Stacy's Blog Has Got It Going On

 "Hang up the phone!" -The Grabber Finney (Mason Thames) is abducted by a serial killer known as the Grabber (Ethan Hawke).  Locked in the basement, Finney's situation seems hopeless until a broken phone starts to ring.  The spirits of the Grabber's previous victims talk to Finney through the phone and want to help him escape. What Works: Let's get the obvious out of the way.  Everyone is talking about how great Ethan Hawke is as the Grabber, and they're right.  Hawke is terrific and terrifying.  He's a fantastic villain and wonderfully unpredictable.  We've seen this type of character in plenty of movies, but Hawke makes it his own. The other standout performance of the film comes from Madeleine McGraw as Finney's sister, Gwen.  At first I thought she might just be the goodie-two-shoes, younger sister character.  Nope!  She has the foulest mouth I've seen on a child character in a long time.  She drops some excellent curse words at multiple ch

 "That was utterly terrifying and I regret having joined." -Sox Lightyear tells the story of Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans), a space ranger who is marooned on an unknown planet and is determined to find a way to get himself and his crew home.  The movie would go on to sell merchandise, including action figures, which set up the plot of Toy Story . What Works: As with most Pixar movies, Lightyear is beautifully animated.  It's a good-looking film, especially when Buzz goes into hyperspace.  I have problems with this movie, but none of them come from the animation. Buzz spends a lot of the 1st act skipping through time.  His missions only take him a few minutes, but they are years for his crew back on the planet.  It's a really interesting concept and is effective at making Buzz a fish out of water.  He's missed out on so much.  It also does a good job of making the audience see things from Buzz's perspective because we missed out on everything Buzz did.  I wish t

 "No.  I'm not a zombie." -Sayid Jarrah "What Kate Does" starts off in the chaos of Sayid's (Naveen Andrews) return to life.  Sawyer (Josh Holloway) seizes the opportunity to steal a gun and escape the Temple, telling Kate (Evangeline Lilly) not to come after him.  She decides to anyway.  Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and two Others, Aldo (Rob McElhenney) and Justin (Dayo Ade) accompany her.  Soon after, Kate knocks the Others out and splits up from Jin.  She goes after Sawyer, while Jin heads back to the Temple and plans to look for Sun (Yunjin Kim) and the Ajira plane.  Soon after, Aldo and Justin catch up to Jin, who gets caught in a bear trap.  Aldo tries to shoot Jin, but he and Justin are both shot by Claire (Emilie de Ravin). Kate finds Sawyer at the Barracks.  They talk and reveal they both blame themselves for Juliet's (Elizabeth Mitchell) death.  Sawyer also reveals he was planning to propose to her.  Kate asks Sawyer to help her find Claire, but he dec

 "Let's not resort to name calling." -The Man in Black Season 6 picks up in the world of the flash-sideways.  Jack (Matthew Fox) is on Oceanic 815 and it doesn't crash because the Island is underwater.  There are still some differences.  Hurley (Jorge Garcia) is now extremely lucky, Shannon (Maggie Grace) isn't on the plane, and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) is. Jack and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) both respond to a request for assistance from the flight crew and find Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) unconscious in the bathroom with a bag of heroin stuck in his throat.  Jack saves him, but Charlie is not grateful when he is taken into custody.   After landing, Jack is called to the Oceanic Airlines service desk, where he is informed that his father's body and coffin did not make it onto the plane.  He ends up meeting John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Jack offers him a consult for his injury. Kate (Evangeline Lilly) manages to knock out Marshal Mars (Fredric Lehne) and esca

 "Jurassic World?  Not a fan." -Dr. Ian Malcolm When Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) and the baby velociraptor, Beta, are kidnapped, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) embark on a rescue mission.  They encounter more deadly dinosaurs and meet a few familiar faces trying to expose an unethical biogenetics company. Spoiler alert for Jurassic World: Dominion.  In short, this movie sucks and is probably the worst of the series, which is saying something.  Don't waste your time.  Spoilers below. What Works: The best part of the movie is easily Jeff Goldblum.  He's the only one who seems to care about his performance and did the best he could with what he was given.  Thankfully, Goldblum can do anything and make it magical.  Every second he is on screen is gold.  I just wish he had even more to do. The only other redeeming quality this movie has is that there are quite a few moments where I laughed.  Granted, I don't think those moments

 "I'm glad you all thought this through." -Miles Straume  The season 5 finale actually follows Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) in flashbacks.  The first takes place centuries earlier as Jacob has a conversation with the Man in Black (Titus Welliver), who wants to kill Jacob, but cannot and promises to find a loophole. The flashbacks continue with Jacob meeting most of the main characters at various points in their lives.  Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) when they are young children, Sayid (Naveen Andrews) on the day of Nadia's (Andrea Gabriel) death, Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson) while she is the hospital, Locke (Terry O'Quinn) on the day he broke his back, Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim) on their wedding day, Jack (Matthew Fox) just after his first solo surgery, and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) after being released from prison.  Jacob was actually the one to convince Hurley to return to the Island. In 1977, Kate, Sawyer, and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell)