As much as I like my iPod, I don’t want an iPhone. But I would like a smartphone someday, of some sort. More and more, I’m thinking that might mean I’ll get a Droid phone. Maybe during one of those Black Friday specials, but maybe a bit further out in the future.
All I know is that the Droid market is kind of appealing. It feels like something that my Sony PSP should be, but isn’t. And is it too late for Sony to remake the PSP into a Droid-style device? Probably.
The more I compare Kindle 3 WiFi to the competition, the more I’m convinced I pre-ordered the right device. Nook has half the memory of a K3, and I’m not thrilled with the eBook selection at Barnes and Noble. Sure, it could improve in time, but with the recent work that Barnes and Noble is “on the market” and there are few buyers interested, that makes me nervous about the company’s stability. While the Nook has some interesting features, it has yet to live up to the promise.
Then there’s Border’s Kobo, the worst of the bunch; it barely offers 1GB in memory, only one-quarter of the memory found in a K3, and it’s blue d-pad is downright ugly. Border’s selection is also worse than Barnes and Noble, and the Kobo looks more like discount laminate flooring than an eReader.
And Sony? They’re not even tied in with a book source, really. Plus I dislike their screens.
So in the end, I’m glad I chose to pre-order a K3; now the trick will be to get a second one in time for my wife’s birthday, as Amazon is already sold out and creating a backorder list. Yikes!
It may not be an app-savvy Touch, but I’m loving my purple 16 GB Apple iPod nano. Sure, it lacks the gaming feature, but it has plenty of room for stuff, is great for music and radio, and even gives me a camera I can vlog with.
Who could ask for more? Sure, it doesn’t surf the net like the Touch… so you can’t use it for a Philadelphia job search, but hey… that’s what my computer is for. I bought a music player to play music and audiobooks, primarily, not to give me driving directions and such.
My nano suits me just fine.
Remember the days when videogames glorified common and important public service jobs other than policemen? Like, when is the last time you saw a videogame about firemen? I think I remember one around the time of the PS2 launch window; but that was helicopter-based and I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me.
It got me to thinking about how these heroes of public service get their start. So I did a little research and found out that all-volunteer doesn’t always mean “not formally trained.” After all, there are now programs offering a Bachelor of Arts in Fire Service. That’s impressive if you ask me.
And there’s a lot to be trained in, too, from fire protection, fire prevention planning, fire education, emergency preparedness coordination, resource economics, and much more. I guess like anything else, there are always going to be advances in fire-fighting that make the job more professional and requiring more training. So it’s good there are programs out there to help.
Still, I think we’re overdue for our next fire-fighting videogame. With PS3/360 graphics, if well-done, such a game would rock!
After two years of denying ourselves, my wife and I finally got ourselves what we’ve been wanting for a while as part of our videogame habit: a top-of-the-line Sony Bravia 32-inch 1080p HDTV with a 120MHz refresh rate. It has the Bravia 2 engine and, wow, the PS3 and Blu-Ray movies have never ever looked better.
Sure, some will say that 32-inches isn’t that big a set; but it’s the perfect size and at $772, it was definitely the right price! Everything looks better, the set works like a dream and it weighs about a third of the weight of my old Sony Wega 26-inch.
If someone offered me a handful of loose diamonds, I’m not sure which I’d rather have, I’m so happy with this set! While I’ll always have a soft spot for my decade-old Wega, we’ll be donating that to charity now; the age of HDTV has finally reached the Hansen household, and I think we bought exactly the right set for us, at exactly the right price and time.
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.