This week’s episode got me real excited about 24 again for two reasons. First reason? A prediction I made back in January came true! Just like all the wishes I ever made. Except this is a million times more important than “Peace on Earth” because it’s about TELEVISION.

Anyway, I was totally right, Chloe became the new Director of CTU. They’re saying it’s only until a replacement is found. Hah! With all the bad stuff that’s inevitably going to happen no replacement will be showing up.

Second reason? Ex-President Charles Logan is back. I remember thinking right before the episode started “Hey, I read somewhere Logan’s supposed to be in this season. Where is that goofball!?” Then the goofball showed up! What I am saying, is that I can predict the future. I am magic.

Anyway, Logan’s back because President Taylor needs help convincing the evil Russians to support the peace treaty this whole season has been about. Since Logan used-to-be/is-evil, he’s got plenty of friends in evil Russia and wants to use his knowledge to help get them back on board with Taylor’s treaty. She doesn’t trust him because he keeps making really sinister faces at her. This is different from the remorseful, bearded Charles Logan we saw a few seasons back. He needs that beard! The nutrients its whiskers were absorbing from the sun light were the only thing keeping him sane.

Wait, why do the evil Russians want to stop supporting the peace treaty? Well, there’s the reason they give President Taylor and the real reason. The reason they give is that they don’t support replacing the now dead fake-Iran President with his fake-Iran Wife as the new fake-Iran President. And honestly, if your relatives take over after you die, can you really call yourself a fake-any-country President?

BUT! There’s also the REAL reason they don’t like the peace treaty, and that’s because they never did! HAH! Another great twist! Evil Russia has been the people because the terrorist attacks this whole time.

If only there was some sort of clue that evil Russia was going to be the bad guys. Sigh.

Anyway, the evil Russian gets a call on his iPhone (Remember when people used to pretend they could predict who was a traitor based on whether they used an Apple or PC computer? Ha!) It’s his assassin! Turns out the assassin thinks Renee, Jack’s current fling, recognized him from her time undercover with the Russian mob. Well, the assassin follows them home. Watches them have sex at 8:00 AM. Then shoots Renee.

Renee’s been through a lot since last season. She’s violated all her beliefs and tortured people for information, she lost her job, she was raped and beaten by a Russian mobster, and she was just running around and getting shot at all night. So, after getting a short time of happiness with Jack, the writers of 24 mercifully let her die quick and painlessly.

Oh no wait. Actually she dies slowly and in a great deal of pain. While naked! At least Jack now has a reason to stick around and finish the season.

The reason: revenge!

Twenty-foursight: A women fake-Iran President? Fake-Iran is a lot more liberal than real Iran.

Tags: 24, This Week on 24

What a painful existence this man leads.

Why I should have seen it already:

The Graduate is a product of the disillusioned youth of its time, boasts a hit music single, and is AFI’s seventh greatest film of all time. It’s also Dustin Hoffman’s breakthrough role.

Now that I have:

Meet Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman). He’s just graduated from college with honors. His super rich parents are proud of him and all his achievements. They buy him a new car! They buy him a SCUBA diving suit! He doesn’t have to work and spends his time thinking about what graduate school he wants to go to while drinking beer and hanging out by the pool. He doesn’t have a care in the world.

Naturally, he is miserable.

Ben is portrayed by Hoffman as a quiet, polite, respectful, but overly emotional dude. A lot of the comedy comes from him awkwardly dealing with his parents super happy friends. Then one of his parents super happy friends starts seducing him. The famous Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft)!

Fortunately, Mr. Robinson shows up to interrupt the seduction. Clueless about what his wife is up to, he talks to Ben about how he shouldn’t be tied down during this point of his life, how he should be having as much sex with as many women as possible. Ho! Irony! Then he suggests that Ben should go on a date with his daughter. Ho! –Wait, what?

A rare moment where Mrs. Robinson looks sad. She is thinking about having sex in a car.

Ben originally is skeeved out by Mrs. Robinson’s advances but after getting an awesome SCUBA suit from his parents (Man, I only got a couple of shirts for my 21st birthday!) he decides his life is dumb and he should just have sex with the lady.

What follows is the rest of a movie about a couple having an affair. They realize they have nothing in common and the affair is only distracting each other from their own unhappiness. The End.

But THEN, another movie starts up right away. It’s a wacky romantic comedy, but the director made the mistake of using the same characters from the first film. Also, in this second film, Ben turns insane.

He follows Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) back to her college after a single date, hoping to marry her. This is after she finds out about his affair with her mother. Elaine is originally very frowny with Ben because Mrs. Robinson told Elaine that he raped her. Ben goes “Nuh-uh, she was asking me for it,” and Elaine decides to believe the crazy-possibly-a-rapist-stalker over her own mom.

Then a bunch of people start breaking into Ben’s bedroom for various reasons. My favorite being Mr. Robinson, who manages to both yell at and be scared of Ben. Anyway, turns out Elaine’s going to get married. This is the very day after she told Ben she might marry him!

Elaine is also insane.

Realizing this, Ben knows that he and her were meant for each other and drives to her wedding. He gets there too late to stop the marriage but not too late to cause a scene and starts tapping on an window really quickly. And he yells. This combination of tapping and yelling is just the thing Elaine has been looking for in a man her whole life. She looks around to her family and new husband and sees they are all busy making silly faces. So she decides to leave them to their craft and runs after Ben.

Ben beats up Elaine’s dad. Elaine gets smacked in the face by her mom. It is the perfect wedding.

Then Ben uses a cross to lock everyone in the church so he and Elaine can escape. They get on a bus, like right away, because apparently at this town buses are running at two minute intervals, and drive off to parts unknown. The film ends with the classic scene of Ben and Elaine coming down from their euphoric high and realizing they don’t know what to do next.

