Flashback Friday-Beautiful People (2005-2006)

No one ever said that being a teenage girl was easy.

In Beautiful People (2005-2006), Sophie Kerr (Sarah Foret) is a teenage girl whose life has been turned upside down.

First her father abandons his wife, Lynn (Daphne Zuniga) for a much younger woman, leaving Lynn as the single mother to Sophie and her elder sister, Karen (Torrey DeVitto).  Then Sophie is given a scholarship to a very prestigious and well-known high school in New York City. Leaving their small New Mexico town behind, the three Kerr women don’t know what to expect.

Sophie is torn between two of her male classmates, Gideon Mustig (Ricky Mabe) and Nicholas Fiske (Jackson Rathbone). Karen is trying to get her modelling career off the ground. While her daughters have their troubles, Lynn is not having an easy time adjusting to her new circumstances. Not only does she have to be mother and father to her girls, but Julian Fiske (James McCaffrey) is back in her life. Not only is he the father of one of Sophie’s classmates, he and Lynn have a little bit of history together.  Can these women not just survive, but thrive in a new environment and a new life?

For an ABC family series, the show was not that bad. It was nice to see not just female protagonists on-screen, but women who were real and faced real life challenges. While the show only lasted one year, it was still quality television.

Do I recommend it? Why not?

 

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Flashback Friday-Training Day (2001)

We like to think that those who serve the public are upstanding, hardworking folks who are working towards the greater good.

But reality is that every group has at least one bad apple who use their position to meet their own personal needs.

In Training Day (2001), Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) is the wide-eyed, wet behind the ears rookie cop. Wanting to improve the lives of the citizens of Los Angeles, Jake is paired with Detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), a veteran cop who is respected by his colleagues and feared by those who break the law. Set over a period of 24 hours, Hoyt begins to not only question not only the ethical dilemmas of his job, but Detective Harris’s methods of keeping the city safe.

This movie is absolutely superb. Director Antoine Fuqua coaxed out of his actors some of the best performances of the early 2000’s. The script is dark, nuanced and forces both Hoyt and the audience to ask themselves some very difficult and complicated questions.

I absolutely recommend this film.

Flashback Friday-Shark Tale (2004)

The animal kingdom is remarkably like the human world. There are species and personalities that are more dominant, and others who prefer to keep to the background.

In Shark Tale (2004),  Oscar (voiced by Will Smith) is a bottom feeder fish who was deemed as the next meal by the gangster sharks led by Don Lino (voiced Robert De Niro). Don Lino’s son, Lenny (voiced by Jack Black) is not so eager to eat his fellow sea creatures. Oscar is found at the scene of Don Lino’s murder. Everyone assumes that Oscar killed him. Oscar goes along with the idea, until he realizes there are consequences to his lies.

Let’s call it what it is. It is a watered down (get it 😉 ) gangster movie about an ordinary guy who gets entangled with the mob. But instead of the characters being human, they are fish.

Do I recommend it? I think I will let you decide. It is merely ok for me, but someone else may have a different opinion.