L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 10 ("He's Our You")

As always, let's start with Doc Jensen's spoilers article (here) and his review (here) and Totally Lost (here).

Frank noted: Did anyone notice the new Dharma symbol that Hurley "The Cook" had? Thought it was a nice touch. (See here.) And the following fun stuff (see here).
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JJ got us started in our discussion this week:

Hey everybody. last night's episode was ok... nothing really special for the most part. until the freaking ending blasted everything in the universe apart ! ! ! ! ! !

now i kind of new Sayid wold make a play to kill Benry at some point once he found out when they were, but i thought the island would not let him be killed. so much for that! (my jaw was on the ground for like five minutes after Sayid pulled the trigger. even though it's Ben, he was still just a kid. unbelievable and shocking to see.) so, is this a massive "course corrections?" i don't see how because for me this changes absolutely everything. the writer's have made it clear that they do not use paradoxes with the time travel writing, but this is like the mother of all paradoxes... Faraday has layed out rules that the Losites can't change the past, but Sayid just did and big time. let's break it down.... if Benry is really dead as a child:

Benry now cannot wipe out Dharma and become leader of the others
Benry will no longer kidnap Alex from Danielle Roussou when she is an infant
Benry will not lead the others to bring certain people to the island, mainly Juliet, but potentially the Losties as well
no abduction of Walt or raids on the tail section
no capture by Danielle
no torture by Sayid
no killing of Ana Lucia and Libby by Michael to free Benry from the hatch
no cages no runway gets built on hydra island for flight 316
no war with the others
no huge manipulation of John Locke and everyone else....
and possibly NO plane crash of 815 at all!!!! why? because with Dharma not wiped out by Ben, then Swan would still be operational with two people, therefore if Desmond still were to shipwreck, then he would never be taken to the hatch and would never be too late in pushing the button when he was off killing Kelvin which causes 815 to crash,

which, in turn would mean the Losties never go to the island anyway, so how could Sayid even be there now to kill Benry? and what's more, Benry couldn't be there for to overthrow Widmore as leader of the others, possibly making Penny an indigenous island hositle (therefore never meeting Desmond and never giving him reason to sail in the race and shipwreck on the island at all!!!) is your head hurting yet? how about this: no murder of John Locke, no murder of Anthony Cooper by Sawyer, no murder of Alex by Keamy to acquire Benry, no freighter, on and on and on....

so, if all that is true, then everything that happened on the show up until now hasn't happened anymore making it all meaningless, or still happens but now by totally different means: DESTINY.

Troy and Lisa and XX and i all watched the show together last night... we had out brains scrambled pretty good over this. but Troy and i talked about it and thought of a few things:

Benry isn't dead at all and everything still happens
Benry is dead, but "course correction" will make everything still happen but through perhaps a WORSE leader then Benry
Benry is dead, but none of it is really happening except in the minds of the Losties as their consciousness flashes through time, like Desmond, but without going back and forth

but then i thought of a couple more things: what if Benry dies so John Locke can become the leader of the others, but much younger so Ben never does? what if John (the supposed "intended leader" of the others) is a worse leader then Benry, and all the afore mentioned incidents still happen, but by HIS hand, generating new memories in all the Losties heads and changing how they relate to each other and their alternate pasts.....what if the title of the next episode is our answer: "Whatever Happened, Happened" and all this talk, indeed is just drivel. that it all will still happen anyway, because Benry will get resurrected, just like Locke was.

this episode, flying in the face of "the rules" and everything the writers have said they hate about time travel has really got me thinking... they wouldn't do this if it were paradoxical.. they must be doing something to either trick us or pose a completely different direction in the show to get us to the end without being able to figure it all out.... i can't wait to hear how evasive and non-helpful they are during the podcast later today. in the season's opener, Pierre Change tells the construction boss building the Orchid when he asks if they are going to go back and kill Hitler not to be absurd. that, "you can't change to past." just like Faraday says later in the same episode. well the "Hitler" of L O S T was just killed as a boy in the past... did his adult self just go "poof" in 2007 and vanish from the make shift infirmary with the 316 survivors? is 316 even there now? i can't figure any of it out now.... they have got me (and us) right where they want us.

