Oi! Yet ANOTHER Time Travel Episode Of Star Trek: Enterprise Mars “E2!”

The Good: Performances are fine, Special effects, Moments of character
The Bad: Entirely derivative plot, Derivative character elements, Make-up is mediocre
The Basics: “E2” puts the Enterprise in contact with its own descendants in an episode that is far too familiar for fans of the larger Star Trek franchise.


From the moment the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “E2” (“E Squared”) begins with an ancient T’Pol at an undetermined point in the future, it is hard for fans of the show not to feel like the writers and producers had no idea how to tell a coherent story. While the show tightened up quite a bit with its serialized plotline with “The Forgotten” (reviewed here!) and “E2” continues the important plot threads begun in that episode, the narrative divergence with a future timeline (yet another alternate timeline within the Expanse!) is more of an annoyance than a clever technique.

“E2” plays a lot like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (reviewed here!) and “Children Of Time” (reviewed here!). In fact, the episode has all of the main characters wrestling with the exact conflicts the crew of the Defiant had in “Children Of Time.” The future Odo is swapped with a future T’Pol, but otherwise much of the character story is identical to “Children Of Time,” further diminishing the episode right off the bat.

As the Enterprise approaches a nebula that will bring them to the Xindi Council in time to make a meeting Degra has invited them to, they become wary of a half-dozen Kavalan ships laying in wait for them. Degra and Jannar work to convince the Xindi Primate leader that Archer must be allowed to address the Council when a duplicate of the NX-01 Enterprise appears and insists that Archer reverse course. Lorien, the captain of the alternate Enterprise, and his first officer, Karyn Archer, come aboard when the Enterprise is safe and warns Archer that if they enter the corridor, the ship will be pushed back in time almost one hundred twenty years. After Phlox determines the crewmembers are who they claim to be, T’Pol becomes convinced when Lorien is revealed to be the son of her and Tucker.

As Lorien and Tucker retrofit the Enterprise’s engines so the ship can go Warp 6 for brief intervals, Tucker learns that he died at a relatively young age. Archer tours the older Enterprise where he learns about the races the ship encountered. His granddaughter brings him to meet T’Pol, T’Pol gives Archer a PADD to give to herself while Reed wrestles with the idea that his family line ends on Enterprise. Willing to betray Captain Archer and his Enterprise, Lorien plans to take a vital engine component in order to make it to the rendezvous with Degra and complete the Enterprise’s mission of saving Earth.

“E2” might not be so bad if it were not for just how much it stole from “Children Of Time.” “Children Of Time” is notable for the fact that the episode had Odo (albeit the future Odo) finally revealing his feeling to Kira; “E2” progresses the Tucker/T’Pol relationship in virtually the same way. While the episode references Archer’s being tortured by the Xindi and being asked how many StarFleet ships are in the Expanse, the idea that the alternate Enterprise is the reason for the questions makes little sense. Of course the Xindi would want to know how many StarFleet ships are in the Expanse! They would not ask repeatedly just because they sensed another StarFleet ship there.

What makes less sense is the idea that with the head start the alternate Enterprise has that they could not stop the first Xindi probe from being launched. T’Pol knows the exact colony that manufactured the first probe (thanks to the Xindi Arboreal in “The Shipment,” reviewed here!); why the Enterprise did not simply disrupt the supply chain long before the probe was ever built makes no sense. The vague explanation that Lorien gives for the failure of his mission is utterly insufficient to please fans.

The special effects in “E2” are good, save the make-up effects. The aged version of T’Pol is hardly one of Michael Westmore’s best executions. Jolene Blalock’s performance is little more than slumping over in the make-up and rasping out her lines. Blalock’s more impressive acting comes in the reaction shots to herself. While T’Pol’s age has never been revealed, her older self seems disproportionately older for a Vulcan than she ought to.

Ultimately, “E2” is overly familiar for fans of the Star Trek franchise and what might have been novel to Enterprise fans is thoroughly banal to those with a larger appreciation for the franchise.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with David Andrews, please visit my reviews of:
Dear John
Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines
Fight Club
A Nightmare On Elm Street

4/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Highlight Of The Season Two Costume Cards: The Walking Dead Season 2 M16 Costume Card!

The Good: Good image, Necessary for collectors, Quite rare
The Bad: None, really!
The Basics: The M16 Rick Grimes’s Shirt Wardrobe costume card is arguably THE The Walking Dead Season Two wardrobe trading card to make the effort to track down!


Like many fans during the midseason hiatus of The Walking Dead, I am going through some withdrawal from one of the few shows I bother to watch “religiously” on television these days. As a result, I find myself turning to my collection of collectibles to get my fix. Tonight, I find myself contemplating one of the trading cards I feel very lucky to have pulled from a box of The Walking Dead Season Two trading cards: the M16 Rick Grimes wardrobe card!

In the second season of The Walking Dead (reviewed here!), Rick Grimes came into his own as the leader of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse. As Rick fought to save his son’s life and keep Shane at bay, he became a bona fide leader. Commemorating Rick Grimes with a costume card, especially a fairly limited one, brought fans of the Cryptozoic’s The Walking Dead Season Two trading cards a very popular collectible to hunt down. Cryptozoic seemed to find the right level of rarity for their Wardrobe Costume Cards and the Wardrobe cards for any of the survivor characters, especially Rick Grimes, have skyrocketed in value.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Wardrobe cards are costume cards and the M16 Rick Grimes card is no exception. What this means is that the physical card is a little more than twice as thick as the standard trading cards. Cryptozoic took a set-worn costume, in this case Rick Grimes's Shirt, chopped it up and embedded it in between the two card halves. This means that Andrew Lincoln's original shirt no longer exists, save in the pieces in cards. This is the closest most people will get to an actual set-worn costume from The Walking Dead and given that Rick Grimes is the most popular lead character of the series, this is a great card.

