Milkshakes Thrice A Week With My Hamilton Beach Drinkmaster 727!

The Good: Easy to Clean, Fast to Mix, Inexpensive
The Bad: Not Terribly Durable, Takes Up Space
The Basics: Despite a serious design flaw relating to the durability of the mixing rod in its socket, this is well worth it for mixing milkshakes.


First off, I love milkshakes. When I was in high school, a friend of mine had a Hamilton Beach 727 DrinkMaster Blender and until I actually received one about ten years ago, I thought it was a milkshake maker. All we used it for was to mix milkshakes. Since I've received this, all I've used it for is to mix milkshakes. Moreover, it is worth noting that the 727W is just the white version of the blender, while the B, C, and 730 are identical products in black, chrome and stainless steel.

For a long time, this was my favorite gift. It probably still is. I used it an average of three times a week for the first ten months I owned one and I’ve still used it steadily since. I love milkshakes.

For making milkshakes, this is ideal. Basically, you fill the stainless steel mixing cup with ice cream, fill in with milk so the milk just covers the ice cream. Then, lift the cup under the mixing rod and hook in to the clip. The clip is there and basically this makes the cup suspended on the base of the mixer. I have to say, the Hamilton Beach Drink Mixer is remarkably sturdy. Back in the day, the clips on the back of the base that hold the mixing cup up and to the base broke easily or were inefficient in actually holding the cup. Not so any more. I have happilly discovered this newer model is a hands free device. Turn it on to mix and the cup stays right where it ought to. Kudos to whomever fixed that problem!

Mixing, then, is fairly easy. This Drink Mixer has two speeds. The first is a reasonable mixing speed ideal for making milkshakes. The second is a very fast speed which basically makes your chocolate milkshake into chocolate milk. Not recommended for milkshakes. In making a milkshake (or I suppose anything else) the Drink Mixer is perfectly equipped as the head swivels. So, if left alone, the drink mixer will break up the ice cream into bitty pieces ideal for a milkshake, but to speed up or finish off the process, one may simply swivel the mixing head of the device to get at all of the points unreachable before. It's a very handy feature and basically, two moves of the head and two turns of the mixing cup and you have reached every possible point in the mixing cup and everything in it is excellently mixed.

One of the nice things about this device is it's very easy to clean. I've gotten ice cream all over it (my own clumsiness, not a defect in the product) and a damp washcloth cleans it off remarkably easily. I mean, one swipe and it's clean. Very easy to clean!

The only point of contention I have with this device is in its durability. While most of it is holding up extraordinarily well, after only ten months, the wand is loose. The metal mixing rod connects to the motorized top. When the power is turned on, it's this metal rod that then turns and mixes. The metal rod simply pulls out for cleaning. It's convenient. The problem is, the popping in and out of the metal rod has weakened the device; lately when I've been mixing milkshakes and go to swivel the head of the mixer (where the metal rod is plugged into) the metal rod pops out. Not convenient at all. The reason I have no qualms evaluating this product for milkshakes only is I have to figure if you're mixing drinks in this with ice, this same problem will come up, probably sooner than it did with mine.

Over all a competent device well worth the money. I figure it's worth getting a new one each year for the amount I use it. Until I find someone making a better device, I'll be quite loyal to this one.

8/10

For other kitchen appliance reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

Oscar Pandering Season Comes Early (And Rightfully) With The Social Network!

The Good: Great dialogue, Wonderful acting, Engaging plot/development
The Bad: Underlit, Unempathetic characters
The Basics: The Social Network, the latest Aaron Sorkin endeavor, has all the makings of a successful film . . . except characters to care about.


It does not take much to become a fan of the works of Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin is a brilliant writer and while his show Sports Night (click here for review!) was truly what sold me on his exceptional talents, he is arguably better known for his show The West Wing and his film The American President. He is also known for being ridiculously smart and not being terribly concerned about raising the bar for dialogue in American cinema. Sadly, last night as I sat at a screening of his new film The Social Network, others seemed to find the intelligence of his writing and the characters he was portraying through his writing to be "too smart." I cringed when I heard one of my fellow viewers make that complaint as I honestly thought that the commercial success of The Big Bang Theory would have adequately softened up mass culture for a character like the Sorkin-written Mark Zuckerberg.

I write "character" for Mark Zuckerberg because The Social Network is loosely adapted from The Accidental Billionaires and it is played out like a drama, fiction. I am delightfully ignorant of the reality of the start of Facebook - or The Facebook, as it was initially known in the movie - so this is a pure review of the film as a film, not as any sort of documentary. The truth is Sorkin and director David Fincher have managed to create an entirely engaging movie without a strong enough protagonist to actually care about. While David Fincher, who is used to bending reality for films like The Game (click here for my review!), has The Social Network move along at a great clip for a two hour film, but the riches to riches story of Mark Zuckerberg is robbed of perfection by how he underlits most of the movie and how he and Sorkin fail to make the viewer truly care about the central protagonist.

At Harvard University in 2003, Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend Erica are having a meandering discussion about geniuses and final clubs when Erica decides the relationship is over. Walking out on Mark leaves the sophomore distraught and he returns to his dorm room where he begins blogging about the failure of his relationship - and Erica's many faults - and hacking the various Harvard clubs for photographs of women on campus. Mark's best friend Eduardo arrives, having actually read his blog, to comfort Mark and he shares a code with Mark which will allow the young genius to create a website by which visitors vote on which of any two young women Mark has taken the pictures of is hotter. As a party rages as Harvard's prestigious Phoenix Club, Mark's little Facemash site gets 22,000 hits in two hours, crashing the Harvard servers.

At that moment, The Social Network flashes forward to a near-future where Mark is being sued on two fronts, one of which is Eduardo himself. It is noted that Mark received a six month academic probation for crashing the servers and from that action, he draws the attention of the Winklevoss twins, who are also suing Mark in the future. Back in 2003/4, Mark is approached by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who want Mark to make an exclusive social website for Harvard which will allow only the cream of the Harvard crop to stay in contact with one another. After being asked to create this by the twins, Mark begins developing a social website with Eduardo's help and money. With Eduardo's $1,000 startup money for servers and other expenses, Mark and Eduardo begin developing thefacebook.com which goes live early in 2004. When that happens, Eduardo tries to turn the site from something that is cool and different into something which will help him make his money back (and make his 30% stake in the company mean something) and the Winklevoss twins begin complaining about how Mark stole their intellectual property (which he denies because he used none of their code). As thefacebook begins to make Mark and, to a lesser extent, Eduardo famous on the college campuses, Mark is wooed by Sean Parker, founder of Napster, who sees Mark's Facebook as a way to make money and screw over those who he believes wronged him in the past.

First, where The Social Network goes wrong. Why? Because there is so little wrong with the movie, I want to get what doesn't work out of the way. The first is that David Fincher does underlight far too much of the movie, making it visually murky which makes the viewer work unnecessarily just to catch movement in several of the scenes. Sure, there is some mood that is created from the smoky bar, the smoky party and later the bong-smoke in Mark's California residence, but even the scenes at the depositions are not terribly bright and that is distracting on a very simple level.

