Party was quite familiar for Aarti. She has been producing her web series of the same name on YouTube for a year. So when it came to shooting her new series Aarti expresses that she was very confident walking into it. The season has already been taped, but as to what you’ll see on the show the concept is the same introducing classic Indian flavors into everyday American food. On where the shows will differ, Aarti Party web is more of a variety show, showcasing many of her talented friends, Food Network’s Aarti Party won’t have quite so many guests.

On The Next Food Network Star
When asked what her favorite moment was from the competition, Aarti recalls working with Tom on the food truck challenge. Aside from her admiration of those who work in food trucks, Aarti speaks of how great it was to get to know fellow competitor Tom. On being asked what one of her lowest points was, Aarti remembers episode 9, when the contestants got a surprise visit from their loved ones. Aarti cites saying goodbye to her husband as her lowest point. Aside from being sad to see him go, Aarti admits that she was feeling defeated.

But this is a triumph story, Aarti may have had her rough spots, but in the end hearing them call her name was well worth it. This is ‘who I am, what I am meant to be doing.’

Susie Fogelson

The final decision that made Aarti the Star was not that difficult. This, according to judge Susie who is also Food Network’s VP of Marketing. While describing finalists Tom and Herb as amazing personalities, when it came down to it Aarti was just more marketable and the most consistent. While Tom has a great personality, Susie admits she was at a loss on figuring out how to work with him in a business sense. Susie called it “hard to imagine” what business they could go into together. This problem was not the same with Herb. While Susie admits that she found Herb easily marketable his inconsistent performance was hard to keep up with. Compare that to Aarti’s knockout performances and her great back story the decision was easily made. Susie describes Aarti’s winning combination so potent that Brad himself wouldn’t have won, even if he had made it to the finale (which he didn’t {sour grapes.})

By the way, Food Network announced that contestant Tom Pizzica will be premiering his own show as well. Outrageous Food will premiere this November on Food Network.

Aarti Party will premiere next Sunday, August 22 at 12pm on the Food Network.

For more on The Next Food Network Star, click here.

Sundays at 9/8c on Food Network

Photographs courtesy of Food Network.

Jone Dome: Disney!! Son Of A tWitch! (Season 3, Episode 1)

Season 3 Episode 1: The fellas are back from vacation joning on everything that moves. This episode: The Drama behind why the interview w/Step Up 3D’s tWitch never happened & how Ference got punked by Adam Sevani. (Available on iTunes)

Show Credits:

Written & hosted by: Ference and Double Edge
Produced & Edited by: Zuberi B. Williams
Venue: Iron Horse Tap Room (Washington, DC)
Intro: Rhianna (Run This Town)

(If the show does not play using the link at the bottom of the page, you can download it: Download|Podcast Alley)

T. Dubb is a lover of the arts and enjoys drawing, listening to music, and watching movies in her spare time. Originally from Los Angeles, she currently resides in Davis, CA.

The Expendables Review: Crushed Dreams and a Heavy Heart

The Expendables is not merely the blockbuster of the moment but also a conscious throwback to an outmoded genre, aesthetic and worldview, it must be contextualized before it can be analyzed. So, dear reader, I fear this article will be a sprawling one. I hope you’ll stay with me.

The Expendables is an attempt to round up a medley of the pioneering rock stars of the hardcore action genre and combine their many energies and talents into one zany, gritty orgy of justified violence and destruction. It is an attempt to revive the 1980s and early 1990s action aesthetics, thematics and life force and introduce them to the 21st century. In other words, the concept of The Expendables is my ultimate wet dream. And I know I’m not alone.

Most people talk with nostalgic fondness about ‘80s action movies, but they can’t really articulate what made them great. For me, I think it was this: those movies encouraged you to embrace and cheer for the heroes and yell for the villains to get their comeuppance. There were good guys and bad guys, right and wrong, black and white.