The M16 Rick Grimes costume card features a nice shot of Andrew Lincoln, gun drawn from the barn shootout scene in the shirt that the card features. On the right side of the card is the cutout window which features the cloth piece from the costume embedded in it! All versions of this card that I have found have had a plain black cloth swatch.

The back of the card assures the recipient of the authenticity of the Wardrobe card. It states that the M16 features a piece of Andrew Lincoln's as Rick Grimes’s Shirt and that is pretty much the standard for a costume card of this style.

The value of the card makes it a great investment for those lucky enough to pull one from a pack of The Walking Dead Season 2 cards. Considering the M16 is one of the most rare The Walking Dead Wardrobe cards, the fact that its value is hovering just under a hundred dollars is astonishing from a collectible perspective, though it does imply that its value is at its peak. This remains one of the most popular cards to hunt. Casual fans may not feel compelled, but die-hard fans will want to hunt down Andrew Lincoln’s costume card and they will be rewarded with a very cool card and collectible when they do!

For other costume cards, please check out my reviews of:
Diamond Direct Worf Costume Card
Diamond Select Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan Costume Card
Twilight PW3 Alice Cullen Costume Card

9/10

For other card reviews, please be sure to visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Song To A Seagull; Joni Mitchell's Sublime Early Work Leaves Little Impression Now (My New Artist Of The Month!)

The Good: Excellent lyrics, Nice voice
The Bad: Musically dull, Short!
The Basics: Joni Mitchell's fabulous storytelling lyrics are undermined by mindnumbingly similar vocals and dull instrumentals on Song To A Seagull.


After a few weeks of listening to the music of Madonna, I am certainly ready for something new (to me, anyway!). Considering great musical artists that I have little or no experience with, I decided it was time to give the works of Joni Mitchell a fair spin. So, I now have a pile of six of her works I'm listening to in high rotation to learn about her sound and vibe and albums. I'm starting with the earliest one I picked up, Song To A Seagull. This album is one I came to with a very pure listen; I did not know a single song off the album and now after listening to it nine times, I am finally ready to write about it.

Joni Mitchell presents a homogenous album of light folk-rock with Song To A Seagull, a concept album unified by themes of moving out of the city, back to nature as an allegory for moving on in relationships and discovering different ways to live and love. Lyrically and vocally, the album is far stronger than musically, which is surprisingly bland and unimpressive in every way imaginable.

Clocking in at 38:05, Song To A Seagull represents a fairly pure work by singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. She wrote all of the songs and plays the guitar and bass on the ten tracks. As well, she provided the cover art for the album and worked with another on the banshee. While it is produced by David Crosby, one suspects that Mitchell did not simply turn over all creative direction to him. In other words, this is largely the musical vision of Mitchell and therefore much of the credit and critique falls to her alone.

The superlative aspect of Song To A Seagull is the lyrics. Joni Mitchell is an astonishingly good musical storyteller. Her lyrics read like little stories complete with characters, themes and plots. She sings about Michael, Marcie, Nathan and even creates a dialogue between Penance Crane and the Dancer on "The Pirate Of Penance." The character songs are often strongly thematic, like "Marcie," who Mitchell uses as a vehicle of abject loneliness with lines like, "Marcie's faucet needs a plumber / Marcie's sorrow needs a man / Red is autumn green is summer / Greens are turning and the sand / All along the ocean beaches / Stares up empty at the sky / Marcie buys a bag of peaches / Stops a postman passing by . . ." The lines where Marcie tries to relate to anyone proximate are heartbreaking and convey a desperation few know and few musical artists articulate in song.

And the songs that are not direct stories are still packed with wonderful lines that tell clear tales. Mitchell writes strongly poetic refrains, like, "I can't go back there anymore / You know my keys won't fit the door / You know my thoughts don't fit the man / They never can they never can" ("I Had A King"). The second half of the album, which more directly involves going down to the sea and is music of the journey are laced with images, mostly of sea birds. Poetically, Mitchell is well above the average singer songwriter and it is easy to see why her style fits the narrative form commonly associated with the poetics of folk-rock.

Moreover, Mitchell does not use the most bland poetics. She has a wonderful sense of diction and she's perfectly able to open a song in a way that is intriguing and intelligent. On "Cactus Tree," for example, she opens with "There's a man who's been out sailing / In a decade full of dreams / And he takes her to a schooner / And he treats her like a queen" which is a compelling opening to a good song. Listening to her sing "Cactus Tree," I hear the roots from which Dar Williams sprung "The Ocean" on Mortal City (reviewed here!).

Vocally, Joni Mitchell is initially impressive, though the sound of the vocals holds up poorly over repeated listens. Academically, Mitchell is a fantastic singer. She sings slow and sad, easily traversing the alto and soprano ranges. She has a flawless vocal presentation on the songs on Song To A Seagull.

The problem is the tracks sound alike vocally. Every track it's Mitchell quietly singing right in front of the guitar or piano which is produced to almost the same volume as her. She has a voice that is both quiet and strong. In other words her voice has substance, she is clearly singing from a place of inner power. However, she's not singing all that loudly. The result is a weird dichotomy that makes her sound somewhat diminished. To the listener, the sound becomes tired far too quickly.

The notable exception to this is on "Night In The City." Perhaps the most produced track on the album, "Night In The City" features Mitchell doing a cannon to herself, singing back and forth, repeating lines in a way that makes it sound like she is her own chorus. It's an intriguing sound and it is well mixed for the effect of making her sound bigger and bolder than she is.

Her strength overcomes the music as well on "The Pirate Of Penance" when she reaches a crescendo as her protagonist defends herself from the antagonist's allegations. But the two exceptions are just that; the remainder of the tracks are largely high pitched and quiet. The vocals are completely overrun by the guitars on "Song To A Seagull" (the track).