Beyond that, the only thing wrong with the movie is that the characters are not interesting enough to make us care about them. That is not entirely true. Mark starts out as engaging - even if Sorkin resorts to the annoying cliche that brilliant people are miserable and socially awkward - and Eduardo is likable throughout. The problem becomes that Sean Parker is utterly unlikable and when Mark starts associating with him, I quickly realized that I didn't care at all how the lawsuits against Mark turned out as a result. The viewer empathizes completely with Eduardo, especially after Facebook stock is diluted making him virtually irrelevant, but the Winklevoss twins seem like whiny elitist snobs and Mark's seduction by, frankly, the douchebag Parker makes one think he couldn't be all that smart to begin with. Parker pretty much ruins the relationship between Eduardo and Mark - and there's some implied love from Eduardo to Mark which is not developed well after it is heavily insinuated early on - and given the complexity of Mark's mind at the beginning of the film, the viewer is left a little disappointed that he was so easily duped. After all, it doesn't take a genius to see that when Parker has Mark tell Case financial "f-you" (which, given it is the only one I heard in the movie, seems to imply the film is aiming for a PG-13 instead of an R) that he is acting out of his own sense of spite and not in Mark's best interest.

Beyond that, though, The Social Network is homogeneously wonderful. Aaron Sorkin's dialogue pops and is predictably smart. This might go over the heads of many viewers, though, as I found there were lines that only garnered laughs from me at the screening, but Sorkin fans will be pleased. As well, despite not quite landing, the relationship between Mark and Eduardo is a refreshingly true relationship between two strong, likable young men. Moreover, the intertwining of the two lawsuits is done so well that the viewer is never confused about which proceeding is underway and it remains easy to follow the progression of the story. The story may not be terribly complicated, but the rise of the on-line social site is told with a surprisingly brisk pace and feels much shorter than the two hour running time.

The Social Network is also bound to get a lot of attention for the quality of the performances in it. Justin Timberlake makes Sean utterly unlikable, but he plays the founder of Napster with an arrogance and cocky quality that reads as very true. Moreover, Armie Hammer and Josh Pence play Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss perfectly. Indeed, it wasn't until doing fact-checking on the IMDB for names that I discovered the twins weren't! They perform with a synergy that is absolutely brilliant.

Jesse Eisenberg, whose only other work I've seen is Zombieland, adequately leads the cast of The Social Network. Despite the humor in Zombieland, Eisenberg has a serious quality to him that made his character in that completely credible. Similarly, in The Social Network, he is able to walk around with eyes narrowed and shoulders hunched. He makes it around Sorkin's fast dialogue expertly and he instantly convinces the viewer that Mark is exactly that smart and socially awkward. Eisenberg is credible, even if the viewer does not particularly care which lawsuit he might win or lose.

It is Andrew Garfield who steals The Social Network, both from his performance as Eduardo and the character he plays. Garfield has an instant dignity and humanity that he brings to the role of Eduardo. From the way he softens his expression the instant he first sees Mark after Mark is dumped by Erica to the way he steels his eyes when freezing the account that Mark has for Facebook, Garfield is in complete command of the role. Moreover, Garfield looks the part of a young businessman who is aware, clever and has enough heart (and capital) to fund his friend. From the moment Garfield is on screen as Eduardo without Mark, the viewer begins to root for him, to empathize with his struggle and care about the resolution of his character's arc.

Ultimately, though, The Social Network is a human rise-to-power story that makes it easy - because of the youth involved - to forget that it is the story of young rich, white kids making an obscene amount of money. It is well-told, but at the end of the day, for all its greatness, it is hard to overlook that it is a fight between a bunch of young people over what is cool. No matter how clever the dialogue is, it never snaps beyond that. Still, it is easily the best thing audiences are going to see up until the big push for Oscar nominations and it is refreshing to see The Social Network try for the attention of voters this early on. Hopefully, that audacity will be rewarded.

For other works by Aaron Sorkin, please check out my reviews of:
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Charlie Wilson's War
The West Wing
Sports Night

9/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Long, Angry Fiction (Treatise?) On Architects And Humanity: Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

The Good: Plot, Moments of character
The Bad: Most of the characters, philosophically disturbing
The Basics: While the novelist develops characters well in this book, all of them are ultimately unlikeable and most are spouting dogma that is sickening.


The Fountainhead is a long, long book and the problem is, too often, it feels long. Why does it feel long? Mostly because it's repetitive on issues of character and most of the characters only show great insight once every hundred pages.

As an aside early on, I find it especially troublesome that some view this as a philosophical work. As a work of philosophy, it seems to say two things: 1. The big guys can screw over the little guys and the little guys had it coming and 2. The individual is either a sheep desperate to be part of a flock or an individual entity always persecuted and trapped outside acceptance of any kind. While the latter might occasionally ring true, codifying it so unflinchingly is problematic. It creates the idea that one may not rise above the hive mind and still be liked, accepted, or understood by anyone else. The former premise, ingrained thoroughly throughout the novel, is positively troubling and disturbingly rendered.

That said, The Fountainhead is largely a waste of space. Allow me to start at the beginning.

The Fountainhead begins as a novel about Peter Keating, average architect who rises to the top of his graduating class through conniving and eliminating his nearest competitor in a series of schemes that leave him in the best position to succeed. Keating graduates and gets a job with Guy Francon at the prestigious firm of Francon and Heyer. The novel sets Peter in a dialectic against Howard Roark. Roark is expelled from college the day Keating graduates and he goes off to find another rugged individualist architect, named Cameron.

The two character continue to intertwine as Keating gets aid from the maverick Roark. Cameron dies and Keating gives Roark a job. For a time.

Peter Keating is eminently unlikeable. He's a mama's boy who lives with his domineering mother, proclaims love for Catherine (though none is evident) and then, in a twist unexpected by most, marries another woman on the day he was going to marry Catherine. He's basically a loser and his section of the novel is the rise and fall of a loser in the public eye. About 3/4 of his place in the novel is unnecessary and completely pointless. For instance, the time spent on the Keating/Catherine relationship is utterly worthless.

More troubling is Howard Roark. While I always am rooting for the underdog, here it's frustrating. Peter Keating is my kind of guy; he's his own man following his artistic ideal above all else. Nothing matters to him save his art (in this case architecture). I like that. I kept my eye on Roark, figuring he was my hope from the sliminess of Keating. Despite his quest for perfection and artistic integrity, I lost all respect for him when he raped another character.

Dominique, the character Roark rapes, was someone I was rooting for until she was raped. Why? Her attitude was very close to "I wanted that" and I didn't buy that. It bothered me. Her character was inconsistent and unemotive. She didn't read right most of the time as a real human being. It was bothersome.

Two other characters emerge as important: Ellsworth Toohey, who begins as a philosopher with his own agenda (which is fairly transparent from the beginning when we see how he latches onto Peter Keating) and Gail Wynand, a newspaper owner established early as a villain who doesn't actually enter the book until the latter half.