Now today, you look at something like the Bourne films (which have, inexplicably, become the pervasive benchmark for evaluating action movies now) and it is no longer PC to even have good guys and bad guys. It’s all about grays and murkiness and shifty political jabs and ambiguity.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of that stuff a lot of the time, but it doesn’t make for joyful viewing. If you tried to cheer for something in Bourne it would be like “Come on Matty! Kick the snot out of that…corrupt CIA… assassin guy…wait is he good or bad, isn’t he just a patsy for…wait everyone in this movie is bad…wait, our whole government is bad, that sucks…but well they had good motives…but…well…never mind.” The Expendables is designed to be a wonderfully nostalgic anti-Bourne.

And what better auteur to mount this ambitious, potentially genre-saving film than the guy who defined it and shaped it like no other? I’m talking of course about Mr. Sylvester Stallone, one of the biggest movie stars of all time who is also no stranger to calling the shots behind the camera and on the written page.

Now that I’ve contextualized The Expendables and its fearless leader, let me contextualize myself and explain why I think I am supremely qualified to judge the movie.

I saw Rocky Balboa thirteen times in the theater—and I have the ticket stubs to prove it. It was one of the most significant movie-going experiences of my life. I saw John Rambo almost as many times and wrote my senior college thesis on the Rambo films. I’ve written academic papers on Cop Land and Demolition Man and have seen every Stallone movie in the theaters since 1996. My shelves are full of Rocky and Rambo figures. I have a vintage metal Rambo lunchbox with the original thermos that I polish weekly and I have Rambo bubble gum, seven Rocky t-shirts, a portion of one of the original 35mm reels for the original Rocky, and an autographed copy of Stallone’s fitness book.

I’ve gone on pilgrimages to Philadelphia and Bowie, Arizona—Rambo’s hometown. I own every single one of his films—including Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! and his direct-to-dvd releases D-Tox, Avenging Angelo, and Shade. I’ve even gotten into fistfights defending the man and his movies and almost named my dog after one of his characters. So when I tell you that I’m a Sylvester Stallone fanatic, I hope you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

For me, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson have always been the action movie cream of the crop. They’ve got the goods, they sell action, they’re believable, they’re real. They are exactly what an action hero is supposed to be, and there ain’t been a single star from later generations that can hold a candle to any of them. Not Shia LaBeouf, not Tobey Maguire, not Jake Gyllenhaal (for christ’s sake), not Matt Damon. They don’t got it, what can I say? Tom Cruise has had his moments (not lately), as has Nicolas Cage, but for guys like me that were weaned on the golden age action movies of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, it has been truly sad to watch the genre get watered down and broadened out into overblown, cartoonish, comic book spectacles with wimpy stars and soulless computer effects that spoil the magic.

But then, a few years ago a righteous ray of hope opened up in the cinematic sky and guys like me started to get giddy again. And my close friend Sly was leading the charge. He bounced back with supreme force and energy after everyone—inside and outside of Hollywood—had written him off as over-the-hill and yesterday’s news. He had something to say, he had his fire and his focus again. He had found his place, and he hit it out of the park with Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, redeeming himself and his legendary characters for the rest of cinematic history. It was nothing short of beautiful and exhilarating to watch.

Then Brucey joined in and made me happier than a pig in…you know what…by doing what he spent more than a decade promising he would never do: he brought back John McClane, one of the greatest, most awesome kick-ass heroes in the world, for Live Free or Die Hard. I never thought I’d get to see a Die Hard movie in theaters even though I would have happily given my vital organs to do so. But then Len Wiseman with his obnoxious blue filters and Tom Rothman and all the other gutless hacks at Twentieth Century Fox teamed up to water the experience down for the tweens and nearly neutered the franchise and the character. Bruce Willis saved it because he’s just so fricken’ badass cool, but the movie wasn’t the second coming it should have been.

Hold on though, because Harrison Ford came to the rescue by resurrecting Indiana Jones, the scrappy everyman adventurer with a jaw of steel and an irrepressible roguish twinkle. Except Steven Spielberg and George Lucas teamed up to create a lazy bastard child sequel featuring a jaw-droppingly lame script and incredibly idiotic action sequences that damned the franchise and left everyone disheartened.

