Dennis Hopper Is Now Running The Picket Fence In The Sky

Talented. Funny. Insane. Dennis Hopper

My first memory of seeing Dennis Hopper is as the alcoholic basketball savant Shooter in “Hoosiers”. I’ve since seen all of his acclaimed roles and Shooter remains my favorite. It’s mostly because of “Hoosiers” having such an effect on me as a kid. However, when I think about the life of Dennis Hopper, is there a role that more symbolized his actual life?

Everyone knew that Hopper was dying slowly and this day would eventually come. Let’s hope that he is remember for being one of the best character actors of the last fifty years and as a man that strove to recover from years of alcohol and drug abuse. You’ll be missed Dennis!

The Star Clock Is Ticking On Jason Sudeikis

Everyone knows about Kristen Wiig. She’s pretty firmly established in the comedic world and will have work for years to come. Bill Hader has crushed some memorable parts in “Superbad”, “Adventureland”, and “Pineapple Express” and is pretty much one part away from comedic leading man status. Now…let’s talk about my favorite of the SNL crew right now, Jason Sudeikis.

There are several factors why I think Sudeikis rules, but the biggest one? He seems to be a big fan of the shirt and tie with sneakers combo. He also rolls his sleeves up while doing this and that is the key to this look. I’ve been running with it for several years and it seems to work.

So enough about my burgeoning man-crush on the guy, let’s talk about this movie that he just signed on to. It’s called “Horrible Bosses”, which is a horrible title. However, it does not sound like a horrible movie. It already has a massive cast with Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, and…Charlie Day. The movie is about three guys, who will be played by Sudeikis, Bateman, and Charlie, who agree to murder each others’ respective bosses. They get help from Foxx, who is playing a scam artist named…wait for it…Cocksucker Jones. Not making this up. Right now, two of the bosses are Aniston and Farrell, who I think will both excel at playing villains.

So what are the chances that this is the breakout movie for both Sudeikis and Day? I’m thinking that’s a big yes. First of all, how Charlie Day isn’t a massive star by now is beyond me. The guy is unbelievably funny. I mean…he just freaking sounds funny. Meanwhile, you’ve got Sudeikis, who does smart-ass funny in a big way and is a good looking guy. These two are gonna be big time soon right?

“Bloodbuzz Ohio” Has Flown Into The List Of Songs That I Like So Much That They Are On My Favorite Song List

After several weeks in which I’ve listened to The National’s latest album, “High Violet”, at least once a day, I’ve now decided that “Bloodbuzz Ohio” is in my Top Five Favorite Songs Ever. Yes, this is true even though this album debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts, which usually disqualifies me from liking a band. You can’t be an indie music snob and like popular music now can you?

Here’s the updated list, which I cannot be held to due to constant fluctuations. It’s like the Dow Jones.

5. “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, The National

4.”Oliver’s Army”, Elvis Costello & The Attractions

3. “God Only Knows”, The Beach Boys

2. “Rearviewmirror”, Pearl Jam

1. “Why Do They Leave?”, Ryan Adams

Yes, I realize this list is insane. Oh, here’s the video for “Bloodbuzz Ohio”.

Wish I Knew How To Quit You…

I wish I could let it go.

This may be my favorite Lost moment ever.

This ending made me so unbelievably...hopeful.

When Orlando Bloom News Happens, Rest Assured, You’ll Find Me Commenting On His Hair Here

Get in more movies dude.

Here is the current Cinematically Correct Man Crush Top Five:

5. Chase Utley: Will always be permanent fixture here.

4. Orlando Bloom: His hair keeps him on the list.

3. Mike Richards: His shorthanded goal last night alone puts him on the list with a bullet.

2. Robert Downey Jr.: Keep in mind, he pisses excellence.

1. Ryan Adams: It would take quite a bit to remove him from the top spot.

Sure, there are some news items to report about a few of the guys on my list here, most notably, Ryan’s upcoming release of his first metal album titled “Orion”. I could go on and on about that, no doubt boring several of you. Instead, let’s go a different route and bore you with Orlando Bloom talk instead.

Bloom has signed onto the latest rehashing of “Three Musketeers”. Which one is he playing you ask? Well slow your roll pal, Orlando Bloom is going to play the main villain in the flick. Let me just guarantee you this right now: He will knock this role out of the mutherf’ing park. The character is described as “so cool that you can chop him into cubes and serve with vodka”. To me, that sounds like a smooth-talking, slick, disgustingly obnoxious evil guy and I think this is the perfect part for him. He was just weaselly enough in “Troy”, but here, I’m betting he goes all out on the scumbagginess.

