Kingpin. Machete.

This series came out in 2003 and played on NBC.
Unfortunately, it was not picked up as a regular series; I think it would have been a good one. The only problems I had with it were pacing things mostly, items that they could have taken their time with had they had more than six episodes to develop everything.

It's like Traffic meets The Sopranos meets The Wire meets Breaking Bad. Jesse Pinkman even makes an appearance as a pot dealer! The characters were mostly stereotypical and overplayed (hello, Latin hot-heads. How on earth did they ever get anything accomplished with everyone losing their tempers every six minutes?) but I think caricatured people were what made this story what it was. Danny Trejo plays a Voo-doo guy; Sheryl Lee plays the boss's cocaine-addicted wife. And while I was excited to see good old Laura Palmer doing lines again, I have to make a tiny criticism of her general appearance (feminists, go ahead and roast me). She needed to be blonder. If Miguel was going to risk the disapproval of his entire family over this Gringo-American lawyer he was going to marry, she needed to be worth it, you know what I'm saying? Half the time she looked like she just rolled out of bed, and it was kind of a downer. Sheryl Lee is hot, why not show it? In the picture above, she looks great but they never costumed her that way in any of the episodes.

Yancie Arias plays Miguel, and has the perfect look for this sort of character. I found his dialogues and deliveries to be a little "banana in the tailpipe" (as Axel Foley once described), but I still liked him. The brother, Bobby Cannavale, was right on. The music was good, the opening credits were very good. Again, shame it wasn't picked up, this really could have been something.

Okay, Machete. 


And SPOILER, fair warning.


Really, this film was a lot like Planet Terror. I was in the theater, by myself, having a great time, giggling and gasping in equal numbers at everything that was going on. It did not become one of my very, very favorite films until Luz (Shé) came busting out of that ambulance, just busting right the hell out of the double doors. That scene alone fucking ROCKED me. She had just been shot in the eye a few scenes back, and because things move at a pretty decent clip in this film, I had almost forgotten about her because they were all in the middle of a battle. Obviously those who had seen photographs or previews knew that she would at some point make an appearance with an eye patch and a couple of SIG-sauers. I did not see any of this however; for all I knew she had bitten Don Johnson's proverbial bullet. She lived, she came back, and she was amazing.This scene goes among my top five favorites in any film, ever, at number one. 


Jeff Fahey as Michael Booth was almost as amazing. Pulling up to the street where Machete is doing the ally fight and rolling down the window in the Benz? Very suave. Shooting up that meth-house to pull his daughter (Lindsay Lohan) out? Pretty bad ass. I think he honestly did a bang-up job in this film, not just as a crazy old Lapidus but legitimately. 


And Cheech. I have to say that after my girl, Michelle, his scenes were probably the best. "Okay, okay, I absolve you of all your sins, now get the fuck out of here!" Seriously.


Danny Trejo, what can I say? When Matt and I first saw the trailer for Machete (on Grindhouse), we both looked at each other and said something like, "Holy Shit! When the hell is THAT coming out?" The whole thing just appealed to me, the character, the story, and every other outlandish thing that was happening and when I finally got to see it,  I wasn't disappointed. Danny Trejo was a great Machete and a great leading man, despite not being an average Hollywood actor, and certainly not being traditionally beautiful. There is something about him, though, and trust me, I've had the hots for plenty of guys who were not perfect tens, sometimes that something really resonates. 


Sequel, Robert? I'll be first in line.

Zozia. . .

Sophie's Choice by William Styron.

If you've ever dropped a book into the bathtub before, you know that wetness makes it swell to twice its original size. Bloats it, if you will. Even if you dry each page out completely, it will always stay all spread, big, and fluffy. Although I didn't do that with this book, it still seemed to be extremely bloated and long (626 pages and all of them filled with mind-numbing metaphor and strings of huge words that go on for days.) I got exhausted just doing a few chapters each night.

Now first, I loved it. Of course I did. I don't know how to go about explaining it though, because normally what I do is to go on and on like I would in a conversation, to write this blog like I talk. And somehow I can't do that with this. There are things that happen in this novel that are literally the worst things you can imagine. The worst. It was almost like The Jungle by Upton Sinclair; just when you think things cannot possibly be any worse, this happens. Or this. And then this. For those of you who have no plans to ever read it, I'll just say that she gets sent to Auschwitz. With her two children. Is sexually assaulted both in the camp and after her escape. Hooks up with a schizophrenic that beats her, often. Not a feel good story by any means. Not a good summer read. Not something that will help you unwind if you've had a stressful day. But an important story, and narrated by a bitchy writer! Perfect!

