Mike Logan: Law & Order

I've been wanting to do a post like this for a while. Perhaps this is just what I read or maybe I'm coming to this conclusion myself but I really think Mike Logan is a great character on Law & Order. He brings something to the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that Det. Robert Goren and Det. Eames didn't have, a history.

Det. Logan was on the original Law & Order from 1990 to 1995 but was ousted. On the show he was sent to Staten Island (a boring assignment) because he punched the lights out of a powerful politician who just so happened to have been a murder suspect. In 1998 a TV movie Exiled had Mike Logan returned to his old precinct to solve a murder and figure out who was the corrupt cop in his old squad.

That would be the last time we see the Detective until he showed up in the offices of the Major Case Squad in their 4th season when his girlfried was queried by Goren and Eames. He helps break the case which involved overzealous prison guards and ultimately he would find himself under the command of Capt. Deakins a member of the Major Case Squad in the next season.

I saw this episode that I have only read about. Det. Logan and his partner Det. Barek was investigating this foster mother and he shot one of her foster sons who not only just so happened to be a cop but also failed to identify himself as such. And the look on Logan's face (Chris Noth) when he finds out who he shot and his reaction was just classic. Perhaps Logan was afraid that he was going to lose the only job he ever wanted, again.

In any event it's interesting to see more of his character's history unfold on Criminal Intent. Perhaps we'll see a further contrast between him and Goren. You see Goren is a different animal the Logan. Logan seems to be the typical police detective in ways that Goren isn't.

I can't wait for this new season to start.

UHF

It has been a long time since I've seen this movie. I'm quite sure many have seen this as a very bad comedy movie. For some reason when I was much younger it kept me entertained, then I quickly forgot all about this movie.

Weird Al Yankovic looks a lot weirder than he actually does today. In fact you'll see that on the DVD. He hosts the deleted scenes on this two sided DVD and you'll see the modern him fooling around in the menus before you start playing the movie.

Just think for a second. In the movie he had a curly afro and a mustache. Today he has a Howard Stern look with long hair but no mustache. He doesn't even wear glasses like he did back in the late 80s. In fact as you watch the deleted scenes on the DVD he will note that he looks different because UHF was released 13 years ago.

Long story short this film is about an unlikely TV station managed by a man (Weird Al) with a vivid imagination who is unable to keep a job. Somehow he is able to bring his station to number 1 in the ratings. He saves his station by paying off his uncle's debt while fighting a much more powerful corporate competitor station. All the while the man gets his girlfriend and declares that she will be apart of all of his dreams.

The movie doesn't have to be all that good in some respects. Suspend some belief and have fun is the order of the day in this movie. So by all means have fun because this movie isn't that bad.

Seabiscuit

This film brought me back to the racetrack. Even if this movie takes place 60 or so years in the past. It chronicles the rise of a horse that was trained to lose to become a winner.

It seemed almost like a film version of the American Experience series on PBS with some brief narration by a narrator not otherwise a character in the movie. I really like the story of the jockeys, the owner, and even the trainer. I was really impressed with they tell the story of the owner of Seabiscuit, a man by the name of Charles Howard played by Beau Bridges.

It seems he was in the streets of San Francisco but somehow he finds himself working on an automobile engine. Then he tells the owner how well it might run and suddenly the scene is morphed into him selling Buicks with the idea that you should trade in your horse and get an automobile.

Of course the rest of this story takes place during the Great Depression and it seems Seabiscuit was going to be the horse of the decade. Seabiscuit wasn't thought to be much anyway when he was born to some prized horses, but whoever didn't think him impressive is probably hurting after seeing the success of this horse.

Anyway I actually enjoyed this movie. I shall see it again when I get the time.

The American President

After touring the White House last Saturday I just had to watch this movie. I also hadn't seen this one in years but not because of a broken VCR (as I had this film on VHS) but due to the real life consequences of September 11th. Before then I liked to pop this movie in every chance I got, a distinction only held by my Star Trek movies.

Anyway I popped this movie in as soon as I returned from Washington, DC. This was a good movie. It was written by West Wing creator and scribe Aaron Sorkin. It was basically a political movie with a romantic comedy plot.

Now consider this. The year was 1995 and I can't say that the President we had at that time exactly made me proud, but Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) was a President I can look up to. Yeah he was a Democrat but he wasn't a bad leader (and that's only because he was written that way). All the same I loved the discussion of policy in this film.

Then he meets Sidney Ellen Wade (Annette Benning) who visits the White House as part of her job. Then she catches the eye of the leader of the free world and the most of the film has him juggling his duties as President as well as maintaining a romantic relationship with a woman whose job it was to get tough with him in the first place.

In the course of this movie the President is pounded by a Republican Senator (Richard Dreyfuss) who wants to take his job. By the end of this movie the President rips the Senator a new one and just as he starts to lose momentum, he regains it by the time the movie ends at the state of the union.

This is a great movie and it without a doubt gives you that great patriotic feeling. Even if you may not like the fact that the President has a girlfriend or that she might spend a night at the White House.