It was truly the end of an era, and since Stallone had talked about John Rambo being his final trip in front of the camera, I began to steel myself for the death of the proper action film. I knew I could do it because I’m a survivor, having watched the Western fade into the recesses of an American consciousness utterly devoid of an appreciation for history, ritual or mythology.

But damn it if Stallone didn’t get my hopes up again, and to new peaks, when he announced that he would be writing, directing and starring in a film with the conscious mandate to resurrect the thematics, aesthetics and visceral, old-school awesome set pieces of the ‘80s action classics…not to mention that he would also be assembling the ultimate action movie junkie’s wet dream cast to boot, a cast to make even The Dirty Dozen and The Magnificent Seven and The Untouchables pale in comparison.

For two years I have been drooling over The Expendables, looking forward to it like no other, surfing the web every day for pictures and set reports and behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. I bought an Expendables shirt, an Expendables watch, poster, comic book and soundtrack. I watched the trailers and tv spots at least nine thousand times, I swear I’m not exaggerating. When the movie finally arrived, I was almost catatonic going into the theater, reminding myself to breathe, pinching myself that I was about to watch the greatest action movie of the 21^st century, the one that was going to save the genre. And I remained in that catatonic state throughout the film and long after the end credits. Because the movie didn’t deliver on what it promised. Not by a long shot.

I can’t believe I’m writing this. I can’t conceive of how this whole thing happened. I wish I could erase it all from my mind. I feel let down and maybe even betrayed, and guilty that I’m not writing a glowing review of my idol’s movie. But as much as it pains me to say it, I have to stay true to the action hero ethos I grew up with and lay out the truth: Sly dropped the ball big time on this one. I can’t believe it, but it’s true. The Expendables is a total mess, wildly off-balance and uneven, filled with structural deficiencies, baffling creative choices and a cast that gels as well as a goat can tap-dance in outer space. Holy crap, what the hell happened? The ingredients were perfect but the recipe is rancid.

Actually, I think I know what happened. Stallone has said in interviews that the script went through over a hundred drafts, and entire characters were combined or eliminated altogether. Stallone may have bit off more than even he could chew with trying to assemble the greatest action cast ever. Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Brittany Murphy and 50 Cent (what the hell?) were all at one time or another slated to be in the movie. Also on the list at various other times were Kurt Russell—Stallone’s Tango & Cash co-star—and Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal. I know there were rewrites on the set every day, and it shows.

The story is an utter disaster, in almost every scene, in almost every moment, in almost every way. It’s mind-boggling how half-baked and inept it is. There’s even a ridiculous twist at the end that nearly put me in a coma. Jet Li? Barely in the movie. Barely. Not even kidding. Blink and you’ll miss him entirely, that’s how little he registers. Terry Crews and Randy Couture? Same story.

Dolph Lundgren–who famously took Stallone on once before in Rocky IV–potentially had the most interesting character but is also totally underused. If you’re making an ensemble men-on-a-mission movie, you have to be all in. You can’t just bench characters with no explanation and trot them back out when it is convenient. And that’s not the worst thing. What is? The dialogue. All of it is incredibly choppy and forced. No matter how charismatic these guys may be separately (and I think Stallone is one of the most charismatic actors in movie history, I don’t care who disagrees with me), together they’re totally flat. The humorous banter isn’t humorous. It isn’t even banter.

There are also some technical problems with the movie. First of all, some CGI blood and flames look completely fake. What the hell is wrong with good old-fashioned squibs and practical flames? I don’t care if you’re setting a dude on fire, you’re telling me there is no way to do that stunt practically, without computer augmentation?

Furthermore, even though the film is supposed to evoke the aesthetics of yore, some of the action camerawork is disproportionately entrenched in shaky-cam, quick-cutting crap we have MTV, Michael Bay, and the Bourne films to thank for. It’s nowhere near as bad as it is in those films–the geography is still clear–but it’s still off-putting. Editing in action movies needs to slow the hell down. I’ll say it again: longer takes, less cuts, put the camera on sticks.  The intensity of the action should come from the energy of the performers and the choreography, not the rhythm of the editing.

