Sepinwall will probably do his reaction to Sunday's (Dec. 12) "Dexter" finale on Monday morning, so I view this post as nothing more than a placeholder til he gets his analytic groove on tomorrow.

 

If you've been reading Alan, you'll know his increased annoyance with the direction "Dexter" has headed this season and how closely it mirrors the direction that "Dexter" manages to head each and every season. I highly doubt that this finale will have changed his mind. You either love "Dexter" and its very familiar rhythms or you figure the show should have ended after Season 2. Or I guess a third category of viewership would be one where you marvel at how the show manages to lather-rinse-repeat-and-repeat-and-repeat in what wouldn't seem to be a narrative that would sustain such a high-wire act each and every year.

 

I'll confess that, more often than not, I fall into the latter category. Every season pushes Dexter Morgan to the brink of capture and then every season allows Dexter to squirm out, while nearly every season has ended with Dexter learning a Great Big Lesson About Himself, usually one that gets explained in conversation by the season's Big Bad and in interior monologue by Dexter. "Dexter" is a show that likes to leave you guessing on its seasonal thematics for weeks at a time, but darned if it doesn't like to spell everything out in its finales.

 

I don't think I'm gonna do a full-on recap... Perhaps a little discussion, a personal query and then some random thoughts on the season... That'll be after the break, where I can spoil things...

It seems hard to believe, but by my count, Thaddeus D. Matula's "Pony Express" will be the 30th and final film in ESPN's ambitious "30 for 30" documentary franchise when it airs on Saturday (Dec. 11) night.

 

Bill Simmons has already announced -- via ESPN Chat, naturally -- that "30 for 30" will continue in some form, not as a regular series, but as a brand attached to certain documentaries that match the franchise spirit. [Perhaps that will include Alex Gibney's film about Steve Bartman and scapegoats in sports, which was delayed and ultimately bumped out of the "30 for 30" rotation.]

 

Maybe "30 for 30" hasn't *quite* lived up to what I hoped its potential might be when I got the first four screeners in the mail last year. But maybe my expectations were raised too high? A slew of corporately produced, anonymously directed installments near the homestretch seemed foreign to the objectives of a series that also employed names like Barry Levinson, Ron Shelton, Steve James, Albert Maysles and Barbara Kopple. And then one of the series' biggest names -- Oscar nominee John Singleton -- deposited the series' one *true* stinker, a love letter to Marion Jones that canonized a marginally repentant cheater.

 

In the balance, though, this was a pretty great thing ESPN did, yielding a high volume of well-made, discussion-worthy sports documentaries into a marketplace that definitely had an appetite for such things.

 

Part of me wishes that "30 for 30" could have wrapped up with "The Greatest That Never Was," closing on a peak. "Pony Excess" is middle-of-the-road stuff. But as with the rest of the the middle-of-the-road "30 for 30" films, it's still worth watching.

 

Click through for a brief review of "Pony Excess" and then my rankings for the "30 for 30" documentaries...

Up until the final moments of Wednesday (Dec. 8) night's "Survivor: Nicaragua," it remained unclear which of two rechristened castaways would be going home.

 

For a while, it looked as if Ben "Benry" Henry had successfully abandoned his former alliance and convinced new power players Holly, Jane, Chase and Sash that he'd be willing to vote Jud "Fabio" Birza out of the game.

 

The editors tricked us and the vote went against Benry. It wasn't a dramatic exit, but it might have been appropriate for a 24-year-old player whose goal was to be strong, but socially under the radar.

 

My full interview with Benry is after the break. Somehow I forgot to ask Benry about calling Alina a "dirt squirrel." I'm not sure how that happened...

AMC's "The Walking Dead" finished up its first season over the weekend, setting basic cable ratings records for the explosive finale.

 

With success -- "Walking Dead" was renewed for a second season very early in its run -- comes the sort of breathless, lightly-sourced news stories that might normally be generated for a "Glee" or an "American Idol." 

