ripitup | pinartarhan.com

Holy Crap Paul Walker Died!

Posted on December 1, 2013 Written by ripitup

paul-walker-picture — Image via askmen.com.

I hate the fact that I had to write this post, but I couldn’t not write it. I really, really liked Paul Walker. I know as fans we didn’t really know him and all that. But some celebrities are appreciated more than others. To me, Walker was one of the much better ones.

I loved how he transformed his career from a regular soap opera gig to action stardom but didn’t neglect to put some less box-office friendly but seriously engaging films in between.

I loved how he had this humble attitude about him despite how traditionally good-looking he was. I loved that he didn’t shove his private life down our throats. I love I had no idea who he was dating when.

I love fast cars and fast action movies, but I never thought I’d sit through several action movies with fast cars and not get bored for a second. Yeah, there were plots, but I don’t remember much of it. Just that it was fast, furious and I had one hell of a good time during all.

I was looking forward to Hours, where he plays a dad trying to save his daughter despite all odds in an unlikely action/drama. I’ll still see it of course, but with a bit of heavy heart.

Now, it’s always sad when someone dies young. And to me, 40 is young. It’s young enough for a lot of things, and but it is damn too young to die. It’s sadder when you weren’t expecting it. He wasn’t sick, old, depressed and as far as I knew, not abusing any sort of thing. So the surprise element is huge.

My favorite Walker films are Timeline, The Death and Life of Bobby Z and my absolute favorite, The Lazarus Project. They might not be the most logical, but they had great casts, engaging plots and high level entertainment, though The Lazarus Project had a deeper, more psychological aspect.

So what can I say? I wish he didn’t die. Now all we can do is remember, feel sad and if there’s an afterlife, hope that he is already having a good time. From what I saw, he deserved it.

RIP, Paul Walker.

Person of Interest 3X09 The Crossing Review: Crucial and Exciting with a Surprise

Posted on November 20, 2013 Written by ripitup

Person of Interest The Crossing, Carter and Reese

I’ve had an on-off love affair with Person of Interest since mid-season 1. I’m saying on-off love affair, because even though I don’t stop watching the show my levels of curiosity and attachment waver a lot. Some episodes are edge-of-your-seat brilliant while some border on all right. Frankly I loved the case-of-the-week stories and I am a bit bored with HR. Now it looks like we are done with that storyline of big bad and hoping John will kick Simmons (Robert John Burke)’s ass for good next week.

I was tempted to write a review for 3×09 because it sent sparks flying all over again. It had the right amount of action, emotional scenes, Fusco (Kevin Chapman) coolness, Shaw (Sarah Shahi) sweetness-you know those rare but always entertaining- and I don’t mind Root in lock-up and moderate amounts. Let’s go over tonight’s exciting (and some a bit flawed scenes that had to be written to get the writers to the direction they wanted to go):

Plot for 3×09 : Spoilers Ahead

Continued from the decent but not this kick-ass 3×08, Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Carter (Taraji P. Henson) have Alonzo Quinn (Clarke Peters), aka Head of HR, killer/godfather of Beecher (Carter’s cop ex whom she once suspected of being HR) and they have to take him to FBI. This time HR have a clear picture of Reese, aka man in suit and all the dirty cops (they are a dime a dozen) as well as the bad guys (apart from Elias’ men, who as a courtesy to Reese and Harold told his men not to go after him) want Reese. Some over-eager subway thugs get their asses handed by Reese. Guys, get a clue, if a man wearing a suit doesn’t back away from weapon-carrying and openly threatening (as in verbally) criminals, he’s either nuts or he knows how to out-maneuver a bunch of guys at a time.

Carter and Reese managed to get shelter at the morgue with some help from Fusco, who unfortunately gets snatched by Simmons and his men. Shaw is sent after Fusco, and Harold (Michael Emerson) goes to help out Reese and Carter, who are cornered by several HR men.

Fusco is tortured for the location of a bank that holds evidence against HR, and holds out pretty well until they threaten his son. Even then he gives them wrong information. Fusco was extra likeable and cool this episode.

Reese and Carter share a very personal, emotional, romantic even, moment after they share near-death experiences, and Reese reveals how much Carter means to him. He even kisses her, and well, Carter is happy about that. A date won’t look out of place, or even a less PG kiss for that matter, if they survive at the end of the episode. Of course being the ultimate warrior hero, Reese distracts Carter and gets out of their hiding to get rid of other men so she’ll be safe and free to take Quinn to FBI.

