Sep 09 2006

CBS Returning Shows

Category: TV,Upcoming — velveetahead @ 5:52 pm

Returning Drama



Close to Home

Premieres: Friday, September 22
Time: 9/8c

Last season: Annabeth came back to work after having her first baby. She finally broke her winning streak by losing her first case and her husband was killed by a drunk driver.

This season: New detectives and a new boss (JAG’s David James Elliot) join the cast and she doesn’t get along with the new boss. The show is going to move away from the small town angle since no one seemed particularly drawn to that part of the show.

Cold Case

Premieres: Sunday, September 24
Time: 9/8c

Last season: A new joined the team, but then disappeared after a few episodes. Kat Miller joined the team permanently (it seems) from narcotics.

This season: Lilly finally gets into a good relationship. Then her old boyfriend Ray shows up again.

Criminal Minds

Premieres: Wednesday, September 20
Time: 9/8c

Last season: After a serial killer hacked into their personal files, Elle had some bad guy’s waiting at her house when she came home. Shots were fired, but it wasn’t clear if she was shooting or being shot. The show also had the gimmick of all the clues to what happened being in the show, and fans were invited to go online to figure them out.

This season: Within two weeks of the finale, fans had figured out what happened. Elle recovers from her gunshot wound while the rest of the team tries to continue to hunt down the weirdos.

CSI

Premieres: Thursday, September 21
Time: 9/8c

Last season: We find out that Grissom and Sarah have been dating in secret.

This season: Hints that someone else on the team figures out what’s going on with Grissom and Sarah. Grissom disappears for a couple episodes while William Petersen does a play on the East Coast. Danny Bonaduce is the dead body in the season opener.

CSI: Miami

Premieres: Monday, September 18
Time: 10/9c

Last season: Horatio started dating and then marrying Delko’s sister Marisol. On their wedding day, Marisol is shot and killed. Horatio and Delko decide to follow the man who put the hit out on Marisol down to Brazil. Natalia was revealed to be the mole.

This season: It picks up with Horatio and Delko in Rio de Janerio looking for Antonio Riaz. Natalia is still around, and her husband (Rob Estes) is joining the lab.

CSI: NY

Premieres: Wednesday, September 20
Time: 10/9c

Last season: Sexual tension between Lindsay and Danny. Flack became caught up in a bombing.

This season: Word is that Flack will be back. Claire Forlani is also joining the cast as a new detective and she seems to have a thing for Mac.

Ghost Whisperer

Premieres: Friday, September 22
Time: 8/7c

Last season: Aisha Tyler’s character died in the season finale when Melinda was helping hundreds of souls cross over from a plane crash.

This season: Aisha Tyler might still be around in spirit form. Camryn Manheim (The Practice) is joining as Melinda’s new friend. Jay Mohr is joining as a professor and demonology expert.

NCIS

Premieres: Tuesday, September 19
Time: 8/7c

Last season: While trying to stop a terrorist attack, Gibbs is injured and loses his memory. When he regains it, he quits NCIS.

This season: Tony has been in charge since Gibbs left. Everyone has secrets. Gibbs will be back from his “retirement” when he has to come back and help defend Ziva after she is accused of being a spy. He is the only one on her side. A new female agent joins the team so maybe probie won’t be the probie anymore.

Numbers

Premieres: Friday, September 22
Time: 10/9c

Last season: One FBI agent left and another one (Megan) joined. Charlie and Anita became closer as an almost-couple. The widowed father decides to finally start dating again.

This season: Dianne Farr is pregnant. Her pregnancy might be written into the show. Her weird romance with Larry will continue before Larry disappears (Peter MacNicol will be on 24 this season) for a bit. Anita starts to wonder if she should have gone to Harvard.

The Unit

Premieres: Tuesday, September 19
Time: 9/8c

Last season: Col. Tom Ryan ended his affair with married Tiffy so that he could get married himself. Rookie Bob proved he was good at covert ops. Molly lost the wives’ savings to a con artist. Jonas was shot in the stomach during a dinner party.

This season: Tiffy will persuade her husband to resign from the Unit. Bob and Kim are having a new baby. Jonas is almost fully recovered from the gunshot wound and back on active duty. Summer Glau (Firefly, The 4400) will be joining the cast as a new girlfriend of one of the new Unit members.

Without a Trace

Premieres: Sunday, September 24
Time: 10/9c

Last season: Jack’s girlfriend announced she was pregnant and having the baby.

