If you do not enjoy watching movies with characters that are hard to physically tell apart from each other for much of the beginning of the movie, lack any and all narrative drive, seem to have absolutely no point, then end as ambiguously as possible with no explanation, then you will definitely not like BULLHEAD (Belgian title RUNDSKOP).  I know I could not really follow the movie at all, then I realized there was nothing to follow.

The only reason BULLHEAD came to my attention was because of its Oscar nomination for best Foreign Picture, which it has absolutely no chance of winning in comparison to the fascinating Iranian movie, A SEPARATION.  BULLHEAD starts out appearing to be a gangster movie with a cattle meat front.  That part in the beginning is nearly impossible to follow with all the characters poorly introduced and then left undeveloped or even mentioned.

A BMW getting a new pair of wheels factors into some police officer getting murdered, which appears off screen and seems random.  The main character is some hulking dude I thought was a gangster too, but according to IMDB seemed to be just a cattle farmer who got caught up with the “hormone mafia.”

Then there is a confusing flashback to 20 years ago where we are again left mostly guessing who is who for much of the flashback.  Turns out the hulking cattle farmer got his nads caved in by some crazy punk kid and in present day has to take huge amounts of testosterone.

The deal going on between gangsters remains confusing and almost forgotten as the hulking dude just wonders around running into and/or stalking people from twenty years ago, all of a sudden.

I knew by the clock the movie had to end soon, but I could see absolutely no way it could end with any satisfactory story coming to light, and I was right, it did not.  I was like, “uh, that’s the end?  That made absolutely no sense.”

I feel like the main character of THE DESCENDANTS is Hawaii itself.  For a number of reasons, this movie could not have worked anywhere else.  Alexander Payne directs a film that makes Hawaii seem as much like the paradise everyone thinks it is, as well as a real place with the same problems life on the mainland has.

George Clooney is introduced to us as an out of touch dad who probably works too much, but since his wife is in a coma from a boating accident, he can no longer be the “backup parent” as he describes himself.  He has two daughters, 17 and 10, and he is nearly clueless on how to handle them along with his wife’s condition.

The story takes all three characters on a noticeable character arc with early hostilities and tensions giving way to a supportive family unit.

Clooney’s family are long time Hawaii residents, like generations long.  In addition to supporting his nuclear family, he has to deal with his many cousins regarding what to do with a 25,000 acre land trust worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

When a secret about his comatose wife is added to the mix, there is then no end to the emotions all the characters have to sort through.

Clooney’s oldest daughter insists on always have her friend Sid around, who appears to be a surfer doofus, but he ends up being one of my favorite parts of THE DESCENDANTS.

The ending and the big decisions made are somewhat predictable, but they felt in tone with the rest of the movie.

I can remember walking into the Deep-in one Friday night, a small bar in South Korea frequented by foreigners, carrying my new Dell laptop to show people there this awesome new show I had discovered.  I said you have to hear the sounds of the show and see how they use split screens and letter boxing.  I wanted to share with others how awesome the first season of 24 was.  Now on a different continent I will once again tell how awesome 24 was, for the last time.

I feel like two best friends have gone away.  First it was LOST last night, and now 24.  It is a hard blow for me and a breaking off point in my life ending my formal period of fandom.  Now there is truly nothing left to my fandom.  Nothing to look forward to.  Nothing to escape with.

24 has been a constant for me nearly my entire decade abroad.  In Japan I would watch the show on Tuesday nights.  Tuesday days were at one time particular long and hard.  What got me through them was knowing I would be capping off the day with Jack Bauer, and that I earned that respite.

Over the years Jack became the character I cared for most on TV, cared for more than 95% of the people I ever called friends or family in my life.  He used violence, but he was at his core a man of honor, and I respected that greatly.  That is why I was greatly disturbed by the darkness overcoming him in this final 8th season, and was greatly relived that he came down from the ledge before the clocked ticked to 24:00 for the final time.  The show, and Jack, ended with their honor intact.

