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Nine Things About the Movie "Fury" (USA, 2014)



1. One of the best movies of the year, this is a film that lives up to it’s name. It is a bitter, gorgeous, violent, post-patriotic, post-moral examination of war.



2. Set in Germany during the last month of WWII, it’s about a group of five men and their Sherman tank. A rookie typist is randomly selected to join the crew when one of the five is killed. He is a gentle and religious man, and the movie follows him as the war warps and destroys everything he has believed about the world and about himself.



3. I’ve never seen a war movie focused on tank divisions before, so the battle scenes are not the typical “run up the hill and shoot the bad guy” scenarios we are used to. The fighting is chaotic, suspenseful, and yes, furious.



4. Between the war scenes are battles of a different sort, as each member of the crew tries to maintain their sanity, if not their humanity. They each have different defense mechanisms to deal with the horrors of what they experience. Shia LeBeouf is great as the religious one who tries to increase morale by convincing the crew that they are on God’s side.



5. Did I say this movie is violent? Well, it’s violent. Like, really violent. But it’s war, so it’s ok, right?



6. All five of the main actors totally inhabit their characters - there is not a weak performance anywhere. But Brad Pitt deserves to be nominated Best Actor of the Year for his role as leader of the group. He really straddles the line between hope and despair, and watches over his crew like a tired father who knows more than he can ever talk about.



7. The movie drives home the point that idealism is all well and good, but if those ideals are to be maintained, someone has to betray them. The movie deliberately moves past the discussion of good versus evil - such distinctions are for people sitting at home, safe. The soldiers are here simply to kill as many people as they can before they themselves are killed.



8. There is a smoldering, smoky rage that drifts through all the characters in the movie. Rage at the enemy, rage at the war, rage at the world… and rage at themselves.



9. I don’t think this is a movie for the patriotic “Team America” crowd. It’s a beautiful, merciless, tour of duty that makes you wonder whether war destroys our humanity, or if war destroys our carefully constructed polite exterior and lets humanity express its natural brutality.

Get Fury

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Nine Things About the Movie "Fury" (USA, 2014)



1. One of the best movies of the year, this is a film that lives up to it’s name. It is a bitter, gorgeous, violent, post-patriotic, post-moral examination of war.



2. Set in Germany during the last month of WWII, it’s about a group of five men and their Sherman tank. A rookie typist is randomly selected to join the crew when one of the five is killed. He is a gentle and religious man, and the movie follows him as the war warps and destroys everything he has believed about the world and about himself.



3. I’ve never seen a war movie focused on tank divisions before, so the battle scenes are not the typical “run up the hill and shoot the bad guy” scenarios we are used to. The fighting is chaotic, suspenseful, and yes, furious.



4. Between the war scenes are battles of a different sort, as each member of the crew tries to maintain their sanity, if not their humanity. They each have different defense mechanisms to deal with the horrors of what they experience. Shia LeBeouf is great as the religious one who tries to increase morale by convincing the crew that they are on God’s side.



5. Did I say this movie is violent? Well, it’s violent. Like, really violent. But it’s war, so it’s ok, right?



6. All five of the main actors totally inhabit their characters - there is not a weak performance anywhere. But Brad Pitt deserves to be nominated Best Actor of the Year for his role as leader of the group. He really straddles the line between hope and despair, and watches over his crew like a tired father who knows more than he can ever talk about.



7. The movie drives home the point that idealism is all well and good, but if those ideals are to be maintained, someone has to betray them. The movie deliberately moves past the discussion of good versus evil - such distinctions are for people sitting at home, safe. The soldiers are here simply to kill as many people as they can before they themselves are killed.



8. There is a smoldering, smoky rage that drifts through all the characters in the movie. Rage at the enemy, rage at the war, rage at the world… and rage at themselves.



9. I don’t think this is a movie for the patriotic “Team America” crowd. It’s a beautiful, merciless, tour of duty that makes you wonder whether war destroys our humanity, or if war destroys our carefully constructed polite exterior and lets humanity express its natural brutality.

Get Leap of Faith

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Love this show! It's addicting. The dialogue is realistic and the episodes are interesting and thought provoking. The only thing i object to is when they cast super beauties like Emma the D.A. I usually prefer BBC productions because their casting is much more realistic and they don't make their women up like Hollywood mannequins. But the rest of this cast is realistic and i am enjoying the series.

