Bride Wars

Bride Wars:(Just for fun, I thought I'd start this review with two of my least favorite movie review crutches.) There's a point in Bride Wars where I really want to hate it. Pulled from the screener pool simply to please my wife, this chick flick is not poised to please me - my wildest dreams include only hope that ogling Anne Hathaway will A) ease the pain, and B) go unnoticed by said wife. So, as the strains of Natalie Cole's This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) begin to haunt my ears not three minutes into the movie, I commence dipping my poison pen into the old Ebola-tainted inkwell. Visions of angered female readers emailing me telling me I just Don't Understand Women's Movies dance in my head.
Egregiously facile set-ups enrage me. Lifelong best friends Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Hathaway) emerge as ridiculous polar opposites. Liv's the tough-as-nails, wealthy prosecutor; harsh make-up, brutal bangs, tons of attitude. Emma's the poor, dowdy (how's that possible?) teacher with a heart of gold. They've been fetishising the marriage ideal together since they were mere girls, and as they both find themselves engaged, their bitter friends begin popping pills and hitting the Ben & Jerry's like pre-menstrual Medusas. I can't believe I'm watching this. Then - oh no! - their high-powered wedding planner (Candice Bergen) books them both at The Plaza for the same day, dashing their plans to be each other's bridesmaids. Do the claws then come out, even between lifelong buds? Oh baby!
And thank heavens, as wedding planning mania and escalating sabotage schemes steer Bride Wars from sappy, potentially brain-damaging pabulum to ridiculous farce. Healthy doses of outrageous, hyper comedy set pieces nearly bring me to tears (probably due to my skewed sensibilities, but hey, I'll take it). Not surprisingly, Hathaway gets the lion's share of hilarious bits. Emma's pathetic wedding invitation (and the aftermath) blindsides me into gales of laughter. When she crashes Liv's bachelorette party, taking charge of the sexy-bride dance competition, I'm pretty close to heaven - such a combination of raw allure and humor is a real gift.
Even Hudson (looking like she's spent the years between Almost Famous and now riding with the Hell's Angels) quickly breaks through her clichéd character to grab some laughs of her own. And, piercing Bride Wars' shallow veneer, Liv's special relationship with her fiancé, and her growing realization that crushing Emma's dreams (while her own take a beating) isn't the best karmic move, brings some heart to a movie that might eventually wilt under tired tricks and silliness. Finally, a pivotal romantic plot twist comes too late, but gets Bride Wars where it's going - back to the land of cheesy happy endings.
Bride Wars is a smooth machine, with some nice role reversals. The men exist as thin props for the ladies - either bitchy or saintly, but never more than supporting objects. The women, crazy as they are, are self-directed and decisive, and they carry the movie. Bolstering Hudson and Hathaway, Bergen lends some efficient gravity, and Kristen Johnston (3rd Rock From The Sun) eventually snags some serious yuks in her brief turn as Emma's boozing coworker. I thoroughly enjoy Bride Wars, while my sappy wife even sheds a few tears. We both win! (Note to self: rom-coms go much better with beer.) Not terribly deep, but more than I expect, Bride Wars is funny fluff perfect for a low-impact date night.
The DVD
Video:Our DVD-Rom screener for Bride Wars looks pretty shabby by comparison, but at least the 20th Century Fox 'don't resell our screener' burn-in only appears three times, mitigating damage to viewing enjoyment. Since this is a DVD-Rom screener this assessment is worth little, but for what it is worth, tons of digital grain, aliasing and bad detail levels make this 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation a sub-par DVD viewing experience.
Sound:English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound Audio and French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio are the available choices. Though this screener is not representative of retail product, the mix seems nicely balanced, with dialog and soundtrack elements avoiding competition, and a hearty dynamic range to enjoy. As a romantic comedy, the movie doesn't appear to sport a terribly active mix, so those of you (like me) using only stereo speakers won't be disappointed.
Extras:English, Spanish and French Subtitles are on hand, as well as four Trailers. The remainder of the slight extras include three Deleted Scenes (about four minutes total) that were clearly wisely cut, and a four minute puff piece titled The Perfect White Dress that sings the praises of Vera Wang's wedding gowns. Challenge yourself to count how many times the words 'taste' and 'timeless' are used.
Final Thoughts:You he-men in the audience, take it from a guy, Bride Wars will not kill you. It's actually pretty funny, and though clichés run rampant, (and a happy ending is as tidy all get-out) it has a heart in the right place. Kate Hudson goes from harsh to huggable as a litigious bride, while Anne Hathaway steals the show as a radiant, noble tramp (at least when she's dancing). With more laughs than you'd expect, (but essentially zero extras) this is a painless way to please your partner on movie night, earning a solid Rent It.