The problem is the waste of space. The novel begins as Howard and Peter's story, evolves into a love story between Gail, Dominique and Howard, and ultimately ends as a political power play between Wynand and Toohey where Peter and Howard appear only as pawns in their games. The novel works well as any of those three, however, when it begins with Peter and Howard as the central characters and we, the readers, have a vested interest in them, it becomes a vast disappointment to find them relegated to the background, utilized as tools, dehumanized of the emotions they earlier possessed.

While the characters occasionally show moments of insight; Roark in his artistic integrity, Keating in his wounds, Dominique in her self-loathing, Wynand in his epiphanies, and Toohey in his apparent benevolence, each one surrenders their integrity and likeability: Roark with his rape, Keating in his treatment of Catherine (and most everything else he does, for that matter), Dominique in her lack of emotion (especially in her relationship with Peter), Wynand in his resolution to the strike that comes up, and Toohey with his insane rambling that comes about and reads like a bad philosophical exercise.

All in all, The Fountainhead is a disappointment. From characters who all let the readers down to having disturbing philosophies, it's long and the most I found to appreciate was the occasional insight, the occasional line, the third to final chapter of the book and basic plot. That may sound like a lot, but it turns out, it's not.

For other Modernist novels, please check out my reviews of:
The Sound And The Fury - William Faulkner
Vineland - Thomas Pynchon
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

At Least The Machines Deserve To Be Raged Against In "The Return Of The Archons!"

The Good: Decent story, Moments of character, Generally the acting
The Bad: Some acting, Moments of ridiculous, Predictable plot
The Basics: The Enterprise investigates the disappearance of the U.S.S. Archon and finds a planet enslaved by the collective mind of Landru, who is able to control the will of all absorbed!


There are times when I find myself wishing that Gene Roddenberry was still alive because then I could pick his brain to find out just how much of Star Trek truly was his. For sure, his assistants and people who knew him are still alive, but any stories we get from them are passed through their lens; only Roddenberry himself could answer some of the questions I'd like to ask him. Fortunately, some of the works of Gene Roddenberry on Star Trek exist in rather unadulterated forms. One of the few episodes of Star Trek that was written by Gene Roddenberry, "The Return Of The Archons" is loaded with philosophy and one assumes it is the type of message Gene Roddenberry was trying to transmit to the world. After all, he put his name on this one!

Investigating the disappearance of the U.S.S. Archon near Beta III after a hundred years, the U.S.S. Enterprise sends down a landing party and Sulu is attacked and put into what appears to be a hypnotic trance. To try to understand what happened to him and the Archon crew, Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to investigate. Taken in by two older citizens, they are protected during the Red Hour, a twelve hour orgy that all who are part of the "Body" of Landru participate in. Outed by their lack of participation in the violent ritual, the landing party becomes targeted by the entire citizenry of Beta III! Kirk and his crew must outwit their enemies and find a way to reason with Landru and break his hold over the people he has enslaved.

"The Return Of The Archons" is one of the ideas in Star Trek that is a good idea with a rather uncertain execution to it. The idea is wonderful, so good that the concept presented with the Body of Landru would later be recycled into one of the most successful Star Trek franchise ideas ever: The Borg! Indeed, outside the cybernetic aspect, the Borg introduced in "Q-Who?” bear a striking resemblance to the Body of Landru. Sure, the writers changed "absorbed" to "assimilated," but we know!

"The Return Of The Archons" is characterized by some of the most ridiculous acting in Star Trek history. The festival that commences at the Red Hour is more ridiculous than realistic and it seems rather staged. It is a disturbing combination of horrifying (women are being raped in the street) and not terrifying enough; all the violence happens outdoors, so Kirk and Spock end up being perfectly safe by no other virtue than they are inside a house! It's a sloppy chaotic mess outside, yet no one so much as knocks on the door to the dwelling Kirk's team is in. That's where the ridiculous comes in.

It is the guest acting that is particularly unimpressive in this episode. Some of the performances truly do seem like the characters are brainwashed, but - for example - there is a creepy cunning quality to the performance of Ralph Mauer as Bilar that sets the hairs on the back of one's neck standing that is not consistent with a brainwashed individual. He seems more predatory than sedate and that's troubling. But virtually all of the performances during the Red Hour festival seemed choreographed, which is ironic because when Kirk and company are being hunted, the scenes actually are choreographed, but they do not feel so forced!

Moreover, there is a moment of performance later on in the episode which I cannot discuss without ruining the plot, wherein William Shatner fails to act in a convincing manner and it is the look in his eyes that is not nearly dead enough that gives him away.

Conversely, George Takei and DeForest Kelley give great performances as Sulu and McCoy. Both actors play characters who are so vital and passionate that when they must alter that, it seems like it would be a real effort and exercise for the performers. Takei especially makes it seem effortless to play Sulu as brainwashed and subdued and he is fabulous with characterizing the Body as a creepy part of a bigger whole.

Largely, "The Return Of The Archons" is (another!) exhortation from Star Trek on the importance of not relying too much on technology. Through the Body, the viewer has a clear illustration of Roddenberry's fears about what happens when Man serves technology instead of the other way around. It is clever and a worthwhile thesis.

The message is noble, it's just the execution of it that is problematic. The plot in particular becomes predictable for anyone who has seen any mind-control science fiction movies or television shows. On the rhetorical level, Roddenberry's script opts for a complete lack of subtlety with the resolution to the episode and that lack of middle ground may seem overbearing to some.

For the most part, even with its faults, "The Return Of The Archons" largely succeeds at making its point and it will be enjoyable to virtually anyone who likes science fiction. Technophobes will rally to it as well, though fans of straightforward drama may be bothered by the level of metaphor employed.

As someone who enjoys television that takes risks like that, it's just fine by me and I suspect most fans of science fiction and Star Trek will find its value as well.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete First Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the premiere season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

7/10

For other Star Trek episode reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

A Tough Sell, Even For Fans, "The Menagerie" Ornament Tips.

The Good: Good sound clips, Decent light effect
The Bad: Expensive, Terrible balance, Horrible detailing on characters
The Basics: A bit expensive, underdetailed and unbalanced, "The Menagerie" Hallmark ornament is not likely to be a bestseller, even among Trekkers!


When Gene Roddenberry started Star Trek, one wonders if he had any idea what it would truly become. Merchandised now ad nauseam, even the throwaway episodes seem to have enough meat to them to get them presented in alternative mediums, like action figures, computer games, statuettes or holiday ornaments. I mention this at the outset of my review of "The Menagerie" ornament because this ornament is based upon an episode that was Roddenberry's attempt to get his original pilot seen and the episode is very much a clip show!

For those unfamiliar with the episode, "The Menagerie" takes the original pilot episode, "The Cage" and shows the episode as a series of clips amid a courtroom legal drama featuring Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. In "The Menagerie" (click here for the episode review!), Spock abducts his former captain, Christopher Pike, and takes him to the forbidden planet of Talos IV. Spock is sentenced to death and the reason why comes from showing the events of "The Cage." The reason Spock tried to abduct Pike soon becomes evident, but the reason he is able to is because between "The Cage" and "The Menagerie," Pike is crippled in an accident and left a head and torso embedded in a sophisticated wheelchair that is also keeping him alive.

