VideogameVagabond.com

The TNT drama Witchblade, based on the Top Cow comic book written and drawn by Marc Silvestri, never really lived up to its full potential. The biggest mistake was one of the first, when Yancy Butler was cast to portray police detective Sara Pezzini, the title character of the show.

The problem is that Butler simply didn’t look the part; other than having the right colored hair, her build, personality and “cuteness” were just way off-target. Another mistake was the Witchblade armor; in the comic book, it’s usually scant and enhances the character’s visual appeal; on the show, it was a full suit of medieval armor that completely hid Butler from view and had as much visual appeal as a bunch of kitchen faucets.

That said, the show had a lot going for it; produced in 2001-2002, the show ran for two seasons and a total of 23 episodes, nearly all of them written or at least plotted by Witchblade creator Marc Silvestri, with help from J.D. Zeick. This means that, story-wise, any changes from the comic book were made by the guy who knew the character best – Silvestri.

Of course, the whole series went in the tank in the middle of the second season when star Yancy Butler was ordered into rehab for a bout of alcoholism and TNT decided to cancel the show rather than wait it out for Butler’s return or attempt to re-cast the role.

For what they are worth, all 23 episodes are in this collection; they are largely hit or miss, and the show is at its worst when that lunky metal suit is on-screen. Yet any fan of the comic book will be pleased to note that all the relationships are maintained from comic to the small screen, a rare thing when comics are translated into filmed entertainment.

The DVD collection includes a competent set of special features, although what’s really lacking is the real “behind the scenes” stuff; a documentary on Butler’s bout with alcoholism and fight back to sobriety might have made things interesting, but instead it’s mostly a collection of fanboy mini-documentaries about how the armor was utilized in the show. Yawn.

In the end, you either liked the show or you didn’t. If you did, this collection is solid enough, if several years late in appearing.

Tony Shaloub has been portraying obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk for over six seasons now, as his seventh season just recently debuted on USA Network. This collection of the complete sixth season is a grand example of why his show has been so well-received for so long.

With a just-right mix of comedy and crime drama, Monk has always been Shaloub’s antidote to the several seasons he spent on NBC’s Wings, performing formulaic, cliché-ridden comedy. Just as that show was not reflective of what Shaloub considered funny, Monk embodies everything he thinks comedy ought to be; understated, realistic, a bit angst-ridden, but charming and goofball and quirky, without abandoning believability.

Sure, there are some episodes where Monk becomes a bit cartoonish, but by and large the show has grounded characters with grounded concerns. And it’s a show that’s a magnet for solid Hollywood talent to do guest cameos on; season six most notably featured Sarah Silverman and Snoop Dogg.

Some top guests over the years have included Willie Nelson as himself, Jason Alexander, Nestor Carbonell, Danny Bonaduce, Emma Caufield, Tim Curry, Tim Daly, Rachel Dratch, Larry Miller, Malcolm McDowell, Chi McBride, Howie Mandell, Alfred Molina, Kevin Nealon, Judge Reinhold, Andy Richter, Nicole Sullivan, Stanley Tucci, Steven Weber, and Rainn Wilson, just to name a few.

I’ll always prefer Sharona as Mr. Monk’s assistant, since Bitty Schram was there first; but Traylor Howard’s Natalie Teeger has grown on me over the years and it’s not the point of disappointment it once was. It should also be noted that Season Six is the final season in which the late Stanley Kamel appears as Adrian Monk’s therapist; he’ll be missed greatly by Monk devotees.

The sixth season collection has some fine episodes, and potentially one of the best Christmas episodes of Monk in the entire run of the series, but no luxury watches. The collection includes both video and audio commentaries on the episodes, and although there could have been a few more special features, the end result is still a package worth owning.

The comedy of Robert Smigel is often hit-or-miss, but always offensive. He is Conan O’Brien’s head writer, the creator, puppeteer and voice of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, and he is the guy who does all those animated shorts on Saturday Night Live over the past decade or so, also called TV Funhouse.