Metamorphosis: Beyond The Screen Door

The Metamorphosis, a short novel first published nearly a century ago, remains one of German author Franz Kafka's most memorable works. This slow-burning tale is defined by the strange fate of our central character, Gregor Samsa, a salesman who awakens one morning to discover that his body has changed completely. Gregor has become an insect-like creature for reasons unknown, and his family and friends react accordingly. Sadly, Gregor's life doesn't get any easier: he eventually succumbs to the shame and isolation caused by his terrible new identity, never returning to his former self. The Metamorphosis has been studied, written about and mulled over since 1915, and for good reason: it's a simple story well told, and one that can be interpreted on many different levels. Kafka's novella is hardly the first surreal story in existence, but it's paved the way for countless like-minded works during the last century.
First things first: this release's cover art trumpets Norith Soth's Behind the Screen Door as the first filmed adaptation of Kafka's tale...which isn't true by a long shot, even if the film's 1994 release date was off by a few years. A handful of TV and film adaptations were found with minimal research (both domestic and international), including the 1987 production starring a young Tim Roth. What does set this version apart from most adaptations, though, is the relatively loose translation here: it's essentially a "modern retelling" that tweaks certain roles, personalities and events to suit the story. Fair enough...and like Kafka's original, this story is unabashedly odd and intriguing. For this alone, Beyond the Screen Door should sit fairly well with fans of Kafka and other like-minded creators, including David Lynch, Terry Gilliam and David Cronenberg.
If nothing else, Behind the Screen Door manages to alter the atmosphere a bit, though most of the foundation remains similar: Tom Gregor is our central character and he's still the victim of a grotesque transformation. Self-absorbed family members still ridicule Tom while depending on him to pay the bills, his boss berates him for missing work and a young woman rejects him after an awkward social encounter. Apparently, he's also had a past relationship with his young sister, who turns to prostitution as the family's money quickly dries up. Accordingly, it seems to be his constant emasculation that drives Tom towards solitude and triggers the drastic transformation. Our story jumps between Tom's former life and his new identity, creating a more abstract and contemporary take on Kafka's original.

Behind the Screen Door has a number of successful elements...and a few not-so-successful ones. First, the good news: we really get inside Tom's head for the duration of this film, though compassionate viewers may grow weary of his non-stop suffering. A few not-so-subtle nods to Kafka's original pop up at times, including a rather interesting take on the "apple infection" that eventually dooms our hero---and by this point, it's almost a mercy kill. Still, other elements don't seem to add much: for starters, the overly awkward editing---and vocal dubbing, on some occasions---may lead first-time viewers scratching their heads (yes, it's all part of the show), while peppered voice-over narration leads us around by the nose before abandoning us to the film's unnatural structure. These are almost necessary evils, but they're distracting enough to feel more pretentious than practical.
As an aside, I'd also like to point out one curious little "Easter Egg": stick around during the lengthy end credits and you'll hear a miniature commentary by Brent McCarey, whose association with the film is unknown. I can't say that I agree with all of Mr. McCarey's comments regarding the film's subtext and symbolism, but it spices up an otherwise bland credit sequence.
On a technical note, Beyond the Screen Door revealed itself to be quite a mysterious production, as far as background details go. Very little can be found regarding any behind-the-scenes information; in fact, this film doesn't even appear on the director's own IMDB page. One listing on Variety.com even cites the film's running time as 80-odd minutes, whereas this DVD clocks in at just under an hour. Had Beyond the Screen Door been a more straightforward affair, it might've been easier to spot any potential trimming. For now, one can only assume that Pathfinder Entertainment's one-disc release, packaged together with the like-minded short film Telephone (covered below), represents the complete story. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