Get Leap of Faith

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Love this show! It's addicting. The dialogue is realistic and the episodes are interesting and thought provoking. The only thing i object to is when they cast super beauties like Emma the D.A. I usually prefer BBC productions because their casting is much more realistic and they don't make their women up like Hollywood mannequins. But the rest of this cast is realistic and i am enjoying the series.

Get Gone Girl

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David Fincher is responsible for one of the three or four book-to-movie adaptations that stood up to their source material, in my humble opinion. I read Gillian Flynn’s delightfully devious potboiler “Gone Girl” soon after I discovered Fincher would be taking on the project, and this book was absolutely incredible. I loved absolutely everything about it - the immaculately written and yet not particularly likable characters, the pacing, the way that Flynn was able to pull off near-preposterous plot twists effortlessly. I even loved that ending. Did Fincher do the book justice?



"Gone Girl" is the magical thing that can happen when filmmaker and author are this perfectly suited to one another. As Fincher said in an interview, "you hire the right people and you step aside." He got the right people - every last one of them.



Five years of marriage have not been kind to Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.) After the recession took both of their journalism jobs, they reluctantly moved to Nick’s hometown in Missouri from New York to tend to his dying mother. Maybe Amy never saw herself living outside of Manhattan, maybe Nick resented Amy for her family’s money and the pre-nup he signed. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. A media circus ensues, with Nick being portrayed as the main suspect. Amy’s high school ex-boyfriend (Neil Patrick Harris) and her alleged ‘best friend’ from home (Casey Wilson) manifest only to put the nail in the case’s coffin. But what really happened to Amazing Amy?



I was only able to count two or three scenes from the book that didn’t make it into the movie, in any capacity. Scenes are shortened but very few are cut outright. And that’s not to suggest that this is a scene-for-scene adaptation either. Flynn, as a screenwriter, manages to do the most important thing a film adaptation can do - to give the audience the same feeling they had throughout the book. She changed nothing and yet everything. The tone is bleak, cynical and yet bitingly funny in the darkest possible way, exactly like the book was. Those not familiar with the book will be taken aback by where this story goes, but even if you read it, you might be surprised by how taut and deliciously nasty the film is.



Affleck was not my first choice to play Nick, but after seeing him give the performance of his career, nobody else could have played it. In the book, you never knew if Nick was truly evil, or a victim of circumstance. He is constructed more or less the same way on film. And Pike, a significantly lesser-known actress, is the real treasure here. Pike understands the intensely complex character of Amy Dunne and translates her frighteningly well to the big screen. I could easily see them calling her name on Oscar night.



Fincher raised some eyebrows casting Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris, well against type. It relieves me to say they both were perfect for the film. Perry does his best Johnnie Cochran while Harris is great as the possibly-evil-possibly-misunderstood Desi. Carrie Coon (HBO’s “The Leftovers”) is perhaps the real gem of the supporting cast, as Nick’s voice of reason twin Margo. Kim Dickens is also scathingly good as the detective who grows increasingly suspicious of what Nick is up to.



But in the end, it’s Fincher’s unflinching direction and Trent Reznor and Atticus Roth’s unsettling and eerie score that make the mood of “Gone Girl” everything it needed to be. Everybody is perfectly cast in the kind of thriller you hope to see once every five years or so. It’s an intense and shocking mystery and yet a hysterically funny black comedy. In the 2 and a half hour running time, I didn’t look at my watch once. In fact, I wanted to watch it again the minute I left the theater.



And, lastly, did Fincher change the book’s polarizing ending? See it for yourself.



Grade: A+

Get Gone Girl

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David Fincher is responsible for one of the three or four book-to-movie adaptations that stood up to their source material, in my humble opinion. I read Gillian Flynn’s delightfully devious potboiler “Gone Girl” soon after I discovered Fincher would be taking on the project, and this book was absolutely incredible. I loved absolutely everything about it - the immaculately written and yet not particularly likable characters, the pacing, the way that Flynn was able to pull off near-preposterous plot twists effortlessly. I even loved that ending. Did Fincher do the book justice?



"Gone Girl" is the magical thing that can happen when filmmaker and author are this perfectly suited to one another. As Fincher said in an interview, "you hire the right people and you step aside." He got the right people - every last one of them.



Five years of marriage have not been kind to Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.) After the recession took both of their journalism jobs, they reluctantly moved to Nick’s hometown in Missouri from New York to tend to his dying mother. Maybe Amy never saw herself living outside of Manhattan, maybe Nick resented Amy for her family’s money and the pre-nup he signed. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. A media circus ensues, with Nick being portrayed as the main suspect. Amy’s high school ex-boyfriend (Neil Patrick Harris) and her alleged ‘best friend’ from home (Casey Wilson) manifest only to put the nail in the case’s coffin. But what really happened to Amazing Amy?