And herein lays the final difficulty with the album Song To A Seagull: the music. I understand Mitchell created this album when she was quite young. That said, it is one of the most musically boring albums I have ever heard. The guitar work is the most generic interpretation of folk I have yet heard. Seriously, if one were to make a generic folk sound, the tentative strumming that accompanies most every song on this album would be the perfect ideal of that. There is no percussion and as the primary instruments are Mitchell on guitar or piano accompanied only by bass, the album needs to mix up the music to make it compelling to the ear.

Mitchell does not do that on Song To A Seagull. Instead, the music is homogeneously bland with the same basic sound coming track after track. The exception here is for the chorus parts of "Night In The City." But even the tempo and volume change of the instrumentals in that track is hardly compelling.

As well, Mitchell's limitations crop up on the very first track in a disturbing way. Recall that I came to this album blind; all I actually knew was that Mitchell sang "Both Sides Now," thanks to the commentary track on Love Actually (reviewed here!). When the song "I Had A King" began I thought it was "Both Sides Now." Yes, she uses the same tune, at least to begin the song!

Ultimately, this is an average album and I finally opted not to recommend it for this reason: the length. I respect an artist and I am a huge fan of the idea of an album as a work of artistic expression. With such a short duration, Mitchell could have easily put two of her albums on a single disc when they were being brought over to c.d. I may be left ultimately feeling ambivalent about the album, but no matter what I wanted more to it.

Anyone who likes folk rock will appreciate the lyrics on Song To A Seagull, but the veterans of the genre will likely be as bored by the rather typical instrumentals and vocals as I was. There is hope with this album, but Mitchell does not land it, at least not for the medium.

The best track is the song of consequences that closes the album, "Cactus Tree" and I'll go with "The Dawntreader" as the weak link for this reason: I've listened to the album almost ten times now and I swear I cannot recall the song. It's that indistinct.

For other, former, female Artist Of The Month works, please visit my reviews of:
Remember - Janis Ian
American Life - Madonna
@#%&*! Smilers - Aimee Mann

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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You’d Never Guess It Was Low Calorie! Smucker’s Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping Succeeds!

The Good: Flavorful, Inexpensive, Great taste, Surprisingly not terribly unhealthy
The Bad: Serving size is unrealistically low, Less easy to use than most dessert toppings
The Basics: Well worth stocking up on for anyone on a low calorie diet, Smucker’s Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping is robbed of perfection by its usability issues.


My wife and I have both been working hard to lower our caloric intake lately. She’s trying to lose some weight for health reasons and I am still struggling to burn off last year’s winter tummy. Still unwilling to give up ice cream, I picked up Smucker’s Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping to have a lower calorie option when it comes to topping my healthy ice creams!

And, as it turns out, the Sugar Free Caramel is one of the best low-calorie, sugar free, diet products I have yet tried! In fact, were it not for how hard it is to use this product, it might have been a perfect topping by my standards.

Basics

The Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping is part of Smucker’s ice cream topping line and it worked exceptionally well, largely because it is fairly simple and direct product which makes no promises other than that it will enhance the flavor of one’s ice cream. And it does that quite well. The 11.75 oz. glss jar has a large opening under its screw-off lid which allows one to stick a spoon in to easily dispense the topping. Unlike Smucker’s famous Magic Shell, the Dessert Topping is just that, a fluid one uses to further sweeten ice cream and it is delightful for that; it does not harden on the ice cream.

Ease Of Preparation

Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping is a bit annoying to use. It must be heated to properly be dispensed (otherwise it comes out in pretty massive clumps and does not spread at all). Unfortunately, it cannot be microwaved to heat up. As a result, one must run the jar under very hot water, let it sit heating up for three minutes, drain the sink (or bowl) the jar is set in, stir it up, reheat the water and resubmerge the jar. I usually have to do this for half an hour before it is actually spreadable! That’s a lot of work for something that then forces one to eat their ice cream faster!

Taste

For all of my ice cream topping reviews, I am utilizing Blue Bunny Chocolate Chip ice cream (reviewed here!) as it provides a neutral flavor base.

Opening the jar after it has been heated, the Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping smells just like a candle. It is warm, sweet, and buttery in the nose and it is oh so inviting!

On its own, the golden topping tastes sugary and buttery; a perfect representation of caramel. The Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping is sweet and as it lingers on the tongue, it takes on a slightly fruity flavor in addition to the caramel flavor, much like the way clover honey takes on a slightly enhanced flavor in honey.

On ice cream, the Sugar Free Caramel completely holds its own against ice cream. In addition to instantly overpowering weak or bland ice creams with its sweet, delightful taste, on more substantial flavors – and on bland flavors as they melt – the Sugar Free Caramel Topping spreads, taking on a creamy flavor that only enhances the sweet, buttery nature of its primary flavor.

The Sugar Free Caramel dessert topping leaves a very slight sweet and fruity aftertaste on the tongue. The aftertaste is not unpleasant and last only about two minutes after the last of it is consumed.

Nutrition

Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping is a dessert topping therefore not the most nutritious things in the known world, but this Dessert Topping is not really unhealthy. The primary ingredients are maltodextrin, water, and maltitol syrup. It is not vegan compliant as a result of nonfat milk being present in the ingredients list.

What is not a mystery is how high this product is in sugars. In each 2 Tb serving of Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping, there are 90 calories, none of which are from fat! This is a truly fat free product, which was a pleasant surprise! There is no cholesterol, but a consumer gets 3% of their recommended daily allowance of sodium out of a single serving of this topping! There is also no protein, so this is not something to try living off of. In other words, this product is not a nutritious food product, though it is not really detrimental in any ways, either!

Storage/Cleanup

Once open, the Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping must be refrigerated. Our jar has an expiration date of May 2, 2014 and I imagine it will keep at least until then.

This is a very light colored butter-like topping, which is very thick, so it will only stain anything that is light colored or that it gets ground into! Cleanup is easy with very hot water, but whites that get this golden substance on them will stain!