It is Kirk and Spock squaring off with the wounded Captain Pike that is the subject of the "The Menagerie" Hallmark Ornament. To add extra value to this one, Hallmark provided this ornament with a decent light-up function and a pretty ambitious sound chip.

Basics

The "The Menagerie" ornament recreates the moment Kirk and Spock interrogate Captain Pike on what he wants and the wheelchair-bound Pike responds with beeps from his chair. The ornament recreates the scene with the wounded Captain Pike between Kirk and Spock and a small section of flooring cast in solid plastic. The ornament, released in 2009, is a mixed bag as it has a very poor and underdetailed sculpt of the characters of Kirk and Spock, but a good sound chip and light-up effect that is likely to please many fans.

Still, Hallmark clearly made an effort on the characters as the people on this ornament are detailed with accurate rank insignia and division badges. Measuring nine and one half centimeters tall, eight and a half centimeters wide and five centimeters deep, "The Menagerie" ornament is a medium-sized Star Trek ornament and with the light and sound feature, it is not the most pricey one at the original issue price of $24.00.

The Hallmark "The Menagerie" ornament is made of a durable plastic and has the three officers facing one another with the wounded Captain Pike in the center and Kirk and Spock looking down upon him. The floor is nicely detailed to look like a deckplate. The chair and the officers are generally colored properly, with the bright yellow and blue of Kirk and Spock's shirts nicely contrasting the black of Captain Pike's chair.

However, the heads and faces are mediocre at best, with Spock especially bearing coloring and cheeks that are not accurate for the character. There is no realism to the flesh color and the eyes and this is somewhat understandable given the small scale of the people on this ornament (they are approximately two inches tall). Kirk is actually fatter in the face than William Shatner ever was, making this look like an animated version of the captain. Even Captain Pike is poorly detailed; while his mouth is open and he looks wounded, the ornament does not have the red burns that covered half the character's face.

This ornament remains fairly easy to find in the secondary market, despite the fact that the scene and sound chip are pretty popular, especially in the wake of the cinematic rebirth, "Star Trek", which introduced a broader market to Captain Pike. This one does seem to be adequately produced, if not overproduced for the market.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, "The Menagerie" has both a light effect and a sound effect. This ornament operates on an independent battery so one does not need to position it near a light strand on their tree. The light effect only works when the button on the bottom of the ornament is pushed and it is appropriate for the light effect to come on.

That same button, when pressed, activates the sound chip. The sound chip actually contains three different clips from "The Menagerie." Rather extraordinarily, the chip has several seconds of dialogue between Kirk and Spock and Spock and Captain Pike. Pike responds to questions from Kirk and Spock by beeping and causing a blinking light on his chest to light up. Whenever Pike beeps, the light activates on the center of his chest and this is a decent effect!

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake "The Menagerie" ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate Star Trek Christmas Tree, the "The Menagerie" ornament is a high priced option and one most people will be able to live without. The ornament has the standard steel hook loop embedded into the top center of Captain Pike's head. This is fairly unobtrusive and necessary for the ornament.

Unfortunately, because of how Kirk and Spock are positioned, this is a terribly-balanced ornament. It pitches forward problematically and those who get the ornament are likely to be quite disappointed at how front-heavy the ornament is. As a result, it tips forward and is impossible to keep level without actually sticking it on top of whatever branch is below it.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (click here for my review of that ornament!). Since then, they have made ornament replicas of almost all of the major starships and many of the characters from the franchise and they have all been more mass produced than that first one. "The Menagerie" ornament was a slow sell even to fans and not at all a success among the public at large. There were few fans who bought it and almost no investors or general fans of science fiction picked it up. The relative expense of this ornament makes it a bit stifling for those who are only casual fans. It is still easily found on the secondary market, implying it will be a poor investment piece for some time.

Overview

"The Menagerie" may be an iconic moment to Star Trek fans, but it seems that most people have no problem leaving this unbalanced ornament with a minimal light effect on the shelves. Very average.

For other ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2010 "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!" Peanuts ornament
Hallmark Gold Crown Reflections U.S.S. Enterprise blown glass ornament
2010 Limited Edition Lando Calrissian ornament

5/10

For other ornament reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Soundtrack Goes Wrong: The Mr. Wrong Soundtrack Is Blase Pop.

The Good: One or two good tracks?
The Bad: Most of the tracks are either bad or bad covers
The Basics: A horrible collection of poorly lyricked love songs and songs of love lost. Not worth your time, money or attention.


First off, I've never seen the film Mr. Wrong, so I'm evaluating the soundtrack as a body of music. I like Ellen DeGeneres, but if this soundtrack is any indication, I wouldn't like Mr. Wrong.

I purchased the soundtrack back in 1996 because Sophie B. Hawkins had a track on this album. Now I'm terribly sorry I did. Sophie's cover of "I Gotcha'" is unimaginative and literal. I think whenever an individual or group does a cover song, it ought to add to or reinterpret the original (excellent examples of successful covers are Sophie's cover of Bob Dylan's "I Want You," and Heather Nova's version of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane.") There's not a single cover song on this album that does anything imaginative with the material they're given. This is pretty sad considering at least four of the songs are covers.

On the plus side, Sophie's "I Gotcha'" isn't the worst cover on the album, that honor probably goes to the annoyingly perky "Things We Do For Love," performed by Amy Grant. Regardless of the originals, all of the songs on the Mr. Wrong Soundtrack are pop songs. They are very typical, generally singsong sounding tracks which have catchy tunes, but not much in the way of substance.

The album is thematically linked song to song by the theme of love and love lost. Somehow, those in charge with making this album managed to pick either the most unimaginative examples or those that were just plain bad.

The Mr. Wrong soundtrack is pulled out of the quagmire by two original songs, Queen's classic "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and a thoroughly original track called "Song For the Dumped," by Ben Folds Five which is actually intelligently written and angsty.

The bulk of the album is just bad, though, including "Strenuous Acquaintances" which goes a long way toward showing why Joan Osborne was a one-hit wonder. If you're buying this album used, you're paying too much for it.

The best track is "Song For the Dumped" and the weakest link is "Suavito," which mercifully comes near the end.

For other soundtracks, please check out my reviews of:
The Last Of The Mohican Soundtrack
Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack
The Heights Soundtrack

2/10

For other music reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



| | |

Funny Name, Delicious Truffle: Stracciatella Truffles Are Basically Cookies And Cream!

The Good: Good taste, Great bulking, Generally decent ingredients
The Bad: Still pricey.
The Basics: The Stracciatella truffle is a surprisingly flavorful truffle that makes excellent use of white chocolate by recreating a cookies and cream flavor in truffle form!


Stracciatella truffles are a mystery to many who wander into Lindt stores. The name tells the consumer nothing, at least those of us plebes that don't know (?) Italian. So, as tonight's public service message, Stracciatella seems to be a fancy way of saying "cookies and cream" at least as a flavor for Lindt Lindor truffles.