I was only able to count two or three scenes from the book that didn’t make it into the movie, in any capacity. Scenes are shortened but very few are cut outright. And that’s not to suggest that this is a scene-for-scene adaptation either. Flynn, as a screenwriter, manages to do the most important thing a film adaptation can do - to give the audience the same feeling they had throughout the book. She changed nothing and yet everything. The tone is bleak, cynical and yet bitingly funny in the darkest possible way, exactly like the book was. Those not familiar with the book will be taken aback by where this story goes, but even if you read it, you might be surprised by how taut and deliciously nasty the film is.



Affleck was not my first choice to play Nick, but after seeing him give the performance of his career, nobody else could have played it. In the book, you never knew if Nick was truly evil, or a victim of circumstance. He is constructed more or less the same way on film. And Pike, a significantly lesser-known actress, is the real treasure here. Pike understands the intensely complex character of Amy Dunne and translates her frighteningly well to the big screen. I could easily see them calling her name on Oscar night.



Fincher raised some eyebrows casting Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris, well against type. It relieves me to say they both were perfect for the film. Perry does his best Johnnie Cochran while Harris is great as the possibly-evil-possibly-misunderstood Desi. Carrie Coon (HBO’s “The Leftovers”) is perhaps the real gem of the supporting cast, as Nick’s voice of reason twin Margo. Kim Dickens is also scathingly good as the detective who grows increasingly suspicious of what Nick is up to.



But in the end, it’s Fincher’s unflinching direction and Trent Reznor and Atticus Roth’s unsettling and eerie score that make the mood of “Gone Girl” everything it needed to be. Everybody is perfectly cast in the kind of thriller you hope to see once every five years or so. It’s an intense and shocking mystery and yet a hysterically funny black comedy. In the 2 and a half hour running time, I didn’t look at my watch once. In fact, I wanted to watch it again the minute I left the theater.



And, lastly, did Fincher change the book’s polarizing ending? See it for yourself.



Grade: A+

Get Chain Reaction

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Love this show! It's addicting. The dialogue is realistic and the episodes are interesting and thought provoking. The only thing i object to is when they cast super beauties like Emma the D.A. I usually prefer BBC productions because their casting is much more realistic and they don't make their women up like Hollywood mannequins. But the rest of this cast is realistic and i am enjoying the series.

Get Chain Reaction

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Love this show! It's addicting. The dialogue is realistic and the episodes are interesting and thought provoking. The only thing i object to is when they cast super beauties like Emma the D.A. I usually prefer BBC productions because their casting is much more realistic and they don't make their women up like Hollywood mannequins. But the rest of this cast is realistic and i am enjoying the series.

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This is a review of the June 24 Season 5 premier.



First: for those unfamiliar with Covert Affairs the show is about Annie Walker, a 27 year old army brat with a talent for foreign languages tagged by a university professor for CIA recruitment into the newly formed Domestic Protection Division under the Director of Clandestine Services - the black operations division within the CIA.



Annie spends her first season getting her bearings. Her handler is a Special Forces officer blinded in the line of duty named Augie, who is also her tech manager. Her boss is Joan, head of the DPD. The two establish a mother/daughter style of trust and resentment. Joan's boss is the Director of Clandestine Services. He is also her husband - a relationship strained given that Joan is Arthur's second wife by way of an adulterous relationship with Arthur while married to his first wife. Thus Joan knows that Arthur cannot be trusted.



The first season was episode based, warm, humorous, and peppered with just a little excitement. It centered on the developing character of Annie Walker, and why she was recruited - which includes a pre-recruitment relationship with a deep cover agent now gone rogue, and whom Arthur and Joan hope to bring out using Annie, who is unaware of their intent nor that her affair was with an agent.



If the internet chatter can be trusted (ahem), Covert Affairs in its first season garnered a following among the Intelligence Community. Although produced by the Jason Bourne movies team, Seasons 1 is laid back and a departure from Hollywood spy fare. Blessed with Valerie Plame as a technical consultant, the show got many things about the CIA right, sprinkling tidbits in conversation such as the epic retirement turnover just after 9/11 that left more than half of the staff of the CIA with less than five years experience (which Annie notes is "a bit frightening" when told). The security badges on the show are accurate. Annie doesn't carry a gun (real CIA does not) and carefully observes the law. Annie makes mistakes, loses fights, and mostly gets by on smarts, luck, and a powerful smile and sweet-and-innocent look.