But for now, let’s just admire his hair.

The Un-Recap Recap Of The Finale Of “Lost”

There are tons of step-by-step, moment to moment stories out there about last night’s “Lost” series finale, lazily titled “The End”. Thankfully, the title was the only lazy thing about the two-and-a-half hour “Lost” marathon. Since I watched it via DVR and zipped through those oh-so-expensive commercials, I barely had enough time to catch my breath or wipe my tears.

This will not be a critical post. There won’t be any “what about the statue” stuff here. You are about to read from a guy that was 100% completely satisfied with what went down last night. While some more answers may have been nice, the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on with these characters was handled with such care, precision, and, ultimately, perfection that I don’t even care about anything else.

Let’s address the big elephant in the room…were this season’s sideflashes/New Past/alternate timeline scenes a look into Purgatory, as many are saying? I’m going with yes, but I don’t feel like it was a cop out. I love the idea that everything that happened on the Island, really happened. Sadly, some people died sooner than others, but everyone eventually dies. Sure, Sawyer may live until he’s 100, but he still gets to go to wherever they all were and share that moment with Juliet…

…which is really what I want to write about the most. Sadly, there’s really nothing I can think of that can really express how uplifting I felt watching that happen. It was one of the most touching and beautiful moments I’ve seen committed to film. I’m certain that I could watch that scene in 40 years and still sob like I did last night.

Sobbing was the the recurring theme in this household. It really all started the second Sun said, “It’s a girl” to Juliet. It continued as Hurley stared at Charlie, smiling from ear to ear, just happy to see his friend again. It was fantastic to see Sayid get to to be the Sayid we had known for all these years as he was reunited with Shannon, thanks to Hurley and Boone.

However, there were some key moments that really pulled on my heartstrings. It was actually tough to watch Kate help deliver Claire’s baby again, but the payoff was well worth it. If that wasn’t enough of an emotional punch, Charlie and Claire’s shared moment was an emotional sledgehammer. Even the toughest of people had to have a leaky eye after seeing that.

It was also tough to watch what was happening on the Island, while Jack and Locke were getting along so great otherwise. It was so refreshing to see them be friendly. Then, in one scene, all the tension, all the faith versus science, everything that pitted these two characters against each other for so long, came back in mere moments. It really is a testament to how fantastic Terry O’Quinn and Matthew Fox are at being these character. It was just another powerful scene in an episode filled with them.

While Jack and Kate’s reunion was touching, it paled in comparison to Ben Linus’ apology to John Locke. It truly would be preposterous to believe that Ben could go from a calculating, devious, evil man to the humble person you saw last night if not for the genius of Michael Emerson. His performance made the redemption of Ben Linus seem completely plausible, even though in reality, it isn’t.

The end of ‘The End”? I’m saving it for last.

How did the flashes become better than the Island? Well, last night, they truly did. Does that mean I think the Island action sucked? Not even close. It was easily the most action filled episode of the season and, while left plenty in question, I’m okay with how it ended up.

I’ll just get to my favorite moment. Listening to Jack stick up for John Locke was brilliant. Not only does it show that Jack has truly become a hero and a leader. Leaders know when they were wrong and when they were right. He finally admitted in full that John was right about the Island and hearing him say that Smokey disgraced John Locke’s image was music to my Locke-loving ears.

This was really an epic tour de force piece of acting from Matthew Fox. Tell me the image of Jack confronting Locke on the cliffs in the rain won’t stay with you for quite some time? Could he have looked any cooler than he did while jumping at Flocke right before the cut to commercial? Freaking amazing. It honestly took my breath away…and I don’t care how gay that potentially makes me sound. It was awesome.

It was also fairly cool for Kate to get to put the finishing touches on Flocke. I’ve always been on the fence with Kate, but she kind of won me over this season. I sadly don’t have much more to say about her because she really doesn’t have much going on.

Instead of going over what happened after Flocke’s death, how about what happens next? Well, Jack definitely became the Savior as he died so that Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Claire, Lapidus (yay!), and the suddenly-aging Richard Alpert could leave the Island. I’ve always envisioned that either Jack or Sawyer would give their life to save everyone else and I thought it was a fantastic heroes death for Jack.

However, my MVP of “The End” goes to Jorge Garcia’s Hurley. Who would have thought that after all this time, Hurley could quite possibly be the best and most beloved character from “Lost”? It seemed fitting that Hurley would be the next person to take care of the Island because he is the only character that time after time made every decision based on how it would effect others. He also got to have a very sweet moment with Ben regarding what Ben’s role would be in a Hurley-led Island.