Overall

Smucker’s Sugar Free Caramel Dessert Topping is wonderful and a great way to positively reinforce achieving dieting goals with a treat that is likely to stay within one’s dieting parameters. Good enough to pass for fully sugared, the Sugar Free Caramel topping is worth trying!

For other ice cream toppings, please visit my reviews of:
Root Beer Magic Shell Topping
Smucker's Butterscotch Sundae Syrup
A&W Root Beer Dessert Topping

8/10

For other ice cream reviews, please visit my Ice Cream Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Art, Automatons, Loneliness, Nudity: The Best Offer Is Worth Watching, But Hard To Get Excited For Watching Again!

The Good: Decent acting, Wonderful directing, Interesting characters
The Bad: Slow build-up to a stark resolution
The Basics: The Best Offer is a smart film that builds up to a reversal in the final fifteen minutes that makes perfect sense, but still feels surprisingly unsatisfying for all that precedes it.


As the new year begins, I find myself starting the year with independent cinema, as opposed to the current blockbusters. I’m not sure what I expected when I sat down to watch The Best Offer, I suppose I was secretly hoping to discover this year’s The Red Violin (reviewed here!), but what I found was very much the archetype of a foreign independent film. Indie films tend to be broken down (by me, at least) into two groups: professionally-made movies that have an decidedly artistic bent whereby they work to make a statement using the full artistry of film or small films by virtually unknown producers/directors/actors/writers that are produced inexpensively and illustrate the gumption and fortitude of those involved by bucking the studio system without any real hope of breakout success. The Best Offer is certainly the former; it is a beautifully-shot, well-acted movie, but one that has very limited appeal and is geared toward those who enjoy thought-provoking works, mood and style, as opposed to those looking for a story where events occur in a timely manner.

From the outset, the conceits in The Best Offer, which is a moody drama from writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore, are evident: Oldman is superstitious and loathes mobile phones. How those conceits will play out when the film’s protagonist is revealed to be a scammer and as he begins developing a relationship with the reclusive Claire Ibitsen makes the film engaging enough to stick with, despite the tone and how long it takes for the mysteries in the movie to actually get established.

Virgil Oldman is an appraiser and auctioneer, the owner of the Oldman’s auction house. Aging and lonely, he is very superstitious and on his birthday has to take the first call of the day he receives. That puts Claire directly in contact with the reclusive auctioneer and Oldman makes an uncharacteristic trip out to visit her parent’s estate to appraise their furniture. Oldman is not entirely above board; he uses his friend Whistler to buy seemingly worthless pieces through the auction house when Oldman recognizes them as lost greats. In that fashion, he has assembled a significant private gallery of portraits. Investigating the run-down Ibbetson Estate, Virgil meets with Fred the housekeeper, and inspects the mansion full of relics.

After bribing Fred for information on Claire and having discovered some intriguing mechanical pieces at the Ibbetson Villa, Virgil is surprised when Claire withdraws her willingness to have Oldman appraise her parents’ estate. When Whistler falls down on a bid and Robert, the mechanical genius who appraises and restores some of Oldman’s finds for him, discovers that gears that Oldman found at the Villa belong to an 18th Century android, Virgil is drawn into the mystery of who Claire is and what her house possesses.

Virgil Oldman is almost instantly characterized as extremely observant and that makes The Best Offer full of intrigue from the outset, despite not much actually happening. Thus, Oldman’s noticing gears around the Villa and stealthily removing them, creates a sense of mystery long before Robert and Virgil realize what they are building. Like so many independent films, The Best Offer is much more concerned with mood and character than with plot development, so the slow unfolding of the relationship between Virgil and Claire is much more what the film is about than the work of Robert (restoring the automaton) or the scams Virgil and Whistler run on Oldman’s clients.

Much of The Best Offer becomes a waiting game for the revelation of what Claire actually looks like and in the process, the movie treads toward the unfortunately familiar. When Virgil breaks down and activates the mobile phone that was gifted to him, the dialogue is very on-the-nose. Oldman is metaconscious in a way that works more from those evaluating the piece, as opposed to coming from a character. Virgil describing himself as rusty and broken is not presented as realistic dialogue.

As well, the smart viewer continues to watch The Best Offer waiting for how the revelation will come and wondering why Virgil Oldman does not get there first. Oldman scours the Ibbetson Villa for pieces of the Automaton and it becomes clear very early on that Claire is leaving the pieces scattered around the Villa to find them. Throughout the process of appraising the objects in the Villa, Claire is leaving the objects for him to find, while Oldman delivers her papers to sign and asks her to trust him. So, Claire and the viewer know Oldman is untrustworthy, but he seems surprised when she resists getting closer to him and trusting his professional opinions after a point.

Geoffrey Rush is characteristically brilliant as Virgil Oldman. When he is not simply reprising his role from The King’s Speech (reviewed here!), Rush is delightfully withdrawn and standoffish. When Oldman becomes stressed enough to start sweating and actually removes his gloves, the performance is unlike anything Rush has done in recent memory. When Rush and Sylvia Hoeks (Claire) have their first inevitable onscreen meeting, Tornatore captures the moment brilliantly. Tornatore uses space brilliantly in the subsequent scene; Claire is treated as another object Oldman covets and the remainder of the film has Rush evolving Oldman into a more human character who struggles to relate to Hoeks’s Claire. Rush is smart enough to make the evolution take enough time to be realistic. He slowly softens his body language and the expressiveness of his eyes.

One of the surprises for me in The Best Offer was Jim Sturgess. Sturgess plays Robert as a smart, creative restoration artist who is completely credible. The supporting role is nowhere near as dynamic as, for example, his role in One Day (reviewed here!), but he still has a strong screen presence and makes his scenes seem instantly significant. Sturgess has a greater role than Donald Sutherland and in The Best Offer he uses the time he has on screen to make the character so many orders more significant than Sutherland, completely stealing the more established actor’s thunder in the movie. In fact, it is Sturgess who pounds home one of the film’s most important lines by delivering it with much more subtlety than one might expect when Robert asks Oldman which he would choose: Claire or the automaton.

