Sweet Success

By Aaron 11/29/2007

Two episodes to cover, so I’ll try to keep it light. Episode 7 begins when an olfactory expert’s assistant opens an explosive book. The team is called in to uncover the killer they presume to be the rival of said olfactory expert. They always seem just a step behind as the killer’s attempts continue to fall just short. Olive and Chuck team up to pressure Chuck’s aunts back into the water and I’ll ruin that for you by saying they do get back into the water by the end of the episode. And the synchronized swimming they show, in near musical fashion, is more painful than pleasing, unlike Olive’s solo.

In this week’s episode a brother and sister candy shop opens up and starts gunning for Ned’s customers and his location. The girls want Ned to fight back but he refuses, while his spirit is guilt ridden about not telling Chuck he killed her father so many years ago. Molly Shannon is one of the candy people and her deviousness is pretty intense and looks to offer a new mode of tension for the show. The case is pretty crazy, and I won’t ruin for you, but I will tell you that it includes Ned going to jail.

I really like where the show is going, and I think the flashback introductions to where Ned is young at boarding school are a good way to develop his character from the ground up. I would like the show to start having more of those flashbacks for Chuck as a little girl, like they did in the beginning.

The show also seems to be weaning Olive off of her obsessive love of the piemaker, just as her chemistry with Chuck is coming into it’s own. I think that is too bad because I really like that Olive is in love with Ned. If anything, it would probably be better to have Chuck and Ned take a break. Sure, each of Ned and Olive’s characters is built on the fact that they are madly in love, but they can’t touch. Viewers want some physicality. These shows end with a hint of a changing Olive, but the next show could be a good way to start an Olive-Ned relationship and a separate Chuck-X relationship.

The show has lots of stuff going on – the introduction of the candy shop and the possibility that one of these olfactory guys could figure out Chuck because she ‘smells dead,’ adds multiple levels of tension onto the touch tension and the entrenched love triangle. It is really too bad that we will have to wait two weeks, as the show takes a break, to find out how it will go…

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.