Snark, Critic and Pop!

One day I scanned upcoming shows using the guide on my DVR, I came across a movie that I hadn’t heard of previously — “Whisper.” The description read: “A kidnapper (Josh Holloway) and his associates that the boy they hold captive is a real devil.” This was enough to get me to record the film, having little to do with the description but rather the name Josh Holloway.

For those who don’t know, Josh Holloway played the charming con man Sawyer on the TV show Lost. I was a fan of Lost, which was one of the few TV shows I absolutely positively HAD to see.  Granted, the final episode didn’t live up to what had come before, but it would be hard to live up to everybody’s expectations.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’d seen Josh Holloway in a movie filmed prior to his breakout role as Sawyer, as he starred in a Sci-Fi Channel original named Sabretooth, which falls into the so dreadful it’s fun/bad category. But now Holloway is a household name capable of headlining what I’m presuming was a straight to dvd release. Oh well, one has to start branching out somewhere, so it’s with cautious optimism I checked out Whisper. (continue reading…)

I saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, a.k.a. Don’t Call It Mission Impossible 4, over the course of Christmas weekend.  Bottom line: loved it.  It’s everything you’d want in a Summer movie — fun action, excitement, crazy stunts, lots of laughs — but in time for the holidays!

The Mission Impossible franchise has benefited and suffered from bringing in different directors and subsequently different directions for the first three films.  (continue reading…)

Stop me when this one sounds familiar: A dangerous, previously extinct animal is cloned, and – totally unexpectantly — things go awry.  I know I should stop there, but I won’t.

The animal in question is a sabretooth tiger, great, great (308x) granddaddy to X-Man Wolverine’s archnemesis.   You’d think the Sketchy, B-Movie Science Lab competant enough to clone a sabretooth would not simultaneously be the world’s most careless lab, but you would be wrong.  

In this lab, the janitor has the access and passcode to enter the cloned sabretooth tiger cage.  In the opening scene, the intrepid janitor enters the seemingly vacated sabretooth room in order to clean the inside of the glass.  While the janitor succeeds in the short term — the window is cleaner for his efforts, kudos! — he fails in the long term — the window then becomes stained with his blood as the tiger rips his intestines apart. (continue reading…)

I know a lot of folks out there cannot STAND Tom Cruise and/or anything he does, and not without reason. But if I disavowed everyone, let alone every actor/singer/writer, who said and/or did really stupid things, I wouldn’t be partaking of very much pop culture, would I? While I avoided Cruise’s embarassing Cameron Diaz disaster, Knight & Day, I can’t wait for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. J.J. Abrams’ MI:3 was awesome, and this one (with a story by Abrams & Cruise, directed by Pixar vet Brad Bird) looks like it could be a winner as well.

If Cruise’s inanity and periodic insanity are off-putting, the ensemble has plenty of geek/nerd inducing faces: Simon Pegg, Josh “Sawyer” Halloway, Ving Rhames, Léa Seydoux, Paula Patton, and the great Tom Wilkinson. Check out the trailer and see for yourself: (continue reading…)

Rumor has it that Josh Holloway (con man Sawyer from Lost) is a “viable choice” in a proposed NBC reboot of the 70s TV series the Rockford Files.  Exclusive SnarkCriticPop sources indicate that Josh Holloway’s agents are busy in negotiations for not just salary but how many scenes they can get Holloway shirtless per episode (over-under starts at 5).  Kidding aside, Josh Holloway is the right mix of leading man, charm, and intelligence, and in my book would be perfect for Rockford. 

The Rockford Files was an awesome TV show I used to catch in reruns growing up.  It starred the great James Garner as private detective Jim Rockford, who was witty, clever, and noble but– unlike most TV protagonists tended — to avoid and back down from a fight and was prone to a) losing or b) running.  (continue reading…)