• Check out this cool video edit of the plane crash from Lost, pieced together from the bits and pieces of footage throughout the first 3 seasons. My only complaint is that the single best shot of the entire event wasn’t included (of the others looking up and seeing the plane split).
• Perhaps The Sarah Conner Chronicles will actually manage to be great. The third film managed to pull it off, against all expectations. Still, Summer Glau as a terminator. I’ll be watching no matter what.
• I love this music video.
• Blockbuster to back Blu-Ray. Yet another blow against HD-DVD.
• Gary, IN. A place I’ve only driven around in when I’ve overshot something on the highway and need to turn around. It’s truly sad to see the place in such a state, but I certainly believe what I see in these pictures. I’m a Chicago suburbanite, and to see something like Gary after being used to seeing the likes of Chicago so often is a bit startling. Granted, if you drive through some of the right areas of Chicago or nearby Rockford (in particular) you don’t get the greatest vibe, either. Then again, the bad areas of Chicago actually suffer from too MUCH activity. Heck, what’s it matter to me, I don’t even like to go into downtown Chicago…
• Uhhhhhhhhhmmmmmm…….. Whoops?
• Trevor Rabin has been attached to score Get Smart. This isn’t good news. I suppose it isn’t horrible news either, but it’s certainly not a composer that I think would show much promise for the project. I could think of 100 other composers I’d rather see get the job.
• Meanwhile, Michael Giacchino has been officially confirmed as the composer for the JJ Abrams Star Trek film. No surprise there, since Giacchino has scored all of Abrams’ stuff since the beginning of Alias, including M:I3 (also for Paramount). This is great news, though, and good to finally have in official form.
• Ignoring the dated nature of the video, this is still one of the strangest and most laughable videos I’ve seen in a while. I’d swear it was from some variety show like In Living Color or something, but you can bet this puppy is for real, sadly.
• OK, it’s hard to not comment on the fun Paris Hilton topic. I mean, come on, it’s just TOO easy. How can one ignore this quote from last week’s infamous call to Barbara Walters: “I was not eating or sleeping. I was severely depressed and felt as if I was in a cage.” Too many jokes. Must pick one……. Here’s an amusing “reading” of her comments.

OK, so perhaps I’m going through Veronica Mars withdrawal. Fist, my main reason for wanting to see this movie was that it was directed and co-written by Andrew Fleming. His ability to make movies work way more than they should was enough to convince me to want to see this (his 1999 movie, Dick, is one of my favorite comedies). And here he is yet again, making material that should fall flat on its face work almost completely. The only real weakness of the film is some of the obligatory high school based material, of which there is thankfully very little. Ironically, that is one of the key aspects of the movie that Warner Brothers is using in their advertising (trying to attract more of the teen girl audience I suppose). I mean, the biggest downside in seeing this movie was to have to sit through the Lionsgate’s trailer for the horrible looking teen girl flick Bratz (”4Real!”) yet again. Not surprisingly, Nancy Drew is a film that is firing on more intelligent thrusters than one might think from the advertising.

Writing: Many have criticized their choice to have Nancy Drew relocated to Hollywood for the setting of the film, but I think it gives the character a nice noir aspect with a deep enough case to be engaging enough to work on the big screen. The dialog is sharp and the plotting is interesting enough to make things work. It walks the fine line of a serious investigation, a noir thriller and a light and amusing Nancy Drew charmer. It also has an amusing obsession with the word “sleuthing.”

Production: Andrew Fleming adds enough style to make things interesting and fun, but stops short of becoming overly stylized. Costume design is fun, particularly with Nancy herself, giving her a very obvious nostalgic look. Set design is gorgeous, including the well designed home they move in to.

Cast: Here’s a particularly strong aspect of the film. Emma Roberts does a fine job with Nancy Drew. Tate Donovan is charming as her father. The father-daughter vibe of the movie is another thing that brought out the nostalgic Veronica Mars fanboy in me. Supporting roles include some good, relatively unknown actors as well as some great guest casting of talented actors and a hilarious a-list cameo appearance (which I’ll keep secret). Rachel Leigh Cook is very well cast, as is Barry Bostwick. Max Thieriot is a nice fit for Ned Nickerson. And Marshall Bell is very well cast as caretaker Mr. Leshing.

Music: Long-time music supervisor Ralph Sall does his typical music supervision role as well as actually scoring this film. He has done music supervision on most (all?) of Andrew Flemings previous films. His scoring is full of great moments of golden-age music score cues as well as fun action-adventure material. Overall, it’s quite a good score. Song usage is kinda so-so, but thankfully not overly cute or teen pop. Sall turns to a fun classic, Kids In America, for the titles (clearly a favorite of it, as he’s used it previously on projects he’s worked, like Clueless).

All in all, I quite enjoyed this film. More than I expected to, actually. A nice unexpected surprise for this summer movie season.