It’s holiday season, and good ol’ Amazon is going to come at us with some really fantastic deals on both Blu Rays and DVD’s.  Amazon is known for it’s terrific sales that only last a few hours during the holidays. They usually will put one item up every few hours that is a ridiculously low priced deal, and just wait for it to sell out. Obviously, the really dirt cheap deals on items that are in high demand sell out very quickly, but some of them actually stay on the block for a little while.

Among these items are popular Blu Ray movies and DVD’s that are popular. If you’re looking to buy a set for someone, like a complete show or set of movies, then now is the time to start searching on Amazon to see if you can get a deal. You can often find them at a lot better prices than you see them for at any retail stores.

My hubbie and I have bought a lot of great deals on Amazon for ourselves at this time of year, and as gifts. It’s the time of year when people not only shop for others, but they also shop for themselves because these are the best deals you’re going to see for the year. Some prices are lower than they were before the recession hit, so it’s like some prices on goods are not moving – ’til the time to buy!

Ok, so I have to admit, when I first saw the ad spots for the (back then) new television show called Sons of Anarchy, I thought it looked like a stupid, testosterone filled, over the top cheese fest that only meatheads who liked that sort of thing would get in to. But, since I’m a woman, I’ll let you know that I watched the pilot episode tonight, and well, I’m pleasantly surprised.

Yes, there was a lot of testosterone, and probably a lot of women (and some guys too) would be turned off by that aspect, but underneath, I was intrigued by the story line. It’s about a motorcycle “gang” that runs guns illegally and are in a brotherhood of sorts, sort of like the Hell’s Angels, but not really.

The cast seems talented enough with Katy Sagal rounding out a nice veteran actors group as the mother of the main character, Jackson or “Jacks”  – and by the way ladies, if you like to look at eye candy with your tv, this guy’s the ticket – very cute!

Ron Perlman plays the head of the Sons of Anarchy. I can’t decide if he’s a good or bad guy, but he seems to be ok now. Believe it or not, Katy Sagal may be  the bad guy.  She seems to enjoy the legacy that her now dead husband built in the Sons of Anarchy and also doesn’t mind the apparent heaps of cash that come with the drug running business.

Drea De Matteo guest starred in this first episode as Jackson’s drug addicted, junkie ex wife who is pregnant with their son.  After an over dose, she has him ten weeks prematurely, and also gave him the gift of heart defects and a half a stomach (part from congenital problems, part from drugs). We see the darkest possible side to Sagal’s character when she gives Drea’s character a bible with a needle full of drugs in it.

Jackson’s moral issues and awakening sense of what’s right and wrong are going to be central to this story though. We see that he tries to stay away from killing men in one scene where the gang attempts to get back guns from a rival gang, and there are other nuances that he will probably be undergoing a spiritual reawakening with the birth of his son, so as a woman, this is probably what will keep me watching.

Oh, the soundtrack is pretty great too if you love rock ‘n roll. The cheese factor is there a bit, but I think the story line is solid enough and the acting is good, so I can overlook that minor flaw for now!

I was actually somewhat excited to watch this movie, because the genre appealed to my inner nerd and curiosity.  I also happen to like the actress Sarah Polley, and I think Adrien Brody is a decent actor too.  The movie is about two scientists who specialize in splicing together genetic material and creating hybrid creatures that they can then isolate life saving and disease curing proteins from.  Sounds interesting, right?

Well, the two of them end up secretly splicing together the DNA from several creatures – including the taboo human (which takes a page out of a raging debate today on stem cell research).  The creature they end up with is a humanoid little girl who ages very quickly.  The creature, whom they alternately become attached to, named Dren (NERD backwards, how cute), has a lot of human traits.

She gets attached, needs discipline, and has a dark side too of course. She also has a deadly stinger on her tail, and we find out throughout the movie that she can breathe under water and also that she sprouts wings on occasion as well.

This movie had a lot or promise for a while. The creature was definitely intriguing, and that story line reeled you in. The problem is that the characters played by Brody and Polley are simply not likeable at all, so you find yourself actually rooting for the creature more than for these two, who ultimately both make huge mistakes with huge consequences with the spliced creature.

The movie descends into the arena of the ludicrous quickly at the end. Let’s just say there are two scenes of interspecies sex that are gravely disturbing. Even my husband found them disturbing, and I’m usually the one to get squeamish about raw stuff like that.

I also found the way they treated the creature disturbing, and the movie ultimately left me with a bad taste in my mouth for humanity, and I know that I really should have been more terrified about this winged creature, but in the end, I really didn’t care what happened to the stupid humans that created her.