The Best Offer is the first film I have seen with Sylvia Hoeks and she is good as Claire. She has the tough task of creating a viable character with her voice alone, as opposed to with any physical presence. Hoeks does a good job and when she is brought on-screen, she manages to be more than just a pretty face. Hoeks has enough gravitas on screen that when Claire goes missing, there is a powerful feeling of loss in the movie; the viewer listens desperately for a hint of her voice and that plays out well under the direction of Tornatore.

Guiseppe Tornatore is an impressive writer and director and The Best Offer looks wonderful, even when it feels slow. The film is characterized by beautiful sets, crisp contrasts in colors (especially black on the stark white European restaurants at the film’s outset) and impressive sound design. But Tornatore keeps shifting what the movie is, which makes it harder to keep engaged. The film builds as a character drama while dabbling in various mysteries, without any one of the conspiratorial elements truly landing. Is the movie building up to a betrayal by Whistler or Robert? How will Claire react to Oldman’s deception in having the automaton rebuilt? The divergence with Claire going missing, all of these fail to have a strong sense of cohesion, despite the fact that The Best Offer maintains a very tight focus on Virgil Oldman.

Ultimately, The Best Offer is good – well acted, intriguing enough, beautifully shot – but it does not resonate after one is done watching it. Having spent two hours with Virgil Oldman on his weird adventure with antiquities and romance, that’s enough; it’s hard to want to rewatch the film, no matter how masterfully it was created and presented.

For other works with Donald Sutherland, please check out my reviews of:
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Hunger Games
Horrible Bosses
Reign Over Me
Ask The Dust
Pride & Prejudice
Cold Mountain
Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Ordinary People

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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So Gross! (And Ineffective!) Lotta Luv Cheese Puff Lip Balm!

The Good: Momentarily tastes like cheese puffs
The Bad: Offers no real protection, Potential to melt, Relatively pricey, Waxy feel from residue, Tastes disgusting, Cheap applicator
The Basics: Lotta Luv mass produced a terrible flavor of lip balm with its Cheese Puff Lip Balm . . . a cheaply produced balm that does almost nothing for consumers!


When it comes to protecting my lips, my wife has a vested interest in making sure my lips are soft and unbroken. To that end, and to satisfy me as a reviewer, she tries to pick up many different types of lip balms for me. This season, the first one she brought was, unfortunately, the worst one I have yet tried. The first complete dud was Lotta Luv’s Cheese Puff lip balm . . . and I write that as a huge fan of cheese and cheese puffs! At this point, though, Lotta Luv seems to be going the exceptionally cheap route and the lip balm is bad and its applicator is uncommonly bad; I was barely able to get any out of the tube before it stopped pushing the waxy lip balm up!

Cheese Puff flavor lip balm comes in the standard .12 oz. tube. It is a discreet plastic tube measuring two and a half inches long by 3/8" in diameter. The lip balm it dispensed by removing the neon yellow cap (it pulls off easily enough) and twisting a dial on the bottom to push the remaining product up. The lip balm itself is a waxy muted orange colored tube that is rubbed onto the lips and it offers a physical barrier to water and other damaging elements that could crack lips in winter and sunlight which could damage lips in the winter. The product does not leave any coloring on one's lips, which is a plus. However, it does leave the sensation of the barrier that it is and the waxy feel is a definite downside.

As well, one twist of the bottom dial and the wax tube stopped moving up. It became impossible to dispense the product.

The sunscreen properties of this Cheese Puff lip balm are more alleged than actual; I found no SPF rating on the container. Still, the lip balm actually adhered well to my lips, which cannot be said for all lip balms. Sadly, it wears off incredibly easily; within five minutes of applying this lip balm, my lips feel unprotected again.

On the flip side, this product is remarkably easy to apply. It glides on easy and creates a barrier needed to resist some of the elements. Unfortunately, in this regard comes one of the other biggest drawbacks to the product. This lip balm has a very waxy feel to it. When it is on my lips, I am very aware of its presence. Of all of the lip balms for lips that I have tried since I started kissing anyone again, this is the most waxy feeling, even more so than other Lotta Luv lip balms. It goes on feeling waxy and it feels waxy when it is on. As a result, it is easy to feel when this product has been wiped or worn thoroughly off one's lips as well. Sadly, because of that, I know how quickly it dissipates from the lips.

Cheese Puff leaves no significant color on the lips when it is applied. It may feel omnipresent and thick when it is on, but it does not look orange on one's lips (fortunately!).

On the taste front, this is incredibly problematic. The lip balm goes on feeling textured and when one runs their tongue over their lips, the flavor of the aftertaste of cheese puffs is present for one pass of the tongue. The flavor is very faint and lasts an exceptionally short amount of time on the lips. The flavor might be accurate, but it is more accurate as the aftertaste of Cheese Puffs and the flavor disappears quickly.

The Cheese Puff lip balm has ingredients on the tube, so be sure to check the package before purchasing for any allergies you might have. But the primary ingredients are: mineral oil, polybutene, and petrolatum. This is not at all more tasty than it sounds! It is noted that it is not intended for human consumption, so don't look to this for nutrition!

It is also worth noting that this cheap (in every sense of the word) little lip balm is not designed for moisturizing, only protecting. As a result, while it might prevent lips from drying out or cracking a little bit in winter and summer, it will not repair damaged, cracked skin on the lips. This is a stopgap product; it prevents some damage, but will not moisturize already dried lips or heal damaged, cracked lips.

For me, the lack of enduring flavor, the lack of real protective properties, the cheap dispenser and the lack of restorative properties made it impossible to recommend the Cheese Puff lip balm!

