Lies & Alibis DVD

director: Matt Checkowski, Kurt Mattila
writer: Noah Hawley

Steve Coogan is not your typical leading man. He's what you might call the thinking woman's sex symbol. He's got the accent, the voice, the attitude. And he employs them well for Lies and Alibis.

Coogan plays a former grifter turned "honest" businessman who runs an alibi service for adulterers. As he informs us in voice-over, one in four men cheat while a more respectable one in ten women do; it would be foolish to judge and even more so not to take advantage of this untapped market.

It's an interesting concept. Why risk using your bad liar friends, when you can hire professionals? But lies build on lies and soon our man is dodging cops, Mormon hitmen, and indiscreet philanderers. It's a big ensemble con game with twists and turns that converge at the end. And the cast reads like a guest list at a comic book convention: Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Selma Blair, Sam Elliott, Jaime King, John Leguizamo, Debi Mazar, among others.
But then again,what actor these days isn't associated some way with a comic book?

The story turns predictable, as do many movies of the like. And I would liked to have seen more of the inner and outer workings of the company. The story and characters are not as intricate and charming, as say in Ocean's 11, or dark and serious as in Confidence, but it's still worth a watch for the filmmakers' style and the charms of Steve Coogan.

For some noteworthy Steve Coogan performances, check out Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, 24 Hour Party People, Coffee and Cigarettes, Happy Endings, Around the World in 80 Days.

No special features included.

rating: ***/***** (frilly fun)

recommendations: Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens), Criminal (the American remake of Nine Queens), Confidence, The Usual Suspects, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Sting, Ocean's 11, Catch Me If You Can

TiVo for the Poor

Television online was the next natural step in the evolution of entertainment.

Plus, it's super cool for those of us who cannot afford or commit to TiVo.

TiVo is basically a digital VCR, but with a "brain." No more setting up your VCR timer, no more woes of recording the wrong program at the wrong time, and no more chunky video cassettes to store.

But it does mean buying the TiVo box, which comes in set number of Gigabytes, and subscribing to the service. With your TiVo set up, however, you can just let your TiVo know what programs you want and it'll automatically record and store your shows till you are ready to watch. And it'll even keep track of shows that match your interests.

But now that the major networks are making certain shows available to watch in its entirety and with limited commercials (TiVo allows you to fast forward through them) the day after they air, folks like me can cheaply enjoy programming that would otherwise conflict with our schedules.

If you're a television fanatic/freak like me, you can work out a schedule to watch missed shows at your leisure on your computer.
Not all networks and shows do it though, especially some of the more popular or less popular programs. And of course, if a show gets canceled or put on hiatus, the site will eventually remove the videos. Some canceled shows do get a bid farewell with the remainder episodes exclusively online, such as Kidnapped, Smith, and Vanished.

To make things easier, here is a brief list of the major networks and the shows currently available for viewing.

ABC (dynamic.abc.go.com)
Showlist:
Brothers & Sisters
Desperate Housewives
Grey's Anatomy
The Knights of Prosperity
Lost
Ugly Betty
What About Brian

CBS (Innertube)
Showlist:
The Class
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
How I Met Your Mother
Jericho
NCIS
Numb3rs
Shark
Survivor
The Unit

Fox (myspace.com/fox)
Showlist:
American Dad
Bones
The Loop
Prison Break
Standoff
Talk Show with Mike Feresten
'Til Death
Vanished

NBC (NBC Rewind)
Showlist:
Friday Night Lights
Heroes
Las Vegas
Passions

Note: The availability of these shows and its episodes is subject to change. For example, NBC has only the episode of the week available, while most other sites offer several past episodes. If you're a fan of a particular program and are not sure, check. And remember, these are streaming videos so you will need a high connection.
Enjoy.

24 Things I Love About 24

The following takes place between 1 thing and 24 things. Events do not occur in real time.

1:00 Jack Bauer. A dangerous man to know.

2:00 President David Palmer.

3:00 Watching it on DVD - How do people stand waiting a whole week for each episode? I can barely wait a couple of days for each DVD.

4:00 Absolute absurd situations that make me say, "Come on!" It's fantastic.

5:00 Character elimination.

6:00 Jack's courage and ability to get things accomplished.

7:00 True allies' faith in and loyalty to Jack.

8:00 How quickly the tables turn - Plot twists that don't take seasons to resolve (ahem, Lost).

9:00 Torture (and not just interrogation) - It's nice to see on TV.

10:00 Kim Bauer's ability to get into trouble.

11:00 The rotating cast, including familiar faces now on Lost, Prison Break, and most recently Heroes and Ugly Betty.

12:00 Traitors and traders - We all want something for something.

13:00 Kim Bauer's boyfriends/love interests get treated like crap.

14:00 Information retrieval time at CTU is inversely related to urgency. The more important the information, the longer it takes.

15:00 Nina Meyers and George Mason are married. (Okay, so Sarah Clarke and Xander Berkeley are married.)

16:00 Wicked women. They can be more badass than the guys.

17:00 Framing boxes - Let's see what everyone's up to.

18:00 Cell phones.

19:00 The jam-packed day - You can get a lot done when you don't eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom.

20:00 Real time. Not really (time added during commercials). Fake real time.

21:00 Nearly every episode ends in a cliffhanger - Apparently, extreme things happen on the hour, every hour.

22:00 The ticking clock - beep Beep beep Beep beep Beep.

23:00 The man behind the man behind the man behind the man - It's a conspiracy theorist's wet dream.

24:00 Kiefer Sutherland.