Galaxy Quest

It still surprises me that almost 10 years after it hit theaters, earning a respectable take at the box office, that a real cult following hasn't grown around Galaxy Quest. Sure you can find a good amount of people who know about it (a sure sign of cinematic taste and a way to determine friendship worthiness) but it remains as underrated and under-appreciated as ever. Is it because star Tim Allen gives it the air of a kiddie movie? Is it bias against any sci-fi without the word Star in the title? Is it the PG rating? Whatever it is, people are missing out on something great, a situation they can now correct with this Deluxe Edition DVD.
The story is an absolutely brilliant take on the concept of popular culture: What if a race of aliens came across one of our television shows, say, Star Trek, and decided it was a form of recorded history instead of entertainment, and based their whole culture on it? Well, in this case, the Thermians, a naive peace-loving alien race, rebuilt their society based on the ideals and technology of the long-canceled TV show Galaxy Quest, a thinly-disguised version of Gene Roddenberry's baby, and now, at a critical juncture, they need help from their inspiration, not knowing the stars of the show are merely actors, not noble adventurers. So you have people who live their lives based on a TV show, turning to the people they watch on TV to lead them in real life. If that's not relevant today, what exactly is?
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There are a lot of layers to enjoy in this well-rounded film, from the chance for redemption for the actors, whose greatest success is far in their past, to the dangers of idolizing people you really don't really know, to the power and joy of believing in something good. While the very damaged actors at the core of the film are fun to watch live their very inner-focused lives and try to rise to others' expectations of them, the story of the Thermians is touching and engaging, as they are simple creatures seeing success in others and attempting to replicate it in their own lives. There's even a story for the fanboys mixed in, as young Brandon, a Questerian of the highest degree, lives his life around Galaxy Quest, only to have his devotion pay off in a big way.
All of these ideas are fine, but without the right people in these roles, you couldn't believe or care about them. The cast here though is loaded with comedic genius, from the stars down to even third-tier roles. Allen is perfect as a blowhard former star living off his past, never dipping into what could have been an easy imitation of Shatner, while Rickman breathes real life into a character that could have been just the stereotype of a fussy actor. While Weaver, as the show's sex symbol, who's unsatisfied with her role, holds a bit of a secondary role to the leads, her comedic chops are on full display (along with other assets.)
The rest of cast is just loaded with top-notch comedic actors, including the great Enrico Colantoni, Jed Rees, Patrick Breen and Missi Pyle as Thermians and the perfectly deadpan Tony Shaloub, hilarious Daryl Mitchell and the wonderful Sam Rockwell on the crew. Rockwell, in particular, steals just about every scene he's in (which should be no surprise to anyone familiar with his work), with the line, "Can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?" forever burned into my brain. The movie also served as the film debuts for Justin Long and Rainn Wilson, further illustrating how good the casting was in this film.
The quality casting is aided by a script that is chock-full of hilariously quotable lines, all of which fit seamlessly with the storyline, leanding a realism to this sci-fi comedy that's necessary to make it a great film. You can laugh out loud as Rockwell pulls off another brilliant one-liner, only to be smacked with emotion as Colantoni's alien leader sees the ideals he built his life around get smashed before him. The believability is only enhanced by design and special effects work that is simply great, including fantastic sets and space vistas, some excellent CG animation and impressive animatronics and make-up (though the main baddie felt a bit too Ninja Turtles rubber suit for me.) Considering we are talking about a film 10 years old, that it holds up so well is a definite plus.
On a side note, imagine if the creators could have made the film about the actual Star Trek, with the actual cast playing themselves? With William Shatner's knack for self-parody, it could have made for a meta sci-fi film on par with Being John Malkovich. That doesn't take away from the brilliance of Galaxy Quest, but a boy can dream, can't he?
The DVDA one-disc release, this DVD is packed in a standard keepcase, which is inside a slipcover with an impressive 3D lenticular animation of the cover art. The disc features a static, anamorphic widescreen menu with options to play the film, select scenes, adjust languages and check out the extras. Audio options include Dolby Digital 5.1 English and Spanish tracks and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Thermian track (see The Extras), with subtitles in English, Franch and Spanish, along with closed captioning.
The QualityThe packaging indicates the anamorphic widescreen transfer has been digitally remastered, and looking at them side-by-side, it's definitely not the same, with the most obvious change being an image that's slightly wider and which shows more image from top to bottom and side to side, making the framing feel more appropriate (for instance, one scene now shows the screen the characters are looking at, whereas before they were simply looking offscreen.) The color saturation is a touch muted n this new disc, which makes scenes like the rock monster battle feel more natural (reds burned hot on the old disc,) while the level of detail has gotten a bump up, while thankfully not making the CG special effects look bad.
Disappointingly, the DTS track that was available on a separate DVD in 2000 is not included here, but the audio, presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, fits the film excellently, keeping things low-key and focused in the center channel when on Earth, before filling the surrounds with bold, dynamic sound effects and a sweeping, epic score by David Newman. There's not a lot of the aural acrobatics you hear in space action flicks, but there are some impressive touches.
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Buff The Vampier Slayer Seasons

