Back in the saddle again.  Not much was really missed here last week.  Only one movie opened nationwide, the Steve Carrel/Tina Fey comedy “Date Night”, which opened as number one…barely.  I expect this film to drop off the radar very quickly, as it has been described by most as “amusing, but nowhere close to hilarious”.

Only two new movies coming out this week, but one of them is getting a huge amount of positive buzz (yeah, we’ve heard that before, haven’t we?)

Mini Review – An Education

This was a very strange year for me, as it was the first year since I’ve been writing for TheClevelandFan that I had not seen all of the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar prior to the awards telecast.  A lot of that had to do with the fact that there were ten films nominated, so it was difficult to get out to see all of them.

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My apologies for having missed placing this column last week, as circumstances beyond my control found me out of town.  Frankly, I don’t think I could have picked a better week to miss, as this was an excruciating two hours, with the exception of a very interesting twist at the end.  So before we move on to this week’s episode, let’s touch base on what happened last week.

6 – 8 AM Summary

We really only had three main points to the entire two hours;  discovering the bomb/dealing with traitors, the Dana Situation, and the Trial of Hassan

Bombs Away! (or maybe not)

As opposed to the whole awful Dana plot line that is like a chainsaw carrying Energizer Rabbit Zombie, and keeps going and going and going, killing brain cells along the way…The RobWeasel/Gen. Turdisdumb Conspiracy Group had as much shelf life as a late innings relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.

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3D has become all of the rage nowadays, something else to curse James Cameron for.  Not that I have any problem with how Cameron used 3D technology in “Avatar”, as it was essential in bringing the never seen before world of Pandora to life.  No, the cursing comes due to inferior movies trying to use 3D just to jack up their revenue.  Exhibit #1 in that category would be “Clash of the Titans”.

The movie was not even supposed to be a 3D feature.  However, after the success of “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland”, the studio was blinded by the dollar signs in their future, so they took several weeks to convert the film over to 3D.  The results being that a film that is only marginally entertaining to begin with also now has the added notoriety of being the worst use of 3D I have ever seen.  The 3D effects add nothing at all to the film, and in fact the movie is worse off for it.  Many times during the movie, I slid the glasses off, and enjoyed it more as I could see better contrast and brightness on the screen, with very little blur.  I had been tempted earlier in simply attending the regular 2D version…and I should have listened to myself and done just that.

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I hope everyone will have a great Easter Weekend.  I’m on a mini-break myself, so it will be a slightly shorter Crystal Ball than usual.

No Mini-Review, as my DVD was too busy this past week catching up with the first ten episodes of “FlashForward”.  Some people on the boards have been raving about this show as a viable contender for the coolest “it” show since “Lost”, so given how awful “24” has become, I was willing to give it a chance.

And I must say that I was hooked.  Great actors and a great premise.  With only six or seven episodes of “Lost” remaining, I need something on broadcast TV to watch other than “Fringe”…and this looks like it might fill the bill.

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