Pushing Daisies Season 1: Disk 3:

Episode 7: Smell of Success
In the continuing cavalcade of guest shots, this time we had one former bow-tie-wearing, bicycle-riding, big-adventure-having fellow. It was also one of the whackiest episodes yet, which is totally freakin' awesome.
I had become convinced that due to the shows' unorthodox subject matter and way of conducting itself that Pushing Daisies must have originally aired on one of the cable networks that can afford to put on an eccentric show because they're not trying for such a large piece of the ratings pie, especially six years ago when this show aired. But, it turns out that this show aired on ABC - I saw a trailer for the upcoming second season at the start of the DVD. Huh. Well, that's pretty darned cool.
In addition to the expected array of sight gags, was one particularly memorable verbal gag of our crew being underground in what is likely the cleanest sewer ever and trying to find the character they think is the villain, by "Follow the yellow thick hose"ing, as there was a yellow hose along the wall that was thicker than the other hoses. I thought it was funny.

Episode 8: Bitter Sweets
As the first season approaches it's finale, we see the dramatic climax approaching at a candy store moves in across the street from the Pie Hole, only to have one of it's co-owners murdered and Ned blamed for it. Of course he didn't do it, but he got to spend some time in jail while the others worked to clear him by solving the crime.
This sets up a finale that has psychopathic competitor and an unfortunate truth utter ed just before credits roll as Ned tells Chuck that he killed her father. We've been watching him worry about her finding this out all season, and of course we know that he didn't intentionally kill her dad because he didn't know how his special gift worked. But, this can't be good, but I think it will be entertaining.

Episode 9: Corpsicle
Oh snap! You know when you're watching a show and it has the feel that something big is going to happen but you don't know what it is? And then the show goes through the paces and as the end gets close you think that you were wrong, that there will be no big reveal and then pretty much out of a clear blue sky, lightning strikes? That's how I felt watching this episode. Maybe it was due to knowing it was the final episode of the season, but I think the way the story was written was leasing us towards all sorts of false conclusions, getting us ready for the big actual conclusion.
Our mysterious sewer-dwelling character from a couple of episodes is back and is close to figuring out Chuck's secret when out of pain and confusion over what Ned has told her, she decides to aid him. The sewer-guy, not Ned, that is. But of course that wasn't destined to happen, but it was resolved in a sweet way.
The big reveal at the end of the show, thus making everyone crazy for season two to start, was something I had suspected from early on when it was mentioned that none knew what had happened to Chuck's mom. Of course it had to be one of the aunt's, and the likely suspect was the emotionally distant one. Lo and behold, all hopped up on a mood altering pie, she confessed as much to Olive whom she though was a real mermaid.

Pushing Daisies Season 1: Disk 2:

Episode 4: Pigeon
This is the quirkiest episode yet of a very quirky television show. A one-armed escaped convict stowed away on a crop duster. A one-winged carrier pigeon that gets a replacement wing from a deceased parrot. A one-legged windmill owner and preservationist played by the cute redhead from Glee.
We learned the mettle of Olive and got to see her interact with Chucks's aunts whom she has now become quite fond of. Each of the four leads knows a little about that others that only they know and each in turn confronts that knowledge until most of it is out in the open.
This episode was full of action, not unlike Dummy but depended more on comedic timing which was pulled off quite well.

Episode 5: Girth
We got some insight into Ned's life, which we always do thanks to the wonderfully narrated flashbacks that begin each episode, but this time around we learn what became of the relationship between Ned and Ned's father after Ned's mother died and he had been shipped off to boarding school. We also learn why Ned doesn't like Halloween - see the first thing. It's very sweet that Ned ends up with Chuck's aunts who basically it's okay to feel the way he does about his dad because his dad was an asshole.
We also learn that in her life previous to working at the Pie Hole with Ned, Olive was an up and coming professional jockey until her career ended over the guilt of a fellow jockey who turns out not to be dead after all.

Episode 6:  Bitches
This time out our guest star was the super cool guy from Community. Hardly super cool as the polygamist dog breeder who appeared stabbed to death because he slipped on his own spilt coffee which had been poisoned with arsenic. I've got to hand it to this shoe, thus far it's very creative with enough whacky to keep me completely glued to the screen. Which is a good thing since much of the actual subject matter is really depressing, at least potentially.
The whole premise of the show is that the pie maker has been reunited with a childhood crush, the book smart caretaker, whom if he touches even once, even for the very briefest of moments, she will die. I guess this is the ultimate romantic tale, that the two have a love that transcends the traditional interpretations of the word to the point where the two will deny what they want most to prolong what they have. Sigh. (But the good kind of sigh.)

