Prison Break, 24 and spirituality???

As I mentioned before we are temporarily living in Huntsville, Alabama. We really don't fit in the Bible Belt: not that I have anything against fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity. I'm not religious, but I am striving to become spiritual. To me, spirituality is life affirming, being thankful, finding inner peace, being kind, etc. Being religious is adhering to a dogma. People here tend to be on the dogmatic side so we keep to ourselves. Thanks to Netflix, we order movies and TV shows to fill the long, quiet evenings. It's really great watching TV shows without commercial breaks, and not having to wait a week or more for the next addition. Who cares if you have to wait a year before you see the season, we're going to do that with Grey's Anatomy.

Right now we've started season 4 of Prison Break. Seasons 1-3 turned out to be exceptionally good. We'll watch an entire disk in the evening and it gets me all wired up so I can't sleep and I'm thinking about the show and analyzing and trying to second guess where its going to go. My boyfriend is really bad, he cheated and read what's going to happen. He keeps telling me these tidbits and I plug my ears and scream, "Don't Tell Me! Okay, tell me a little. No, no more. Good, Sara and Michael get married."

24 and Prison Break are similar genres. But Prison Break is so much better (as compared the the first season of 24). Although 24 was gritty, edgy and exciting and also wired me up too much to sleep, I didn't really like any of the characters. To me, all the women in 24 were either needy, bitches or in the case of the teenager girl...both. The one female character who seemed to have her act together turned out to be the bad guy. What's more, it seemed like someone was getting shot and killed every 15 minutes. On one CD that would be 16 people a night. I don't know how healthy it is to be watching that many people being murdered in the course of an evening, and it is definitely not spiritual. I've heard that instead of watching crap like 24, spiritual people need to be careful what they view and watch uplifting movies and television programming. So instead of Season 2 of 24, I thought I'd give Prison Break a chance.

Once I started watching Prison Break there was no stopping. It is that good, and my spirituality has gone down the toilet. A lot of people do get killed in this one, but not as much as 24. In fact, sometimes there's an entire show where no one gets killed! Prison Break actually has some character development and I like every single character in that show, even the bad ones. In this case, especially the bad ones. It is fast paced, interesting, gritty and well...I characterize this show as a "manly" soap opera. But I'm female and still love it.

Unfortunately they killed off one of my favorite characters early in the second season. He was the mafia guy who, I don't know his name, but he's actually Swedish presumably from Sweden.

Another one of my favorite characters is Sara. She has such a pretty complexion, it just glows. I wonder if it's her make-up or diet or just good genes. I bet she eats her vegetables.

The show does have its drawbacks. When you watch 4 shows on CD sans commercials the common-occuring, strangely bizarre coincidences that save the day become just a little too obvious.

One of the biggest drawbacks of this show is they filmed most of it in or around Dallas, TX. In Season 2, this became readily apparent. They did not get their geography correct at all. Especially Utah. Instead of looking arid, mountainous and rugged, Utah looked flat and fertile, more like what you would see in the the mid-west as in maybe Texas outside of Dallas. The time, distance and season didn't correspond either. First it's winter then the grass is green and leaves are on the trees. The convicts drive across the country and make it from Illinois to Utah in what seems like a matter of hours. All that driving and they're not even stiff and tired. Then Season 3 this was supposed to take place in Panama, and they're on this dirt road and there's a tree in the background with yellow autumn leaves. Autumn in Panama, hmm. Because they had to film mostly in Texas and couldn't get their geography correct, it gave the show the appearance of a low-budget movie.

Other than that, watching Prison Break is a lot of fun, which either speaks well of the show or how boring life is here in Huntsville. The first and third season has the main characters in prison, and the way prison-life is depicted on this show seems very close to how it would be in real life. It was almost too bad they escaped because the prison dynamics was fascinating, especially with the corrupt guard, Bellick, who is just mean.

Another aspect that makes the program so good is several of the key players are very, very smart. You have the main character Michael Scofield, and he is a genius. He is the good, thoughtful man who thinks things through and wants to see justice and goodness prevail in the world. Couldn't hurt a fly. Then you have the evil genius who in some ways makes the show. That character is often called T-bag, and he played the role so well I actually looked up the actor's name and profile: Robert Knepper. What is amazing is he's been in other movies/TV that I've seen and he went by completely unnoticed. I noticed him as T-Bag.

Mr. Knepper has created a character who is a cold-blooded, sexual predator and murderer from Alabama, but I don't think it's Huntsville. He talks and acts exactly like the people around here. T-bag can be very creepy and very scary and looks out for Number 1. His character is totally believable. Yes, Robert Knepper plays that part a little too well.

I can actually see him watching the show with his wife and kids, and asking her what she thought. And she would say something like, "You did a great job with that character dear. He's very scary. You are so not like that."