Harold ensures Carter’s safety and also John’s by having him arrested by two decent cops that don’t belong to HR.

Shaw makes a smart call by visiting Fusco’s son and saving him from death by HR crook. She lets Fusco know, and Fusco takes care of the guy who would kill him. Courtesy of his broken fingers. Yes, HR are connected and ruthless, but they aren’t the brightest. Because Fusco used his broken fingers to get out of the cuffs. (He was already in pain due to several broken fingers, so what’s breaking a thumb in addition, really, when your life is at stake?).

Carter makes it to the FBI building safe and sound, and a lot of HR criminals (cop or otherwise) are arrested in addition to Quinn.

Shaw and Fusco enjoy a funny moment in his car, him being thankful to her for saving his son’s life, her being her usual almost robotic self.

Carter gets Reese out, and as they stand in the dark alley out (yes, this is the foreshadowing to the bit that I deemed flawed), and Harold is out of his car, the phone rings in the street. Simmons comes out of nowhere, shoots both Carter and Reese, gets shot in the process but manages to escape.

As it turns out, Carter is mortally wounded and dies in Reese’s arms.

The fun, the cool and the seriously? Moments

The fun and the cool:

– Shaw and Fusco were fun. I liked who she chose to save, and how Fusco saved himself – without giving HR what they wanted.

– Quinn getting handed to the FBI, whose halls were full of handcuffed HR cops or allies.

– Harold going to save Carter and Reese, without giving in to Root (Amy Acker)

– Subway thugs threatening Reese, only to cut to the next moment they were kicked out of the wagon unconscious.

– Reese and Carter sharing and showing war wounds. Lethal Weapon 3 flashbacks anyone?

Seriously?

– I think it is a stretch for Simmons to last this long. Seriously. He threatens and kills and screws so many people, it is a wonder one of his psycho men didn’t turn on him or someone got pissed or someone like Elias had him killed just to show him his place. He might be evil and connected, but he is no Joker. And if I were Reese, or Shaw, or Root, I would have shot the guy just to make a point. Sure, he can be replaced. But not taking him down proved to be not so pragmatic after all.

– OK, fine, we need a recurring big bad, the actor is doing a good job, we need a cliffhanger because heavens forbid the characters rest for more than a moment. But knowing Simmons is still out there, why isn’t Carter wearing a vest? Why isn’t anyone else around? Isn’t that the front of a New York police station at night? Why isn’t Shaw around just in case? Forget about Simmons for a second. Isn’t John an ex-CIA man who’s supposed to know better? For me that scene was the equivalent of a Scream movie character opening the door without any questions even though she knew there was a serial killer around. And no they should have taught Simmons could have risked coming. Because he lost pretty much all his power. Desperate times, desperate measures, people. Geez.

A bit rushed, but acceptable

– The kiss scene. I don’t belong to the group that claims there was never anything romantic between Carter and Reese and that came out of nowhere. There have been many scenes that implied, told or showed they really cared for each other and understood each other. They trust each other with their lives, and in their world, it beats so many other emotions.

Superficially speaking, Reese is attractive. So is Carter. With all the stress, adrenaline, action and secret-sharing, them being more than attracted to each other is only logical. The problem is though, the scenes implying all the trust/connection/etc were always much shorter and distributed with distance among the episodes. Blink or move away from the TV and you could miss them. It doesn’t help that even recently, Reese was sleeping with Zoe. Something fun and understandable, but bad timing considering how deep Reese went in this episode.

All in all:

A brilliant episode with some flaws because the writers wanted to part ways with a main character. I liked Carter, and I liked the Carter on team Reese+Harold so much better than the I’m-gonna-arrest-me-the-man-in-suit Carter. I liked her pairing with Shaw and Zoe, her partnering with Fusco and going badass on HR. I also loved her new relationship with Elias.

Carter dying isn’t all that unexpected, not taking into account her main character status. She had waged war on a powerful criminal organization, and her life was at risk all the time. But how she went, who she killed her and how…That was a bit…uncalled for, and pretty much my only complaint about the episode.

That also possibly means bigger roles for Root and Shaw, and I like their current doses. I don’t want Root to have such a big role unless she’s treated by some super shrink Lightman (Tim Roth’s awesome character from Lie to Me) or something first.

Also, it wasn’t cool to kill another woman Reese cared so much about. This is the second time. What’s next? Have him bond further with Shaw and Zoe and kill them too? Give the guy a break.