At the young age of 16, Buffy was chosen to hunt vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. After the ordeal at Hemery High Buffy Summers wound up at Sunnydale High. Joined with Willow Rosenberg and Alexander "Xander" Harris, and her watcher Giles, Buffy fights the challenges of High School and saves the world...a lot.

"In every generation there is a chosen one... she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer." Buffy Summers knows this tale by heart, and no matter how hard she tries to be just a "normal girl", she can not escape from her destiny... Thankfully, she is not alone in her quest to save the world, as she has the help of her friends, the hilarious (and surprisingly quite effective) evil-fighting team called "The Scooby Gang". Together, Buffy & co. will slay their demons, survive one apocalypse after another, attend high school and college... and above all, understand that growing up can truly be Hell sometimes... literally.

Bethesda Plans Fallout TV Show, Movie

It could take a decade for Bethesda to make Fallout 4 but the franchise won’t be neglected in the mean time. According to a couple new trademark filings, Bethesda is considering a movie and television series based on Fallout. Dwell On It noticed that Bethesda had recently applied for a Fallout trademark for “Entertainment services in the nature of an on-going television program” and for “motion picture films about a post-nuclear apocalyptic world”. Trying to turn a game into a movie is old hat by now but a television show? That sort of thing isn’t attempted very often, at least not lately. A guy and his dog wandering the wasteland, solving people’s problems while searching for the water chip to fix their vault? Meh, worse ideas have been greenlit. ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, has some pretty big entertainment industry players on its board of directors: producer Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves, and MGM chairman and CEO Harry E. Sloan. With those three backing them up, Bethesda’s got more than enough clout to get a Fallout show or movie off the ground. Just filing a trademark doesn’t mean they’re actually going to produce anything just yet, though.

Cast bid Sheridan adieu

ANGELES - FOR the cast and crew of ‘Desperate Housewives,’ it was a Saturday afternoon of warm hellos and bittersweet goodbyes, as they greeted an auditorium filled with cheering fans but also bid adieu to one of the show’s leading original cast members.Nicollette Sheridan, who plays Wisteria Lane’s saucy ‘Edie’, makes her final appearance as a series regular on the episode airing on Sunday. Co-star Teri Hatcher, whose sweet ‘Susan’ was often at odds with Edie, got misty-eyed when recalling the filming of Sheridan’s final episode.‘I made a scrapbook as my sort of parting gift, and it reminded me of how great those two characters were together,’ she said.Excepting Sheridan, most of the ‘Housewives’ principals participated in a panel discussion on the show as part of the two-week PaleyFest, an annual festival celebrating television held by The Paley Center for Media.Sheridan’s relationship with ‘Housewives’ creator Marc Cherry has been described by some as contentious. Sheridan was recently quoted in ‘TV Guide’ as saying she felt ‘Housewives’ writers were unjustly ignoring Edie. But cast mates on Saturday said Sheridan’s last days on the set were amiable and professional.‘Her attitude made them completely bearable,’ noted actor James Denton, whose plumber ‘Mike’ was the longtime object of Edie’s affections. ‘It could have been tough and sad, but she was so great.Denton noted that Sheridan made a point to thank the show’s writers and cast, who were gathered at the table-read of the script for the first episode that she will not be in.‘She said, ‘While you’re all together, I’m here to say thank you for everything. You guys are great. You guys are awesome,’ Denton related. ‘She walked out of the room and Felicity (Huffman) looked at me and said, ‘classy,’ and it sure was.’Veteran character actor Kathryn Joosten, a two-time Emmy winner for her portrayal of nosey neighbour ‘Mrs. McCluskey,’ said she would miss Sheridan.‘She was my playmate. We got to throw barbs at each other,’ Joosten said. ‘I won’t have anybody to fight with.’ — AP