My partner, in a seemingly unending string of nice things she does for me, decided to pick me up some Stracciatella truffles. The Lindt Stracciatella Lindor Truffles arrived on my doorstep and I've been snacking on them pretty consistently since! Now, as I am halfway through the box of 120 truffles, I am surprised by how much I enjoy them.

Basics

Lindt Lindor Stracciatella truffles are one of the winter assortment truffles from the Swiss chocolatiers Lindt & Sprungli and their U.S.-based subsidiary. Each truffle is a one inch sphere of white chocolate with a shell about an eighth of an inch thick. This shell covers a thick milk chocolate ganache ball inside and that center ball is a softer substance than the outer coating. Each of the truffles comes individually wrapped in a light blue foil wrapper, which one thinks would be easy to differentiate from the other Lindor Truffles. The light blue foil truffles each have a white snowflake on them and this is an easy truffle to recognize from the others. While I usually rail against the environmental impact of individually-wrapped candies, it is hard to imagine Lindt Lindor truffles not wrapped. This keeps each one clean, unmelted and intact.

Each Lindor Truffle is a sphere with a seam at the hemisphere that is essentially a white chocolate globe peppered with brown cookie pieces sealing in a near-solid chocolate ball inside. In this form, the 19.5 oz. bag, the individually-wrapped truffles are packaged together in a thin paper bag. This size has approximately thirty truffles. While this might still seem a little pricey to some, it is a decent price for chocolates of this quality.

Ease of Preparation

These are candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the bag and then opening one of the plastic wrappers around the actual truffles one wishes to eat. There is no special way to unwrap or eat Lindt Lindor Stracciatella truffles, though unwrapping the truffles before eating them is beyond common sense; it's just smart nutrition!

Taste

The Stracciatella truffles are a white chocolate truffle, with only a minor amount of cookie pieces in the shell, so the initial scent is very much a mild one that does not hint at quite what the taste might be. When one unwraps the foil around this candy, there is little to impress the consumer. As a result, one might be shocked when they place these truffles on their tongue.

The Stracciatella truffle melts on the tongue, though it is a fairly soft white chocolate. As the white chocolate melts away, there is an infusion of milk chocolate and the two mix on the tongue. The resulting flavor is one that is distinct to anyone who loves sweets: cookies and cream. The chocolate has an infusion of harder bits that actually taste like little cookie bits. This mixes the chocolate, cookie pieces and white chocolate with a flavor of something like a smooth Oreo cookie.

The Stracciatella is very sweet and the lighter chocolate flavor is over-the-top sweet without any dry aftertaste. The cookies and cream flavor is distinct and delicious and anyone looking for a very different truffle flavor will likely be quite happy.

Nutrition

Well, these are candy, so it is tough to look at these for something nutritious and then blame them for not being healthy. Lindt Lindor truffles are surprisingly good, though, which is probably why they are so expensive. The primary ingredients are sugar, cocoa butter and vegetable oil. Still, there is nothing unpronounable in these candies, which is something I have come to expect from Lindt.

A serving of the Lindt Lindor Stracciatella truffles is considered three balls. From three truffles, one consumes 230 calories, 170 of those calories being from fat. There is less than five milligrams of cholesterol, no sodium, nor any vitamins in these truffles, but seriously, did you think there would be? There is, however, 4% of one's daily iron and 2% of their daily calcium in three spheres, so there is something to rationalize gluttony to!

Honestly, these are candy and anyone looking to them for actual nutrition needs to get a reality check. These are not Vegan-compliant, nor are they recommended for anyone with a nut allergy as they are produced on the same equipment that peanuts (and tree nuts) pass over. They are, not marked as kosher, nor gluten-free.

Storage/Clean-up

The bag of these Lindt Lindor Stracciatella truffles remain fresh for quite some time. However, even the box notes they ought to be kept in a cool environment between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Kept in such an environment, the bag of truffles my partner bought in April will remain fresh until the end of 2010. Given the more mild taste of this flavor of Lindt Lindor Truffles, they might actually make it to the end of the year! Given that they are individually wrapped in a very sealed package, it is hard to imagine just what it would take for these to go bad outside melting and refreezing.

As for cleanup, throw the wrappers in the garbage and you've taken care of cleanup! Outside that, there is no real cleanup needed, unless one is eating them in a hot environment. In that case, it is likely one would need to wash their hands. If these truffles melt into most fabrics, they will stain. For that style of clean-up, be sure to consult a fabric guide for whatever you stained.

Overall

The Lindt Stracciatella Lindor Truffles are pretty wonderful and the instantly recognizable cookies and cream type flavor makes it a pleasure to stock up on this flavor.

For other Lindt Lindor Truffles, please check out my reviews of:
Lindt Raspberry Lindor Truffles
Lindt Lindor Orange Chocolate Truffles
Lindt Coffee Lindor Truffles

8/10

For other food reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

Rescue Comes For Some: Lost Season Four Makes A Great DVD Set!

The Good: Great story, Interesting new characters, Decent acting, Amazing DVD bonus features
The Bad: Slightly repetitive feel to the narrative technique
The Basics: Brilliant, if slightly repetitive and inaccessible to new viewers, Lost Season Four is an indispensable DVD for anyone who loves weird, serialized television!


I have developed a pretty simple i.q. test for television viewers in the last few years; it's one, simple question: "Are you into Lost?" From this question, I am able to derive much. I can easily take the answers: "Yes, I love it, would you like to spend the next eight hours comparing notes on it?!" or "No; I've seen it, but it didn't grab me." I'll associate with either of those types of people, no problems. It's the ones who say "I don't understand what's going on" that I've decided to weed out of associating with. That might sound elitist, but frankly, for all of its supernatural elements and the shiftings in time back and forth, if one only watches the show and pays attention, it's pretty easy to tell what is going on. How one interprets what is going on is a different matter, but those who are lost (no pun intended) simply by what happens on the show paint a pretty bleak picture for the future of humanity.

Nowhere is this more true than with the fourth season of Lost, now out on DVD in a pretty magnificent boxed set. Cut down to only thirteen episodes (fourteen hours) by the writer's strike, Lost - The Complete Fourth Season is many things, but hard-to-follow is not one of them. For sure, there are elements that might not be immediately comprehensible, like for example the time travel elements that Faraday quickly discovers indicates that the island in the show is not in temporal synch with the rest of the world, but by this point, the story of Lost is becoming very - almost ridiculously - clear. In the fourth season of Lost, a freighter off the island comes on a mission to recover someone or some thing from the island.

Set up in the last episodes of Lost Season 3 (click here for my review!), an offshore freighter comes near the island and some of the people trapped on the island make it off. This season charts a ridiculously simple course: two groups come from the freighter to the island: scientists and hunters. While a paramilitary group from the freighter hunts for Ben Linus, Daniel Faraday and his group try to understand the unique properties of the island while Sayid, Desmond and Jack work to escape the island and get the survivors of Ocean Flight 815 home. With the usual technique of flashbacks now mixed with flashes forward, Lost - The Complete Fourth Season tells a powerful season-long story that leads to six people escaping the island!