For other lip care products, please check out my reviews of:
Lotta Luv Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Lip Balm
Lotta Luv Extreme Pink Lemonade Blowpop Lip Balm
Burt's Bees Revitalizing Blueberry & Dark Chocolate Lip Balm

0/10

For other health and beauty product reviews, please visit my Health And Beauty Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ending With Evolution 30 Rock Season Seven!

The Good: Character development, Very funny
The Bad: Unremarkable plots and performances, Shortened season
The Basics: For 30 Rock’s final season, Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy evolving beyond their prior characters to end in an enjoyable, if understated, way.


As the year winds to an end, I find myself catching up on television shows that I missed over the last year. I actually have found myself watching and reviewing a number of shows that had series finales and the only one I actually caught when it aired was 30 Rock. Now out on DVD, 30 Rock Season Seven is the climax to the comedy by Tina Fey that was a satirical look at the behind-the-scenes life of a writer on a sketch comedy show. By the seventh season, as with virtually every television series that has longevity, the character development truly hinges on the understanding of who the characters have been in the prior seasons. In order to truly appreciate the final season of 30 Rock, one has to have seen some of the earlier seasons (though, ironically, given the character resets, Season Six – reviewed here! – is not vital to understanding who everyone is at the outset of Season Seven).

30 Rock returned for its final season knowing that it would be the end of the series and, as such, the entire season was moving toward the end. Lacking much in the way of network support, 30 Rock poked more fun at NBC and corporate America than it had in prior seasons. Seeming to realize how little the show was being promoted and how few people might be watching, Tina Fey and the other writers and executive producers quietly pushed the envelope of what kind of jokes they could make. The result is quite a bit more in the way of political humor and economic humor (poking fun at how networks make money off television) and while some of it is repetitive on the plot front, the characters do actually evolve. The thirteen episode season is good, but it lacks jokes that have a memorable quality (like “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah . . . spooky scary!”). Still it is well worth watching, if not picking up on its own.

Returning from their usual summer hiatus, Liz Lemon and the staff of TGS With Tracy Jordan are back to work. Liz Lemon quickly realizes that Jack is trying to tank NBC; he has loaded NBC up with terrible programming – like Thursday night being hotel menu night on the network – in order to devalue the company so he might buy NBC from Kabletown. Confronting Jack about his plan, Liz is soon distracted by Jenna, who ropes her into being her maid of honor, so Liz tries to tank as maid of honor. With Hazel using Kenneth to try to get onto TGS, Liz agrees to help Jack . . . until Paul Ryan drops out as Mitt Romey’s running mate. Ryan’s replacement is Alabama’s Governor Dunston. Dunston is a spitting image of Tracy Jordan and when Liz starts having Tracy do sketches as Dunston, TGS becomes hugely popular again.

With everyone’s lives suddenly turned around, Liz and Criss decide to push forward with having children and – failing that – adoption. Kenneth and Hazel break up, with Hazel suing NBC and bringing an abrupt end to TGS. At the same time, Jenna tries to arrange a surprise wedding, jealously getting revenge on Liz and Jack is surprised when his mother visits . . . only to tell him the least likely thing he could imagine. As TGS comes to an end, Liz and Jack try to find their work/life balance.

30 Rock Season Seven is a season of cycles; Liz revolves from obsessed with work to unsatisfied with a family back to happily working. Tracy evolves into Liz and Jack manages to live up to his mother’s challenge of being happy while finding success in a way that he did not predict. The season is truly about character evolutions and moving the characters to a final point; as such, the season gets rid of Hazel, allows a sense of closure for Jack and his family, and pushes Liz in a seemingly different direction.

The essential characters in season seven of 30 Rock are:

Liz Lemon – The hard-working Executive Producer and head writer of TGS With Tracy Jordan, she is frustrated by trying to have children with Criss. To push forward the adoption they settle on, they marry, which makes her best friend Jenna super-jealous. She puts the show ahead of her personal life when she has Tracy make a parody of Governor Dunston,

Tracy Jordan – The high-maintenance star of TGS, he is suddenly relied upon for advice and realizes he is the most stable person working at the show. As a result – and as a result of getting hit by a car and having a near-death experience – he realizes he needs to make responsible movie choices for his new production company. In working with Olivia Spencer, he has to transform into Liz Lemon order to get Toofer’s Harriet Tubman movie made,

Jenna Maroney – She is obsessed with making her wedding a surprise wedding. She, as always, is self-centered and loves performing. She has a big break when she makes an album (in the style of Jimmy Buffett) for slackers and she becomes the focal point for the 2012 Presidential Election when both Jack and Liz realize her fans in Northern Florida are the key to winning the election,

Pete Hornberger – In an attempt to escape his unsatisfying family life, he fakes his own death as TGS comes to an end,

Kenneth Parcell – Now a janitor at NBC, he is used by Hazel for information on NBC. When Jack uses him to help vet the new President of NBC, he is restored to being a page and then promoted beyond his wildest television dreams,

And Jack Donaghy – After all the years of scheming and politics, he helps the Republican Party try to win the election by having Tracy impersonate Governor Dunston. When he is visited by his mother, she challenges him to be happy and in trying to live up to that, he delivers the greatest eulogy of all time and struggles to find professional satisfaction. After defeating Hank Hooper’s granddaughter and Devin Banks to take over the corporate side of NBC (Kabletown), he wrestles with being actually happy.

The final season of 30 Rock has all of the main cast members perfectly attuned to their characters and the result is a show that has a wonderful sense of flow. The humor, while occasionally predictable, is delivered by each of the performers perfectly. Unfortunately, none of the performers are truly given much in the way of demands that push them to give viewers anything really new, but the refreshingly familiar nature of the characters is enjoyable to watch.

The final season of 30 Rock is fun and good, but because the entire series is strong enough to pick up, it is hard to encourage viewers to invest in the single season set for just this final season.