Perhaps that’s what the movie makers wanted, but I found the story to actually be repulsive in certain ways.  It could have been a great concept and a brainy movie, but in the end, they tried to make something that started off as an intelligent suspense film into a run of the mill horror flick.

On a scale of one to five, I’d give it a three, or maybe a two and a half. The beginning would have gotten a four, but the middle to end was just totally ludicrous.

I must admit, I was a little peeved at my hubby for not letting me watch one of my new favorite shows “Boardwalk Empire” (HBO’s latest vehicle), and instead putting Women of SNL on the DVR last night. We never watch shows when they’re actually on by the way. The DVR has really made a wondrous improvement in our lives with our TV watching, since we’re both pretty terrible at remembering when anything is on.

The Women of SNL special was a two hour long marathon of the some of the best skits SNL has ever done with it’s talented female comedians.  They went all the way back to the days of Gilda Radner and Jane Curtain, and there was not a bad skit on the show. From some of my favorites that I’ve seen again and again, to some of the newer stuff that I never got a chance to see since I stopped watching it thanks to a huge dive in the show’s creativity and talent in the past few years.

Well, this special made me want to start watching it again, especially since one of the newer ones was a Betty White skit about muffins. Enough said. It was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.  This special just showcases how much talent they had over the years on this show, and how they were always on the cutting edge of comedy as well as of what’s “appropriate” for modern American television, getting away with a lot and in the process being awesomely irreverent, which of course if the best way to assure being funny.

It had what a lot of comedy today is lacking – heart. I laughed so hard my belly hurt and I started sweating (yes, I sweat when I laugh hard, it’s odd, I know).  I came home in a grumpy mood from work and went to bed, literally with a smile on my face. Great stuff. If it ever comes out on DVD, I will buy it, it’s that good.

Dexter, the Showtime show that I surprisingly loved after having serious doubts about the seemingly ridiculous premise of a serial killer who hunts other serial killer, and not knowing much about the lead actor Michael C Hall, had four great seasons so far.  With plot twists that, albeit were somewhat unbelievable, they still worked because you almost could believe that someone who is psychotic, could attract such other psychotic characters into his life, or make those on the edge come completely undone, unknowingly and unwillingly.

This fifth season though, seems to be lagging in the imagination and originality department, as they are going in the same tired direction of having someone who may have crazy tendencies coming undone again, someone that Dexter finds himself having to clean up after.  This time it’s a character named Lumen, played by Julia Stiles, who I might add doesn’t add much to the show. I’ve seen her in other things, and I think she’s actually a fine actor, but in this show, she and her character just don’t work for some reason.

Last season, with the killing of Dexter’s wife Rita by the Trinity killer, played masterfully by John Lithgow, we really thought that we’d see a new direction this season, but somehow watching Dexter juggle single fatherhood and his killing obsession just doesn’t muster up much excitement.  They even had a montage that seemed to be going for the comedic angle with Deb (who is his real life wife by the way) grilling would-be babysitters like they were criminals, which fell flat.

I find myself daydreaming during these season five episodes, whereas before with every other season I found myself rapt to the television, not wanting each episode to end, and spellbound by the interesting plot and character twists that kept you on the edge of your seat. This season, Dexter has somehow lost it’s edge, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, although I can say I don’t like where they’re going with the tortured Lumen character, who is out to get revenge on her torturers and in the process is going to drag Dexter down with her.

I can see how this is going to end. Lumen, herself an innocent, whom it’s against Dexter’s “code” to kill, is going to go off the deep end, kill an innocent, and herself become a target for Dexter since she’s found a new lust for killing. Maybe her capture and torture by a ring of serial killers has set off some sort of blood lust or deep seated psychological problems.  At any rate, yawn, I’m not sure I really care unless they dial up the interesting factor on this new character……we’ll see.

Well, we’ve once again got sucked into the proverbial original reality show “Survivor”. As I mentioned before, we stopped watching for several years and went back to it hoping that it might strike our fancy again, and it did.  The cast this time has been pretty interesting – a good mix of people and a very interesting and diverse bunch.

Naonka is a brash, trash talking woman who reminds me of a young girl a lot the way she talks and acts, Marty was the sort of underdog in the game for a long time since he let his mouth do too much talking and came off as pompous and a little too competitive. Brenda made her way through the game by being gorgeous and very smart.  Her newest partner in crime, Sash, is also very smart and understated -a good combination for the game of Survivor.