24 was the acting out of how I imagine many viewers wished things operated, how they wished they could operate themselves.  How I wished I could operate.  Jack through his combination of extreme physical skills, extraordinary experience and knowledge, and his honor, was able to act directly and definitively in a world that others all around him plodded hesitatingly through in a gray cloud.  He was a man of action, for better or worse, but characteristically mostly for better.

Now I have lost him as a friend.  I feel real pain from it.  I will miss Chloe too, the very epitome of loyalty.  She was also a voice of reason when it was needed, who did not shrink from the harsh ways Jack sometimes had to treat even his friends with.  There was no greater loyalty ever shown on TV.

Now two old friends have passed on, 24 and LOST.  Perhaps the real pain will come Monday night when there is no 24, and on Tuesday, when there is no LOST.

My great thanks to both shows for helping me survive the past decade.  I will miss them.

We know The End.  Though at this current moment I cannot say I fully understand it.  The series finale of LOST was more a way for us to just say good-bye to all our favorite characters, one last time.

***SPOILERS***

So that is it.  It was a competent series finale, which is actually praise, since many other shows’ finales were not good at all.  We got one last dose of secret island mystery, that great set with the water and the stone plug.  I just paused for like three minutes not knowing what else to write.  Seems like I should have just turned off my TV and walked out a door into bright white light myself.  I spend so much of my time revisiting my own, more important past memories.

WHAT I LIKED:

• Vincent coming to Jack’s side as he died, the emotional high point for me
• Jack seeing the plane fly away through the trees
• The unplugging of the light giving a plausible way of killing MIB
• Hurley being the real heart of the island as strong as ever, his love for Jack was palpable
• Ben finding his final, positive role in both realities
• Six major religions represented in the stained glass window behind the coffin
• “Bigfoot”
• Jack jumping up in the air to attack vulnerable MIB
• Richard getting his first gray hair
• Ben being a good #2 and Hurley being a great #1

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:

• Lepidis’ impatience to leave
• How did Ben get out from under a log they said they could not lift?
• The storm came and went with blue sky between cuts
• Michael not making it to the church
• Desmond not really being that much of an ultimate weapon, just a dude that could pull a plug
• Jack just lying there in the plug pool when he could have dragged himself out easily before getting blasted with the light
• Kate’s one liner after shooting MIB/Flocke

I guess the gray haired lady (forget her name) who told Desmond to wait wanted everyone to have more time in their flash-sideways lives before he made them remember all the island stuff again?  Interesting her son’s name was not Faraday, but Widmore in the flash-sideways world.

Again I am at a loss.  So I guess when everyone died, they really died.  The flash-sideways world was the purgatory type place?  Hurley and Ben eventually died as well at some point too then.  Christian walked into the afterlife through the church doors into the white light?

The pacing of this episode was way, way off.  I wonder how watching the download with no commercials would help or hurt that?  For us watching it on TV, even with me tape delaying it on the DVR so I could fast forward through commercials, it often seemed like there was only 5 minutes of LOST at a time sandwiched by commercials and extra scenes of Jack and Lock looking over the waterfall ledge, etc.

Was the candy machine an allusion to the island?  Pull the candy machine plug out, the candy falls (MIB falls to his death), plug it back in, all is well?

Where did Frank and the others fly to?  What did they do?  Just have some life back in the real world?

I can see how this finale could be pretty divisive.  My own emotional state prior to watching LOST, despite my great efforts, was compromised, a huge, huge disappointment to me.  Up until this final season, I have always had the purist of LOST viewing environments.  It was extremely ritualistic to me.  I have not been able to maintain those same rituals, and I believe it definitely effected how I viewed the finale.

Then again, the finale was a bit Return of the King-ish, with lots and lots of reunions and good-byes.  I am ok with that, better than the show ending with malice.

I thought the end would be Jack on the island looking at a plane in some situation.

I am sure I will followup with some updates, but for now, this is all I have.  I will give the finale only 4-stars, and perhaps if there was a 3.5 star option I would choose that.

Farewell LOST.