The Nature Mill Indoor Composter

Urbanites rejoice, because the Nature Mill company has created an odorless indoor composter specifically made to fit in the average kitchen cabinet!A traditional composter can be impossible to fit into a small urban living space. Generally they are bulky, messy, time consuming, and some can be odiforous. A traditional composter naturally breaks down food and yard waste through aeration, the addition of beneficial bacteria, and by exposure to the warm spots created in a bin through the heat generated by decomposing matter. Here’s the hitch though, traditional composters require labor, work slowly when exposed to cold temeratures, and cannot process meat and dairy, while this indoor model can!The indoor composter from Nature Mill is energy star rated, and utilizes electricity to keep your scrap material constantly warm, rotated, and aerated, speeding up the decomposing process. This model will provide you with a new batch of compost about every two weeks, and can process about 120 pounds of garbage per month! Another added benefit is that with this warm composter, meat and dairy products can be added and will break down with the rest of your garbage and scraps! The composting process is as simple as scraping you food scraps into the composter, and emptying the compost drawer when the “fill” sensor lights up!
Just one small bin full of this rich compost can feed and fertilize up to 10-40 square feet of garden, and it can be diluted with water to become a liquid fertilizer suitable for everything from house plants to fruit trees! Check it out either on the home website linked to above, or purchase one at Target or Costco, and turn your waste into compost gold.

Altered Voyages

As the mighty submarine seaQuest sets sail again on the rocky seas of TV series competition, at least one issue from the first season that troubled some fans will be addressed. "I think you´ll see the stories taking a stronger science-fiction bent," says co-producer David J. Burke.And supervising producer Carleton Eastlake concurs. "It´s odd that you´ll be seeing shows that are a little more colorful in terms of dealing with the future, while at the same time, they´re going to be more human." Well, most of the cast will be more human; there are doubts about two of the five new cast members.In addition to the acknowledgement that this series is, after all, science fiction, there have been other changes aboard the seaQuest - and to the sub itself, of course, since in the first season finale, it blew up really good. The bridge has been redesigned so that the crew sitting around the edge face inward now. The idea, Burke says, "was to bring the actors closer emotionally by having them face one another." Other than the substantial changes to the bridge, though, the newly-built ship will look much the same - like a long, drawn-out squid.Or, suggests Burke, a manatee. The show has shifted its production base from Hollywood to Florida. "we were shooting some test footage at Sea World," Burke explains, "with whome we hope to have a very good relationship; they have enormous facilities and can provide us with some interesting things. A manatee was floating by the camera, and looked startlingly by the seaQuest - which looks like a manatee in a flat hat."Rumors floated around the nation´s computer bulletin boards that NBC had ordered the production to become "younger and sexier." Burke admits that, "Since the day I got there, they´ve asked us to make it sexier, but they´ve not asked us to make it younger. We´re having a wardrode change" to reflect that instruction. "Everybody was wearing these sort of stove-pipe jumpsuits that were totally unisex. Stacy Haiduk had a spectacular figure, but you couldn´t tell from the neck down is she were a man or a woman. So the uniforms will be a little more contoured, a little more relaxed. The science side of seaQuest won´t be in uniform, though."Captain Nathan Bridger (Roy Scheider), Commander Jonathan Ford (Don Franklin), Lucas Wolenczak (Jonathan Brandis), Ortiz (Marco Sanchez) and O´Neill (Ted Raimi) are all due back, but four crew members have gone ashore permanently: Hitchcock (Stacy Haiduk), Krieg (John D´Aquino), Dr. Westphalen (Stephanie Beacham) and Security Chief Crocker (Royce D. Applegate), have left the show.