This season: They have to figure out how to be in their 40s and have a baby. There will be a bit more about the personal story lines in the show since it is moving to Sunday nights along with other soapier shows–Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters.


Returning Comedy

How I Met Your Mother

Premieres: Monday, September 18
Time: 8:30/7:30c

Last season: Ted and Robin finally kissed. Lily and Marshall broke up.

This season: Ted will focus on being in a relationship instead of trying to be the romantic guy wooing the girl. He finds that certain things about being in a relationship annoy him. Lily tries to figure out what she wants out of life and if she wants to go back to Marshall. Barney is still Barney.

New Adventures of Old Christine

Premieres: Monday, September 18
Time: 9:30/8:30c

Last season: Christine and her ex-husband kissed, messing up both of their current relationships.

This season: Christine and her ex will stay exes. A new hot teacher (Blair Underwood) is joining the cast as a new teacher at her son’s school.

Two and a Half Men

Premieres: Monday, September 18
Time: 9/8c

Last season: When Mia demanded that Alan move out, Charlie dumped her. Then Alan married Kandi and is planning to move out anyway.

This season: Alan will be dealing with two difficult women at once–one most likely being his mother and the other possibly his new bride.


Returning Reality

The Amazing Race

Premieres: Sunday, September 17
Time: 8/7c

Last season: Hippie friends avoided elimination twice during two non-elimination rounds to beat out everyone else with their vast traveling and language knowledge, plus good spirits.

This season: This will be the first time there are teams of Asian-Americans, Indian-Americans, Muslims, an amputee, and a lesbian. They will be traveling to Mongolia, Vietnam, Kuwait and Madagascar.

Survivor

Premieres: Thursday, September 14
Time: 8/7c

Last season: People were cast off to Exile Island and brought the show to its lowest ratings.

This season: In case anyone has missed this announcement, there will be four tribes divided up by race: Asian, Black, Hispanic and White. Producer Mark Burnett said it is in response to criticism about the show being filled with too many white people. Since the number of minorities applying for the show has always been very small, they went out and recruited people for the teams, making this year probably the least Survivor-savvy cast since the first year.

Sources: Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, AOL

Sep 08 2006

Jambalaya recipe

Category: Food,Recipes — Kensie @ 8:04 pm

Jambalaya

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Andouille (or spicy smoked) sausage, sliced
3 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2/3 cup chopped green pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped
¾ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup sliced celery
2 16oz. Cans chopped/diced tomatoes
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup chopped green onions
1 ½ tsp. Thyme
2 bay leaves
2 tsp. Oregano
1 Tbsp. Creole/Cajun Seasoning
¼ tsp. black pepper
¼ tsp. Cayenne pepper
2 cups rice
2 lbs. Shrimp or chicken

 

Preparation:

  • Sautee sausage in a large, heavy pot. Remove from pot.

  • Add olive oil, green pepper, garlic, parsley, celery and cook in sausage drippings.

  • Add tomatoes, chicken broth, onions and spices

  • Rinse rice and add to the mixture.

  • Add sausage back to the mixture.

  • Cover and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  • Add shrimp or chicken after most of the liquid is absorbed by the rice and cook for a few more minutes.

  • Remove from heat and transfer to a covered casserole dish, bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Sep 04 2006

Blue Steak Salad

Category: Food,Recipes — piraflambe @ 6:49 pm

I got the inspiration for this salad in an airport!

Steak – cubed and cooked to taste (I used salt and pepper and cooked it to medium well)

Romaine Lettuce (or your favorite Bag o’ lettuce)

Red Onion

Blue Cheese Crumbled

Mix and serve with either Raspberry/Walnut Dressing or even a nice Balsamic Vinegrette is tastey. I like to put avocado in this one also.

Sep 04 2006

Chicken/Apple/Nut Salad

Category: Food,Recipes — piraflambe @ 6:45 pm

I have had variations of this salad in many different restaurants however I made this one for some friends and they loved it. It is quick and simple

1 Bag salad mix (I like the one that has the funky lettuces in it)

1 Green Apple (sliced and cut in half)

Walnuts (or really the nut of your choice – candied Pecons/Walnuts/Almonds are yum)

1/2 Red Onion (diced)

1 Chicken breast cooked and diced (I like to put garlic salt and slightly brown mine in butter)

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (or Feta or Gargonzola)

Dried (unsweetened) Cranberries

Mix all ingrediants and serve with Raspberry/Walnut Dressing (Kraft “Light done right” version) There are many options to this salad. Sometimes I add diced avocado, I don’t always use the cranberries (or even swap them for the apple).