Then he would say, "Well, I am an actor." Then they would go to bed and they'd snuggle together and he would say, "I have a confession to make. The acting part is how I am with you, I'm really T-bag."

Then her eyes would get real big and he would hug her and say, "Just kidding, Ha, Ha, Ha."

Then she would say, "That wasn't funny."

He'd apologize, "Yeah, bad joke. Sorry."

He'd roll over and go to sleep. She'd be wide awake and sneak out of bed, snatch her purse. Tiptoe and wake up the kids and whisper, "Kids, get in the car. Quiet now. No daddy's not coming. Shh,shh,shh, I'll explain once we're safely in a hotel."

Prison Break Season 4

Well, well, well. The final season of Prison Break is non-compelling to say the least. It starts out pretty good, (3 stars) but dwindles down to 2 stars. I would give Season 1 and 2 five stars because those seasons are worth seeing again.

The first season of the show was absolutely phenomenal. I don't think I've ever seen better TV programming. What is aggravating, is they didn't need to break out of prison so quickly. Season 1 could have been the first attempt that failed. Perhaps Sara unlocked the door, but someone else locked it back. Linc's attorney manages a stay long enough for a second Season 2 they're still in prison and Scofield uses his tatooed blueprints to figure yet another way out.

There was plenty to work with the prison to maintain the intensity and drama for two seasons within the prison. Linc could have gotten a stay right at the end of season one allowing him to escape execution until the end of Season two. More could have been developed with the mafia-guy (aka my Swede) and I could have enjoyed watching him for two seasons instead of one. Who he was and what he was doing didn't make a lot of sense and that could have been clarified.

More could have been done with Bellick. Wade Williams was perfect in that role and it would have been interesting to develop his character more. Here's this big, bully guard on the take, acting all macho and living with his mother. Do something with that. Don't treat him like a cartoon. Let us meet his Bellick's mother and let us learn more why he can't cut the apron strings.

When Linc's lawyer got stuck in that house with the VP's brother, she was immediately killed off. Wait a minute. A house that you can enter and not leave is an interesting concept. Explore it a little bit. Let her be in there for a few episodes trying to get out. Wouldn't the VP's brother be horny and try and rape her? Or would he not do that, but seriously enjoy the company? Would she be able to convince him to do the right thing? Maybe they would try to escape together. See the title of the show is Prison Break, and prisons don't always have to be actual prisons.

Season 2 brought in the brilliant FBI agent Alex. He was able to second guess what Scofield had planned. This was fascinating. Yet, they didn't work with that, they just quickly moved all the cast into Utah (which didn't look like any part of Utah, I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of Utah) and made Alex a dirty cop and a drug addict. It would have taken at least two days of heavy driving of 10 hours or more to go from Chicago to Salt Lake. Yet, these guys seemed to magically arrive in a matter of hours and still have time to start a romance, have a hand sewn back on, and other exciting adventures.

It would have been just as thrilling to allow them a normal amount of time to get to the destination. Come on, these guys are wanted by the law. Some people would recognize them, many wouldn't. They would be leaving a trail, Alex could systematically sniff them out. A few are dangerous, Sara's having a nervous break-down and losing her job. Oh, yeah, and the crazy guy, he was great. I loved him, he could caused all kinds of problems and befuddled the cops because he had no logic. Why didn't they milk this stuff? No, they decided to drag out season 4 which was predictable, cliched and unexciting. Okay, it was a little bit exciting. But the only real reason to watch Season Four is because the characters were so good and interesting we had to find out what happened to them, which was almost exactly how I predicted.

My guess was "Can't hurt a Fly" Scofield was going to kill T-Bag. It didn't quite happen like that.

Probably because I watched Season 4 through Netflix, sans commercial four shows a night, it was easy to catch all the flaws in logic. Scofield has almost superhuman powers in determining his next move, which gets kind of old. Does he really have to be perfect?

Here's some things in Season 4 I didn't believe:

That Self would kill his partner then be good again.

That Bellick would give his life for the cause.

That T-bag cared so much for his mother, when it seemed like she was never really in his life.

They seemed to really contrive some situations in order to keep T-bag in the picture.

That the General would be unguarded with all this stuff going down at the end.

That Scofield's mother would have that much antagonism toward Linc.

That Linc would be 5 hours near death, and then with a little patchwork from Sara be ready to go.

That Kellerman and those two other guys would magically reappear to save the day.

I had problems with Gretchen in Season 4. When she first appeared (Season 3?) she started out as a weak actress and I didn't believe for a minute she was a mean person. Then her acting improved dramatically and I was entranced by how wicked she could be. Although too contrived in putting Gretchen and T-Bag together, their pairing was fun. I wanted to understand their relationship better. Then Self comes on the scene and it was like Gretchen lost her evil edge. Were they goofing off between scenes and she couldn't get back into character?