After just over a hundred days on the mysterious island where they crashed, six people have made it back to the United States from the doomed flight 815 from Oceanic Airlines. The Oceanic Six, as they are known, have become celebrities and have worked to keep the people of the world ignorant of the existence of the island or any other survivors from the crashed flight. But as the survivors of flight 815 divide over the issue of whether or not to attempt to leave the island with the crew Naomi's presence insinuates, life on the island becomes increasingly complicated. As Locke leads most of the crash survivors deeper into hiding in fear that the freighter crew has come to kill the survivors, Jack, Kate and Juliet find themselves in the company of people from the freighter, including the scientist Daniel Faraday.

Faraday is a physicist and he almost immediately lets slip that the freighter did not come to the island to try to find survivors of Oceanic 815. Instead, he and his associates Miles and Charlotte reveal that Oceanic 815 was recovered from the bottom of the ocean, though several like chopper pilot Frank Lapidus suspect a conspiracy. With Jack working with Faraday to try to get off the island, Sayid and Desmond take a trip to the freighter and a commando named Keamy leads an operation to the island. Keamy's intent is clear: to find Ben Linus and as he cuts a swath of destruction across the island, his actions forever change the balance of power between those off the island who in a struggle for the powers the island represents!

In its fourth season, Lost progresses with two parallel tales, consisting of the known and the unknown. The known story is what was set up in the prior season's finale: from that we know that Jack and Kate both get off the island and season four is concerned on one level with how that happens and who else manages to get off the island with them. The unknown story is with John Locke, Ben Linus and Keamy, who essentially get into a war on the island. The story is strangely direct, despite the puzzle-piece way it is assembled, leading rather directly to the answers many have sought while still maintaining enough of a mystery to come back for a couple more seasons.

Lost is ideally presented on DVD as this is a heavily-serialized television show and the episodes in the fourth season blend from one to the next very naturally.

The truth is, though, that this season is not for newbies. By this point in the Lost story, you're either onboard or out of the loop. This DVD boxed set very clearly illustrates that the show has gotten to a point where it is so self-involved and self-referential that it is not even geared toward those who had not been watching before now. The plots are sufficiently complicated and the characters have developed so far that those who pick up just this DVD set will be lost. The story so far is so extensive that trying to hop in now is just pointless. That said, it is the character elements and the extensively detailed backstories that prevent it from being accessible to a new audience, not the plot elements or the narrative techniques. The fourth season of Lost does not take the time to educate new viewers to the extensive allusions detailed in the prior seasons and as a result, it is difficult for new viewers to pick this boxed set up and get caught up.

The characters in Lost continue to develop over the course of the season and more of the backstory for each of them is revealed. As well, stories from how the characters who escape the island - flashes forward - act and are treated are told as well. Unfortunately, given how massive the cast is by this point, not all of them have plum roles this season. Still, there is enough that is engaging to keep those who have been with it engaged. Here is how the fourth season finds the principle characters on (and off) the island:

Jack - One of the Oceanic Six, he has returned to civilization where his work is no longer satisfying him. Drunk, falling apart and failing to adapt to the return to civilization, Jack becomes convinced that he and the others must return to the island. On the island, Jack struggles to get the people he has kept safe off the island, leading half of them back to the beach when John challenges him. Also, his appendix begins to act up and he and Juliet get closer,

Kate - Leaving with Locke to be with Sawyer, Kate becomes curious as to the motivations of the people who have come to the island. She allows Miles to meet with Ben, which compels Locke to banish her from his camp. Abandoning Sawyer, she becomes one of the Oceanic Six with . . . of all people, Aaron, Claire's son,

Sawyer - Accepting that he has nothing he wants off the island, when Locke splits the survivors up, he happily joins, eagerly taking up a house in the camp the Others used to occupy. He acts as Locke's lieutenant and when Kate leaves, he is deeply hurt,

Hurley - One of the Oceanic Six, Hurley is suffering more than ever from his mental illness which causes him to see the dead, including Charlie. On the island, he reacts to Charlie's death and the message that the freighter is not from Penny by joining Locke and going into hiding. Locke uses him to try to find Jacob's cabin and this leads Hurley to a new sense of despair,

Sayid - One of the Oceanic Six, Sayid becomes involved with a sinister force off the island as a hitman following the death of the woman he loves. One of the first off the island, he trades Charlotte with Locke in order to get on the chopper. Flown out by Lupidus, he and Desmond struggle to secure the freighter and he encounters an unlikely person on the freighter,

Jin - Looking forward to being a father, he promises Sun he will get her off the island,

Sun - With her pregnancy threatening to kill her, she works to get off the island and her secrets are exposed by Juliet to Jin. Off the island, she becomes allied with an unlikely person for what appears to be a sinister reason, though she does have a bright spot as well,

Claire - Reacting to Charlie's death, she joins Locke's camp and eventually meets with the most unlikely person, leading her to abandon her son, Aaron,

Desmond - Eager to get off the island, he and Sayid fly out with Lupidus. Unfortunately for him, leaving the island triggers something as far as his temporal slipping and he is forced to find Daniel Faraday in his past. Struggling to maintain his life, he desperately tries to contact Penny off the freighter,

John Locke - Convinced that Charlie's message supports his theory that the crew of the freighter has come with a sinister purpose, Locke calls upon the survivors who want to live to fall back with him to the homes of the Others (who have abandoned that section of the island). Struggling to make sense of what is going on, he searches for Jacob's cabin and gets into a war with Keamy,

Juliet - Desperate to get Sun off the island, she exposes Sun's secret to Jin. She build's Jack's trust by removing his appendix and she strives to get off the island herself,

Daniel Faraday - A scientist from the freighter, he has a boyish enthusiasm for studying the effects of the island and the unique properties it possesses. His past and present soon collide, though, when it becomes clear that the temporal experiments he did back in college have been realized by some on the island, including Desmond,

Miles - Having lived as a ghost hunter for profit and treasure, he joins the "rescue team" to try to collect the bounty on Ben, but ends up as a pawn in the machinations between Ben and Keamy,

Charlotte - Ostensibly the leader of those who parachute onto the island and the brains behind keeping alive there, she is connected to the island,

Martin Keamy - A psychopathic commando who storms the island searching for Ben, he initiates a bloodbath that changes everything,

Michael - Aboard the freighter, under an assumed name, the only adult to escape the island earlier returns to the island to redeem himself for the murders he committed while there. With Walt safe on land, he has nothing to lose,

and Ben Linus - The leader of the Others (for the most part), captured by Locke, he quickly becomes the subject of the hunt from those on the freighter. On the island, he trades information for his freedom, saving the lives of some from Locke's camp, including Claire, only to end up in a situation where he loses what is most important to him. When that happens, he declares war on his greatest enemy and begins a hunt that spells future doom for at least one person on the island!

