thoughts on Glee: "A Night of Neglect"

Didn't care for this one, folks. Really the only parts I liked were when Mike Chang danced to "Bubbletoes" (I was just thinking about that song this past week, by the way. I hadn't heard it in awhile. It's pretty fun.) and the moment between Will and Emma with the grapes. That was the first sweet moment between them since...well, all season, really. He was creepy and stalkery for the majority of the time she was with Carl. Oh, and okay, I did giggle when the final category in the Smarty Pants competition was "Hermaphrodite Nazi Sympathizers."

As a whole, though, I just didn't think the episode was very much fun, especially for a Paltrow episode. I know people have varying opinions on Gwyneth Paltrow, but I like her on "Glee;" her musical numbers are usually fun, and she usually gets some pretty funny lines in. Tonight, though, she really didn't get anything good to do; I mean, they might as well just have had Will say she moved away to Cleveland, if they weren't going to give her any more to do than what she got in this episode. Also, other than the aforementioned dance to "Bubbletoes," I did not enjoy a single musical number this episode, which is pretty bad for a show about a glee club. Also...

A lot of the continuing storylines on this show are getting pretty old. Make Sue a legitimate competing glee club coach if you want her to continue to be a legitimate rival for Will, but come on. All of her little plots to sabotage the glee club are just getting stupid. Also-- and I might have complained about this before-- I just don't buy that the glee club wouldn't have more support from the student body at this point. Like, I buy that the glee club kids wouldn't necessarily be *popular*, and that certain jerks might bully them. But if a high school glee club was that good, and was going to *nationals*, the majority of people in school would at least be happy for them, even if they weren't super into it. More than six damn people would have shown up to their benefit concert. Like, let's assume that they didn't do a very good job advertising because they thought Sunshine was bringing her Twitter followers, but where were these kids' parents and family friends? Why didn't Kurt and Blaine invite the rest of the Warblers? Wouldn't at least some of the other teachers and at least a handful of students have been there? I'm just sick of this Everyone Hates the Glee Club business when there's no way that could possibly be true.

So...yeah. A few good moments, but not nearly as entertaining as I've come to expect.

thoughts on How I Met Your Mother: "The Exploding Meatball Sub"

Okay, so I don't normally blog about How I Met Your Mother (even though I love it), but may I just say, that was the best episode I've seen in awhile. It's been really good this season, but very serious; this episode managed to contain serious moments, to move a couple of different storylines forward, and to make me laugh out loud really hard. Good TV, people. Good TV. Pretty sure this one was a classic.

More specifically, I liked that 1) they didn't try to act like the fact that Ted and Zoey argue all the time is normal or healthy and that 2) while neither Lily nor Marshall is perfect, when it comes down to it, they've basically got their heads on straight, and they both usually manage to bring themselves (and each other) back when they're about to go too far. They've come along way from Lily running off to San Francisco at the end of the first season. I also liked that, though things have been serious for Barney lately, tonight they gave him a storyline that was pretty much pure comedy. Also loved that during the flashforward at the end, he's the only one who hasn't aged or changed at all.

Yaay! Good show!

thoughts on "The Lincoln Lawyer"

I liked this movie a lot, everyone. This was mainly because the casting was ridiculously perfect: Matthew McConaughey as Mick Haller, a charming but slightly skeezy lawyer with something of a drinking problem; Ryan Philippe as Louis Roulet, a smug, entitled young rich man who isn't telling his attorney everything; and Marisa Tomei as Maggie McPherson, Mick's ex-wife, a prosecutor who clearly still loves, likes, and is incredibly attracted to her ex-husband. She presumably divorced him because of his skeeviness (she makes a comment at one point that she just can't get behind the fact that, as a defense attorney, he's constantly helping the bad guys go free while she's trying to put them away) and his drinking; she's too good for him in a lot of ways, really, but you can tell that he knows that. You get the impression that the two of them are crazy about each other and don't really want to be with anyone else, yet they could just never quite make it work. I liked their relationship a lot, and both actors did a good job with it; I thought it was a fairly realistic, complex adult relationship between two people with a history that is never fully explained.

That's another thing I liked about this movie; they don't waste a lot of time explaining any of the characters' pasts or history with each other, just sort of let you pick it up as you go along. At the heart of this story is a mystery, and it is the type of story where I just sort of sit back and let the characters do their thing and not try to spend a lot of time figuring everything out, not because it doesn't make sense but because I feel like most of the characters are much smarter than I am. I used to feel the same way when I used to watch Veronica Mars; I haven't often felt the same way before or since then, but I'm usually pretty impressed with a movie or show when it makes me feel like that.

So, bottom line: intriguing story, great casting and performances. I know I'm going a lot less into the plot than usual, but it is one of those movies where new discoveries are constantly being made, and there are like two surprise twist endings before the movie actually stops; for this type of movie, I feel like it's more important to not give away the plot as much as I usually do. Just take my word for it that if you like legal thrillers, this is one of the better ones I've seen in awhile.

On a side note, during the previews I decided that it is highly likely that I will be seeing Soul Surfer, the movie about the surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack. It's got surfing. And Dennis Quaid. And Carrie Underwood. What more could you want, really?