Mystery

Psych takes good-natured jab at Mentalist

  • Title: Psych
  • tv.com: link

For those unfamiliar, both Psych (USA) and The Mentalist (CBS) center around main characters with heightened skills of observation who solve crimes. The premise which Psych took and ran with to create an extremely silly, but nonetheless entertaining, show was tweaked by CBS who last season decided to create their own, less silly and more dramatic (though, to be fair, also entertaining), take on someone with this particular skill set.

And now Psych has tweaked back in this short commercial. Psych, along with Monk, returns with new episodes this Friday on USA.

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Psych – The Complete Third Season

  • Title: Psych – The Complete Third Season
  • tv.com: link

I’m a big fan of Psych. Equal parts silliness and mayhem (with more than its fair share of 80’s pop culture references), the tale of fake psychic Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and his best pal Burton Guster (Dule Hill) solving crimes, both large and small, is a darn good time.

The four-disc set includes all 16 episodes from Season Three. One of my favorites from this season, or, for that matter the entire series, is the high school reunion episode “Murder? … Anyone? … Anyone? … Bueller?” packed to the brim with John Hughes references. It, like the season’s final episode “An Evening with Mr. Yang” (another strong episode, which you can watch below), also guest-stars Rachael Leigh Cook as the girl from Shawn’s past who got away.

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The Brothers Bloom

  • Title: The Brothers Bloom
  • IMDB: link

the-brothers-bloom-posterI really wanted to like The Brothers Bloom, and for 90 minutes I did. The film delivers laughs, genuinely interesting characters, a quirkiness not unlike that of Wes Anderson, and a satisfactory conclusion. Then the film continues for another 25 minutes moving far from the lightness and joyfulness of its earlier moments into a much more average action flick packed with questionable character choices, plot issues, and a far less satisfying ending.

Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody star as brothers who begin the life of the con as children. Stephen (Ruffalo) is the brains behind the operation writing roles for his brother, the shy Bloom (Brody). Sadly, it is only through these roles where Bloom gets the confidence to interact with other people, and truly feel alive. Though appreciative of his brother, who wants the best for him, Bloom’s resentment finally gets the better of him.

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Castle – Flowers for Your Grave

  • Title: Castle – Flowers for Your Grave
  • IMDb: link

 

Nathan Fillion‘s new show premiered last night on ABC. In Castle Fillion stars as a mystery/crime novelist who gets called into help the police when a killer begins recreating some of the deaths from the writer’s book. Stana Katic (who you might remember as a cop from The Spirit) plays the detective saddled with fun-loving, and well-schooled, writer.

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I watched the Watchmen

  • Title: The Watchmen
  • IMDb: link

watchmen-poster

As a self-professed comic book nerd you can bet I’ve read Watchmen a few times and keep an Absolute Edition within easy reach. I will also admit I didn’t read the series when it hit shelves in the late eighties. It took a few years for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ work to find itself into my hands. Perhaps its because I first read the graphic novel as an adult that I can look at it through a different filter than something like Star Wars, Transformers, or Batman, and I can separate my appreciation for the subject without childhood wonder coloring my opinion.

Although it brings to life several moments of the comic in vivid detail, and includes a superb performance by Jackie Earl Haley as Rorshach, it also condenses, mangles, and distorts the tale into a movie that only slightly resembles the comic. And for a movie which is style over substance it adds very little in terms of look or technology. The most memorable shots are either taken directly from the page or borrowed from better films (such as a war room eerily similar to that of Dr. Strangelove) you would rather be watching.

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