Neither the General or Scofield's mother were interesting characters. Their quest for world domination and with Michael's super-brain power made this seem more like a Batman movie gone wrong.

This final season dragged on and on, and they decided to milk it some more with the Final Break, which I have not seen, but read about and it sounds stupid. First, I can't believe that given the circumstances Sara would end up in prison for killing Scofield's mom. Didn't she sign a release that gave her immunity from all that anyway? Oh well, it's somewhere down my queue and comes when it comes.

Movie Nerd and the Secret of Roan Innish

A long time ago, I met this guy who I can't remember his name, but he was a real dweeb and a movie nerd, which was wonderful because I like dweebs and movies.

The best part of watching a movie, is going out for coffee and cake (or, in my case, tofu and bottled water) and analyzing the film. Most people don't do that. Usually, after a movie, it's like this:

Me: Did you like the movie?

Them: Yeah, did you?

Me: Yeah, what did you like about it?

Them: What do you mean what did I like about it? I liked the movie, okay.

Me: Yeah, but what made it good? The plot? The way the actor played the part, the...

Them: We're not in school, okay. It was good.

But Movie Nerd was the type of guy to analyze movies even more than I do, and he had seen like every movie in the world. What's more, he was an Alfred Hitchcock fan and had memorized every single movie script. It was amazing. I don't even think actors actually remember their lines when they're done saying them.

So, we were at this party, and it turned out he was Movie Nerd, and talking about -- what else -- movies. So I started asking him about various movies, and he had seen every single one I asked him about, and what his opinion was regarding the movie. He responded with well thought out reasons about what made a movie good or bad. I was in heaven, then I asked him about "The Secrect of Roan Innish."

You see, I didn't like that movie. I hated that movie, and I guess I'm the only person in the world who hated that movie. I went with my girlfriend and the movie started out okay, then it got terrible. The little girl just grated on my nerves and there was all these stupid stories, and sat through the whole movie inwardly groaning.

Have you ever been to a really bad movie and someone in the audience starts ad-libbing lines to the movie that actually make it funny? I wanted to be that person in Roan Innish, but all I could come up with was, "Oh, no, not another story." Which isn't funny, and would have gotten me killed since I was the only one in the crowded theatre who was gagging at every line throughout the film. I think that is the worst movie I've ever sat through in my life. There are movies I refused to see because I knew I would hate them, there are movies that I have walked out on or stopped the DVD player. I would have walked out on this one, but it would have left my girlfriend stranded who was absorbed and thrilled throughout the entire film. For me it was like two hours of tedius, fingernails clawing a chalkboard type movie.

My girlfriend was just enthralled by the movie so was everyone else in the audience. Afterwards she was, "Oh, that was so wonderful." Unfortunately I couldn't share her enthusiasm and I didn't want to dampen her mood, but I still had to be honest, so I gave a cool response. She didn't want to hear me rag about a movie she adored, so we changed subjects discussed something else.

When I brought up Roan Innish to Movie Nerd he also sang its praises. Now was my chance to trash the film and I did. We got into a fight.

Him: How could you not like that movie?

Me: It was boring. I did not find the children believable, the stories were tedious and it was not a thriller. It had the word secret in the the title which to me suggested a mystery, and the only mystery I found was how anyone else could like this movie. (Or something like that, it was a long time ago.)

He was actually offended that I didn't like this movie and the likelihood of him asking me out to the movies had decreased by 100%. He said: Your negative reaction to the movie just proves my point that it was a fantastic movie as it created a strong emotion which all good movies do.

Since we were never going to be friends, I should have said: No, I would have walked out and demanded my money back on this one but I was with my girlfriend and she liked it.

He would have said: Can I meet your girlfriend?

That was it, we parted on cool terms and Movie Nerd was forever out of my life. Darn, why couldn't I have liked that stupid movie? I'm really, really attracted to geeky, nerdy guys. But they are so not attracted to me, I have to settle for dating good-looking, handsome men, who are lacking in brilliance. Oh, the irony. I'm sure Movie Nerd would appreciate that.

Movie: The Island

Is it possible to combine cerebral with action-packed adventure? That's what the movie The Island tries to do, and succeeds in making a long-ass, boring movie.

The basic concept is fascinating and deserving of exploration. Rich people are paying big money to clone themselves to harvest body parts for a longer life. They are told their clones are kept in stasis and never are conscious. What the administrators discovered however, was the only way to keep the clones (product--as they are called in the movie) viable is to allow them to have consciousness and to live their lives. The administrator created a controlled environment for them to thrive. They are programmed with childhood memories and told they are survivors of a global contamination and must stay within the enclosed community. There is only one place outside the underground city that is free from deadly contamination called the island. The winner of the on-going lottery will allow them to live the rest of their live on the tropical paradise.