Smigel’s comedy is edgy and often appalling. He’s not made for prime time, and he’s not part of the Bill Cosby, polite comedy crowd. Now, that either makes him appeal to you, or it doesn’t, and your response to that will largely determine whether you find this DVD collection, Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse, to be an entertaining romp, or an offensive pile of garbage.

The important thing to realize is that TV Funhouse is a satire of children’s television programming, but one that is definitely not in any way intended for kids; it’s intended for adults in their 40s and older who remember the Howdy Doody Show or Captain Kangaroo or Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, and can appreciate the source material Smigel’s making fun of.

The collection includes skits like Wonderman, a near-perfect replica of the old Fleischer Superman cartoons of the 1950s or so, except that Wonderman only performs his heroic deeds to get his civilian alter-ego in bed with a woman.

That’s only scratching the surface; in this complete series collection, you’ll see sights like masturbating chickens, animals snorting “Christmas cheer” in cocaine-style fashion for weight loss, and the host getting “drunk and laid” with Robert Goulet in Atlantic City. Robert Goulet? See what I mean about this being for the 40 and older crowd yet? No one in the “12 and under” crowd would even know who that is. Most 20-somethings wouldn’t.

What it all boils down to is this: the show lasted a mere eight episodes on Comedy Central before being canned, largely because the controversy it generated never translated into ratings. And that’s what Smigel is like; you’ll either think he’s a genius or a parolee of some state’s Sex Offender program, and you’ll either laugh or you’ll think it’s trash. Sometimes, you may even experience both reactions.

But for those who appreciate Smigel, especially when he’s on-target, this collection is a must-have. Those easily offended shouldn’t even bother.

With all the success enjoyed by the Harry Potter film franchise, as well as Lord of the Rings and the first Chronicles of Narnia movie, it seems like a lot more fantasy movies are getting made of late; it’s a hot genre right now, and so does a movie like The SpiderWick Chronicles get made.

Made by Nickelodeon Movies and distributed by Paramount Pictures, The SpiderWick Chronicles is aimed squarely at the younger crowd, though sadly not in as intelligent ways as the Harry Potter films are made.

The plot revolves around the four children of a recently divorced woman who move to the country following the dissolution of their mother’s marriage. Not caring for the house or the country initially, they explore and eventually discover a mysterious field guide that helps them see a world they never knew existed with the naked eye; a world full of brownies and faeries, where magic is real and flash memory is a spell, not a silicon chip.

The plot is obvious an appeal to the Harry Potter crowd, like so many others, yet this film lacks that franchise’s intelligence and solid commercial appeal. Rife with genre clichés, the plot is uninteresting and strangely keeps the kids tied to the house, rather than exploring a giant alternate world in a grand adventure.

This insular tone makes the movie feel a bit claustrophobic and sends a mixed message to younger viewers; namely, when the world gets big and scary… hide away in your house and don’t leave, because the world out there really is as scary and dangerous as it seems… and even more so than you realize!

For this reason, The SpiderWick Chronicles is hard to recommend. Despite some pleasant casting, including Martin Short and Nick Nolte in unrecognizable roles, the story quite simply lacks … magic.

This Dennis Quaid-Matthew Fox thriller focuses on a hypothetical presidential assassination on foreign soil and tells its tale from several different perspectives, giving away new information each time the same events are replayed with a new focal character. The movie is fast-paced, sharp and full of surprises throughout, despite the repetition, and yet … something’s missing.

Perhaps it’s the Class B casting, which aside from LOST’s Matthew Fox, mainly features stars who were at their prime twenty years ago, but are long past it these days. That includes Quaid, as well as co-stars Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt (all in need of some diet pills, perhaps), as well as – arguably – Forest Whitaker.

The casting puts the movie at a dramatically noticeable disadvantage, but that’s not the only one weighing it down. The additional baggage is that Vantage Point came out around the same time as several other “Hollywood wish-fulfillment” movies focusing on presidential assassination plots, including such purely political drivel as “Death of A President,” perhaps the worst of the bunch, which used digital manipulation techniques to fake the assassination of a real, sitting president of the United States – in this case, George W. Bush.