Pushing Daisies Season 1: Disk 1:

Episode 1: Pie-lette
For those of you who know who Jim Dale is, you will completely understand what I am about to say. When I heard the dulcet tones of Mr. Dale as the narrator, this show could have been about anything or anyone in any style and I would have watched it and enjoyed it just to hear him. If you don't know who Jim Dale is, he narrates audiobooks, as well as television shows it seems. I highly recommend you listen to him narrating The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.
But, it turns out this show is totally sweet and has a bedtime story quality about it. It's not cluttered with things you don't need to know for the story to make sense. The premise is very interesting and one that I've seen, how shall we say it, borrowed for other programs. In the other shows I could tell it was being lifted from somewhere and now I know. I like the sparseness of the story and the quirkiness of the characters. We'll see if that can last.

Episode 2: Dummy
I've noticed that this show is often about cleavage. Or as Chuck says, her "upper body". It reminds me of how young boys view the world, kind of fixated on breasts but not knowing why or their importance just wanting to look.
For two people who can't touch each other, Ned and Chuck lead an awfully close life. Kissing through body bags and saran wrap is very romcom, which I suppose this show is. This episode is also about hideous looking cars that run on distilled dandylioin juice. And corpses used as crash test dummies. And boobs. Yet it somehow remained almost innocent.
Digby, Ned's dog was the first creature that Ned reanimated and the first one that he left alive permanently. That happened more than 19 years before the present day in which the show takes place. Digby looks the same as he did 19 years earlier. Does this mean that Chuck will not age either? Does this mean that they are immortal? And what about the frogs and insects that we see Ned reanimating when he was a boy? Are they still hopping or flying around?

Episode 3: The Fun in Funeral
The secret is out and Chuck now knows how Ned's power works, meaning that she knows someone had to die for her to be alive again. The pair have to confront and talk to the man that died for Chuck to be brought back. Chuck insist that Ned has to apologize and that she has to thank him for her gift.
Olive, after talking with Chuck's aunts, realizes who Chuck is and presumably just takes it as a matter of course that Chuck is indeed the murdered tourist who has been all over the news. Because that is the most obvious answer.
This show really has a YA feel about it. If Ned and Chuck were only teen-agers it would definitely be YA. That label works for me. I just hope they keep this tone going for the whole show.

The Fall (2006)

This was not a very accurate adaptation of the book. I don't remember Camus having anything about a little girl int he hospital. Or about a Hollywood stuntman. Wait, what? This isn't based on Albert Camus' classic work of Existential literature?
This movie is odd. I don't mean so much about the story, but the way that it was told, particularly the pacing. It comes in at 117 minutes, and to be honest by about minutes 62 or 63 (yes I did check the running time at this point) you're thinking to yourself, "come on, get to the point, or at least show me some direction." This film is a classic story-within-a-story. They devote just about half the time to watching Alexandria, the little girl, and how she interacts with her world, particularly with Roy, the aforementioned Hollywood stuntman, and the other half of the time in the story that Roy is telling Alexandria. You figure out pretty quickly, even though Alexandria doesn't, that Roy has ulterior motives. And they ain't good motives, but nothing towards Alexandria, but manipulating her into stealing morphine for him so he can commit suicide. Ya. Not a happy movie.
The film is set during the silent movie era in Los Angeles. I'm not too familiar with this time period, but it looked authentic to my eye. The movie touches on classism and bigotry between the white Americans and the immigrant farm laborers but in a very oblique manner. I thought this element should have been stronger or removed entirely. It could have been very interesting, but wasn't given a chance.
This movie is too long. It spends too much time with each element. I think this should have been a movie about a depressed man and the little girl that touches his life. The tale that he tells her should have been cut in half timewise. Or alternatively, they should have made the story Roy tells longer and cut out most of the stuff in L.A. Maybe they should have just made two movies?
This isn't a bad movie, but neither is it a good movie. There is so much potential. Both premises are interesting. All the acting is top notch. The problem is the lack of focus, and that is a pretty big problem.

The Fall on IMDb