Stacy's Blog Has Got It Going On

 "Diane, I'm holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies." -Special Agent Dale Cooper In the small, Washington town of Twin Peaks, Pete Martell (Jack Nance) discovers a dead body wrapped in plastic while going fishing.  He calls the police, who discover the body is that of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), a popular high school student. Laura's mother, Sarah (Grace Zabriskie), discovers Laura isn't in her room and tries to get ahold of her boyfriend, Bobby (Dana Ashbrook).  When that doesn't work, Sarah calls her husband, Leland (Ray Wise), who is in a business meeting.  During their call, Sheriff Truman (Michael Ontkean) arrives to inform him of Laura's death. Bobby is at the Double R Diner instead of football practice.  He offers to give one of the waitresses, Shelley (Mädchen Amick), a ride home and it's revealed the two of them are having an affair.  As they approached Shelley's house, they see that her terrifying husband, Leo (Eric Da Re), ha...

 "Why so blue?" -Colonel Miles Quaritch Over a decade after the first movie, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have built a family of four children and lead their clan.  But when humans return to Pandora, Jake and his family have to go into hiding.  And a familiar face is hunting them. Spoilers below. What Works: I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that the visual effects are spectacular and some of the best ever put to screen.  The original Avatar was revolutionary.  Over a decade later and there's bound to be improvement.  The underwater stuff is breathtaking and it's beyond impressive technically. The battle sequences near the end of the movie are also really fun.  There are some great moments and set-pieces.  The fights and escapes onboard the sinking ship are definitely the best action of the movie and really feels like classic James Cameron. I wasn't expecting the whale-esque creatures to be actual characters ...

It's that time again: The Snubby Awards!  For those of you who don't know, the Snubby Awards take a look at all of the Best Picture nominees from a given year and determine if the best film won or if one was snubbed.  If that's the case, they win the coveted Snubby Award! This time we'll be taking a look at the 2022 Oscars, which was a very mixed bag.  There were a couple I loved and a few I didn't care for at all.  The nominees were: Belfast, Don't Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, The Power of the Dog, and West Side Story  with the winner being  CODA .  Did  CODA  deserve to win or did another movie get snubbed?  Let's find out! #10. Licorice Pizza While this was a really well made and well acted film, especially Bradley Cooper's incredible performance, I found this movie creepy and uncomfortable and it wasn't supposed to be.  This movie is a love story set in the 70's featuring a 25-year ...

 "I've been doing my Wordle." -Owen Knight Sigh.  What the hell?!  Freakin' Mike Gabler won Survivor 43 .  What the hell?!  This show needs to get its editing game under control.  I have nothing agains Gabler, but with how his game was presented, he is not a satisfying winner.  That's the most important element of a Survivor season for me.  Does the winner makes sense and give a satisfying conclusion to the season?  That isn't the case here and it's very frustrating.  We should not be learning why Gabler won during the After Show.  Whatever.  Let's get into who played well and who sucked.  Starting with the Final 5! Who Played Well: I think all of the players who survived this round did a good job.  Karla was absolutely the right person to take out, so good for them.  Owen and Jesse were the two that got a little more to do.  Owen won Immunity and Jesse put on a show for the Jury with his Idol reveal.  ...

 "I don't believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape." -Miles Straume On the Island, Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) start making their way towards the Heart of the Island, while the Man in Black (Terry O'Quinn) and Ben (Michael Emerson) track Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) to Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) and Bernard's (Sam Anderson) camp.  The Man in Black threatens to kill Rose and Bernard unless Desmond goes with him and he agrees. The two groups converge near the Heart of the Island and Kate tries to shoot the Man in Black, but the bullets have no effects.  Jack agrees to go with the Man in Black and Desmond to the Heart of the Island, but informs the Man in Black that he will kill him afterwards.  They go to the Heart and lower Desmond down the waterfall.  Desmond finds a pool of water filled with electromagnetic energy.  He removes the stone from the center, which causes the light t...

 "I don't like being called a puppet." -Pinocchio A reimagining of the classic tale of Pinocchio directed by Guillermo del Toro.  After the tragic death of his son, the drunk and despondent Geppetto (David Bradley) builds a wooden puppet to replace his son.  Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) is brought to life by the Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) to give Geppetto some happiness.  Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor) is tasked with guiding the wooden boy and helping him to become a real boy in this dangerous world. What Works: There are quite a few differences between this movie and the 1940 film, which is good.  Who wants a straight-forward remake of the 1940 film, am I right?  The best difference between the films is in regards to the opening.  Geppetto is a much more developed character here.  He's a father mourning his son and builds Pinocchio in a drunken rage.  It creates some conflict between the two characters and the whole movie is about the rel...