"'I surrounded Höss's boots with my arms. I pressed my cheek up against those cold leather boots as if they were made of fur or something warm and comforting. And do you know? I think maybe I even licked them with my tongue, licked those Nazi boots. And do you know something else? If Höss had give me a knife or a gun and told me to go kill somebody, a Jew, a Pole, it don't matter. I would have done it without thinking, with joy even, if it mean seeing my little boy for only a single minute and holding him in my arms.'"

or

"'Nathan,' I said. 'Please! Where are you?'

'Not far away, old pal. In fact, I'm right around the corner. And I'm coming to get you treacherous scum. And then you know what I'm going to do? Do you know what I'm going to do to you two deceitful, unspeakable pigs? Listen--'

There was an explosion in my ear. Too diminished by the distance or by whatever in a phone mercifully de-amplifies noise and prevents it from destroying human hearing, the impact of the gunshot stunned rather than hurt me yet nonetheless left a prolonged and desolate buzzing against my eardrum like the swarming of a thousand bees. I will never know whether Nathan fired that shot into the very mouth of the telephone he was holding, or into the air, or against some forlorn, anonymous wall, but it sounded close enough for him to be, as he had said, right around the corner. . . "

Yes, the entire book is like this. It's brilliantly told, but very disturbing, very long, and very serious. The one lighthearted thing that made me smile was the little college cupcake being named Leslie LAPIDUS! He even refers to her once as "the divine Lapidus."

Of course, Frank is the only divine Lapidus in my life, but I kind of felt like I knew where he was coming from. . .

Floored.

Wow. I don't know WHAT fricking end is up after that episode, which I thought was amazing, btw. We're getting close to the end now, and I'll say that I still think Jack and John are going to have to duke it out (DID YOU LOVE SMOKEY LOCKE'S "HELLO JACK!" AS MUCH AS I DID?), and while Jack might get the most press out of being the show's savior, I'm not entirely discounting Hugo. He's good, pure, and honest, and he's remained that way all along. He would see the good in people, were he required to somehow prove it, right?

Jack is the fixer. He can't NOT be the fixer! He wants to fix things. Matt thinks Sawyer and Kate are going to die. I think Kate's knocked up. Poor Illana, gone the way of Ernst. Just for the record though (and NOT in the flash-sideways), Sawyer has Clementine waiting for him "back home," Jin and Sun have their daughter. Kate has no one anymore, unless you count her old bitch-face rabbit mother who sold out her own daughter. Aaron = with the Grandmama. Jack has nothing but his mother. Hurley has nothing but his religious mother and Cheech. Ben and Lapidus probably don't even care.

Ding, dong, bell, Desmond's in the well. . . that was unpleasant. I hope he's okay.

My brain hurts. Here are some images.

Let's not forget about Rose. . .

I have been watching Season One again in between Tuesdays to review.

I still think these shows are very much like the Twilight Zone. The subject matter is mysterious and sometimes creepy, the accompanying score is almost like a 50s horror film (think Bernard Hermann of "Psycho" fame), and there is just something fantastic about all of this.

Knowing what I know now, things are popping out left and right during the pilot and first two episodes ("Tabula Rasa" and "Walkabout")
1. When John Locke is in his box-distributing office, he is adding figures on an adding machine. The sound is subtle, but THE FRICKING SMOKE MONSTER is edited in at the same time just as the scene ends! SMOKE MONSTER SOUNDS! Like a premonition?
Very cool.

2. John Locke obviously meets the Smoke Monster in the jungle when they go out for their first boar-hunt. He looks RIGHT at it. Kate and Michael are off tending to Michael's leg; John is alone. When he surprises everyone by returning to the beach, alive, Michael asks if he got a good look at "it." "NO," he lies. Why does he lie? And why did it just leave him? It totally bitched up the pilot and snatched him from the plane. . .

3. When Kate and Jack are on the beach after she tells him that she wants to tell him what she did, Jack says that he doesn't want to know. Then he says, "We all DIED. I think everyone deserves to start over." Hmmmm. This after Jack (in the pilot) wakes up quite a distance away from everyone else (He walks among them but is not one of them).

