The End...

I don't really know where to begin...I am still reeling from "The End" and I can't really get my head around the whole thing. This happens to me sometimes when I am deeply affected by something--I can't, like our Losties, just let it go.

I don't recommend reading this if you have been too damn busy to attend to your DVR and watch the "Lost" series finale...I didn't understand what I saw enough to give away full-on spoilers, but all the same, stop reading my three followers, for I have warned thee.

I always get uber-emotional when any series I am following ends--I basically had to go through the five stages of grieving when I finished my last page of Harry Potter 7 -- I'll get to the fifth stage any day now... I even bawled when "Dawson's Creek" ended. I hadn't even watched the show in about eight years when it finally ended, but all the same, it was the end of something. For me, it reminded me of being 15 or 16 sitting around my coffee table eating Pappa John's pizza with my friends and half studying history and watching Buffy and The Creek. Watching Pacey and Joey lie together on that couch in the end was symbolically the end of my childhood and adolescence, and it's hard to mourn the innocence of youth and the ability to not get hangovers or cellulite.

For this, this was a culmination of the last six years of my life: a lot has changed. I've gotten married, moved three times, had said husband go overseas by himself for a year and I got a cat. From the beginning, Lost was epic--the most expensive television pilot ever created---so it was either going to flop (BIG) or be wildly successful. Luckily for us all, it went with the latter, to an extent. It definitely lost viewers over the years due to confusion, investment in time and tattoos with Bai Ling in Thailand, but all in all--it ended with a relatively massive and loyal audience.

I still find myself stuttering over how I feel about the ending--I wasn't technically happy about it, because I can honestly say I wanted a Hollywood ending in the most literal sense. I really like Jack as a father, I LOVED Sawyer and Miles as cops together, and let's be honest: the deaths of Jin and Sun were probably the most traumatic in television history, so to see the two of them together (and alive) again was beyond sating for me. They were all happy in Los Angeles -- at least happy for me as an audience. I didn't want their (my) reunion to be so brief. But, as I should have learned from watching six seasons thus far, it wasn't what it seemed.

Our illusion was also theirs--an alternate realty of the in-between. Somewhere not in time, but after all of their deaths. As Christian Shepard so aptly pointed out to us, the island is in fact, real--what they did there was the absolute most important thing that they ever did in their entire lives. Hence reuniting in such sweet symphony in the in-between. So when Juliet cracked the Jughead bomb and told Miles through death that "it worked," it was really the awakening of consciousness to set in motion them all reuniting once again.

People may stomp their feet and cry that they wanted to know more about the island, it's magic and all it's powers, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT LIGHT?!" But in the end, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that the island was real, the characters were real and what you do in this life matters. You haven't been watching in vain. In fact, the show in a way honored it's audience by allowing an audience favorite, Hurley to take the helm once our hero realized his fate. Speaking of...I still can't talk about it without crying...all I can say is he didn't die alone after all--man's best friend is always there when you need them the most.

...

"What happened, happened." There is no duct tape for life--you do what you do and their are serious and not so serious consequences from those actions. To the remaining survivors of Oceanic 815, what they did mattered. Everything from hitting the button every 108 minutes to joining Dharma in 1975 because all these events led to the ultimate battle between good and evil: they really did stop a literal cork on "evil" and the destruction of mankind. Thanks, by the way! I like my soul in tact, thank you very much.

I think my personal favorite part of the entire finale was in the church, when Jack sees his father's casket. A stained glass window frames the wall and what do we see? Not all uniform Christian icons, but a mixture of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. We all have the right to an afterlife, and we are all more alike than different. In the end it is what you did for you and your fellow man. All of the characters that came to the island were indeed, lost, but once they corrected their wrongs and could finally let go, they were rewarded with being absorbed in the warm light of what I can only assume is the same beautiful light from the heart of the island. How very HP "behind the veil" of them.

All I kept thinking about once I wiped the tears off my face were these lyrics:

"I love you in a place where there is no space or time, I love you for my life
cause you are a friend of mine, and when my life is over--
Remember, remember, when we were together
And we are alone now, and I was singing this song for you"

So, to Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Locke, Sawyer, Jin, Sun and all the rest, we'll miss you. Thanks for letting us know that the last six years mattered.

And don't be surprised when you hear of a little Jack Shepard Drucker running around somewhere in Texas...

2010 Needs more blogging....

Sorry--I hadn't been in the mood for posting lately...let's just say I felt compelled to start again. Here's to 2010 and all that Hollywood has to offer.

Sherlock Holmes

Let me preface this by saying I love Robert Downey Jr. I loved him even when he woke up in his neighbor’s bedroom at 4am after a three-day heroin binge. But, as is the American tradition, we forgive those who have wronged us as long as they provide us with some form of entertainment and like a phoenix rising from the flames—and a few drug rehabs later—we watched him blossom into his ultimate comeback role, the Iron Man himself, Tony Stark. No one was more proud of my little ex-addict more than me. I digress. As I was saying, I love Robert Downey Jr.—and he did not disappoint me here either.

Sherlock Holmes was a really fun movie. Nothing is better than seeing a great escapist film to take your mind off other things—especially after the cabin fever I had from all the Bucharestian snowfall. Guy Ritchie made a great comeback film here since the unmitigated disaster that was Swept Away. I was a bit worried since production was going on during his tumultuous divorce from the Madge herself, but it didn’t seem to distract him from pulling a great performance out of a great cast. Jude Law plays Holmes’s loyal sidekick, Dr. John Watson and also has the always-delightful Rachel McAdams as Sherlock’s kleptomaniac American love interest, Irene Adler.

THIS Sherlock Holmes however is not your mum’s British sleuth. Ritchie’s boxing ring champ, neurotic-genius version is one taken straight our of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and brought to you in glaring digital. This Sherlock not only solves crimes that Scotland Yard is apparently too ill adept to solve, but he is also more rugged, dirty and apparently a gym-rat.

The story starts as Sherlock and Watson arrest Lord Blackwood, played by the always unfortunately sinister Mark Strong for the murders of five women and the attempted murder of a sixth—of course the latter is saved from mortal doom by the Baker Street duo—and just in the nick of time! After Lord Blackwood’s hanging, odd things start to go “afoot” (I had to get it in here somewhere) in London and fingers are pointing back at the apparently deceased Blackwood.

The rest of the movie involves secret societies, dark magic and some arguing over whether one of the casualties of the film was in fact a ginger midget (not my words—I am well aware that is not PC) or a ginger dwarf. I do not want to give away more plot points as I hate to ruin the surprises of the film. Just know that it is filled with action (for the dudes), a hint of romance (for the ladies) and a great amount of comedy (for all.) The best part of the film for me was the relationship between Holmes and Watson and the strains that go into a relationship when one decides to go another direction. You’ll have to see it to know what I am talking about.

All in all I thought it was a great ride and recommending is purely “elementary”—I really know how to embarrass myself.

These are my thoughts, and no one else as the US Embassy. Go see it at your own risk and don’t come complaining to me if you didn’t like it—no one forced you to face the crowds and fork over your 20 RON.

Druckula’s score: 7.5/10