This is all a lie, of course, the winner of the lottery is going to have their body parts harvested for their genetic look-alike who had them cloned to insure a longer life.

Naturally two of the clones find out about this and discover the outside world is not contaminated after all. They must be brought back into the fold and eliminated. Here come the long tedious chase scenes, car crashes, smashed buildings, the destruction goes on and on.

Yawn. There are three of these ad infinitum chase scenes and another boring sex scene without any real sex. Snore.

Rather than bore us with the same-ol' smash 'em up/tear it down; there were to aspects of the movie that needed exploring. The first was that as the clones became older (they were cloned at the same age of their adult payee, but were basically children) they started picking up more and more human attributes such as curiosity. What's more, they seemed to start knowing aspects of their DNA contributor's lives. The second was when the hero and heroine escape to the real world with adult bodies but the minds of children. Watching how they adapted from a confined, protected world to one where anything goes could have been very interesting and funny. No, we got cars flipping over instead.

TV: Criminal Minds, Numb3rs, Without a Trace

These crime television shows are repeats of the same mindless and predictable crap that Hollywood puts out on a regular basis.

Here's where these shows went wrong. They each had an interesting premise, but they didn't run with it.

Criminal Minds: criminal profiling

Numbers: use of math in solving crimes

Without a Trace: following missing persons rather than murder

Instead it was the same ol', same ol'. The crime is solved at the end of the hour, everything is right with the world again.

The real problem with these shows lay in the 1-dimensional characters. Ah-hem...all you script-writers, producers, directors out there -- 1-dimensional characters are BORING and that makes the show boring.

These shows don't give us anyone to care about. Yes, we don't like the idea of a victim getting shmiced and we want the bad buy getting double shmiced, but they don't give us anyone to hate, or to be afraid of. Rather than giving us a character, they create these horrible, unimaginable crime scenarios, possibly even based on real-life events. However, we mystery lovers have already seen it all, read it all, and been to enough gory movies, it is impossible to come up with any more hideous crimes. You don't need creepy crimes, you need creepy criminals.

I think all 3 of these shows need to be reworked. Part of the problem was these shows had too many characters most of them working on the case. Wait a minute. In real life are there that many people working on one single case? Worse, every single one of these characters are completely focused on their job, nothing else. Hmm, don't these people have lives outside of work? Don't most of them actually hate their jobs? Aren't they getting cynical working with really sicko cases.

Here's a term we learned in high school that people who are going to put out any type of fiction should keep in mind: character development. From scene one, you need to start developing your three main characters, and if the actors aren't up to it, then find some who have enough brains to flesh out a complete person instead of merely speaking someone else's lines.

One of the things that makes 24 so good is to see how the bureaucrats mess slow everything down and mess everything up.

Oh, read the books, Snakes in Suits and the Sociopath Next Door. Apparently not all psychopaths are serial killers. A lot of them find regular jobs and simply lie, cheat and make life miserable for all the other employees. Yet on these TV shows everyone is working smoothly to solve the crime. Come on, bring complexity to these shows, make us care about the victim they're trying to save, love and hate the ones trying to solve the crime and fear the criminal. If the case isn't solved in an hour...well there's another term we learned in highschool and it is called: cliffhanger.

Movie: "Water"

According to Hindu scripture and widow must not remarry. So in the olden days of India (a practice which may continue to this day) widows were sent to live with other widows in an ashram. They cut their hair and wore only white, which might not be too bad if you were a woman sixty or older. But if a girl became a widow at say, age 7, because you were married off even before meeting your husband, she would spend her life without seeing her parents again or having any real companionship or opportunity in life.

They must support themselves in the ashram and do so by begging. One of the women in the group acts as a leader and sends some of the younger women out to prostitute for them. This woman actually reminded me of my friend's sister-in-law. It wasn't her, of course, but every scene she was in, I was thinking, "that's my friend's sister-in-law, no, no that's not her."

Oh, back to the film.

The movie "Water" takes place in India circa 1930's and shows this disturbing aspect of Indian culture. Much of the movie is seen through the eyes of a precocious seven year old girl who doesn't understand why she is there. She meets another young widow in her mid-twenties who takes the child under her wing. This young woman meets a man who has been educated in England and is a follower of the teachings of Gandhi. He has no use for the practice of ostracizing women simply because their husband has died.

As to be expected, the young woman and young man fall in love. He wants to marry her and she is ready to forsake her beliefs and be with him. Because of this trouble erupts, that and the fact the woman who looks like my friend's sister-in-law has been sending her out as a prostitute for her beau's father. What kind of coincidence is that?

Overall, this is a very good movie. For others who like it there is a lot to discuss. The cinematography is phenomenal and makes it worth seeing for that aspect alone.