Tuck Shop Talk

Sophie Okonedo absolutely steals the show in Skin. Based on the true story of Sandra Laing, the movie follows a woman whose genetic make-up left both she and her brothers looking black in a white apartheid South Africa though both her Afrikaner parents were white. Her never-bending father, played by Sam Neill, teaches his children to "never give up." So, we see young Sandra grow up with a foot in two worlds, where the whites don't like her because she looks black but her white designation doesn't allow her to be treated as black. 

There are threads that run through the whole movie. Her father has a tuck shop, her husband runs one and at the end of the movie we see that she has opened one too off of the side of her home. The battle between her father and mother, her battle with her father, her relationship with her mother all anchor the rest of story. 

The movie does a beautiful job of telling a tale of racism and sexism while Sandra is coming of age. She is forced to step outside the bubble her father has created for her and then when she marries, she is forced to step outside that bubble as well in order to stand on her own two feet. This isn't a movie to go to if you are looking for a romp. It brings up a lot of issues that are never resolved and makes you think while your heart is breaking for Sandra's plight. 

I read a book in undergrad called, Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane that this movie made me think of. Also a coming of age story in Apartheid-era South Africa, it is an autobiography that tells of the oppression Mark Mathabane faced and triumphed over by maintaining his head and spirit. Sandra Laing had to take that same journey after looking at the world through "white" eyes. So, I can't even imagine the scars it left on her, but somehow she also perseveres.

Go see it... it isn't a "hero" movie, like Hotel Rwanda, that Okonedo also stars in, but it is thought-provoking and touching and it is a smart movie that I definitely enjoyed and can recommend wholeheartedly.

Duplicitious Commercials

Duplicity suckered me in with the payout of a fun Rom Com meets Spy movie vibe. I admit it, I am a S-U-C-K-E-R for those kinds of films. I like Julia Roberts, I *heart* Clive Owen but the film fell flat for me somewhere about a quarter of the way through and leaving out the Comedy bits and the Romance falling flat in what is hyped as a Rom Com is not a good way to go.  

In the classic love/hate relationship Julia plays the spy game for the CIA and Clive comes off asthe British equivalent. Their romance leaves them primed to scheme to steal a big "idea" from competing corporate giants. There is double dealing through the whole movie and the romance, steamy in places and dry in others. Not wanting to give any spoilers, I'll just leave you with this...

I feel duped. There are, granted, moments where both Julia sparkles and Clive sizzles and even places where the spy bits are fun. So, it is decent, but if you wait to see it until it comes out on video, you wouldn't be missing anything. 

 

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 9, ("NAMASTE'')

Doc Jensen's story from last week (here) & Doc Jensen's Teaser (here). Totally Lost? (here).

Of course, always read his review (here).

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This week JJ started us off:

i really liked last night's ep.... each story left off as a cliffhanger (and they had quite a few stories going at once. i loved what they are doing with Radzinsky (he was Kelvin's partner in the Swan who killed himself way back in the season 2 finale - we never saw him, but heard Kelvin tell Desmond what happened to his partner when he asked about button pushing being a two man job) and the Swan being under construction. and i liked the tables being turned on Jack and his leadership. Sawyer laid it down on him.

Niel, you called it on Sun and Ben and Locke not being in the same time as the rest. i wonder why Sun did not flash with the rest of them to '77. i am wondering if that has to do with destiny for each character. and then the state of the barracks in in Sun's time in 2007 is a wreck, with Dharma logos still visible - that's hardly the state there were in at any time in season's 3 and 4 under Ben's control. all signs of Dharma were gone, at least in the barracks (with the exception of food). this clearly shows that the losties have done some timeline changing havoc in the past.... does Ben never see his 15th birthday now or what?

and what in the world happened to Faraday?

big mystery of the night: did you guys see the woman standing in the background behind Sun as Christian Shepard showed her the photo of Kate, Jack, and Hurly as new Dharma recruits in '77?!?!??!?! there was some strange woman back there, and it wasn't Claire!