Annie's relationship with her sister Danielle and Danielle's family, with whom she lives, is Annie's (and the show's) anchor to the real world and her only family. But Annie can't tell Danielle anything about her job but the cover story, which is as an art curator for the Smithsonian.



Season 2 has Annie moving into more coherent cross-episode stories, an increasingly personal attraction to her blind handler Augie, and an eventual blowup with her sister as Danielle realizes that Annie is not who she says, and that Annie's work is endangering the family. She has also been developing rather close and personal ties with a Israeli agent, and other unapproved operatives. Slowly but surely, Annie is becoming less timid and obedient. And while her initiative is of value to Joan and Arthur, it is also a growing problem. Annie is also becoming more action oriented, and has to kill in the line of duty at the season finale.



Season 3 moves more to a season theme thread - and follows Annie through her introduction by a female agent into the more gray areas of spying. She's becoming tougher, and starts to carry a gun more. She's forced to keep things from Auggie, who has been removed temporarily as her handler but whom she still leans on for guidance and support. And she survives some major mistakes and errors. Her sister and the family have moved away, leaving her without personal grounding. Season 3 is a bit darker, but still retains some of the humor and charm of the first three seasons.



Season 4 is one long story of increasing darkness as Annie pursues Henry Wilcox, a former Director of Clandestine Services who has always been a self-serving traitor with a megalomaniac streak running through a bedrock of Sociopathic personality. Henry is on a personal vendetta against Joan, Arthur and all of the CIA, stealing money from the Agency to build his own spy network. To bring him down, Annie uses her network of Agency friends to take a full dive down the rabbit hole, fake her death, and go rogue to track down Henry. In the season finale she is compromised to Chinese intelligence, kills Henry, and rides off into the sunset on a speed boat. In doing so she and the team have exposed the evidence needed to return her, Augie and Joan back to their jobs, free Arthur from jail, and gain kudos for bringing down "the worst traitor in the history of the CIA". The season is a good one, but for Piper Perabo fans, a little less satisfactory than earlier seasons.



Oddly, the show's theme song from the first three seasons ("Can You Save Me") which really didn't fit the fresh and sweet Annie through the first two seasons, is dropped in the fourth - just when the song had gained meaning and application to Annie's situation - who is now on a decided journey into darkness.



In the Season 5 premier, Annie has been missing four months. She returns thinner and blonde again. And she returns with secrets, including a mysterious illness that is clearly going to handicap her work. Yet she beats her debrief polygraph (which none of her friends accept), and is immediately assigned to track down a terrorist. She walks into what turns out to be a stunning double feint by the terrorist that destroys an entire CIA clandestine office and its staff in Chicago, and which Annie almost prevents but for stumbling on the part of others. Through her own heightened situational awareness she barely avoids the blast herself.



The episode is engaging, but lacks the charm and freshness that drew in viewers at the start of the program. Season 4 had a rough start, but eventually engaged this viewer. Hopefully Season 5 will develop into a the same,



If the Season 5 premier is any indication, Covert Affairs is becoming darker still. Gone is the humor. Gone is the early model of a fresh approach to spy shows. Gone are the three dimensional characters. Gone is Annie's smile, it has been replaced by a stern frown. And gone with it is the charm that makes Annie watchable.



The introduction of a rich navy SEAL billionaire is a bit too close to Eric Prince, the fun loving SEAL officer who started Blackwater on a huge inheritance and parleyed it into a billion dollar industry by buying his own helicopters and other toys, mostly for the fun of it, hiring away CIA and other Special Operations Forces, and then renting them out to the CIA and foreign governments. About the only difference between the show's McQuad and Prince is height: McQuad is taller. With Arthur going to work for McQuad, we are bound to see a lot of McQuad, and that may not be a good thing - despite Annie's clear attraction.



The show is moving towards a more stereotypical image of spy shows, and seems to be stealing plotline and character development from Homeland, while borrowing a mistake from Burn Notice in which the ensemble cast loved by the fans is scattered and loses the chemistry, banter, and appeal that drew in viewers. Thankfully, Alias and Nikita have not invaded, but Annie is rarely without a gun these days. Explosions rule the screen. The ensemble is taking a backseat. And Covert Affairs is the poorer for it.