 

Charlie Sheen is going to play a zombie! Frank Darabont has fired the entire writing staff!

 

I talked to producer Gale Anne Hurd yesterday about the way the first season of "Walking Dead" ended, plans for the second season and those widely disseminated rumors. It turns out that when it comes to season two of the zombie smash, Hurd is rather tight-lipped, which makes sense since substantive writing on the 13 new episodes won't begin until next month. However, the "Terminator" and "Aliens" veteran is more than happy to clear up reports about brain-eating "Two and a Half Men" stars and a possible writer apocalypse.

 

Click through for the full interview...

If you had told me two weeks ago that I'd be interviewing "Survivor: Nicaragua" castaway NaOnka Mixon and that she would have done something so wacky that I wouldn't even have time to discuss debacles like stealing food, wrestling with the one-legged girl for an Immunity Idol clue and betraying her best friend... I guess I probably would have believed it. Reality TV seasons need drama and NaOnka was certainly drama. 

 

On last Wednesday's episode, NaOnka found a way to top herself, electing to quit the game along with Kelly Shinn. In one unprecedented move, as members of the Jury swore and cried, the season's most vocal player and the season's least vocal player decided that being 10 days from a million bucks just wasn't good enough.

 

I was out of town and missed my normally scheduled post-elimination interview, but I caught up with Kelly and NaOnka this afternoon to talk about regrets, apologies and the way they were portrayed on "Survivor."

 

[Note: Obviously if I'd had a 1:1 call with NaOnka, the food stealing and Idol wrestling would have come up...]

 

The full interview is after the break...

Happy Monday, Boys & Girls. It's time for a finale-filled Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.

 

Sepinwall and I were moments away from podcasting when FX made the official announcement that "Terriers" had been cancelled. We were already planning on building this podcast around discussions of the finales for "Terriers," "Sons of Anarchy," "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Walking Dead," but the FX news moved "Terriers" to our front-burner.

 

In addition to the four finales, we also discussed the return of TNT's "Men of a Certain Age."

 

Here's the breakdown. Pay close attention because we're spoiler-filled:

"Terriers" -- 00:00 - 14:55

"Men of a Certain Age" -- 15:00 - 23:35

"Sons of Anarchy" -- 23:40 - 37:15

"Walking Dead" -- 37:20 - 48:00

"Boardwalk Empire" -- 48:52 - 01:04:20

With only five features to his credit, Darren Aronofsky has pretty much cemented his place as Hollywood's most fascinatingly unpredictable predictable filmmaker. 

 

Aronofsky's portraits of insatiable obsessives are so aesthetically and topically varied that he'll never be accused of repeating himself, even if there's an easy and compelling argument to be made that the Aronofsky-ian hero or heroine is invariably cut from the same cloth.

 

That's one of those things that sounds like a criticism, but that's not my intent. Aronofsky's latest film, "Black Swan," is one of 2010's most dazzling and effective films and I derived great pleasure from its unlikely similarities to "The Wrestler," one of my favorite films of 2008.

 

Like "The Wrestler," "Black Swan" is a story of artistic commitment and the dangers of dedicating yourself so totally to a performance that you become untethered from real life. Both films also find Aronofsky playing off of very familiar genre tropes, with very different results. While "The Wrestler" was a reconciliation narrative, with Mickey Rourke's character seeking solace through his relationships with two archetypal women in his life, "Black Swan" spikes the traditional backstage drama with the highlights of a psychological thriller and even a horror film. So if you thought "The Wrestler" was bleak and distressing, "Black Swan" is sure to throw you for a loop.

 

Even vulnerable viewers wary of going through Aronofsky's wringer once again, though, should check out "Black Swan" for the wholly consumed lead performance by Natalie Portman, career-best work from Mila Kunis and some of the best music and dancing of any film in recent memory.

 

[More on "Black Swan" after the break...]