So what happened on the Island? What did Desmond do to make that tiny pond dry up and turn as red as I presume Hell to be? You keep wondering about the what’s or why’s, I’m not interested. I’m willing to accept that Lapidus flew that plane off the Island and those people went about living their lives. I’m completely okay with Hurley and Ben staying on the Island, along with Rose and Bernard, to protect it in their own way. I’m also willing to believe that Hurley and Ben helped Desmond get off the Island and back to Penny and Charlie.

What am I saying? I loved it. I ate every second of it up with a spoon. I don’t need any answers to questions because I am so happy with how every single character ended up that every thing else is a distant second.

Of course, the biggest moment came when Jack was finally able to speak to his father, Christian. It’s been a long time coming and it was a great, great scene. In true “Lost” fashion, Christian explained what everything was in a way that didn’t completely spell it out for you. They all knew there were dead and were about to go into the light together, but they didn’t want to do it until they were all together. For me, the light is going to be Heaven. It can be whatever you want it to be. All that matters is that in the end, we got to see everyone together and happy.

After all this, I’m still fairly speechless and I don’t know if any of this made sense at all. It’s hard for me to really explain how I feel. As insane as it is, “Lost” has been a huge part of my life for six years. For God’s sake, I’ve had dreams that I was on the Island. It was time to say goodbye and, like Jack, I’m ready to let go.

I’m still going to miss Jack, Kate, John, Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sun, Juliet, Michael, Walt, Boone, Shannon, Claire, Charlie, Ana Lucia, Libby, Ben, Frank, Miles, Mr. Eko, Desmond, Daniel, Charlotte, Widmore, Rose, Bernard, Rousseau, Richard, Tom, Ilana, Jacob, Smokey, Vincent, Penny, Eloise, hell, maybe even Nikki and Paulo. I’ll miss them so much that I really don’t know how to stop writing about them this very second.

Okay. I’m going to let go and say goodbye to “Lost” and a big thank you to everyone who read what I thought about the show. I hope you loved watching this show as much as I did.

My Initial Brief Reaction To The “Lost” Series Finale

Epic.

It was as fantastic as I could have hoped and probably sprinted past my expectation level. The only thing that upsets me is last night only proved how much I’m going to miss every single one of those characters.

Sure, there are haters out there that think the ending was a cop-out. There are people that are pissed there wasn’t a concrete explanation to everything. Sure, more answers about the Island would have been great but then I think you’re missing the point.

I’ll have much more to say a bit later today, but for now, let me tell you that if you want to read something critical about “The End”, it’s not going to be here. My thoughts are going to be as glowing as the light that ended the series.

The Redemption Theme Is Very Existent As “Lost” Redeems Last Week With “What They Died For”

Unfortunately, since I am waking up in five short hours to catch a very early flight to the island (that I’m visiting for vacation), I can’t really get into a bunch of detail about tonight’s “Lost”. Fortunately, there really isn’t much left to the imagination. “Lost” has spelled it all out and we know what the final two and a half hours are going to be about: Jack versus Flocke.

Let me first say that I’ve pulled back on my hatred of last week’s episode. In hindsight, it wasn’t all that bad. Now, was it totally misplaced? Absolutely. It was a big pull on the emergency brake of a story that was rolling. It needed to be shown much earlier this season so that the momentum the show had built, especially after the death of Sayid, Jin, and Sun, wasn’t stopped…which it kind of was.

It turns out, the New Past has turned into a very interesting storyline huh? I like how it’s really brought everyone around and I really dug the fact that Hurley is now helping Desmond in doing it. Now, how they are going to tie it all into what’s happening on the Island, I have no idea. It’s worked out so well that I trust it’s going to make sense and be fun to watch.

Now, if anybody saw Ben putting the movies on Danielle in the New Past, I’d like to have you tested by Dr. Peter Venkman for ESP. That New Past storyline alone has me hoping that somehow, someway, we’ve already been watching what happens to the Losties. Here’s hoping that Desmond is making so that everything we’ve seen in the New Past is what the Losties lives become. I’m certain that if it works out that way, it will be done in a way as to not cheapen everything we’ve seen in the past six years.

The bad news is that we said goodbye to Richard Alpert, who was unceremoniously murdered by Smokey. I was hoping that Alpert could make it to the finale, but I suppose his story has been told and we really need to make way for our original Losties. We did say bye to Widmore and Zoe, but that wasn’t nearly as upsetting.

There wasn’t much suspense surrounding who would take Jacob’s place. It’s been apparent since day one that Jack was going to be the hero and I’m glad that it’s turned out that way. I’m hoping to see Jack get some closure over the feelings about his father.