And unless I was just in a bad theater, the sound mix is off at several points in the film, resulting in muddled dialogue. And maybe it was just me, but a lot of the guns didn’t sound loud enough. The sound of gunfire—especially the amount of gunfire in this movie—should knock you on your butt.

Okay, now I know what some people are going to say: action movies aren’t about story, they’re supposed to be bad, stories don’t matter, it’s all just about gunfights and explosions and car chases. Just watch the movie, don’t think about it too hard and enjoy. You know what I say to all that? B#$$S@#$. Total, utter BS.

Lethal Weapon isn’t about gunfights and explosions and car chases. It has them all, and they’re exciting and kick-ass, absolutely. But the movie is about two mismatched guys—one a tortured, hurting, nihilistic cop with a death wish who is more lost than the criminals he takes down, the other a family man confronting his age and mortality—who have to come together serve justice. It’s a movie about chemistry and evolving, fun, complex relationships. Die Hard is about characters and relationships too. So is Midnight Run, and 48 Hrs., and The Rock, and Face/Off and Hard Boiled and The Fugitive and The Last Boy Scout and First Blood and Bullitt and Dirty Harry and In The Line of Fire. All of those movies are fun and perfectly entertaining, but they’re emotionally involving too.

My litmus test for a good action movie is very simple: if you take out all the action scenes, is it still a good movie that engages with intelligent, revealing writing, crisp direction and captivating performances? Any one of those movies I mentioned, if you take out all of the action, you’re still left with a lot of emotion and absorbing scenes. I would still watch those movies without the action sequences.

But of course, the action genre is also fundamentally about constructing visceral, slam-bang stunts and acts of derring-do (yes, I really did just write “acts of derring-do”) that make you sit forward in your chair, widen your eyes, clench your hands and stop breathing. It’s about providing set-pieces at frequent intervals, and that The Expendables does. The first shots and opening credits are perfect. They set a mood and a build and a stage for expectations before overloading with action, which made me think that Stallone was nailing it. But then so much goes wrong after that. So so much. There are definitely some sweet kills and great stunts and moments, but I couldn’t fully get into them because I was so focused on how poorly the group interacted and how generic the characters all ended up being.

Which is so surprising because in all of the interviews and accounts I’ve followed where Stallone talks about the characters, he goes into so much detail about who each of the guys are, what their histories are—both separately and as a group—what their specialty is, what they believe in, and how they live. He delineates all of them so eloquently and so precisely, and it’s all so right and so fascinating. But none of that is actually in the movie.

For example, in the story synopsis featured on the official Expendables website, Sly’s character Barney Ross (awesome name for an action hero) is described as “a true cynic who describes what he does as ‘removing those hard to get at stains.” That’s a great line that speaks volumes about how the character views the world…but that line isn’t in the movie. Why the hell not? Or take Gunnar Jensen, Dolph Lundgren’s character…we’re led to believe that he’s off-balanced and juiced up on some kind of drug because he’s haunted by his combat demons…but we never have a scene showing him using nor are we given any sense of what those demons are. Sure it’s all implied if you look for it, but everything in this movie is underwritten, especially the female roles.

The back-story for all of the characters is absolutely anemic. Clearly they’re all ex-military in one way or another, but we don’t know how they ended up as mercenaries for hire, what their family situation is, etc. And the villains are total cartoons, and not even in a fun way. Eric Roberts plays Munroe, the main heavy, a task he also shared sixteen years ago in the Stallone/Sharon Stone vehicle The Specialist. Roberts can exude such a menacing, snakelike charm that’s delicious to watch…but he doesn’t have a role he can chomp into here. There’s an attempt at the very end to paint Monroe as a doppelganger for Barney but it fails because the foundation for that has not been properly laid. Same goes for his henchman Dan Paine, played by Steve Austin.