Can anyone save poor Annie? She seems lost.



Review of Season 5 through Episode 9:



The season is not going well. The cast isn't interacting, and the story lines are forgettable. Only episode 8 left the family eager to tune in the next week. In the past, we would watch on airing and then download the episode from Amazon to watch again without the commercials.



Annie has been calloused to her friends and her responsibilities. The strength of this show once lay to some extent on the view of the CIA as an unusual employer rather than a rogue agency, with Annie as a spirited employee fired up to do her job and ready to bring her brains and charm, and an ensemble cast that play off Annie and provide the warmth, friendship, and grounding needed to develop a rapport with the audience.



Annie's charm did indeed begin to return around episode 7, and the smile is back (thank goodness), but she's never fully re-engaged the brain. The rogue-agent-acting-on-her-instincts-and-not-thinking-things-through bit have made the show disenchanting. Her suspension was well deserved, and her quitting was therefore predictable. She's coming over a bit egotistical and selfish, and not in an engaging way.



The original view of the CIA as an exotic-but-not-so-terrible employer, and the accurate tidbits of intel community information, have pretty much been replaced with the stereotyped CIA as big-bad-government story line. And along with it the sense at the beginning of Season 1 that the CIA is handy thing to have around. As a result, I suspect the .3 million viewers lost in the first four episodes were probably the fans from the Intelligence Community walking away.



But the biggest loss is the chemistry the cast had. Annie, Augie, the van guys, Joan and Arthur all gave the show what it needed to give fans a place to come home to. And we are still morning the loss of Annie's sister. The love affairs have turned from the exciting and the engaging (Annie and Augie, Annie and Ayal, Annie and Simon, Annie and Jay, Augie and fiance) to the tawdry and stupid (the DCI having a love-sick-puppy thing with a young hooker, Augie playing two girlfriends, Annie and the SEAL who's her boss).



Worse for Ayal fans, Ayal seems to have been given the boot. In the 11/06 show - he appears briefly, and tells Annie he's gone back to his wife. And in fact the whole cast seems to be scattering to the four winds. It may be signs that the show has been marked for cancellation, and is tying up lose ends. Will the finale be Annie and Augie together? Annie and McQuaid? Or will they deliver a poignant blow and kill off Annie?



It is feared that this may be the last season - and we'd hate to see that. I continue to give this show four stars, and want to see it continue. But ...



"Can you save me?"

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CUSTOMER REVIEW



This is a review of the June 24 Season 5 premier.



First: for those unfamiliar with Covert Affairs the show is about Annie Walker, a 27 year old army brat with a talent for foreign languages tagged by a university professor for CIA recruitment into the newly formed Domestic Protection Division under the Director of Clandestine Services - the black operations division within the CIA.



Annie spends her first season getting her bearings. Her handler is a Special Forces officer blinded in the line of duty named Augie, who is also her tech manager. Her boss is Joan, head of the DPD. The two establish a mother/daughter style of trust and resentment. Joan's boss is the Director of Clandestine Services. He is also her husband - a relationship strained given that Joan is Arthur's second wife by way of an adulterous relationship with Arthur while married to his first wife. Thus Joan knows that Arthur cannot be trusted.



The first season was episode based, warm, humorous, and peppered with just a little excitement. It centered on the developing character of Annie Walker, and why she was recruited - which includes a pre-recruitment relationship with a deep cover agent now gone rogue, and whom Arthur and Joan hope to bring out using Annie, who is unaware of their intent nor that her affair was with an agent.



If the internet chatter can be trusted (ahem), Covert Affairs in its first season garnered a following among the Intelligence Community. Although produced by the Jason Bourne movies team, Seasons 1 is laid back and a departure from Hollywood spy fare. Blessed with Valerie Plame as a technical consultant, the show got many things about the CIA right, sprinkling tidbits in conversation such as the epic retirement turnover just after 9/11 that left more than half of the staff of the CIA with less than five years experience (which Annie notes is "a bit frightening" when told). The security badges on the show are accurate. Annie doesn't carry a gun (real CIA does not) and carefully observes the law. Annie makes mistakes, loses fights, and mostly gets by on smarts, luck, and a powerful smile and sweet-and-innocent look.



Annie's relationship with her sister Danielle and Danielle's family, with whom she lives, is Annie's (and the show's) anchor to the real world and her only family. But Annie can't tell Danielle anything about her job but the cover story, which is as an art curator for the Smithsonian.



