CliqueClack

Person of Interest focuses on the human with an awesome premiere

I wasn’t certain if Person of Interest would re-capture last year’s magic. I loved Reese and Carter’s intimacy, Finch and Reese’s bromance, as well as the Fusco and Reese’s Abbott and Costello friendship. Unfortunately, the awesome season finale stepped away from the human warmth that drew me by overtly focusing on the Machine’s concept and less on the characters, replicating mechanical coldness.

When the show returned Thursday night, I practically orgasmed it was so good. Everything I liked STAYED while everything I didn’t LEFT the building! It was amazing. The show humanized itself by focusing on friendship and Reese’s search for Finch. What helped humanize the premiere included the return of the Carter and Reese friendship (YES!), Reese admitting his need for friends, Amy Acker’s amazing evil and the show revising its procedural formula.

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The cast of 666 Park Avenue introduces the creepy new show

Back in July, the cast sat down for interviews while attending San Diego Comic-Con. Here are a few of their thoughts on the show, its premise and about their characters.

666 Park Avenue revolves around The Drake, a high-end apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side owned by Gavin Doran (Terry O’Quinn) and his wife Olivia (Vanessa Williams). Life at The Drake costs more than money; it can cost the resident everything, as the bloody opening scene of the pilot graphically demonstrates.

Williams compares the couple to the Madoffs, “Everyone wanted to be [the Madoffs] and were fascinated by their money … That’s the type of power couple Olivia and Gavin represent in New York. They live in a landmark building, which everyone aspires to live in.”

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Joan Fontaine is a real maneater in Born To Be Bad

Meet Christabel Caine (Joan Fontaine). She seems harmless enough as she comes to stay with Donna while she attends a business school. Christabel will be taking over Donna’s job with a publisher (Christabel’s uncle) after Donna (Joan Leslie) marries the filthy rich Curtis Carey (Zachary Scott) – he doesn’t flaunt his wealth, rather everyone else flaunts it for him. Donna’s artist friend Gabriel (Mel Ferrer), or Gobby as everyone calls him, takes an interest in Christabel and offers to paint her portrait, hoping to make a few bucks by selling the portrait to her family. Christabel also meets Donna’s friend, the writer Nick Bradley (Robert Ryan), a world traveler with a new novel about to be published.

Christabel is immediately taken with the lives of the elite, and begins an affair with Nick. But money is more her thing, so she sets her sights on Curtis, setting him up to question his relationship with Donna, then driving the wedge between them, driving her away, and marrying him in the process. Except she’s still not quite done with Nick, and this being part of the Warner Archive Collection Film Noir series, things will not end happily for everyone.

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TV comes to DVD with HIMYM, Downton Abbey, Nikita and more

More of last season’s shows that have already premiered or will be premiering soon are heading to home video on October 2, including the previous seasons of How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, Nikita, and 90210. For the kids (of all ages), animation is well-represented with titles featuring the Transformers, Thundercats, Tom & Jerry, and Dora. Classic TV buff have a nice selection to choose from with The Six Million Dollar Man, Bonanza, and It Takes a Thief. Plus, anyone who remembers the bizarre (and short-lived) sitcom from the 1976 television season, Big John, Little John, will be thrilled that all 13 episodes will be on DVD as well. Have a look at our handy guide to see if any of your favorites are coming this week, and click on the appropriate link to make a purchase or to get more information.

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Dark Shadows, Cinderella, and The Princess Bride cast a spell on DVD

New DVD and Blu-ray releases for October 2 include Tim Burton’s incredibly divisive take on the TV cult classic Dark Shadows (it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be), a 25th anniversary edition of The Princess Bride, a very cool Blu-ray upgrade for the Universal Monsters collection including The Creature from the Black Lagoon in all of its 3D glory, and from the Disney vaults for a limited time, the classic animated feature Cinderella, beautifully restored for Blu-ray. And if last week’s James Bond collection was a little too rich for your blood (or if you had the previous collections), the folks at MGM have graciously begun releasing the films individually. All of these titles and more are now available for pre-order, so have a look at our handy guide and click on the appropriate link to make a purchase or to get more information.