There is a bit more that I go into, but I need to hit the sack. I mean, what’s up with Ben helping Flocke? What is Desmond going to do that can destroy the Island? What’s up with the cut on Jack’s neck? Is Jack going to fix Locke? For a show with only 150 minutes of TV time left, we sure have a lot of unanswered questions.

Everything happens for a reason. I’m going to an island the same week we all have to say goodbye to the Island. It wasn’t even done on purpose...probably just happened for a reason.

Just Three Hours Until Showtime & It Hits Me: “Lost” Is Really Ending

Maybe it’s denial? Maybe it was last week’s brutal episode? I really can’t pinpoint how it didn’t really sink in until this afternoon…but “Lost” is really going to be over soon.

Since I’ve given up on there being a concrete reason for the Island to exist and how it works (I’ve accepted the “it just is” reasoning), I’m really only concerned with what’s going to happen to the Losties at this point. It’s funny, but I’ve always like the lives and the stories behind all the characters more than any of the sci-fi-ish elements of the show until last week when it put me through the roof. Seriously, I had trouble sleeping last Tuesday, that’s how f****** pissed off I was.

Okay, I’m over all that now. What’s the deal with Desmond? What’s he got that has Flocke so spooked? Who truly is Jacob’s replacement, if there even is one? How are they going to tie the New Past with reality? Will Sawyer be reunited with Juliet somehow (oh please oh please oh please oh please)? Will Jack save everyone? Will Locke somehow get the last laugh and show that he isn’t pathetic? Will Vincent be reunited with Walt? Will Claire ever rediscover the beauty of shampoo and conditioner? These are the important questions and dammit, we need answers.

So it’s going to go down like this, my faithful tens of Cinematically Correct readers. Tomorrow, I am going to the Island. Well…not the Island but an undisclosed island in the United States of America. I would say where, but I can’t be bothered by my many fans. So, depending on how stoked/pissed I am tonight, there may or may not be an immediate post about the show. Chances are, I’ll haphazardly throw something up regardless.

The real issue is this: I will be airborne during the finale on Sunday night. Needless to say, I am heavily depending on my DVR to operate correctly and when you depend on Time Warner Cable, you are potentially fighting a losing battle. So fingers crossed, when my flight lands around 8:30 Sunday night, I will get home, press play, and all will be right with the world.

Why am I giving you my itinerary? Honestly…I’m just killing time. I mean, everyone knows how hard it is to actually make yourself work in those final hours at work before vacation.

How 2010 Became The Year The Austin City Limits Festival Completely Sold Its Soul

When you go to an all-weekend music festival, you should know going in to expect lots and lots of indie bands with most of the headlining acts being some big name artists that still seem hip or cool. For example, the last time I attended ACL, Tom Petty was the final act. Sure, Petty’s sold millions of records and is a huge star, but he still maintains a hipster image of cool. So, in my snobby/douchey hipster mind, he remains cool.

Well, the 2010 ACL lineup was just announced and the headliners are some of the worst I’ve seen. Let’s look at them shall we?

• The Eagles: If The Dude hates the Eagles, I hate the Eagles. Oh, just kidding. I dig The Eagles. Now, do I think that they should be headlining ACL? Not a chance. They are going to be so out of place, especially after following the next band on Sunday night…
• The Flaming Lips: Search for this band on this blog and that should explain how I feel about them. They are greatness. They are rock heroes. They will make The Eagles look 500 years old after they finish their set.
• Muse: Vomit.
• Norah Jones: Won’t there be enough weed at Zilker Park to put people to sleep? The last thing we need is Jones to come out and knock everyone out.
• The Strokes: Okay, now we’re talking. They haven’t really played together in years and it will be interesting to see if I like them as much as I did six or seven years ago.
• Phish: Dear Lord. My only hope is that all the dirty, disgusting burnout dopes that still think this band is actually good clear out of Austin after they are done on Friday night. This band is so musically irrelevant…I…I…I really can’t think of anything truly cruel enough to say about how much I despise this band.

Now, there are several bands that make my indie snob pants go crazy. Here are the bands that you should be wanting to see because they are playing really great music that you’ll not be wanting to be missing.

Friday!

• Spoon
• Vampire Weekend
• Broken Bells
• Beach House
• Girls

Saturday!

• LCD Soundsystem
• Monsters Of Folk
• Matt & Kim
• The xx
• The Temper Trap
• Local Natives
• Bear In Heaven

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

• The Flaming Lips
• Band Of Horses
• The National
• Yeasayer
• Midlake
• The Morning Benders

I am a fan of all these bands and can personally vouch for their awesomenicity.