And you think your parents are nuts!

Movie Review: Meet the Parents (2000)

Watched this comedy gem again and it still holds up. Stiller plays his usual hapless nice guy but this time he's stuck with the unfortunate name of Gaylord Focker. His fiance's father, played magnificently by Robert Deniro, is a former CIA man who likes to keep everyone on a very tight leash. Focker can't help but put his foot in his mouth and cause accidents wherever he goes. You feel sorry for the poor schmuch despite the fact that it is often his own stupid decisions that cause the havoc. Owen Wilson is hilarious in his too short appearance as the perfect ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately all of the actresses have basically throw away roles. They are even upstaged by Jinx the cat. 9/10

Movie Review: Meet the Fockers (2004)

I was far less impressed with the sequel. This time everyone gets to meet the Focker family and they have to been crazier than Deniro and company of course. The Fockers are played by Dustin Hoffman, a stay at home dad, and Barbra Streisand as a sex therapist. These 2 are quite good and it's revealed in one of the DVD's extras that they have been good friends in real life since before their careers took off. The jokes in this movie are just too obvious and in the end aren't really funny. They are forced to throw in a wacky uber-Southern cop to try and wring some laughs out of this. Wilson is also thrown into the mix at the end for no good reason and even he isn't funny. While this movie isn't Highlander 2 bad, its worth avoiding. 6/10

TV Review: Desperate Housewives Season 1 (2004)

Yukiko and I have been watching this on NHK 2's 海外ドラマseries. The first season was very good, a clever mix of comedy and mystery. It's also nice to see the women taking the strongest roles in a series. Most of the series' plots have been cleared up by the finale though so I wonder where the show will go in season 2. A new family that's obviously hiding something has just moved into the neighbourhood but is this enough to sustain another 24 episodes?

Book Review: Bad Twin - Gary Troup

This is the book written by a fictional character from the TV series 'Lost'. The author, Gary Troup, is supposed to be a passenger on the doomed flight from Australia. His manuscript for the novel 'Bad Twin' is found by some of the other characters and they are seen reading it in the show. The story itself is just your standard detective story. The detective is hired to find a missing twin that by all accounts is bad. His quest takes him to Key West, Cuba and Australia before he learns the truth. The links to the story in 'Lost' are pretty thin. The twins are members of the Widmore family. They work in the same building as the Hanso Foundation. That's about it. Although I don't see even that means anything because the story, even in the world of 'Lost' is only fictional. The most interesting tidbit I found was that Troup dedicated the novel to a stewardess for Oceanic Airlines called Cindy that he fell in love with. This is the same stewardess that is seen in the pilot of 'Lost' giving Jack his bottles of booze and chasing Charlie down the length of the plane. She may also have been one of the survivors from the tail section that was later abducted, but I'd have to watch it again to be sure. All in all, unless you're a big fan of 'Lost' I'd give this book a pass.