For other shows from the 2012 – 2013 season, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Revolution Season 1
Parenthood - Season 4
Veep - Season 1
Game Of Thrones - Season 3
New Girl - Season 2
Happy Endings - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 3
Arrested Development - Season 4
House Of Cards - Season 1
True Blood - Season 5

6/10

For other television and film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Bland Scent, The ScentSationals Oatmeal Cookie Wickless Wax Cubes Do Not Quite Thrill!

The Good: Easy to use, Reusable
The Bad: A little expensive, Requires other hardware to use, Not the strongest or most enduring scent
The Basics: ScentSational Oatmeal Cookie Scented Wax Cubes are not enough to truly entice those who might use a wickless candle!


It seems lately that my wife and I have been using both products that are supposed to smell like cookies, like the Suave Homemade Almond Cookie Body Wash (reviewed here!), and our wickless candle. While the wickless candle, which heats up wax cubes to put a delightful scent into one’s home, is an intriguing idea and it’s nice to have a change from the Baked Apple Strudel scent (reviewed here!) my wife has been using for quite some time in the device, our move to ScentSationals has been less than incredible. Our first experience with their wickless candle wax is the Oatmeal Cookie scent.

Seasonally available, ScentSationals Oatmeal Cookie Scented Wax Cubes consists of six blocks, each one approximately 1” long by 1” wide by 7/8” deep and a medium brown color. These blocks take about half an hour to liquefy and the scent of oatmeal and cinnamon spreads out from the heated source that melts the wax. So long as it is in its liquid state, the ScentSationals Oatmeal Cookie Scented Wax Cubes emit an aroma.

The problem is, the scent does not go very far. With some of the scents, the aroma effervesces throughout three medium sized rooms. However, the Oatmeal Cookie scent seems to barely fill up our bedroom or our bathroom. The scent never spreads into the rest of the house. Moreover, the oatmeal scent is very subtle and the cinnamon scent endures longer . . . but is not a terribly strong version of that scent.

ScentSationals Oatmeal Cookie Scented Wax Cubes are a bit expensive. Despite the fact that they may be cooled and can be reheated later on, the scent never gets stronger. As a result, they use a lot of energy to yield little in the way of results.

Ultimately, ScentSationals Oatmeal Cookie Scented Wax Cubes are a scent that may be easily passed by without the consumer feeling like they have lost anything that would have made their home smell more festive.

For other products designed to change the scent in the home, check out my reviews of:
Citrus Magic Fresh Citrus Solid Air Freshener
Renuzit Adjustables Limited Edition Mandarin Lemonade
Clorox Lemon Fresh Disinfecting Wipes

1/10

For other home and garden product reviews, please visit my Home And Garden Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Light On Character, “The Forgotten” Still Succeeds!

The Good: Moments of character, Generally decent acting, Good plot continuation
The Bad: Thematically heavy-handed on the Tucker/Taylor front.
The Basics: “The Forgotten” has Tucker coming apart at the seams trying to hold the Enterprise together while Archer negotiates with Degra and Jannar to stop them from deploying the Xindi weapon.


Continuing a heavily serialized storyline is a risk for any television series, but when a show truly commits to it, it can pay off wonderfully. With the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise, by the time “The Forgotten” was produced, the show was floundering, so the producers redoubled their efforts to tighten the story arc. As a result, “The Forgotten” plays significantly less well for those who have not seen “Azati Prime” (reviewed here!) and “Damage” (reviewed here!). “The Forgotten” is a direct follow-up to those episodes and while it might be largely plot-based, it is still entertaining and well-presented.

While “The Forgotten” has minimal character development for the main characters of Star Trek: Enterprise, there is some evolution for the character T’Pol and there is a decent amount of expansion for the adversaries Degra and Jannar. While the initiating incident for T’Pol’s continued degradation might have been one of the more contrived messes of the third season, the idea of sustaining the consequences to it plays well in “The Forgotten.” As well, having both Degra and Jannar appear as genuine leaders and men of reason makes the episode flow well.

Following the attack that left eighteen aboard Enterprise dead, the Enterprise is still severely damaged and Archer pushes Tucker to get as many repairs done before the Enterprise has to make a rendezvous with Degra in ten hours. T’Pol meets with Phlox, who reveals that her Trellium poisoning might make her susceptible to emotions for the rest of her life. When the Enterprise arrives for its meeting with Degra, it encounters a spatial anomaly before Degra’s ship arrives and has the Enterprise follow to a safe point, near one of the Spheres. When Archer confirms that the Xindi weapon is not currently being launched, he brings Degra and the Xindi Arboreal Jannar aboard. While they want proof of his time traveling abilities, he is only able to show them the corpses of the Xindi Reptiles brought back from Earth’s past.

When Archer brings Degra and Jannar to the Xindi toxin he recovered in the past, Degra seems convinced, but Jannar remains skeptical. Phlox relieves the exhausted Tucker before Archer has him share information with the two Xindi about the transdimensional alien that visited and died aboard the Enterprise. That seems to shake Degra, though Jannar wants something much more tangible. When Tucker confronts Degra about the weapon he built, the contrast between him and Archer is tangible. As Archer works to gain Degra’s trust, Reed and Tucker have to go out onto the surface of the Enterprise to fix a plasma conduit rupture before the ship is destroyed.

On the character front, “The Forgotten” has Archer getting more and more desperate, but retaining a level head for conversation the way one tends to expect Star Trek captains to behave. The more significant character arcs are Tucker and T’Pol. Tucker has not slept in two days, since the attack and his exhaustion during the repairs leads him to hallucinate. As Tucker agonizes over writing a letter to the family of an engineer who died in the attack, his character wrestles with a great deal of guilt over the death of his sister. That leads Tucker to his outburst with Degra and in addition to being good television. The only thing that could have strengthened this arc would have been if Taylor (the dead crewman) had actually been featured in prior episodes.