What I’d love to see Next

Reese going full badass on all the villains. Don’t arrest them, don’t let them get away. Don’t let any other character pull a Simmons, including Simmons.

This is all from me regarding The Crossing. What are your thoughts? Please share away in the comments.

Other Person of Interest Posts

Person of Interest starring Jim Caviezel & Michael Emerson

Person of Interest Returned with a Bang: POI 2X11 – 2 Pi R Episode Review

Other Posts on Jim Caviezel

Angel Eyes starring Jim Caviezel and Jennifer Lopez

High Crimes starring Jim Caviezel, Ashley Judd & Morgan Freeman

Hostages starring Dylan McDermott, Toni Collette & Tate Donovan

Posted on November 12, 2013 Written by ripitup

The night before she’s to operate on the president, surgeon Ellen Sanders (Toni Collette) is taken hostage in her house with her family by a 4-people team lead by Duncan (Dylan McDermott). The deal is simple: she kills the president during the surgery, or they will kill her husband (Tate Donovan), her teenage son and daughter (Quinn Shepard). She is warned that they have eyes and ears everywhere, and she can’t seem to figure out a way out of it.

And as much as they look like the perfect family, everyone but the mother seems to be hiding something from everyone: the son deals pot, the daughter might be pregnant and the husband’s cheating.

Unbeknownst to her, Duncan is an FBI agent, and president’s advisor, as well as Duncan’s father-in-law are in this. We also know Duncan is a loving father and a husband, he doesn’t seem to want to use more force than he has to, though he will not miss an opportunity to teach a lesson to a misbehaving hostage if he has to. We don’t know why he is doing this, though we have a pretty good guess.

Of course her first instinct being to save lives, Dr. Sanders will further challenge Duncan but she will not like the consequences….

The Hostages is a fun hostage-based drama/action series with a solid cast. I’ve been a Dylan McDermott fan since his The Practice days, and he has a knack for playing strong, grey and intense characters (The Practice, The Hostages, Dark Blue).

The Hostages isn’t perfect. As expected, hostages do a lot of stupid things, especially the father. But then again, not having been held hostage (thank Goodness), I can’t say for sure that people won’t act like that. Then there are your captors, who are led by Duncan, who’s essentially a nice guy. So when a captor is unwilling to kill, he also gets to do some risky stuff. Still, it provides some decent action when hostages misbehave and the captors retaliate.

It’s supposed to be a mini-series, so hopefully we’ll get all the episodes. Based on the Israeli television series.

Enjoy!

Recommended Hostage-featuring Movies

Inside Man starring Clive Owen, Denzel Washington & Jodie Foster

The Entitled starring Kevin Zegers, Ray Liotta, Laura Vandervoort & Victor Garber

Air Force One starring Harrison Ford, Glenn Close and Gary Oldman

Scandal starring Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn & Darby Stanchfield

Posted on November 6, 2013 Written by ripitup

Scandal starring Kerry Washington & Tony Goldwyn. Image via tvguide.com. Is it just me or is Tony Goldwyn the coolest and hottest president we have ever seen?:)

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) has left her prominent position at the White House after she helped Fitz Grant (Tony Goldwyn) get elected as the president and started her own crisis-management firm where she can handle even the most difficult and complicated problems with her ever-loyal co-workers.

Her (season 1) co-workers consist of lawyers Abby (Darby Stanchfield), Harrison (Columbus Short), Steven (Henry Ian Cusick) and ex-CIA/expert hacker Huck (Guillermo Diaz), who can prove to be resourceful and dangerous when need be. The latest addition is Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes), who tries to adapt to their long hours, gray moral areas and their blind loyalty to Olivia, who has “fixed” their lives.

They have to deal with two important cases in the pilot episode: An ex-soldier, a true American hero who happens to be the prime suspect of his fiancée’s murder and The President – who is being accused of having slept with a young house employee. They deal with both cases with extreme care, though neither man has told them the entire truth.

As the stakes get higher, with the ADA David Rosen (Joshua Malina) arresting the soldier and President’s advisor Cyrus (Jeff Perry) panicking about the woman since the president is married with kids, things get more complicated with Olivia. Maybe the aide isn’t lying, and her relationship with the president is more than she revealed to anyone around her…

Scandal is an addictive and entertaining show, and especially with the short but brilliant first season (only 7 episodes) providing all the elements of a good mystery/thriller, drama, romance and cheeky sense of humor with Quinn’s constant shocked newbie state, Abby’s bluntness and Steven’s trying to balance a womanizing past with the newly engaged life.