4. Rose. When she's sitting on the beach fondling her wedding ring, Jack talks with her a bit. She says, "You have a nice way about you. A good SOUL. I guess that's why you became a doctor." Jack says NO, he was born into it. In a few later episodes comments are made about Jack's **unpleasant** bedside manner. By Hurley, and someone else, I think. As in, he has a nice way about him when he's NOT being a doctor (You don't have what it takes, Jack).

Rose KNOWS things. That her husband is not dead. That her cancer is gone. Not to follow John (I'm not going anywhere with that man!) Then later, she and Bernard seem to know that Juliet is going to croak. I thought at first they were regarding her with tenderness (are you sure you don't want some tea?) because she was pregnant or something; no, she was just a few minutes away from getting sucked into the swan pocket. It's like she isn't influenced by the things that are going on around her, she just makes her decisions and sticks with them and to hell with the rest of you!

There are a few things that I want to know.

1. Explain Horace, Mathematician. What the hell was his deal? Did he build the cabin?

2. Give me some closure on that child, Annie, that was Ben's friend.

3. Lapidus and Miles are the only two from the freighter that have survived. The pilot and the corpse-whisperer. Miles has proven useful by telling Sawyer that Juliet wanted to tell him that IT WORKED. We know that Lapidus is not a candidate. We know that he can fly both helicopters and "big birds" in less than ideal circumstances. We know that they were making a runway over on Hydra Island. Is Yemi's beechcraft still around or did Eko burn it? The Ajira plane must still be there, but I think there were trees in it. . .

4. Why was Dogan the only thing keeping Smokey out? Did Dogan CATCH it? Serling used the staff of truth to keep the devil inside his cage; was Dogan using some sort of holy ash or something? Was there something INSIDE Dogan? A sacrifice to never see his son again?

More, more, more.

Three Things.

1. That last episode (The Substitute?) was pretty much **the** perfect episode. In it you get Richard Alpert, who was bloodied and beaten but still smokin' HOT, Lapidus, being all, well, Lapidus (I half-expected him to mutter something like, "this fucking place. . ." when Ben went off about being sorry for murdering John), Smokey Man TELLING US INFORMATION (even if it's all lies, I don't care), and the real John Locke together with his Peggy Bundy Helen. WHAT COULD BE BETTER? I had a great time.

2. Alana and Richard KNOW things. Alana knows to gather the ashes and save them for future use? Also that Smokey Man cannot change his face again. How does she know these things? What experience does she bring to all of this? She was all bitched up in a hospital when Jacob came to her (vulnerable) and he spoke Latin to her. . . and she knew Richard as "Riccardes." Richard knows that Smokey Man is trying to pull one over on Sawyer and that he originally wanted Richard on his side. Well, WHO DOESN'T? But Richard obviously knows more about this business. And what of the chains Smokey referred to last week? I want more. Much, much more.

3. Obviously whatever they did to the hatch in 1977 had a major impact on everyone's life from that point on, as the alternate (true?) reality is very different for many of them.
a. The Plane does NOT crash.
b. Charlie Pace is taken away in cuffs.
c. Jin and Sun are screwed in customs.
d. Hugo is the luckiest man alive.
e. Boone leaves Shannon to her own devices.
f. Kate meets Claire and lends her emotional support.
g. Jack meets John and offers him help.

h. Locke is still with Helen, which means they met, obviously, but the same way? In a support group for angry people? So does this mean that he still got conned out of his kidney by the old man but then later forgave him? Because Helen mentioned what seemed to be a relationship when she suggested eloping and getting Locke's dad. . . ? Where's that crazy red head that was his mother? Swoozie Kurtz? Mothers don't do well on this show. I'd like to see that change by the end, please.

Randy Nations is allowed to remain a dick, it seems. DON'T FUCK WITH JOHN LOCKE! Randy, I hope a meteor falls on you.
I am in absolute heaven with this goddamned show.

Frank Lapidus

I think it's about high time I gave some real props to everyone's favorite pilot, FRANK LAPIDUS (Jeff Fahey).
There is just something about this guy that I really, really like on LOST. Many out there may have forgotten Mr. Fahey before now, but I have always appreciated him.

Some of his more memorable roles have included DWAYNE DUKE (just call me Duke) in Psycho 3, which is seriously one of my personal favorites, JOB in The Lawnmower Man, and the main character from one of the cheesiest horror films of the late 80s, BODY PARTS! Not to mention the chef JT in Planet Terror, you know, the one on the hunt for the best bbq sauce recipe (who then discovers his own blood to be the crucial ingredient?) Nice.

I see a Jeff Fahay film festival in the near future.