Sep 04 2006

Little Children

Category: Books — velveetahead @ 6:33 pm

Little Children
Author: Tom Perrotta

I bought this book from QPBC last year sometime, but couldn’t remember why I had purchased it since the book description wasn’t on the book anywhere. Then, while reading the Fall Movie Preview in Entertainment Weekly, a movie has been made of this book starring Kate Winslet. The description seemed familiar, along with the title, so I went to see if I had it. I had the urge to read it, so I started it on Friday and finished it this morning.

The author wrote, Election, which I never read, but loved the movie. It covers people in the early thirties in suburbia who have become trapped by their lives and come to find they don’t know the people they are married to.

Sarah is a low self-esteem feminist, which is an interesting combination. She is confused how she became imprisoned into marriage and motherhood after feeling like she found herself in college, but afterward it didn’t turn into much in real life. She ended up doing what society expects, and isn’t sure it what she wanted. She thinks she loved her husband when they married, but now she is not so sure.

Tom is all-American boy who has gone to law school, but can’t seem to pass the bar exam. Everyone expected him to be a lawyer, but he is just realizing that he doesn’t really want to be a lawyer. He is currently a stay-at-home dad while his wife does documentary work. She would love to stay at home with her three-year-old son as soon as Tom passes the bar, so she is waiting, but not so patiently, for him to try to take the bar for the third time.

Sarah and Tom meet, and start an affair, something that neither one expected or were looking for at the time. It is exactly what they both need when they are trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives since they aren’t happy with them at the moment.

Then there is the convicted child molester, and suspected child killer, who is released back into the community. He has moved back into his mother’s house, and has many parents in the area in an outrage.

All the secondary characters are well-written and ones that you might hate at first, you sympathize with later on, such as the “perfect” mom who schedules snacks, bedtimes, and weekly sex with her husband. Don’t worry, you never sympathize with the pedophile. When he gives an inkling he might be human, he does something nasty.

While the affair storyline isn’t really anything new, it was completely interesting to read. I could not put this book down once I started. I became antsy when it moved to another character that wasn’t Tom or Sarah, but then once I started reading about that person and how they related the bigger picture, I was caught back in it again.

I guess I’ll see how much the movie captures from the book. From the trailer, there is no hint about a pedophile being involved, but they might not want to scare people off from it.

Sep 02 2006

Movies Opening Sep 1

Category: 2006,Movies,Opening — velveetahead @ 3:42 pm

Nationwide Releases

The Wicker Man

Nicholas Cage is a police officer who goes to a remote island to find a missing girl of his former girlfriend, but finds a bunch of really weird people and rituals instead.

RT Score: 13%
RT Consensus: Puzzlingly misguided, Neil LaBute’s update The Wicker Man struggles against unintentional comedy and fails.

The whole thing is transparently a concoction, and so even though the movie holds you, its climax lacks that tingle of madness. All that’s burning is some sticks.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

A half-compelling, half-goofy and half-redundant piece of remake revisionism. (Yes, that’s three halves, but it’s that weird a movie.)
- Scott Weinberg
Cinematical

The Wicker Man is comically inept as a horror movie, unable to even manage an effective false scare, or sustain suspense for more than a beat or two.
- A.O. Scott
New York Times

LaBute does a decent job of translating it to 2006, but the idea behind it just isn’t as cool as it once was.
- Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com

When he was reading the script, and saw the part of the movie where he is supposed to run through the forest in a bear suit, I hope Cage asked for a huge pay raise.
- Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

The first Wicker Man was about a cult. The remake is more about a dolt.
-Bill Muller
Arizona Republic

Crank

A hitman has a poison injected into him that leaves him with only an hour to live, unless he can keep his adrenaline up.

RT Score: 63%
RT Consensus: It’s a film about a guy injected with Speed… wait, there’s no bus. It’s a film about a guy who has to kick a bunch of squirmy butt to stay alive… wait, no snakes or planes here. But it is a film about doing lots of drugs and pulling lots of punches, and it entertains accordingly.