They’re family, and there’s no intra-firm romance going on, though we sense a little crush on Abby’s side when it comes to Steven. They deal with dictators, senators, ambassadors and more – and they pretty much end up on the right side, doing the right things, following Olivia’s gut- which tends to make mistakes when it comes to the president.

The characters are also all shades of grey. Maybe David Rosen stays a bit on the whiter side for the most part, but even he does things for winning cases that I don’t approve of: like sleeping with someone for information or almost sending an innocent woman to her death even though deep down he knows it doesn’t add up.

One of my favorite characters is Grant. A wife-cheating president who has slept with a white house aide would be the cliché of clichés – since well, we have seen this before way too many times in both fiction and real life. But refreshingly, Grant isn’t a womanizing bastard. We slowly learn that his marriage is, and was, cold and lifeless – to the point of costing him the election. This is the first thing Olivia points out when they first meet. His wife Mellie (Bellamy Young) is a lot more manipulative, ambitious and White House-obsessed than he’ll ever be. By the time he and Olivia got together, they were already pretty much in love. As the season continues, we learn that they still are very much in love and they both fail to deal with it. As for the aide…that storyline has its nice twists and turns.

Another character I enjoy watching is Cyrus, brilliantly played and owned by Jeff Perry. I disapprove of his actions and low morality levels and the extreme lengths he goes to secure the president’s seat and his own position. But I love his dialogues and banter, his frustration and love-hate relationship with Olivia, and him trying to keep a baby-wanting, ex-journalist husband happy.

Olivia Pope is like Megan Hunt with better social skills, though I don’t like her sacrificing attitude when it comes to Grant. Yeah, yeah, she doesn’t want him to lose his presidency because of her, and he’s indeed a great leader. But she has to make up her mind about being a mistress, waiting for a couple of years or not being a mistress or not waiting at all. Make up your mind, and stick with it. They’re infinitely more interesting than Meredith and Derek ever were (I’m comparing to Grey’s Anatomy because both shows were created by Shonda Rhimes – the genres and plots are very different) – but with season 3, the star-crossed lovers thing might just start to get on my nerves- especially with the “other” guy Jake (Scott Foley)- whom I’ll get to in a bit.

Henry Ian Cusick’s departure was understandable – there were too many characters on the show. Even though I like them all, Steven didn’t get enough screen time. And while the beginning of season 2 makes up for his absence with good storylines, the addition of Scott Foley’s character made things a bit weird- though not as weird as the appearance of Olivia’s father.

We’ve established the obsession/passion/love-of-each-other’s lives situation with Olivia and Fitz. We also know that Olivia isn’t keen on him leaving his presidency, and even if she wouldn’t mind getting together with him, Mellie and Cyrus, separately and together, will do about anything to keep his seat. And a cute love interest that had nothing to do with politics and Fitz would be a welcome change. Instead, he is friends with Fitz, their romance isn’t off to a genuine start and I’m not buying his intense fondness for Olivia just yet. That said, if Jake has to be there, I have no objections to him being played by Scott Foley. He’s basically a good guy with a very complicated past – but he is nowhere near the impossibly nice (and unlucky) guy he played in Grey’s.

Also I’ll be very happy if Mellie gets shot/killed or at least tortured during one episode. She says or does something smart once in a while, but mostly she’s a cunning, annoying bitch. I’m not fond of characters drunk with power, and unlike Cyrus, she never adds an element of humor. I also don’t like women encouraging their husband’s affairs due to any reason or leaving their careers for their husbands. She rubs it in his face every two minutes, but let’s face it- she loves the White House more than he does.

Fun note: Brendan Hines, Eli of Lie to Me plays a reporter in the first season – love interest for Quinn and is the key to solving some of the secrets.

Final Verdict, Season by Season:

(Spoilers for 2 & 3!!!)

Season 1: Must-see entertainment.

Season 2: Quiet good until Jake starts getting involved with Olivia. A bit of a downer watching Olivia turn into a neurotic mess and get into denial about how the world works when it comes to her dad.

Season 3: Good. Though I’m hoping Fitz and Olivia don’t go through any more disastrous drama – like him having caused her mom’s death or something? Shonda – please, oh please, don’t turn Scandal into Grey’s Anatomy (which I enjoyed until Denny’s death, and each season ending with a new disaster, and well, a lot of other things…). I mean there’s already the marriage and the White House, a murder and the election thingy.