Altered Voyages SF Elements

One change some were hoping for hasn´t happened: seaQuest and ABC´s Lois and Clark are still opposite one another on Sunday nights 0 with Fox now throwing The Simpsons into the same time slot. "I have always tried to focus my attention soley on the job I have," Burke says, "and not on where it´s marketed or sold. I find most guys who spend a whold lot of time worrying about what the other guy is doing aren´t doing their own jobs as well as they ought to. I hope they keep seaQuest on the air, I hope it plays well, but when they start talking about demographics, and time slots, and reaching frequency, and all that stuff, my eyes spin in my head."Eastlake has an impressive background in both action-adventure shows, including Street Justice and Hawk, and the highly regarded The Equalizer. On that unusual, intelligent series, Eastlake was the story editor during the 1986-87 season, wrote seven episodes, winning the Mystery Writers of America´s Edgar award for Best Television Episode. He also wrote segments of Murder, She Wrote (coincidentally, opposite seaQuest on Sunday nights), Airwolf, and "V."He knows science fiction, and is perfectly comfortable with calling seaQuest by that honorable label. The show, Eastlake says, "is trying to do science fiction/action, but most of the episodes have a strong human component, a strong allegorical, emotional or moral component, depending on the story. I grew up on Robert A. Heinlein, a wonderful social anthropologist. What I´ve always loved is social science fiction; I think the different cultures Isaac Asimov would create, or the military cultures David Drake creates, or Andre Norton. I read everything Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle write, including the right-wing allegories.Burke started as a broadcast journalist and producer of documentaries; in 1986, he began as a writer and story editor on Crime Story, later becoming supervising producer on Wiseguy. He created the submarine-less UNSUB for NBC, and created and executive-produced Tribeca for Robert DeNiro´s company of the same name. Because Universal had treated him more than fairly, when they asked him to take over seaQuest, he agreed even before he knew what the show was about. Burke came aboard seaQuest partway through its troubled first season, and got mixed signals from Amblin Entertainment and NBC."When I got here," says Burke, "I was told I was doing a family drama - adventure, action, a sort of family-oriented show. I was touted off one direction, then touted back on it. There were many different points-of-view as to what the show should be. The consequence of that situation was that the show didn´t quite know what it was the first season; that always happens unless the person with the passionate vision is driving it."The perception of science fiction was very different among the various people involved. For me, science fiction is The Twilight Zone - contemporary moral dramas and dilemmas that we face as society and individuals right now, places in the context of another world or another time. There´s another camp that thinks science fiction is anything with a guy in a rubber suit who disintegrates before your very eyes. It´s really a little of both, I guess."During season two of seaQuest, Burke has nothing at all to do with the stories the series will be doing; instead, he´s concentrating on the show´s physical aspects. "I´m very committed to trying to make the Florida environment work, because it takes us physically underwater. I can put all my actors in futuristic SCUBA gear and and really see them function underwater. I´m trying to encourage those in charge of the scripts to utilize the water environments as much as possible. I will then polish out what comes to me in terms of making an outdoor location work. We are a show about the sea; we are a show about being outside in some ways, even if it´s underwater - and now we can do that."But he does go along with the idea of making the show more science fictional. He feels the first season´s best episode was the one in which the seaQuest found an alien ships, although like almost everyone else, he also thought the one about the Alexandria library was excellent. "That was Steven Spielberg´s idea, a very good show. Boy, please put that in writing, because there were people who liked that script who got down on the show when it was finished because there was no overt aggression."Burke directed one of the other best episodes himself, the one in which the crew has to confront a South American dictator. It did have some, um, repercussions, Burke laughs. "I´ve just been writing a letter to the ambassador from Brazil, who was not real happy." Burke will be directing at least one second season episode as well. "I think it´s very important for people who do what I do to have a sense of the problems on the set. It´s a gargantuan effort to get a show done in severn or eight days. So, I´ll do it once to get to know the crew, to get them on a first-hand, first-name relationship with me, and so I understand the vagaries of their faily business, as it applies in this environment." Les Sheldon and Bryan Spicer, who between them directed all the other best shows of the first season, will also be returning.