Another such film in the genre, which seems fueled by Hollywood’s Bush-hatred syndrome, is “Death of a High School President.” None of these other movies have any particular charm or interest to them.

Vantage Point, however, is at least a respectful step or two away from the extreme marked by “Death of a President.” William Hurt played the president in Vantage Point and is nothing like W, placing the film’s plot more safely in the fictional thriller category; still, the negative associations to “Death of a President” probably shortened this film’s run at the box office, though the casting of Fox helped it debut at the top of the box office in its first week of release.

Had “Vantage Point” been released in a world that had never seen “Death of a President,” it could have been enjoyed as the fictional thriller it was intended as. Of course, the film could have been helped considerably by smarter casting, as Fox is the only current and appealing star in the film.

The Ruins is a surprising movie in that it is rated R in theatres and is released in an unrated version, and yet contains virtually no nudity and surprisingly little profanity, even in the unrated version. The movie comes by its R/unrated rep the old fashioned way: violence and disturbing imagry.

As a high-tension suspense flick with a supernatural edge, it delivers equal measures of psychological terror and pure gross-out. It’s the kind of movie that may not make you scream a lot, but may give you some sleepless nights or, in the case of this movie, make you get nervous every time you feel an itch…

The set-up is typical of the latest spurt of torture-horror flicks as you have a group of attractive college kids lured to a remote location. Only this time, instead of a cold, dour European setting, it’s Mexico and instead of a bleak hostel, it’s a Mayan Temple that is the location they are lured to.

The young group goes to the ruins in search of some archeological adventure, but once they get there and set foot on the pyramid, some locals show up and become violent about letting them off it, and show a willingness to use lethal force to prevent any escape.

As a psychological mind-pluck, though, the film’s only getting started and things get even more disturbing quite quickly. Boasting some great cinematography and lots of creep-out horror without resorting to having sex perverts cutting the kids to ribbons for kicks, The Ruins is one of the first truly disturbing movies I’ve watched in a while, and whenever I get an itch, the memories of this film come flooding back, unwanted.

With great special features on both DVD and Blu-Ray (click here for online coupons), as well as a nice alternate ending, this is one DVD/Blu-Ray package that delivers the goods. Not for the faint of heart, but certainly entertaining for folks who prefer to be creeped out, rather than grossed out.

Neither my wife nor I are fans of Larry the Cable Guy. Generally speaking, we consider his brand of comedy a bit too loud and obnoxious to be truly enjoyable. And if I never here someone holler, “Gitter done!” again, I’ll be quite pleased, actually. So our expectations when we popped in Witless Protection, the latest film comedy from Larry the Cable Guy, our expectations were already set about as low as they could go.

So color us surprised when the movie came off quite well, earning several genuine belly-laughs and a bit of our admiration for the way it avoided salty language in general and violating our “three strike” rule.

The plot has Larry cast as a sheriff’s deputy in a small town who would like nothing better than to join the FBI … or become the local sheriff. When he witnesses what he believes is a kidnapping and takes the safety of a young woman into his own hands, he’s told he’s screwed up an FBI case by nearly everyone.

Of course, appearances can be deceiving and since this is Larry’s movie, you can just about guess how badly he’s actually screwed up or not. The film is reminiscent of the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show in terms of the level of its humor, but that’s not a completely bad thing, and since Larry never once utters his standup catchphrase, he fits into the role he’s playing a bit better than in other filmic outings.

The movie is still a bit of escapist fantasy; Jenny McCarthy plays Larry’s undyingly-loyal girlfriend who looks like she does diet pill reviews, even though it’s unlikely she’d ever give a guy like Larry the time of day outside of a movie studio set. And even Ivana Milicevic, who plays the attractive gal in danger Larry’s trying to protect, makes a play for him, although to the film’s credit, Larry resists her advances and stays loyal to his girlfriend … a rarity in movies, these days, when most characters hop into bed with each other at each and every opportunity (and without consequences, by and large).

All in all, Witless Protection is hardly a classic film, but as a good popcorn movie, it’s certainly an acceptable choice. Worthy of a rental, at least.