T’Pol’s arc in the episode is a bit more subtle. She shows genuine concern for Tucker and the idea that she might be stuck with emotions is an intriguing twist. Actress Jolene Blalock starts playing T’Pol with more facial expressions and with obvious concern in her eyes whenever she delivers lines about characters being in peril.

“The Forgotten” is also notable in that it features a cameo appearance from Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy (volume ten is reviewed here!). Sadly, though, it is a “blink and you miss it” appearance. More impressive is the performance by Randy Oglesby as Degra. As the episode progresses, Oglesby is given an opportunity to play the character as shaken and when he transitions the character from disturbed to resolved, it comes across completely organically. Oglesby is a wonderful actor and having the long arc to play Degra allows him to illustrate more range than he has on any of his other Star Trek guest starring roles.

“The Forgotten” has some decent special effects for the starships, but the computer generated people on the hull of the Enterprise move awkwardly. It is not enough to sink the episode, but it hardly enhances the episode.

The biggest gaffe in “The Forgotten” is that the Enterprise suffers from a plasma fire, which threatens the ship. It is venting a fire into space, but in “Disaster” (reviewed here!), the plasma fire clearly needs air to burn. In “The Forgotten,” the plasma fire burns out into space in a way that it ought not to.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Enterprise - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
Thanks!]

8.5/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Wonderfully Articulated: Still Limited By Physics, The Legacy Collection Battle Droid Is Cool! (My First Review Of 2014!)

The Good: Good poseability, Good detailing, Decent accessories!
The Bad: Balance issues
The Basics: The Star Wars Legacy Collection Battle Droid is a good rendition of the character, but it still has serious balance issues based on how the virtual character works in the real world.


On Black Friday last year, I discovered that there was an entire Star Wars action figure line I had never heard about. There was a new collection from Hasbro’s Star Wars Legacy Collection that was put on sale by Amazon.com on Black Friday and I eagerly picked it up because I was excited by the continuation of the Build-A-Droid concept. Many of the figures in the new line were recasts of prior characters, like the Black Squadron TIE Pilot (reviewed here!). What seemed like it would be the low point of the line was the Battle Droid. Battle Droids are a tough action figure to make as they were virtual characters that never had to exist in the real world. I was actually surprised that I had not reviewed any Battle Droids before now, save the first one from the Battle Droid & STAP two-pack (reviewed here!). Despite the problems with it, the new Legacy Collection Battle Droid is still vastly superior to that first one.

For those unfamiliar with the Battle Droids, they are the robots who were seen on Geonosis attacking the Jedi in Attack Of The Clones (reviewed here!). The maroon Battle Droids were seen on Geonosis, as opposed to the white or tan droids seen on Naboo in The Phantom Menace.

The 4" Battle Droid figure is a completely generic battle robot.

Basics

The Battle Droid figure stands 4 1/4" tall to the top of the antennae on the backpack. The Battle Droid is a 3 3/8” tall biped droid with a somewhat avian look to it. The maroon Battle Droid has silver-gray accents at the joints and backpack.

The Battle Droid is an incredible and perfectly accurate sculpt. The figure has such appropriate details as the finger joints and the ribbing on the horns on the back of the head. The arms have extensive sculpted details and this incarnation of the Battle Droid has a retractable head and there is even a silver wear-point accent on the front of the droid’s face.

Accessories

The Battle Droid is a Separatist soldier and comes only with two accessories: a Trade Federation blaster and an alternate antenna set in addition to the Build-A-Droid figure part! The blaster that the Battle Droid comes with is a standard Separatist blaster that looks identical to the others Separatist blasters produced by Hasbro over the last few years. The 1 1/4" long gun fits in either of Battle Droid's hands and looks entirely proportionate. The monotonal black weapon is generic, but looks good in either hand. Interestingly, the new Battle Droid does not have the ability to attach the blaster to the backpack or the figure’s back. The blaster can only be held by the figure, but it remains steady in the figure’s firm grip.

The other accessory is a 1 5/16” antenna accessory. Removing the backpack gives one access to the antenna hole and the antenna is colored in the same maroon and silver to perfectly match the rest of the figure. I was particularly impressed by the ribbing detail on the antenna array’s bottom.

Like the rest of Amazon’s 2013 Legacy Collection figures, the Battle Droid features a droid part. The Battle Droid features the left leg of TC-70. The copper and silver leg looks very much like a protocol droid’s leg. The leg is articulated with a hinge joint at the knee and a hinged ball and socket joint at the ankle. The foot has the appropriate hole for putting the droid into a vehicle or playset.

Playability

The four inch toy line was designed for play and the Battle Droid is very good in that regard. The Battle Droid has mediocre balance, which makes sense given how the droid was virtual and never existed in the real world.

That said, the new Battle Droid has pretty incredible poseability, illustrating the latest in molding technology. The Battle Droid is articulated at twelve points, few of which are simple swivel joints. The Battle Droid is articulated at the ankles, knees, groin socket, shoulders, elbows, neck and head. The head is on a ball-and-socket joint as are the legs at the groin socket (which is pretty cunningly hidden!). The rest of the joints are simple swivel and hinge joints. The neck raises and lowers.

Collectibility

The Battle Droid is part of the Legacy Collection with the build-a-droid figure that was released in 2013 entirely through Amazon.com. The Battle Droid was released with equal frequency as the rest of the line. Given how this is a generally generic figure and Battle Droids are part of pretty much every assortment so there is virtually no chance this figure will appreciate in value.

Overview

The Battle Droid is an uninspired addition to the Star Wars Legacy Collection, but it is one of the best renditions of this figure Hasbro has ever produced.

For other Attack Of The Clones action figures, please check out my reviews of:
The Black Collection #01 Padme Amidala
Vintage Collection VC60 Clone Trooper (501st Legion)
Original Trilogy Collection #37 Achk Med-Beq

7.5/10

For other Star Wars toy reviews, please check out my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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