[NOTE: later from JJ, sledgewed has totally caught it (woman with christian here)]

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 8 ("LaFleur")

Let's start off the week with Doc Jensen's Teaser and Review Article-not to forget Totally Lost

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This week, Niel started off our discussion:

Morning Losties, 

I didn't think last night's episode was as good as others have been this season so far, but still a pretty good episode. And we are seeing a lot of Egyptian references, Sphinx, Heirglyphics,Ankuh, there are references on lost cubit that the 4 toed statue is that of Anubis and then Horace. They are almost beating us over the head with this stuff ! Couple of things I have this morning, why did Richard need Paul's body? I think Horace and Amy's baby will be Jacob and finally my wife pointed out a possibly mistake on behalf of the writers. Charlotte is listed as being born in 1979, we see what we think is a little Charlotte last night and Sawyer tells Juliet on the dock that is 1974??????? 

And finally just when life is all peachy for Sawyer, who shows back up??? Worthless Kate, and we all know what happens whenever Kate has a stressful situation... 

Oo La La! Nina Garcia is at Marie Claire

Running in Heels started, and OH... MY...GOSH...  Nina Garcia is in the House! You might know Nina from her previous stint as Fashion Editor and Editor-at-Large at Elle magazine. But more likely you know her from PR... speaking of... Project Runway is jumping ship all over the place... Bravo to WE, Nina Garcia? Elle to Fashion Director at Marie Claire. On cue, Ms. Heidi Klum appears at Nina Garcia's welcome party. I did watch the The Fashionista Diaries when it was on SoapNet and I must say that this is a much better show. [I wonder if it would have been taken to another level on TheFD if the doors of Jane hadn't been shuttered?] 

Now, we get to see Joanna Coles, Editor-In-Chief at Marie Claire in action during NYC Fashion Week, showing off Nina Garcia, her newest star. Honorable mention in that we get to see all the other people that make the magazine run with such style. The interns are doing what interns do, but trying to be somewhat reality show about it too.

• INTERN 1: (my favorite right now) SAMANTHA - from Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the sunny Midwestern girl who is learning fast to be nobody's fool.  She started the show off right, assisting Joanna Coles and Nina Garcia in her first task and then helping the PR Girls on the Red Carpet for her second task. She might cry a little much but she's young. She'll get over that.
• INTERN 2: (my least favorite) ASHLEY- the girl who looks like Dirty Dancing, Jennifer Grey. She started out by saying she wanted it and would take down the others to get it. She's already screwed up by being late and lazy packing photo shoot items and then spent the whole show complaining how Samantha got the choice jobs, and wasn't worth it and how she was just not up to it. The only one who hadn't screwed up yet, was Samantha. The pointing finger game is really lame Ashley. Plus, not inviting Samantha to the show? Karma is a bitch. Watch out.
• INTERN 3: (California girl) TALITA - she's pretty, clearly has good taste but is walking a fine line between bitch and nice girl by playing to both Samantha and Ashley. She also reminds me of that girl that played Cinder from Little Darlings, Krista Errickson. And here we go with a big, HOWEVER... poor Talita, trying to work at Marie Claire and turns in her first writing assignment with spelling errors? Capital offense! (Yes, I crack myself up, and it does a double duty by being a Pride & Prejudice quote in the same breath-which I will use whenever possible, ie not sporadically- yes Clueless, sorry, I can't stop sometimes.) We'll see if she can turn me around but for right now... dumb won't cut it for a magazine gig.
  

I admit it, I did watch the SoapNet show, The Fashionista Diaries back in '07. Those kids were hysterical, the smallest thing such a huge drama. They did have their big shot by interning at Jane, Seventh House PR and Flirt! Cosmetics and then at CosmoGirl, once Jane closed its doors. But, I will say this... even though it is a very similar show in some ways, in others, the show is much more about the jobs that the interns are doing right now, than the love life of Bridget and Andrew. Serious rolemodels are guiding their way. I'm looking forward to a good RiH season.