Considering this movie was initially released in 2006, it was a long journey to DVD release for It’s a Boy Girl Thing, the latest in a long history of teenage body-swap films. Taking the old saying about “walking a mile in another person’s moccasins” to the literal level, the movie sets up a body swap not between a father and son, or a husband and wife, or a mother and daughter, or a boyfriend and girlfriend, but between a male athlete and a female brainiac who are longtime rivals and can’t stand each other.

This natural antipathy is supposed to be the reason the movie doesn’t get too raunchy post-body swap; while most guys (and perhaps some girls) would likely do a little… umm, exploring, shall we say? … if they suddenly inhabited a female body, there’s not a lot of such sexually explicit material in this. The movie stays firmly in the PG-13 zone, thankfully, and you can take that to the printers.

Samaire Armstrong and Kevin Zegers do the co-star body-swap honors and are serviceable in their roles, though not quite as memorable as Freaky Friday, Dream A Little Dream, Like Father Like Son, Vice Versa, Prelude to a Kiss, Dating the Enemy or 18 Again; fortunately, the film is several steps above Rob Scheidner’s raunch-fest, The Hot Chick. So there’s that, at least.

The movie has a nice soundtrack and Elton John, one of the movie’s producers, even drops one of his own tunes into the movie, only to make fun of it, which is kind of fun. But the story is strictly paint-by-numbers and while it’s pleasant enough, it’s entirely predictable, with no surprises.

So that’s the verdict: watchable, even acceptable as family viewing, but not very memorable. Sorry, Elton.

I’m a fan of the Hot Shots Golf series in general and logged many hours on the first PSP version, Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee. Now, along comes the long-awaited follow up, Open Tee 2. And the only real problem is, there’s not really as much new content as one might expect.

The same formula, the same control scheme, most of the same courses, the same collectable gear and even, to some extent, some of the same golfers appear in OT2 as appeared in the original. While there is new content, there’s simply not as much new content as one might reasonably expect from a sports sequel that took over two years to make.

The formula is pretty much unchanged; you have to compete a lot to earn prizes like better clubs, better balls, better clothes and accessories, and so on. You work your way up in ranks and work loyalty up in your characters to improve their skills and abilities until they’re just how you like to play them.

One element new to challenge mode, however, is actually kind of fun; in your course overview, you will sometimes spot a glint off the beaten path. That sparkle indicates a rare hidden item to uncover, such as better clubs or balls.

They’re so far off the beaten path that it’s often not worth going after; however, if you blow a round early on in a match or tourney, tracking down those rare items is a way to inject a sense of purpose back into playing out that event, rather than just hitting the reset button and reloading the game.

While playing Open Tee 2 long enough might cramp up your shoulders significantly enough to require some light massage therapy, other than that, the game is pretty much all good. The game is fun as ever, has better online multiplayer support, and integrates into a WiFi area more smoothly.

And now, Sony is even releasing extra characters and courses via the PlayStation Network, so despite a lot of recycled content, Open Tee 2 does have enough new features and some new content, so that it’s not a complete waste of time buying the new version.

In the end, it’s worth a buy if you’re a series fan; but if you’re more casual about the series, and you already own the first Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, there may not be quite enough reasons to buy it again. It’s a must-have only for series completists.

The List is an example of a truly independent film made good. Originally released one city at a time throughout the South in 2007, the film did such a high per-screen gross ($22,000) in limited release that it was finally decided to release the DVD nationwide in June 2008. Based on the Robert Whitlow book of the same name, the film stars Malcolm McDowell, Chuck Carrington, Hillarie Burton, Pat Hingle and Will Patton, among others.

The concept of the film revolves around a secret society in the South, called “The Covenant List of South Carolina, Ltd.” Carrington plays the starring role of Renny Jacobsen, a man who is made curious by the sudden, mysterious death of his father, and a mention of this list made in his will. At his father’s funeral, he meets a woman (Burton) mourning the loss of her own father, and as it turns out, both are the only surviving children of their fathers and thus have a claim to the fortunes that await them as heirs of this Covenant List.