Season 2 has Annie moving into more coherent cross-episode stories, an increasingly personal attraction to her blind handler Augie, and an eventual blowup with her sister as Danielle realizes that Annie is not who she says, and that Annie's work is endangering the family. She has also been developing rather close and personal ties with a Israeli agent, and other unapproved operatives. Slowly but surely, Annie is becoming less timid and obedient. And while her initiative is of value to Joan and Arthur, it is also a growing problem. Annie is also becoming more action oriented, and has to kill in the line of duty at the season finale.



Season 3 moves more to a season theme thread - and follows Annie through her introduction by a female agent into the more gray areas of spying. She's becoming tougher, and starts to carry a gun more. She's forced to keep things from Auggie, who has been removed temporarily as her handler but whom she still leans on for guidance and support. And she survives some major mistakes and errors. Her sister and the family have moved away, leaving her without personal grounding. Season 3 is a bit darker, but still retains some of the humor and charm of the first three seasons.



Season 4 is one long story of increasing darkness as Annie pursues Henry Wilcox, a former Director of Clandestine Services who has always been a self-serving traitor with a megalomaniac streak running through a bedrock of Sociopathic personality. Henry is on a personal vendetta against Joan, Arthur and all of the CIA, stealing money from the Agency to build his own spy network. To bring him down, Annie uses her network of Agency friends to take a full dive down the rabbit hole, fake her death, and go rogue to track down Henry. In the season finale she is compromised to Chinese intelligence, kills Henry, and rides off into the sunset on a speed boat. In doing so she and the team have exposed the evidence needed to return her, Augie and Joan back to their jobs, free Arthur from jail, and gain kudos for bringing down "the worst traitor in the history of the CIA". The season is a good one, but for Piper Perabo fans, a little less satisfactory than earlier seasons.



Oddly, the show's theme song from the first three seasons ("Can You Save Me") which really didn't fit the fresh and sweet Annie through the first two seasons, is dropped in the fourth - just when the song had gained meaning and application to Annie's situation - who is now on a decided journey into darkness.



In the Season 5 premier, Annie has been missing four months. She returns thinner and blonde again. And she returns with secrets, including a mysterious illness that is clearly going to handicap her work. Yet she beats her debrief polygraph (which none of her friends accept), and is immediately assigned to track down a terrorist. She walks into what turns out to be a stunning double feint by the terrorist that destroys an entire CIA clandestine office and its staff in Chicago, and which Annie almost prevents but for stumbling on the part of others. Through her own heightened situational awareness she barely avoids the blast herself.



The episode is engaging, but lacks the charm and freshness that drew in viewers at the start of the program. Season 4 had a rough start, but eventually engaged this viewer. Hopefully Season 5 will develop into a the same,



If the Season 5 premier is any indication, Covert Affairs is becoming darker still. Gone is the humor. Gone is the early model of a fresh approach to spy shows. Gone are the three dimensional characters. Gone is Annie's smile, it has been replaced by a stern frown. And gone with it is the charm that makes Annie watchable.



The introduction of a rich navy SEAL billionaire is a bit too close to Eric Prince, the fun loving SEAL officer who started Blackwater on a huge inheritance and parleyed it into a billion dollar industry by buying his own helicopters and other toys, mostly for the fun of it, hiring away CIA and other Special Operations Forces, and then renting them out to the CIA and foreign governments. About the only difference between the show's McQuad and Prince is height: McQuad is taller. With Arthur going to work for McQuad, we are bound to see a lot of McQuad, and that may not be a good thing - despite Annie's clear attraction.



The show is moving towards a more stereotypical image of spy shows, and seems to be stealing plotline and character development from Homeland, while borrowing a mistake from Burn Notice in which the ensemble cast loved by the fans is scattered and loses the chemistry, banter, and appeal that drew in viewers. Thankfully, Alias and Nikita have not invaded, but Annie is rarely without a gun these days. Explosions rule the screen. The ensemble is taking a backseat. And Covert Affairs is the poorer for it.



Can anyone save poor Annie? She seems lost.



Review of Season 5 through Episode 9:



The season is not going well. The cast isn't interacting, and the story lines are forgettable. Only episode 8 left the family eager to tune in the next week. In the past, we would watch on airing and then download the episode from Amazon to watch again without the commercials.



