After watching pretty much every rerun of Lost on DVD through September to catch up my friends and roommates, it’s been a bit of an adjustment to go back to the 40-minutes-a-week, lots-of-commercials schedule. You know, normal TV.

Still, I’m happy to say that the show hasn’t “lost” its touch at all (sweet pun), but rather has proven to be an excellent season so far. (True, we’re only two episodes in.) I liked the season premiere but have to say this episode was a bit better, if only because we got to see more of the characters: Sayid! Sun! Jin!

And while normally I find the charming Korean couple’s flashbacks a bit pointless, we did get a rousing good story out of it: turns out Sun did sleep with the dashing young man who taught her English. While she was married. And that means it’s possible that her baby is his.

Sun has gotten more and more unlikable, which I think has been successfully controlled by the writers, and this was the last straw for me (I believe I may have shouted “SLUT!” at the screen.) Remember the touching scene late last season in which Sun promised Jin to his face that she’s never been with another man?

Dead to me.

In other news, Sawyer and Kate are given a whole lot of busy work to do, shoveling rocks or something. Luckily for us, Sawyer (and, therefore, the camera) can’t help but stare at the lovely-looking Kate(‘s butt), still wearing the sundress from last episode. Sawyer gets so hot and bothered, in fact, that he kisses her, knowing full well his taskmasters in charge will literally shock the crap out of him.

And finally, there’s Jack, his spirit temporarily broken (courtesy of Juliet), sitting in the corner of his cell, refusing to speak. The image brought back very clear memories of the Henry Gale days, and I guess old Ben/Henry thought so too, as he came in to chat about the role-reversal. (Can you believe in Lost-time he was only a prisoner a week ago?) We also got a handful of good tidbits about the Others in general from Ben, including (a) his last name, which I’ve promptly forgotten, (b) he’s lived on the island his whole life, and (c) they have contact with the outside world! It was kind of a throwback, really, learning that in Lost we’re actually still back in late November of 2004, right after George W. Bush was re-elected and Christopher Reeve died. And, of course, the Red Sox bit, which was priceless. The just-plain-coolness of that whole scene brought a smile to my face.

So what do you guys think? Why was with Alex Rousseau wondering where Karl went? Why do people who leave the island only “go in circles”, as Juliet mentioned, and how was Michael able to surpass that (if he did)? And what the heck happened to Desmond, Eko, and Locke? Feel free to post comments. Until next week…

So Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was on last night, a show I have been both addicted to and frustrated by. Having not watched much of West Wing, I’m new to the whole witty-quick-speak of Aaron Sorkin, and in general it’s very appealing. Matthew Perry’s really stepped up to make a great lead, he has great chemistry with co-star Bradley Whitford, and the stories are consistently entertaining. (I’m a bit of an SNL freak, through its good and bad, so watching the backstage drama is like looking at an idealized version of a future dream job.)

Unfortunately, now in its fourth episode, the show’s flaws have been consistent, too. A lot of critics have griped about the decided lack of comedy in all the actual sketch comedy they show on the show, which doesn’t really bother me so much. I wasn’t expecting to see any more than the first and last 20 seconds of each show-within-a-show each episode, and I actually find it kind of admirable Sorkin’s trying to showcase actual glimpses of the sketches. (At least now we know sketch-writing isn’t his strong suit.)

No, the bigger problem: Harriet Hayes. The character just plain doesn’t work. She’s supposed to be the main romantic lead, the secret obsession of Matthew Perry, and she’s an annoying bore. The “twist” is that she’s a born-again Christian, and hey, kudos to network television for realizing that Christians exist (even though they still haven’t quite figured out that most of us aren’t evangelicals). But contrary to actually humanizing her, Sorkin (with plenty of help from the actress Sarah Paulson), makes her a standoffish brat with a massive air of superiority and a so-so Juliette Lewis impression. (It’s also not too hard to link the dots that while Sorkin was the showrunner of West Wing, he briefly dated and broke up with the also blonde, also talented, and also very Christian actress Kristin Chenoweth.)

Still, the only reason these flaws stand out so much is that the rest of the show is so good. Watch it yourself and make up your own mind.

Hey, I’ve set up all of the Archives sections so they should be fully operational. Let me know about any dead links (or any other problems).

Just a quick note here before I get back to the schoolwork I’ve been telling myself all afternoon I’d do: The Departed is a fantastic film. I saw it last night and wet myself a couple times. It’s hilariously funny, shockingly interesting, and ridiculously well-acted. Every part in the movie is an actor’s dream and they all rise to the occasion. Scorsese’s back to doing what he does best, but he’s helped in no small part thanks to a dynamite script by William Monahan (which was based on the Hong Kong flick Infernal Affairs). Great soundtrack, too — Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, and super-pumped-up Irish music.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

Hey kids, my review of the Dane Cook vehicle Employee of the Month has been posted at TheCinemaSource. Here’s the direct link. The one-word verdict: mediocre.

By the way, unless you’ve kept up with my AIM profile, I’ve failed to mention my last few reviews. There’s the John Cameron Mitchell-directed Shortbus, featuring massive amounts of nudity and sex; The Guardian, an ode to the Coast Guard with Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner; and Season 2 of the excellently dry The Office. And once again, very soon I’ll have a linked list of everything I’ve written, both for TheCinemaSource or for here, in the Main Archives.

Hey everyone. In the interest of simplicity, versatility, and good content, I’ve (slightly) revised the site for Senior Year. You’ll notice it looks suspiciously like a blog…and that’s because it is. However, I’ve (a) kept all of the site’s old content (in that top “Archives” section, which should be up and running shortly), and (b) tried to keep the feel of my old site as much as possible (notice the familiar fonts and title banner). Whenever I add anything to this site, it’ll show up as a regular post, and then later I’ll add it to its respective archive. I’ll also post whenever anything new of mine shows up at TheCinemaSource.

Hope my loyal three readers like it (as well as any new visitors who’ve somehow managed to get here). For now, I’ll leave you with the immortal words of Michael Dawson: “THEY TOOK MAH SON!”

So this is my website…welcome.

It began as a little pet project in my freshman year of college at NYU, mostly to help me procrastinate instead of doing schoolwork. About a year ago I took it off the NYU homepage servers and gave it it’s own domain name. A few months ago that became sort of a misnomer when I got an apartment in Brooklyn, but…whatever.

Now I’m in the midst of my senior year at NYU. I’m a screenwriting major in the Tisch School of the Arts. Since May I’ve had an internship writing movie reviews at the website www.TheCinemaSource.com, which is nice, because now instead of writing maybe one movie review a month for this site, I actually have the incentive to write a lot more.

I’m also kind of an Oscar-predictions freak and lately I’ve gotten really into some TV shows, courtesy of the genius that is ABC’s Lost. So there are basically three parts to this site: updates and external links to all of the stuff I do for TheCinemaSource, episode commentaries on some random cool shows, and the occasional Oscar column where I update y’all on the awards race.

Now that it’s using super-happy-easy blog software (while still maintaining it’s own sense of renegade cool, of course) it’s a lot easier to maintain than in the past, so I keep it pretty up to date, with a few updates each week.

I think that covers it, so there’s only one thing left to say…a random screenwriting joke that you won’t appreciate as much as me, but trust me, it’s hilarious:

Q: Why did the protagonist cross the road?
A: Because he wanted to more than anything else in the world.