The guy they call “Fabio” has really grown on my husband and me.  He’s so lovable because he speaks exactly what’s on his mind – very admirable, and you want to just hug this kid.  Jane is a southern bell who gets in good with the younger crowd once the merge happens.  Benry is a a fly under the radar kind of guy who I think may take this game by storm once all the really strong and competitive players are rooted out.  And, I think that’s about all there is worth mentioning. The others are pretty much peripheral to this particular game.

Marty just got voted out in a blind side this week, and I wasn’t happy about it.  I learned to really like Marty and look forward to how he was going to make himself look bad every week, although I think he had some really great ideas and I really wanted to see him make it til the end of this game. He seemed to have nine lives, and always had a target on his back. I was actually shocked with him getting voted out this week because the way they edited it so cleverly it looked like he’d make it.

My husband and I were instant fans of the silly, tongue in cheek, never meant to be taken seriously spy series “Chuck” when it first debuted a few years ago.  The charming characters and hilarious situations as well as their multiple geek references (my hubby happens to love comics, Star Wars, and all that somewhat geeky stuff, and I happen to get into a little of that as well), really reeled us in, and the clever writing and wit kept us watching.  The characters were all very charismatic as well.

Well, in there third season, which only happened because so many fans wrote in and begged for it not to be cancelled, they are definitely striking out on all fronts.  Even with the talented cast, who seems to be almost questioning why they have to say and do some of the ridiculous things this season has them doing already, they can’t pull off some very awkward, tired writing and “jump the shark” sorts of situations.

When I say jump the shark, I mean painfully badly written scenes and scenarios. Like the fact that now, the Buy More is a CIA operative center. I know the show is loosely based in reality, but come on, that one is really hard to swallow. Or the ridiculously forced scenes, like when Grimes gets flushed down the floor like a toilet (he’s dropped through a trap door in the floor, just a painfully bad scene).

Even Casey’s scenes have been cut, and his straight guy get me out here style is sorely missed during these first few episodes where nothing is funny, it’s just a chore to watch.  And let me say also that I think it was a colossolly bad idea to have Sara and Chuck be romantically involved now. It’s just taken some sort of fun spark out of the show. The sort of will they or won’t they that made characters like Sam and Diane (Cheers), Maddie and David (Moonlighting), and Ross and Rachel (Friends) work for so long.  They should have dragged this chemistry and excitement out a few more seasons.

Now it seems like they’re relying more on their beautiful cast to lure watchers than they are some seriously good and witty writing.  The same people who once adored this show will no doubtedly be disappointed in it’s lack of charm this season, and I’m willing to bet that if it continues on this streak, it may well be cancelled – for good – this time.

Now that my husband is watching football almost constantly on the weekend, I had to find a show that I could watch all on my own, that he would have no interest in.  Hah, I found it.  Big Love, the HBO show that doesn’t get as much notice as some of their other shows, but has a nice steady viewership, has always been a show on my radar just because I’m curious about if I’d like it or not.

It’s a show about a Mormon polygamist family, which is a concept that a lot of people don’t agree with in theory, including myself, but I thought it could make for a really interesting tv show and dynamic.  The cast is superb, with Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin playing Bill Paxton (whose name in the show is Bill too) three very different wives.

As a woman, it’s hard to understand the concepts of their beliefs, like how two of them stay home and basically do all the caretaking. It’s very old fashioned in some ways, but that is what the family’s religious views are, and that takes a little getting used to.

Another thing that’s hard to get used to is that none of the main characters ever swear, which is of course unusual for the usual edginess of HBO shows, but again, it’s because of the subject matter and I see that they’re trying to be true to who these characters are, although they are all flawed in other ways that become apparent as you watch more episodes.

When I first started watching it, I thought I could take it or leave it, and actually, the constant ups and downs between the women and Bill were making me a little crazy and anxious, with me thinking “why would anyone choose a life like this?”.

But once you get past that, it’s actually a really well acted show that shows a lifestyle, religion and subculture that you would have never really known much about, so in that way it’s fascinating. The characters are great too, which makes for interesting tv.  Ginnifer Goodwin’s character Margene, is the youngest of the wives.

She’s innocent and a little immature, and she’s tired of being considered the “babysitter”, which is how she got involved with the family in the first place.  Chloe Sevigny plays the most precocious of the wives. She’s the one that dresses very “prairy” style like the women dressed on the compound that they all came from (they used to be involved in a polygamist compound), but has a horrible shopping habit and has racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt, unbeknownst to her husband or to any of the other wives.

Jeanne Tripplehorn plays perhaps the most level headed and normal of all of them.  You keep wondering why Barb, “the first wife” ever agreed to allow the other women into the fold, but as the story line deepens, you find out why.  Very good show, and I’ll keep watching, probably til it jumps the shark!