Like everything in the movie, the villains are betwixt and between. They’re not quite ridiculous enough to be fun and entertaining like the inimitable Dan Hedaya in Commando or Jack Palance in Tango & Cash or John Lithgow in Cliffhanger, and they’re not complex or evil enough to be fascinating like John Malkovich in In The Line of Fire or Gary Oldman in Air Force One, to take two examples from Wolfgang Petersen. Plus, especially coming on the heels of John Rambo, the villains don’t even seem all that evil. They’re really not even worth cheering against because what they are doing is so vague and half-baked, they barely even register.

This all applies to the tone of the movie too. It’s not ridiculous or funny enough to work as a parody of the genre like the masterful Hot Fuzz, nor is it dramatic and skillful enough to make us care. The result: it’s all just an uncomfortable mess. If you’re going to eschew dramatic weight and character development, you better have actors with genuine chemistry and a fun kill-the-baddies-while-cracking-delicious-one-liners energy a la Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and The Long Kiss Goodnight. The Expendables doesn’t. It’s not fun and it’s not absorbing. When I watch a movie, I want to learn as much as I can about who I’m watching, I want to have as complete a picture I can of how they came to be. I want flesh-and-blood portraits, not half-baked sketches. And that’s what is driving me nuts.

Stallone is a savvy, Oscar-nominated screenwriter who has written or co-written virtually every film in his oeuvre, and he has always succeeded at providing acute characterizations that establish a classical back-story and a character context. Besides Rocky and Rambo, go back and look at the characters he played in Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, The Specialist, Assassins, Daylight, Cop Land, and his overly-criticized remake of Get Carter. Stallone makes us care about his character in all of those films, but Barney Ross is not worthy of that pantheon. He doesn’t infuse the character with anything unique or even specific; Stallone doesn’t take ownership of him and that’s really sad to see.

He had the perfect opportunity too: the genesis for the whole movie came from a scene in Rambo: First Blood Part II where Rambo and his contact Co—a beautiful Vietnamese freedom fighter—are riding up the river and she asks Rambo why he was assigned this impossible mission. He smiles with a twinge of sadness and tells her that he is expendable. Co asks what the word “expendable” means and he tells her “It’s like…if you get invited to a party and you don’t show up…it doesn’t really matter.”

That exchange perfectly defined the tragic nature of Rambo and mercenaries in general, and has more dramatic weight than the entire film of The Expendables. Mercenaries are guys who constantly live with the knowledge that they can be replaced, and that, inevitably, they will die a violent death and will never be able to wash the blood from their hands.

The Expendables could have been an exploratory meditation on what it is like to live with that mentality, to struggle to find and hold onto a sense of purpose, a sense that you are fighting a fight worth fighting, that you killed and sacrificed in the pursuit of justice and honor. But the film does not do any of that, save for one scene with Mickey Rourke that is very well-acted and directed. In fact, it actually takes you out of the movie because it is that much better than everything else.

That scene showed the marks of the Stallone of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, the Stallone who wants to be taken seriously as a filmmaker of thematic substance. But other scenes, especially ones featuring the villains being, well, villains, and a subplot featuring Jason Statham’s character Lee Christmas, are staged perfunctorily and contain totally wooden, flat performances. If it ain’t dramatic or fun, then you really got a problem. Sometimes it seemed like Stallone wasn’t even trying to make a good movie.

But I feel weird even saying that, because I know he busted his butt making this film. (Actually, he busted his neck filming his smackdown with Steve Austin, which ends very unsatisfactorily and doesn’t live up to the epic-ness postulated in the trailer and behind-the-scenes material). I know he wanted to make a love letter to fans like me whose cinematic bread and butter was the real, character-driven action films of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and he totally could have if he had just not rushed the script and had locked it down before he started shooting.

