Michele Lein

A brilliant, bittersweet, and heartfelt British sitcom. I've never seen a series that has made me think so deeply and feel life in such a poignant and bittersweet manner as this one has. I used to work as a CNA in nursing homes in the US, and I firmly believe that the level of caring, and the environment, are much better for the elderly who live in British "care homes" than the elderly who live in nursing homes in the US. Ricky Gervais is brilliant as 'Derek', an endearing fellow who is a little "different", but who loves his job as a carer in a "care home", and also it's residents. This is the best sitcom to have come out of Britain in a long time. Former favorites include 'One Foot In The Grave', 'Waiting For God' and 'As Time Goes By'. But this eclipses them all despite their excellent content and stellar actors. Give this show a try. If you aren't laughing and crying in turns by the end, you had to have had your heart removed and your soul excised. This show especially hits home me for me because when I was 20 and still living at home many years ago, there was an older little man whom my mother met in the neighborhood. He was an endearing fellow who was a little "different", and he would follow her around when she was out walking our seven dogs (we lived way out up in the foothills of Enumclaw, Washington and had unlimited trails and logging roads on which to walk) and told everyone she was his "girlfriend." He was very unintentionally funny, like Derek. One night my mom was walking the dogs on our mile long driveway, only to find him standing completely naked on a bridge that was parallel to the driveway. Why? Because he was simply David and that's what he felt like doing at the moment. (It's worth it to mention that he was very slightly mentally handicapped. Able to work his job as a forklift driver and live on his own, but still enough to be a bit "different.") He died around fifteen years ago because he contracted what was probably bacterial pneumonia that went septic. It was so sad because despite living alone, he lived on his sister's property, and if anyone had bothered to check on him, he probably could have been saved. But his family went three days without seeing him or looking in on him and found him deceased when they finally found the time to see why.he hadn't been around out on their horse farm. I still miss him.

I love Rory Culkin. I was skeptical when he first started getting film roles, and did not think he would ever emjou the success, however short lived, that his brother McAuley Culkin had. Well, looks like Culkin had the last laugh on all of us, as he's outshown his brother, and everyone's expectations. He has a style all his own. I think of it as "really smart person gone bad," but still very smart.The kind of guy who does really well in school but doesn't want his peers to know because he wants to be seen as a bad@$$. I like smart, clever brainiacs who hide it behind a tough demeanor, but totally know how to use their brain power to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. But enough of my gushing over him. 'The Lords Of Chaos", like Culkin himself, is a very clever study of why some young people get involved in death metal and it's subsequent trappings. It is funny, engrossing, and depressing by turns. It is a unique movie about the showmanship that goes hand in hand with music and fame.

I'm only halfway through the first episode and I'm mesmerized. It's like slipping into the "pool" constantly bring referred to in this series. Dane De Hahn is a creepy, convincing stalker of his favorite author's wife who he sees as the enemy and the sole reason more of the author's books are not being published. I love Julianne Moore. She plays "sad and bereft" so convincingly. This is a beautiful and evocative series with stunning and dreamlike cinematography. Somehow, I don't know how, but it has notes of the Stephen King series from a few years ago 'Castle Rock.' But while that had a much less dreamlike quality, something in these two series strike the same chord. This is something Stephen King fans must see.

I just started watching this series and I'm already hooked. It is a stylized thriller with it's "feet on the ground". Kerri Russell, whom I have loved since 'The Americans', plays a newly minted ambassador heading to Kabul to do "substantiative work" repairing the atrocities committed on the women of the country and to try to make the 28,000 lives lost during the rebuilding worth it. As she's hectically getting ready for her flight to Kabul, a BRN ship is attacked with explosives, killing 28 people. Suddenly, Russell is ordered by the President to be the ambassador to Britain during this "sad and crucial time", and to be, as Russell's character puts it a "glorified emotional support dog" who will look sad at photo opps at funerals. This is a thriller a'la the original PBS Thursday night 'Mystery' series, (music included), but much more serious, of course. It is worthy of 'Mansfield Park', with all the pomp and circumstance of that movie, much to the annoyance and disdain of Russell's character. There is wry humor, as in a scene when Russell is hectically getting ready to catch her flight to Britain. She makes her husband, Rufus Sewell, do a "smell test" on her underarms. But he takes it further on down, burying his face in her crotch and sniffing tentatively. Russell's character draws back, horrified, and says "oh God. Is it bad?" He pulls her closer, and says "No. It's perfect", and Rusell pushes him away in annoyance. It has humorous and compelling moments by turns and is extremely "watchable". If you liked 'The Americans' and 'Mansfield Park', this should be your next "favorite series".

**Slight Spoilers** This show started out in a captivating fashion. High level MI6 officer Adam Lawrence rises to a top position in the organization after his boss is poisoned. Intrigue and international espionage matters abound.Then, unfortunately, it becomes predictable, much like others of its ilk. His fourteen year-old daughter is kidnapped by a nefarious group despite security around him and the family being tight. He must then try to work with a former foreign "contact" to find her and get her back. The "contact" is captured while attempting to save the daughter, escapes are attempted, things go wrong, and now we're back where we were at the beginning of the kidnapping, with the daughter scared and crying at the hands of the nefarious group, the former foreign contact bound and useless, and of course, Adam frantically trying to find the contact, and his daughter, while at the same time evading his bosses detecting his dealings with the mysterious former foreign "contact", all while trying to handle the current foreign crisis, evade being poisoned by whoever poisoned his former boss, and reassure his wife and eleven-year-old son that everything is under control and that the daughter will be home very soon. It doesn't sound like it, but It is now dragging, with the foreign espionage matter put on the back burner along with the poisoning, as well. I would have liked to have seen more of the foreign crisis storyline, as it was intriguing and exciting. It's unfortunate that the writers went this way with the storyline.

Good ol' fashioned rock n roll, rollicking space demon alien movie. Didn't expect much from this movie, but I thought I'd give it a chance anyway. Was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was watchable. If you like films like the original Alien with Sigourney Weaver, you will like this. And that is despite the bad guy in this movie being more of a space demon than a space alien, and that only one cast +member is relatively well known, and that said cast member is sort of the lead but also a science geek, unlike the others who are all action/very little science. Lots and lots of action. Gave four stars only because there is very little calm dialogue once it gets going. But still very entertaining.

I did not expect to like this movie as I don't like time travel, but I gave it a go, as someone else desribed it as having a Twilight Zone vibe to it, and I figured it couldn't be too terrible with Alfred Molina and David Oyelow starring. I was very surprised to find that the time travel element was downplayed, and that it was a unique film in it's own right, and in a completely new category. I loved the young actress Storm Reid, and the interaction between her and David Oyelow kept me on the edge of my seat. It got a bit bogged down with flashbacks trying to fill the viewer in on the backstory at about the hour mark, but overall it was a good film in the vein of the detective suspense/thriller genre.