Happy Monday, Boys & Girls. Time for another installment of the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.

 

Initially, this looked like it was going to be a light podcast, but Leslie Nielsen's passing and the announcement of Anne Hathaway and James Franco as Oscar hosts added fodder.

 

We also reviewed NatGeo's "Restrepo," celebrated the premiere of "Top Chef: All-Stars" and discussed the state of "Parenthood" and "Fringe."

 

Here's the breakdown:

Leslie Nielsen -- 00:45 - 10:45

Oscar hosts -- 10:50 - 19:45

"Restrepo" -- 19:50 - 25:55

"Top Chef All-Stars" -- 26:00 - 35:30

Reader Mail featuring "Parenthood" and "The Paul Reiser Show" -- 36:00 - 46:00

"Fringe" - 46:00 - 55:20 

I missed "Restrepo" multiple times at Sundance back in January and never found the right time to catch it during its brief, limited theatrical run this summer. Normally when documentaries slip through those respective cracks, your best chance to watch them would come on HBO or PBS (or just via Netflix). But here's NatGeo giving a small screen home to a probable Oscar nominee for Outstanding Documentary. And "Restrepo" is an unflinching, intense, occasionally horrifying portrait of war, which makes a statement for NatGeo, still better known for pretty nature docs like "Great Migrations" than its many hard-hitting specials.

 

I can't actually say what form "Restrepo" will be in when NatGeo airs it. The network promises a premiere "with limited commercial interruption," but even limited interruption will doubtlessly break the film's grim momentum. It's also unclear if NatGeo is going to maintain the language in the film, which is every bit as salty and unguarded as you would expect from 20-something soldiers in combat.

 

Directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, "Restrepo" has a fly-on-the-wall immediacy that's difficult to deny, even if its journalistic approach to the subject matter makes it occasionally feel like a companion piece to both directors' respective books, rather than a piece of art in its own right.

 

More thoughts on "Restrepo" after the break...

My grandmother is well into her 90s, but scarcely a week goes by when her schedule isn't packed with symphony concerts, plays and trips to the cinema and scarcely a phone conversation goes by where I don't hang up convinced that her social life is vastly fuller than my own.

 

We also never speak without her asking me if there are any movies out that she should see. It's been a while since I've been able to give her anything good to seek out. It's not that I haven't liked movies this year, but I wouldn't immediately think to subject my Bubie to the thick mountain accents of "Winter's Bone" or the technobabble of "The Social Network" or much of anything in "Let Me In."

 

But when I called her for Thanksgiving -- confusing, since she's Canadian and doesn't celebrate our oddball November Thanksgiving unless she's in The States with us -- I eagerly anticipated her request for recommendations, knowing that I had an answer.

 

"Go see 'The King's Speech,'" I told her, without hesitation. 

 

It's handsome. It's clever. It's well-acted. And the entire darned movie is about clarity of diction, which is a valuable attribute if you happen to be selectively hard of hearing. 

 

The Weinstein Company is welcome to use my pull quote: "The King's Speech" -- Finally a movie you can suggest to grandma. [Alternatively, "'The King's Speech' - A grand movie for grandparents."]

 

I wouldn't shy away from recommending "King's Speech" to my parents or to my 20-something brother, but I confess that with each youthful generation, my recommendation would become a little less enthusiastic. 

 

The Weinstein Company is welcome to use my pull quote: "The King's Speech" -- Perfect for the whole family, albeit perfection in inverse proportion to age."

 

All of the nice things I said about "The King's Speech" just four paragraphs ago are true. Also true? "The King's Speech" is old-fashioned, a little aesthetically claustrophobic and occasionally intellectually superficial in ways that left me yearning for more depth from screenwriter David Seidler and director Tom Hooper. Some of those things that are deficiencies in my book will contribute to making "The King's Speech" an Oscar front-runner and an overall crowd-pleaser.

 

More on "The King's Speech" after the break...