To go to so much effort and personal and physical pain, to toil away and make a movie this big when the story and characters aren’t worth it is just heartbreaking. Because audiences don’t know about the insane amount of sweat and tears and lost sleep that go into making a movie like this. At the end of it, all that matters is what’s up there on that screen, and what’s up there on the screen in this case is very little at all. I know Sly is capable of much more than what he ended up giving us here.

Again, I know some people will say my expectations were too high, that the movie did exactly what it was supposed to do. But as a foaming-rabid devotee of the genre, I vehemently disagree. I guess that’s where I differ from a lot of the other action fans out there: if I don’t care about the characters I can’t get into the action. I don’t care how awesome the stunts and kills may be, if I’m not emotionally invested, I’m left cold and get completely bored and restless.

I love action movies more than anyone I’ve ever met, but for me it’s all about the emotional impact of action, not the visual. The emotional appeal can survive without the visual, but not vice versa. The thrills come not from pyrotechnics but in caring for the people in these explosive situations, and in fearing for their safety and rooting for them to survive against all odds and save the day.

In looking over those last two paragraphs again, I’m left with this thought: Stallone and I are totally on the same page. Look at his filmography. There are some great films, some good films, some mediocre films, even some terrible films. But all of them are colored by emotion. They’re about characters with heart, fighting for what they believe in, constantly seeking redemption and a chance to right past wrongs.

And throughout his entire career, Stallone has always been disrespected and pigeonholed. I think he is probably the most typecast star in film history. Whenever he tried to bust out of the constraints that audiences and critics put on him, it backfired. Even Cop Land, which is a terrific film full of terrific performances–at the top of which is Stallone’s–was a failure.

So I think what happened with The Expendables is that Stallone finally gave up. He stopped trying to create dramatic characters and just focused on the action. That’s the only explanation, because the action is sensational but the story and characters suck. I think his heart told him to make the kind of movie I wanted, the movie I’ve been talking about, a movie that combined the chemistry and sheer joy of Lethal Weapon with the explorative thematic integrity of Unforgiven and The Wild Bunch.

But in his head, he knew that critics and the majority of moviegoers and action fans don’t care about his acting and don’t even believe he’s any good at it. He knew they would scoff at any kind of earnestness or weight he tried to put into the film, and he wasn’t masochistic enough to open himself up to the same kind of vitriolic criticism he has been taking for thirty years. Most people see Stallone as an action star; I see him as an actor who makes action films.

He made The Expendables for the lowest common denominator, not for people like me who want a little pathos mixed in with their explosions. I’m sure that when I go see this movie again (and I will, out of loyalty), I’ll be able to enjoy it more, because I understand the terms and mindset of it now.

There were certainly some highpoints. There’s a scene with Stallone diving onto a moving sea plane as a whole army is on his a$$ and then he and Jason Statham blow the crap out of it (before engaging in more forced dialogue) that is one of the most kickass action moments I’ve seen in a long time. Stallone still has the goods, believe me, and he knows how to stage action, though sometimes he cuts away from stuff you want to see. He throws some cool MMA moves into the mix and does some awesome John Woo-esque twin 9mm shooting (oh my god greatest idea ever: John Woo directs an action thriller starring Sylvester Stallone and Harrison Ford).

Maybe if The Expendables hadn’t come on the heels of John Rambo it would have seemed a lot better. I don’t know. Some people will be content just at seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis and Stallone briefly together, and in reveling at the nostalgia the movie tries to evoke for these guys and their bygone era. But it is precisely because I know that Stallone is one of the very few guys left who understands everything about action movies and gets them on an intuitive level that I can’t view this movie as anything but a disheartening disappointment.

I will never give up on Sylvester Stallone. But I feel like he has given up on himself, at least in terms of his acting ability, and that makes me truly sad, because he has always had the chops and has never been fully appreciated. I wish he knew that there were people like me out there who believe in his dramatic abilities. I wish he would believe in himself.

I will continue to support the man and his movies, and am nothing but incredibly grateful for the immense and lasting impact he has had on my life. But The Expendables hurt me, and it’s a pain I will live with for many years to come.

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