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Reviews
Friday Night Lights (2006)
A great television show about football.
'Friday Night Lights' is unlike other TV shows for many reasons, namely being it is not about the glitz and the glamor of other TV shows. I love this show and I'm not even a big football fan or follower.
Parts of the show are slightly far fetched, but the whole premise of the show is about a football team in the small Texan town of Dillon. Football is central to all things in this community. But when the star quarterback (Jason Street played by Scott Porter) is permanently injured in the first game of the season, the new head coach, Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) has to readjust the whole team and plans for the season. The whole does not only revolve around this tragedy. It concentrates on various players lives, on and off the field.
Every episode contains some comedy, drama and of course, there is always suspense around the games.
The odd camera working and angles have been one of the central many complaints of this show, but the truth is, it creates an atmosphere of observance. Instead of feeling like an audience member, a viewer can feel more like they're immersed within the lives of these characters themselves.
Don't consider this a television show like others, it shouldn't be compared that way. While watching the show, consider the concept of a mockumentary (although 'Friday Night Lights' is not one), that instead of the viewer watching a prerecorded story progress, they are experiencing it.
Football is about experience. The working of the camera angles, the dialogue of the characters and the story line allow the viewer to become fascinated in all aspects of the lives of this small town and their football team.
Totally Awesome (2006)
A desperate attempt to be witty.
I've just watched this movie on TV, and it seems to me a sad attempt at pointing fun at the 80's, but fails miserable.
"Not Another Teen Movie" wasn't amazing, but at least it nailed the bad 90's teen movies and put some humor into it.
This movie is about a brother,Charlie, (Mikey Day) and sister ,Lori, (Dominique Swain) who move to a new town in California from Pittsburg. The sister loves to dance and trained as a ballerina, so naturally she's crushed when she discovers she can't dance in this new town. The guy is ranked bottom of his senior class in 'coolness' on his first day and makes some feeble attempts to "rise against the cool people."
There's the unattainable hot chick, the jerky popular guy who makes no sense and the freaks. There's also Charlie's best 'freak friend', Billie (Nicki Clyne), who has a hopefully crush on him and can't admit it (Sixteen Candles right there).
The movie progresses with bad references to "Dirty Dancing", "Teen Wolf" and the like.
I won't give away anymore, but I wouldn't recommend this movie unless it's 3am and nothing else but infomercials are on.
It's not nearly stupid enough to be considered "so stupid it's funny" and it's not interesting enough to have any sort of cult following.
(And then there's the creepy janitor (who's an ex-dancer) and the principal who doesn't give a hoot.)
Pimp My Ride (2004)
An MTV show, featuring the rapper Xzibit who fixes up cars of his fans.
The show "Pimp My Ride" is another line of those shows where a crew and some host try to fix up someone's car/house/life/etc.
Unfortunately, Pimp My Ride is so extravagant and excessive that it takes away any sort of meaning that the audience could pull away from it.
It always begins with the rapper, Xzibit, who mentions someone who needs their car fixed up and they are a too poor to do so themselves. The person always gravely needs a car that functions because they're devoted to some sort of job/education but haven't the resources/time to get a new car. We're shown the car, which is usually in awful shape, the owner of the car shows the various parts falling off, the duct-taped fender and the non-functioning radio, so on and so forth.
Xzibit drives away to the garage, where they proceed to pimp the ride. Now, this could be interesting, but we see almost no pimping. We see all the mechanics/"pimpers" meet up and discuss what they'll do to the car, then we see them strip down the car, then the car painted (in fast forward of course) and tid bits of accessories being installed.
It'd be nice if they made the car better, made it nicer with some cool detail, but it goes overboard. TVs on the outside of the car near the wheels, a TV system for a habitat for snakes in the trunk, a working computer system in the back seat. It all seems like too much.
All you're left wondering is how this person could pay for any sort of repair if the car got into an accident, how often is it going to get broken into, and how much will this really help their financial situation?