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CliqueClack Hungry Trolls podcast – Episode 4

Friend, contributor and comedian Jay Black is switching things up a bit with the new site and is bringing his Hungry Trolls podcast here, to a new home on CliqueClack. Jay joins friend and comedian Vinnie Nardiello in what he tells me will be a twice-a-week deal!

Make sure you tune in and make your friends tune in as well, and comment and rate us on our iTunes page! We’re also on Stitcher!

Please keep the comments coming and let us know what you think. Got suggestions? Questions? We’d love to hear ‘em! Make sure you get everyone you know to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (and rate us, please!) or via some other feed — we feed Jay’s ego a careful diet of traffic numbers and subscriber count, so let’s not let that sucker die of starvation. You can also check-in via GetGlue!

Thanks for listening!

Frozen Heat proves Castle and Beckett can work as a couple

I’ve enjoyed reading the Nikki Heat novels, especially the September-released novel, Frozen Heat. The biggest question on my mind all summer long surrounded what would happen if Castle and Beckett ever got together? Could they maintain the friendship, the humor and the mystery? According to the novels and the season premiere, yes.

The Heat novels are essentially Castle, but without the superficial crime or Rick Castle’s man-child humor. Each novel reflects the show’s darker tone while incorporating the existing characters. The streetwise, brilliantly ambitious Nikki Heat is clearly Beckett. Detective Ochoa and Detective Raley, AKA the combined Detective “Roach”, are Esposito and Ryan. The former of whom dates the department’s coroner. Jameson Rook is Castle, except he’s less of a man-boy who Beckett introduces to street crime. As an award-winning investigative reporter who delved into multiple gritty crimes, he utterly respects Beckett as a cop, lets her solve crimes, but also supports her on the side.

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Pitch Perfect doesn’t miss a single note

I am generally not one who tends toward hyperbole. Usually I can be trusted not to say things like “The Avengers is the greatest comic book movie of all time,” or “Brad Pitt is a lock for an Oscar for Moneyball.” Obviously, I’m just not that guy – except for all the times when I am. Hopefully, I haven’t burned you from believing my next one: Pitch Perfect is the funniest movie I can remember seeing in a long, long time.

A couple of years ago, Bridesmaids set the world on fire. It was supposed to be the film that heralded in the age where audiences recognized that women could be funny. Personally, I didn’t buy it, nor did I think the film was that funny – sorry, boys and girls, but a grown woman defecating in a sink isn’t really my cup of tea. Furthermore, I knew women were funny long before that, and if I didn’t, I saw just how phenomenal Tina Fey’s writing was in Mean Girls.

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Music teaches viewers how to watch HBO’s Treme

The season three premiere of Treme on HBO, entitled “Knock with Me – Rock with Me,” got me to thinking about how even though the show’s structure seems to be very loose, its music gives us a way into its world. New Orleans jazz and blues — rather than plot — drives the show, and that may be off-putting for some viewers. I am attracted to shows that experiment with structure, but of course, that’s not for everyone, and that’s cool. But if you have not watched Treme or tried and couldn’t get into it, consider giving it another shot — and let its music be your guide into the world of post-Katrina New Orleans.

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Looper threw me for a loop; there’s no other way to say it

I was psyched to see Looper, the new time travel film starring Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and a version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt that’s supposed to look like Bruce Willis. Yes, it’s sci-fi, which is not my genre of choice, but it seemed like accessible sci-fi; basically an action movie with some other-worldly elements thrown in. The year is 2044. As Joe (Gordon-Levitt) explains, time travel hasn’t been invented yet — but it will be thirty years from now. Like many things that are awesome, it’s highly illegal, though, so it’s only used by the top-tier criminal organizations. Joe works as a Looper, and his  job in 2044 is to wait in a Kansas field and shoot people that the crime family wants to be rid of. He then disposes of the future body in the past, thus creating the perfect crime.

For Joe, the problem arises when a new boss, called “The Rainmaker,” comes onto the scene in the future and decides to “close the Loops,” meaning he sends the future version of the Loopers back for their younger versions to kill. Once this is done, the Loopers receive a large payoff and embark on the last thirty years of their lives. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Unfortunately, sometimes the future Loopers make themselves known to their younger versions, creating a situation in which they are both existing in the same time. This is what happens with Joe, as Old Joe (Willis) comes back to desperately try to change the future.

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