'House, M.D.' Pilot

I was browsing through Netflix to find a new TV series to watch.  When I saw House, M.D. it was an easy choice to pick, when I noticed it nearly has a 5/5 Star rating on Netflix.  I also saw a few episodes of this show when it used to be on TV, and I remember it being one of the most popular shows to watch during its run.  All I remembered from this show is that "House" is the main character and he walks with a cane, so I wanted to see why this show was so popular.
House, M.D. stars Hugh Laurie as House. Working along side House is Dr. James Wilson [Robert Sean Leonard], Dr. Eric Foreman [Omar Epps], Dr. Robert Chase [Jesse Spencer], and Dr. Allsion Cameron [Jennifer Morrison]

This pilot starts out with guest-actor/patient [Robin Tunney] playing a kindergarden teacher. She is talking to her students when she starts to mumble and can't make out any words. During this part the music slowly increased, got louder and the beat would get faster.  The camera shots were extreme close ups of her eyes and mouth. Then all we hear is her gasping for air and her heart beat.  With all of these things working together I could feel how distraught the teacher was and how serious her condition is.
There were not many establishing shots; when there where they were of this red brick establishment, which is supposed to be the hospital they work in.  The doctors and patients shot inside the hospital all have a warm color look on them.  It seems like there is an orange light on the actors, it does do a good job of separating the actors from the background. Since the background is mostly windows with sun light coming in, I would almost expect a cooler color than a warm one on the actors, it was a bit distracting visually.
The character House isn't as nice as I would expect him to be.
 With doctors you usually think of them as caring for the paients and building some sort of trust and connection; with House he is a bit of a rebel.  He cares about helping his patients but it seems like he cares more about solving what is wrong with them over anything else.  He doesn't really interact with the patient played by Robin Tunney, until after he figures out what is wrong with her.
This show does a good job of grabbing and keeping my attention. House, M.D. has become one of my new favorite shows.  I would recommend this series to anyone who likes drama, mild comedy, and doctors.  I give the pilot a 8.5/10 and I would recommend this show to my friends. I plan on continuing to watch this series!

Safe House

For some people, movies where Denzel Washington plays a modern day gangster are getting old. For others, watching Denzel out-smart and out-gun everyone else in a fast past action thriller never gets old.  I'm definitely part of the Denzel fan club. I thought in the movie "Safe House", Washington made up for what was another terrible performance by Ryan Reynolds to take what was a cool plot, and it make it into a decent movie.

What makes "Safe House" a good movie is also about, what I thought was, a great script. Although we have seen Washington in this role many times before, this time, the multiple twists and turns that this movie takes make it good. When the movie begins, Washington's character is a rogue agent that is wanted by the CIA. for many different crimes he has committed. As the plot unfolds we soon learn that Tobin Frost (Washington) is actually running from what is one of the biggest cases of corruption in CIA history.

Of course there is a fair share of Denzel shooting his way out of sticky situations and also out-smarting everyone that he comes across. However I thought the best part of the movie was the major plot twist at the end that has the head of the CIA's mission to capture Frost, actually being the corrupt individual all along. Despite acting like a good citizen the entire movie, David Barlow ends up being the reason why Frost went rogue in the first place. All of this is well over Ryan Reynolds' characters head, and he doesn't know what he has gotten himself into, until everything is finally revealed at the end of the film. Since we see the movie from Reynolds' prospective,  the audience is kept in the dark the entire time as well. The ending really ended up being one of the better endings I've seen in this types of action-mystery movies recently.

Despite getting Denzel Washington's typical performance, I don't really understand why Ryan Reynolds continues to try to break into the action movie category. Not that he was terrible in this movie, he just isn't an action movie star. It's not my taste, but he belongs in those romantic comedies that we typically see him doing. He really is pretty decent in those roles. He wasn't a terrible choice for this role, but he clearly didn't belong in an action movie with Denzel Washington.

All and all I'd recommend this movie to someone looking for something new. It's not an unbelievable movie, but Denzel Washington movies are always great to watch.

Dear Photograph

     Right now I want to share a website with anyone who reads this post. The website is http://dearphotograph.com and what they do is creative and meaningful. What they do is have a picture in the foreground and take a picture of it. They take the picture in the same place and have the same orientation so they are lined up. One of the things this does is show how things change due to the passage of time. The way I stumbled across this is through this 9-11 picture a year ago.

     A lot of the pictures tend to be of family members, old houses, things along that line and as stated before it shows the passage of time. There is then a caption added to each picture, addressed like a letter often giving a back-story that you would not be able to tell just by looking at the picture. This project could be a cool concept if transposed to film. This is similar to the one shot project we are doing though. The point of the photographs is to tell a powerful story in a very brief amount of time and use generic or relatable moments, but with a slight twist.

     I find this project pretty amazing because it shows the meaning in objects or places where you wouldn’t see it at first by telling a story. While some people say that not everything needs a story, I am a firm believer that everything has a story.