The new and returning characters make for an interesting new blend, with the return of Michael being well-explained and a real gift to the fans of the series. Daniel Faraday, who initially seems like a plot device to explain some of the mechanics of the island for those who did not get it from the film strips shown in prior seasons (or the whole purpose of the hatch), quickly becomes an interesting and viable character. He's hard not to like. And he interacts beautifully with Henry Ian Cusak. In fact, the episode "The Constant" in this season, which focuses on Desmond, Faraday and Penny is easily one of the best hours the series has produced.

The acting in the fourth season is more honed than new and the continued chemistry and conflict between Ben and Locke is masterfully handled by Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn. Perhaps the best new performances, though, come from Yunjin Kim and Matthew Fox. Fox set up his distraught performances for this season in the prior season's finale with Jack becoming increasingly messed up by leaving the island. In this season, Fox capitalizes on that and takes Jack in the flashes forward into new territory where Jack is completely unlikable. Fox makes the transition appear perfectly normal and rational, though, which is the real and impressive challenge.

But it is Yunjin Kim who deserves an award (and if she's not even nominated this year for her performances in "Ji Yeon" and the later episodes, then the nominators shall lose the last shreds of respect I once had for them) for acting in this season. Previously, she has had to act like she did not understand English and throughout the series, she has tended to present Sun as somewhat submissive. In this season, she recasts the character as completely strong and at times beautifully cold-blooded, performing with a strength and clarity that is eerie to see and amazingly executed.

On DVD, the series looks great and has incredible bonus features. In fact, this might well be the television DVD boxed set of the year, as far as DVD programming goes. With two discs packed with bonus features, Lost The Complete Fourth Season makes up for its shortened amount of source material with an impressive array of bonus bits. There are audio commentaries (I could always use more of those!) on several episodes and they are informative and entertaining, definitely adding value. While the set does not include the pop-up "Enhanced" feature that aired with the reruns of episodes from this season, there are a number of incredible features that make up for that. There are ten featurettes on everything from the guns to the freighter crew to the music of Lost. There is a blooper reel that is predictably funny and a bevy of deleted scenes that will make viewers wish they could be branched back into the episodes. Fans will be very pleased with all of these bonuses as they truly do reward us for our devotion with all sorts of goodies that cannot be found elsewhere.

This is the DVD of the season for fans of compelling, surreal drama, despite being impossible to recommend for those who are not already into the series. With this set, viewers get a whole lot of payoffs for the investment in the earlier seasons, though, while setting up a few final mysteries to keep us coming back for more!

For other works in the Lost universe, please check out my reviews of:
Lost Season 1
Lost Season 2
Bad Twin (A Lost Tie-In Novel)
Lost The Complete Series

8/10

For other television reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Miller's Forge Has A Real Pet Grooming Winner With Their Pet Nail Trimmer Set!

The Good: Durable, Comparatively inexpensive, Good medical protection for small animals, Easy-to-use.
The Bad: None that I can find!
The Basics: A perfect pet care product, the Miller’s Forge Pet Nail Trimmer (5”) is strong enough for professional use, but smart enough for personal pet care use!


Miller's Forge tends to get high marks from me for their pet grooming products. The reason for this is simple: more than any other brand, I have found that Miller's Forge creates tools intended for use on pets that are made with quality and durability in mind and the comfort and safety of animals are taken into account with the product design. Their products are tough enough to be used by professional animal-care workers and inexpensive enough to be appealing at the consumer level. They offer the perfect blend of value and efficiency, which tends to create perfect animal-care products. That is exactly where I come to the Miller's Forge Pet Nail Trimmer.

The Pet Nail Trimmer is a small tool kit from Miller's Forge that is designed with the idea that professionals might not be the only ones using it. As such, the kit comes with the nail clippers, a replacement blade and a vial of styptic powder. The latter is what insures that those inexperienced with pet maintenence do not inadvertantly kill their pet. I found that remarkably reassuring because I have very little experience with animals; my wife has taught me most of the pet care and maintenence tricks and warnings I know.

Rather important when it comes to pet nail trimming is not cutting too deeply. My wife and I have a dog, two cats, and a rabbit and with all three, there is a soft, fleshy part of the finger or toe beneath the curved nail that, if cut into will cause the animal to bleed profusely. It is like the difference between trimming the white "lip" edge of the nail and chopping off the end of one's finger. The difference with animals like dogs, cats and rabbits (and, I am told, birds) is that the nail is hollow and curves outward to end in a claw. By holding the nail up to light, one may easily see where the end of the nail is versus the actual digit of the animal. Avoiding cutting too deeply is essential when clipping the nails of an animal and with guillotine-style nail trimmers, a novice could easily miss the end of the nail and hurt their animal.

In my case, I came to the Miller's Forge Pet Nail Trimmer when I noticed that my youngest cat, Gollum, was walking around sticking to the rug. Virtually everytime he took a step, he would get caught on the carpet. While Brillo uses a scratching post for his forepaws, Gollum will have none of that and even with his claws retracted, he was catching on the carpet. Thus, I knew it was time to trim them. My wife had bought the Miller's Forge Pet Nail Trimmers months prior and I saw Gollum's nail problem as my chance to truly test them out.

The Miller's Forge Pet Nail Trimmers are a 5" long (3" wide at the base of the handles when they are not being squeezed) double-handled trimmer which operates on squeezing the two handles together. When one squeezes the handles, a single blade pushes upward and anything caught between the blade and the guard gets sliced off. The Pet Nail Trimmer is made of solid, stainless steel and it contains a spring which makes this very much like a pair of pruning sheers (for gardening). On the solid handle (the one that does not move) the top features a metal loop screwed in. This is where one places the tip of the dog, cat or rabbit’s nail. When the other handle, the spring-loaded one, is squeezed down, the carbon steel blade slices by pressing forward and slicing the nail between the flat metal loop and the blade. This clips the end of the animal’s nail and makes a flat cut surface that the natural movements of animals will cause to quickly dull. Thus, within a few steps of having the nails clipped, the animal will stop getting caught on rugs, screens, etc.

Outside pets fidgeting while using, the Miller’s Forge Pet Nail Trimmer is exceptionally easy to use. Ours have been in service for over six months and the blade has not dulled at all. That means with an average of once a month use on eighty nails each time, the blades hold up excellently for wear. When the blade does get dull, the Pet Nail Trimmer does come with a single replacement blade. Having used these in the brief time I was employed at a pet store last year, I can attest that even in industrial settings, one is likely to only have to change the blades about once a year. And with such use, the spring does not give out. The pair I used at work had been in service for two years, so this is certainly a durable product.

Replacing the blade is simple enough as the Miller’s Forge Pet Nail Trimmer comes with instructions, though one needs to have a screwdriver (not included) to open the trimmers up and replace the blade.