Annie has been calloused to her friends and her responsibilities. The strength of this show once lay to some extent on the view of the CIA as an unusual employer rather than a rogue agency, with Annie as a spirited employee fired up to do her job and ready to bring her brains and charm, and an ensemble cast that play off Annie and provide the warmth, friendship, and grounding needed to develop a rapport with the audience.



Annie's charm did indeed begin to return around episode 7, and the smile is back (thank goodness), but she's never fully re-engaged the brain. The rogue-agent-acting-on-her-instincts-and-not-thinking-things-through bit have made the show disenchanting. Her suspension was well deserved, and her quitting was therefore predictable. She's coming over a bit egotistical and selfish, and not in an engaging way.



The original view of the CIA as an exotic-but-not-so-terrible employer, and the accurate tidbits of intel community information, have pretty much been replaced with the stereotyped CIA as big-bad-government story line. And along with it the sense at the beginning of Season 1 that the CIA is handy thing to have around. As a result, I suspect the .3 million viewers lost in the first four episodes were probably the fans from the Intelligence Community walking away.



But the biggest loss is the chemistry the cast had. Annie, Augie, the van guys, Joan and Arthur all gave the show what it needed to give fans a place to come home to. And we are still morning the loss of Annie's sister. The love affairs have turned from the exciting and the engaging (Annie and Augie, Annie and Ayal, Annie and Simon, Annie and Jay, Augie and fiance) to the tawdry and stupid (the DCI having a love-sick-puppy thing with a young hooker, Augie playing two girlfriends, Annie and the SEAL who's her boss).



Worse for Ayal fans, Ayal seems to have been given the boot. In the 11/06 show - he appears briefly, and tells Annie he's gone back to his wife. And in fact the whole cast seems to be scattering to the four winds. It may be signs that the show has been marked for cancellation, and is tying up lose ends. Will the finale be Annie and Augie together? Annie and McQuaid? Or will they deliver a poignant blow and kill off Annie?



It is feared that this may be the last season - and we'd hate to see that. I continue to give this show four stars, and want to see it continue. But ...



"Can you save me?"

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CUSTOMER REVIEW



I just finished watching Season 1 and I have to say, I''m hooked! I've read that this is supposed to be a "Teen" show! Well, I'm not even close to teenaged and I think this show is great, really different from a lot of the other garbage programs that are on network and cable channels! It's not a nightime "soap" or reality show, how refreshing to be able to watch good actors in a show with a really good story and very well written dialogue!! I never miss The Walking Dead, don't think I'll want to miss any episodes of this either!!

I rarely ever watch the CW network but as long as they have this show, I'll be tuned in every Wednesday night! Thanks CW for something different...quality!!

Get Spacewalker

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I just finished watching Season 1 and I have to say, I''m hooked! I've read that this is supposed to be a "Teen" show! Well, I'm not even close to teenaged and I think this show is great, really different from a lot of the other garbage programs that are on network and cable channels! It's not a nightime "soap" or reality show, how refreshing to be able to watch good actors in a show with a really good story and very well written dialogue!! I never miss The Walking Dead, don't think I'll want to miss any episodes of this either!!

I rarely ever watch the CW network but as long as they have this show, I'll be tuned in every Wednesday night! Thanks CW for something different...quality!!

Get Orphans

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Brilliant season opener! Ryan Murphy's flair for humanizing grotesque beauty never disappoints. I was delightfully surprised by all of the subtle humor in this episode (read: the milkman and the rolling pin; the housewife pulling on her sweater with a satisfied and baffled grin). I hope we can we expect more levity like this throughout the season. I know he was trying to make Elsa look pathetic in the next to last scene with that gawd-awful garish blue eyeshadow, but it hardly dims her dazzling star. The closing scene did what the eyeshadow couldn't -- and it did so with aplomb! Jessica is the epitome of perfection as always. Her sour little kraut is spot-on fading elegance and I cannot wait to be indulged with her backstory. Beautiful, brazen, and fiercely loyal to her troupe. Who could ask for anything more? What's up with Kathy Bates' accent for Mrs. Darling? I can't place it, but it quickly endears her to the viewer. Nice move, Mr. Murphy. Sarah Paulson pulls off pure genius as Dot and Bette. Oh my stars, was she amazing! I sense a big ol' Emmy for this dazzling duo. Waiting on pins and needles for the coming attractions in this sleepy little hamlet of Jupiter. Six days and counting. . .