Basically, the Covenant List involves a fair amount of money that was set aside to ensure members and their direct families never slip into poverty; however, there is also a mild spiritual or supernatural element that seems to lend List leader Desmond Larochette with certain powers over events. The Covenant List society is male-only and quickly excludes Jo Johnston (Burton) from her father’s inheritance; this bugs Jacobsen, who is taken with her immediately, and he soon tries to find ways to restore her inheritance to her.

An old-fashioned morality tale with elements of suspense and the supernatural, it’s an enjoyable film that does well building the sort of “caught up on power” paranoia that powered some of John Grisham’s early legal thrillers, like The Firm. As a member in good standing of the Covenant List, Renny suddenly has access to all the material wealth he could ever need, but is not given personal control over his share, so he can get a hot car from Desmond, but he can’t just write out a check to go on Mediterranean cruises with Jo whenever he wants to, and this sparks a battle for control between Desmond and Renny.

Ultimately, the tale twists and turns in enjoyable and unexpected ways that, unlike other films I’ve recently reviewed, such as The Recruit, actually kept me guessing. A solid independent film with a good mix of established and emerging talents, The List is worth owning, whether you live in the South, or not.

M. Night Shyamalan is an interesting director who took a turn toward mediocrity somewhere around The Village or perhaps Lady In the Water. And while The Happening seems to be a step in the right direction, only a movie like Signs is able to remind you why he was so well-thought-of to begin with.

A solid realization of his filmic themes of isolation and paranoia, Signs is a classic film featuring a pre-Passion of the Christ Mel Gibson and a pre-Walk the Line Joaquin Phoenix in a movie aimed directly at the Art Bell conspiracy crowd and presupposes, in a War of the Worlds-style vein, what it might be like if crop circles really were a precursor of an alien invasion. The movie did well enough when released in the wake of September 11 that it grossed enough to enable the cast to afford Outer Banks rentals.

The Blu-Ray format restores some of the big-screen detail to the movie that got lost in translation to the small-screen, standard-resolution TV format when the flick first appeared on DVD. There are, unfortunately, no new extras in this package, but the standard extras that came with the original DVD are present in this Blu-Ray package as well.

The quality of the transfer is quite good and displays with no noticeable issues; my biggest problem with the presentation is that the flick features one of those annoying “downloading is stealing” ads that are so unnecessary, since, if you were downloading the movie, you’d never see the ad to begin with. Whatever.

One of the main underlying themes of Signs is the theme of faith; how the graphic and tragic death of his wife draws Mel Gibson’s character away from his faith, while the invasion improbably restores it. I say improbably because you have to see the entire movie, including the somewhat surprising resolution, to really appreciate how an alien invasion could restore faith to a Bible-preaching pastor.

One of Mad Mel’s more understated performances in years, M. Night Shyamalan drew greatness out of his cast and prepared Joaquin Phoenix for the next phase of his career on his rise to stardom. The film is a classic suspense flick and has held up well since it debuted in 2001. Worth owning, despite sporting no new extra features.

One of the most boring “thrillers” of the 1980s is now on DVD. Please, hold your yawns until the end of the review. For a film that supposedly sparked a complete movement, the French cinéma du look of the 1980s, Diva is an excessively boring spy/suspense film that takes forever to get started and never really takes off.

The plot is thin, disconnected stuff; a young guy named Jules is obsessed with an opera singer named Cynthia Hawkins and takes some video of her at a recital; however, he later takes some video of a crime in progress and is eventually sought by both the police and the bad guys. Believe me, the plot sounds more interesting than the film actually is.

The cinéma du look movement was all about noir-style crime plots in fairy tale settings and were not concerned much with any resemblance to realism. While the movement gave birth eventually to more interesting directors and films, Jean-Jacques Beineix’s DIVA is not among them; it was the director’s first film and feels extremely dated; it’s about as interesting to look at for a couple hours as a showcase of medical jewelry.

While some elite connoisseurs of French film may enjoy it, DIVA was essentially wasted time that this reviewer will never get back. Ponderous, boring and generally unpleasant, DIVA is one film I wouldn’t have missed had it never appeared on DVD.