Cheerfully moronic … While most action flicks these days require their audience to turn their brains off, this movie somehow actually does it for you.
-Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

The movie is cranked up somewhere between stylish and proudly stupid.
-Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

The question isn’t whether Jason Statham knows how to Crank things up. The question is whether or not you’re willing to go with him on yet another highly implausible, blood-soaked, adrenaline-pumped ride.
- Kit Bowen
Hollywood.com

For those who enjoy this brand of wholly mindless entertainment, Crank delivers.
- James Berardinelli
ReelViews

So blatantly contrived it could be called The Fast and the Spurious, Crank has the small saving grace of being intentionally ridiculous.
- Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail


Jason Stratham rampages through Los Angeles in this retread of Speed, but for a movie premised on unrelenting action, Crank proves fatally turgid.
- Nathan Lee
New York Times

Crossover

Two friends playing basketball–one with dreams of being a doctor instead of a NBA player and the other with dreams of winning the underground streetball.

RT Score: 0%
RT Consensus: A sports movie with a good heart and a good message, but is undermined by the cliche-laden amateurish script and home-video level production value.

The only thing that makes the game streetball, as is explained by overexpository dialogue, is that strict rules aren’t really enforced, and the players are allowed to travel. I know what you’re thinking — how is this different from the NBA?
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

Just as streetball is a pale version of college or NBA basketball, so too is Crossover a pathetic imitation of an emotionally engaging, professionally made movie.
- Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

Crossover has one redeeming quality: a heart that’s in the right place. It’s a bad movie with a good message — but does anyone really want to pay $10 for an ABC After School Special version of He Got Game?
- Peter Hartlaub
San Francisco Chronicle

Here’s a story that wanders all over the place with an ending that just about anybody could predict.
- Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

The beginning of Crossover looks like a mash-up of McG’s Fastlane and Wayne Brady’s storied appearance on Chappelle’s Show.
- Cynthia Fuchs
PopPolitics.com

A lot of Crossover’s manifest failings could be forgiven if the on-court action was thrilling. But Space Jam had better basketball scenes. For that matter, so did Dr. J’s The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.
- David Hiltbrand
Philadelphia Inquirer

Limited Releases

Certified Fresh: Lassie and This Film Is Not Yet Rated

Idiocracy

Mike Judge directs his follow-up to Office Space where Luke Wilson plays a dumb fighter pilot that volunteers for an experiment that sends him 1000 years in the future. He finds out that society has become stupider and he’s the smartest man alive.

RT Score: 75%

From start to finish this film is sharp, clever, and downright funny.
- Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com


Seriously, no one gets rednecks, metalheads and morons quite like Judge, who manages here to revel in stupidity while effectively critiquing it.
- Luke Y. Thompson
E! Online

FSo puerile and gross that though the movie wants to say something about the dumbing down of America, it winds up not so much commentary as part of the problem.
- Frank Swietek
One Guy’s Opinion


Working on a sprawling canvas, Judge fills the screen with visual jokes, throwaway gags, and incisive commentary on the ubiquity of advertising.
- Nathan Rabin
Onion AV Club

Judge has a gift for delivering brutal satire in the trappings of low comedy and for making heroes out of ordinary people whose humanity makes them suspect in a world where every inch of space, including mental, is mediated.
- Carina Chocano
Los Angeles Times

Most of these cartoon-like characters could only come from a mind like Mike Judge, who hasn’t lost his ability to make stupidity both alarming and endearing.
- Collin Souter
eFilmCritic.com

Lassie

Going back to the original story of a poor family in Yorkshire during WWII selling their family dog since they can’t afford to feed her and the family. Lassie escapes from the Duke’s castle in northern Scotland where she has been sold and tries to make her way back home to the boy she really belongs to.

RT Score: 92%
RT Consensus: A beautifully-made retelling of the classic border collie tale, one need not be a dog-lover to fall for Lassie.

Writer-director Charles Sturridge makes all the right moves in adapting the story, and treats it not just with the respect of a classic but the kind of intelligence, good taste and emotional sensitivity that kid movies rarely get.
- William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

With its spirited ensemble and literary pedigree, Lassie is worthy entertainment for a new generation of fans.
- Nathaniel Bell
Los Angeles Daily News

Here’s what a classic family film should be — intelligent without being smart-alecky, heart-warming without being smarmy and exciting without relying entirely on CGI.
- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

While solidly made, it might be too cute and uncomplicated for 21st century audiences.
- Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

There is an unabashed old-fashioned quality to the story-telling, not quaint, not fusty, but very much of another era — and what a relief that is.
- Joanne Kaufman
Wall Street Journal

This Film is Not Yet Rated

Documentary about the MPAA, its secrecy over its members and its arbitrary ways it assigns ratings to films.

