The Future's So Bright..."Tomorrowland"

Tomorrowland (2015)

Rated

Starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Hugh Laurie,

Directed by Brad Bird

The Story:

There's a place called Tomorrowland where genius inventors are invited to try and shape a better future for the world. Nix (Laurie) brings these geniuses to this other world, and a young inventor named Frank gets invited by Nix's daughter, Athena (Cassidy). Years later, Casey (Robertson) begins seeing visions of Tomorrowland and tracks down Frank (Clooney) to help her find it. The only problem, Frank doesn't want to go back, and the citizens of Tomorrowland want them both dead!

So much potential.

I'm not sure what exactly happened, as Brad Bird is normally gold when he directs (and writes) the movies.

I'm going to go out on a limb with a regular finger-pointing on this matter:

It's too long.

Otherwise, it's filled with some pretty interesting bits, and some great actors who seemed to be having a great time with the film.

The story really picks up once Casey and Frank team up and attempt to get back to Tomorrowland.

The energy and the story seems to ramp up quite a bit at that point.

The problem is, there are too many less interesting bits holding this altogether, and by the time Clooney makes his "official" entrance, the movie seems half over, and nothing has truly happened.

Snipping about 10 to 20 minutes or so from some of the buildup might have streamlined the overall narrative.

There were good intentions to be found here, and the overall message and idea behind the film are solid.

It simply stumbles in the execution.

Final Grade: C+

He's Not One You Call Dr. Feelgood... "House M.D."

House M.D. (2004)

TV-14

Starring Hugh Laurie, Omar Epps, Lisa Edelstein, Jesse Spencer, Jennifer Morrison, Robert Sean Leonard

The Story:

Dr. Gregory House (Laurie) is a brilliant diagnostician. He loves the mystery ailments of his patients. The only problem...he really doesn't like his patients. :) Using his team (Spencer, Epps, Morrison) to run down all the ailments that it could be, but never is, they work tirelessly to cure their patients.

I used to love this show.

The first 3 seasons were some of the best on television.

Great writing, stellar cast, interesting storylines.

Sure, on occasion some of the cases seemed redundant, but we were here to see House, and the show delivered.

He was a cranky, pill-popping near-cripple with an acid-tongue and heart of stone.

He lives for the mystery, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes (Holmes=House) and his best friend Wilson(Leonard)   (Wilson=Watson) and the dynamic of the show was stellar.

Then in Season 4, the team was broken up, new blood was brought in (Olivia Wilde, Peter Jacobson, etc) and it was the beginning of the end.

It was the beginning of the end.

While still good, the episodes were rarely great.

By season 7, we were in full shark-jumping mode.

I didn't even bother watching an episode of season 8.  I wanted to have pleasant memories of this show.

House is now streaming on Netflix as of this writing.

We'll see if I venture into the later seasons to see how things ended.

As it is, it's nice to revisit some great shows from a decade ago!

Final Grade: A- (and dropping after 3...)

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: One of the few shows I do own. No regrets.