The Verdict:

It’s a shame the movie get’s so concerned with romance in the third act. Ben’s love for Elaine is never believable. They go on a single date, during which he takes her to a stripper bar, makes her cry, they kiss, eat hamburgers, and Ben says he likes talking to her.

Strippers and hamburgers is all there is to their relationship!

Ben’s relationship with Mrs. Robinson was far more interesting and I wanted to see more of them. The best scenes of this film were of those two, Ben awkwardly dealing with Mrs. Robinson’s pragmatic attitude. There’s a scene of them lying in bed talking about Mrs. Robinson’s marriage that makes the film in my opinion. Hoffman and Bancroft really do great things with these characters. It’s a huge bummer the film turns Mrs. Robinson into a wicked mother character once Ben turns crazy.

You can’t really blame her for wanting to keep Ben from her daughter. After all: Ben is insane. It’s hard to look at her actions and think “Man, what a witch” like the film wants you to.

The directing of this film is the weakest component if you ask me. Certain scenes are staged in really rigid, distant ways. It makes the whole scene feel out of sync with the rest of the film.

I really liked this movie until Elaine was introduced.

Tags: Dennis Hoffman, The Graduate

We got a big episode this week! Two whole uninterrupted hours of Jack driving while talking on his Bluetooth headset.

First off, no bomb went off this episode. Whew. This is thanks to the two dudes working for President Taylor who were going against her orders. She was all like “we don’t give into terrorist demands and besides the dude they want us to give up is kind of nice” while they were all like “yeah, but nuclear bomb”. Both arguments were pretty sound.

24 isn’t a stranger to presidents refusing to give into terrorist demands. To my knowledge, only President Palmer ever gave in, but that was to buy Jack time to fly in on a jet pack and karate chop a dude’s head off. Or maybe for some other reason. Honestly, after eight seasons I’m lucky to even remember President Palmer’s name.

So the two dudes betray President Taylor and give the terrorists who they want, the Fake-Iran President. Last episode they sent some mercenaries to kidnap him from his bodyguards. This episode, realizing a bunch of people are going to die if he doesn’t, Fake-Iran President does the noble thing and goes with the mercenary.

Then a bunch of stuff happens and Fake-Iran President is killed live on “the internet”. The villains of 24 are always broadcasting their evil deeds live on the internet, like they’re just so certain everyone can’t wait to watch their Ustream. I like to pretend they’ve got nothing but a sad YouTube channel with no more than a few comments from their mothers.

Jack is really good at knowing when there is a spy at CTU (it’s happened so many times he can just FEEL IT now). So he gets his BFF Chloe to look at a cell phone and find out who it last called. Because that person is the spy! Us viewers already know who the spy is so Chloe looks at some papers, which I suppose a viewer mailed her, and tells everyone else.

The spy is Starbuck! There is a chase, some gun shots, and then Starbucks fiance looks like he’s going to shoot her in the face but changes his mind.

Meanwhile, because the terrorists got Fake-Iran President they decide to give up the bomb. They had to, because that’s what they said they’d do. Terrorists are bound by their word. Also, if you can guess their name, a terrorist will grant you a wish.

Anyway, one of the mercenaries is left with the bomb awaiting the bomb squad. You know he’s going to be shot and the bomb will be stolen next episode because we are only two thirds through the season. I bet its going to be by the new enemy! Someone who has been pulling the strings all along and everything is now going exactly according to plan. 24 has never (NEVER) done something like that before. Can’t wait.

Anyway, Jack is all like “hey, I’ve done everything I said I was going to do, I should probably be heading back to my family now,” but then Starbuck says the only person she’ll talk to about her spy-antics is him. Thus, keeping Jack in the show for the rest of the season. Nice job, Starbuck.

Twenty-foresight: I’ve been totally desensitized to the threat of a nuclear bomb.

Tags: 24, This Week on 24

We’ve sort of gotten ourselves into a pickle. With the financial successes of computer generated animated films like Toy Story and Shrek, every capable studio is out there trying to make a quick buck off of CGI. It’s hard to blame them. After all, we’re the ones paying to see these movies and keeping them in business.

But let’s blame them anyway!

Last night I watched 9, a film released last year. It’s about robotic rag dolls trying to make sense of the post apocalyptic world they wake up in. Besides the plot, the movie basically feels like director Shane Acker walked up to his production crew and said “Yo! Let’s make Secret of Nimh, but MAD dark. Ya heard? Also, let’s get Tim Burton to produce it so the merch’ shows up at Hot Topic.”

At least the film’s got John C. Reily, whose lovely voice keeps things pleasant as the screen is filled with low resolution Little Big Planet models.

On the other hand, CGI’s low cost allows some weirder things to be produced, such as 9. While waiting to see How to Train Your Dragon this trailer came on:

Owls! Wearing helms! This ain’t Shrek, this is strange and beautiful and I WANTS TO SEE MORE OWLS FLYING THROUGH THE RAIN. I WANTS IT.

Speaking of How to Train Your Dragon, the most recent CGI film… it’s good! No where near the Pixar quality of film making, and there is still the occasional underwear joke by Craig Ferguson to remind you “Calm down, this is just a Dreamworks film”. Still, the movie’s got great flying scenes, interesting story, improvements in the phyiscal acting of Dreamworks’ character models, and FLIPPIN’ DRAGONS.

Tags: 9, CGI, Dreamworks, Hot Topic, How to Train Your Dragon, John C. Reily, Legend of the Guardians, Little Big Planet, Owls, Pixar, Shrek, Toy Story