Get Orphans

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Brilliant season opener! Ryan Murphy's flair for humanizing grotesque beauty never disappoints. I was delightfully surprised by all of the subtle humor in this episode (read: the milkman and the rolling pin; the housewife pulling on her sweater with a satisfied and baffled grin). I hope we can we expect more levity like this throughout the season. I know he was trying to make Elsa look pathetic in the next to last scene with that gawd-awful garish blue eyeshadow, but it hardly dims her dazzling star. The closing scene did what the eyeshadow couldn't -- and it did so with aplomb! Jessica is the epitome of perfection as always. Her sour little kraut is spot-on fading elegance and I cannot wait to be indulged with her backstory. Beautiful, brazen, and fiercely loyal to her troupe. Who could ask for anything more? What's up with Kathy Bates' accent for Mrs. Darling? I can't place it, but it quickly endears her to the viewer. Nice move, Mr. Murphy. Sarah Paulson pulls off pure genius as Dot and Bette. Oh my stars, was she amazing! I sense a big ol' Emmy for this dazzling duo. Waiting on pins and needles for the coming attractions in this sleepy little hamlet of Jupiter. Six days and counting. . .

Get This is Where I Leave You

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Shawn Levy's ("The Internship", "Real Steel") latest dramedy focuses on a family who have just lost the patriarch. Hillary (Jane Fonda) asks that her, now grown, children return to their childhood home and remain under the same roof for a week in the Jewish tradition. They reluctantly agree, but of course bring baggage with them. Both literally and figuratively.



Corey Stoll is Paul, the oldest who has helped his father manage their small business. Next is Wendy (Tina Fey) whose husband (Barry Weissman) is one of those "too busy" business executives who constantly has a Bluetooth plugged into his ear. Younger brother Judd (Jason Bateman) brings news of an impending divorce as he caught his wife (Abigail Spencer) in bed with his boss (Dax Shepard). Interestingly, these actor's real ages are the exact opposite of those in the film. Stoll is the youngest, then Fey. Bateman is actually the oldest. Then there is the baby brother and wild child, Phillip (Adam Driver) who brings his older girlfriend (Connie Britton), and her Porsche, to the affair.



The family bring what seems to be an unusual array of dysfunctions into the home that it would seem unlikely. All the marriages are in some level of dissolution. And to no regular moviegoer's surprise, there are the small town romances left behind (Rose Byrne and Timothy Olyphant) that get rekindled. And mom has a big surprise of her own.



This is mostly a drama but there are enough chuckles provided by Fonda, Fey and Bateman to keep it relatively light. This is no "August: Osage County" in terms of bitterness and dialog but there is some bite. For those of us with enough years of experience, you're likely to find some malady to identify with. That keeps it real.

Get This is Where I Leave You

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Shawn Levy's ("The Internship", "Real Steel") latest dramedy focuses on a family who have just lost the patriarch. Hillary (Jane Fonda) asks that her, now grown, children return to their childhood home and remain under the same roof for a week in the Jewish tradition. They reluctantly agree, but of course bring baggage with them. Both literally and figuratively.



Corey Stoll is Paul, the oldest who has helped his father manage their small business. Next is Wendy (Tina Fey) whose husband (Barry Weissman) is one of those "too busy" business executives who constantly has a Bluetooth plugged into his ear. Younger brother Judd (Jason Bateman) brings news of an impending divorce as he caught his wife (Abigail Spencer) in bed with his boss (Dax Shepard). Interestingly, these actor's real ages are the exact opposite of those in the film. Stoll is the youngest, then Fey. Bateman is actually the oldest. Then there is the baby brother and wild child, Phillip (Adam Driver) who brings his older girlfriend (Connie Britton), and her Porsche, to the affair.



The family bring what seems to be an unusual array of dysfunctions into the home that it would seem unlikely. All the marriages are in some level of dissolution. And to no regular moviegoer's surprise, there are the small town romances left behind (Rose Byrne and Timothy Olyphant) that get rekindled. And mom has a big surprise of her own.



This is mostly a drama but there are enough chuckles provided by Fonda, Fey and Bateman to keep it relatively light. This is no "August: Osage County" in terms of bitterness and dialog but there is some bite. For those of us with enough years of experience, you're likely to find some malady to identify with. That keeps it real.

Get Trial By Fire

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Love this show! It's addicting. The dialogue is realistic and the episodes are interesting and thought provoking. The only thing i object to is when they cast super beauties like Emma the D.A. I usually prefer BBC productions because their casting is much more realistic and they don't make their women up like Hollywood mannequins. But the rest of this cast is realistic and i am enjoying the series.