What makes the Pet Nail Trimmer ideal for personal home use, however, is the inclusion of styptic powder. While professionals might know how to properly trim animals’ nails and they ought to have adequate protections if they do trim too deep, private pet owners might well lack such experience. As such, the styptic powder becomes the best friend of a pet owner who accidentally trims the tip of the digit when they slice the nail. The styptic powder is essentially a clotting agent and it acts almost like salt on a wound to quickly block off the source of bleeding. They have styptic pencils for humans when shaving so they may quickly clot and this works on the same principle. If you trim too deeply (poor Rowe, our rabbit!) the styptic powder may be liberally doused on the wound and the powder hardens to basically cap off the nail and stop the bleeding. Yes, while trimming Rowe’s nails, I had need to use this because she flinched (it was my first time!). What makes Miller’s Forge’s styptic powder such a great asset is that it comes in a small vial and the easiest way to apply it is to simply stick the wounded digit into the top of the vial, flip it (with the animal’s digit inside) over and it applies exactly enough to stop the bleeding! And it works. Within fifteen seconds of the first sight of my rabbit’s blood, she was clotting. Untended, these type of wounds can be fatal because animals do not naturally clot at the tips of their digits, so this is literally a lifesaver. Including it with the Pet Nail Trimmers is a huge boon over all of the competitor’s products.

In summary, the Miller’s Forge Pet Nail Trimmers are easy to use, durable and comparatively inexpensive. For $10, one is likely to replace their animals several times over before they have to replace the Pet Nail Trimmers! A perfect pet care product worth the attention of anyone who has animals with claws and nails!

10/10

For other pet grooming products, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


| | |

The Funniest Movie Of The Summer Might Be The Other Guys. . . But It's Been An Unfunny Summer!

The Good: Moments of humor, Interesting concept, Likable characters, Generally decent acting.
The Bad: Predictable in points, Humor has moments of familiarity and doesn't always land
The Basics: Generally funny with a good mix of ridiculous humor and action moments, The Other Guys is a sure-hit from Adam McCay and Will Ferrell.


Summer comedies generally fare poorly for me. I'm not the world's biggest fan of comedy to begin with and summer comedies often seem to involve turning the brain off and going for the cheapest possible laugh. In fact, the only summer comedy in recent memory I truly recall loving was last year's ode to manhood The Hangover. With The Other Guys, I find myself arguing that sometimes we have to take the best we can get and The Other Guys is pretty much it for the summer. While I cannot honestly recall a cop parody I love – I recall thinking the style of humor in The Job is pretty much what killed the series – I suspect that many of the professional reviewers will be calling The Other Guys the best cop comedy since Beverly Hills Cop. They may be right when they use that blurb. Until then, I'll say that Will Ferrell's Gamble and Mark Wahlberg's Hoitz make for the best cop comedy duo since Alex Foley and . . . whatever Judge Reinhold's character's name was.

The Other Guys once again pairs actor Will Ferrell with writer-director Adam McKay, a man who seems ideal for getting the best out of Ferrell. McKay writes lines for Ferrell knowing just the style of delivery and paired with Chris Henchy, the film pops with a sense of humor that gets great laughs from characters outside the two lead stars. McKay is known for having great one-liners (“Milk was a bad choice” from Anchorman is one that is oft-quoted around my house) and in that regard, The Other Guys has several with them. Indeed, even those who have only seen the trailer to The Other Guys are likely to be using “I chalk that up to bad life choices” already. The Good Guys is fun and funny, but it is slow enough in parts to rob it of a particularly high rating and many of the jokes are surprisingly witty for McKay, not the type that goes for the outright guffaw.

Not at all the heroes of New York City, Detectives Hoitz and Gamble work in the shadow of the archetypal action-hero cops, Highsmith and Danson. Gamble is a police detective whose work is limited pretty much to accounting and Hoitz has been partnered with him as punishment for accidentally shooting Derek Jeter. After a botched attempt to imitate Highsmith and Danson, the other cops are put in their place, though Hoitz is still restless. Gamble, as it turns out, uses his accounting knowledge to stack up a multi-billion dollar charge against one of the most prominent developers in the business community in New York, based on his failure to file for any scaffolding permits.

When Highsmith and Danson meet an untimely end and with Hoitz's egging him on, Gamble and Hoitz move to take David Ershon into custody. But getting to him, holding onto him and getting a confession out of him all take dangerous and often funny turns that make it unlikely Hoitz will get the recognition he so desires, much less survive terribly long!

The Other Guys is funny and it doesn't try to be much more than that, though it does go for the action-adventure thrill at points. The most fun aspects of the action-adventure bits is that whenever they involve Gamble and Hoitz, the duo often reflect on the reality of their situations. Gamble, especially, is not street trained and his lack of real-world training has real consequences. He gets bruises, he doesn't back Hoitz up well and he is lost when it comes to dealing with some people. Moreover, the flashbacks to his past as an unwitting pimp are cute and add a layer to the movie that was not there in the concept, much like the squad's captain unwittingly quoting TLC lyrics.

As one might expect of a film from Adam McKay, who co-wrote and directed the movie, The Other Guys features quite a bit of generic humor that will likely appeal to guys more than the sensibilities of women. This is not to say the film is sexist, though when it is it seems to be calling out the masculine ideal by mocking what is expected of successful men more than actually demeaning women, but jokes involving the simple non-sequitor of Will Ferrell and Eva Mendez playing a married couple are broken up with enough body-part references to make those with a thin skin uncomfortable.

Even so, The Other Guys is likely to play very well with adults, not just because it makes references to cop shows and movies, but because the cast – outside of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – seems to be made up of generally more serious, adult actors like Michael Keaton (who plays the Captain of the squad), Samuel L. Jackson and Anne Heche. The level of talent is actually disproportionately high for what one might expect from an Adam McCay film, but they seem to adapt to all of the humor, which is not entirely lowbrow. This, of course, justifies people like Mark Wahlberg appearing in a role which is basically a parody of his other, serious, cop roles.

While the plot might be predictable (there is a formulaic quality to the plot points, especially in the conflicts between Hoitz and Gamble where they learn a very important lesson in partnership), the movie is still rather enjoyable. The characters are far more well-defined than one might expect from a comedy and Gamble's lack of ambition to be an action-style cop actually makes for an interesting character quirk and plot point.

As for the acting, it is surprisingly good. Michael Keaton makes good use of his few scenes, though his deliveries instantly remind one of his Bruce Wayne. Similarly, Samuel L. Jackson plays a character we feel like we have seen before, even though he is funny and credible as Highsmith and his tenure on screen is brief. Ferrell is good and I want to call his performance wonderful more because I cannot recall seeing him play a character who was goofy but so smart before. Gamble is fun to watch and more likable than Ron Burgandy (for example) and he has a real intelligence to him. Wisely, McCay establishes the smart in Gamble before the goofy.

The real star is Mark Wahlberg, though. In The Other Guys, Wahlberg is a great straightman to the verbally and physically ridiculous antics of Ferrell. Beyond just playing off Ferrell's jokes, Wahlberg has some of the greatest straightman deliveries and the physical comedy he does when playing off Steve Coogan's Ershon is funny as well.

Ultimately, The Other Guys will not win any awards (except maybe a Golden Globe nomination for comedy film, which it won't win – sorry guys!), but it is solidly entertaining, fun and seems funny enough that it might have the box office endurance of The Hangover. It's certainly the first McCay comedy I am actually eager to see again.

For other films featuring Mark Wahlberg, please check out my reviews of:
Date Night
The Departed
Three Kings

6/10

For more movie reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |