AH depends too heavily on cute.
I wouldn't disagree with that. But I do think the showrunners on HIMYM have contributed to that. Seeing the first season episodes it was surprising to see how much more focus her character had. She's really been allowed to drift. I think they're just letting Lilly be Aly, which is a mistake.
I have seen her in a lot of things, and agree that she does have range that she doesn't use, but it has been a good while since I saw it in action.
I'd agree with that too. She needs somebody to push her because she won't challenge herself. Unlike SMG who has taken some wacky indie movie chances aside from her more commercial Scooby Doo fare.
It kind of comes down to my earlier assessment that it was ballsy of SMG to rise to the challenge of the musical and wussy of AH to beg off. Nick Brendon also got points for stepping up to the musical and nailing it, without any background in singing or dancing (and partnered with Emma, who clearly has a lot of experience there.)
However, one of Aly's virtues as an actor is that while her tendency is to cute it up, if pushed she will go to the dark, unlikeable parts of a character. Some actors (Marsters comes to mind) will never give up the "please love me" impulse in his acting.
"Selfosophy" episode, utterly skewering Scientology (and featuring David Duchovny in a few background poster cameos as a Cruise/Travolta).
"All right! My gun jammed!"
and
"Hey, don't try it! You'll never make it!"
"Not with that negative attitude I won't!" (jumps, misses, dies.)
edited to fix quotes
The episode also took a big swing at Deepak Chopra as well (the Selfosophy guru was named
somethingsomething
Gupta).
James Berardinelli has his Dark Knight review online, and it's four stars. He is not one to hand out four stars easily--since 2005, he's given only three other four-star reviews.
Didn't the Yuri Geller-esque phony psychic from "Clyde Buckman's Final Repose" also make a reappearance?
That Millenium ep had to be a Darin Morgan episode, right?
Man, there's someone I would have loved the Mutant Enemy folks to get a hold of after the X-Files were done. Though I did read he was really slow in writing his episodes.
So um, I liked Dark Knight. I didn't love it. I think I may need to see it again to work out exactly how much of a clusterfuck the plot is, and how much of that is deliberately done for effect. I definitely like it more this morning than I did last night - the good bits are sticking in my mind, and the ones I wish had been edited out aren't.
The performances are stellar. The production design continues to rock. The IMAX....WOW. I mean, WOW. This is one seriously good-looking movie. And it's BIG. Very, very big.
Spoilerish comments here. (Linking instead of whitefonting for added protection.)