RT Score: 81%
RT Consensus: A fascinating and entertaining film that will open many eyes to the often-questioned tactics of the MPAA and their ratings sytem.

Kirby Dick’s indispensable guerrilla attack on the film-ratings system.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

A movie that might just shake up the world of movies.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

The more you love movies, the more this documentary will blow you away. This film may ‘not yet be rated’, but it rates as entertaining with me.
- Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
TheMovieChicks.com

In a little more than 90 minutes, Dick explores the hypocrisy of the way the MPAA treats sex, nudity, violence, and profanity; provides insight into the arbitrary and secretive ratings process; and names names.
- James Berardinelli
ReelViews

gonzo filmmaking … detracts from the film’s more serious charges.
- Chris Barsant
ifilmcritic.com

The capper for This Film Is Not Yet Rated is Kirby Dick’s efforts to get the very film we are watching a rating from the MPAA.
- Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

A Japanese man travels many miles to see his dying son, but he doesn’t want to see him. He tries to grant his son one last wish, which leads him on a long journey.

RT Score: 79%
RT Consensus: Doesn’t reach the heights of Zhang Yimou’s best, but this is still a heartwarming tale of love and forgiveness from the acclaimed Chinese director.

Manages to evoke deep feeling while mostly dodging excess sentiment … Takakura brings a masterfully stoic presence that fully complements Zhang’s chosen grayscale.
- Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

Ken Takakura, a great rain-creased oak of an actor, delivers a quietly massive performance.
- Scott Brown
Entertainment Weekly

Zhang Yimou perfectly blends emotional real life drama and humorous charm to create another wondrous masterpiece.
- Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

One of the most beautiful and touching road movies in recent years.
- Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune

From lovely touches such as a group of bananas resting on a wooden railing, to a gorgeous sequence filmed in the unearthly Stone Forest, Zhang is a master of detail and spectacle.
- Bill White
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

This one’s a long, slow ride down an all too familiar road.
- Jeremiah Kipp
Slant Magazine

Mutual Appreciation

A musician in search of a new band after his broke up, moves to New York, finds promotional help from a local DJ and finds he has feelings for his best friend’s girlfriend.

RT Score: 100%

If this is the sound of a new generation, then it may be the first generation cautious enough to embrace friendship as mightier than love.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Any other romantic melodrama would have them bubbling over with passion, but these characters are painfully tentative and believably so, given that they’re both betraying someone they care about.
- Scott Tobias
Onion AV Club

Mutual Appreciation isn’t much more interesting than hanging out with four smart, nice, semi-confused people in their 20s. But that puts it far above the average movie.
- Kyle Smith
New York Post

If John Cassavetes had directed a script by Eric Rohmer, the result might have looked and sounded like Mutual Appreciation.
- Joe Leydon
Variety

The latest from Funny Ha Ha director Andrew Bujalski — the cinema’s reigning poet laureate of postcollegiate anomie — is another baggy, charmingly disheveled romp through awkward courtship rituals and uncomfortable silences.
- Scott Foundas
L.A. Weekly

Looking for Kitty

David Kurmholz is a high school coach who finds his wife walked out on him one day, receives a photo with her in the background in New York City, and heads to the city to hire a private detective (Edward Burns) to find her. He also pays more so he can join in on the search.

RT Score: 38%

Sentimental yet insensate, this forgotten ’04 trifle is Burns at his worst …
- Scott Brown
Entertainment Weekly

The real holdout is Burns, whose habitual regurgitation of well-trod themes (romantic loss, masculine bonding, and maturation) continues to pay ever-smaller dividends.
- Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

No climax, no real resolution, no nothing. One can understand why it remained on a shelf since it played Tribeca over two years ago.
- Eric Lurio
Greenwich Village Gazette

Looking for Kitty offers moments of striking insight amid the inevitable self-indulgence.
- Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News

Give Edward Burns at least a little credit for perseverance, because just about any other writer-director-actor who released a movie every couple of years to critical shrugs and audience indifference would’ve long since hung up his megaphone.
- Noel Murray
Onion AV Club

Another unsatisfying exploration of masculine anomie written, directed by and starring Edward Burns.
- Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide’s Movie Guide

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