Heroes

Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring, which premiered on NBC on September 25, 2006. The series tells the stories of ordinary individuals from around the world who mysteriously develop superhuman abilities, and their roles in preventing disasters, usually foreseen in images produced by precognitive painters. The series emulates the aesthetic style and storytelling of American comic books, using short, multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger, more encompassing arc. The series is produced by Universal Media Studios in association with Tailwind Productions,and it is filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California. The executive producers are Allan Arkush, Dennis Hammer, Greg Beeman and Tim Kring.The critically acclaimed first season's run of 23 episodes garnered an average of 14.3 million viewers in the United States, receiving the highest rating for any NBC drama premiere in five years.The second season of Heroes attracted an average of 13.1 million viewers in the U.S.,and marked NBC's sole series among the top 20 ranked programs in total viewership for the 2007-2008 season.A total of 24 episodes were ordered for the second season, but only eleven episodes were broadcast, due to the 100-day strike by the Writers Guild of America.The dispute led to the initial postponement and eventual cancellation of a six episode spin-off titled Heroes: Origins.Heroes returned with its third season on September 22, 2008.A digital-internet extension of the series, Heroes 360 Experience, later rebranded as Heroes Evolutions, was created to explore the Heroes universe and provides insight into the show's mythology. Other official Heroes media include magazines, action figures, tie-in and interactive websites, a mobile game, a novel, clothing and other merchandise. NBC Universal announced on April 2, 2008, that NBC Digital Entertainment would release a series of online content for the summer and fall of 2008, including more original web content, wireless iTV interactivity, graphic novels available for mobile viewing and webisodes.Heroes has garnered a number of awards and nominations. The series was nominated in eight categories at the 2007 Primetime Emmy awards, including Outstanding Drama Series, and was also nominated for Best Television Series-Drama at the 2007 Golden Globes.[citation needed] The series won a People's Choice Award in 2007 in the category of Best New Drama, and was named Program of the Year in 2007 by the Television Critics Association and Best International Program at the 2008 BAFTA Awards.NBC plans to produce a fourth season of Heroes, as Heroes is one of NBC's best performers in the 18-49 demographic, as well as having strong international appeal and viewership. The network plans to order 18-20 episodes