 "I'm wearing some pretty impressive camo." -Mike Gabler Ok, that was my favorite episode of the season, so far.  The strategy talk after the Immunity Challenge was a ton of fun, but then things got real.  That was one of the most brutal betrayals we've seen on  Survivor .  Certainly the most hardcore since Tai and Scot in Koah Rong .  Cody was my favorite personality on the season and to see the devastation on his face was actually hard to watch, but I couldn't look away.  Nothing beats the electricity of a genuinely thrilling Tribal Council and Survivor delivered here.  That was some great TV.  Now, let's figure out who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: I think we have to start with Jesse.  I love how he threw Karla under the bus to Cassidy at the beginning of the episode, but that's small potatoes to what he did later on.  He came up with the plan to play Cody's Idol to trick Karla into playing her Idol.  It was a...

 "Christmas dies tonight!" -Mr. Scrooge Santa Claus (David Harbour) has lost his belief in the Christmas Spirit and is consider giving up the holiday all together.  Everything changes as he is delivering presents to the Lightstone family and discovers they are being held hostage by a group of thieves led by Mr. Scrooge (John Leguizamo).  One of the hostages, Trudy (Leah Brady), hasn't lost her belief in Santa and is on his "Nice List," so Santa decides to save her and her family, no matter how many skulls he has to crush. What Works: This type of movie is really hard to get right.  I was worried that it would possibly be a movie that worked better as a trailer with all of the good comedy and Christmas moments appearing there.  That wasn't the case and it didn't go the other way either.  It doesn't go overboard with the Christmas references.  This is an action/-comedy that just so happens to have Santa as the protagonist and it works beautifully. Davi...

 "He doesn't get to save his daughter." -Ben Linus "What They Died For" picks up in the flash-sideways with Jack (Matthew Fox) receiving a call that his father's coffin will be arriving in Los Angeles that day.  It turns out the call was from Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick).  Desmond then goes back to the school where he ran over Locke (Terry O'Quinn), where he is confronted by Ben (Michael Emerson).  Desmond attacks Ben, which causes him to have flashes to when Desmond attacked him at the marina.  Desmond tells Ben he is trying to get Locke to let go.  Ben tells this to Locke, which inspires him to visit Jack and ask for the surgery. Desmond turns himself in to the police and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) puts him in jail with Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Kate (Evangeline Lilly).  The three of them are put in a vehicle to be transfered, but Desmond tells the others he can get them out if they promise to do what he asks.  They agree and are freed by their drive...

 "I got a smile so big I can taste the earwax." -Cody Assenmacher I love it when the contestants find a way to beat production at their own game.  It always makes me laugh to watch production scramble to deal with something they didn't anticipate.  This was a fun episode of Survivor  thanks to that challenge and a hilarious search for an Advantage.  Let's take a look at who played well and who sucked. Who Played Well: Let's start with Karla.  I don't like that she told Cassidy about her Idol.  Granted, that seems to have happened before this episode, but we didn't learn about it until this episode, so it's worth mentioning.  However, Karla won Immunity and ended up being a part of the plan to take out Sami.  She wasn't tricked into voting for Cassidy and she kept her closest ally in the game despite Sami's best efforts. Knocking Sami out of the game was very good for both Jesse and Cody.  The two of them stay in the game along with 2 Ido...

 "Every question I answer will simply lead to another question." -Mother "Across the Sea" is entirely a flashback episode.  It begins several thousand years before the crash of Oceanic 815.  The heavily pregnant Claudia (Lela Loren) survives a shipwreck and washes up on the Island.  She is found by a woman, who is only known as Mother (Allison Janney), who helps her give birth to twin boys.  Claudia only had one named picked out, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), while the other is not given a name, but is the Man in Black (Titus Welliver).  Mother than murders Claudia. Mother raises the boys as her own.  She tells them there is nothing else besides the Island and when the boys discover other people on the Island, she warns them that they are evil and should be avoided.  She blindfolds them and takes them to the Heart of the Island, a cave of light and water.  She explains she is the protector of the Island and that, one day, one of the brothers will ...