House

This week on House, the team labored to stay focused on a case while reeling from a tragedy that hit very close to home.The episode started with a man (guest star Meat Loaf Aday) who for all intents and purposes was on his death bed, even to the point that loved ones were paying their final respects. "I never got you to Rio," he tells his wife with his last breaths. But suddenly, his wife Charlotte gasps, chokes and starts to collapse. This prompts the husband, Eddie, to rise up and plead (best he can) for help.House's team, save for an MIA Kutner, gathers to review Charlotte's unusual case as well as Eddie's inexplicable recovery. House scoffs at talk that the husband is actually on the mend, countering, "He just had an adrenaline surge when he saw his chance to hit the singles market."The wife rebounds. And then ails again. The husband grows able to stand. What is going on?Foreman and Thirteen visit Kutner's apartment, but there's no answer. (As Remy puts it, "House didn't ask us to find out where he wasn't.") So they go inside, and find their colleague.Dead. In the bedroom. Shot in the head. By his own hand.House, as much as he does with the most complex of medical case, is anxious for answers about Kutner's suicide. "He didn't say anything ... to any of you?" he asks/accuses the team (aka the "idiots who worked along side him 80 hours a week hadn't seen this coming").Thirteen trots out data about how 25 percent of suicides exhibit no signs of depression; House suggests those 25 percent simply had oblivious friends. Ouch.Cuddy reaches out to House, who maintains he's "fine, despite what Wilson will say." Did he spy any clues? "I know [Kutner's] fantasy football team cratered," House quips. "I figured he'd have been over that.""I'm sorry for your loss," Cuddy says. "It's not mine," deflects House. Cuddy: "Then I'm sorry you don't think it is."House's quiet anguish/frustration surfaces again when the team (minus Taub, who says he feels "pity, yes" but not "guilt") visits the couple who adopted Kutner after his parents were shot dead in front of him as a youth. House suggests that Lawrence couldn't deal with not being who he was, a Choudhurry, instead "hiding" behind an Anglo name. Before he is kicked out by the outraged Kutners, he leaves.Back at the hospital, House notes that Taub didn't ask about the visit with the parents. Taub says he doesn't buy that suicide is always a cry for help. "It's a good thing you got some [help]," House tells Taub, who failed his own suicide, "or you might've tried again and gotten it right."Working the medical mystery, House determines that after her initial collapse, Charlotte faked her illness, to hold onto Eddie. Apparently, we will learn, she loves him more than he has ever demonstrably loved her. But when Charlotte's leg atrophies, House's theory is tossed.Yet House is far more greatly vexed by the mystery of Kutner's death. Cuddy suggests that he's so hurt because Kutner was the team member most like House. "If he thought like me," says House, "he'd know that living in misery sucks marginally less than dying in it." Cuddy beseeches Wilson to step in, saying House "needs a friend." Wilson hesitates, until he learns of the outburst at the Kutners' home."It's OK not to be OK," Wilson tells House, finding him at Kutner's apartment. Turning CSI, House observes that Kutner was open about his pain as a stranger in a strange land/family, hanging photos of both "the good and the bad." When Wilson claims that House doesn't so much care about Kutner as he is frustrated to not solve the mystery of the suicide, House says that Lawrence didn't kill himself — "He was murdered."Back with the medical case, Charlotte tells the team her heart is Eddie's if she goes first. Not content with the "if" in that thought, she steals some drugs and shoots herself up with enough god-knows-what to collapse and seize on the floor. That ultimately leads to House's "a-ha" moment.Meanwhile, Thirteen aka Remy Hadley finds and reaches out to an AWOL Foreman, but he hurts her by insisting that, as always, he prefers to work through pain/difficult things on his own. Dejected, Thirteen walks away.House asks "incurable romantic" Cameron to get Eddie to consent to dying on the table in the name of donating his whole liver to his wife; Charlotte, though, can't be in on the jig. Flying in the face of the song title "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)," Eddie agrees to that plan, only to have Cam get cold feet when she observes that he might not actually be dying!House tells Eddie his heart failure is in fact curable, but he still wants to die for his wife. "You'd rather trade the certainty you'll live for the uncertainty that she will?" House asks. Eddie says one way or another, he will end his life to (maybe) save Charlotte's.Taub finds a fix to the situation by telling Charlotte the truth about "the plan," infuriating Eddie ... and spiking a fever in Charlotte. House confronts Charlotte about her beach trip to "Hawaii," and she confesses she in fact strayed on her husband to have the Rio escape she had always wanted but never got. As most of the team readies for Kutner's funeral, Wilson again talks to House. You're in pain, because you never saw it coming, Wilson notes. Also, he suggests, House's sadness is not about missing any signs but why he missed them. Is he losing his gift of observation?As Kutner is ceremonially cremated and the pyre burns, as "Foreteen" find each other again, and as Taub breaks down privately at the hospital, House takes one final pass at Kutner's apartment. He scans through photos until he finds one which might behold the simple explanation. No, Kutner wasn't planning some vengeance on his parents' killer or anything of the sort.

L'Innocente

Tullio Hermil (Giancarlo Giannini) is a wealthy, handsome Italian aristocrat who believes (and shades of Dosteovsky must be intentional here) that he leads a free, full life. For him, this means abjuring conventional social attachments, especially religious ones. He has been married for years to a beautiful, seemingly docile woman. But, having cut himself off from social obligation, and having no temperament for the life of an ascetic, the only way he knows to feel alive is through the passion and agony of romantic affairs. This life has served him well enough, and he thinks he knows all about how to live fully.

The people's toilet

We Americans see so few films from Uruguay that when one as accomplished as The Pope's Toilet (El Baño del Papa) comes along, it's difficult not to over-praise, while simultaneously gliding over its some of its subtler accomplishments. First off, the movie is the collaboration between two men -- César Charlone and Enrique Fernández -- who share the responsibility for both writing and directing. How they managed to put together something so seamless would make a fine question for an interview.The Pope's Toilet tells an imagined story within the framework of a real event: the planned visit in 1988 of the penultimate Pope to a small, and rather impoverished, town in Uruguay. The townspeople make plans to profit by the papal visit through whatever means they can: selling everything from chorizos to cotton candy to the crowds who will gather from nearby Brazil (the town is near the border of the two countries). The main characters comprise one family -- dad, mom and teenage daughter -- who, divided among themselves, take a slightly different approach, from which comes the movie's title. In the process of telling their story, the filmmakers show us the life of this town, the family, its neighbors, local law enforcement (we learn a lot about a kind of benign smuggling operation that keeps many of the citizens afloat), and even a little about the local media and the Pope's retinue.